The winter solstice is definitely noteworthy in the Pacific Northwest. It marks the beginning of days getting longer. This doesn’t always translate into more light due to the often heavy cloud cover, but you know it is happening. So almost a day late. But around the winter solstice if you work your normal day you will not see the sun (maybe at lunch). This morning – Sunrise at 7:55 AM, Sunset at 4:22 PM.

Celebrate, celebrate, dance and twirl, sing out your songs and rejoice.

Even though the calendar still says short days, today is going to be one of my longest. Up at 4 AM so I could drop off a co-worker (the carpooler) at the airport this early AM. And then Rey arrives at same said airport sometime around midnight tonight.

We were shopping today in our favorite free-trade store (no hints) today. Carl looked up and a woman was staring at him. He said, “Hello.” And she said, “Are you famous?” He answered if you had seen his face on a big screen it was most likely at Safeco Field. (clip #1) (clip #2 – oops, haven’t been able to locate) I helped out by adding it was more likely he was infamous.

It turns out she thought he was Norm Dicks, a state politician. I suppose it is good for politicians to be seen at fair trade stores. He mentioned this event while we were checking out, without telling them who the woman had thought he was. The checker said, “Oh, yeah – you look just like Philip Seymour Hoffman.” What do you think?

Representative Norm Dicks, D-WA

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Carl 2009

I would say that was the theme of the Seattle Women’s Chorus show Making Spirits Bright. Specifically songs titled, Rosa Sat by Amy Dixon-Kollar, The Christians and the Pagans by Dar Williams, and Thankful by Carole Bayer Sager, David Foster & Richard Page. Rosa Sat and The Christians and the Pagans are pretty much listen to the words to figure out the tolerance theme. But with Thankful they started by having a couple, together for 32 years, that had been featured in ads for Referendum 71 this last election, briefly address the crowd on the importance of our “everything but marriage” law for domestic partners that was kept on the books by the voters.

But it goes beyond that. It seems the nation has been “Jerry Springered” and often finds it unnecessary to use decorum and civility with each other. I thought the shouting that goes on in so many meetings stops any discussions that might happen before they can get going. Nobody says we all have to agree, but we do need to get along. No red states and blue states. We are all shades of purple.

First, an update on 2 of the gingerbread houses.

Decoration of a Gingerbread House

It is the last weekend before Christmas. So – all those that have been waiting to go out and join the crowds – now is the time. We plan to do a little joining today, but basically we are feeling on good ground. Our need to get done bit is cleaning the house for a FULL HOUSE. Between Tuesday and Wednesday all will arrive home, and that is the exciting bit for us this Christmas.

Rey’s Montana Grizzlies played in the championship game for NCAA 1A division last night. In Chattanooga, Tennessee. Since it was relatively close, Rey went. He got to sit in the cold rain and unfortunately Villanova was the better team this time. But I think he had good time anyway, meeting some other Montana Alumni. He thought that other than the family from Atlanta, he had the shortest distance to travel. On his travel back he found that snow was falling at his place. Apparently the last 20 miles were snowing, the last 4 with fresh inches on the road. But he made it safely, which is the most important thing. His winter driving skills are being honed.

So – time to decorate, clean, walk and shop a little.

Kids village ready for decoration

And from the night before.

The house is starting to take on that holiday look.
We have been to one Christmas show, the Green Lake Luminaria, the Jingle Bell Dash, Candy Cane Lane (me once, Carl thrice), and done some shopping. But for all that the you would not have known the season by looking at the house.

But now the Christmas tree has been moved into the living room, lights finally added, and I think decorations may be going up today. I think the kids may be doing some decorating since they really wanted the lights on the tree. Christmas cards to go on high shortly and the manger scene, etc should follow. Now all we need is the rest of the family to arrive.  Oh, and there were some of those Stickees on the window as well.

When we bought our Prius 5 years ago it was the fanciest car we had ever owned. It has keys that you don’t even need to take out of your pocket to open, get into and drive the car. I have fully adopted this trait. But you don’t have to keep it in your pocket. You can put it anywhere in the front area of the car, and there is even a slot to put it in if you want to.

