Happy New Year!!!

Hope everyone had a fun, festive, New Year celebration - Jaime and Craig and I headed out to the High Dive to see one of my favorite bands - the Radio Nationals - play. A dinner of sliders, tater tots and mini corn dogs along with 3 or 4 cups of Mac & Jacks plus a loud, ruckus, rock&roll/alternative country band made for a fun night.

Until about 10:30 when they finished their set...

Let me preface the night - You see, on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I woke up to a HUGE pain in my stomach - I'm pretty sure I got food poisoning from something...I spent a couple of hours dealing with that, and then got up for work in the morning. So I wasn't exactly feeling tip top.

Back to New Years Eve - So we stayed for Radio Nationals, then decided to bail, since neither Jaime nor I were really feeling all that into it. I'm sure the Dusty 45s are a fun band. But we didn't stick around to find out. On the plus side, Craig and I were the first two people in line at the Hot Dog cart, which did not disappoint. Thank god my appetite was back!

We headed home, bid Craig farewell, and promptly sat down on the couch and turned on the news. Jaime was kind enough to wake me from an impromptu slumber at 11:55, we watched the fireworks go off (was John Curley on meth?) and promptly went to bed. Does this make us lame? I say not - remember, I was recovering from my sickness, ok? We're not lame! Hope everyone has a happy and prosperous 2009. Here's to the future!

Do I really look that bad?

During these snowy days, I have often been stuck at home. In order to stay active and not go nuts, I have been taking long walks in the snow, stopping at the grocery store or the post office to complete some errands.

Yesterday, I took a reusable Whole Foods bag full of clothes for the dry cleaners with me on my walk. I dropped them off at the dry cleaners on 35th, then continued North on 35th until Morgan, where I was going to go left and go to the Thriftway. When I was approaching Morgan, an older lady stopped me and said "The food bank is closed today honey." As if that was the place I was heading to. Now I know I was carrying an empty shopping bag, wearing running pants underneath my baggy jeans and ugly shoes, as well as a beanie underneath my hoodie, but I didn't realize I looked that bad...

So as I was contemplating my outfit, I turned left onto Morgan (a road supposedly closed to through traffic) and spent 45 minutes trying to push cars out of the way and direct traffic around stalled vehicles. Suddenly, as I was covered in snow, I realized that yesterday was not a day to worry about my appearance.

A Foot...

We have officially (at least according to our ruler in the snow method) accumulated over a foot of snow here in West Seattle, and it's STILL SNOWING!!! I've got a bunch of pictures from the annual Graves Family Christmas party to upload, and I should have time for that tomorrow. I also have a bunch more pictures of the snow from today. This weather is simply insane!

Wow!

(thanks to my co-worker Kim Menhorn for the pic)

So two buses just crashed nearly onto I-5 near my building - we have a clear view of what's going on - apparently they didn't make the corner in the ice, and one is hanging about 10 feet over the wall, and the other just a little bit -

5.25 inches of snow and still snowing!!!

Alright, so any snow in W. Seattle causes a lot of craziness. We are now over 5 inches of snow and they think its going to keep going for a few more hours... Enjoy the pictures and send good vibes Geoff's way in hopes that he makes it home this evening.


Carter and Dan's Palm trees, covered in snow.

Our new car - in the freezing snow

This is from two hours ago, at 4 inches at that time.

Geoff Makes it to Work

Well, as of 10am, I am at Nordstrom and working...it's nuts out there...stay safe...Jaime's at home and hopefully I'll be able to make it home tonight - only took 3 hours and two failed bus attempts to get here!

December Snow...

**7:00 Update - Here's the video from a neighbor of the Corolla getting tagged by the tow truck -

**3:30 Update - Here's a link to all my pictures. So Jaime and I have been out and about taking in all the madness of people trying to drive on the ice. We also discovered this morning that a tow truck slid into the Corolla where it was parked - d'oh! So now it's on its way to a body shop to get fixed up all purdy and new! Thistle street near our place is a complete sheet of ice! Cars sliding, buses stuck, craziness!



So, it snowed last night...
I don't know what it's like over the rest of the Puget Sound, but apparently West Seattle was one of the harder hit areas (especially our area). Of course, Jaime and I didn't know this when we left a Christmas party last night around 10. It was snowing lightly in Wallingford - we headed out through downtown where it was wet, but not sticking, got over the West Seattle Bridge and the situation changed. As we made our way down 35th back toward home, it got worse and worse. We made it all the way to Thistle St, where I made a driving in the snow mistake, and tried to turn on to Thistle a little too quickly. I turned the wheel, hit the brakes, and nothing happened. Jaime and I slid into and up onto the curb, hit a dry spot, and the car came to a stop. "Oh, sh*t" Fortunately at this point the only damage is one flat tire. I'll probably have to get it alligned after getting the tired fixed as well, but the wheels are both pointing in the same direction, so hopefully no bent tie rods. The other fortunate thing was that we were only six blocks from home, so we grabbed our stuff, locked the car, and trudged home in the falling snow. Enjoy some pictures from last night/this morning!