We've still got snow...but you can actually tell that it's warmer now.
Dec 25, 2008
Snow fell again last night. It was still falling this morning - take a medium-heavy rainshower (no driving wind) and make it snow instead. That’s what we’ve got.
The air is warmer, so instead of doing a lot of drifting, the snowflakes (a bit thicker, a bit wetter, but still snowflakes) fell straightline more often than they drifted or flurried or meandered vaguely downward-ish. I put on my big warm coat (bought years ago from a consignment shop, but rarely worn because it’s midcalf length), put on some slip-on shoes, and stood out on the porch watching the white Christmas snowfall. Because the temperature is above freezing, and because the lowest it got last night was thirty degrees Farenheit, I watched the snow fall and listened to the drip-drip-splat of meltwater running off the roofs. There was also the sporadic clumps of snow falling out of the trees, as the snow melted enough to lose its hold on the branches.
Later today it will be nearly 40 degrees, and the falling snow will turn to the more-familiar-‘round-these-parts rain. Our next bit of groundcover will be slush, followed by potential flooding. Fortunately this complex has many drains. I’m mildly concerned about the snow in my backyard - which slopes down toward the house - possibly getting INTO the house. Then again, maybe this won’t be an issue. (I’ll find out.) As the weather warms and the snow turns to ice, some of the power lines may take a bit of abuse. Falling clumps of slush may strain or even snap some. I’ve got candles, flashlights, batteries, and a gas fireplace - so if it happens, I’m prepared. I even have my Christmas-scented tea lights: maple syrup, gingerbread, and cinnamon.
For now, though, I’m going to curl up in front of the fire with my coffee and plate of fresh gingerbread. I’ve opened the windows in the living room because while it’s still not balmy outside, I want natural light for a little while.
Merry Christmas to all. And to all a peaceful day.
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The cats are fine. I'm still getting situated...
Dec 24, 2008
It's snowing again this morning. This storm will probably drop another two to four inches on the metro area. (WTF?!?? I thought we were due for warmer temps and rain. What's with the "more snow" jazz?!??)
The cats are adjusting quite well to the new place. They love playing on the stairs. They've never lived in a house with stairs before, not even one or two into a sunken living room. Now they have places to stage forts and "guard" the upstairs, places to hide and play with each other, places to stretch out so that they can't actually see any of the other cats. They love it. It does mean a bit of caution on my part - if I step on a cat toy, well, they're soft toys, and I generally don't wear shoes inside. If I step on a cat, however, I'll feel like an ogre. (And the cats will help the process by ignoring me pointedly.)
A few days ago, I mentioned how I'd gotten the feline equivalent of junk food. I got it to mix with their regular, higher-quality, better-for-them cat food since I can't drive to the place that sells this particular cat food. I mixed it in, filled the pigfeeder upstairs, and left them to their own devices. Over a period of several days, the cats pushed aside the good food to get at the kibbles of the junk food. I would periodically hear one of them rooting around in the pigfeeder, but I just assumed: they're eating, no worries. They weren't just eating, though. They were being highly selective. (Damn cats.) There's now a small pile of costly kibble all around the edges of the pigfeeder. I expect to endure long sulks when I restock on the Good Stuff, and no longer feed them junk food.
There is a gap between the sofa and the wall because, since it's a futon-sofa, the back isn't perpendicular to the wall - hence the gap near the bottom. The cats now effectively have a tunnel-shortcut through the living room: one that the human cannot reach. Fog loves popping out from one end of that tunnel and surprising me as I come downstairs. They've chased each other in this new house, they've had their battles to re-establish the pecking order, they've had their fight-games...but this tunnel seems to be their equivalent of Switzerland. No fighting happens in the tunnel. I haven't even seen one cat enter the tunnel while another is using it. It's weird...but then again, that's them: weird.
