Snow and Ice

So we’re on Day Four of the First Snowpocalypse of 2024, and anticipating Icepocalypse: The Sequel later today.

Did the marketing a day early (yesterday) to provision. Schools are closed, so all the students plus Miss Debra, school secretary, are free of the need to travel.

The wild card is power, tho. There are still a crap-ton of outages from the first round of weather, and ice has a nasty way of bringing powerlines down around here. So hoping for luck with that.

Meanwhile I'm working to stay busy. The weather has badly disrupted my kendo practice - the ceiling here is too low for a correct men-uchi, so I'm reduced to trying all sorts of gimmicks to workaround. Plus the little gym we belong to is down a steep hill from St. Johns and, while I'll bet we could zip down it'd be reeeeeal iffy trying to get back up so, no.

I'm writing a lot about Portland soccer - our women's professional team 1) just got sold to a California real estate developer and 2) just made it's 2024 college draft picks, so there's a lot to talk about.

And I'm reading a lot; first Wayne Lee's splendid The Cutting-off Way, a modern analysis of native warfare in Northeastern North America between first European contact and the emergence of the early United States.

Second, several sources for my planned Frontiers 1914 post later in the month (or February), beginning with Showalter, Robinson, and Robinson (2019) The German Failure In Belgium. I've also got Terence Zuber's 2007 The Battle of the Frontiers on order. The more I look into this whole "Frontiers" business the more I want to focus on the issue of reconnaissance and, particularly, cavalry, since it was the horse soldiers that the commanding officers of 1914 presumed would get them the intelligence they needed to carry out their operational planning.

(Yes, the fliers were busy, as well, but I don't get the sense that the maneuver commanders had enough familiarity with how the aircraft worked and how to use the information they could produce to really incorporate that into their planning...)

Anyway, that should keep me busy for a bit.

Meanwhile out in the larger country the 2024 election campaign has begun with the ridiculous Iowa caucuses on the Republican side.

In a shocking upset, Tubby swept the board. Yeah, I know. Pinch me.

There's no kidding ourselves; the Right is gonna return this fucker to us in November. If they can foist him back into power it's gonna suck for everyone not them, and, frankly, that's so obvious that if you're not them and you're not fulminating at the moment you get to vote against them, fight them, and destroy them, you're nuts.

We the People are going to get a very simple choice this year; choose the promise of the better angels of the American Experiment, or choose the original sins of the Founders, the long legacy of slavery and oligarchy.

I know where I stand. Where the rest of my nation will go? I can only remind them that...

Ceterum autem censeo the GOP esse delendam.

Ice

We had our annual December ice storm last week. Predictably Portlanders panicked, abandoned their vehicles on the freeways, and huddled around the gas heater when the limbs came down and the power went out.

We did none of those, spending the day Friday and Saturday sitting indoors waiting out the cold.

When we did emerge the damage was pretty photogenic.

The Girl's comment?

"Yeah. I can see how that might not have fit inside the green compost bin."

It's raining now, by the way. It's winter, but it's still Oregon.

Hazy Shade of Winter

It was just less than a month ago that I posted pictures of the autumn drama at the Portland Japanese Garden.

Writing shit about new snow
For the rich
Is not art.
 ~ Robert Hass (supposedly a translation from 小林 一茶 (Kobayashi Issa)

As Kobayashi-san says; that shit's done with.

The weather has made a hard turn to winter. Mind you, it's winter in the Northwest, which means one of two things.

Typically it's an endless gray drizzle spiced with days of genuine hard rain. Low temperature 42, high temperature 44, rinse, repeat. That's the "west-wind winter".

Then every couple of weeks the polar high looms down over the intermediate space between the Cascades and the Rockies, over the high desert, and the east wind blows the clouds away and the cold in.

That's when you get mornings of freezing fog, and bright, chill afternoons that never let old bones warm, and my bones - those of which that aren't titanium aftermarket parts - feel very, very old on those sorts of days.

They're also not beloved of Portlanders, creatures of the Mediterranean that we are. So the Garden was quiet and I enjoyed the change from red and gold to spare black branches. 

