Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Where is our 15 minutes of fame?


Snowstorm #4 here. 4th storm in 2 weeks. In Seattle. We are having Duluth, MN like weather in Seattle and are completely ignored by the media. Watching the Today Show, they are all about the snow in the midwest and the east coast. OOO--Detroit has 10 inches of snow...See, SEATTLE has a FOOT of snow. On Christmas Eve. Snow in Detroit is not news. That is called December. And really, a little snow in Seattle is not news either. We get snow. I have lived here for 40 years and I can tell you, we get snow. And since Seattle is built on 7 hills, unlike Detroit or Minneapolis, which have, um zero hills, there are reasons the city shuts down when we get snow and subfreezing temperatures.

But here's the thing. This is our 4th storm in 2 weeks. Our snow never went away. It just keeps growing. We don't get Buffalo, NY white Christmases. I'm used to a rainy Christmas. Or a couple of flakes. Or 50 degrees and overcast. A foot of snow on Christmas in Seattle? That is worth a mention on the Today Show, don't you think? Stupid east coast bias.

This is a picture out my back door. I have nearly a foot of snow on my deck and it comes right up to the back door. Those swings in the background? They are touching the snow. The ground has risen up to the level of the swings.


No idea what this means for our Christmas plans. No idea. Our Christmas Eve plans have already been cancelled, thanks to the fact that Marcus the Opera Singer threw up 5 times yesterday. NOTHING will entice me in to a house where someone has thrown up. Nothing. Not Christmas, not getting my hands on that baby, Nothing. 5 TIMES? Forget about it.



As for tomorrow...don't know. My family is to come from all ends of the city. And they have most of the food. Which means if our family Christmas is rescheduled, we'll be eating corn dogs and chardonnay for Christmas dinner.




On the furnace front, I got an early Christmas gift. The other day I noticed what I thought was a gas leak. And Mike, who thinks I overreact to everything, actually called Puget Sound Energy to come and check it out. They said there was no leak, but they did trace the issue to our furnace and explained that because it was taking our burners too long to fire up, too much gas was being expelled into the air. And that the safety mechanism on our furnace was what was keeping it from turning into a giant bomb in our laundry room.

As I was thinking about revising my will and leaving all of my yarn to science, the PSE guys called out their furnace expert, who took the whole thing apart, made some adjustments to our burners, put it all back together, and declared it fixed. And the only cost to me was having to listen to him wax eloquent to the other two PSE guys about the glories of being a furnace fixer. And football. But the furnace is fixed, the house is warm, it cost me nothing, and when this house does go up in a blaze of glory, it won't be from that particular issue.




Eric refused to be in the picture
because Ryan touched the
carrot without permission.

That's all for now from Knitting Queen central. The gifts are wrapped, the cards are finally addressed, the wine is chilling, I'm on round 2 of making little snowman ice cubes from my new snowman ice cube tray, the outside snowman is built, and I'm ready to start on Eric's Harry Potter sweater sleeves. Church was cancelled on Sunday because of Storm #3. Cancelled. We're suppose to go to church tonight, being Christmas Eve and all. Can't really see that happening at the moment since it has been snowing steadily since I got up 5 hours ago. But we're safe, warm, and happy.

Merry Christmas from The Queen, The King, and our two court jesters!



5 comments:

Meghan said...

nope, no church tonight. The husband just woke me up from my nap to tell me. Me, who has a terrible backache from shoveling the driveway only to have it snow again!
I'm in serious need of some Christmas cheer - maybe I'll open the bottle of wine meant for Christmas a little early - it's 5:00 somewhere!

Anonymous said...

It just seems weird not to go to church on Christmas Eve! But our hill is closed. Closed. Closed. Closed. Our 10% of the hill is getting NOTHING - no mail service for nearly a week. No UPS, nothing. Good thing I get really twitchy if I'm not done shopping by the 10th! Although, the guide books I wanted won't be here in time for my trip.

Anyway, Merry merry Christmas!!
I love you!

~Leah
my pink toes

Meghan said...

5:14 - Thornley was up at 2:30, 3:00, 4:00, and finally at 6:00 I couldn't take it any longer!
Oh, and guess what, it's snowing!
Merry Christmas!!

Anonymous said...

Merry Christmas Jen!

Jane said...

We have said the exact same thing - they only started reporting the snow when it hit the mid-west. Err, hello people, we'd already had it for a week by then and were snowed in!

We didn't make it to church on Christmas Eve either and yes it felt odd. Ended up watching midnight mass on tv before playing Santa.

Hope your New Year was frost free and BTW, your house looks adorable. Great snow scenes.