adventures of a tired coder

“It never snows in Seattle.”

Or so everyone here likes to say. Realistically, the central areas average around 5-8” of snow each year. But it’s generally not a problem because only a little will fall at a time, it usually won’t stick to the roads at all, and if it does, the temperatures rise in a few hours and it all melts away.

Except for when that isn’t the case. And I’ve found that it’s quite often linked to when I need to be on a plane.

[November 2010 – Staring bleakly at snow, waiting to take off]

Some historical examples:
1. Thanksgiving 2006 – I’m heading back from London. I was happy that I booked a flight through Vancouver because “it shouldn’t snow there.” Unfortunately, it did in Seattle and flights were cancelled for a few days so I got to spend a night in YVR and ended up taking a bus back the next morning.
2. Christmas 2008 – I’m about to head out to Taiwan and snow dumps all over the place. I survive a horrible highway drive with people spinning out right in front of me. I make it all the way to my street, but I lose speed as I try to avoid killing the idiot kids who are sledding on the road. Can’t get up the hill. Car ends up parked along the side of the road. There’s a small window of peace and my flight makes it out, which is good because the city got more snow and turned into a brick of ice for the next week or so.
3. Thanksgiving 2010 – Mike and I are heading to London via Iceland. It starts to snow that day. We head out early and take public transportation to the airport. Unfortunately, by the time we’re on the plane, it starts really dumping snow. They spray orange crap all over the plane, then say that they’re waiting for the de-icer to arrive at the airport (?!) and we end up delayed a few hours. Well, I got to spend some time in Iceland.

 
[left: 1/17/12. right: 1/18/12.]

4. MLK Weekend 2012. Mike and I are heading back to Los Angeles. It has already snowed over the weekend in Seattle and we are happy to have missed it. Except it’s not over. It dumps more snow the morning we’re supposed to fly back. No airport delays and public transportation is okay, just a little slow, but it picks up while we are getting back to our cars. I see that everyone else is leaving work so I do the same. Roads are okay, but my car gets stuck in my snow-and-ice-covered parking lot and I have to enlist the help of three neighbors to shovel so I can get into a parking spot. More fell today, and we’re still getting light accumulation through the day. It’s looking like about 5” of accumulation on my deck, which is significant when you remember what the yearly average is.

Why is snow in Seattle such a big freaking deal?

It’s funny, each time this happens, my Facebook friends list instantly turns into a stream of snow pictures and remarks about “Snowcopalypse” and “Snowmageddon.” Snow is a big deal here because of a combination of factors: steep hills, lack of resources to deal with it (because it isn’t a common occurrence), and people who don’t know how to drive.

The snow response has gotten better – for one thing, after the 2008 storms, the mayor finally gave in and changed the policy that formerly prevented the use of salt on roads. (Yes, they used to just run around dumping sand all over the place) But it’s still not enough. I saw plows go by my road twice yesterday, but they haven’t gone by yet today because they’re still clearing the major streets after the day’s snowfall. I just saw two Puget Sound Energy trucks go by, though. Outside of Seattle proper, most power lines in this area are above ground. There are a lot of trees. Wind and snow make them fall down. They tend to fall on power lines. People lose power. You get the idea.

Now for the drivers… this video from a snowstorm a few years back circulated heavily but perfectly illustrates what happens when you have icy conditions and bad drivers. It’s from Portland, but it’s the same idea.

It can get pretty scary, though. A few years ago, there was a bad bus accident on Capitol Hill that resulted in one charter bus hanging over a very busy segment of I-5.

But I guess it’s easier to look at the humorous side. A video on Seattle driving from this round of snow:

P.S. My next big trip is in February, so be prepared if you're in the Seattle area...

The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen

Genre: Contemporary fiction
Rating: ****1/2 (out of 5)
Recommended for: people interested in other cultures (particularly Muslim or Arab cultures), fans of character-based contemporary fiction
Received ARC e-galley through NetGalley.

