seasonality

summer came early to magnolia this year.

the weather took a turn for the blissful, and the farmers market opened ahead of tradition.

these are both very good things.

it's never too soon to be able to throw on shorts and a t-shirt and go outside without risking hypothermia. in seattle, that day is usually july 5th. this is more of a problem with each passing year, as the desire to be warm increasingly becomes a biological imperative.

the farmers market is part of our summer routine. we walk to the village, attend to an errand or two, pick up coffee at the bakery, then make our way through this week's vendors.

there's a seafood stand this year. another offers fresh soups. smoked salmon, northwest chowder, and a thick slice of foccacia make a pretty good (and easy) dinner. an excellent glass (or three) of blue sky pinot noir doesn't hurt one bit.

some things you do out of habit, some out of a sense of order. some you go back to after a few months because they're timeless and comforting. we need these things to counter the uncertain and the unknown, which are always in abundance.

seasons change, people come and go. the farmers market endures.

thalassic haunts

i dreamed about swimming with sharks last night.

unlike swimming in a cage off oahu, this was kinda scary.

i have no idea what it means, but the feeling in the dream was that an attack was imminent.

i woke up before it happened.

in the cage, you could see treble fishhooks trailing from various shark appendages. this was an interesting detail to notice, given that rows of shark teeth were within easy reach. in the dream, the details weren't as obvious, but the sense of danger was far more heightened.

go figure.

no, really. what does it mean? or do dreams mean anything? are they just artifacts of a late dinner and a little extra fatigue? or is something more going on?

i have no idea. all i know is, i woke up a little shaken, and it took awhile to fall back to sleep.

meanwhile, i'm having a hard time influencing events swirling around me. i'm not used to this, even though i realize, deep down, that "control" is an illusion.

wait...now i get it.

nevermind.

bear with us

Search for bear in Magnolia moves to Ballard

poor thing. he's probably hungry. and cranky.

if only he'd come by the spaceneedl residence. he'd have found not one but two little dogs, just the right size for late-night snacking.

coincidently, one of them is named 'bere'.

bon appétit, bear. bon voyage, bere.

rubbed wrong

i got a massage yesterday.

that's the good news.

the downside was the discovery that my body is sore from the base of my skull to the top of my feet. everywhere i was poked and prodded, it was another revelation.

ankles, check. calves, ow. quadriceps? yee-ouch. neck, and the thrumming wires running up from the middle of my back? can i get some morphine and a towel to chew on?

the weird thing is, i wasn't even aware of all this lurking aggravation until it was pointedly brought to my attention. how does that work? i realize i'm getting old, but that can't be the only explanation.

i'm diligently trying to formulate some kind of diagnosis, sitting here at my computer, in between meetings and e-mails and phone calls and not moving around for hours at a time. yes, as a matter of fact, i can say 'deep vein thrombosis'.

according to the national institute of health...

Muscle pain is most frequently related to tension, overuse, or muscle injury from exercise or physically demanding work. In these situations, the pain tends to involve specific muscles and starts during or just after the activity. It is usually obvious which activity is causing the pain.

nowhere in the article does it day anything about pain you aren't even aware of. maybe i need a different online resource for that? something like 'the journal of modern psychosis' perhaps?

but back to that nih muscle pain thing...

The most common causes are:
• Injury or trauma including sprains and strains
• Overuse: using a muscle too much, too soon, too often
• Tension or stress

tension or stress? i got both of those, in buckets. i mean, it's not fighting-for-your-life-in-baghdad tension or stress, but it ain't your garden variety, "which mercedes should i drive to work today?" angst, either.

what's the nih say about clinical inertia alternating with paralytic dread? what causes that comorbidity? on that they're less helpful. i bet ibuprophen isn't part of that protocol.

Prevention

• Warm up before exercising and cool down afterward.
• Stretch before and after exercising.
• Drink lots of fluids before, during, and after exercise.
• If you work in the same position most of the day (like sitting at a computer), stretch at least every hour.

that's helpful. thanks, fellas.

acupuncture? rolfing? watching the mariners blow another game?

no more massage. sometimes the affliction is preferable to the cure.

weird is the new normal

what do you do when your biomechanics are out of alignment?

when your aura's the wrong color and your chakras are inverted and your polarity is reversed and your antennae are jammed and your digital reverts to analog. what do you do?

this is not an idle question. someone here needs to know, rapidamente, and i think that someone is me.

look, i'm all about solving my own problems. i don't want to burden anyone, so i've been making a good-faith effort for years. but it's occured to me recently that maybe i'm not very good at it. let's take a look at some of the many and various endeavors...

good beer and wine: you betcha. as the years have gone by and the household income has improved, so has the quality and the quantity of the beer and wine. these days, however, the beer just fills me up. and the wine makes me sleepy (the upside, of course, is that the good wine pairs very well with food. and it's heart-healthy. which means you can eat more good food.)

in an attempt to realign, however, i've stopped drinking during the week. i try to make up for it on the weekends.

food: yes. and by that i mean, 'yes, please.' here, too, i try to do 'the right thing.' seafood, poultry, no red meat (no other-white-meat, either). lots of fresh produce. and breakfast.

then i found out about mercury in seafood. and the depletion of the world's fisheries. and "farm-raised" fish. and industrial poultry production. not to mention a very disturbing video featuring a very disturbed politician.

then there's the botulism and salmonella and pestilence and plague in our produce and everything containing peanut butter.

i may stop eating altogether.

exercise: i've spent thousands of dollars on gym memberships, and countless hours in various states of cardiovascular acceleration. basketball, weights, running, and a bunch of other active activities. which collectively resulted in many chiropractor visits costing even more money.

if anything, i'm more misaligned than when i started. which reminds me of a priceless bit of rhetoric: at the end of your life, your heart will have beaten a finite, quantifiable number of times. do you really want to use up those heartbeats exercising? especially when you could be having...

sex in unusual venues: what? why are you looking at me like that? stop it.

the takeaway here is that it's possible none of these responses will have the transformative effect your metaphysical biomechanics require. and that sometimes, despite your best efforts and intentions, things still go sideways. and you're left standing there with your brow furrowed and your mouth agape, the perfect spokes-dupe for discombobulation.

what then?

near as i can tell, at that point, you have choices. you can stand there wallowing in karmic confusion and let the rain fall into your open mouth. you can slink away muttering about the uncaring unfairness of the universe and the utter cluelessness of miss california.

or you can give yourself over to the timeless, unchanging fundamental that weird is the new normal...and then sigh deeply, smile an ironic smile and get on with your life.

have you been there? are you there now? what did you do about it? and how'd that work out for you? any reasonable suggestions, and oh-what-the-hell, any unreasonable ones, are welcome.

apres-dark

well it kind of hurts
when the kind of words you write
kind of turn
themselves into knives
and don't mind my nerve
you could call it fiction
but i like being submerged
in your contradictions dear
'cause here we are
here we are

--jason mraz

sometimes a book transitions seamlessly from one chapter to the next, with the reader in breathless pursuit.

what happens next? the writer teases.

i don't know, the reader complicitly purrs, but let's find out.

sometimes that's how it works...

* * * * *

by definition, an epiphany is an exciting, wondrous event. you have a moment of clarity and suddenly the pieces of thoughts and ideas and details snap into place and your eyes light up and you say, "wow. this is amazing. everyone, guess what...!"

other times the same sequence produces an entirely different result. the pieces coming together feels like the cold precision of vault doors closing, one after another, in unblinking synchrony. and while you're still left thinking, "of course, it makes perfect sense..." your eyes don't light up and you want to share it with no one. not even yourself.

sometimes that's how that works...

* * * * *

have you ever noticed, at times of unusual stress, that you don't think as clearly as you should? your peripheral vision constricts down to what's immediately in front of your eyeballs, like you're looking through a funnel.

that's when you notice you're not breathing properly, and a deep breath is one that makes it to the top of your lungs, if you remember to breathe at all.

that happens sometimes, too.

* * * * *

fun fact about paranoia: everything -- no matter how innocuous or contradictory or completely unrelated -- confirms your worst fears. corrolary: bad things happen to paranoid people, too, you know.

