How Life Comes Today – A series of some of my more obsessive traits and observations.
Living In the Land of Snowpocalypse 2012
I am a survivor. Although it would be more descriptive to say that I was a survivor of Snowpocalypse 2012. Snowpocalypse was tagged as the single most “scariest” weather event in the greater Seattle region in over a decade, however; looking back now it really wasn’t all that scary. I can of course say this now that I have regained power, received medical aid, and have returned to work. Although at the time in which I am writing this, not everyone in the region has power.
It started with a sweet promise of snow on Friday. I say sweet because the Seattle area generally gets a week of low-land snow a year. A week a year, that as a kid, meant that I got for free to play, watch movies, or do whatever I wanted. It never really got scary in those flurries as a kid and everything shuts down in the greater Seattle area with just a few inches of snow. Who was I to complain as a kid with such novelties? It always starts with said sweet promise however and I figured this was no different. Sometimes when the weather prophets get buzzing you have to let their sweet seductive tones pass you by, after all I am convinced that forecasting the weather it still all voodoo, juju, and rune reading anyways. The Seattle area weathermen’s predictions time in and time out put great stock in my belief of witchcraft as well. That simply can’t seem to get an accurate forecast out unless its rain.
The sweet promises continued with little more than traces in the low-lands and a few inches in the hills over the course of the weekend. Justin my roommate and I made a run to the grocery store where I bought an assortment of items to get me past the oncoming hurtle that would hopefully leave me immobile and confined to whatever I wanted to do in the house. Lucky for me I live in the hills and said, “Adios” to work on Monday. Or should I say that I worked from home, which means watching and occasionally reading email, and only responding to the most pertinent of requests. It’s rather nice and reminds of the days that I played “sick” from school to watch Star Wars and the Price is Right. Monday night only resulted in a trace so Tuesday rolled around and I went in to work, despite a nagging throat ailment which surfaced on Monday morning. The office was empty and everyone that was there was screaming as if the rapture was actually about to occur and all across Facebook I started to see the images of whited out parking lots, so I took my leave from work like everyone else and headed straight home to take on the apocalypse.
While I was hopeful for blustery winds and white out conditions, neither of those occurred. First it came as slush that pattered across my window on the drive home. A slush that wished it was corporal, you could tell as its liquid body dissolved but the frozen base remained before being carried away by the wipers of my automobile. Once I had gotten home and retired into the usual “home-clothes,” it had shifted into thick white behemoths racing to the ground to staunch the colors of the land. Once seated and warm with a pot of coffee brewing, no color remained and instead a thick white mist of frozen flakes cascaded down. Here I remember thinking, “ah! Let it snow and cover the world,” however it abruptly stopped. It’s a tease, but that is what every promise is until it’s fulfilled. We wait and wait but the only snow produced is thin and unsatisfactory, like a regrettable one night stand. It simply fails to accumulate.
We pass the time, watch movies, play video games and pretend that the biggest storm since the last one is not on our door step, but it is. When we wake up on Wednesday we are not immediately impressed and my throat hurts even more than Tuesday. It seems that the blessing of snow is tainted with ailment and impurity. As if to say you can have the cake but of course you cannot eat it, it is meant to be looked at and nothing more. At this time there is not a foot of snow to great us as promised by the oracles, but it is snowing a healthy amount that’s quickly filling in yesterday’s tracks on the deck. Soon it begins to stack on bannisters, the hot tub cover, tables, and anything else left out. Hours past and still the white confetti falls from the sky. When it does this I get all excited and I will run from window to window of the house and watch it. I don’t know what I am looking for. Occasionally I might see someone walking in it or kids racing by with sleds, but nothing extraordinary, save the snow.