Book 1 of 52 in the “Around the World in 52 Books” challenge.
Country: Saudi Arabia

Back-cover summary:
More than two decades after moving to Saudi Arabia and marrying powerful Abdullah Baylani, American-born Rosalie learns that her husband has taken a second wife. That discovery plunges their family into chaos as Rosalie grapples with leaving Saudi Arabia, her life, and her family behind. Meanwhile, Abdullah and Rosalie’s consuming personal entanglements blind them to the crisis approaching their sixteen-year-old son, Faisal, whose deepening resentment toward their lifestyle has led to his involvement with a controversial sheikh. When Faisal makes a choice that could destroy everything his embattled family holds dear, all must confront difficult truths as they fight to preserve what remains of their world.

My review:
It would be easy for a novel written by an American writer about an American woman who married a Saudi man and moved to Saudi Arabia, only to discover years later that he had taken a second wife, to sink into a dramatic focus on mistreatment of women. However, this novel rises above that. Born to an expatriate family in Saudi Arabia, Keija Parssinen is the perfect person to tell this story. No, things are not equal between men and women in Saudi Arabia. But there is a reason the US Department of State has a page detailing the reality of being a Saudi wife for Americans who are considering this life -- despite the reputations and stereotypes, this country and culture has an allure that draws people to it. This novel explores that allure.

The writing is gorgeous, full of elegantly written descriptions. It is definitely a character-driven book, though, and in order to really like it, you must be okay with a good deal of backstory and a plot that doesn't always move forward quickly. The third person narration also switches between the perspectives of most of the major characters, so it is necessary to like or be interested in most of them. I personally found the characters to be interesting, if not all likable.

Most interesting to me was the character of Faisal, Abdullah and Rosalie's son, who gets caught up in a Muslim extremist group. There is a comparable character in the movie "Circumstance" who turns to fundamentalism, but his reasons for doing so are never truly revealed. In contrast, Faisal's motivations are easy to relate to. He is a confused teenager who has always had trouble fitting in. He wants something pure and good to believe in. And as he crosses the boundary into adulthood and realizes that his parents are not perfect, he uses religious self-righteousness to reject them.

All of the characters are, for the most part, well-meaning. But their occasional ill-thought mistakes, selfishness, and lack of communication slowly tear down the happy life they sought to build. They had me rooting for them to succeed each step of the way, even though it became clear that once the threads are too tangled, there is no simple happy ending.

This would be a great book club book, as there are many topics and character motivations that would be interesting to discuss.

Further thoughts that the book inspired:
Yes, there really is a US Department of State page titled “Marriage to Saudis.” Many of the questions answered on that page were addressed in the book as well. There were many things about marriage to a Saudi that I wasn’t previously aware of:

1. You have to get permission from the government! This was surprising to me. I think the book made a bigger deal out of it than it really is, but it still doesn’t sound like just bureaucracy, either.
2. If you get divorced, you (as the non-Saudi) are not getting your kids. No chance.
3. You and your children need an exit visa to leave the country, and this requires the permission of the husband or father. The US government can help get adult women out without the permission, but not children.

Serious stuff. I also found it kind of amusing how in the novel, Saudi men would drive across the border for “happy hour” in Bahrain, where they were able to drink alcohol. The conflict between the religious fundamentalists and the money-grubbing royal family is also a surprise. I suppose it shouldn’t be that surprising that politics breeds corruption, but it seemed like in a country where religious rules are so strict that the royal family would be the ones behind it.

Finally, it crossed my mind that I tend to think of expatriates as white people leaving the US and moving to a cheaper place to have a relaxing life, and immigrants as non-white people coming to the US for jobs. I mean, obviously I know that it is more than that, but if I had to think of the first defining image that came to mind for an expatriate and an immigrant, it would be a middle-aged American couple with an art studio and large pool in Mexico and an Indian or Chinese guy working in a US software company. Being so fully entrenched in the American mindset, I think of America as the place where people want to go, and the expats leave because they’re weird. But – duh – American expats are immigrants to another country. Not someone on an extended vacation (trying to eat, pray, and love!) or attempting to exploit the locals, Rosalie in this novel really is an immigrant, someone trying to assimilate into a country that doesn’t want her to be there. I enjoyed seeing things from that perspective.

