On the third day of Christmas...

We finally have the great meltdown. My street is 99% clear, and even the BMW that was parked in the illegal spot opposite our building for over a week has disappeared.

Dirt-encrusted snow boulders still line the plowed streets, but they will go away eventually. Now the danger is flooding and avalanches. At mid-day there was a 5-mile backup on I-90, as traffic was halted for avalanche control in the pass.

At Christmas I like vintage. The wreath is actually a 4-inch metal ornament we've had around for years. None of us can remember where it came from or when - it's just there, in the decorations box. A few years ago I started hanging it on the front door. Who said a wreath had to be huge?

And here's a vintage Christmas greeting, from "Private Screening," an elegant second-hand shop in Fremont. The image is embossed on heavy paper, with the name of the senders engraved inside.


Posting it is an excuse to link to my favorite Christmas poem, Eliot's "Journey of the Magi." Even when you know that Eliot borrowed some of the best lines and images from a sermon on the Epiphany, delivered by Bishop Lancelot Andrewes on Christmas Day 1622, it's still a moving poem, full of wonder and sadness and regret and imagination.

A very happy Christmas -

Thanks to a diligent gate agent in West Palm Beach, FL (who worked over an hour last Sunday to re-book L & D after their flight home was canceled) and their trusty Dodge pickup, we were all together for Christmas.

Yesterday morning I looked out the window, early, thinking it would be nice to see a blank spot across the street where the truck had been parked since the 16th.

The truck was gone. Just to make sure, I went to the front door and confirmed that a large clear spot was all that marked where it had been.

L & D got in from Florida, via a non-stop from Atlanta, late Tuesday night. Yesterday they came by about 4:30, to give me and some Christmas presents a ride to I & Z's. As we got farther north, farther from main streets, road conditions got worse - but thanks to their 4-wheel drive (the old-fashioned kind that requires the driver to hop out of the cab and twitch something on the hubcaps into position) we made it safely.

Three other friends made it over to the house for an evening visit. People talked, or played with the latest Wii apps, or knitted, or embroidered. When the visitors went home, I prevailed on those still up to listen to the late Alan Maitland on CBC, reading my favorite "ghost" story.

Although it rained yesterday afternoon and the prediction was for the great meltoff to begin, there was also a caveat: "Perhaps an inch or two of new snow overnight."

We woke up to at least an inch of new snow, then watched as more fell - and fell - and fell. After stockings and presents, L & D headed north to another family gathering, and the rest of us kicked back for a peaceful Christmas day. Eventually, the snow stopped, turned to rain, and we even got a brief interval of blue sky before the sun set. L & D gave me a ride home on their way back to Vashon.

There are still piles of snow everywhere - especially on the main routes, where snowplows have pushed up ridges that narrow the lanes, but the forecast is - finally - for all the snow to melt in the next couple of days.

Two days before the First Day of Christmas...

Here's a great post-modern Christmas tree, mounted in what looks like an underground parking garage. It seems appropriate for this odd, torpid, unusually snowy holiday season.

Snow hasn't melted yet. L & D are still in Florida, so far as we know. This is the day they hope to get back, so we are thinking positive thoughts. The airport is slowly getting back to normal, according to radio reports.

I'm going to I and Z's house tomorrow night, taking along an overnight case (besides a bag of presents - that should make me the least popular person on the bus.) Current forecast is that we'll get more snow - or worse, freezing rain - just in time for Christmas Eve.

However, it's warmer than forecast already today, and weather in the PNW changes in the blink of an eye.

Yesterday I caught a bus home from downtown, after watching a string of Metro buses squeeze by an articulated coach that was stuck at a stoplight. SRO, but a nice Willie Nelson lookalike insisted I should let him "be nice for a change" and gave me his seat.

One reason I ride the bus is for the stories. On yesterday's ride, a man standing nearby told me about his uncles, who once upon a time, during a long-ago hard winter (sometime in the 30's, he guessed) pushed a Model T from one side of a completely frozen Lake Sammamish to the other.)

"They were smart enough not to drive - but I'm sure they were both drinking."

Lake Sammamish is not small. That must have been a notable winter.

