Nothing Like the Sun

People in the Puget Sound area aren't accustomed to what others in the Northern U.S. would consider routine winter weather--i.e., temperatures that hover below freezing for weeks on end, snow that actually accumulates on the ground and stays there for more than a few hours, icy roadways. Longtime area residents tell me that they haven't seen this kind of weather since before their grown kids were born. And the city of Seattle in particular doesn't seem well-situated to cope with such conditions: much of Seattle proper is spread out over steep hills, and the city understandably lacks the snow- and ice-removal infrastructure of a predictably wintry Boston or Chicago.
( Inside the Emerald City Snow Globe )
( No Exit )
( Breaking the Bad News )

Meanwhile, I'm stranded here in this snow-globe of a city with the week off and no firm plans. For those of you who may be similarly situated, do you think you'd be up for a little "Stranded in Seattle" holiday get-together? Possibly with my homemade coquito (basically, Puerto Rican eggnog) on the menu? My place is small, but I might be able to put together something. Alternatively, I could bring a very large thermos of coquito to your holiday event ...

Also: I'm always up for trips to the movie theater (assuming they're open ...), might be into some sort outdoor winter activity ...

My brother-in-law Gil, a fiftysomething retired cop from the South Jersey suburbs, has never voted in a presidential election, before. Never. Not once.

He voted today. Not only that, but he's spending the day making get-out-the-vote calls for Obama.

I don't think that we're (metaphorically) in Thomas Frank's Kansas, anymore.

My brother-in-law emailed me these, today:

( Cut so as not to consume your entire Friends page )

My niece April, my oldest brother Victor (see icon), the latter's girlfriend Ziggy, and I met up in Collingswood on Thursday to have dinner at Casona, a Cuban place which had come very highly recommended.

( Dining Out, Entertaining Ourselves )

My niece April put me up during Christmas week at her townhouse in Mt. Laurel, which happens to be the town where I lived as a kid in the 'seventies.

Except that it's not.

( Where'd You Go? )

On Christmas Eve, the family got together as we usually do at my sister Carmen's McMansion in Voorhees, where per our customary practice gifts were exchanged at midnight.

I'm indebted to Carmen's daughter April, "my favorite niece" (we're only a few years apart, so more like siblings), for supplying me with gift suggestions for all of my relatives back there, since I live so far away and I have trouble keeping track of what people are in to and have.

( Potlatch )

I wish that I could include pictures of the event and the ensuing sea of torn paper, but my camera died on the eve of this trip. So I'll have to wait for my relatives to email them to me, then maybe I'll make a separate post.

Monday will mark the second year in a row I've had to forego a trip home to visit la familia during Christmas week.

I've been kind of bumming about not getting to see the relatives, but at least it's thrown me back on my own resources: I just don't feel like it's navidad unless there's coquito around, and being deprived of another source obliges me to whip up my own.

I actually just put this year's first batch in the fridge--it's pretty exciting, if I do say so myself: thick, with just a patina of cinnamon and nutmeg, faintly sweet, and enough rum to make you weave like Captain Jack Sparrow.

Once the elixir has cooled, I'll transfer it to a thermos to get it ready for the trip to sleepwhenimdead and sarrabellum's, tomorrow afternoon. At which point, I trust that much silliness will ensue ...

After thirteen hours in transit, entailing the usual round of delays and security hassles, I arrived at Philadelphia International Airport just before midnight that Saturday, dog-tired, with another two hours to go before I would be able to put my head to a pillow. Heaving my one checked bag from the luggage carousel, I slogged out of the air conditioned terminal into the twenty-four-hour outdoor sauna of a Deleware Valley August. The temperature was eighty degrees in the middle of the night, without even a hint of a breeze, the air heavy, immersive. My body took awhile to adjust, but the feeling was distantly familiar, not altogether unwelcome.

Forty tedious minutes later, I was behind the wheel of a car for the first time in a year and a half, following unfamiliar MapQuest directions deep into the South Jersey suburbs, from interstate to state highway to a succession of half-remembered lesser roads. Equally depressing strip malls, dimly-lit subdivisions, opaque summer fields slid by. I pulled up outside my Carmen's place at about 2:00 A.M. There were no stars, no streetlights, just one bulb in the yard, casting its yellowy circle of light against my sister's white McMansion, making me think of the foreground of Magritte’s “Empire of Light.”

Anticipating my late arrival, Carmen had left a key under the doormat for me. I slipped off my shoes and crept inside as quietly as I could manage, depositing my luggage in the upstairs guest room. Before succumbing to unconsciousness, I left Carmen a note on the kitchen counter, warning that I might sleep in a little. At around 2:30, I fell gratefully into the guest bed, pulling the sheets over my head.

I woke at around 10:00 AM, not nearly late enough, and sank down the stairs to find Carmen and my brother-in-law Gil sitting in the kitchen, having coffee. Carmen and I exchanged groggy hugs, Gil and I shook hands. I responded to polite questions about how my trip went.

And then we got down to talking about what we would be doing for the next two days.

We were going to bury my mom. And we were going to navigate the awkward reunion two groups of people who had neither seen nor wanted to see one another in over thirty years.

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( Thread )

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( Rope )

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( Knot" )

I just had the disconcerting experience of learning that a "state of emergency" had been declared in the county where I grew up in NJ: there'd been heavy rainfall overnight, dams had apparently "ruptured," there were neighborhoods under multiple feet of water, evacuations--pretty alarming stuff, in short.

Fortunately, a few quick phone calls seem to indicate that my family are all OK--everyone I know seems to live on relatively high ground, & no one has had to evacuate. Still, it was weird seeing the words "state of emergency" alongside "Burlington County" ... I mean, nothing ever happens there!