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

Genre: Contemporary thriller
Rating: **** (out of 5)
Recommended for: thriller fans, people with interest in amnesia and memory loss

Back-cover summary:
Every day Christine wakes up not knowing where she is. Her memories disappear every time she falls asleep. Her husband, Ben, is a stranger to her, and he's obligated to explain their life together on a daily basis--all the result of a mysterious accident that made Christine an amnesiac. With the encouragement of her doctor, Christine starts a journal to help jog her memory every day. One morning, she opens it and sees that she's written three unexpected and terrifying words: "Don't trust Ben." Suddenly everything her husband has told her falls under suspicion. What kind of accident caused her condition? Who can she trust? Why is Ben lying to her? And, for the reader: Can Christine’s story be trusted? At the heart of S. J. Watson's Before I Go To Sleep is the petrifying question: How can anyone function when they can't even trust themselves?

My review:
An old-ish woman has amnesia, and she reads a notebook every day to remember stuff! Ohhh, I can't help but make the comparison, even though this book is really nothing like The Notebook. This sort of dark thriller isn’t the type of thing I would normally pick up, and I’m glad it was our book club pick this month.

Before I Go to Sleep has a gripping and unusual premise. A woman named Christine suffers from a particular form of amnesia where she is able to recall short term memories until she goes to sleep for the night. Each day when she wakes up, she has to piece her world back together, with the help of some long term memories, her husband Ben, and a journal she writes her daily discoveries in.

I love how the book is structured. The first part is a day in Christine's life, waking up and not knowing where she is, going through the realizations she has to do each day, and discovering that she has a journal to read. The second part contains entries from the daily journal, chronicling Christine's non-linear path to remembering her past. The last part is the continuation of the day after she has finished reading her journal.

Christine's situation is quite terrifying, and the reader is drawn into the suspense of all of the things unknown. Once I started reading, I really wanted to know the outcome, but it was long enough of a book that I had to read it in multiple sittings. It's nice that there's enough length to draw a lot of suspense, but I also think a lot of the journal days were filler and could be eliminated. I mean, the following type of scene seemed to play out over and over again:

Christine: I don't trust my husband. I know I should, but I don't.
Someone else: You should. Your husband really loves you!
Christine: I know now that my husband loves me, and I love him, too.

Really, X loves Y (in various combinations) was said so many times in this book that it pretty much lost meaning by the end. The name S.J. Watson is gender ambiguous, but I did check after I finished reading and was unsurprised to discover that it was a man. Christine's character never seemed particularly feminine, and in some instances the writing even sounds markedly masculine.

Still, I guess in this book, it matters less what the people are like and more about the situation and what really happened. It's scary to see how helpless a person can be without memories. Though Christine's type of amnesia may not commonly exist, there are relevant similarities between her feelings and reactions and those of people with dementia and Alzheimer's.

Two great movies opening at SIFF, work kicking me out of my office at 3pm for a move… my Friday evening plan was obvious. I took the untolled I-90 bridge over to Seattle before most of the traffic hit and met up with my movie-loving friend Alexis. Her movie-loving friend David joined us for the films as well. The back-to-back films felt a lot like the film festival, except the theaters were mostly empty!

Tomboy
France, 2011
Watched: in theater, SIFF
Rating: **** (out of 5)

SIFF continues to have technical glitches. This film started with no sound and David had to run out and tell someone to turn it on. At least with subtitles we didn’t miss too much. This is a slow, charming coming-of-age story about a girl named Laure who pretends to be a boy named Mikael when her family moves to a new place. She is accepted as a boy into the group of kids in their residential area and forms a particular bond with the girl in the group. The children play their parts so perfectly in this film, particularly Laure (Zoé Héran) and her sister, Jeanne (Malonn Lévana). It’s a subtle exploration of adolescent acceptance/rejection and gender identity.

