Dear M.I.A. Badfish,

I have no good photographs, just a few snapshots, as proof for my current plight but I AM thinking of you this morning as I sit in the Starbucks closest to my house. We had to come here to thaw and eat and get internet….all things I have never done before…at least, not at a Starbucks. (Not a coffee drinker and there really isn’t much here I would normally eat.)

You’ll no doubt have a chuckle as to the reason we are in this predicament…you, a Colorado Cowboy and all!

The Seattle area is blessed to never have more snow than just a bit of decoration. You know, a pretty dusting that everyone photographs and sends out to friends “See, we have snow here too!” The whole area shuts down and takes vacation days.  It’s not that there aren’t thousands of snow bunnies here. We just prefer our snow to remain in it’s proper place, which is 40 minutes away in the Cascade mountains at Alpental or Crystal Mountain.

I guess if these intrepid Hummers can make it, I should stop complaining!

We had a major snow dump here about 4 days ago…not the fluffy white decorative stuff, but heavy, HEAVY wet snow. The kind that tears 3 inch thick branches right off their trunks! And I’m talking about hundreds of beautiful trees. The result is our whole area looks like a tornado went through…downed trees, ripped off branches, and NO POWER!!! For days now.

Hey, I have camped and hiked my whole life. I’ve lived for days without any power or running water (granted, many of those days were spent at various outdoor music festivals and I may or may not have been assisted chemically to be able to ignore any such hardships) but I really am getting too old for this life-style. To have to come to a Starbucks for food, coffee, warmth (and to brush my teeth and sneak a quick sponge bath) is a new low.

I told you! You are chuckling, right? I know how spoiled I am, believe me. I realize how lucky we are to not live in 3rd world conditions (at least, not yet. I guess we’ll see after a few more months of “He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken” in office).

If we were in our mountain retreat, at least we’d have the woodstove for heat and cooking and we’d have water (icy from the spring and well, but heatable).

But here’s the thing. Short of the discomfort of having to beg for a place to shower and warm up from my newly un-estranged sister, (they have power at their house) and the risk of losing all my bugs to this cold, I feel incredibly blessed.

The Seattle/Bellevue area has a huge, seriously shameful number of homeless, and though I am deeply impacted every single time I see a makeshift home under a bridge or a small temporary tent-city, I still haven’t done anything.

I feel a resolve today I have never felt before. I can’t believe how bad it must be in the snow, the rain, the cold without heat and food and hot water. Maybe in some ways a lot worse than in a country where the norm is to live with the minimum for generations. I know in your travels you have probably seen such a variety of living I know nothing about, except what I read.

I don’t feel guilty exactly, well, maybe for all the bitching I do for slow internet or other mundane and trivial things like that.

But I do feel inspiration. No idea for what yet, but something.

I’m starting here, with a post from my dear friend Karuna, to get an idea where to start.

https://livinglearningandlettinggo.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/tent-cities-in-seattleking-county/

If the cold didn’t wreak such havoc with my particular thyroid disease (Hashimoto’s) I’d have absolutely no reason to complain. I could choose to look at this whole thing as a grand adventure, which I have been trying to do with my grandsons who live with us. Hey, they’ve had 3 days of school being closed so they’re happy, mostly.

But whatever I do next, even if it’s just to take blankets to a tent city, those boys are coming with me!

Thanks for listening Mr. Fish. I miss you.