Snowpocalypse, South Puget Sound edition

[katallison]

Quickie update: By sheer luck, I managed to get my car home (just barely) yesterday afternoon, slewing and fishtailing the last few yards up the hill, and then slid-skid-jammed it into the last open parking space by the entrance to the apartment complex parking lot, where it is now reposing under a blanket of yet MORE fresh snow.

This apartment complex is a large one and sprawls down the side of a very steep hill -- steep enough that even the roadways running parallel with the hill's contours are aslant, so that in conditions of 7-8 inches of snow (my best guess, since our crappy local paper has at no point given us actual info on total snowfall or anything), cars that try to go anywhere will--eventually, slowly, inevitably--slide sideways into the backside of someone else's parked vehicle. Me, I am leaving my car lay where Jesus flang it until we have some significant melting. Which might not be until after Christmas, given that we have yet ANOTHER big snowstorm coming in over the weekend.

This is tiresome. I am lucky I did not get hit on the road, or slide into a ditch; I am very lucky the buses are running nearby, and that at worst I can walk the two miles to the shopping center and grocery story; I am revelling in my good luck that the electricity has not gone out at any point (although if we catch the gale-force winds predicted to come with the next storm, that could change). But still; tiresome.

Comments

[brynnmck.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry for the woe, Kat. *pets you* (Though you have certainly made reading about it highly entertaining!) I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the windstorm won't materialize after all... but we'll see. Stay safe and warm! *hugs*

[katallison.livejournal.com]

What's hard to get used to, as a lifelong Midwesterner, is how utterly up in the air (so to speak) forecasts are out here, and how extremely *local* weather is. In Minnesota, when a blizzard is on the way, it spends several days just marching inexorably and predictably onward from the Arctic down through Saskatchewan and then the Dakotas, and then BLAMMO, it pummels the entire *region*. Here, it's all convergence zones and Cascade snow shadows and god knows what all, and a person just doesn't know when it's time to set her affairs in order and start doing -- well, what your icon would indicate. *g*

[the-shoshanna.livejournal.com]

Tiresome in the extreme -- and yet you write about it so entertainingly! (Which doesn't keep me from being very grateful for your luck.) I'm glad that you're able to have recourse to shanks' mare if necessary, though there are a lot of things I'd rather (see you) do than trudge four miles through a blizzard. Wrap up warm and lay in some cocoa while you can!

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Thanks, m'dear -- I'm at the point of switching over from the hot cocoa to the red wine, thanks to new forecasts full of calming pronouncements about blizzards and 50 mph winds and "historic storms events" and whatnot. *sigh*

(And I continue to send much love and all best wishes to you and your family. I'm so sorry you're going through all this.)

[renenet.livejournal.com]

Hooray, no ditch! ::tucks you safe and snug into your warm apartment:: ::crosses fingers that you stay that way::

[katallison.livejournal.com]

I got bold and sassy enough to take my car out this afternoon, and wasn't THAT an adventure. Back home now, and bracing for a new storm that may represent, not just snowpocalype, but SNOWMAGEDDON!

[china_shop]

Yikes! Glad you're okay. *wishes you warmth and comfort and cheer*

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I am hunkering down and rather wishing I was in the southern hemisphere at the moment ...

[dine.livejournal.com]

ugh - I'm awfully glad you got home safely and parked, and have buses running nearby. it's not so much the actual snow that's usually the problem (though us locals mostly don't know how to drive in it), it's the way cities hereabouts aren't set up to cope, plus hills make things that bit more exciting.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

And you know, honestly, it would make no sense for cities hereabout to have the plows and so on to deal with weather like this, since it's such a rare event. I think the secret is just to stop trying to carry on with "business as usual," hunker down, and relax -- which I am endeavoring to do this evening, and hope you're able to do as well!

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

Makes you kind of wish that you hadn't left the sled dogs back in Minnesota, heh? I imagine that Seattle is in shock and denial about the snow. But I'm glad that you got home safely and can stay there for a while. Plus, you do write about your adventures in such an entertaining way and it's a real treat to have you posting so frequently.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

God, the news footage of the hundreds of poor souls stranded in downtown Seattle last night was sad, especially after the city transit system said, in effect, "Don't expect to be getting anywhere by bus anytime soon." I mean, worst case I can get anywhere in my little city on foot (and DAMN I miss the sled dogs *g*) -- but in Seattle, you're just hosed.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

You have another storm forecast? Yikes, this is bizarre weather we're all having this year.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

The new forecast includes practically everything this side of "hail of toads," and I think all I can really do is just make my peace with God and assume the fetal position in the southwest corner of my basement. (Oh wait, I don't HAVE a basement...)

[anaxila.livejournal.com]

I remember my first Seattle snowfall as a transplanted Minneapolis resident. It was a small one, and I thought everyone was so lame for inching along the roads in a panic. At one point, we'd sat in gridlock for so long that we got thirsty, so K got out of the car and walked to a gas station for beverages. When he got back, I still hadn't moved. I didn't understand what the big deal was until i got to my neighborhood and made it exactly halfway up the hill before the car could go no further and slid all the way down to the bottom backwards, completely out of control. After that, I learned never ever to leave the house while there's snow on the ground in the Pacific Northwest. It's never worth it.

Even so, it sounds like you're having a big one. Enjoy!