Melancholia
France, 2011
Watched: in theater, SIFF
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)

Ah yes, I finally got to see the film that Lars von Trier was screening at Cannes when he made his controversial Hitler remarks and got thrown out of the festival. I’m thinking he’s not completely right in the head. Melancholia confirms this, as the main character Justine is definitely mentally unstable and her character is supposed to be a lot like him. This is not your typical end of the world movie. The end of the world isn’t the main focus of the film, it’s the characters and their reactions to it as it plays out. The idea for the whole thing is “that depressive people tend to act more calmly than others under heavy pressure, because they already expect bad things to happen.” The first half of the film (titled “Justine”) sets up the depressive character, showing her very abnormal actions and moods during her wedding. The second half of the film (titled “Claire”) shows Justine’s calmness as her normally stable sister freaks out about the whole Earth blowing up thing.

The good things about this film would give Melancholia a solid 5 star rating. It is an absolutely gorgeous film. The beginning overture shows random scenes from the rest of the film in slow motion interspersed with shots of the planet Melancholia moving closer to Earth, set to dramatic classical music. Then Earth blows up and the rest of the movie starts. (Another SIFF tech screw-up, there was something covering a small bit of the projector in the top left corner at the beginning, which was distracting. Then someone’s fingers eventually moved it away midway through the overture.) Acting is great, and the characters are memorable. Justine’s wedding is such a disaster that you can’t help but cringe. The end of the film, when Earth blows up fo’ realz, has so much tension that it really feels like a huge loss when it happens. You’re left with… melancholia. =P

The bad? Well, I feel like there should have been more of a point. There are so many strong emotional experiences in the film, but they culminate in any sort of revelation. “Depressed people deal better with crisis” is not enough of a point for me. But most of the bad is the shaky camera work. The big screen is awesome for all the slow, dramatic shots, but watching all of the real life stuff gave me motion sickness-like nausea. Alexis got headaches. It would probably be easier to deal with on a small screen, but then you miss out on the power of the beauty.

The Muppets
USA, 2011
Watched: in theater, Regal Cinemas at the Landing
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)

I had some discount tickets to use and there weren’t a lot of compelling options in mainstream cinema, so I dragged my brother to go see The Muppets. I don’t think either of us are huge Muppets fans, but we were both curious why it was getting such high ratings. Having seen it, I don’t think I loved it as much as everyone else did (I’m sure I missed a lot of the old references), but I do understand the likeability. The beginning had me worried at first… it was cheesy and not funny. But it got better and funnier, and you can’t really hate a movie that’s as genuinely feel-good as this one was. Lots of celeb cameos. Favorite part was the song “Man or Muppet?” That’s pure genius.

When people learn of hot yoga, usually they hear of Bikram Yoga, a system of yoga developed by Bikram Choudhury. He’s a controversial figure, with people criticizing the safety of his yoga and how he copyrighted his yoga sequence (and has been aggressive about pursuing violators). He was probably the one who got the whole hot yoga craze going. Now you can find all sorts of styles of yoga in a hot room. Next to Bikram, the hot yoga style you’ll probably hear of the most is “power,” “vinyasa,” or “flow” yoga.

In Ayurveda, an Indian form of alternative medicine, there exists the concept of doshas. The doshas are types or principles that the body contains. They are vata (air), pitta (fire), and kapha (earth). People tend to have one or more primary doshas that voice themselves more prominently, but there is also the idea of dosha imbalances, where one (not necessarily a primary) voices itself excessively to ill effect.

Now, bear with me here. I am not an expert on Ayurveda, nor am I necessarily a believer in it. However, to me, doshas serve as yet another way of categorization, like Myers-Briggs types. And it suits the points I want to make, so I’m going to go with it.

My primary dosha is clearly pitta. My normal operating mode is go-go-go and I am goal-oriented. Challenges excite me. My schedule is frequently overbooked. I can be irritable and impatient. And since I carry plenty of heat inside myself, I do not deal well with external heat. When I first approached hot yoga, I was convinced that it would be difficult and wrong for me because of the heat. Well, it definitely was difficult. But it actually clicked with me remarkably well. Eventually, someone pointed out to me that hot yoga was a primarily Type A thing because it fed the fire, and then it made sense. Heat might make my body suffer, but a fiery practice makes pitta thrive. It was also pointed out that generally what you need most is what you want to do the least. For me, yoga-wise, that is restorative yoga. It’s slow, it’s full of long stretches, and it’s not really a workout.

Yeah, okay. But I need a workout.

