Seattle slew

In the wake of Washington voters approving a ballot measure decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana, the Seattle cops are taking a pragmatic view of how to approach the shifting winds, so to speak, as least as they’re able to determine them.

This being the self-proclaimed vortex of anything technological, naturally they’ve posted their guidelines online.

It’s called “Mariwhatnow?”, a guide to what SPD thinks will be happening come 6 December, when the law takes effect.

I see that the same folks who with every show of distaste and reluctance control the sale of hard liquor (in state-run liquor stores) are going to be in charge of the legal sale of grass. That means that the hours will be so limited and arbitrary (depending on each outlet’s management) that the consuming public probably won’t have to worry much about being caught with any discernible amount of Super Skunk in its trunk.

But SPD has certainly shown more than a kilo's worth of sense of humor.

Silvered Seattle

Brr—the Emerald City is under snow, with heaps more predicted for tomorrow.

Given my own experience with how the area copes with the white stuff, all I can say is: Thank God I’m long gone from there. Chaos will not be the word.

Healthy it ain't

The business unit at the company where I formerly worked, which had been described to me as “like a really well-funded start-up” at my interview, has closed down, and most of the people I worked with have been laid off.

The corporation has essentially decided to get out of the healthcare systems business. They’re in the process of offloading the remainder of their enterprise clinical systems into a joint venture with an established healthcare systems firm (one that has figured out how to make money in this arena); the consumer side had been left to atrophy about 18 months ago.

I don’t have any figures, but it’s my sense that the BU didn’t make any money in the five or so years of its existence. And after a while someone in corporate finance is going to notice that.

The thing that got me about the consumer unit (where I was a very bad fit) was that they’d commit to building applications based not on market research but on vague “strategic” partnerships committed to by the BU senior management (now “retired”) or because someone glib had a flea in his/her ear and convinced someone else it would be cool. The prevailing approach was, “let’s build it and; figure out how to make money later.”

Their foundational consumer product, a personal healthcare record (PHR) platform, has never made money. And when even Google backs out of that market, you know there’s probably not a way to make money out of it.

Anyway, that’s not what I want to consider today. It’s how the BU handled the internal announcement. And by “handled” I mean “bungled”. A colleague and erstwhile office mate told me what happened.

On Wednesday the entire group was called to a meeting. People knew something was up because there’d been a lot of new people in for repeated meetings with closed conference room blinds. So they figured there would be some announcement.

However, at the last minute, a subset of the group got meeting updates directing them to a conference room in a different building. These were the “saved”. My colleague, BW, was in the latter group, but he didn’t get the update, so he showed up at the “damned” meeting, with his coffee and laptop.

An HR rep called him out of the gathering for a word—and would he collect his gear? Outside the room, she asked if he’d not got an update? Because this meeting was being “repurposed”. She sent him back to his office, where he waited, wondering what was going on.

Fifteen minutes later, the “damned” having been informed that Friday would be their last day, she was back to walk him over to the “saved” meeting. But by that time that one, too, was over.

It’s not at all on the same scale, but while BW was describing the events of Wednesday, I was reminded of the selection process at Auschwitz: whether you were directed “rechts” or “links” determined whether you lived (for a while) or died.

I know that it was the BU HR that set this up, because corporate HR runs things like Prussian Uhlans. I also know that both those in the saved and the damned groups were stunned by it all, especially the timing. As one of the latter said on her Facebook page: "Merry fucking Christmas".

As for me, I’m feeling…well, not schadenfreude, but perhaps relief, and a validation of my decision to leave that job when I did. Had I not walked away I’d have had 18 months more of wondering what the hell I was supposed to be doing, and that’s just not for me.

And there I’d be, laid off, in Seattle, having to figure things out in a very bad place.

(BTW: if anyone ever describes a company to you as "like a really well-funded start-up", run.)

How's your drink?

I’m so glad I’m no longer in Washington state. In the space of a week Evergreen voters rejected two ballot measures that would have removed the state government’s monopoly on the sale of liquor to the public, & the State Liquor Board has banned the sale of alcoholic energy drinks.

I don’t get either—except that they’re both indicators that the population that considers themselves the vortex of intellectual activity also clearly thinks that Government Knows Best, & that the intellectual achievers are too stupid to make rational choices about booze.

