Funny of the Day

Like people who've just left the asylum, we decided to drive from Seattle to LA for the holidays instead of driving. We've got the kids all set up in the back with pillows, blankets, lap desks and DVD players. We've got snacks, scooters, and Christmas gifts. We're ready to roll.

It's an 18 hour drive which we've decided to split up over 3 days. We've prepared the kids for spending a long time in the car and they're on board with the idea. Or at least we thought.

Just an hour and a half into the first leg of the drive, Mopsy asks -- with all seriousness --

"Are we in LA yet?"

Not quite, kiddo. But almost.

Insult of the Day

So Mopsy is climbing over my legs the other day and says,

"Mom, your legs are itching me! The fur!"

FUR? My one-day-old leg stubble qualifies as FUR? I"ll be making a laser hair removal appointment in the morning.

Cheerios Overload

When I saw QB surrounded by a pile of the beloved breakfast Os the other day, I got a strange feeling of deja vu.

Then I found this old picture.

Some things never change. The kid loves his morning cereal.

Boots on the Ground

I'm back to writing for Patch again, but this time it's Mercer Island Patch. Same site, different coast.  (These new Patch sites seem to be popping up every day...)

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It was raining the night we arrived in Seattle in late August. We'd been back and forth between the Puget Sound area and our previous home in Westport, Conn., but this was the final leg of our extended relocation process. We had officially moved.

We'd been out to Mercer Island to visit and house hunt a few times over the summer. It had been sunny, sparkling, even hot. We spent more than one night longing for our high-powered east coast A/C system. What was all this brouhaha about the weather, we wondered? It seemed pretty fantastic to us.

It wasn't long after we left the Delta terminal that first night in August that we started feeling nervous about this monumental decision.

"Connecticut license plates!" the guy manning the airport parking toll booth called out as we pulled up. "Why did you move out here? It rains all the time and there's no good pro sports teams," he lamented, adding that he'd be moving back to Boston next year.

Okay, we thought. Not the warmest welcome. And it continued on.

"You moved here from the East Coast?" people would ask. "That's really hard. Enjoy the sun now. You won't see it again for eight months."

My husband's co-workers weren't all that encouraging either. One told him she couldn't muster the courage to visit relatives in Southern California or she feared she wouldn't be able to get herself on a plane back to Sea-Tac.

"Stock up on Vitamin D," a few people advised us in early September. And it wasn't until we were permanent Island residents that we heard the inside joke that summer doesn't start until July 5. It reminds me of the childbirth phenomenon: people who've gone before you don't want to tell you what it's really like until it's too late to back out.

All the doom and gloom made us feel, well, a bit gloomy. Was it just Seattle's snarky underbelly we were beginning to see? Could there be some tacit understanding around here among residents to manage newcomers' expectations so that if we got, say, a partly sunny day in November, it would be a delightful and unexpected bonus?

In the midst of all this, I remembered some friends of friends who moved to the area. They loved it here, and still do: the lakes, the creativity, the people – even the weather. But instead of broadcasting all the positives about living in this corner of the Pacific Northwest, they kept it on the DL, not minding that other people primarily associate Seattle with rain, and lots of it.

"We don't want everyone to realize how great Seattle is and move here," they said, by way of explanation.  

I'm going to just assume that's what all these little comments have been about: that this area is a bit of an undiscovered treasure, known to a relatively small group who'd like it to stay that way. It's Seattleites' way of watching each other's backs.

So the grumbling: it's actually a good thing.

At least, that's what I'm hoping.