Life

Well, it finally happened — after nearly a week of wild rumors and near-panic (I had no less than three of my customers at work plan ‘snow days’ last Thursday based on the weather reports), it’s finally actually snowing in Seattle this morning.

I just might need to wander out and see how well the downtown area is handling it. Camera in hand, of course.

Update: Hmpf. Okay, maybe some of the other areas of Seattle actually got a good amount of snow — I saw some cars that had a good inch or two on their roofs — but downtown? Heck, it’s already almost all melted off. Some slush on the streets, that’s about it.

Looks like it’s going to be a pretty day, though, the clouds are disappearing, blue sky is showing through, and bright sunshine is cutting through the downtown skyscrapers. Guess I can’t really complain. :)

“Rock This Town” by Brian Setzer Orchestra, The from the album Dirty Boogie, The (1998, 6:37).

I guess it’s a good day for picking up on memes — this one comes from Mike.

• 25 Years Ago (1980): Hmmm…seven years old. Kindergarden? I’d be living in Anchorage, probably at the Big Grey House. I’m not sure, but this may have been the year that I got chicken pox and, no matter what mom told me, scratched, and ended up leaving three small scars in a triangle on my forehead, just above my left eyebrow. They’re still there. Of course, that might not have happened that year, but I only remember a few things from that long ago.

• 15 Years Ago (1990): Sixteen years old, and a Junior at Bartlett High School. I had a small core group of friends, was working on tech crew for the school theatre, played one of the orphans in our production of Oliver!, playing violin in the school orchestra, and singing in the school choir. I was also one of the members of the Bartlett High School Apathy Club, a club spearheaded by Royce and Rod mostly to give us all an excuse to hang out after school and watch movies. In other words, yes — I was a geek. :)

• 10 Years Ago (1995):
  Twenty-one years old, legal to (in order) be drafted, live on my own, drive, smoke, and drink. I lived in no less than four places over the course of my 21st year…in January, I’d have been living in a horrid little apartment in Fairview, one of the more ghetto areas of Anchorage (our apartment was broken into less than two weeks after we moved in…while we were home), and was so uncomfortable with leaving my computers and music unattended that I took them with me when I went to my folks house across town for a few days over Christmas. This was right towards the beginning of my DJ career, during my time at City Lights.

• 5 Years Ago (2000): Twenty-six. Getting more and more frustrated with Anchorage, and thinking more and more seriously about leaving, though it would take me another year or so to actually follow through with that plan. Living at The Pit, a huge basement apartment in Turnagain, one of Anchorage’s ritzier areas. Still DJing here and there around town and enjoying what little celebrity status I had. The main party years were done with, but I still had a fairly sizeable group of friends and acquaintances around town. Deeply embroiled in one of the more memorable of my many tumultuous relationships — those of you who know about the statuesque redhead in my life can fill in the blanks. Those of you who don’t…sorry, but some stories just aren’t safe to tell publicly yet….

• 3 Years Ago (2002): Twenty-eight. Finally out of Anchorage, midway through my first year in Seattle. Living in what I not-so-affectionately termed the Shoebox, dating Candice, and working through a temp agency, for Xerox, at Arthur Andersen (before that silly business with Enron did them in). Later in the year I’d lose the position at Arthur Andersen and Xerox would place me in the copy shop on the Microsoft campus, Candice and I would split up (amicably, we’re still friends — in fact, she was here with Prairie and I for New Years Eve this year), and I’d move over to the building I’m living in now.

• Last Year (2004): Thirty (and therefore past due for my time at Carousel). Dating Prairie (at least, I’m pretty sure we’d admitted that we were dating by this point…it was a question we danced around for a while, as each of us had dating histories that made us more than a little cautious about the whole relationship thing). At the beginning of the year it had only been a couple months since I did a spectacular job of losing my position at Microsoft, and I’d recently started working for my current company, bussing down to the Georgetown area of Seattle every day.

• Yesterday: Thirty-one. Yesterday was Tuesday, my usual pizza-and-movie night. Well, any night can be a movie night if I’ve actually made it through my reading list in NetNewsWire or if I’m just sick of sitting at the computer, but on Tuesdays, the local Dominos Pizza has a two-for-one special which can generally feed me for the next two or three days. I ended up watching a 37 year old historical drama and thoroughly enjoying it. Not a bad day.