I don’t just like snow because it means I get out of my work obligations, I like it because it is a rare event in the Seattle area. A weather event that happens once a year is something to be excited for and really is not that much different than that one week of scorching temperature when the thermometer threatens to pop. This week of winter bliss just so happens to come with all of these other great things that I love too. I love that the snow shuts down the greater Seattle area. Ideally, it is preferable for everyone to flee the scene of the crime and run home before they end up in ditches or into one another but the weather does as it does. I like that the snow comes down like a great curtain and shuts the world up. Any noise that does choose to exist does so in a muted and distance sense. I like to see the curtain descend and wash away the color and replace it with patches of pure pristine flakes, crystals which are infinitely different, the exact notion of chaos in creation. I like sitting in front of a fire, reading a book, as the world is enveloped with chaos. Even if the chaos is a momentary thing, it’s the courage to exist, chaotically for a week. I like that I have to stalk up on supplies and fight people at the store for milk and eggs. That everyone is running around in a panic as if societies end is impending but may be stalled if people can just get their eggs and milk. I like that Thane goes ballistic in the snow and attempts to put as much down his gullet as he possibly can, as if he is going to restore the deck to its original condition by eating the invading white particles. All of the original pack does it, but Dexter and Thane seem to really take to it, like fat snow plows. Heads to the ground with their mouths open, they will inhale as much as they can. It’s funny to watch, especially when they start pawing up big heaps of it to try and consume. It’s truly a miraculous event as far as they are concerned. I wonder if they even remember that it snowed last year too, all evidence currently points to no.
The snow had accumulated to threatening heights and freezing rain crystalized its weight which led to snapping branches and we ended Wednesday night with no power, or maybe it was Thursday morning but either way there was none. We poked around, went for a walk with the pack of dogs. A good friend had spent the night and Jelly (Claire’s dog) was over as well, which meant we had four people and four dogs in a house with no power, a walk was mandatory for the sanity of ourselves and our furry companions. We didn’t wander far in the show drifts and there were a few people which restricted the beasts from running free. The dogs have become very good at walking together. They no longer whine if they are not in the lead, they no longer pull exhaustively on their leashes, and they no longer attempt to run after everything. They have become easy in a sense. Trying to keep Thane in the rear, I noticed that all of the dogs are smart enough to walk in the tracks of cars or other people with the sole exception of Jelly who hops up and down enticing the owls. This is the first day I remember it being a chore to swallow. Not yet so painful that I begin to panic but very noticeable. As night fell we powered on the generator to cook food and charge important devices and then kicked down to the Joker for some libations and to waste away the night. The Joker was of course full of the standard fair and everyone else trying to escape the grips of Old Man Winter. It was lively and bright.
Thursday, more snow and still no power. It hurts to swallow and I notice that one of my tonsils, the right, is growing. It starts slight, engorged with blood and tender to the touch when I push it with my finger. A film of mucus has my tonsil surrounded on all sides and I realize that I might be getting close to the event horizon of required medical assistance. Through the course of the day it turns a darker shade of red. This normally wouldn’t be a problem but when it hurts to swallow, you try not to do so which means I am spitting a lot. When you spit that much it seems your body foes into protest and I feel the early symptoms of dehydration. I try to get forget these things and plow on. We don’t do much this day or night. We are all cold and just want to watch T.V. which of course we can’t. I have writing I need to do, but the laptops dead. I have work I need to do, but the laptops dead. I have movies I wanted to watch, but the laptops dead. I have work on World Project that I want and need to do, but the laptops dead. Nothing can be done today. Even in the waking hours the house is cold and dark. There is nothing more demotivating than being held captive in a place that won’t allow you to do anything. All I want to do is sleep, so I take a nap. Lucky for all of our collective brains, Gee shows up and offers to take us for a drive to see the chaos that is Snowpocalypse. We can’t say no and everyone is on board. We strap up and hit the road, taking in our surroundings. Nothing really to report as everyone seems to have made it home and out of the streets before the descending doom. We settle on drink and roll into the Carnation bar for some warm ups and pull tabs. Sixteen dollars in pull tabs and a few rounds for everyone and we closed up and headed home finishing the night with a movie by generator.
Friday, we wake and decide that we want a hot meal. The Raging River in Fall City is run by a bunch of brainers and has equipped their tavern/restaurant with a pair of generators that can actually handle the requirements of the business. These are all goods things because I have a craving for the best thing on their menu, Eggs Benedict. Swallowing this meal is excruciating but I choke it down and try and drink as much water as I can. In and out the door, we return home and I promptly take a nap. Breakfast was delicious but a laborious affair for my throat which continues to resist anything that wants to travel to my stomach. Once I awaken, there is a sheen of crystals descending from the sky, a fine powder whispering over everything. It reminds me of when you order such novelty food as French Toast and the server comes with the powder machine to dose you with sugar. The powder machine itself spews light puffy sugar over everything as if it were whisked directly from heaven to land on your plate. Maybe I should have ordered the French Toast…Never mind that it all ends as icky brown waste. We went out again, I believe the Joker simply to escape the lack of heating and to beat boredom. It remains a pertinent issue that it is hard to drink beer when you can’t swallow saliva.
