weather

I can’t believe I actually want it to rain

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I checked the weather on Friday and saw that Sunday was supposed to be a rainy day, so we arranged our weekend in such a way that we could take advantage and stay inside and cozy all day.  A rainy day, especially a rainy fall day after such a dry sunny summer, is the perfect justification to have pancakes for breakfast while watching lots of TV and then to curl up and read under a blanket for the rest of the day.  The pancakes and TV watching went as planned, and then it was time for the reading and blanketing.  It was still raining, so I headed for the papasan chair, but by the time I got there the rain had lessened. Like, it’s barely sprinkling and the sun is trying to peek out.  I need it to keep raining!  Yes, I like the sun, and yes, I’ll miss it terribly if it disappears for the next six months like I keep hearing it will, but when the sun is shining I feel compelled to go outside and enjoy it because it’s going to go away and that’s not how I was planning to spend my day.  If the sun is out, I have to go to the grocery store.  So please, sun, go back behind the clouds and let the rain come.  Just this once.

I’m going to regret that plea.

Sniffles and ugh

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Summer appears to be over in the Pacific Northwest.  (Actually, the forecast says we’re going to be in the low 80s this weekend, but go with me here.)  We spent our last week of summer in Disney World, and when we got back to Portland on Friday, it was overcast and 70 degrees out.  It was chillier than that (and rainy) on Saturday, and I think the season change shocked me into a cold.  Or maybe it’s allergies.  It’s hard to tell, but either way, I spent Labor Day on the couch with a sore throat and a box of kleenex.  It looked beautiful out, but all I got was a look out the window.

I’m not feeling much better today, either, so now that I’m done with work for the day, it’s back to the couch I go.  Maybe I can rest enough to feel like a human being tomorrow.  I would like to go back outside (and enjoy it).

Tropical storm woes

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Gulf-side tropical storms are trying to put a damper on our vacation.  (Get it?  Damper?  Eh, who needs ya.)  We got a full-out downpour at Epcot yesterday, and plenty of rain in the Magic Kingdom today, including first thing when we walked out of the hotel.  Ponchos were useful, but our shoes got SOAKED.  John is taking the hair dryer to them now.  The rain didn’t stop the fireworks, though, and they were wonderful.  One more day in the Magic Kingdom, and then we head back to Oregon.

Sigh.  I love the Magic Kingdom.  Pictures to come later because I’m too lazy to transfer them.

Melting

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It’s 96 degrees right now, after three days in a row over 100, and you know?  96 doesn’t feel better.  Tomorrow should.  I hope.  In the meantime, this whole no central AC in Oregon thing is a PROBLEM.  John is in Salem for a gig tonight, outside, probably no shade, so he’s got it worse than I do, but that’s not going to stop me from complaining.  My problems are still real!  This constant sheen of sweat is pretty darn gross.

I’m going to beat it as best I can.  I’m inside with a big box fan pointed right at me (and NOT pulling hot outside air in).  My laptop is on the coffee table streaming tonight’s Olympic track and field events so I can see the 5000m final live (yes, I moved my massage appointment – priorities!), I’ll be ordering food soon, and I have chilled white wine waiting for me.  I’m not sure why I haven’t opened it yet, actually.  Let me fix that.

IMG_20160820_164252Better.  And I’m chilling my wine chiller so I can just leave the bottle out next to me.  Let’s face it – John won’t be home for HOURS, and I plan to read and watch the Olympics all evening.

Summer is taking a break

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It’s raining, and there is no wind at all (apparently), so the rain is falling straight down.  It’s a little eerie actually – looks robotic.  John’s metronome isn’t helping the feeling.

Oh, that’s better – it’s slanting northwest now.

The temperature dropped yesterday.  Today is the second day of highs in the 60s, and we’re not expected to hit 80 again until late next week (and then only barely).  This is weird.  Good, I think, but weird.

Hey, weather.  That’s fascinating, sure, but it’s all I’ve got today.  It’s Friday, work is over, and I think I’m going to take my book, open a window, and read in a comfy chair while listening to the rain.  And John’s metronome.

It’s better than paying attention to the news.

Let the sun shine

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It’s 7:15am*, I’ve been awake for an hour (I slept in today!), working for 45 minutes, and it’s bearable because the view out my window is all green trees against blue sky.

I woke up just before 4am, to a train I might not have heard if I weren’t waking up from a disconcertingly realistic dream about having to sing the national anthem by myself, with a sore throat, as part of a class.  (Even in my dream, I didn’t start it in a low enough key.  The national anthem is hard.)  I went last, and when I was done, the classroom was empty.  I decided not to be insulted.  When I checked other classrooms for people, doors were slammed in my face because the people inside were all Navy people doing highly classified work.

