There is actual snow on the ground, and I think it will probably stay throughout the day. Crazy. I picked up Amanda from Harborview, and it took a long long time to get there and back. It was good that I picked her up as she probably would not have gotten home if she had tried to take the bus.
In Seattle itself, I think only an inch was on the ground, but since it does not snow around here it was nuts as people around here do not know how to drive in such conditions. The city also does not have any way to really deal with it either. In some places, the roads were iced up (no salt or that weird gritty sand/tar/whatever mix they use in New York) which was rather exciting on the hills.
Amanda and I were trapped on a slightly icy downhill because a driver in front of us was “scared” to move (her description). There was a line of cars on behind him on a residential street. We must’ve sat there for over fifteen minutes until Amanda got out to figure out what was going on. Other people weren’t so patient and just kept honking. Eventually, he got his act together and started moving again.
While I think I should be sympathetic to this guy’s fear, objectively it seems he was just freakin’ dumb. The fact that the hill was icy was not exactly a surprise as one had a perfect view of its conditions beforehand, and even then one could pull off to the side on practically 80% of the street; he stopped in one of the only places he couldn’t pull over… after inching agonizingly down most of the street. Wtf? Even if he did manage to slide the rest of the way down (unlikely IMHO) he would not have hit anything. I was thinking it was good that we were in polite Seattle as I think even in rather mild mannered Central New York someone in line would’ve flipped out.
Alright, that was more harsh than I intended. I am sympathetic to someone getting freaked out by the conditions, but the guy was still freakin’ dumb. Not mutually exclusive.
In other news, it is cold in the house. We didn’t turn on the heat at all in our apartment last year as we leached heat from the Safeway below us. I dunno if it is better economically to use the gas fireplace or the electric heaters, although my inclination sides with the fireplace. Piglet Piglet loves the fireplace, though.
I mucked my lower back up sometime today. Then I was nauseous all evening after eating painkillers all day. The nausea is pretty much gone now, but the back is still mucked. Alas. I hope it is magically better tomorrow.
Amanda is upstairs sleeping on the couch. Piglet is sleeping on Amanda.