* * * * *

i don't like drama. it's exhausting. it sucks down time and energy like a black hole. or a black aura.

but sometimes it happens.

veni, vidi, viva...

how'd you like to be a cop in las vegas?

no, this isn't a recruiting post.

there are surely more thankless jobs in the world, but none immediately leap to mind.

outside a militarized mosh pit, where can you find more orchestrated chaos, invited debauchery, promoted drunkenness, and testosterone-propelled knuckle-headedness?

las vegas caters to masses of pent-up people eager to cross lines they might never cross at home. that's what the old "what happens in vegas stays in vegas" campaign told them they could do, anyway. and las vegas's finest are asked to referee this hilarity without antagonizing hoards of besotted bacchantes bankrolling the local economy.

does that job description sound attractive? how much would LVPD have to pay you to make it sound attractive? (it's a rhetorical question.)

the men and women who answer that call must have the patience of the sphinx and the stamina of sisyphus. a regiment of sisyphuses. sisyphii? a bunch of people embued with epic stamina, in any case.

* * * * *

more-thankless job #1: they face many of the same challenges as the LVPD, but they're less well-paid, not to mention unarmed. they're the security team at the las vegas hard rock hotel and casino. their employer puts on what they call 'rehab' parties, the flavor of which would be fabulous as a cable tv project named 'saturnalia gone wild'.

the anarchic premise is described as "Las Vegas' biggest, barest pool party [and] afternoon fleshfest" and it draws swarms of males like bees to macauley culkin.

it also brings in waves of scarcely-attired young women, most of whom are remarkably augmented with the latest in breast technology (or in-breast technology, if you prefer). all precariously balanced atop the tallest stiletto heels not licensed as stilts. i assume, but cannot confirm, that a significant percentage of these nubiles are working girls lending nuance to the clinical definition of 'rehab'.

[sidebar: we might reasonably call theirs "more-thankless job #2".]

affrenzied by loud, herd-driving rock music, the throng funnels through dark corridors that spill out into the glaring desert sunlight above the hard rock pool and gyrating grounds. the romans at their most depraved would have looked on with envy.

constantly circling the perimeter is the phalanx of wary and weary-looking fellows from hard rock security. they're ridiculously short-handed and under-muscled compared to the guests, but like the light brigade, theirs is not to reason why.

what they're looking for is open to debate since it seems everything short of a taser in the pool is acceptable and encouraged behavior.

full disclosure: i'm not in the demographic. i may have never been in the demographic. so it's possible everything described above is grossly mischaracterized. please do your own research and draw your own conclusions.

in the meantime, the las vegas convention and visitors authority would like you to know that "Las Vegas continues to capture the world's imagination as the destination where anything is possible."

i bet the LVPD would concur, if they had the time or the inclination. but while last week's ad hoc hedonists have returned to their regularly scheduled programming, this week's barbarians are at the gate. and the folks who patrol the really bright lines endure.

oh, the zumanity.

lost and found

Some things get lost
some things just disappear
but not my love for you
I'll keep that close and near
some things just fade
like scars and dreams
I got your heart right here with me

-- alice peacock

we pass the marker every day, without really noticing.

it points to the road not taken, and no matter which way we go, we're not on it.

there's a powerful allure pulling us "thataway," and why not, after all? that way is untarnished by disappointment, and so full of promise.

twenty-five years ago, if i had it to do over, i'd have gone to australia. or whistler. or the cayman islands. i'd have taken some job, any job really, making just enough to live there and soak up the exotic for awhile.

visiting such places these days, i see lots of kids who are doing exactly that. i look at them wistfully and think, yes, that's certainly what i would've done, back in the day, if i had the chance.

or would i, really? one change, at any point along the way, and the entire sequence of events that we blithely think of as 'our life' falls apart. which means i never would've met mrs. spaceneedl, that the little needls would blink out of existence, and i'd be a completely different person.

what road-not-taken would be worth that? the answer, for me, is that there isn't one.

but what would you change? what risk would you take to get off this road, and onto that one? the answer is twofold:

1. you can do it any time you like and
2. you'll never know

because no matter how many times you change lanes, you're still in the one you're in, and not a different one. ain't it a wild ride?

and you may ask yourself
what is that beautiful house?
and you may ask yourself
where does that highway lead to?
and you may ask yourself
am i right? am i wrong?
and you may say to yourself
my god! what have i done?

-- david byrne

let's say, hypothetically, that a friend of mine works for the seattle fire department. and let's assume, theoretically, that he thinks i'd be a good fit there. while we're at it, just for fun, let's take it one step further and say i'd even consider such a thing.

there's an allure there, i have to admit. i like the idea of the sfd. i respect the mission, and i admire the people who do the work.

and, like everyone in the history of people, there are days i look around and think, how did i get here? and, just generally, wtf?

so, where would a crazy new road lead? is it too late to consider, too drastic to even ponder?

of course it is.

then again, who's to say what's too crazy?

You said you'd realized in life
that chances pass you by
and what you thought was yours
slowly fades before your eyes
and part of growing up
is that you can't go back in time
you have to live with your regrets
and things you leave behind

-- alice peacock

baltimore bound

pre-preflight

there are no direct flights from seattle to baltimore. so choosing which connecting city to be delayed through is an important decision. do you want to be delayed by thunderstorms in dallas? by a rogue blizzard in denver? by either (or both) in chicago?

any way you go, the day before is a bad time to discover that one of your chosen flights has been cancelled.

scramble

get on expedia. call the airline. call the airline whose flights are being operated by the first airline. get redirected back to the first airline. get re-redirected to the second airline. think, "this is fun" in an un-fun kind of way. hear that you can fly to washington, dc, and drive to baltimore. hear that you can fly into baltimore -- very, very late -- and pay a lot more for the privilege.

tell them that these options, while very interesting, are completely unacceptable.

ask for a supervisor. within 30 seconds, get a flight connecting through chicago, arriving baltimore within 10 minutes of your original itinerary. wonder, "wtf?"

preflight

in order to get from seattle to baltimore in time for a preconference meeting, it's necessary to catch a 6 am flight. to catch a 6 am flight, it's necessary to get out of bed and be semi-coherent at 330 am. hilarity ensues.

upon 445 am arrival at the airport, it's disconcerting to see a huge line at the ticket counter, and a longer line at security. especially since the airline's online check-in feature was down for 24 hours prior. so you wait impatiently in line to finally be told that it's too late to check your bag. wait some more for a supervisor to intervene, get bag checked, and get escort to the front of security line.

note to self: in the future, deal only with supervisors.

takeoff

it's the same whenever i fly.

as the plane rushes down the runway, i summon images of my children. i figure if things go sideways, i'd prefer my last thoughts be of them rather than, say, the mailer copy that the boss made a hash of. or the risk of deep vein thrombosis on cross-country flights.

why

the instruction is to "return your seatbacks and tray tables to their full and upright position." even the so-called safety video says it. "full and upright position."

i'm no aviation expert, but i'm pretty sure they mean "fully upright."

why II

on a very full flight, i'm in the center seat next to someone who insists on bogarting the armrest. this same person has a thick, phlegmy cough and seems eager to share the mucus with the entire plane.

why III

the guy across the aisle is picking his nose. right in front of god and everyone. his finger is in the full and upright position. he flicked whatever he found into the aisle. i kid you not.

family hour

apparently united airlines has an arrangement with CBS to play the network's sitcoms for in-flight "entertainment." i can't hear the dialogue, which is probably for the best. merely watching the cast's overwrought gesturing is seriously annoying. hearing them speak would likely send me to the nearest exit.

oh, look...two of the characters are passionately dry-humping on the couch. girl's got her legs wrapped right around that boy's back. huh. CBS programming has changed since i last tuned in.

landing

for the record, yes i heard correctly. there it is again..."full and upright position."

denouement

it's raining and cold in baltimore. if you squint, you could convince yourself you never left seattle, rendering moot all the travel-related monkey business. or monkey-related travel business.

as i left the terminal, someone wanted me to sign up for an air tran credit card so i could earn free travel. "no thanks," i said. "i don't like to fly."

wait for it...

i won't hesitate no more, no more
it cannot wait i'm sure
there's no need to complicate
our time is short
this is our fate
i'm yours...
-- jason mraz

the calendar says it's spring, but around here it's an ersatz, hallmark kind of spring.

a contrivance not really indicative of anything real or meaningful.

spring, so far, looks a lot like winter. which looked a lot like fall. we skipped last summer altogether, which raises the question: what happened to seasons around here?

this grievance is weather-related only in part: sure, we would like to throw on a t-shirt and shorts and go outside without turning blue. but moreover, we'd like to have the time to enjoy the three warm, sunny days we're alloted each year, rather than watching them, wistfully, through an office window.