I’m pretty sure the Navy part is what jolted me awake.  If the Navy shows up, I’m in for anxiety dreams.  Usually, though, I find myself back in the Navy after years away, with no idea what I’m supposed to do or how to do it.  Glad I woke up before it got rolling.

Maybe I should have been anxious about singing “The Star Spangled Banner” by myself.

*Well, it was 7:15.  Now it’s 9:20, work has happened, a meeting was scheduled, and I don’t get to have lunch with Christina.  BOO WORK.  We were going to have Indian.  Or Thai.  Something spicy, anyway.

Barely a river

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I biked to Massage Envy this afternoon for my facial, and on my way home, I detoured down to the riverbank.  My whole ride is along the riverbank, but I followed one of the wider paths to a quasi-beach.

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I like the funny little tree islands.

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It was a little before 3pm, and, like you’d expect in the middle of a Monday afternoon, no one was around.

COMPLETELY UNLIKE YESTERDAY.

Yesterday, I could barely see the river for the people.  This past weekend was SO HOT, mid to upper 90s.  Not as humid as the east coast, but still pretty damn hot for a state that doesn’t believe in air conditioning.  The entire city of Eugene was on, in, or next to the river yesterday afternoon.  We went shopping for a portable A/C, which now resides happily in our bedroom.

Today is hot, tomorrow will hot, and then the temperature for the next 10 days will be in the low 70s or 60s.  I WELCOME THE COOL.

Wrong people are wrong

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Whoever told me that Oregonions Oregonians no, i’m keeping Oregonions never use umbrellas didn’t know what he was talking about.  I was out in the rain today (mostly not on purpose), and I saw four people using umbrellas to keep dry.  The other twenty people were probably just trying to impress somebody.  Or they took the same chance I did and bet wrong.  It was a little bit invigorating to speed along the empty trail with rain pouring down and my favorite songs playing.  I got plenty dirty (bikes kick up a lot of mud in the rain), but I’d do it again.

Then I came home, cleaned up, made scrambled eggs (ALMOST as good as Mel’s), and watched TV.  It was an okay Sunday.  I barely spent any time dreading work tomorrow.  That’s an improvement.

Cozy

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Today was a reading day.  I got up, made my (decaf) coffee, and sat in a chair for nearly two hours reading.  We went out, ran a couple of errands, and when we came back, I tucked myself back into my chair for another few hours to read.

It was wonderful.

John spent most of the day doing computer-y things.  Pleasant, very quiet, and it was raining for the first half of the day and overcast for the rest, so really, the perfect day to stay in and read.  Would have been nicer if our gas fireplace put out any heat, but I guess you can’t have everything.  (Honestly, I didn’t even remember we had one until just now, so I didn’t miss it.)

Maybe I’ll get to do it again tomorrow.

Hey, it DOES rain in Oregon!

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We had a late night last night (great gig with the band, and I swear I’ll give everyone a good band update soon, with pictures), so we slept until about 10:30 this morning.  I think that’s the first time we’ve slept that late since we got here.  We had no plans, no obligations – the only thing we both wanted to do with go for a long bike ride.

It was overcast and gloomy, but Weather Underground said there was a 0% chance of rain, so we got up, got dressed for a chilly workout, and went out onto the deck to get our bikes.  I thought it was drizzling, but Weather Underground said it wasn’t, so I must have been mistaken.  And that water on my sunglasses obscuring my vision?  That couldn’t have been raindrops.  Must have been sweat condensing into raindrop-like droplets on the outside of the lenses.

Once we got over the chill (cold fingers, cold ears), our ride was pretty pleasant, not-drizzle notwithstanding, and we needed the 13 miles behind us to make up for the burgers we grilled on our brand new (cheap) charcoal grill yesterday (and the leftover potato salad we’re going to eat tonight).  Yesterday was beautiful, sunny, and 80 degrees.  Today, 53 degrees and cloudy, but not raining.  Of course.  It’s sunny now, now that we’re in for the evening and about to watch MCU movies to prep for seeing Civil War next weekend.  SO excited for that!

The world might end sooner than expected

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Oregon weather is not as advertised, not that I’m complaining.  We had ONE rainy day last week, which I think is only the second rainy day since we got here (where rainy day = day where it actually rained all day.  We had a couple of rainy mornings that turned into sunny afternoons, too.).  This weekend was beautiful, and today (Sunday) was WARM and SUNNY.  I ran this morning and then spent an hour weeding the front yard, and I got a little sunburned.  SUNBURNED.  In APRIL.  In OREGON.  I think the world is ending.  Tomorrow and the next day are supposed to be in the 80s.  It’s APRIL.  In OREGON.

Of course

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I was just looking at the weather forecast, and Eugene is about to get a whole week of really nice sunny weather.  A week of sunny weather that ends in rain the day we’re supposed to arrive.  Of course.  And it’s raining right now in Annapolis, so…whatever.  But that’s okay!  Winter is over!