But the energy drink thing just doesn’t make sense. Apparently if you want to buy a Red Bull & vodka you’re jake; or if you order up a Colt 45, no problem; if you want a caffeinated alcopop you’ll have to go to Idaho.

Really—you just can't make this stuff up.

Bloody movers

So, I was in an Asian market today, thinking about buying a lobster. This is one of only two places in the Silicon Valley so far where I’ve found a lobster tank. (They also had a tank for blue crabs—live crabs $3.99/lb; dead crabs $2.99/lb, & I swear I’m not making that up.)

They looked a little weedy—a couple had only one claw, but I might still have sprung for one.

Then I remembered that the idiots who packed my house in Seattle ignored my clearly marked signs on which kitchen gear to store & which to move into the, you know, kitchen. So that right now the largest pot I have access to holds two quarts.

So much for a crustacean celebration.

500 pound gorilla off my back

As of yesterday, I no longer own real property in Seattle. The deal is closed & recorded with King County.

Thank God!

Moving on (Pt. 11)

SAN JOSE, Calif. My move-in expectations were low & Whining Joe managed to meet them.

Although, upon learning in Seattle that my apartment has two levels, he’d whined that he’d “have to hire an extra guy”, he showed up here yesterday at 0845 with only two unloaders. When I asked what happened to the “extra guy”, he said he hadn’t realized there were two levels. I reminded him of our conversation—that I’d told him it was a townhouse & he’d mentioned needing another person—he shifted his eyes & mumbled, “I forgot.”

Yeah, right.

No doubt the number of men on the team comes out of his profit, so he was just trying to save some money.

Well—kinda. He now has to drive 1100 miles to Albuquerque in two days.

They crushed one of my bookcases—not one of the Ikea ones; one of the Jerry Piller’s cases. Plus crushed one of the plastic bin frames & punched a hole in an Ikea case. They told me about the first; said nothing about the others. I wrote them on the bingo sheet. But now I have to throttle a claim out of the company

It took them until nearly 1700 to finish the delivery; exhausting for me because you have to be available with that damned bingo sheet to check in every tag. Which was problematic as there are at least 16 cartons that weren’t tagged. Meaning that either the packers or the loaders/driver didn’t bother to put tags & inventory them.

& now I’m wondering if, for some reason, the cartons with my bedside lamp & all my computer software CDs & peripheral drives were also not inventoried & are on their way to Albuquerque with Whining Joe. Because they are not in my house.

I’m going to have to go through all the cartons in my storage unit to see if they’re in a mismarked (i.e., marked for storage instead of not) carton. Along with the cooking pots & spice rack I’d designated to be here & not in storage.

I’m definitely not whelmed by this whole crowd. The packers were extremely stingy with the packing paper—one sheet per item, whether it was a box of SOS pads or a framed picture or Waterford crystal stemware. They didn’t even bother to wrap a lot of stuff, including the bowl (with lid) of salt; so the latter just came open in transit.

So it’s going to take me a lot longer to get settled than I’d have judged by having an allegedly professional moving company.

Moving on (Pt. 8)

SANTA CLARA, Calif. I am here—just over the border from my residence for the next ten months in San José. The drive was long and uneventful. It also taught me that the next time I have to go any distance in a car I need satellite radio.

This relocation has involved several hotel stays. I’m four days into it and already I’m sick of them.

I spent Monday at a Holiday Inn Express on N. Aurora Ave. First of all, I think I’d have done better at the Comfort Inn; I know it’s a no-frills place, but they really take that to heart. There was one single ice machine for the entire hotel, although there were vending machines on each of the four floors. The folks at reception wouldn’t give me change for $20—oh, no small bills at all. And I thought their complimentary breakfast was pretty dire until I saw what the Best Western in Medford put out.

Tuesday was the Radisson at Sea-Tac. Not impressed with the housekeeping service (OTC meds wrappers still on the floor from a previous guest), but they had a Sleep Number bed. (Can’t say I noticed anything special about it except that it makes a hell of a racket when you’re puffing it up or deflating it.)

Naturally, they weren’t giving anything away, not even a free cup of coffee.