Or bare red ones, as on the red-twig dogwood...

I should note that True Portland dies hard in the winter; this young woman attending the annual "Crafty Wonderland" fair refused to let the biting weather nip her toes back into closed shoes:

That's not actually an uncommon sight here (I'm pretty sure I've blogged about it somewhere but am too lazy to look...), the combination of a heavy sweater or jacket above some chilly pink toes below. 

Part of it may be hardiness, part of it may be unwillingness to surrender to the season. Part of it may be the simple ease of slipping into sandals rather than wrestling with heavy socks and shoes.

Whatever the reason, it's a thing, and a Portland thing, at that.

Speaking of Crafty Wonderland, several Portlanders took advantage of the seasonal surroundings to let some pretty serious Xmass-y freak flags fly.

One such was this gal; I couldn't get a great shot of her outfit but this gives you the idea - the entire front of her dress was an solid mass of Christmas-tree bling, like the gold-encrustation on Smaug's belly:

Plus glittery silver snowflakes in her hair. 

The effect was completely insane in a sort of holly-jolly way. The Nikes make it sort of Ugly-Christmas-sweater-casual. Fun look, but I sure couldn't pull it off. There's something to being cute and /or pretty that helps make "okay, that's freaky" into "awww...that's cute".

But the award for Most High-level Holiday Cosplay goes to the Elf Off The Shelf:

I don't want to show her face, so you miss the Santa-hat topping, but given the rest of the outfit you get the idea.

My favorite bit is from the hem to the floor; you got your saucy fishnets going for the whole "Santa Baby" frisky sex-under-the-Christmas-tree thing, but then you've got the massive engineer boots that add a touch of "...but-fucking-try-it-and-I'll-kick-your-fucking-ass" danger. 

Clearly this is someone who has the authority to get you on the Naughty List.

That's all for now.

This little post has been too much fun to load up with serious business, so I'll close with Christmas standard you know (It's the "Piano Guys" doing the Vince Guaraldi Peanuts tunes, and since Blogger is being a dick about letting me embed it, here's the link to copy and paste - https://youtu.be/tyPDQpel8bI and a finger to you, Blogger, for being dickish about this). 

But I will be back later in the weekend to discuss some of the nonsense that we're getting up to here in the Land of the East Wind Cold.

Back in a bit.

Away from home...

 ...after the holidays; it's either one damn thing or the other around here.

The damn thing is dirt-nanny work I'm doing for a friend of mine. He needs the help, but it sucks ass like all dirt nanny work. So I figure I earned my week off.

The not-damned thing is that we got some snow yesterday; not enough to be a real nuisance but enough to be pretty, so I just enjoyed the winter wonderland and put out seed for the wild things who weren't enjoying it nearly as much.

I've been enjoying all the soccer (and, yes, I know; Qatar is a hissing, and FIFA exists to make the IOC look like a bunch of saintly contemplatives. I'm not pretending to be a good person about this...) but I'm going to miss the insane energy of the Japan fans. 

Apparently the soccer world will, too; they've won some sort of weird fame for policing up the stands after their games.

So will the otter. Ah, well; live and learn, Taiyo the Otter. Soccer. It's a cruel game.

Speaking of cruel, the Girl just laid down the law: no more singing "Hong Kong Phooey" because it's racist.

Yeah, well, no shit; it was a Seventies cartoon about a dog, voiced by a Black guy, pretending to be a Hong Kong kung-fu star. 

And let's not eeeeven go into "Rosemary", the horny switchboard/9-1-1 operator who spent the entire show constantly trying to hook up with the randos that called the cops.

The layers of "this is some fucked-up-racial-and-sexist shit" go about basement deep.

But it's Seventies phooey racist style! Sorry, kiddo...Yah!

Anyway. I'll get right back on this blogging thing later this week; I've got a break coming up.

Dreaming in Mid-winter

An Archaeology of Snow Forts

There’s not much left to be said
Some well-washed stone hasn't heard before.

