Blustery New England Morning

The view from my balcony

BONUS PICTURE: Ashley dressed me as a hipster and I don't know what to think.

I look like freaking Chelsea.

The Weather

I had a conversation with Kelly, a fiction prof at WWU, about the Northwest's weather. She was from Florida, and didn't understand when Washingtonians commented on the weather's changeability--"If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes." She lived in the midwest for a time, and was used to thunderstorms descending from a blue sky, pouring out, and disappearing just as quickly. "The weather doesn't change here. It's just always gray. All the time," she said.

I laughed and agreed, and it wasn't until I got here that I understood Northwesterners perspective on their weather. It's about unpredictability. In Washington, weather forecasts aren't very useful: they may say that tomorrow will be rainy in the morning with clouds dissipating throughout the afternoon, but the weather invariably pulls a fast one--sunny in the morning, rain squalls in the afternoon, clouds at night. Or something else, who knows. In other parts of the country, and especially in New England--reading the forecast is like reading the movie times. It was humid and in the seventies today--miserable--and I looked online to check the weather tomorrow. The forecast says it will be humid and in the seventies, and I know, without a doubt, that it will be.

We've been having a weird summer hangover: humid, no rain, and the leaves don't know whether to die or hold on for another week. In a couple of weeks, Ashley and I are going to drive the Kancamagus in Northern New Hampshire to see the foliage. Pictures will happen, I promise.

Fleet Foxes

Tropical storm Danny is passing by New Hampshire, and bringing with it quite a bit of rain. It started yesterday evening and it's still going--feels like home. I'm sitting in my newly cleaned apartment, looking at the rain fill up the parking lot and soak the deck, listening to Fleet Foxes.



For those who don't know, Fleet Foxes is from Seattle, and I can think of no better soundtrack to a cold, dark, rainy Northwest day. It almost feels like Bellingham here, but I know the rain will quit and we'll be back to our regular humid hell. Oh well, here's another Fleet Foxes song.



Nerd bonus: The Fleet Foxes sound is partly inspired by Robin Pecknold's memories of old Final Fantasy music. A man after my own heart.

I survived Hurricane Bill

Early this morning, Hurricane Bill, a category 1 hurricane, passed by the Massachusetts and New Hampshire coastline. New Hampshire was lashed by threatening clouds and a devastating drizzle. This is the parking lot of my apartment complex, now rendered nearly unrecognizable:

There are at least three puddles in our parking lot. Tragic.

But the damage wasn't limited to only the parking lot. Our apartment is in shambles.

Ashley is checking the national weather service and sending SOS e-mails to everybody she knows.

Our cat was stuck outside in the deluge, and barely escaped with her life.

Actually, we gave her a bath.

We've been deeply affected by this disaster. Please send food, money, and beer we can trade to the National Guard for medical supplies. Thank you.

Some random bits

These are some things that have been on my mind lately.

• The tallest mountain in New Hampshire is Mount Washington, at 6,288 feet. Occasionally I see cars with bumper stickers that say “This car climbed Mt. Washington!” I'm not sure if New Hampshirites intend these bumper stickers to be ironic, but to a Washingtonian, they're pretty funny. The very fact that you can drive your car to the top of the “mountain” pretty much negates your bragging rights. I need to make friends with some locals and see if they really think Mount Washington is all that.

• We finally have a bed! Hooray!

• The heat and humidity here are horrendous. Today I watched a local weather report on mute. The weatherman was pointing to his humidity scale, which ranged from “Negligible,” up through “Some humidity” and “High humidity,” to “Oppressive” (70% and above). He was pointing at oppressive. Walking outside or onto my balcony is like walking into a sauna.

• The other day, on the way down to Boston, I saw a new Volkswagen Beetle that was the exact shade of cheesy orange as the Gold Chocobos from Final Fantasy VII. The color brought memories of that video game, which I haven't played all the way through since I was in high school, flooding back. Other Final Fantasy fans? I'll bet you remember this? Eh? Eh? Matt? Eh?
  

Yep, that's the color right there.

Things are slowing down a bit. Ashley and I are watching a lot of Lost, and when we're all caught up I'll share my thoughts. I've been skirting my exercise routine, doing job interviews, and surfing craigslist for furniture and employment. I'll keep you posted if anything exciting happens.

Road Trip Day 1: Your cat has died of dysentery

On the first day of the drive from Seattle to New Hampshire, there was a moment in Eastern Washington where I thought that this must be what hell feels like. Ashley was asleep, the iPod was playing some tired David Bowie song I'd heard a million times before, and the air was so hot it brought up those weird mirages on the concrete. For a solid twenty minutes I felt like a zombie. This is what hell feels like.

I wasn't the only overheated one. We stopped at a gas station Subway and ate sandwiches in the shade of the building (near a sign that read the time and the temp—107 degrees!). Our cat, Clementine, was in her carrier, acting kind of drunk and weird. Her nose had white flecks all over it and she was rolling around over and over again. She had pushed her towel all the way to the back and was lying on the bare plastic. We gave her an ice cube and moved on.

In an hour or so, we noticed her panting. We didn't get a picture of a cat panting, but it looks a lot like this:

Now imagine that but with the cuteness replaced by panic and fatigue, and you have a pretty good idea of what our cat looked like.

I had never seen a cat do this before, and it freaked me out. That can't be normal, right? I assumed she was dehydrated, but we couldn't get her to drink. About this time, the car was overheating from driving up a mountain in the Idaho panhandle so we pulled off into the Mullan Tree national historical site to give the car a rest and help our cat. We didn't know what to do (we weren't even sure she was dehydrated, although we assumed she must be), so we wound up holding her on her back, filling soda caps full of tiny cat-sized drinks of water and pouring them into her mouth. She looked pissed, licked the spilled water off her face, and fell asleep for a good five hours.

Later I looked up the symptoms. Turns out she was dehydrated—seriously dehydrated. If we had waited a few more hours we would have had to take her to a vet to get an IV, and since there's a severe lack of vets in the mountains of Idaho, our cat would probably have died.

Is it weird that this makes me feel somehow badass, like a pioneer crossing the country, enduring hardships, close to death? Like in Oregon Trail: Your cat is sick. Your cat has died of dysentery. Ashley drowned while fording the river. Well, the cat lives, and is currently climbing in and out of a box that I haven't unpacked yet.

If you want to know about dehydrated cats—and don't we all?—go here.