Bikram Yoga was the first hot yoga class I tried. The second was power yoga, and I hated it. I didn’t have the arm strength to hold downward dog for very long without wanting to die, and I always had sweat dripping in my eyes when my head was inverted. But over time, I built up that strength, ignored the sweat, and learned to love the flow of power yoga. It got to the point where that was pretty much all I did.

When I did my 30 Day Yoga Challenge last March, I used a coupon for a month of unlimited classes at a Bikram Yoga studio nearby. Because of that and the good availability of classes, I ended up doing a lot more Bikram classes than usual that month. During this time, I noticed a persistent trend: I was never excited to go to class, but I almost always left with a great feeling. Not excited to go to class? Not that surprising. Bikram Yoga is kind of boring. It’s always the exact same class. 26 postures, most of them repeated twice. The teacher’s dialogue stays pretty consistent. It’s long: always 90 minutes.

It’s been a lot of months since then, and I just started another month unlimited at that Bikram studio. This time, after another few classes that felt the same way, I pieced the puzzle together. Like restorative yoga, Bikram Yoga is another thing that I don’t want to do but benefit greatly from. But rather than balancing out the pitta (which it definitely does not do), it balances out my secondary dosha, vata.

Vata is the ether, the wind, the air. Characteristics include creativity, excitement, anxiety, movement, etc. When unbalanced, vata needs grounding. And that’s why Bikram Yoga is so good for me sometimes. The regularity of the routine itself is grounding, and in addition to that, there’s the entire standing series. Tree pose. Locked knees. Holding poses for a period of time instead of moving with the next breath. Everything about Bikram Yoga feels solid and stable.

Maybe one of these days I’ll be more successful about going to restorative yoga classes. But at least now, I know I’m doing myself good by going to Bikram Yoga on days where my mind won’t stop running in every direction it can find.

I wasn’t going to do it, but so many people are, so I guess I’m the sheep today. Some random highlights of the year 2011…

		China/Taiwan VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Finally, at the age of 28, after many years of being told to “go back to China!” (in friendly and unfriendly ways), I made it to China. Just Beijing, but I don’t know if I could have handled a week in Shanghai after all the incredible sights in Beijing. Sadly, that was it for international trips in 2011, not a very busy travel year for me.

Challenges
Three challenges stand out in my mind this year. National Novel Writing Month (which is nothing new), Six Items or Less, and the 30 day yoga challenge. For some reason, I never blogged about my 30 days of yoga, though I did keep a semi-regular private journal over at 750 Words during the challenge. In the end, I found that I did enjoy the benefits, both physical and mental, that I got from doing yoga so frequently, but I found that cost-to-benefit ratio to be too expensive to do every day.

Food
I ate a lot of good food this year, partially made possible by social media offers. A Chicago GirlTrip also included a trip to the #1 restaurant in the US, Alinea, and Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard’s Girl and the Goat. Other notable Seattle restaurants I ate at this year include Book Bindery, The Corson Building, Rover’s, Lecosho, Lark, Dinette, Crush, and Le Gourmand. I also cooked through the summer using CSA veggies.

Outdoors
I continued my obsession with Seattle summers. This year’s hike count was roughly 9, one less than last year (but that’s just a weather thing). Last year, one of my hikes was solo. This year, three of them were. Did a backpacking trip on the last weekend of August, same as last year, but this time we were eaten alive by mosquitoes. Went sea kayaking on Lopez Island.

The Arts
Another good year at SIFF! I logged approximately 27 volunteer hours and saw 22+ films (still need to put that full list together). It sounds like a lot, but I end up adding so much to my Netflix queue because there are a ton of films that look awesome but won’t fit in my schedule!

Two trips to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, still keeping up that trend. This time none of them were alone. Saw four plays. I have no idea how many plays/shows I saw in Seattle this year, but I’ll estimate about 20.

