Thanksgiving musings

Where to begin with a post? Tis the season and I’m far away from friends and family. Spent Thanksgiving morning biking though, with a stellar view of Mt. Rainier as a backdrop. Thought of all of you as it was in that neverland of temperature between 35 and 40 when we set out and I was forced to explain to my riding companion the strange reasoning why we were allowed to ride 25 miles, but could not do the planned 40 miles. She nodded and smiled probably thinking to herself how crazy I was, but I think she came around to my point of view when we arrived back home a quarter century later teetering on the precipice of freezing without falling over the edge.

Life has been good to me in Seattle. I’ve learned to appreciate great coffee and discovered scones. The good news for you Capitol Hillers is that in retrospect, Murky Coffee does a fabulous job, at least with the former. I’ve had to learn some new vocabulary as baristas here don’t recognize skim as a modifier for one kind of milk in your drink. You have to use the west coast nonfat or you end up with some frankendrink concocted from several different kinds of milk as I’ve unhappily discovered.

My cohort of fellow PhD students has become a fabulous island of safety in the strange new world of academia socialization extraordinaire. We have even adopted a mascot (Dr. Smurf) who is guiding us in our studies. They are great people and I’m honored to be working with them. Here is our photo from orientation:
(l to r, back row: Jen, Ramona, Carl, front row: Peris, me, Bill, Gita).



I’ve become quite the swimmer again and am running with a subset of the Husky Masters crew in a weekly Run for the Bun which fuels the aforementioned scone obsession. All that running cumulated in my 1st half marathon finish (well, the first one not after swimming 1.2 miles and biking 56) with my sister in San Francisco last month. There was even a hot model dressed in a tuxedo the end who handed me a Tiffany box before I partook of all the Luna bars and Jamba Juice I could and got my free massage. Nike did a fabulous job with the marketing and set up, but could have used some logistics help from the military folks at the Army Ten Miler on crowd control points like getting our gear bags and our dryfit finishers shirts.

I’ve found new places in Seattle to partake in old vices like a good diner down the street for bacon and other breakfast basics & a doughnut shop (http://www.toppotdoughnuts.com/) whose specialty is cake doughnuts which provides a nice counterpoint to Krispy Kreme’s raised doughnuts. Mmmm, doughnuts. The beer is varied in flavor and copious in quantity as expected and I have five different varieties left over in my fridge from a small Ironman Hawaii party hosted to approximate the gathering at the Arlington Cinema Drafthouse. Although the beer exceeds expectations, where, o where, is the cider love?! I had not realized the ignorance about this fine form of alcoholic beverage on the left coast until my arrival. I’ve taken it on as a duty as an east coast ambassador to proselytize whenever and wherever I can to bring more Seattlites into the fold. I’m considering trying to get Woodchuck to sponsor me (aka, buy me a riding kit) to share the love. What do you all think?

On a related note, as I’ve bemoaned to you in several forms of communication, I am missing our rides. The bike trails and routes are fabulous here, but I lack your steady company to get me up and out there on a regular basis. Yes, there appear to be many good riders about with tons of cool gear I’ve never seen before. There are things like removable fenders (useful for making sure it isn’t raining in two directions onto you as it drizzles), two distinct species of commuter bags and more flashing lights than you could shake a stick at. Breaking into one of these groups may require investing in this type of paraphernalia to blend in with the locals, so to speak. Sigh, you know how I hate getting more gear. ;-) On the other hand, I have made some progress in learning a couple of routes and how to negotiate a traffic tool they use copiously here and can be quite a hazard to bikers: turtles. They are plastic, reflective bumps put on the road to keep drivers in line. I’m not sure if Phil Liggett would consider them worthy to be called traffic furniture, but they sure are tricky especially when wet and best avoided in any case whilst on a bike if you intend to stay upright.

Learning to get around here has been a bit of a challenge. Contending with water and bridges everywhere can be tricky. I’m learning to read maps in three dimensions. With the hills, you can sometimes be exactly where you want to be to “cross” a street you want to get on, but that cross-street can be five stories above you. Drivers are a bit crazy here, I miss the savvy skills of DC commuters. Yes, they are crazy and impatient, but predictably so. Seattlites drive slow in the fast lane and meander about in a way that leaves me very little confidence that they have a clue what is going on.

I’ll end my musings on Seattle here and wax a bit philosophical as I feel like map-reading is a good metaphor for the past couple of months for me. I’m learning the new world of academics and the new place of Seattle. But I realize in writing all this down in the context of the holiday weekend that I’m also practicing thanksgiving for you in my life and the experiences that brought me to this time and place. Happy thanksgiving, my friends!