Snow, Thanksgiving, Work, Christmas Trees

Snow: We did get stuck at home for one day, which turned out to be lovely. I was able to get some work done at a tea shop, and although the roads were frozen solid,
it was a clear day with blue skies and snowy mountains visible:


The next day the roads cleared out enough for me to get to work with a little extra walking, and for us to make our drive to Eugene.

Thanksgiving: It took 8 hours to get there, mostly due to traffic, but we made it to Eugene. We had a nice time visiting with friends, and a nice Thanksgiving with my family:
There really is a family resemblance, isn't there?

Work: Is basically the same as ever, though I'm simplifying my thoughts about my work environment a bit. What it boils down to, I think, is that I work with fairly passive, conflict-avoidant people, in an environment that is not very welcoming and warm. That's really the extent of it, and I think some people can be quite comfortable in that environment, but I don't fit in well, bottom line. I'm working on finding another position for when my current job ends, and I think I may have some good leads.

On the positive side I like the patients I work with. I am continually meeting new and interesting people with new and interesting situations, but amazingly, additions to my list of activities to avoid has petered out a bit. As it turns out, people do the same stupid things over and over again, and it seems there are only so many stupid things people can come up with to do.

A few seasonally related additions to the list, that are less about stupidity and more about unfortunate mishaps:
26. Be very, very careful cleaning your gutters.
27. Keep children away from the hot glass on fireplaces.
28. Do not serve hot cup-o-noodles to children, or leave them within reach.
I expect something related to christmas light hanging to show up soon.

Christmas trees: I'm deciding that my previous thoughts about Seattle are not applicable to the whole city, possibly just certain subgroups (see above). During the snowstorm I talked with some very nice people as we were all just trying to get home, and a few weeks ago I asked for directions on my bike, and another bike commuter went so far as to escort me to my route instead of just telling me directions. The holidays have also highlighted the cheerier side of the city. We bought a tree from a charity group that has a tree lot near our house, and I was struck by how friendly everyone was, both the people working and the tree-purchasers. A teenage boy helped us choose this lovely tree, that ended up being a perfect fit:

I'm feeling the holiday cheer :)

Cats and snow

Last week my sister and her partner flew in from Norway, and stayed with us for a while before heading down to Eugene (where they will be until just after christmas). We had a nice visit, but it seems that our cats were not too happy about having house guests. First, some background:

Our dear fat gray cat has always had some behavior problems-- her whole life she has thought that rugs and floor mats are a lot of fun to poop on (I will be forever apologetic to Elaine, discoverer of the first little poo burrito, rolled up in the kitchen floor mat when we were roommates back in 2001). It has been a particular problem since our move into our new place, and I think maybe it has been related to territory wars and being terrorized by our little tortoise shell demon (who is incredibly sweet to us, but not so much to anyone else). Our division of labor currently has Jeff in charge of cleaning up after the cats, and Jeff has been in a constant battle with the poo problem, equipped with an arsenal to clean up the aftermath, but also trying to figure out some way to prevent our cat from "coloring outside the lines," as it were, in the first place. Somehow, this poo on the rug trick seems to be a sport to her-- no matter what we try we can't cure her completely of this, though the compulsion will disappear for months, even years, at a time, and only happens sporadically. The only thing that has been consistent is that she will show us exactly what she thinks of us going on vacation, the day we get back.

So, when our guests arrived, the break in routine seemed to upset the cats, and the poo wars came to a head. For the first time since an unfortunate series of events back in 2002 (so sorry to Veronica, my roommate at the time, who was caught in the crossfire), our cat peed in a non-designated area (our laundry basket). This was the final straw, and Jeff has taken a more aggressive approach to the problem. We now have litterboxes all over the house (we are up to three separate indoor approved-for-poo locations), and Jeff installed a cat door (not generally recommended in a rental, but we are desperate). Jeff also bought a new cat toy in his attempt to broker a treaty. For the past 24 hours, so far so good. But it's anyone's guess how long the cease-fire will last.

On another note, do you know what cats love? Snow! Today it snowed a little bit! It didn't stick, but I'm hoping that maybe we'll get some accumulation tomorrow. Not so much that we get stuck on top of our hill (we don't currently have tire chains that fit our car), but enough that we can enjoy the pretty winter weather. It is predicted to be a cold snowy winter here this year, and I'm really hoping that will come true-- snow is such a fun thing in places where it doesn't snow much.

