Greetings from Potomac

Another late evening after getting up fairly early -- had breakfast with the family, then Adam and Haley went off to a movie marathon with his high school friends who threw him an impromptu bachelor party. Since Pepper was not invited, we fed her cream cheese and took her on a walk in Seneca Creek State Park, where we got to see the winter lights unlit in the afternoon. 

We came back to pick up Daniel (Cahaya had schoolwork to get done) to go to my parents, where Adam and Haley met us for Thanksgiving leftovers. Now we're watching the fairly terrible Our Little Secret on Netflix. We'll see if Facebook lets me post a link to this blog post tonight, since they rejected last night's as going against their community standards!

Greetings from Hanover

Extreme quickie since it's almost midnight! We drove to Pennsylvania in the morning, picked up Blue Koi for lunch, and took it to Paul's father's place, where we hung out for a couple of hours talking and looking at photos. Then we headed back into Maryland, stopping at the Target in Westminster which miraculously still had the Taylor Swift Eras Tour book in stock, before going to Frederick to see Sailing Through the Winter Solstice lighted ships in Carroll Creek. We hit traffic driving back to Gaithersburg but we made it back in time to get Cava with Kay, Chris, and one of their sons. Now we're watching The Masked Singer we missed Wednesday!

Greetings for Thanksgiving

We had a lovely family day starting with everyone watching parts of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and taking turns showering. Then Daniel and Cahaya walked to the shopping area of Kentlands to get wine while Adam, Haley, Paul, and I walked through the neighborhood and around the lake at Kentlands, mostly carrying Pepper since she has a broken foot. 

We met Nicole's family at my parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner where my mom had made appetizers, turkey and tofurkey, stuffing, two kinds of potatoes, two kinds of squash, at least four desserts, and more that I'm sure I'm not remembering because I'm in a food coma. Now for some reason we're all watching the South Park pandemic episodes. Happy Thanksgiving!

Greetings from Gaithersburg

Quickie, we're watching Marvel Super Hero Adventures: Frost Fight! after A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. We had a quiet morning: Paul had to work, Daniel and Cahaya were flying from SeaTac, Adam and Haley were driving from Ohio -- then we walked to Neal's Bagels in Kentlands to pick up lunch. After that, we headed to my parents' house, where my sister and her family arrived soon after. 

We spent the afternoon hanging out with Nicole and her kids, who left around dinnertime to check into their hotel downtown, soon after which Adam and Haley arrived with Pepper and my parents ordered in pizza so we didn't need to leave the dog alone. After dessert, we came back to the Airbnb, where Daniel and Cahaya had arrived after getting crepes nearby and were upstairs watching Gladiator. A few pics:

Greetings from Maryland

Tuesday was a travel day, starting out dark and early at 6 a.m. when we fed the cats who are being watched by our next door neighbors, loaded the suitcases, and drove to SeaTac. We ate Beecher's cheese sandwiches for breakfast and eventually took off half an hour late, but it was an uneventful flight, during which we watched The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which I enjoyed a lot; apparently I have a double standard for how much violence I can take when hundreds of dead characters are Nazis. 

We picked up our rental vehicle to drive to Maryland and I got to talk to my Tuesday night Voyager group on the way. We picked up some food from the Giant in Muddy Branch and Impossible Whoppers from Burger King, then drove to the Airbnb in Kentlands where we'll be staying for the next few days. Now we're watching Blitz, which is a good double feature for a World War II movie day. Here are pictures of our day in reverse, from the guitar where we're staying back to our morning at SeaTac:

Poem for Monday and Bellevue Botanical d'Lights

Voting as Fire Extinguisher 

By Kyle Tran Myhre 

When the haunted house catches fire:

a moment of indecision.

The house was, after all, built on bones,

and blood, and bad intentions.

Everyone who enters the house feels

that overwhelming dread, the evil

that perhaps only fire can purge.

It’s tempting to just let it burn.

And then I remember:

there are children inside.

-------- 

Monday felt almost like a normal day, or would have if it hadn't been Thanksgiving week with double the laundry, one quarter of the food, and cats who are still anxious, plus my night guard is giving me migraines so I have had a splitting headache all day. Most of the chores that needed to get done got done and we took a walk to the beach, where the broken play equipment I posted yesterday is now behind a protective fence. We did see an eagle and buffleheads. 

