This has been one of the best holiday seasons I can remember in a long time. Not for the extravagance or excessiveness the pressure of the season inevitably brings every year or woeful depression from missing the ones you love - but in fact from the simplicity we have enjoyed over the last few weeks. We put up no decorations, bought no presents to be unwrapped and sent no cards to anyone. In fact, it was as normal and average a period of time as anyone could experience any other time of the year. It was wonderful!  There was no disappointment from giving or getting the wrong thing, no fighting the crowds to get "something" to give to people because you owed them for giving you something earlier. We just enjoyed each other's company and did our usual Chinese food and a movie tradition that we've been doing for the last 20 years or so. We made the usual phone calls to family, wished them a Merry Christmas (no, not happy holidays - Merry Christmas for Christ's sake!) and listened to how their "special day" was going off or not going off as planned. 

What a freeing experience this year has been. I'm sure this is what our future holidays will look like for a while. You should try it some it some time!

I can't wait until New Years Eve, we have four invitations to parties, but we're going to stay home, watch the ball drop in NY at 9pm and probably end up in bed by 10pm!  YES!! I can't wait.  Honestly we're staying home because we don't want to offend any of our friends who were kind enough to invite us this year by going to someone else's party instead of theirs. So we'll just stay home and act our age. or at least pretend to be respectable.

I've been in the Seattle area for nearly 18 years and have been forever frustrated at the lack of rail service and what little there is here is run like a Brio train set. The monorail can't go 2.5 miles without getting stuck and forcing riders down rescue ladders. The Sound Transit system is over budget - A LOT - and still doesn't provide service from the eastside to the city. Even the service it has doesn't go all the way to the airport (yet) and the new south lake union system has been in service for a week and they've had a train/car collision already. Know why? wait for it.... the train ran a red light! The train operators were doing test runs for the last two weeks practicing maneuvering the trains in downtown traffic, and now with their first week in service they can't even stop and go safely. Lame!  I mean how hard could it be? It's not like you need to parallel park these things, they're on rails! All you need to do is stop and go.  Perhaps if they were computer controlled they'd be more reliable. But don't get ahead of yourself just yet. Metro's new and improved downtown bus tunnel that underwent a two year renovation and recently reopened is shut down for the second time in as many weeks because the computers that control the bus traffic and ventilation system decided to take dirt nap.

I grew up in the Boston area where mass transit and rail service ran in a myriad of varieties from local subways to commuter rails to AmTrack running up and down the eastern seaboard. They've been running rail service on the east coast for 100 years and it's as natural as winter snow, where the roads don't close back east unless the forecast calls for 6 inches of snow or more unlike the panic that ensues here when a dusting happens and the road crews wont even apply salt cause its bad for the environment. But I digress, snow is a whole another blog entry ;-)

The Emerald City certainly is the land of happy shiny people where it's more important to pump up self esteem and feel goodness than doing the right things that really matters. Don't get me wrong, I love living out here and wouldn't move back east for anything, but this area could learn a lot from the very effective mass transit solutions that Megalopolis enjoys.

And don't be afraid to be strong offend people once in while, they'll get over it.

Mike came by for latkes last night for Hanukah. It was weird, we were waiting for him to come through the garage door as he normally does to greet us and the dog, instead he parked in the driveway and knocked on the front door?!  It's just weird not having him in the house everyday...

So besides the incredibly bad weather we've been having this weekend, today marked a life milestone for us, Michael (finally) moved out into a place of his own, well a room of his own. He's renting a room in a house in Seattle with a friend he used to work with.  Mike, his friend Blake and Michelle and I helped him pack up his belongings into a U-Haul truck in the pouring rain and followed him to his new home and helped him unload into it. I'm sure it will be a few days until he gets himself organized, but he is on his own now. It's going to be quieter, and I'm sure cleaner, around the house now. Piles of shoes, clothes, books and general junk will be much reduced.  So now Michelle and I are learning to be alone again. Mostly alone, there's still IM and I'm sure Mike will be around to collect things he didn't take with him, or to do laundry or share a meal with us. but pretty much this is the beginning on the next chapter in our life, two again for the rest of days.  I hope Michelle can handle me.

and as if on queue this morning, December 1st, I was up early (around 5am) to see the first few snow flakes of the winter season. It feels a lot colder this year then last, reminds me of that poem with the line about "...settling down for a long winter's nap".  I hope this isn't a sign of the season to come, the next few months are going to be loooong waiting for warmer riding weather to return with longer days.