WYFP (which stands for "What's Your Fucking Problem?") is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
Hello fellow Kossacks! Are you still near-comatose from the feeding frenzy? I hope that you've managed to finish off those Turkey Day leftovers. How was spending the day with the relatives? Any fun arguments? Well, now's the time to get all off your chest. Follow me below the fold and I will tell you about my week...
So, my daughter came down for the weekend from Port Angeles where she attends college. She was only supposed to stay for two days. But Mother Nature had other plans.
Monday morning we awoke to snow. It consisted of small flakes and wasn't coming down hard so we opened the blinds and enjoyed it. Until around 2:30 when the flakes got bigger and began to come down faster. Then the wind picked up. I decided to call my husband at work and advise him of this as he works across the Sound in Seattle and would need to get to the ferry ASAP. Well, he missed the next boat and caught the following one. But by then it was too late.
Settling in to watch Countdown, my daughter and I kept watching the snow get whipped around by the wind and crossed our fingers. Murphy won. Five minutes into the show, our power went out. Resignedly, we brought out the oil lamps and stoked the fire in the woodstove. We have a generator but I can't start it so it would have to wait for Hubby to arrive. Which I thought would be about 5:00. When he hadn't come home by 6:00 I started to get worried and called his cell phone. He was, of course, out of range. Now in full worry mode, I hoped that he'd notice the missed call and return it. Nope. It was now 7:00 and I was getting panicky (though I hid it so as not to freak out the girl). I tried his cell again and he finally picked up. He was holed-up at a friend's house in Bremerton. "You couldn't call?" He did call but it never rang. Well, duh. No power, handset no workie. So I plugged in the old Mickey Mouse phone and turned on the ringer. He said he'd try again to get home... 40 minutes later he called again. There were trees down on our road at the north end. He'd have to go down to Belfair and come back the other way.
It was 9:30 when he finally came in the door. He'd left work at 3:30. Thanks to snowy roads, falling trees and people whose brains stop working when it snows it had taken him 6 hours to get home. He was one of the lucky ones.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/...
At least, once he made it home we could have some power from the generator, right? Um... not right away. Even though it had been tested mere weeks before, it decided that it didn't want to start when it was really needed. It took awhile but eventually he did get it going and we had some lights and music (thanks to an MP3 player and tiny speakers). And thanks to the woodstove and a fresh supply of compressed logs, we were warm. Good thing, too, because temperatures got down to the teens on Monday and Tuesday nights.
This storm was expected... to a point. We knew there would be snow but the wind was the new and improved version. This sort of weather this early in the season is not entirely unknown - we've had nasty November storms before - but the severity seems to be worse every time. We are told that this is a La Nina year (and a more severe one than normal) but things appear to be more out of whack than normal. Gee. I wonder if climate change could have anything to do with it - global weirding, anyone?
Oh, did I mention the tree that fell across the road on Monday night about 50 feet north of our house?
It closed the road for three days but, thanks to some enterprising folks, it wasn't a big problem:
The tree, of course, had taken the power line down. So on top of whatever first took the power out, this only added to the problem.
We went without power (and cable) from Monday until early Thanksgiving afternoon. We were able to make some dishes in advance thanks to the generator but were resigned to cooking the turkey on the grill. Thank goodness we didn't have to do THAT! So, Turkey Day was saved and there was much rejoicing - yay.
Here are some videos that will make you glad you didn't live (and drive) in Seattle and environs this past week (I won't embed so as to not slow down the page so much):
Slip-Sliding Away
More sliding cars
Destruction
More destruction
--------------------------------------------------------
So what's YFP tonight?