• Today: I’m still thirty-one. Imagine that. Got up, skimmed a few things on the ‘puter while I tried to convince myself that I was anywhere close to conscious, showered, and wandered the six blocks to work. Passed DeAnna on the way and nodded hi — we happen to pass each other every few weeks, but as we’re both on our way to work, there’s generally not a lot of time for chit-chat. Seeing her reminded me that I promised to scan something for her weeks ago that I thought she’d get a grin out of (a letter she sent me before I went to Germany in the summer of ’91, as we lived just a few blocks away from each other, rode the same bus to school, and I made what were probably painfully clumsy attempts at flirting with her) — of course, I then promptly forgot again until just now as I was typing this out. Maybe I’ll actually remember to do that before I crash out tonight. Eeep. Worked, came home, chatted with Prairie until she wandered off to take a hot bath (temperatures in Ellensburg are apparently in the teens these days), and then got sucked into writing all this out.

• Tomorrow: Wow, I’ll still be thirty-one! Though I will be one day closer to thirty-two. Woohoo? No big plans — it’s Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

• Next Year (2006): Okay, thirty-two. Wow, I thought I’d never get there! By next January, I should be living somewhere else, as Prairie and I are planning on getting a place together this summer. Just where, we’re not entirely sure yet. She’s ready to get out of Ellensburg, and so is starting the process of applying to other schools to teach at (she currently teaches 100-level English courses at CWU). She’s planning on tossing applications out at schools in the Seattle and Portland areas, and possibly as far south as California, since we’ve heard that there may be good teaching opportunities down that direction. While I’m enjoying my time in Seattle, I figure that while I’ve just got a job, she’s got a Career, so if she finds a good opportunity in Seattle, wonderful…but if she finds one in Portland or California, it’ll be easy enough for me to pack up and try someplace new for a while. Besides, if she gets a good offer, I’ve always wanted to spend some time in San Francisco….

• 3 Years Forward (2008): I’ll be thirty-four. By this point, I’d really like to be enrolled in college somewhere, working my way towards a degree in…well, in something. While I’ve had plenty of people tell me that I’d make a wonderful teacher, and it’s something that’s definitely worth giving some serious thought to, there are so many things that catch my interest from time to time (over the years, everything from architecture to linguistics and many, many things in between have sounded fascinating) that it’s hard to tell where I might end up. Pity I’m not independently wealthy, I’d love to just go the perma-student route.

• 5 Years Forward (2010): Thirty-six. I should be well on my way to a master’s degree by this point, if all goes according to plan. I’d like to be out of debt (outside of school debts, at least) by this point, which is something I’ve been struggling with for years now. I’m not really all that far in debt — probably somewhere around four or five grand, not counting debts to parents (which could up to to, oh, seven or eight grand at least, I think), so it’s certainly doable within five years…I just suck at money management. Prairie’s promised to try to help me out with this, though. I wonder if she really knows what she’s getting into….

• 10 Years Forward (2015): Forty-one. Let’s see — assuming I actually managed to get myself a degree, then I might be employed somewhere that I can consider a career by this stage. Or maybe not — careers these days often seem to involve a lot of office-speak and buzzwords that drive me up the wall. Heh — in a perfect world, I’d have stumbled into some substantial amount of money and/or cleaned up my credit, gotten a business loan, and opened up a sucessful dance club in whatever city I’m living in at this point. Even if I’m not DJing, I could handle being the guy in charge!

• 15 Years Forward (2020): Forty-six. My nephew Noah will be midway through his teens by this point. Since Prairie and I are (at least at the current moment) in no hurry to either explore marriage or children, I’ll have had fifteen years to perfect being the uncle who spoils his nephew rotten and lets him get away with all the stuff his parents never do. That’s about as good as a goal as anything else for fifteen years on, I think.

• 25 Years Forward (2030): Fifty-six. I really don’t know — I have difficulties planning things a week in advance, and I’m supposed to be thinking a quarter-century into the future? Hmm…I’ll just assume that I’ll have slid comfortably into “dirty old man” territory, and doing my best to enjoy the rest of my years. :)

“I Put A Spell On You” by Marilyn Manson from the album Lost Highway (1996, 3:30).

I just got word from my dad that my mom’s father, Harold Ward, died peacefully in his sleep last night, at the age of 88.

Grandpa had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease last year, and had been deteriorating fairly quickly over the past few months. Earlier this week he was admitted to the retirement community’s hospice center, and it was expected that he would pass on fairly soon. Mom flew down to Florida to be with him and Grandma last night, but Grandpa died while she was on the plane. Dad will be flying down as soon as he can. Unfortunately, I don’t currently have the spare finances or available time off to fly down, and as there has been a fair amount of traveling in our family recently as mom fit in as many visits as she could this past year, I most likely won’t be able to be there for the funeral.

