Freecyclin'

Our laundry area is more or less back in order now, with a new floor, coat of paint, and shelving. There is still some drywall and trim repair to do here and there, but it's tidy enough. And now that we've painted that end of the kitchen, we'll have to paint the rest. Yesterday was a three-hardware-store-trip day, but we have our washing machine back, and a place to put all the stuff that was dumped all over the house for the past two weeks. And the hellmouth to our crawlspace is once again closed.

So meanwhile, I am trying to get rid of some stuff that we don't need, and my new favorite thing is Freecycle. The Freecycle Network™ is "made up of 4,799 groups with 7,192,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills."

Seattle's group has about 20,000 members. Here's how it works: You post either "Offered" or "Wanted," with a description of the item and your neighborhood. It must be free, the receiver picks it up, and you must make individual arrangements to have your item picked up (not just "it's on the front porch, y'all come and may the first one win!"). Once the deal is done, you post an updated "Taken" or "Received" notice. Volume is probably 50 notices a day, but sent in 2-4 aggregated digests.

I appreciate that people come pick my stuff up, which makes it way easy. But mostly I love the emphasis on redistributing our crap to where it will get used - keeping things out of landfills, reducing the natural resources used to produce new items, helping people live frugally. And it appears that nearly any piece of crap will get used by somebody. Oh the obvious stuff, like futons and dining room tables, baby clothes and moving boxes, bicycles and textbooks - that goes in about ten minutes. But some of the things definitely have more niche appeal: two dozen egg cartons, multiple broken vacuum cleaners, antique fiddle cases, half-used containers of everything from cat litter to over-the-counter pharmaceuticals.

I've unloaded three things so far: an ergonomic exercise ball, The Structure from our recent Canadian trip (even with full disclosure about the tear in the mesh, caused by dog lunging at elk), and the seven planks of discontinued-color marmoleum which we bought and then could not use after all on our kitchen floor. All claimed (by email at least, not picked up) within an hour. The couple of times I've tried to claim something, I've never been the winning non-bidder. Stuff moves fast in the freecycle community.

So I'm getting bolder and planning to list some more esoteric stuff. The unopened bottle of extra-strength Zantac generic that I accidentally bought at Costco. Unused paint. Who knows how much of my crap would be a delightful find to somebody else?

I've heard that the IRS is unsure what to do about this increasing movement towards freecycling and the related practice of time/skill bartering. In theory, there should be tax implications to all this, but how could they ever police it? That kind of tickles me too.

Things I have learned

First, a correction: It turns out it is not, in fact, illegal to let your cat roam loose in Seattle, as I recently and incorrectly asserted in my posting on coyotes. The City of Seattle's leash/containment laws apply to all pets except for cats and...pigeons (I kid you not). My apologies for the error, and let me just emphasize that I am sincerely sorry for the loss of anyone's pet cat to a coyote. Please, I do not want hate mail from the cat community, some of whom seem to be quite agitated about this whole coyote situation. I just still think the coyotes are entitled to live here. And that cats are safer indoors anyway - seems to me their demise is more likely to come from a car or a raccoon.

Speaking of which, we heard a coyote howl nearby last night. It was cool, I've only heard that sound in the desert of Utah before. Our dogs went absolutely bonkers. I do hope all the neighborhood cats made it through the night unscathed.

Second: I had an arborist out today to look at our ailing maple tree, which is apparently suffering from the tree equivalent of congestive heart failure. But the arborist also pointed out that one of the ornamental trees on our property, planted by the previous owner (a landscape architect), is apparently a rare and valued species which we could likely uproot and sell to an enthusiast for something like ten thousand dollars. And in fact, if the tree were smaller and in a more accessible spot, somebody might even steal the tree to sell on the rare-tree black market. Jiminy Christmas, the world is a strange place.

Toby makes a new friend!

On Friday Enrico and I were walking the dogs together, and a block from our house we saw a telephone pole flyer announcing that one of the Seward Park coyotes had been seen on that very intersection, at 5 am a few days earlier.

For those not in the loop, at least three coyotes have taken up residence in nearby Seward Park. They have been ranging out at night and have eaten a few pet cats, and attacked at least one little dog. They're not the first coyotes to take up residence in the city. State laws - passed by voter referendum about eight years ago - limit the government's ability to kill or even relocate this kind of wildlife. A friend of ours in another neighborhood told us that when coyotes moved in there, concerned neighbors called a community meeting to complain about their disappearing pet cats. To which the city said - hey, if you're letting your cat roam loose, you're breaking the law. Keep the kitty inside; problem solved.

In fact, my cursory web research on coyotes revealed that they're extremely common in cities, and one study estimated something like 2,000 of them in Chicago, for heaven's sake. Enrico and I are generally pleased whenever the wild animals reclaim a little of what humans have taken from them, and we live in hope that we might one day coexist in more peaceable harmony with all the flora and fauna. Plus we're generally fans of the whole canine genus, from the tame ones in our own house to the majestic wolves and coyotes who have been so ruthlessly demonized and hunted. So we're pretty excited about our new neighbors.

