snow daze

i grew up in cold snowy winters. i did my first legal driving in snow. i used to have to heat up the kettle to unfreeze my car doors so that i could get to work in the morning. all of this is fine when it's routine. an inch of slush should be pretty, not paralyzing.

Seattle doesn't know what to do with snow. there's no civic infrastructure beyond a set of road closed signs and chains for the buses. people here don't even have snow shovels to clear the sidewalks.

i found myself this morning trying to do ours with a broom and a box of kosher salt. i still feel like it's my duty, even though i don't think there's a shoveling law here. (for those who haven't lived in snowy climes, there are often fines if you do not have "your" stretch of sidewalk cleared within a certain number of hours.)

then i went and waited for the bus. any bus downtown. during the morning commute there's about a bus every ten minutes. in an hour, not one bus came. by this time the cold had penetrated, and i just went home and got on VPN. work email reveals that the meeting i had to attend today is canceled anyway.

i would like my mild winter back. or competent drivers, snowplows, and salt trucks. whichever.

meanwhile, the futon in the living room is flat, with the sumo and all of our loose pillows on top, and i am well-nested with the charlie brown laptop keeping me warm.

Chewbacca the spy

via scifigal, a pretty good analysis of the Rebel intelligence system in Star Wars (reconsidering episode IV in the light of eps I-III.) worth reading.