Discoveries

Things I didn’t know about Seattle before relocating.

Pine needles.

Obviously pet hair is to be expected around here, I own pets. Tiny little piles of pet hair accumulate and (fortunately) they can go unanswered until they find enough friends to become obvious. BUT pine needles. Pine needles are conspicuous, almost willing themselves to catch my attention, one lone pine needle begs to be dealt with immediately. One lone pine needle compels me to sweep.

Everywhere I’ve lived, I have coexisted with pine trees. No one told me that PNW pine needles are pervasive little suckers, ever present, always shimmying their way out from under a base board to remind you that you have no chance of eradicating their kind.

I coexisted with pine needles on Lower State Rd but I was distracted by wild animals, domesticated animals, exposed electrical wiring, exceptional crayon drawings of squirrels by Alex and a large Charles Barkley poster… and the hole in the hallway floor that served as a trap door to the nerf basketball… because there were nerf basketball players in the kitchen. On second thought, there were probably an abundance of pine needles as well… but who had time to notice on Lower State Rd?

Drivers.

On the East coast, you add 15 mph to the speed limit and this is the slowest driver you will likely encounter on the road. In Seattle, the slowest driver is driving 10 mph UNDER the speed limit with complete disregard to the surrounding traffic, in other words, lane selection. Twice this week, I watched a Seattle driver merge onto a four lane highway and cut across ALL lanes in order to reach the left lane where they resumed the pace of a snail. They were in fact the slowest car on the highway. They would wreak havoc on I-95. And the tailgating, the headlight flashing and the gesturing would be an assault to their gracious, passive, mild mannered nature. The thought of this reminds me of an encounter I witnessed between an American and a Parisian on the metro. Ugly. The clash of cultures.

Technology industry… Microsoft?

I don’t really like Microsoft and it is everywhere in Seattle. I am tip tap typing away on a computer using a Microsoft operating system but I don’t like it. I don’t like Apple any better though. What a silly debate. They are both intentionally proprietary; one is more hip than the other. What it comes down to, though, is that I liked it when I was the girl who could fix your computer and now I cannot. I have no motherf-ing clue what is wrong with your computer and it really bugs me. I blame Microsoft and the Microsoft Connector driving the speed limit in the left lane!