There haven't been many days when I've had the windows open, so no BTV for the kitties. Fog has sat up in my office window and chattered at the neighbors' dogs, though. (And once at a squirrel, and twice at a crow - until the crow cawed and swooped at the office window. She's learned a slight measure of respect for the crows...but she still goes "on point" when one enters her field of vision. I once saw her bring down a pigeon, so her little walnut brain probably goes into predator-spasms of glee when she spots a crow: "I must catch that bird! I will catch that bird!! As soon as I figure out how to open doors on my own...!!!") I expect that as the weather gets warmer and I can leave the patio shades up a few inches, they'll take to clustering there and watching the bird feeder play host to the neighborhood wildlife. Tracks through the yard indicate that a few other neighborhood cats have done just that.
Today it's snowing and there's a slight wind. It's cold, cold, cold - just one degree above freezing. And the cats are doing just fine. (But they're about to drive me insane...which, I suppose, is par for the course.)
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Atypical cold front: is it done yet?
Dec 23, 2008
Things are, at long last, returning to something that vaguely resembles normal.
The weather is warming up. Today there was still snow thick on the ground; but there were also icicles on the edges of my neighbors' roofs and eaves. (My own eaves were icile-free. I was quite upset. They would have made for some lovely photos.)
Last night, the dark was the right color of dark. Let me explain...no, that will take too long - let me sum up: heavy cloud cover plus a thick snow plus ambient city lights equals reflection. Lots and lots of reflection. The last three nights have been so bright that I could have read outside, in my backyard, without the porch light on.
We're supposed to get more snow tonight and tomorrow, but the temperatures are warming up. While that will mean more treacherous roads (snow packed down turns into ice; snow melted and refrozen is just nasty and dangerous as all get out), it will eventually mean typical weather: the wet stuff falling from the sky will be closer to a liquid than a solid state (rain as opposed to snow.)
It was warmer today, but still cold. I baked brownies, and made homemade pizza for dinner. Double dose of heat generation, plus foodstuffs. Oh, wily crafty me. ("Crafty" my pasty-white ever-expanding geek ass — I was COLD, dangit!!! Necessity is the mother of invention. And some other funny looking children.) I will do my cookie-baking the week after New Year's - partially because I plan on doing some more painting next week, and partially because I want to spread out the holiday eating. (Anyone got a tasty, relatively foolproof, flavorful shortbread recipe? I'll trade you an eggnog snickerdoodle recipe.)
I will also try to take advantage of the warmer weather and the Christmas holiday by sending around housewarming gifts. I'm resuming an old tradition that the Greeks used: the celebrant gives the gifts, not receives them. In honor of my new house, I'm making little gifts for all my neighbors in the complex. I'll drop them off tomorrow night. I'll have to wrap them or otherwise weatherproof them, just in case it does decide to rain overnight. On the off chance that my neighbors are, or ever do read, the blog, I'll leave out what I'm putting in them. Suffice to say I'm wishing everyone health, prosperity, and warmth. (That nicely covers the bases, yet remains nice and vague.) It's not the usual way of doing things, I know: normally when one buys a house (at least in America), one throws a housewarming party and gets goodies. (My realtor even suggested this to me. Yay. How classy. Not.) Since I have a bad track record with receiving real actual thoughtful useful gifts, and since this year's been a bit rough financially for my friends and family, I thought I'd just go the other way around and give, rather than receive. It also endears me to the folks in the condo complex, which can't be a bad thing.
Unless the HOA leader sends yet another passive-aggressive note saying that unsolicited leaflets or packages are "a no-no", unless such packages are HOA business-related. In which case I'll leave another package, but only at that person's door. (The litterbox gets cleaned out every day; and with multiple cats, there's no shortage of...er...raw material.)
The Twelve Days of Moving In
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A slushy Christmas forecast. But maybe we'll be able to get our garbage picked up before New Year's Eve!
Dec 23, 2008
Local temperatures are getting warmer. The metro area should see rain (cold, chilly rain, but not freezing rain) by Christmas Day. So what will happen to all the ice?