I really don’t seem to learn my lesson about Best Western hotels in the US: they’re consistently rubbish. I’ve stayed at a number of BWs in France, Italy, Germany and Belgium; they may be at the low end of the three-star category, but they’re always decent and sometimes charming. The ones here give you the sense that you’re staying in a truckstop motel. (And I’ve stayed in those, so I know.)

(I was going to do a symbolic “shake the Seattle dust from my heels” dance at the Washington-Oregon border, but it turns out that you leave Washington and cross into Oregon in the middle of a steel bridge spanning the Columbia River, so I didn’t.)

I hate a hotel that has exterior access, because it means you can’t have your drapes open: people are walking by and can see into your room. I felt like I was spending the night in a cave.

And their “complimentary continental-style breakfast”? A bowl of bananas, coffee, some cold cereal, slices of bread, bagels and dreadful little muffins. Not even any napkins. Also—six whole tables scrunched into a room about 5’ x 10’. Mobbed by the bikers and AARP crowd who seem to be the primary clientele.

Tonight through Monday (thanks to my movers delivering on the last possible day of the spread) I’m at an Embassy Suites in Santa Clara. Interesting business model: the breakfast and evening cocktail reception are free; the Internet access is not.

Tomorrow I sign the lease and install the cat in the new place. If I have time I’m getting a California driver’s license and plates for the car. I’m so ready to be past Washington.

Moving on (Pt. 7)

MEDFORD, Ore. – Well, packers came on Monday & my possessions were loaded yesterday; the Rubicon (or at least the Columbia) has been crossed.

I wonder—does anyone ever have a good experience with interstate movers? I don’t believe I ever have done; at best just bearable & at worse a complete nightmare. This one is leaning toward the former, but we’re in early innings yet.

Allied sent out a team of three to pack, which was a vast improvement over what United did in Virginia. However I had to keep making rounds to check that they were actually packing things. For example, they left a mirror unpacked & only when I asked if the loaders would wrap it in padding did they laboriously use one of the mirror packs they’d brought.

At the end of the day they also managed to use $300 more in cartons than was in the “guaranteed not-to-exceed” farrago of an estimate.

It’s kind of sad to see all your stuff in boxes—even when you think you have become much too materialistic & should cut back by at least 30%. It all looks so…forlorn.

But yesterday it got worse. I saw the semi parked up the street, not moving & blocking any traffic (Seattle streets are hardly worth the designator); they were there for at least 30 minutes. One of the loaders said they got “stuck”—I have no idea what that means, but it doesn’t speak well for the driver’s ability to negotiate a city.

Then there was a SNAFU with the parking permit—they’d put out barricades on Friday, but apparently never registered the permit with the city & the parking enforcement chick who came out because there were a couple of cars parked where the van needed to be couldn’t cite the violators without having confirmation. Took a while for that to get sorted.

Once in progress, the first thing Joe the driver did was whine that my load’s too small. You could see his gears turning, trying to figure out what extras he can tack on to make up for the lack of weight. Oh—I’m moving into a townhouse? With STAIRS? Oh, he’ll have to “hire an extra guy”. Did he have to “hire an extra guy” to pick up my stuff? Or an extra two guys, since I have two staircases?

I showed him the layout of the apartment complex. Oh, don’t think he can get IN there; have to be a shuttle. (Offload the stuff at a warehouse & onto a smaller van. Of course at extra cost.) At the very best it’s a “long walk”, the way it was to pick up from my place.

Moreover, my delivery is scheduled for the 17th, which is the very last day of the spread they gave me. Seems Joe’s hanging around Seattle until Friday to pick up his next load. So I have an extra three days of faffing about San José with nothing constructive to do.

But the part that just leaves me gobsmacked was when he started asking me how to get to my new place. I’m not talking finding the unit, I’m talking finding a route to the street. The exaggerated look of dismay & confusion on his face was un-freaking-believable.

(I called the “move coordinator” to inquire as to whether their drivers don’t have GPS or even maps. She said they’re independent contractors & not all have GPS; but implied that they should have maps. When I said Joe didn’t seem to have them, she said she’d pull some out & make sure he had them before he leaves. God give me strength.)