Happy (Winter) Solstice

When the light is supposed to return. Here in the northern hemisphere, light needs all the help it can get.


Instead of seeing the snow wash away in the next couple of days, we're likely to have it off and on all the way to Christmas. I'm not sure I've ever seen this much snow on my deck (and there's more now - the photo is from early this morning.)


Z. sang one "Messiah" yesterday afternoon, but the evening performance was canceled. That meant she could be at home for The Swing Years' Christmas show, perhaps in time to hear Eartha Kitt sing "Santa Baby," my all-time favorite guilty pleasure Christmas song (except for Elvis singing "Blue Christmas," of course.)

Today she had to mush through the snow and compete with Seahawks' fans for bus space, because the Sunday matinée went on as scheduled, with a reduced, but valiant chorale. Raise up a toast to what we do for love.

L and D are still in Florida, probably for another couple of days. Just as well, since their connecting airline has canceled all flights into and out of SeaTac tonight.

This morning's snow was light and powdery. Now it's heavier and wet - perfect for snowballs, as I discovered when the "neighbors" in the new condos across the street used my front door as a target tonight. Life is never dull.

PS: We almost NEVER get icicles in Seattle.

More weather to which we must pay attention

Snow began falling about 3 p.m., right on schedule. This time it's the tiny, serious flakes that pile up without your noticing until suddenly there's a 4-inch layer over everything.

I took a long, careful walk before the new storm started, grateful for the occasional cleared sidewalk and most of all for well-sanded steps that lead down to the main road from our icy narrow street. I got back just in time to thank the man we call our "guardian angel," a resident who changes light bulbs, keeps an eye on all systems, and annually puts up barriers and caution tape in front of the building so we don't find cars parked illegally on July 4. Today he was spreading de-icing granules and sweeping the sidewalk, so the new layer of snow will at least land on bare concrete instead of ice.

It's all supposed to wash away (or perhaps turn to sleet) late tomorrow. Meanwhile, Z packed a change of clothes and her sleeping bag to take to Benaroya Hall, in case she can't get home after tonight's performance of "The Messiah." So far they've delivered every one, to intrepid, enthusiastic audiences. For all this effort and dedication, the instrumentalists get paid - chorale members are volunteers.

L finally got out of Las Vegas, 36 hours after arriving, and has touched down briefly in Boca Raton. Tomorrow they come back, late. To distract myself from useless fretting, I decorate, and wrap presents.

It still feels strange not to be singing a Christmas program tomorrow.

In between storms -

The sun came out this morning, not for long enough to melt all the ice off the streets and sidewalks, but certainly enough to be cheering. I went for a long walk, for exercise and errands, and was happy to catch a bus home. Walking carefully on icy slushy streets is very tiring.

We're snow wimps here. It's all those hills, and our usually mild climate - no need for snowplows and sanding trucks during winter rains. An inch or two of snow shuts down everything, especially when the temperature drops enough to freeze the not-quite-melted slush.

Z's office closed at noon yesterday, and did not reopen today. Nevertheless, the Messiah went on as planned (with a much-reduced chorale and orchestra, and a small but hardy audience well rewarded for its fortitude.) Four performances to go.

More snow is coming tomorrow and Sunday. Today an e-mail announced that church is entirely closed this Sunday - a wise decision, since the building sits at the top of a steep hill.

This is not a black-and-white photo...

Snow has fallen all day, and now that it's getting dark, and colder, the slush is going to freeze. Buses are running very late, if at all (also not going up or down hills) and freeway ramps are treacherous.

L. made it safely to the airport, but her plane was delayed, and she is now stuck in Las Vegas, trying to get home if she can't go on to Florida.

Choir rehearsals for tonight and Saturday afternoon canceled - as is the Sunday morning program. First time THAT has happened in my 30+ years in the choir (including a couple when we mushed through snow to get to church on time. But with the weather that's predicted for the weekend, it's the wisest decision.

Here's Sparky, checking out this morning's snow -



- and there she went!

Thunder! Snow!

Really! About 5:30 this morning we had two huge rolling reverberating thunderclaps, loud enough to send Sparky dashing for cover. Snow, which began falling around 4:30, was just beginning to accumulate.