Hallowversary

Today is the 8th anniversary of my first date with Jeff. We have our wedding anniversary in August, but we have our "hallowversary" on the last day of October. We always seem to celebrate with candy, pumpkins, and costumes for the occasion :)

Our first date started out as a "not a date," when we decided to go together to a group-costume themed graduate student halloween party. Since the party was to be held on the weekend after halloween, we decided we would spend the evening of halloween making our costume. It quickly progressed to an "is this a date?," when our costume idea failed, and we decided to just forget it and watch a movie instead (Top Gun; obviously Jeff's choice). It then turned into an actual date when Jeff pulled a very sly (not at all sly) arm-across-the-couch move when I got up to get the movie out of the VCR, and when I came back to the couch I had to decide whether to sit far, or sit close. I chose to sit close, and eight years later, here we are :)

One thing I really missed when I was in San Diego was a real fall season. I know that some people say that the northwest only has two seasons (summer and rain), but that's just not true; fall is very distinct here. I am very much enjoying watching the leaves drift off of the trees in our yard, and having the opportunity to start wearing scarves and woolly socks again. Of course, being in a larger city it's not quite as easy to get out to a local farm for harvest activities (pumpkin picking, apples, etc.), so I still miss that. And I wish I could partake in the long-standing tradition of attending the mushroom festival, but alas, there is nothing quite like it for the city-dwellers up here (at least not that I know of).

I guess I will have to be content with knitting, drinking tea, and making apple pie (which I haven't done yet this fall, but doesn't it sound good? I promise pie to anyone who comes and visits).

Fall

As disappointing as the summer weather was up here, I have to say that I have been very impressed by our fall. There has been a surprising amount of autumn sunshine, and it's been fairly beautiful. Which I am very glad for, because now I can feel okay about all the rain that is predicted starting today-- it will feel cozy and fall-like instead of just gray and bleak.

I'm still working on finding some balance with work, and I realized that I have been doing an unusually large amount of DVD-watching and video-game playing. I think I'm still a little exhausted by all the new-ness of being in this city and at this job, and when I come home, I want mindlessness.

I also think that Jeff and I are still rebounding from our year apart, and so we spend a lot of time just sitting together, watching tv shows and movies, playing super mario on the wii, and doing crosswords. I realized how much we are still enjoying just being near each other when this morning we met on the stairs, me going up, him coming down, and we stopped. We were both changing location so we could be nearer to each other, even though the activities we were doing were totally independent. It made me smile :)

Culture Shock

One thing I did not expect to experience after moving to Seattle was culture shock. Somehow I assumed that the Northwest is all sort of the same, and that coming to Seattle would be like coming home. In some respects that has been true, but in some respects, Eugene and San Diego are a lot more similar to each other than they are to Seattle.

Maybe it isn't all of Seattle, maybe it's just where I work, but there are some things that I am finding it difficult to adjust to. The first is that I get a sense that conformity is valued much more here than I'm used to. If I give an opinion that is less than perfectly in line with the opinion of the person I'm talking to, I feel like the response is to try to convince me that I'm missing something, with a sort of frantic attempt to get everyone to agree. And I'm not talking matters of life and death, I'm talking about matters of intellectual inquiry, personal preferences, and lunch. I see a lot less open disagreement and discussion here than I'm used to, and a lot more discomfort when disagreements occur. I have yet to encounter an agree-to-disagree situation-- instead, it seems like every disagreement is treated as a problem that needs solving.

A second issue is greater reliance on hierarchy. Of course there is hierarchy in any environment, and it is a matter of respect to defer to more experienced individuals. But here I find that I am frequently explicitly reminded of my rank in ways that I am not used to.

A third issue is that straightforwardness does not seem to be valued as much as I am used to. I was actually told, by one supervisor, that although a job description exists for my position, he does not really want to "publicize" it (e.g., provide it to me). Thus, while there are specific expectations for my job, I need to try to do the job without knowing what they are. The idea is to "promote flexibility." There have been times where I feel like I am a character in a Kafka novel.

A fourth, highly related issue is that from my perspective, the way people talk about/perceive themselves here, and what they actually do, are not always well correlated. People talk about being relaxed, laid back, flexible, etc., but from my perspective people are a lot more intense here. As an example, one of my supervisors said that I really should let them know if I'm unable to fit all my responsibilities into the M-F, 8-6 (lunch break is rare, only if there's time) 40-hour week. Where I come from, 8:30-5 (with a 30-minute lunch break each day if possible), is a 40-hour week. I know that it's not uncommon for people in our field to work longer hours, but I'm used to people who work long hours being fully aware of it. Here, I get the sense that people really do think that 8-6 is an 8-hour day.

I'm working on adjusting, but in many ways I don't want to adjust. I keep hoping I'm misperceiving something, and I'll find out it was all just a miscommunication. Seattle-ites and former Seattle-ites, am I missing something? Is it just me???