Between the disdain for my paltry load & his cluelessness about delivery, I’m really not getting a warm & fuzzy feeling for this guy. The one thing I know is that my moving tsuris is not over.

Moving on (Pt. 6)

Seattle is biting my butt all the way to the end.

Because there aren’t enough tranquilizers in the world (human or animal) to get me to drive 900 miles with a crying cat in my car, I arranged to board Pele for the time my household goods are being packed & picked up, as well as the three more days until I take possession of my new apartment.

Understand, I’m paying handsomely for the service.

Plan (confirmed) was to take Pele to an animal hospital yesterday, between 0700 & 0900 to drop her off. There would be a vet tech there during that time (& then later in the afternoon) to receive her. I was to call her mobile number when I got there & she’d come out & let us in.

So imagine my reaction when I arrived as planned, at 0700, to find no one there. In fact, Ashley was in Yakima, a four-hour drive from Seattle. & whoever was taking her place wasn’t due to be there until 0830. So they had a different plan from the one I’d confirmed with the pet shipping service.

At first Ashley didn’t seem to feel any sense of urgency, but she did persevere & eventually someone drifted in about 0745. My confidence wasn’t raised much, however, when she seemed surprised when I handed over Pele’s health certificate. “Do we take this?”

Uh, yeah—else how do the airlines know she’s certified healthy & able to travel?

Well, okay, done—only losing me about 30 minutes in a day that was supposed to be devoted to de-staging & organizing my stuff for the packers today.

I had this well in progress when my agent called to tell me someone wanted to show the house between 1300 & 1430, which is kind of a long window. Er, okay—but you did understand that the house is no longer going to look as staged? & I have a lot of work to do to prep for the packers? I did mention this several times over the past week.

Then she called a bit later to say someone else wanted to show between 1130 & 1230, but “you don’t have to leave until they get there.”

Good thing, because they never showed.

Actually I’m not entirely happy with my agent—we had a second showing on Saturday & the showing agent had said there might be an offer. My realtor hasn’t followed up, nor has she done so with a couple of other agents who indicated more than passing interest in the place.

&, when I said that the place will need a cleaning on Wednesday, after my possessions are out of here, her response was, “Don’t you have a vacuum cleaner?”

Well, yeah—which will be packed & on its way to San José.

Oh.

By contrast, my agent in Virginia made the process of selling my house painless--he managed everything, including repairs, negotiating with contractors, communications with my tenants. I really wish he could be managing this process.

She suggested she might be able to get her cleaner to do it—however, this is the woman who was supposed to have come out to give my place a thorough cleaning back in June, for putting it on the market. Aside from being the yackiest woman I’ve ever met (a five-minute conversation went on for 23), she seemed looking for the main chance. She said she charges $20/hour; then later in the conversation, it grew to $20-$25/hour.

Oooookay. But then when the Saturday came for her to show up, I got a call from her right around the appointed time saying that she was running late. Instead of being there at 1345, she might not be there until around 1800. “But I don’t mind staying late until the job is done.”

Well, I do. I rescheduled for the next day, but once again got a call from her saying she’d be late. I told her to forget it & spent a few hours doing it myself. She obviously doesn’t understand the concept of customer service.

So when Jenny said she might get this flake to come out, my first thought was, this needs to be done immediately after I move out; this woman has no sense of urgency. Plus, Jenny told me she charges $15/hour—so her $20-$25/hour quoted in June was just her shot at opportunism.

Then, Jenny said that it turns out the cleaner is “afraid of going into Seattle”.

Well, then why would you suggest her if she’s already shown herself to be a flake, & she’s “afraid” of Seattle. Mine can’t be the first vacated house on the market needing cleaning—don’t agents have connections with services for this? All it needs is vacuuming, dusting & cleaning the mirrors.

I’m meeting my agent this evening; I’ll see what we can nail down. But, this being Seattle, I have low expectations & I’m sure they’ll be met.

Moving on (Pt. 5)

When you move you really can’t escape filing a change of address with the US Postal Service. Unless all you want to receive in your mail box is pre-approved credit card offers—those clowns seem to be able to find you in any circumstances. (I imagine that they & insects will be the only survivors of a nuclear holocaust.)