[note to the irony gods: we're not, repeat NOT complaining about having jobs that require us to spend time indoors, at a desk, in front of a computer. nothing to see here. move along.]

why is there never any time? good lord, how we rush around. one thing to the next to the next, nearly all of them 'mandatories' for keeping our lives moving forward. groceries, laundry, cleaning. drop off at school, pick up from school, dinner, bedtime. repeat.

sometimes life gets in the way of actually living, if you follow the train of thought. such as it is.

here's the thing: mrs. spaceneedl isn't feeling well. she's intermittently experiencing a litany of seemingly unrelated symptoms, concerning enough that she consulted a doctor last week. after a managed-care exam and some consideration, the doctor hypothesized a variety of ailments, none of which suited us.

the missus is too healthy to be unwell. she has no lifestyle-related risk factors that would make it likely or fair that she have asthma and chest pains and weight loss and difficulty sleeping and night sweats. with some indignation, she told the doctor as much.

the doctor, in reply, patiently recapped the symptoms, to which the missus said, "well, when you put it that way, it doesn't sound so good, does it?" she's funny that way, the missus.

last night at dinner, we talked about things that we can control, and things that we can't. we agreed, not for the first time, that in this life we have control over precisely nothing. and that anything can happen to anyone at any time.

over the course of two hours we vented and fretted and vetted our current list of irrational anxieties. we acknowleged that years of planning and toil might not result in the long-envisioned house with a water view. and that if things go sideways, we might not even keep the house we have. and that if things go really sideways, one or both of us might not be around to see how such things turn out.

the airing of mortal dread was sobering, despite the pinot noir. mrs. spaceneedl reiterated her pique that she could do so much to stay healthy and still not feel healthy, while others do so little and still live beyond all expectations. then we sat quietly for awhile.

hereabouts, spring is a riot of ambiguity. its arrival in a way that would be most useful -- warm weather -- trails the actual equinox by weeks. if it ever shows up at all. meanwhile trees blossom, leaves unfurl, and flowers flower. the expected and traditional harbingers of rebirth.

we're waiting for it all, as usual.

this year more impatiently than ever.

closing the gaps

they're coming out of the woodwork.

ever since i joined facebook a few weeks ago, people i haven't seen or spoken to in ages are finding their way back into close orbit. they've popped up online, on the phone, and now, in the flesh in my living room.

i like it.

it's like some gravitational nexus of people and places past has achieved critical mass in the here and now. or like someone shook up a big ol' snow globe filled with time, and the past is falling all around me.

even my dreams are filling up with folks who have been important to me at some time or another. it's a crazy, subconscious carousel at night, and a welcome-back wagon during the day.

but wait. there's more.

this trip through the way-back machine must've churned up some powerful, positive karma. there's no other way to explain the presence of dave, and his 18-month old son, in our very house.

our friendship spanned three states, four time zones, two companies, and a decade-long interruption. i tried to track him down over the years, and he tried to do the same -- to no avail. every now and then i'd google him, just to see if anything new turned up. it never did.

but last week, amidst a days-long firestorm storm at work...i went browsing through a magazine for ideas. or inspiration. or refuge. the publication was filled with riotous photography and uproarious copy and brilliant design. and amidst all that was a quietly elegant, beautifully simple bottle of whisky.

usually i see something like that, appreciate it for half a moment, then move on. this time, for no reason at all, i scanned over to see who created this little jewel of a design...and there he was. "designer/creative director: dave."

i jolted upright in my chair. i checked the print date of the magazine, sure it must be well out of date, and dave would've long since moved on. november, 2008.

i googled the design firm...he wasn't in the list of bios. must be gone by now. i called the number, sure i'd hear, "dave's no longer with the company." have i mentioned that the advertising and design business is notorious for turnover? yeah...

"hi, is dave in?"
"he's not at his desk, would you like his voicemail?"
[pause]
"yes, i'd like that very much."
"hi, this is dave. leave a message."

same voice. same dave. i left a giddy message. minutes later, he called me back. it was as if no time had passed. he'd been living in seattle for years.

two days later, we were drinking beer while our children played around us. turns out we even know some of the same people here. all we could do was shake our heads and smile, and say "unbelievable".

another friend, the one who goaded me to get on facebook, is now taunting me. "you like facebook, don't you. ha ha, you like facebook. you should marry facebook."

he's very funny. isn't he funny? i don't love facebook, mister funny man. okay?

but i do love my friends. and now, after much moving around and much time gone by...i have some of them back again.

what's not to love?

patchy fog mixed with low clouds

in which the author attempts to mitigate the effects of last night's nyquil with caffeine, emergen*C and raisin bran...

[elusive ideas weaving in and out of the fog. every word is another fork in the road.]


it's come to my attention that today is international women's day. i'm down with that. i love women. i have a wife and a daughter and a mother, after all. not to mention several friends of the female persuasion.

coincidently (or maybe not), on our coffee table is a book titled 'why women should rule the world' by dee dee myers. well, why not? surely women would do no worse at the job than men -- probably they'd do better. for example, with the exception of hillary clinton, women generally aren't in a hurry to instigate wars and other unpleasantries. the world could use fewer unpleasantries right now.

"women tend to be better communicators, better listeners, better at forming consensus," myers says. hard to dispute that.

at 31, myers became the first woman to serve as white house press secretary. do you think her experience in the clinton administration had any influence on her perception of leadership? particularly male leadership? just sayin' is all.

women have their foibles and idiosyncracies, to be sure. like any representative of the species, they are capable of great unintentional hilarity. that said, the women i'm fortunate enough to think of as friends have a high capacity for thoughtful nuance, intellectual curiosity, and grace under pressure.

generally they're just less knuckleheaded than the guys.

full disclosure: i'm a guy. i know guys. i know several really good guys, as a matter of fact. i also know some not-so-good ones. real mouth-breathers. they'd become confused and agitated at the notion of women running things.

too many confused and agitated men are what got us into the mess we're in.

give credit to one smart man who defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

by that logic, having more women at the helm might prevent some future insanity and inanity.

i'm pretty sure these things are true.

then again, maybe it's the nyquil talking.

* * * * *

photo courtesy of zach manchester.

repeat after me..."i love my job"

who amongst us hasn't complained about our job?

the overbearing boss, the whingeing colleagues, the unreasonable expectations...you know, everybody at every job, ever.

those days are over.

those of us still fortunate enough to have a job should be standing over it protectively, tending to it like it's the last, flickering warmth of an arctic winter campfire. if it goes out, there's a fair chance they find us late next summer, frozen in place, cell phone in hand, forever dialing a search consultant who never picks up.

have you paid attention to the unemployment numbers for the last several months? i don't want to alarm you, but they're alarming. in california ("the world's 6th, no 7th, no 8th-largest economy!"), the rate hit 10.1% in january.

first, let's have a moment of sincere compassion for the millions of americans standing in line at the unemployment office. thank you. second, let's acknowledge that all of them right now would shove you down the nearest staircase to have the job you're complaining about.

it's not that they're not nice people; they'd feel bad for you as you lay stunned at the bottom of the stairs. but it's the compassion of the lion for the hyena slinking away from the zebra carcass. "sorry, please understand that i'd prefer to share, but if you get close enough i'll kill and eat you, too."

the upside is, grownups are back in charge, and they're actually taking steps to correct a dismal, deteriorating economic situation. the downside is, there's no telling if those steps will work, or how long it'll be before they do. there's nothing like ambiguity under duress to make people feel good about spending money.

"what do you think, dear, should we buy a bigger house, or, say, food for the children?"

"i don't know, hon. i've had my eye on a nice american-made car for awhile now. but maybe we should get some healthcare coverage instead."

and retirement? that's a quaint, pre-meltdown mindset. have you looked at your 401(k) recently? forget about retirement.