Our cat-sitter neighbors came over to chat, I had soup for dinner because of the headache, and now I'm working on sorting and packing for Thanksgiving while watching the Ravens beating the Chargers, a big second half after a close first half. Bellevue Botanical Garden was setting up its holiday light display when we were there the weekend before the bomb cyclone, so here are some pictures of what will be Garden d'Lights when the event goes live November 30th:

Poem for Sunday and Post-Storm Park

Bomb Cyclone 

By T.J. Peters 

Much pressure builds

in un-forecasted acts,

stormy things like howling

winds & chubby fingers,

big red buttons that’ll

sweep you up, blow you down.

Twenty-four hour coverage

of tiny white flakes, of a giant

snowball rolling downhill, gaining

mass but never lasting

long enough to form the

base of a man. When the bomb cyclone

drops o’er new englands or

old wests, that shriek of cold bluster

wakes babes in the night either way.

-------- 

Our power is back on! It announced itself extremely loudly by setting off all the fire alarms in the buildings, which took half an hour to get the fire department to turn off, which made the cats even unhappier than the dark and the cold had done, and it took several hours to get the apartment to a livable temperature and the hot water to something tolerable even for sponge baths, during which time we threw out everything remaining in the freezer and ate the probably-still-okay bagels for lunch. 

In the afternoon, we tried to go to our nearest Safeway, but their power had been out so long that their freezer and refrigerator sections had been emptied. So we went to Redmond Town Center (half open, including holiday decorations) and another Safeway. Then we came home for more laundry and dishes, plus this week's episode of Dune: Prophecy, which is quite good, and then The Merry Gentlemen, which needs more stripper energy and less small town holiday crap. Idylwood Park at present: 

Greetings from Marysville

We're at Cahaya's parents' house with them, Daniel, and Cahaya for dinner and marshmallows over the fire pit (plus hot showers), which has been lovely. In general it would have been a nice day -- morning snuggling cats, folding laundry, emptying freezer, getting free bagels and coffee at the neighborhood office; afternoon chatting with neighbors and walking to the park to see the dozens of uprooted trees -- except that our power, which originally they said would be back on tonight at the latest, is now estimated to be back maybe Monday morning, assuming they don't delay it again. Headed home soon to sleep with cats. Here I am with one of the five dogs currently in the house (plus a tortoise!):

 

Greetings from Green Lake

Friday, like Thursday and Wednesday, involved waking up in the cold, driving to Daniel's -- he had to work in the city and took one dog with him, so we only had one supervisor -- and working in his house, eating things we had to take out of our own fridge before they went bad for lunch. We walked partway around Green Lake in the late afternoon and picked up dinner from Zaina for Daniel and Cahaya. Now we're home, with cats bundled in blankets, catching up on Ghosts and Silo while the power for the phone hotspot and the tablet hold out. The power company is still saying they expect to restore power by 8 p.m. tomorrow night and we are really, really hoping this is true.

Greetings from a Cold Night

Our Thursday was much like our Wednesday: we woke in a cold apartment, drove around work crews cleaning up tree debris, and headed to Daniel's house, where we only saw him for five minutes since he was headed to work but we spent much of the day at his dining room table on our computers, supervised by huskies. And we got hot showers! Cahaya was working upstairs in her office, so we got to see her at lunchtime and at the end of her work day. 

We stopped at Crossroads Bellevue to pick up food for dinner (everything in our refrigerator has to be tossed) and I got on my Thursday night Zoom chat on my phone, which I'd just finished charging at Daniel's. Afterward, Paul managed to get last night's Masked Singer episode to stream on his Kindle tablet, so we just finished watching that. Now we're trying to keep ourselves and the cats warm, since it's going to be in the 30s the next two nights.

Greetings from Dark Seattle

Still no power; we're not likely to get it back till Saturday, they're saying; a huge power line tower went down across the road in the photo, this entire side of Lake Sammamish is affected, today they spent just trying to clear tree debris and make sure emergency services were functioning. Thankfully, Daniel has power, so we spent most of the day at his house, walking to the PCC to pick up lunch and working on our computers while the dogs took turns supervising all of us. 

Now we're home with very confused and chilly cats; we ate what we could from the refrigerator, mostly spreads that can be put on bagels and pita, since we have to throw everything else out, and we're watching the Michael Keaton Batman on a tablet that we charged at Daniel and Cahaya's house because that's one HBO Max will let you download to watch offline. Tomorrow we're going to bring shampoo and towels and shower at son's house, since our hot water isn't heating.