Posts Tagged ‘christmas’

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Holiday Traditions

Friday, December 26th, 2008

Paige and I watch a movie on Christmas Day every year. It’s our thing. This year it was an especially difficult tradition to uphold since our car has been stuck in our driveway for the past week thanks to Snowmaggedon. We are one of those families that don’t own a snow shovel (come to think of it, we don’t even own a regular shovel) and the snow in our driveway is twice as deep as everywhere else since the heavy winds early this week deposited it there as a special gift.

Yesterday it started to warm up just a tad and snow showers were mixed up with our beloved rain showers. This resulted in our street looking like someone threw up a giant dirt Slurpy in our neighborhood. Slush is just sitting in the street because the drains are clogged with snow and minature iceburgs are just floating on top ready to sink your car like the Titanic.

Not to let Snowmaggedon ruin our holiday tradition, we decided to take the 1:15 pm bus into downtown to watch the 2:30 pm showing of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I was hoping to meet Rene and Justin downtown to so I sent her a text saying that she should meet us. She called me back to tell me that I was smoking crack and that the movie started at 3:30, not 2:30. My self-righteous ass told her, “NUH-UH the internet told me it was playing at 2:30.”

nwsource

But Rene was right and the Internet (NWSource) was wrong. INTERNET FAIL! This of course threw a huge wrench into our plans to ride the bus and make it home in time to eat dinner. Given that BenButton is a 3 hour movie, we decided to change course and watch Marley and Me instead. We walked to the bus stop thinking that we could still take the 1:15 and make it in time for the 2:00 showing (clearly I must have still been smoking crack). After booking it to the bus stop, I came to the sad realization that the bus schedule online is not same as the written bus schedule at the stop. Guess which one was right? That’s right, INTERNET DOUBLE FAIL!

We just missed the bus.

While tempted to wait the 25 minutes (in the sleet) for the next bus to arrive, we decided to regroup back at home instead. Determined not to miss out on our holiday tradition, I decided to go to plan “b” … try and get my car out of the driveway. Knowing that the snow was probably too deep, I started using the most “shovel-like” thing I could find – a plastic sled. After about 10 ineffective minutes of moving a half inch of snow around, I started cracking up and almost peed my pants from laughing so hard about how ridiculous I must have looked trying to clear the iceberg out of the driveway with a snow toy.

This is where Paige interjects that she believes that I am, “Losing it.” Little does she know that I never had “it” in the first place.

Still not dissuaded, I do the last thing I can think of – pull a Dukes of Hazzard out of my driveway. I put the Volvo in reverse, slammed on the gas pedal and literally went flying and out of the driveway backwards. It worked!

Paige and I headed downtown racing against the clock to make it to Marley and Me on time.

We made it with 5 minutes to spare.

But it was sold out.

And so was Benjamin Button.

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Happy Holidays From A Side Of Bacon

Thursday, December 25th, 2008

Or from Love, Actually:

Thanks so much for being part of my journey.

Xoxo,

Giyen

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Frigid-air

Monday, December 15th, 2008

The past couple of days have been frigid here in Seattle. Today we broke the record for the coldest December 15th in Seattle. It was 19 degrees, brrrrrr. Having lived in the northern panhandle of Idaho (don’t ask) during the winter and the in Colorado Rockies the subsequent winter, this type of weather doesn’t bother me. Rather it’s a bit of a nuisance and constant irritation. Where is my mild maritime weather? What’s this business about roads being “icy?” Holy shit, why is that person not stopping? (I usually avoid driving because Seattleites cannot drive in the snow.)

I don’t know what I would do without Tracy, the person who keeps our neighborhood blog running strong. Here is a photo from one of her readers Nathan (and I guess, one of my neighbors):

nathantruck

People are driving around with these very intense looks on their faces, like their head is going to pop off. I can’t decide if it’s because of the weather or if it’s because Christmas is almost here and times are lean. Or both.

And then there’s that usual holiday spirit feeling. Where is it? When is it gonna kick in? I am having a hard time feeling festive, even though I have no trouble feeling grateful for things in my life (still basking in Thanksgiving). I don’t really have the economic doldrums, but I’m not feeling the “cheer” that I usually feel around this time.

Perhaps it’s because Paige and I went to the mall (a.k.a in your face holiday central)  on Saturday and it was dead. D-E-A-D. I’ve never seen it so dead. There was no hustle and bustle like there usually is. It was really sad, I was almost wishing that I could fight someone for the last chocolate Santa on the See’s Candy kiosk. No such luck.

Really, the desperation that is in the air is palatable. When you walk in the door of a store all the associates are really excited to see a(ny) customer and proceed to swarm you with greeting (hi! hi! hi!). This eventually subsides and they give up pestering you when they realize that even if you do buy something the season is still fucked.  Afterward, they retreat back to their social corner (which I think that they think is impenetrable to sound) and start talking about their fives list. This happened.

Merry Holidays. Brrrrrr.

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