"...there is no meaning to retirement anymore. We are shifting from lifetime pensions to lifetime work. It's the end of retirement." -- some economics professor

does the lion retire? sure, when it wants to stop eating. and what happens to the shark when it stops swimming? it sinks to the bottom. countless millions of responsible, productive people who planned and saved for decades are now facing the same relationship with their retirement. go ahead, their bankers say. we'll be happy to take that house back, thanks. oh, and we're closing all your credit lines, too. have a nice day.

the takeaway here seems to be that banks are cold, the arctic winter is cold, and in hard times, the fittest survive. also that you don't hear the shark complain about snarfing down really fresh ahi tuna.

and this: no matter how unloveable the job might be, if you have one, love it. or fake it, convincingly. if you don't, there's a whole lot of people out there who will.

the world according to my daughter

i wish i had 100: D.S. Games

i wouldn't want want 100: brothers

i can make 100: dog sweaters

i can eat 100: gigantic choclate cakes

i would never eat 100: dog biscits

having 100 babies could really be a problem.

in 100 years i hope that i can: set a world record

i can lift 100: berneese Mountain dogs

high fashion and other deliciatta...

say what you will about oahu.

it's crowded, it's expensive, it's full of volcanic sand.

all true. except in the cases where it's not.

what is true is that the island is a tropical salad full of cliches and surprises tossed together to taste or the utter lack thereof.

in waikiki, for example, you get the gaudy, the vulgar, the unapologetically ugly, all flowing seamlessly into water so electric blue it can't be processed. it's so pre-economic-meltdown-extreme-american-consumer it hurts then delights then deposits you somewhere else entirely.

the same can be said of turtle bay. take the woman with the louis vuitton face lift sporting a two-piece black and silver ensemble that would be at home in new york or paris. paris, texas, that is. she spent a fortune to look perfectly and wonderfully absurd, and pulled it off spectacularly.

there she was snapping photos of the cast from 'the hills', busting up their lunch as if they weren't in desperate-anorexic need of all the kalua pork quesadillas they could wolf down.

the young stars smiled and posed patiently, then went back to pecking at their food, careful not to actually eat any of it.

* * * * *

at the other end of whatever karmic kaleidoscope you might look through, the locals in waimanalo queue up at kineke's plate lunch and BBQ. there, one order of kalua pig with rice and mac salad could feed a family of four for about six bucks. or you can walk across the road to the ola bbq truck and pick up an order of garlic shrimp with rice for $10. not less than two meals in that to-go box, and the lady who prepares it for you also brings it to your car.

we picked up take-out at both places, and fed seven adults and four children for around $30, with leftovers galore. it was delicious.

* * * * *

we fetched breakfast every day from lanikai juice in kailua. their açaí extravaganza bowls with whey protein are an antioxident riot; açaí blended with blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, coconut and granola. one of these in the morning carried us through to dinner.

note: the sign says 'made with aloha' but the gals behind the counter were a little surly to us haoles.

note: we were very nice to them.

* * * * *

i brought back two hawaiian-print shirts and a 'ding king surfboard repair' t-shirt. the total for all three was less than $9, because we found them at the goodwill store in kailua. what? they're great shirts.

* * * * *

unpacking today, i noticed my keens were full of red clay, picked up during our visit to the kukaniloko royal birthing stones. the story goes...for hundreds of years this was the sacred site where hawaiian royalty was born. surrounded by chiefs, royal children would be taken away at birth, to prevent the prospective new rulers from being killed by rival chiefs.

on a misty february day the place has a quiet, solemn feel to it. fresh leis are scattered among the stones like offerings to whatever gods might see fit to sanctify them. there's an unidentifiable sense of order to the stones, as if they might've been placed by fibonacci on a tropical high. you can't see the pattern, or at least i couldn't...but you can feel it. it's like stonehenge with eucalyptus trees.

something's going on there, or maybe there's not. but i don't plan to clean off the shoes.

* * * * *

say what you will about oahu. it's a frenetic mess of a paradise, a banzai pipeline full of 20 or 30 years worth of exploration.

overloved, overvisited, but still, not overrated.

ha'iku steps

green jungle beauty
a steep heavenward ascent
no mistakes here please

according to the signs at the trailhead, the stairway to heaven is 3,922 steps rising over 2,000 feet.

huh. it seemed farther.

the ha'iku steps were built in the early 1940s by the u.s. navy. they accessed a mountaintop radio array built to communicate with warships in the pacific during WWII.

these days, though, the array is dismantled, the steps are rusting, and the trail is closed. that must be why we arrived at the trailhead at oh-dark-thirty, before the guard arrived.

to reach the steps, you park in a residential neighborhood beneath the h-3 highway on oahu. the locals don't appreciate interlopers, so you close the car doors quietly, then walk quickly to a gate chained and secured with half a dozen padlocks. both sides of the gate are topped with barbed wire, and it looks like there's no way past. except that the fence is down on the right side of the gate, and you can just step over it. go figure.

up the road a short distance you veer off onto a path through a dense bamboo jungle. in the dark, it's easy to imagine all kinds of mischief just beyond the range of the camera flash, but of course we were the only ones up to any trouble.

the path opens onto another road leading to the trailhead. from there it's up. and up. and up some more. the scenery is spectacular, but it's hard to appreciate it when you're intently focused on the hand rail and the step right in front of your face. and the reason they're right in front of your face is because they're so ridiculously vertical.

other times, the steps narrow to a couple feet across, falling off several hundred feet on both sides. it's not unlike climbing up the back of a very large, sleeping dragon, hoping it won't wake and stretch and yawn and never even know it sent you flying like so many dragon fleas.

we climbed from sunshine and warm down low, to clouds, cold and mist at the top. from stunning views to white-out conditions. and still we climbed. past one, two, then three platforms, peering over the edge each time hoping to see something other than the inside of a cloud.

pearl harbor to the west, perhaps. chinaman's hat to the north. the mokes to the south. our hands in front of our face. anything.

we made the top in an hour and 10 minutes, milled around in the gray long enough to drink some water and catch our breath, then headed back down. nothing to see here, move along.

here's the thing: as challenging as it was getting up, getting down was moreso. on a dry, sunny day, you slide down the rails on your hands and touch every fourth or fifth step with your feet. it's a hoot, not to mention fast, supposedly. on a clammy, misty day, the rails are slick and the steps are slimy. gravity, usually constant, increases. just for fun.

it all seemed like such a good idea, back before we actually started.

toward the base, the guard was now on duty. he blew his whistle at us, in case we were thinking about turning around to make another ascent. thanks, we're heading down, see?

until a few weeks ago, allegedly, they were writing $400 tickets for trespassing on this trail. today, instead, we got a smile and applause from the 68-year old guard, who was sporting purple, blond and black striped hair. you've got to love the hawaiian aesthetic. or maybe it was just his aesthetic.

at the end it felt like we had accomplished something, maybe even survived something (e.g., our own foolishness). you know what, though? we'd do it all again tomorrow, if we weren't leaving tomorrow...

actually, it was morning...

Some day, when I'm awfully low
When the world is cold
I will feel a glow just thinking of you
And the way you look tonight

You're lovely, with your smile so warm
And your cheeks so soft
There is nothing for me but to love you
And the way you look tonight

With each word your tenderness grows
Tearing my fear apart
And that laugh that wrinkles your nose
It touches my foolish heart

Lovely ... never, ever change
Keep that breathless charm
Won't you please arrange it?
'cause I love you
Just the way you look tonight

mrs. spaceneedl bought this dress at nordstrom recently. on sale, no less.

she modeled it for me this morning.

p.s. she looked fabulous.

everything old, new again...

it's a long road.

it takes a long time to get there, and longer to get back again.

* * * * *

the happy valley lodge at big white resort is small, but comfortable. there's a little bar on one side, and a family area on the other, overlooking the skating rink.

it's a nice place to settle awhile at the end of a good ski day. sinking into a comfy chair in front of the fireplace, beer in hand, drifting a bit. paying half-attention to the music wafting over us from some faraway speaker.

what do you want to do about dinner? i don't know, pizza, maybe. how're those ski boots working out? good. i haven't thought about my feet all day. this sounds familiar...who does this song?

um...this is the eagles. this is an eagles song that i've never heard before.