If you go online, which presumably completely automates the process, thus saving both labor & resources, it turns out that you have to pay $1.00 for making their lives easier. & they don’t mention this charge until you’ve already gone through the entire process of filling out your details. You think you’re done & up pops a screen saying that to verify your identity they need a credit card number…& they have to charge you the buck.

Well, that pissed me off, & since I had to go to a post office to mail a parcel anyhow, I decided I’d use the old-fashioned method: fill out their little postcard, with free postage.

Only these days, because they obviously don’t WANT you doing that; you have to go up to a counter & ask for the card. It’s not available amongst the other forms (including the vacation mail hold forms); you have to wrestle it out of a humanoid. & they’re clearly trained to discourage you—“Oh, you don’t want to do it online?”

It’s like buying condoms, or (these days) Benadryl.

It should come as no surprise from an organization that keeps upping the cost of postage (except for junk mailers like pre-approved credit card issuers) every 17 months & is talking about eliminating Saturday mail deliveries along with the next increase. But I find it really annoying that they use what’s already a cost-saving process to suck more money out of us. & I'm happy to do what little I can to foil them.

Moving on (Pt. 4)

I decided when I quit my job that I’d do a spa experience as a symbol of really sloughing off the crap I’ve been through for the past two years. So today I went to the Olympus Spa in Lynnwood for the “paradise package”: body scrub, body wrap & massage.

The scrub was worth the trip; I’m less enthusiastic about the wrap & massage. The wrap is supposed to detoxify you, but I’m not wild about being encased in plastic & goo. It’s kind of like an MRI without the atomic-powered woodpeckers.

& when it comes to massage, I don’t want some pouffy New Age laying on of hands. I want a shiatsu—something that’s going to find the real problem points &give them a Brooklyn shove out of me.

This particular place is Korean, & had multiple “earth energy” rooms, as well as soaking pools of differing temperatures. Kind of like the old Roman bath’s caldarium, tepidarium & frigidarium. Dunno about the purported benefits of the various rooms, but I do have to say that I was pretty much al dente by the time I left, & that really can’t be a bad thing.

While I was out there was another showing of my house. Since I’m scheduled to be on the road out of here a week from today I’m really hoping that this one will elicit an offer.

Meanwhile, I’m really clean, possibly carrying around fewer toxins & may sleep well tonight.

Moving on (Pt. 3)

In the category of no good deed ever going unpunished, last November I took on the temporary care of a cat belonging to one of the thousands of fellow employees. Scott quit the company & was moving back to Scotland; he needed someone to look after Fell for six months after a rabies test, so she wouldn’t have to spend time quarantined in a UK kennel.

The Brits call this the Pet Travel Scheme; essentially it means that the animal can spend the six-month quarantine period in your home after both vaccination & testing for rabies. The plan was for Fell to stay with me & then Scott would either return her to collect her or arrange to have her shipped to him. (He appealed to a group of employees on a cats email list; I was the only idiot to respond.)

It hasn’t been a totally felicitous time, as Fell didn’t like my permanent cat, Pele; so I had to keep Fell in the office when I wasn’t around. However, it was temporary, right?

Well, around May, when arrangements should have been made for the travel, I couldn’t raise Scott. No reply to any of my emails. I had to do some Internet sleuthing to find what I thought might be a phone number & have a friend of mine in England call him before he came online late June.

Oh, yes; still planning to get Fell. He’d start the machine turning…

Only next day I received a different communication: well, it’s going to cost $2500, & he can’t afford it…

Uh, that would have been good information to have before he made the grand plans last fall & roped me into caring for her.

The end result is that today I took Fell back to Meow, the shelter she was adopted from & surrendered her back to their care. So I’m the one who essentially abandoned her. She didn’t deserve that, & I feel really lousy that I’m the one she associates with it. (I just couldn’t keep her in my new place & this was never supposed to be a permanent arrangement—I was meant to be helping out for a while.)

Plus, Meow has at least six black cats I could see—Fell’s going to be one of many competing for attention.

Another Seattle event I want to forget about.

Moving on (Pt. 2)

Ah, Seattle—turns out that once you start trash pick-up service from the city, the only way it ever stops is if the house is demolished. (& since it’s linked to the water and sewer service, ditto for them.)

So the only way I can stop paying for it is when I have a name to transfer it into. That, of course, requires having someone to buy my house, so not yet.