Because of the proximity feature, we wondered early on if it was possible to lock your keys in the car. But we never formulated an experiment to try and accomplish this goal.

This morning when I went to the car it was unlocked. That happens now and again, somebody forgets to lock the car. When I got to work I got ready to get out of the car, and after opening the door I hit the “lock” button inside the car. That way I don’t have to fish around in my pocket to find the key and hit the “lock” spot. 
But when I closed the door there was a distinctive “unlock” two beeps. So I reached in and hit the lock spot on the key.

When I left work this evening the proximity function was not working. I could not just walk up and be greeted by an openning door. So I hit the unlock spot on the key and it opened up for me. After arriving home and once again locking the car from the inside button the car “unlocked” when I shut the door.

Carl left later that evening and could not find the 2nd key. So he took my keys and left. Much later he called to say he found the 2nd key in the lower cup holder. This solved our initial question. Can you lock the key in the car? Yes, but only if you have another key.

This morning was the BIG race. The Jingle Bell Run. Big as in lots of people. It was actually a very relaxed race as they go. Up early and trying to decide how many layers to put on. I ended up with 5, but 4 for the actual “running.” In the 30’s and no precipitation. For the record I started off running, and finished running. The parts in between, more running than not. Maybe I will actually train for one of these so I can look relaxed and ready to go even further.

The Jingle Bell Runs around the country raise money for the Arthritis Foundation. To honor my Mother-in-Law I wore a Christmas sweater she made several years ago.  It was one-of-a-kind, and fit the theme perfectly.

Jay, Asea, Devany & John

The start was uphill, for several blocks. I did not do any warmup or stretching ahead of time either. (Although we did go with the wave that left 15 minutes before we had originally planned, so that will be my excuse.) I went quite a ways up the hill, but then decided I really needed to not burn out on the first bit, and walk/stretched for a bit, ran for a bit, walked a bit, and then jogged. That is until the 2 lane part of the tunnel, where I could walk as fast as anyone else was moving.

The next part I jogged, and the game of deciding where to run kept me occupied. Moving around walkers and slower?!? runners, deciding on whether to stay on the main pavement (most crowded) the flat shoulder (with a few hubcaps) or in the ditchline (with who knows what). After quite a while I decided to walk for a bit again, and then got into a 100 strides (counting both feet as 1 stride) running and then 50 walking. This seemed to serve me pretty well, and I could have gone longer on the running each time, but rules are rules. There was a block long steep up-hill near the end, just before the 4 block downhill to the finish line. Luckily my 50/100 put me into the walk phase about 1/3 of the way up the hill. And of course, I had to run the last bit. I knew Carl would be along that stretch and had to put on a good show.

Jay's first finish in about 20 years

Now, finally putting together the futon. I think you get what you pay for, and I did not pay too much for this frame. Both of the end pieces say “inside left” on the sticker. Only one of them is correct. Guess which one I chose first. And partway through I found a design flaw. Which I decided to ignore as it was not a fatal flaw. Of course when it was time to put the long pieces (actually 2 short pieces bolted together – hence the smaller than expected box referenced a week or so ago) onto the frame, the incorrect “inside left” made itself known. It was about a 1/2-hour error. Here is the finished product.

The Frame (#2 try)

Trying it on for size

Carl helped a bit on the frame and really helped hefting the futon onto the frame.

I do. For many years we used dial-up, when everyone else was moving to DSL, Broadband, whatever was faster. It was fast at work, so I would do tricky things there, after work, of course. But for the last year we have been connecting to our neighbor’s fast connection. With permission, paying for a bit of it. This was after we bought a laptop that had a wireless card that made it easy.

It, the neighbor’s wi-fi, was not there last night, or this morning. So I unplugged the phone and found the phone plug-in on the computer and was off and running. It is slower, no question, but not as slow as I remember. Then, again, I have been getting lots of little chores done this morning. Hit enter, go empty the recycling. Hit enter, take out the yard-waste. Hit enter, wrap a package. …

So – that is all for now. Will try to figure it out later. Am also remembering to check for voice mails on the home phone every now and again, since it is currently playing second fiddle to the computer.