* * * * *

mrs. spaceneedl and i have been eagles fans for a long time. their music has been part of life's little soundtrack for...well, as long as we've known each other. we own the CDs, and dropped a bunch of money for really good seats at walnut creek pavilion during the "hell freezes over" tour. but repetition fatigue being what it is, we played the music less and less over the years. so it goes.

* * * * *

it's implausible and convoluted that we'd have go to canada to discover new eagles music. that we'd randomly bump into it like an old roommate in a tibetan monastery. but there it is. "long road out of eden" was released in 2007 and totally escaped our attention for a year and a half.

in another outlandish coincidence, it wasn't but a few days later that i stumbled across a review of a new album from j.d. souther. souther wrote or co-wrote many of the eagles songs in the 70s, then fell off the earth for, oh, a generation. "if the world was you" comes 24 years after his last release.


* * * * *

i know you'll find it hard to believe, but i had a credible singing voice back in the day. i could hit the high notes on "witchy woman" or "take it to the limit". matter of fact, i could sing lead or harmony on any tune in the eagles catalogue. the point here, i think, is not my long-gone talent, but that the music was a constant presence, part of a tapestry of many good memories.

* * * * *

returning from the happy valley lodge, it was easy enough to find "eden" in the itunes library. i downloaded it immediately and have been playing through it, piecemeal. i haven't had time to really immerse in it, part of the larger problem-with-no-solution documented at length elsewhere.

souther's new work is now in my library as well (alongside "black rose" c. 1976), and it's excellent. his songwriting ability has diminished not one iota. his voice isn't as resilient as it once was, but who among us is?

it's enough that it is at all, and that after long absence there is something new from artists i had consigned to the archives.

i'm more grateful for this unexpected trove than i would have imagined. it's a bridge over a span of time that gets wider every day. a link to the aforementioned memories, now pleasantly refreshed -- for awhile, anyway. eventually what's new becomes old, and don henley was quoted saying, "This is probably the last Eagles album that we'll ever make."

* * * * *

it took a long time to get here, and there's no turning back. but the the beer is cold, the fire is warm and the music's on. that's may be better than we have any right to expect.

zzzzzzzzzzz

saturday:

i had a power nap today.

i never nap. i have neither the time nor the opportunity to sleep during the day.

but today it was either fall asleep on the couch or risk a narcoleptic incident.

i call it a power nap, but the phrase seems kinda non sequitur. there's no power in snoozing on the couch with a game on and children running in and out the door.

i dreamed they actually shut the door quietly a couple times. that's how i know it was a dream.

i think i read somewhere that napping boosts memory, but i'm not sure. cultures all over the world nap during the day, and have managed quite nicely for centuries. in america, however, such behavior is associated with sloth.

no wonder we're so screwed up. fat, sleep-deprived and stupid is no way to go through life. and it may lead to early extinction.

sunday:

i slept in today. until 9 a.m. this never happens. weekdays, weekends, holidays, vacation -- it doesn't matter. i wake up early and am utterly incapable of falling back to sleep.

the corrolary to this is that i'm tired all the time. i can't remember not being tired. over the years i've variously attributed this to being a parent. or being over-scheduled. or boredom. or ennui. or some other personal shortcoming.

this morning i rolled over and the clock said "9:08". that's gotta be a typo, right? nope.

am i getting sick? is this an early sign of infirmity? what other explanations might there be?

okay, i was in los angeles three days last week. staying up late doing market research, waking up early to get some exercise and catch up on away-from-the-office work. it's possible i got so far out of my routine that my body had to resynchronize.

the week prior we were skiing in canada. engaging in vigorous, high-altitude exercise, long, lazy evenings. hot tubs and beer. and, by definition, completely off our schedule.

cumulatively, maybe it was just time to give the somnolence devil his due.

or, as missus spaceneedl helpfully offered up, maybe i'm just old and tired. leave it to the missus to clarify things so succinctly. thanks, hon.

sunday afternoon:

i've been doing chores all day. cleaning up the kitchen, folding laundry, cleaning out closets. the ususal weekend catch-up after a too-full week. this is our life, no sense complaining about it. but you know what?

i'm tired. surely a little siesta couldn't hurt.

shhhh...

maybe it's the volume of the times and events in general.

or maybe we've just become accustomed to talking over each other, escalating from there.

if the spaceneedl household is any barometer, it impacts us in ways many and profound.

shoot, even the orcas are yelling at each other.

how do i reconcile yelling at my children nonstop throughout the day (on vacation, no less), then getting misty-eyed over a fictional boy dying on "gray's anatomy"? transference is a powerful psychological mechanism, i realize. but i already know it's just a damn tv show. i know they're trying to be as manipulative as they can in 44 minutes.

for their part, the spaceneedl children worked nonstop this week to aggravate me and the missus. in ways many and profound. example one (of thousands): taking off skis to go into the lodge for lunch. i stacked mine together in the rack; the boy, unbeknownst to me, dropped his skis and poles in a pile behind me. just, on the ground, right in the middle of everything. plah. i take one step back and stumble into them, nearly pratfall-like. he was totally mystified why i might be aggrieved by this.

example two (of millions): the missus tells the girl it's time for bed. go get your pajamas on, brush your teeth, get into bed, lights out. please. we have to tell them in this level of detail, else they'll skip every step and say, "well, you didn't say to do that."

minutes pass, no movement. i reiterate, in a still-calm voice -- it's time for bed. please do this, that and the other thing.

more minutes pass. now i'm irritated. shut the tv off! move! now!

the children get offended over being yelled at. "tsk, okay, geez, you don't have to yell." actually, we do have to yell. no activity takes place prior to the yelling. it has occurred to me that we should save time and skip straight to the yelling. but that might make me seem unreasonable, mightn't it?

and these are allegedly smart children. that's what people tell us, anyway. good lord, what are the dumb ones like? ("objection." "sustained." "i withdraw the question, your honor.")

maybe it's the volume of the pace of the ridiculousness of the times. it feels like everything has to be efficient and streamlined and glitch-free, or we're at risk of failure to optimize the stakeholders' value and future returns.

the orcas are endangered, struggling not to go the way of the [insert extinct species here]. "watch out for that cruise ship!" "hmm, water's tasting kinda petrochemical-y today." "has anyone seen any salmon?"

at least they have good reason to yell at each other.

i suppose the takeaway here is that sage bit of bumper sticker wisdom: spyhop more. echolocate less.

wait, that's not right. it's: bark less. wag more.

it turns out, we control the weather...

if it's mid-winter, it must be time for a pineapple express in the northwest.

exquisitely timed to coincide with a long-planned spaceneedl family ski trip to canada.

the parallels to last year's canada ski trip are eerie. expectations of deep snow, cold temperatures and general winter wackiness, contradicted by a forecast of warm temps and rain.

not that we're complaining. like last year (and this year, and every other year), any getaway is worthy of enshrinement on a pedestal, whether our clever plans are realized or not.

within reason, of course.

it's interesting to learn that our itinerary dictates the weather. it's an awesome responsibility. had we known, we'd have made plans to change weather patterns all over the globe.

updates to follow as time and activities allow...

i read the news today...

bad things are happening.

i know, that theme is getting tiresome, but the hits just keep on coming.

yesterday it was the report that another major daily newspaper is up for sale and in imminent danger of shutting down.

that's bad enough, because the same thing has been happening to papers all over the country. old, venerable publications that have for generations kept an eye on government and criminals (often one and the same) and the many pillars of our national infrastructure.

previously it was the chicago tribune declaring bankruptcy. the rocky mountain news, for sale and facing closure after 149 years. the miami herald, on the block after 105 years. the herald and the bristol press in connecticut. pop, pop, pop, like soap bubbles, one after another.

across the country, publishers have made deep cuts in staff and entered into last-ditch joint operating agreements with other papers. the st. louis post dispatch. the atlanta journal-constitution. the helena independent-record. the tulsa world. the kansas city star. the raleigh news and observer. the fort worth star-telegram. the litany goes on and on, reading like a list of battleships slowly sinking to the bottom.

that's all bad enough (and it is very bad) -- but this time it's at our front porch. the seattle post-intelligencer, one of the two seattle dailies, is on the brink of winking out after 146 years. the paper is for sale, with 60 days to find a buyer.