It thaws during the day. It refreezes at night. In the morning, the ground is slick, slippery, and treacherous: a light dusting of snow covers ice that won’t be broken down and scattered, and road surfaces will be covered in black ice - making driving even more of a white-knuckle adventure. By mid-day, the roads will be covered in a mixture of ice, water, mud, and slush. No more skiing to work. No more roads utterly covered with snow. But we can’t go out driving just yet. I went out yesterday because I had an errand across town. I drove at about 15 miles an hour…and the back of the car still fishtailed on ice and rumble-bumped gracelessly over hardpacked snow that had briefly thawed, iced over in the middle of the road, and formed improptu speedbumps. Snow chains won’t do any good in this weather.
The prettiness will be gone by the end of the week; and the city’s brief and furtive love affair with snow (oooo, but it looks so gorgeous!!!) will degenerate into namecalling, swearing, nasty mutterings, and a whole lot of bumps, bruises, and twisted limbs. Things will be cold, wet, and dirty. It will be ugly.
But at least I got my two dozen photos…
Edit: Now there may be more snow showers after today’s pack melts. I absolutely give the hell up. I’m going downstairs to bake gingerbread and watch Lord of the Rings…not because I love the movie, but because I’m sick of sitting at the computer working like hell on a whole slew of little nuisance-jobs for work.
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Pretty...when you don't have to drive in it.
Dec 22, 2008
That's quite possibly as lovely as it's going to look. Temperatures are warming up...which means that the snow on the roads will melt, slush, freeze at night, ice over, and not only look less attractive but be that much more of a driving hazard. I'm glad I've got grocery stores within walking distance...and that I've run all my major errands. I don't want to drive on the local roads until a) after the temperatures have warmed to this area's normals and stayed that way for about a week; or b) until I can buy a set of snow chains. And some kitty litter to keep in the trunk of my car for those times when, despite careful route planning, I get stuck anyway.
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"Eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow we may be meteorologically bitchslapped." ...O RLY?
Dec 21, 2008
On Wednesday morning, all of Seattle was wondering, "Where's the snow we were warned about?!??" The local meteorologists, in a scramble to explain things to a mob armed with jeers and invective, said that the worst of the weather had passed us over because Seattle was in a "weather doughnut".
To anyone who's seen the movie "The Day After Tomorrow", that was *NOT* a comforting analogy.
After the snow that did come Thursday night, we cautiously ventured forth once more. We were, said the weatherpeople, going to be hit by two more storms. We should prepare for the worst. High winds, more snow, freezing rain. Expect power and water outages. Expect roads to be impassible (this in a city that had a chance to buy snowplows inexpensively, but decided that Seattle didn't need snowplows.) We bought drinking water, ice melt, sand, generators, candles, batteries, flashlights, food, medical supplies, blankets, extra medications...you name it. We stripped store shelves all over Western Washington. We ran frantic last-minute errands if we absolutely positively had to. And we prepared for the worst.
...which didn't come. We got more snow - about another inch - and some winds. The clouds were so low and thick, and the snow so all-encompassing, that the collective city lights reflected back off the clouds, and off of the snow, and back off of the clouds...the light last night at 1pm looked more like early evening on a moonless night. I could have read a page printed in 18-point font - outside, in my unlit back yard - from just the ambient light. It was weird.
Forecasters are calling for a 30-70% chance of snow every day through the weekend, with temperatures warming only slightly...until December 25. Then, the temperatures might get up to the low 40s. We may be able to get around safely next weekend. (Maybe. Maybe. I'm still contemplating walking down to my local auto store and buying a set of snow chains - or SOMETHING to help with traction as I make my very few around-town errands.) But currently, we've got snow, we're not paralyzed but we're close, and we didn't get the power outages that we were all expecting. The light snow showers throughout the week may deposit enough snow to be picturesque, but not enough to snap power lines or utterly close any (more) roads. The temperature is going to steadily rise up out of the 20s to merely "freezing", to "above freezing" just in time for December 24.
Not a bad holiday weather forecast.
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