last year…

 

 

 So, these were conditions a year ago.  This year, I’m not fretting a drive to SoCal through snow and high water – to meet a long-lost cousin,  but it IS raining this year, a more typical Portland Christmas season, and I’m not entirely unhappy with that.  For the second year in a row, I’m meeting a cousin for the holidays.  He found me through my Classmates listing this summer, and reconnecting with my father’s side of the family has been wonderful.  I am so used to being alone in life that I haven’t reached out much to new found family, and that is something I want to work on for 20 10

(It’s a Sci-fi date to me – twenty ten.  I am honestly surprised to be seeing it)

The papers this weekend were in bundles of eights – smaller than I have seen in past weekend-before Christmas Sunday papers.  They will likely be tiny this weekend…. But I am grateful that my newspaper is still in business.  When I was a young teenager, I wanted to work as a newspaper reporter, given how glamourous it looked in movies, so in a way I’m living a life’s Dream – I do work for a newspaper… but I don’t write the news and opinions, I just deliver them.

In all kinds of weather:

 

Snow is pretty rare here.  The boss told me the other day that downtown is below sea level on the river.  Beats me – but I looked up my elevation and it’s 76 feet.  Snow is uncommon here – every half dozen yeas or so, I guess, but in the 21 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen anything like this here.

These pics are from yesterday, Saturday:

It’s gotten pretty frosty here.  I’m getting a lot of use out of my N3-B parka, which came in the mail the DAY of the earthquake in Kobe.  We were standing there amist the rubble, crude lanes through it on the narrow street, and a Postal Service motorcycle came down the street, poking here and there for a safe spot, and I jokingly said, "wouldn’t it be funny if he was here for us?"

He was, and he had this coat, the day of the quake – no power for hours, no gas or water for weeks, cold, snow flurries – kinda miserable.  This coat came in handy then, and handy now:

The TV news has gone 24/7 with this series of storms, and one channel is calling it Arctic Blast 08.

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This is less than an hour yesterday after I drove downtown to the PO box (and there was nothing of note in it).

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Last night, freezing rain fell, changing to sleet most of the day, until snow fell heavily an hour ago… and continues to fall periodically.

And since it’s below freezing and will be for days, Portland gets a White Christmas this year.

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 No white Christmas this year, but that’s ok.

 

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