Eh, technically winter is over, but we’re going to be driving right through winter to get back to spring (more snow is coming to the Rockies).  But that’s okay!  Winter coats and winter shoes will be in the car.  And the car has new tires.

We can handle it.   We just need to get moving.

Cozy and warm

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I have not been outside today, and at the rate the sun is setting and the rate at which we are moving towards putting layers on for warmth and outsideness (which is backwards, we are moving AWAY from outsideness), I don’t believe I will be going outside today at all.  That is okay.  The sun was shining when we woke up (nice change) and has been all day, but I’m not fooled – I know it’s cold.  I know there’s still over a foot of snow out there and I can’t see the surface of the street yet and we’re still not supposed to park on our street and we’re being urged not to drive yet and you know?  We have food and heat and the internet.  All is well.

Here’s a picture of a neighbor’s car in the lot in the middle of our block.  I don’t know how many inches that is, but when we went for a quick walk yesterday afternoon, the snow came up to just over my boot top on one side of the sidewalk (14 inches) and up to my knees on the other side (over 18 inches).  So….that much snow.  I don’t have to shovel it!  Super happy about that.

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John’s parents got over 30 inches of snow, and we’ve been treated to pictures of them shoveling their long driveway throughout the day.  I feel their pain, I sympathize, I empathize even, but I’m not volunteering to drive up and help.

Whoops.  Talked about the weather.

I don’t really want to talk about the weather

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Half the country (at least) is dealing with snow right now, and I don’t want to be just one more blogger talking about it.  In fact, the more I think about it, the less I want to talk about it or post pictures.  The pictures aren’t that exciting.  You’ve all seen snow before.

Let’s talk about TV instead!  Specifically, the new Legends of Tomorrow show.  We watch The Flash and Arrow (although we enjoy The Flash more), and they do crossover shows a couple of times a season.  They’re definitely happening in the same universe, which is fun.  There was a pair of crossovers this season meant to introduce a couple of characters who were going to be in Legends of Tomorrow, characters I’ve never heard of and who sound pretty dumb (Hawkgirl and Hawkman).  Legends of Tomorrow premiered recently (this week or last week, maybe?), and we watched it this morning.  I was excited to watch it, and I’m still excited even though the pilot was not that great BECAUSE Arthur Darvill is in it.  Love him from Doctor Who, love him MORE from that panel he was on at Awesome Con last summer, and I will love him as Rip Hunter, another character I’ve never heard of.  But Rip Hunter appears to be a cross between the Doctor and Mal from Firefly, and that’s very cool, and that makes me very willing to give this show some time to get better.  The other characters on the show (at least in the pilot) are a combination of B and C team heroes from The Flash and Arrow (with maybe lots more crossovers?).  I have no idea if they’re permanent cast members, but it’ll be fun to find out.

(I like TV.  I like comic book TV.  I like crossover TV.  I am a nerd.)

Hunkered down

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The snow has begun.  We live on a snow emergency route, so we had to move our cars.  Our regular garage (because it’s always free on weekends) doesn’t open until 6pm, and 1) we had to be moved by 4, and 2) the snow might be pretty bad by then, so we headed for the city garages that were opened at 1pm to residents for just this purpose.  We got to the closest garage at 1:15 – already full.  We found plenty of parking at the next closest garage, but we parked next to an outside wall, which is open to the outside.  We were about to walk back home, but I had visions of having to dig our cars out from under two feet of snow that would DEFINITELY drift in….so we moved the cars to a couple of inner spaces.  Well, I moved my car.   John’s car wouldn’t start.  Even though it was JUST running.  I moved mine back and we jumped his and moved both cars again, but by then the snow had started.  And we were farther away from the apartment than planned.  And it was colder.  Well, it felt colder – we’d been out in it FOR AN HOUR.  Parking wasn’t supposed to take this long.

We’re back, warm again (the apartment, generally so cold, feels REALLY good right now), and catching up on work (since we didn’t anticipate being gone that long).  I went to the store Thursday morning, so we’re all stocked up and ready to be stuck inside for several days.  As long as the power doesn’t go out.  That’s my new nightmare, since the winds are supposed to be so high.  We have electric heat, electric hot water, electric stove…we’ll be very very unhappy if the power goes out.