History is composed of broken walls and bad neighbors:
Just ask these chips from Berlin, the Parthenon and Cathay
Or these cool magma hands of Pompeii, dark and grey.

If you listen carefully in the right place
On University Avenue, you will learn
There is a minor wall near the Yalu River
Dancing on the hills of Qin for the moon,

Who knows exactly what I mean
In every tongue worth mention.

She’s moonlighting as a curved garden serpent
Coiling around old Laocoon,
The Suspicious One with his astute eye,
Crooning with a sly wink,

"Come, touch true history."

And how the moon must laugh when she spies
The tiniest hill in Minnetonka,
Where the small hands of the earth have erected

A magnificent white wall,
A snowy miniature Maginot
Raised some scant hours before,
Already melting into a hungry, roiling river
Who is not yet finished eating Louisiana for brunch.

~ Bryan Thao Worra

No particular reason. Just loved this poem, and the thought of a minor wall in the mountains above the Yalu dancing in the moonlit snow.

Chaincicle

We're still thawing out from the icy depths of Icepocalypse 2016.

It's hard to decide which is sadder; the insane panic that hits this burg every time it snows, or the way that everybody in this burg seems to completely forget what they learned about what happens every time it snows. Until the next time.

Beavers in the mist

Winter in the Northwest is not all Dark Ages; sometimes we get a sunny day or three. Or week. Or two.

But the underlying reality is that winter in the Northwest is cold and damp. So that when those sunny days arrive and the air warms up the ground is still...well, cold and damp. So in the lowlands the fog forms thick and dank in the predawn darkness and lingers until the sunlight dispells it like the dawn the old tales of night-terror.

Nothing of moment to say, other than that this was a pretty morning; the high hills of Forest Park and the Coast Range further on fir-green and crisp whilst the rolling bottomlands of the Tualatin Valley hid under the cotton sheet of Night.

Boots

I've got a question for the readership. Specifically, the female readership.

We're foot—slog—slog—slog—sloggin’ over Africa!
Foot—foot—foot—foot—sloggin’ over Africa—
(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin’ up and down again!)

Here it is; is there something particularly enjoyable about high boots? I'm talking about you're basic over-the-calf to just-below-the-knee sort of boots.

That kind of boots?

Seven—six—eleven—five—nine-an’-twenty mile to-day—
Four—eleven—seventeen—thirty-two the day before—
(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin’ up and down again!)

I ask this because I've noticed something for years now in the wet winter and spring months in Portland.

I understand why all the pretty colorful toes disappear; it's freakin' cold and wet out there! So boys and girls alike toss the Tevas and the flip-flops in the back of the closet.

But us guys tend to fall back on what we wear when we're not at the beach; running shoes and sneakers, many of us. Low quarters. Ankle boots, if anything boot-like.

But a LOT of you gals seem to break out the riding boots.

I'm talking everything from cowboy boots through fluffy Ugg footwarmers and strappy motorcyclist specials all the way to the classic German infantryman's jackboot.

Don’t—don’t—don’t—don’t—look at what’s in front of you.
(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin’ up an’ down again!)
Men—men—men—men—men go mad with watchin’ ’em...

And I've always wondered - as someone who used to wear combat boots and now has to wear steel-toed boots for a living - why these diceboxes are so popular with our Portland gals.

Don't get me wrong; most of them are very practical and many of them are even flattering and pretty. But they're...boots. Big. Heavy. Hard to put on and take off.

So I guess I just don't get it.

Try—try—try—try—to think o’ something different—
Oh—my—God—keep—me from goin’ lunatic!
(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin’ up an’ down again!)

So, with so many other options for leather to put on your feet, gals...

What's with the boots?

’Tain’t—so—bad—by—day because o’ company,
But—night—brings—long—strings—o’ forty thousand million
Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin’ up an’ down again...

(The lovely ladies of Portland and their boots from Urban Weeds

Winter is Coming

The rains have settled in, and the morning chill is thick with the dank reek of wet leaves.

Autumn is here, and winter is coming.

(h/t to the incredibly gifted Amy Mebberson and her adorable Pocket Princesses for the cartoon)