However, here’s a particularly Seattleite twist: for the privilege of not having pick-up service, I can pay $6.85 per month.

I don’t know how they arrived at that figure, but it’s better than what I do pay now; & there's no point in asking a functionary why they're doing what they're doing.

Can’t wait to get out of this burg.

Moving on (Pt. 1)

Turns out Seattle is almost as much of a pain to move out of as it is to move in. I wasted two weeks on trying to get one of the local agents for Allied Van Lines (Western, if you want to avoid them, which I recommend) to answer some questions so I could book the move. Even after phone conversations with the owner (“Oh, this is unacceptable, I’ll talk with him.”), the rep couldn’t be arsed to call me back.

Then it turns out that “guaranteed not-to-exceed” estimates aren’t really. The estimator can give you one for ## pounds; & if the driver picking up the load decides it’s too low, he can throw a hissy fit & they’ll demand the dreaded change-order. Plus, there’s the all-purpose moving van company CYA: any further charges are COD at destination.

Of course they are.

(Finally something to make me appreciate what my Seattle employer picked up by way of moving costs. I’m sure they were charged beyond the beyond—even with whatever corporate rates they wrenched out of their provider.)

I’ve got another company booked, & I’m now waiting for the packing day on the 9th. Because my house is still showing, I can’t really do a lot by way of major organization—moving things around would make it look like I live here & screw up the staging.

I’m also trying to eat up stuff in the fridge & freezer, without actually cooking—because, again, cooking would create disturbance in the Fabric of the Stage. This isn’t a problem with berries or bread; but the lamb chops & the fish are a bit of a challenge.

Well, I just keep looking at it all as the price of the ticket out of here.

Seattle commerce

Well, dang—one of the more bizarre of Seattle occurrences has actually worked in my favor.

It’s been a matter of some wonder that you can drive around all kinds of neighborhoods and see any amount of rubbish standing on the sidewalk with a “FREE” sign attached. Evidently this is how people dispose of stuff that won’t even merit a yard sale.

(One of the neighbors put out a bunch of boulders out with a “free rocks” sign. All but one went pretty quickly; the final one sat sadly with a “free” sign for several weeks, but it’s finally gone.)

Anyhow, yesterday the Saint Vincent de Paul people for some reason took the metal storage shelf I had out for them, but not the metal-and-wood one. So I trotted the latter out to the sidewalk (I’m on an alley) and slapped a “free” sign on it.

This morning it was gone. I didn't even have time to take a photo of it.

I don’t suppose it works for men…

Driven to distraction

We’re experiencing a long spell of wet weather; not much of a surprise. What is odd is the fact that Seattleites don’t seem to be able to drive in the rain.

I mean, they’re mean, selfish & idiotic drivers in fair weather; the worst I’ve run across in three continents & all the lower 48 states. Their specialty is waiting until the last possible minute to get into the exit/merge lane. (To the point that, on highways where traffic is moving at 50-60 mph, they come to a complete STOP while trying to squeeze into the 15 mph traffic exiting onto another highway. Even buses do this. In fact, I was run off the road once by a semi whose driver had waited until the last minute to get onto the exit ramp, where I happened to be, & he just pulled over with complete disregard for that whole physics law about two objects not being able to occupy the same space at the same time.)

They do the same thing conversely, too: when entering the highway they stay in the merge lane until they run out of room & then swoop into traffic. Because that way, of course, they can get two or three cars ahead of where they’d be if they drove reasonably.

In fact, sometimes they swerve into the merge lane from main traffic that’s obviously moving too slowly for them, speed a couple of car lengths ahead & then barge back in.

& don’t even get me started about driving & talking on mobile phones.

None of that changes when it’s pissing down rain—they’re still as irresponsible as ever. It’s as though they think they’re immortal.

What I’ve also noticed—and this boggles the mind—is that no one feels obliged to turn their headlights on in the rain, making their shenanigans all the more dangerous. Evidently it’s not an actual law in this benighted state—in Virginia, if your wipers are on your lights have to be, too. Because, you know, it’s harder to see things the rain.