"If no buyer emerges, the paper would either become a Web-only publication or cease all operations. P-I employees were silent as they listened to the announcement, which lasted about 10 minutes. Some shed tears. Others held up cell phones or voice recorders in news-conference fashion. Phones rang unanswered and the police scanner buzzed on."

there are about 100 different reasons why media consolidation and contraction is bad for our experiment in democracy. one of the worst is control of information by a handful of corporate entities that may have no interest in reporting actual news. how would it be, for example, if rupert murdoch and his ilk ran the media in the world's major markets? all fox news, all the time. that prospect would be worse than no news at all...

"In a report this week, corporate-ratings agency Fitch predicted that some newspapers and newspaper groups are likely to default on their debt in 2009 — possibly leaving some cities with no daily newspaper."

wearing the obvious-hat just a bit longer, it comes to this: if there are fewer and fewer independent news-gathering sources around, who will collect and announce the news? what will the quality and veracity of that news be? who will keep an eye on those who richly deserve to be watched?

sunshine is the best disinfectant -- which explains why today it feels like the creeping crud inched closer to our collective front door.

* * * * *

unrelated-but-related update: boeing will lay off 4,500 workers, most of them in the puget sound region.

our cup bubbles over...

2009 is here, heralded by words of cheer from people paid to make foreward-looking statements: "it's gonna get worse before it gets better."

with that in mind, my advice to you is to start drinking champagne.

whenever you can afford it, buy the good stuff. the stuff with tiny bubbles that tastes like you've just won life's lottery. have another glass -- shoot, have another bottle -- no hangover required!

drink champagne, even when you can't afford the good stuff. because it'll remind you of better times, and things to look forward to. like finally adding some new tunes to your ipod -- or getting your ipod out of hock. like seeing smiling people bringing boxes full of personal items into the cubicles around you instead of quietly carrying them out. like getting your 401(k) statement and actually feeling like opening it.

champagne is a harbinger, as well as a celebration, of of success. think about it: what comes to mind when you unwrap the foil, take off the little wire thingy, and pop that cork? workaday troubles and bleak economic forecasts? hell, no! it's people wearing tuxedos and evening gowns and laughing and toasting some well-earned achievement. it's ritual as self-fulfilling prophesy -- being the change you seek.

so, buy a bottle to break on the prow of that boat you've been dreaming of. think about sipping a glass or three on the flying bridge with your significant other (who might forget to remember she gets seasick within sight of water). imagine -- your own floating party venue! or better still, a quiet sunset retreat from parochial, landlocked lubbers. moments like that would make the whole outlay worthwhile, even if you never left the marina.

before you start to think, "hokaaaay, this guy either has or soon will have a teensy problem with the alcohol," i don't. no, really. it's not a problem. at all. at no time do i lose consciousness or feeling in my extremities. that would tend to take the fun out of the champagne mystique/motif, i think.

no, this whole dissertation is about the joyful saturnalia of life, not the dark downside of...i'm sorry, what was i talking about just then?

nevermind, doesn't matter. the denouement here is a little gathering of friends collectively peering into an uncertain 2009, smiling, laughing, enjoying the moment.

also sharing some really fresh oysters, shrimp skewers loaded with garlic, butternut squash soup, and three bottles of really good french bubbly. it was an extravagance we don't usually indulge in, but for one night we symbolically defied whatever fate might throw at us in the coming months. we celebrated the fact that we're healthy, we have jobs, and we have each other, for however long such things last.

we toasted and ate and drank and told funny stories about stalkers and nightmare clients and aging parents and layoffs. okay, that doesn't sound very funny, does it...but it was. we laughed all evening long. maybe it was denial, and maybe it was the champagne talking. but see? champagne makes everything look better.

you know, there's a small but finite possibility that this isn't about champagne at all. crazy as it sounds, it might be about, i don't know, staring down the things that unsettle us in an erratic and oblivious world, and squeezing out a little meaning and happiness in spite of it all.

ah, fuck it. it's about the champagne.

hey your glass is empty
it's a hell of a long way home
why don't you let me take you
it's no good to go alone
i never would have opened up
but you seemed so real to me
after all the bullshit i've heard
it's refreshing not to see
i don't have to pretend
she doesn't expect it from me

-- sarah mclachlan

belated procrastination

traditionally, mrs. spaceneedl sends out holiday cards early, and i send them out late.

actually, i lovingly write personal notes, address them, and fire them out the week between christmas and new year's, which technically still qualifies as "the holidays."

owing to the previously mentioned weather-related inconveniences, the missus is officially way behind on the card front: she hasn't sent out one.

me, i'm precariously close to a holiday card faux pas, and i'm remiss on the holiday front in general. just today i got my parents' gifts boxed up and ready to ship. only three days after christmas.

if i pay a lot to fedex the package, it might get to their house by new year's day-after. they can recover from their modest one-glass-of-too-sweet-wine hangover by taking pictures with their new sony digital camera. it's got lots of megapixels. more megapixels than they'll know what to do with. but that's hardly the point.

what the point is, is, that the box is still sitting here on the spaceneedl kitchen table, and that won't change until tomorrow.

any way we can drag this out a little longer? let's check weather.com...no snow anywhere in sight. tsk, pity. this means i'll have to head back to work tomorrow.

happy to have a job, thankful for our good fortune, yes, and please don't let that change...but i'm not particularly fired up to go back to work just yet. surely another week off would fix this particular malaise.

perhaps a bit of malingering is in order here -- particularly since mrs. spaceneedl has this week off. i bet she and i could find plenty to do with a few days to go before 2009 and all kinds of tasks a-pending.

in addition to the many other things we share, we both currently have an aversion to work-related work. especially with so many holiday cards to write. not that we're not happy to have jobs, thankful for our good fortune, and so on.

how old to children have to be before they can hold down 40-hour-a-week employment?

let's take another look at weather.com. rain -- every day for the next ten days. anyone hoping for a snow day better get used to disappointment.

or hope for a flood. no, no floods, please. thank you.

but how 'bout some other harmless act of god that keeps us home without hurting anyone, including our respective employers? is there such a thing?

no, probably not.

* * * * *

update: 15 holiday cards written, addressed and ready to go. may i be so productive at work.

* * * * *

h/t to jeff rogers for the seattle holiday image...

everybody complains about the weather...

i hate to keep harping on this "weather" thing.

but when did we move to minnesota?

remember the movie "the day after tomorrow"? it was an apocalyptic flick about the effects of global warming, and the onset of a new ice age. the tagline for the film was, "this year, a sweater won't do."

i thought that was pretty damn funny, actually. especially since it applies to seattle right now.

it's 15 degrees here. the snow is crunchy underfoot, like walking on styrofoam. the roads are a mess, and oh, look!

there's more on the way.

hurricane-force winds. up to a foot of new snow (on top of the four inches out there now). ice. and "the possibility of widespread power outages."

that's nice. isn't that nice?

i'm going to harp just a bit more.

seattle public schools closed this week, on a day when no snow fell. not one lousy flake. they're now closing schools if there's a possibility of snow in the forecast. back in the day, in minnesota, we went to school when the snowbanks were up to the roofline. here, now, it bears repeating: they cancel school if snow is in the forecast.

one question: are you kidding me?

what happens to parents all over town who don't have the latitude to, say, work from home on short notice? answer: they're forced to take a vacation day, or a day off without pay.

thanks, seattle public schools.

did that sound bitter? it felt a little bitter, typing it. especially considering the spaceneedls have the latitude to work from home. must be that "liberal empathy" gene kicking in.

and, as happens so often, i've digressed.

we're heading out now, piling into the 4wd to scavenge for winter storm provisions. we're looking for electric lanterns, flashlights, maybe a generator big enough to light up tacoma.

whatever. we're going to buy something, by god, whether we need it or not.

it's 15 degrees in seattle, and a "very dangerous winter storm" is headed right for us.

a sweater won't do.

snow time like the presents

q: "why is it always so cold when we're putting up christmas decorations?"

a: "because we put them up in the winter."

this is what passes as high humor at the spaceneedl household, c. 2008.

it's not 'the best of saturday night live' but snl ain't what it used to be, either.

i digress.