Two weather systems colliding, says the meteorologist. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

"Thundersnow also known as a winter thunderstorm or a thunder snowstorm is a rare thunderstorm with snow falling as the primary precipitation instead of rain. It commonly falls in regions of strong upward motion within the cold sector of extratropical cyclones between autumn and spring when surface temperatures are most likely to be near or below freezing. Variations exist, such as thundersleet, where the precipitation consists of sleet rather than snow."

L. left for the airport at 5:35, walking up the hill to meet her ride. I've checked airport sites for Seatac and her arrival airport - Seatac says her flight departure is delayed, the other airport still shows it as an on-time arrival.

Sparky went out on the deck about 6, and left a random pattern of footprints. Two hours later they were completely filled in.

And it's still snowing. Later I'll go out for a walk, to give my new boots a proper workout.

Snow!

Always cause for exclamation marks around here. So far it's only sticking on top of the plant pots, but the first flakes lasted long enough for Sparky to pounce as they hit the deck.

Weather is supposed to get colder, but the forecasters are hedging about the extent and duration of the snow, unable to give precise boundaries because of the many micro-climates in Puget Sound. Only occasionally do we get a convergence of weather that brings snow everywhere.

Decorated boats are parading toward the marinas at the end of the lake, after an evening cruise. Inside it's a good night to read - I'm nearly to the end of a dense, fascinating history by David Levering Lewis called God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 - 1215. For a tangentially related article, check out the December 4 entry on this blog - the one called "Nobody expected this!"

What is Christmas without carols?

Tomorrow night I'm going to the Symphony Chorale's Holiday Singalong, for a chance to sing Christmas music (warbling carol fragments around the house doesn't always count.)

Ordinarily the church Christmas program takes care of my need to voice the season. This year our minister decided that because December 21 (the Sunday closest to Christmas) is also the beginning of Hanukkah, the choir should sing Hanukkah music.

"A minor Jewish holiday," said our alto soloist (who is Jewish.) Her other church job is as a cantor, so she is superbly equipped for this program. We're lucky.

It's all very Unitarian. We're singing some choruses from Handel's "Judas Maccabeus," and various traditional and modern Hanukkah pieces, accompanied by a better than average pickup orchestra. Singing with an orchestra is always a treat.

But it's not Christmas music. At the risk of sounding like an old fogey (oh why not?) I reserve the right to grumble.

Meanwhile, Sparky is purring in my lap, and the Charlie Brown Christmas special is on TV. Yesterday the Sousa Band played for a Christmas festival at a community center, and while we didn't deviate from the usual program of Sousa, Carl ("the march king") King and Henry Fillmore, our Sedentary Majorette handed out bells so the audience could play along with the "Liberty (Jingle) Bell March." It was all very good fun. (Here's a photo from last year's gig.)


Now I'm going to put on "John Denver and the Muppets," and sing along to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Nothing like a good grumble to improve one's outlook!

Pike Place, revisited

My first visit to the Pike Place Market came just a week after moving to Seattle, in 1965. In those days it was threatened with demolition (the grand plan was for ring roads all the way around downtown Seattle, with huge parking lots replacing the Market, Pioneer Square and other "eyesores.")

That was then. Now the Market is a beloved and famous treasure, and even in this time of economic jitters, we just passed a bond issue to fund needed repairs and upgrades.

Although I'd hesitate to visit the Market on a summer Saturday, it's a bit less crowded in December. Christmas is coming, so the craft booths offer every imaginable gift - hand-carved boxes, jewelry of all kinds, T-shirts, baby clothes, Peruvian sweaters, organic soaps and cosmetics.

And you can still buy vegetables, on the high stalls inside, and from the organic farmers outside. Guess which picture is which?

Island holiday

Several families gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving with L & D on Vashon. It's unusually warm weather for late November/early December, so an afternoon walk was a pleasure. Their nearest neighbor has turned much of his acreage into a park, where we were welcome to visit. An authentic Thai temple is one of the most interesting features.



Old millstones make wonderful steppingstones through a wetland.


Best description of the new house - "The three-car garage and caretaker's quarters for a five-bedroom mansion that never got built." But the main room accommodated 11 around a festive table.