After a false alarm last Wednesday, Seattle has been hit with an outrageous amount of snow. I think we may have gotten at least a foot outside our house. Not really a lot compared to our time in Ithaca and Buffalo, but on the once in a few decades level here. The temperature has also been the lowest since we have lived here… low twenties/high teens.
Since Seattle doesn’t really get snow (and what it does get usually melts quickly), they do not have the equipment and whatnot to deal with it. The roads here have turned into big sheets of ice, and they will probably remain that way until it warms up (apparently later this week or next). Since Seattle is very hilly, that is bad news for driving around.
Which I have not been doing. I have been at home watching Lonan Kai. I think we have both been pretty bored. I have not gotten much else done as LK takes a lot of attention. Amanda took the bus to work today; they are running at less than half capacity, but the route from our house to her workplace is a main arterial and relatively flat.
I let Armando out for a bit into the yard, but he took the opportunity to jump the fence and R-U-N-N-O-F-T. Probably to see his feral cat friends as I had kept him inside for that past week since it has been frigid. Hopefully he is well, because we are leaving for Chicago tomorrow (if the transportation gods cooperate) and there will be no one to let him back into the house. Mandy will be checking up on Piglet and whatnot while we are gone.
We went out to eat last Friday (shocking in these grim economic times). We walked to Columbia City and ate at Island Soul. There weren’t many people there or walking about in general because of the icy roads and sidewalks. However, the food was good. On the expensive side as Seattle always is, but they had large portions which I always appreciate. We had yam fries, a tofu curry dish, and a red snapper dish with beans and rice and collard greens. Very tasty. Lonan Kai really liked the red snapper; I hope it did not have too much mercury or other chemicals in it. I also had a tasty Ethiopian stout which actually tasted like the last stout I made (admittedly a long time ago).
We had a snow playdate with Ann, Mike, and Connor over the weekend as well at our place.
Hopefully we will be leaving for Chicago tomorrow for five or six days. I hope the roads get better in the next 24 hours as I really don’t want to put the tire chains on because that will be a pain.
Apparently, the place I had been doing consulting for until they got way too behind in paying me is sending me a partial payment of the many thousands they owe me, which is nice. Only a couple thousand, but I admit I thought collecting would be a lost cause. Of course, I probably should wait until I get the check and it clears before getting too happy.

So it did snow last night and it is still coming down.

Daycare/school was again closed, so I am watching Lonan Kai at home again (he’s hopefully taking a long nap right now). Amanda went to work. She called when she finally got there to say that she probably would come back since many people did not make it in, but she is not back yet so perhaps someone convinced her to stay.
The other day we put together our modular rug that Amanda ordered online as our old one was deemed disgusting.

Basically, it came as sets of tiles that you used a sticker to keep together. Presumably the “sticker” actually induced some sort of reaction to the floor tile backing to keep them together because otherwise it seems that they would come apart easily.

Amanda is considering the installation instructions in the above photo. We have not stickered the tiles together yet. We bought the cheapest and most heavy use tiles available because piglet and the progeny cannot be trusted with not soiling the carpet. The striped design is not really me, but thinking outside ones comfort zone is good.

There is still no snow, although there is rain.
I spent most of the morning carrying Lonan Kai because he was in a clingy mood.
Amanda came back home, and we took Lonan Kai for his nine month checkup. All was well. He was in remarkably good spirits considering he only had a thirty minute nap in the morning. LK committed the rookie mistake of watching the tech inject his booster flu shot, but he only cried a little.
Now he is sleeping. Amanda is on call tonight, but hopefully it will be uneventful. Unfortunately I just heard her pager go off. Oops.

Actually, there is still old snow on the ground, but not on the roads.
I am watching Lonan Kai today because Seattle Public Schools closed this morning because of “snow”; our daycare/preschool follows their lead in that regard. Unfortunately, there isn’t any snow, just the theoretical threat of it.
Since his mother was not around, I became perfectly acceptable and the preferred caretaker. Good for him since I doubt Piglet or Armando are really interested.
Amanda has a half day of clinic today, and then we are taking Lonan Kai to his nine-month checkup (he has real health insurance unlike me). There are various things to be checked, like if he still has a dairy protein intolerance, and he needs to get a booster flu shot. I think the flu shot for infants is new this year, but maybe not since I am hardly a medical professional.
Now it is time to try to get some stuff done while LK is taking a nap…

We met our PEPS group last Saturday for a holiday party and Ann and Mike’s. All the infants were crawling about now, and some were even walking. It was fun. We did not take any pictures because we are bad parents.

We returned the baby/pet gates we obtained before and got a couple of new ones. They work fine, although they are the pressure installed type. We will have to get the permanently mounted type when LK starts hanging on them and whatnot. We also bought some clothes for him as he does not really have a lot of clothes.
Amanda and I were struck by the fact that there was no one down in Tukwila/Southcenter… very surprising on the weekend and right before the holidays. It looked like it was really a weekday morning there. Grim economic times, for sure. The cold weather may have had something to do with it, but the roads were dry for the most part.

As for the weather, it has been freaky cold for Seattle… in the low twenties during the day. There has been some snow and precipitation so it has been icy in some places in the area and of course Seattle is not really equipped to handle stuff like this normally. Apparently it has not been that cold in decades, and it will allegedly continue for the whole week. I do not mind the cold, but LK and the cats do not appreciate it that much. We might leave him at school today because it is a lot warmer there.

LK has been tormenting us by waking up and screaming inconsolably for two to three hours at night, but last night he gave us a break. He did let out periodic idle cries occasionally to keep us on our toes.

Now Amanda is working at home with the help of a friend.

Note she is wearing my alpaca sweater because it is cold.