it's ten days 'til christmas, and we don't have a tree up yet. we're busy little heathens, you see, and there are only so many weekends in december. and because the roads are icy today, we may not get said tree this weekend, either.

we did, however, manage to get the outdoor decorations up yesterday. just ahead of the snow.

this morning there's a winter wonderland outside the spaceneedl kitchen window, complete with animated, illuminated deer, little snowmen, a white seal that was white before the snow came, and a penguin. never mind that these creatures would never be seen together in the wild. nothing says 'christmas' like an electric-powered menagerie.

there's snow on the roof of the house across the street, and a seagull walking across the peak of the roofline. it's an odd, non sequitur sight...seagulls and snow don't go together in our collective winter narrative, do they? what's this birdbrain up to?

we keep the christmas decorations in the rafters above the garage. the only way up and down is from the top of a step ladder. two adults are required to transport the matériel from up to down, along with some awkward clambering from the ladder to the rafters. it's not an exercise for the acrophobic, or anyone in holiday grinch mode. i whacked my knee on a joist on one trip, complicating matters. today i have an ice pack on the knee, along with a nice bruise and a respectable knot.

nothing says 'christmas' like a hematoma.

mrs. spaceneedl and her little dogs just returned from a walk to the village. the dogs are covered with clumps of snow, stuck to their fur from head to tail. they could not be less suited for winter weather. or any other kind of weather, near as i can tell.

it's still below freezing out there, but cars are going by. so maybe we'll get out and get a tree today after all. it might not make sense on the 'risk-reward' scale...but nothing says 'christmas' like sliding sideways on black ice, with a tree tied to the top of an suv.

you can bet the missus will want me to climb back up in the rafters for the tree decorations, shortly thereafter.

it's christmas at the spaceneedl household, c. 2008.

The wind may not blow
Might not even snow
But there's nothing like Christmas
Right here at home

It may not be white
Might be a rainy night
But there's nothing like sharing
The sounds and the sights of ...

Christmas in the Northwest
Is a gift that we can share
Christmas in the Northwest
Is a child's answered prayer
-- brenda white

barack's on sunday

People in here from all over the world
Men, women, little boys and girls
Gather 'round by the seaside,
Beach party, tropic-style
Diamond Head and palm trees, surf riders on the sea
This is the place to be, oh, yeah, this is the place to be

On the beach at Waikiki, that's where you'll find me
Here on the south side, Beach Boys paradise

Duke's on Sunday
Duke's on Sunday

-- henry kapono

i'm obliged to frame this post in the past and future tense.

to wit: in the past, prior to the global economic meltdown, mrs. spaceneedl planned and purchased a nice family vacation. i'm reluctant to talk about it now, since vacations have become an extravagance. and at a time when many people are struggling, saying "look at us, we've got a future vacation on the books!" is just vulgar.

but then barack obama came along and totally copied our idea, so now i feel compelled to elaborate. a little.

President-elect Barack Obama, returning to his home state of Hawaii for the holidays, plans a beachside vacation at one of Oahu's most exclusive properties, according to one insider.

Arrangements are being finalized for the Obamas and the families of two or three friends to stay at a Kailua beachfront location...

you can see where this is heading: the spaceneedls are going to kailua as well. note: the obamas are traveling over the holidays, and we're scheduled for february. this is a very good thing, given that security will be tight and all of kailua will be on defcon 4 during the presidential visit.

coincidental timing would be bad. i like running on the beach at dawn, but not being tackled by secret service sprinting in from the dunes.

i like the little needls splashing in the surf, but not a pre-emptive ambuscade by navy seals in full battle gear.

i like swimming in the warm hawaiian waters, but not being eaten by a patrolling tiger shark. not that sharks are likely to be working with the presidential security team...i'm just sayin'.

so, while we welcome the premise and promise of an obama administration, it's good that the first family's itinerary doesn't overlap ours. because while barack might need a respite before taking over a ship with the aerodynamics of the hindenberg and the seaworthiness of the andrea doria -- we don't have time for a lot of fuss.

our vacation is really important.

whatever you do, don't ask "what's next?"

because i'm telling you -- you don't want to know.

could be the neighbor (the guy who's been carrying on a clandestine affair for five years) who is laying off half his company and taking a pay cut. sure, maybe he deserves the bad karma, but his family and employees don't.

could be the missus, similarly laying off people at her office -- i don't believe there's any parallel affair to report.

could be the friends -- one a realtor, one a residential construction contractor -- who now are struggling to keep their family together. because homes aren't selling, and because his company went out of business. so he's gone back to a previous vocation -- working on a crab boat in alaska. he's 50 years old.

could be another neighbor -- a carpenter who has done much work around our house. he hasn't had a significant project in weeks, and isn't talking about any on the horizon.

could be the friends on queen anne. she's an elementary school teacher hearing rumors that her school might be on the "closing" list. this on the heels of a report that washington state is drastically cutting education funding due to major budget shortfalls.

washington mutual -- bankrupt and bought out by jp morgan -- is laying off 80% of its employees in seattle. that's 3,400 jobs.

the dow dropped 680 points today, the recession was declared "official," and george bush declared he was "sorry" for all the hubbub. [note to george: fuck you.]

i realize these little anecdotes are the tip of a much scarier iceberg. that the PNW will probably fare better than the rest of the country -- not to mention the rest of the world.

but we're not out of order to speculate where the bottom might be, and when we'll get there. and how long it might take for all of us to get back to where we were, 401(k)-wise.

we're not out of line to ask, "how did this happen?" reasonable people can be forgiven for inquiring, "what the fuck?"

but whatever you do, don't ask...that question above.

right now it just doesn't seem wise.

heavy d

i'm at day 11 of my new vitamin d regimen.

i think it's helping.

coming out of a crazy, stupid-busy, pressurized last 4 months, i had every reason to be ecstatic. the bolus of work and conferences was behind us, to rave reviews. and the unlikely candidate i supported for president? he actually won.

you'd think that would warrant a few moments of giddy joy or at least some simple satisfaction, wouldn't you? instead, there was nothing.

no highs. no lows. just this droning hum of indifferent in-between.

somewhere in this timeframe, a colleague noted that while the fall glut of work had passed, the winter nimiety of work was already upon us. and that we had some pretty cool projects coming up.

it was true -- we have an embarrassment of job security and professionally gratifying work at spaceneedl sprockets. and i could not have cared less. it just looked like drudgery to me.

what the hell is that? it's no way to live, that's fo sho.

about that time, coincidently, i learned that a deficit of vitamin d has been corrolated to seasonal affective disorder and depression. and that people in northern climes often don't get enough vitamin d due to the dearth of sunshine.

huh. i've cut a lot of d-rich dairy out of my diet over the past few years. and i hardly ever get outside anymore. when i do, i'm usually covered head to toe in layers of fleece.

the takeaway appears to be: no sun, no fun.

but wait! there's another possibility. it's called dysthemia, a long-lasting, low-grade depression -- kind of an ongoing, functional funk.

yes, that sounds about right. i'd characterize it as a constant just-going-through-the-motions, unenthusiastic, "whatever" kind of existence.

who needs that? not i.

so i'm taking the vitamin d. i think i notice a difference beyond a placebo effect. i'm feeling better about things. of course the fact that i'm taking the next nine days off to stay home with my children may have something to do with that.

either way, i'll take it. because while i don't expect a steady state of bliss and chirpy bluebirds to accompany my every step...i think i deserve a little sunshine once in a while.

close to home

ex-employee: you know, i'm just old enough to be flattered by the term, 'early retirement.'
employer: that's wonderful...what a lovely line. now, if there's anything i can do for you...
ex-employee: well, i certainly hope you'll die soon.

mrs. spaceneedl works for a global technology company.

they make all kinds of products, from well-known consumery stuff to completely obscure, opaque medical stuff.

the missus is the smart one in the family; she works on the medical stuff. and because she's the smart one in the family, she also brings home the big money.

i'm an evolved male, so i have no problem with that.

the problem, in this scenario, is that her company is laying people off.

they're killing projects and kicking people to the curb. the layoffs are arbitrary and unrelated to length of service or past performance. if you were one of the unfortunates to be working on a defunded project, you were also on the list for involuntary cessation.

here's the kicker: mrs. spaceneedl's project was one of the ones that was cancelled. miraculously she still has a job.

