Things I will miss and things I will not miss about Seattle

Things I will miss about Seattle:

• The friends I have made here
• Many local businesses and the nice people who work there
• The Pacific Northwest Ballet (but I still plan to fly back for the swans)
• My quirky old apartment and the wonderful light it gets
• Spending time in the garden with my 92-year-old neighbor
• Most of the summer weather
• Anhalt buildings

 

Things I will not miss about Seattle:

• The junkies.  The seemingly chemically impaired people just hanging out on the sidewalks, the neighborhood parks, the bus stops, wherever.  The odor of piss along the sidewalks of Belltown and from every alley of downtown.  The used syringes left in our garden.
• The contrast of ground level poverty at the feet of the magic growing glass structures/behemoths of the burgeoning wealthy tech industry.
• The fact that I will not be able to afford to live here (even if I wanted to) when I retire, and even with a pretty well-paying job I will never be able to afford more than a one bedroom apartment in a building with problems (though I realize I am fortunate to have a job that lets me afford this, and I don’t need more than one bedroom for myself, but now and then it would be nice to have guests).
• The overcrowded buses.
• The weed clouds at downtown bus stops.
• Wildfire smoke when it drifts over here from elsewhere.  It was pretty bad last summer; this summer I’m prepared with masks and DIY box fan filter.

 

I am so over Seattle.

 

Things I am looking forward to:

• Snow
• Glorious autumn leaves
• Fireflies
• Thunderstorms
• Visiting Montreal, Boston, and Maine
• The Boston Ballet, and popping down occasionally to NYC to see ballet there

 

Things I am worried about:

• That much snow.
• The slim likelihood of finding a place to live that is within a block of a veterinarian (see also: That much snow).

 

The where, the when:

• Most likely Burlington, Vermont
• Most likely early October mid-late April

 

It’s time for a detox. and an Apple.

separated at birth?

(Image source: Wikipedia, with authorship attributed to a defunct URL and LadyofHats)

I’m ready for a detox.  What seemed laughable before the inauguration is now full-on sickening. Less than a week in office and the poison of the lies, delusions, self-aggrandizing, tantrums, stupid wall, etc. of our so-called leader is overwhelming.  (Oh, but if taxpayers are going to fund a major investigation into voter fraud, there’ll be a recount, right?)  Thank you journalists for keeping the record, but I gotta pay less attention for mental health reasons.  (and thank you nytimes mobile app for taking a brief break from Trumpasaurus Rex as the top attention-monger to honor Mary Tyler Moore yesterday.)

In other quality-of-life decisions, my next home computer is going to be a Mac.  I don’t care how much more expensive it is.  After the experience with my work computer over much of the past year, every since Windows 10 forced itself on there uninvited one day while I was out on my lunch break, and the subsequent updating behavior and what it has cost me (or rather my employer) in terms of work productivity, I will pay what it takes to avoid a Microsoft operating system at home.

(End of rant.)