I checked the Washington state driving laws. They suggest that you turn on your lights in the rain, but don’t require it. (They also suggest that you turn on your lights when it starts getting dark & keep them on until it’s turned light, even though the actual law is turn them on 30 minutes after sunset & off 30 minutes before sunrise.)

I’d like to know what accident statistics are in this hole; but I know that I drive in a constant stream of adrenaline trying to anticipate what boneheaded thing the morons around me are going to pull next. Fair weather or no, their driving’s foul.

Neighborscapes

Perhaps you’ll recall that Higher Powers tried to keep me from returning to Seattle from Europe.

And rightly so.

Imagine my sense of pleasure upon pulling up to the house to find that my neighbor, Abbi, has decided to leave all her trash and recycling bins out in front of our shared fence, right between our two gates.

I’ve noticed that people in this particular neighborhood just leave their bins out on the curb all the time. Which means they have to schlep their trash, yard waste and recycling out there several times between collection, rather than keeping them at home and wheeling out the bins once a week (or every two, in the case of recycling).

This has all the charm of living in the projects, but with a higher mortgage payment.

But, since we don’t get pick-up from our house fronts (we have to wheel the containers about 75 yards out to an actual, you know, curb), it’s not clear to me what the advantage of leaving the bins out in public, instead of inside her property line, is. I mean, it’s not as though she’s actually landscaped her 20 square feet of land and consequently has aesthetic objections to keeping them there (as she’s done for the past six months).

It seems I unwittingly moved into a trailer park. Lucky me.

Civic amenities

Over the weekend I had to go to my local branch of the Seattle Public Library to return four books & pick up one I had on hold. The forcing function was that as of Monday, 31 August, the entire library system is closed tighter than a tavern under Prohibition. It doesn't reopen until 8 September.

They’ve been announcing it on the local public radio stations (the assumption being, I guess, that if you listen to NPR, you may also read, you know, books). Not only the libraries, but the book drops are sealed. That’s because there’ll be no one there to empty them for eight days.

(They’ve assured us that you won’t be charged a fine for any book due during this period. Yeah, right.)

Even the website & book catalog are dead—just this placeholder announcing the closure in 15 languages.

The culprit is budget cuts.

At least the King County Library System is open. &, from what I’ve seen so far, that system holds more volumes & is better organized than Seattle’s.

Still, for a city that touts itself as the intellectual vortex of the universe, this is a pretty piss-poor state of affairs.

Begging your attention

The elephant in the room that Seattleites never seem to want to bring up is the number of beggars you see around town.

I was struck by the population in downtown Seattle the first time I went to the Nordstrom Mother Church—you can’t walk through the Pioneer Square area without wading through panhandlers cadging money.

I haven’t seen that sort of thing outside of Skid Row or a third world country.

Yeah, there are homeless on exhaust grates in DC, but not whole colonies of them; & go out into the ‘burbs & you don’t come across moochers trying to make eye contact.

Here—they’re all over. On the Redmond Road & 148th Avenue exits off the 520 in Redmond; the 8th & 4th Street ramps in Bellevue off the 405; the 45th & 50th Street exits (both north & southbound) off the 5 in Seattle. (On one, where there are a couple of islands, I’ve seen three beggars staked out at once.) On 45th & Montlake, by University Village a 20-something tattooed chick alternates with the more typically grizzled male.

Which brings me to another point—these people are regulars. The one at the Redmond Road/520 ramp brings a cooler & a lawn chair. Ditto the one on the Ravenna Avenue exit off the 5; he always waggles his fingers at you. I don’t know whether he’s putting a curse on you or just thinks he needs to do that to grab your attention.

They also cluster around Trader Joe’s & Whole Foods in Seattle. I presume the marketing strategy is that those establishments’ customer base are more likely to respond to victims of social injustice. The TJ on Roosevelt Avenue has even put up a sign telling customers that no one soliciting for anything outside the store is associated with it & that shoppers should in no way feel obligated to fork over.

Last Friday I even found one at a branch post office. He was careful to park himself on the sidewalk, not on post office property. But you couldn’t go in or out without passing him.

I don’t know what this signifies. I can’t believe that the King County has a larger population of the underclass than other cities, or a greater percentage, or even fewer social programs to help them. Apparently what it does have is an entrepreneurial approach to begging amongst them.