apparently she was on the list of future former employees, but her boss saved her. she almost literally had one foot in the unemployment line. now she faces the anguished task of telling 15 people they're out of a job.

on the one hand, we feel very fortunate. on the other, we feel very unstable. we're a two-income family, and are not set up to sustain a one-income scenario. particularly at a time when the phrase "the steepest economic decline in decades" has entered the vernacular, the stock market is crashing, and the jobless rate has hit 6.5%.

this time last year we went to the little needls' school auction and spent a bunch of money. we rationalized it because it was for a good cause. this year we're not going. still a good cause. just not a good time to spend money we're not sure we'll be able to replace.

big picture-wise, this is how a tenuous situation turns ugly. consumers stop spending, producers stop manufacturing, borrowers stop borrowing, banks stop lending. suddenly a recession turns depressing.

perhaps this level of angst is unnecessary. maybe we're overreacting, and maybe we'll look back and laugh whilst sipping expensive champagne.

that'd be nice.

for now, we're just thankful to have a fridge that one day might chill some celebratory bubbly.

in the meantime, we'll wait. and watch. and hope.

obama

i work with an african-american woman from chicago.

earlier today i told her i was worried. that i had no faith in americans to do the right thing.

she said she had faith. and that she began celebrating the day obama won the democratic nomination, because she never thought she'd see such a day.

she said no matter what happened today, tomorrow would be a day to celebrate.

she was right.

about everything.

what really happens II

welcome to the hotel california. you can check out any time you like. but you can never leave.

they tell you "what happens in vegas stays in vegas."

what they don't tell you is that vegas is the land of the living dead. and the reason nothing leaves is that the city eats your brain.

i know. i saw it myself. i believe i escaped because i was doped up on nyquil the entire time i was there. the medication and my underlying illness lent me the pallor and demeanor and mental acuity of the undead. so i was free to wander, unnoticed.

back in the day i occasionally traveled to las vegas for "fun." to meet some buddies, play some golf, and donate some money to the local economy. also to ogle young women. for the record, as mentioned, this was back in the day. pre-mrs. spaceneedl.

even then, i sensed the undead around me. haggard, disheveled blank-eyed, they'd shamble aimlessly through the casinos, careening from table to table. on the golf course they'd run their carts into palm trees, and spray tee shots into the desert terrain.

(of course, by that standard, i was one of them.)

that was then. now, it's orders of magnitude worse. fabulous temples and monuments to the undead have proliferated across the landscape. expansive casinos, still filled with sinus-eating smoke, lure the living and not-so-lively alike. the dealers and pit bosses, possessed of an evil somnolence, greedily sweep the tables of living (if not livable) wages.

and the customers hand it over, without protest.

i don't gamble often. we can't afford the luxury, and the missus wouldn't sanction it even if we could. but trips to vegas are few and far between, so i don't feel too much remorse over a rare game of craps.

i enjoy the game. thus, even in my debilitated condition, i was ready to throw some money down and throw some dice around.

the undead chased me away.

every table i approached was surrounded by them. people with unhappy expressions, exhaling smoke, mindlessly throwing chips into the void. no one showed any sign of life, let alone any indication they were having fun. the young people looked old, the old people looked dessicated.

i stood there with my stack of chips, taking it all in, vainly looking for an oasis of life anywhere in the pit. at one point, i almost joined in anyway. can you believe it? i was thisclose to knowingly and willingly becoming one of them.

maybe the nyquil wore off at just the right time. maybe a better angel lit on my shoulder at that very moment. maybe there, on the brink, some deeply buried neocortical survival instinct kicked in.

i left the casino, and left town the next morning. i still had my money, still had my passport to the land of the living.

but it was entirely too close.

"what happens in vegas stays in vegas."

yes. of course it does. but not in the way they want you to believe. and not in a way you'll like.

all politics is local

i saw ron reagan at bartell's today.

i was picking up some balloons for the girl's birthday party. and some ice cream. and some snapple lemonade. i don't know what he was buying.

i walked up to the checkout as his items were being bagged. he looked up and gave me a little nod. i gave him the nod in return, thinking he looked familiar. i figured it out as he was heading out the door.

reagan hosts an afternoon program on air america radio. he broadcasts nationwide from a seattle studio. he's a liberal, so i like him. his delivery is not always great -- a little halting and uncertain at times -- but his views parallel mine very closely.

so it didn't seem out of place to see him at bartell's. even though it was.

reagan's dad has an aircraft carrier named after him. and an airport. the former president is an icon on the right, even though he was not a particularly good president. the people on the right take what they can get, you have to suppose. which of their presidents has done a good job, after all?

nixon? bush 41? bush 43? no, they have to hang their hat on reagan, or nobody.

ron jr. lives with the jarring contradictions every day. he manages to keep things together, in spite of it all.

the girl's birthday party was a big success. the build-a-bear workshop may have played a role.

prelude

there's steam rising from our roof this morning.

the sun is heating the frost that set in overnight. it's cold and quiet outside, and looking out the window, from roof to roof to roof, the steam rises everywhere.

coming home from work and school the past few nights, the house has been cold. the furnace is still in unserviced summer mode, so we crank up the gas fireplace to take the chill off. we're fortunate to have that option. i wonder how many homes will stay cold through the coming winter.

the spaceneedl household will be down one adult much of the next few weeks. i leave tuesday on a nine-day business trip. i'm back three nights, then leave for four more.

suddenly it's november. that's when mrs. spaceneedl goes to new orleans, followed by germany. suddenly it's thanksgiving. then december.

the trips are preceeded by weeks of long, trying work days at spaceneedl sprockets. camraderie has been replaced by irritability. friendships have become polite, professional, distant. sometimes not so polite.

sometimes the combination of time and pressure produces a brilliant diamond. sometimes it just produces coal...cold and opaque.

it's turned into a rare gem of a day here. sunny, not a cloud anywhere. mrs. spaceneedl is outside, returning from her walk to the farmer's market. two little dogs roll around in the wet grass out front.

aside from the oft-mentioned sense that time is racing by...things are good for now.

it'd be nice if it stayed that way for awhile.

nihilism we can believe in

you've heard that a mccain administration would be just a third bush term.

don't believe it.

it'd be much worse.

a vote for mccain-palin is a vote for self-immolation. which is fine, if you like barbecue. not so great when you're on the menu.

mccain doesn't just want to continue bush's policies. he wants to supersize them.

like more deregulation in financial markets. like modeling the u.s. healthcare system after the financial markets. like privatizing the social security safety net making it dependent on...wait for it...the financial markets.

apropos nothing, as of earlier this week the dow was lower than when george bush took office. and the u.s. is $4 trillion deeper in debt. that's a 71.9 percent increase in red ink, while at the same time we're told we have no money for children's health care, education, veterans' benefits, collapsing infrastructure, or rebuilding new orleans, to name a few relatively small-budget items.

strangely, there's no shortage of money for an illicit war in iraq, no-bid contracts, giveaways for big oil, and a deregulated financial industry run amuck.

drill, baby, drill!

john mccain says he'll fix everything by cutting earmark spending. which totals $18 billion a year. at that rate we'll have things turned around...well, never.

good plan, senator.

a mccain administration would take the worst of bush and make it worse, by mere dint of staying its wretched, toxic course. and we haven't even mentioned sarah palin.

despite the fact that bush was elected twice, we're left to hope america has not, yet, sunk to skewering itself and climbing up onto the spit.

because there's no point in putting lipstick on a barbecued pig.

undebatable

CBS instapoll showing that undecided voters watching the debate thought Biden won by 46 percent, compared to 21 percent for Palin. (UPDATE: CNN poll on “Who Did the Best Job In the Debate?” Biden 51% Palin 36%)

i had dinner at the home of a good friend who is a dismayed republican. he wanted sarah palin to do well. but he was constantly calling her out.

"nuk-u-lar? it's pronounced nuc-lear."

"why do you keep saying 'he's a maverick, i'm a maverick, we're the mavericks'? geez!"

"did she just say 'o'biden'?"

at the end, he said, "she held her own. she was likeable."

i said, "this is your house, and i love you, but...was she vice presidential? was she presidential?"

he didn't pause long: "no."

that's why we're friends.