Saturday, I cruised around town. The snow had stopped, the streets had been plowed and I was free to roam the cabin. Of course my new sense of freedom was doused with a throat that is only getting worse so I cuddled at Starbucks and read for the majority of the day while drinking tea, only to return to still no power and an impending nap. Once I awoke I remembered that Justin had invited people over for board games and whatever else develops but at this point all I want to do is sleep. I sit on the Lovesack and watch the whimsical games of Clue and cards as the attendees swoon over their wonderful alcoholic beverages. I’m jealous that I am refined down to Jabba the Hut status on my little island. It’s an interesting thing, dogs and candles; they never seem to notice them, but luckily for us, we only one incident, despite the amount of dogs and candles. Thane had managed to nock one over and dip his tail in wax.
Midnight passes, than 1 o’clock and still no one is ready for sleep and the drinking continues so we fire up the generator to watch Sunshine. Sunshine is a movie in which the sun needs to be restarted via a large explosion from a payload that has to be delivered on a specific trajectory into the middle of the sun. Throughout the course of the mission you learn that this is actually the second mission and that the first has failed inexplicably. As mission two gets closer to the goal, they experience a series of accidents that could jeopardize the success of the mission. Lucky for them, they happen to encounter the other vessel from mission one. They board the other vessel and realize that everyone is dead but when an accident befalls on the primary vessel they must all flee back. They soon realize that they are not alone and that someone has survived the other catastrophe but has been altered by a belief that the sun is God and if it chooses to go out, than it has chosen to end humanity and that it is not a humans place to play God. This obviously does not bode well for the survivors of mission two and they must overcome to complete their mission. Most people did not last through the movie, perhaps it was intoxication or perhaps it was sleep deprivation. It should be noted that at the point in which the final pay load of the movie is to be restored to return light to the world, power was returned to us. It clicks on through the house and you can audibly hear it. A slight hum introduces its return and represents the circulatory system of the house pulsing back into life. The furnace and water heater drone to life and bring the promise of a night in my bed without every blanket I own.
Sunday comes and we spend most of the day cleaning up the mess from being stuck inside all week. As night rounds the corner we have a ‘man-date.’ We went and got Pho’ for dinner which is the perfect meal for a throat which still has failed to begin to knit itself down the road of recovery. After dinner we kicked over to Lincoln for the latest release of the Underworld franchise. Predictable and unrealistic, we all knew what we were getting ourselves into.
When I woke on Monday to return to work I could not. I had showered, I had dressed, and I had made sure all of my bags were packed, but I had also come across some preventatives that would keep me from my work day. These preventives where in fact a lost voice and was worried that the open pathway of my throat was beginning to swell and shut off. This is not good news and on the way to work, I realized that I was not going to make it into work and decided instead to deposit myself at urgent care. After waiting to see a doctor for over an hour the doctor came in and spent about five minutes with me. He asked me intrusive questions; he swabbed my throat with a large cue tip that I imagine they use on elephants, and ran a series of tests. I am lucky that I brought a book as I was there for over three hours, playing their games. All the while they won’t tell me what it wrong with me, they refuse to shoot me full of drugs, and I am trapped in a room with no windows or pictures. It’s depressing and I hate this place.
Finally my solitude is at an end and I have a diagnosis and a prescription. It is past time to get the fuck out of dodge. All dreams of work where shot to the dark when my internment went past the 1PM mark. I decided to go pick up my prescription, figuring this would be a short endeavor. I however was wrong and the fulfillment of my aid takes another hour, again I am glad I brought my book. This too comes to an end and I decide to do nothing before nightfall, wasting the rest of the day reading.
It’s simply tale, my account of how I survived Snowpocalypse 2012. It was nothing crazy, nothing bizarre, nothing life altering. On Monday the roads where clean and life resumed like someone hitting play on the device, and for a moment we had a brief interruption of the mundane, the pause of the normal, a break from consistency, or a drop of chaos in the calm waters of regular. This is why I like when it snows.