Due to the distance between G&G in Ft. Meyers, Florida and our family in Anchorage, Alaska, I never ended up as close to my grandparents as many people do. They would come up to visit us every few years, Grandpa driving their big Winnebago, and we’d go on trips around Alaska (and no trip was ever complete until Grandma had sat on the bread). We’d fly down to visit them in Florida every few years too, and those trips are where some of my strongest memories of Grandpa are from.

He spent many of the last years of his life as a tour guide at the Thomas A. Edison and Henry Ford Winter Estates in Ft. Meyers, and we would always get to go on tours of the grounds. Grandpa would lead us through the gardens with plants and trees from all over the world — complete with a huge, beautiful banyan tree that drops its multitudes of trunk-like roots over the grounds just in front of the main entrance — and then into the family homes, through the workshops, and on into the museum at the end. He never seemed to need a script, and was always content to to keep track of a couple of very excitable (and probably frequently bored) children year after year, filling us with information that was probably forgotten straight away as we looked forward to the nearly obligatory trip to Disney World later in the trip.

I may not have known him as well as I might have had we lived closer, but I have a lot of fond memories of the times we did get to spend with him over the years.

Goodbye, Grandpa.

Into your hands, O Merciful Savior, we commend your servant Harold. Acknowledge, we beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of eternal peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.

Update: The official cause of death is undiagnosed leukemia. I keep waffling back and forth on that one — on the one hand, Grandpa was already ailing and all, but I really wonder how common it is for leukemia to go undiagnosed (apparently it’s not entirely unheard of), and how much longer he might have lived if it had been diagnosed. Of course, given the effects of the Alzheimer’s and the necessary treatments for leukemia, perhaps this was easier on everyone than a longer, more protracted battle would have been.

“Dies Irae, Dies Illa (Sequence from the Mass for the Dead: Requiem)” by Capella Antiqua Munchen from the album Gregorian Chant: Sequentiae (1992, 6:05).

Good Christmas weekend this year.

Christmas Eve Day I got up at my usual time, dinked around on the ‘puter for a bit while I woke up, packed, and headed down to the train station. Hiked down the hill to 3rd, then caught a bus over to Jackson street and killed time for about an hour before the train left.

I spent most of the train ride in the observation car, listening to the Kleptones and watching the scenery fly by. It was a pretty grey day, but I did what I could to get some interesting shots, trying to catch some of the graffitti on the train cars and bridges we passed.

Prairie and H picked me up at the station, and I got to see Prairie’s new car (something of a Christmas present to herself, as her old Jetta finally became too much of a hassle to keep over this past week), a cute little silver Honda Civic. We swung by Prairie’s mom’s house to drop off bags, and then Prairie and I went over to her dad’s place. I gave her dad some pointers with his new iBook, H and K joined us a little while later, and we had a nice Christmas Eve dinner, complete with decorating Christmas cookies. Eventually, we all headed back to Prairie’s mom’s house to crash out.

Christmas morning rolled around, and Prairie and I joined her mom and sisters downstairs to open presents. My stocking was stuffed with socks and M&M’s, I got a good pile of new clothing (all black, save one shirt that’s black and grey), a few books, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Season One of Buffy (so I can eventually own them all). Lots more than I was expecting to end up with!

That afternoon, Prairie and I went driving around the Woodland area, heading down by the Columbia river, and then a little way up past where the Louis river joins the Columbia and up to a train trestle spanning the Louis. I was a good son and called my parents after we got home — this is the second Christmas I’ve been away from home for, though Prairie and I are discussing seeing if we can head up to Alaska for next Christmas. H’s boyfriend P showed up in time for Christmas dinner, and later on I did my best at playing photographer for the traditional Christmas family photos.

Monday was another day of resting and lazing around. Lunch with P and H over at Prairie’s dad’s house, and then packing up and heading back north to Seattle.

As usual, I’ve got a selection of photos posted to Flickr (61 of the 200-some I took over the course of the weekend). Now I’m back at work, and Prairie’s doing her best to fend off a cold before the New Year’s weekend rolls around. Life returns to normal…for a few days at least.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Fröliche Weinachten, Merry Solstice…whatever works in your particular instance, have a good holiday weekend.

I’m off shortly to take the train down to Woodland to spend the weekend with Prairie and her family. I’ll be back sometime Monday evening.

Try not to burn the place down while I’m gone. :)

“Frosty the Snowman” by Cocteau Twins from the album A Very Rare Christmas