Re-Kindle-ing a Love for Reading
Yes, I got a Kindle. But thanks to the motivation of friends who are avid readers, GoodReads, and all the book giveaways I’ve discovered, my reading is starting to go back up. I don’t have accurate numbers from before I started using GoodReads actively (sometime in 2009), but these are the counts I have for the previous years:

2007 – 18 (started a Mission 101 goal to read 100 books)
2008 – 5 (this is probably more like 10)
2009 – 7 (this is probably more like 10)
2010 – 27
2011 – 35

I estimated that I finished about 50 of the 100 book goal for 2007 to 2009. This round of Mission 101, my book goal is only 75, but I am on track to pass 100! I’m also proud of myself because back in 2007, I read a lot of young adult fluff fiction, like all of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books, and right now, I am reading Shakespeare. And The New Yorker.

10 Year High School Reunion
Yes, I am getting old. I got to meet the children of a bunch of my friends for the first time. I also got to see my cousin Brian for the first time! It’s great to go back to Baton Rouge and see people. It also gives me some perspective on how much I (and my life) have changed. In some ways, it’s great – teenage me would probably think a lot of the things I do now were really cool. But I also see some things in myself that seem to have appeared naturally with the onset of living an adult life – high stress, less flexibility, judgement, etc. So maybe what I do now is cooler than what I do then, but I think in a way, I myself am less cool than I was back then. Hmm.

Well, that’s it for 2011. Not all that different from 2010. We’ll see what 2012 brings!

While it seems like most other people in the world are currently scrambling frantically to start their restrictive diets and health resolutions, I am on day seven of my elimination diet. When I mention this to people, they assume I’m either doing a cleanse diet, a weight loss diet, or permanently eliminating lots of foods from my regular diet. Not the case at all. An elimination diet lasts for a few weeks. During the first two weeks, you remove any foods with the potential of causing allergies or intolerances so that you are symptom free for at least a few days before beginning the next part, which is the reintroduction of foods, one at a time, to try to identify which ones cause discomfort.

Why am I doing this? Mainly because I want the knowledge. I don’t have one of those stomachs of steel, and I’m certain I do have food intolerances. They aren’t nearly as life-disturbing as the ones that some of my friends have experienced, but they can be uncomfortable and inconvenient. It’s also possible that they could be the cause of the gastritis symptoms I experience every once in awhile. So I might as well figure it out, if I can.

What can’t I eat during my elimination diet? A lot. All grains except rice. Dairy. Soy. Eggs. Pork. Potatoes. Tomatoes. Onions. Most tropical fruit. There are some more limitations, but those are the most annoying ones. The restrictions leave plenty of things that I can eat, but it makes eating out a problem. One thing might be vegan. One thing might be gluten-free. One thing might be soy-free. But how many things are all of the above? And if they are, they might still contain potato or onion. I mean, who deliberately makes things onion-free?

As a result, I have been cooking a lot.

40 Cloves and a Chicken (and Brussels Sprouts)

This is a great one because I didn’t have to modify the recipe at all! There are many variants of this garlicky chicken. I used Alton Brown’s recipe and used chicken thighs instead of a whole chicken, which is something I would definitely recommend. Thighs are better for this sort of long cooking because they don’t dry out. I also added Brussels sprouts when there was about 30 minutes left in the cooking to get some veggies in the dish, and it goes perfectly with the garlic and the cooking method.

Pesto Rice Noodles with Italian Chicken Sausage

Originally, I was going to cook the rice noodles (the type you eat in pad thai) in a sad pseudo-Asian way with garlic (and without soy sauce), but Trader Joe’s had attractive looking packages of basil, so I decided to see how it would work in an Italian preparation. Verdict is good! I was really careful to make sure the rice noodles didn’t overcook, so they have a nice tooth to them that doesn’t make me feel like it’s a substitute pasta at all.

Basic recipe:
Put dry rice noodles in a big enough pan or dish and pour enough boiling water over to cover the noodles. Mix the noodles occasionally and test to make sure they don’t overcook. Depending on the noodles, they should be done in 5-10 minutes. Drain the water and stir a little olive oil in the noodles so they don’t stick together.

Make pesto in the normal way, except no cheese. I eyeball correct measurements for basil leaves, walnuts (I use these instead of pine nuts), garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Here is a real recipe if you need measurements.

Brown the sausage in a pan, cut it into pieces if you want, then add the noodles and pesto.