Seattle has two seasons, nine and one half months of rain with rare, golden hours, sometimes days of sunshine, followed by two and one half months of summer. Summer of the most beautiful and intense rarity, a kind of summer you only see in the high latitudes.
All of which simply means that, due to being close to a huge thermal buffer, Seattle never gets that cold, nor that hot, though the collision between the warm Pacific current and the cold land basically means that you can expect to see rain nearly every day except during those magical summer weeks. In short, Seattle never has a white Christmas. It gets a bit chilly, which encourages our new Golden Retriever puppy to cuddle up with Mom whenever she naps on the couch.
My home page used to show one of the walks I take every day to try to keep from turning into a native. Less politely: to try to keep from becoming out of shape and over weight. Never a problem when I was younger, but as the years advance, so does the difficulty of maintaining some level of fitness and health.
Seattle does not encourage physical activity except during the Summer. It was one of those things I noticed when I first got here: the number of fat people. Not that that is all bad, as way too many Coloradoans are obsessed with their fitness to the point of a mental disorder. In contrast to Colorado, though, which does has the highest percentage of fit, fitness concious people in America, Seattle was a bit of a shock.
What keeps throwing me for a loop, though, is just how low in the sky the sun is, especially during Winter. On the day of the Winter Solstice (December 21, if you were curious), the sun is only 19 degrees above the horizon at solar noon. Here is a shot at 15 minutes past solar noon on the sea wall by the bay, about three weeks before the winter solstice. Note the length of the shadows.
Our Seattle house is old, and I've already posted outdoor shots of it. So far, the cost of this house has been quite high, and has included forty thousand dollars in repairs above and beyond the purchase price. Sewer repair, window replacement and electrical were the big three so far, and we have to repair the deck and paint the outside at a minimum this summer. Ideally, we'd replace the garage in its entirety, too, but that may not happen, as we're already well past what we should spend on the place. Too much more money, and we'll never be able to recoup the expenses on resale.
But the house, for all its age and issues, has some good points. Here are some shots of the main room on the upper floor with our Christmas tree and lights up.
The double doors lead out onto the elevated deck (the one that needs repairing), and in these shots you can see the wood burning cast iron stove, and a bit of the kitchen counter.
Here you can see the main room looking north, along the windows on the west side, just over the dining table. The hanging lights just over the table are adjustable, and you can see the counter weights just above them. The lights adjust up and down, and for some reason, I was delighted with them. Still am, and there has yet to be any reason to have adjusted them.
Looking back the other way. The kitchen is small, has no garbage disposal or dish washer, yet I like working in it, especially during the day when the sky light is open. It has a surprising amount of storage space in it, with the hanging cabinets over the counter. The chairs you can see on the left end of the counter allow us to eat informally at the counter.
This shows the counter a bit better. The kitchen is cozy, and with just one or two people working in it, more efficiently sized than the kitchen in the house in Fort Collins.
Part of the cost of the new house was replacing the washer, dryer and kitchen range, all of which were quite old. The only major appliance other than the water heaters and furnace that we kept was the refrigerator.
John Stevens
john at betelgeuse dot us