The invasion was inevitable

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These last few days have been the coldest days of the winter so far.  Before New Year’s Eve, that wouldn’t have been saying much, but this week has been actually, objectively cold.  I wouldn’t keep harping on that – oh, who am I kidding?  Of course I’ll keep harping on that – but I’m bringing it up this time because I keep seeing people out in this frigid weather who are NOT dressed appropriately and who don’t seem to be particularly cold.  The other evening, I was driving back from the grocery store, and I noticed a woman standing outside a Dunkin Donuts on her cell phone in a short-sleeved t-shirt.  Does she not feel cold the way us mortals do?  She wasn’t shivering.  She was just standing there.  Maybe she was angry with the person on the phone, and her anger was keeping her warm.  Then yesterday, I was running (and freezing) at lunchtime, and I saw a woman out walking wearing just a thin cardigan.  She didn’t appear to be cold or uncomfortable.  Maybe she’s from Canada and sneers at the puny humans who shiver in single-digit temperatures.

Maybe I’m just a wimp who gets cold easily, but I’m not alone!  Everyone else stuck outside was either dressed for it (I saw one enviable person wearing a parka with a fur-trimmed hood) or clearly in a hurry to get someplace warm.  Maybe they’ve evolved.  Maybe they’re aliens.

SO cold

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Today was unbelievably cold.  Sure, it gets colder in LOTS of places, but I think today was the coldest day of this winter here, and that’s enough for me.  When I went for my run (because I’m tough – I’ll run when it’s that cold), the temperature was in the 20s, winds at 18 mph, and the windchill was 8 degrees.  EIGHT.  It was cold.  I warmed up, as you do when you’re working hard, so I wasn’t miserable the whole time.  Just the first mile…and a half.  And then parts of the fourth mile.  And then, well, I guess the rest wasn’t so bad.

The weirdest parts of the whole run were the parts where I had to cross the bridge.  It’s windy up there.  On my way out, the winds were gusting and they were hitting me diagonally from behind, and when they caught me off guard (which was every time), it was like I was being suddenly pushed towards the railing.  Not cool.  I couldn’t get off the bridge fast enough.  On my way back, the wind had shifted a little so it was blowing exactly perpendicular to the bridge, hitting me on my right side.  No kidding, my right nostril was frozen.  The left was…not.  It was unpleasant.  But it’s over, and next time it’s that windy and cold, I’ll avoid the bridge.  At least the sun was out.

I’ll still have to run in the cold, though.  I want to build distance again, and that means I can’t wimp out.  Six miles today!

Not trustworthy!

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Weather.com is not reliable.  This is not news.  But still.

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Oh, really?  This is backed off from 100% rain from 9pm – 2am, which is what this ridiculous website has been saying all day.  Why do I keep checking it?

Update: It rained.  It rained steadily from about 5:30 through 9, for sure, and possibly longer.  It had stopped by 1:30am.  Stupid website.

Watch out for fog bears

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The mist has turned into straight-up fog today (and I think the rain is supposed to start soon and will go on all day).  I wish I’d thought to bring my phone with me when I ran.  The roads criss-cross the top of this ridge, and there’s this one section where the land falls away from the side of the road into a big depression.  There’s a house at the bottom of this bowl, and every time I run by it, I wonder why anyone would build a house in the bottom of a depression like that.  It seems like it would flood when it rains, fill up with snow in the winter.  What about landslides?  What’s the view from the windows?  It’s a pretty steep-sided bowl.  Was it always like this?  Is it a sinkhole?  (I’ve spent more time than you might think on this particular house.)

Anyway, the fog was so thick this morning that I couldn’t even see where the ground dropped off, much less the house.  What if it disappeared?  What if the Nothing gobbled it up?  I wish I’d brought my phone with me to get a picture.  Instead, here’s the view of the backyard right after my run.

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It had started to recede a bit by the time I took the picture, but now (several hours later) it has come back.  Brighter, but thicker and closer to the house.  Looks like the world outside is disappearing…

 

I thought she was only afraid of thunder

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I got very little sleep Sunday night because of a certain scaredy-cat cocker spaniel who was spooked by the wind. It was certainly very windy all night, and the wind was howling past the open window and doing its best to knock things over, but it’s wind!  Not solid, not harmful.  Daisy spent the first half of the night half on my chest, panting in my direction (her breath is AWFUL), shivering uncontrollably, and making her piggy snort noises as a break from the panting once every couple of minutes.  I don’t know if you’ve ever tried, but I have found that it is hard to sleep with a noisy vibrating dog lying on your chest.  I moved her to my side at some point (she resisted being that far from my face, but I couldn’t breathe), but that didn’t help much because she was still shaking and snorting.  Then, around 3am, the scary wind monster rattled everything in the room.  She stood up, practically blurry with vibrations, jumped off the bed, hid herself between the dresser and the wall, and then crawled UNDER the dresser.  I pulled her out and put her back on the bed with me, but she jumped right back off and went back under.  I left her there the rest of the night.  When I woke up around 7, she was sleeping under there with her nose sticking out.

It’s still windy today, so she’s been glued to my side, hanging out in the basement with me while I worked all morning.  Ridiculous dog.  It’s a good thing she’s cute.

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