I asked Enrico if this would change his behavior when walking the dogs through Seward Park. He likes to take them over the top, on the trails through the wooded areas, where he lets Toby run off-leash. Yes, we know it's illegal, but it's quiet and woodsy up there, and lots of people do it. Enrico figured coyotes are wary of people and would be laying low during the day. The odds of encountering one seemed pretty unlikely.

So the very next day - yesterday - he toddled off to the park with the dogs, and whom should they meet, but - a coyote!

Toby took off like a shot after his distant cousin, Canis Latrens. Enrico called him back, and the coyote returned shortly thereafter. As Enrico leashed Toby up, the coyote began making a sound which Enrico could only describe as a high-pitched "scolding." The scolding continued for a sustained couple of minutes as Enrico high-tailed it down the hill with the dogs.

So, there will be no more off-leashing for Toby in Seward Park. It's somebody else's home now, and that must be respected. I hope the coyotes get enough to eat there. My guess is that the population of rabbits - pet bunnies unwisely released into the wild by their owners, along with many generations of offspring - are goners. Which is ok with me, since they really shouldn't be there. I wonder if we can also thank our new canine neighbors for the puzzling absence of rats over the last few months.

Anyway, there is a community workshop on "Coexisting with Coyotes" on Tuesday night at the Pritchard Beach Bathhouse; I think we'll go to learn more.

In other news: Farming is hard

A couple of weeks ago I saw this article in the paper, about a church group that has started a small farm with the goal of developing a farmers market in the Central Area of Seattle, one of the few neighborhoods that does not yet have a market. It's also the predominantly African-American part of town, and so the organizers of this effort also want to do it in a way that will keep the business dollars in the black community. Unfortunately, for various reasons they were going to have to move their plant starts to a new farm location, and were calling for volunteers to help re-plant.

So we headed down there on a Saturday morning, and spent about four hours helping out. There were probably a couple dozen people from the church, and maybe 75 additional random volunteers like us. Some of the plant starts were still in trays, but others had been pulled from the ground and were heaped in buckets. These latter needed to be replanted very quickly, before disintegrating into green goo, like the old lettuce at the bottom of the plastic bag. I mostly planted, and Enrico mostly hauled bucket after bucket of fertilizer (manure) to the newly turned beds.

After four hours, my legs hurt so badly from squatting, I was pretty sure I'd be walking like a duck forever. My lower back was screaming. When we got home, Enrico did not even make it into the house before falling asleep...in the back yard. He literally couldn't get through the door without sleeping. The only thing that got me in the house was the desire to shower the manure off. After just four hours. This is how hard it is to be a farmer. I am that much more appreciative of these people now every time I go to the farmers market.

The dogs were appreciative that Enrico was acting like a proper dog and lounging in the grass with them. Finally! they said, you are getting with the program around here. And the smell of manure was a big plus, too.

It's hard out there for a bird

A couple of weeks ago - on that one weekend that was actually sunny and warm, remember that? Vaguely? Before we returned to the wet 55-degree gloom without end, like when Narnia was plunged into constant winter by the evil queen?

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago it was warm. And I was cleaning up our patio and planting flowers for the summer season which might theoretically arrive, someday, when the evil queen is vanquished. I noticed Toby carefully inspecting a big tub full of junk that had been sitting by the patio for months. Actually it was full of blue-glass wine bottles which I've been collecting for years with which I plan to someday create a fabulous border around my flower garden. That is even less likely to happen than the vanquishing of the evil queen, but I digress.

I noticed Toby sniffing around in there and it occurred to me that the bottles probably contained really nasty stagnant water, and since Toby is one of those dogs with an inexplicable taste for really disgusting things, I shouted at him to leave it, because by golly I wasn't spending a rare sunny day on yet another trip to the damn emergency vet. But he ignored me. And next thing I knew, I saw him making that unmistakable snapping motion with his head, the motion of a predator attempting the knockout plow to its prey.

I'd seen this move before, when Toby killed a rat right before our eyes a couple of years ago, and I immediately assumed he had another rodent trapped in the plastic tub. So I grabbed his collar and began gingerly pulling bottles out of the tub - only to find a clutch of four baby wrens, flapping about in a panic.

Now, rats are one thing, but I draw the line at baby birds. We have a long history of giving shelter to bird families on this property (see here and here). So I hauled Toby away by the neck and stuck in him the house. Then I went back to the tub and pondered my options, with Toby howling his protests from inside the house, and the mama wren screaming hers from around my head.

I gingerly pulled the bottles out, because the poor birds were flailing against them in panic and I was afraid they'd hurt their little wings. With obstacles out of the way, two of them managed a wobbly, low-elevation flight to safety beyond our fence. But two remained, and they didn't seem to have the skills to get out on their own - which begs the question of how they got in there in the first place? Because there was no sign of a nest in there, or of eggshells. Perhaps they'd run in through the drainage holes at the bottom of the tub, I don't know.

Eventually I managed to help all the babies get beyond the fence, and I could hear the frantic family reunion off in the bushes. I let Toby out; he made a big show of pouting. Later that night, I heard chirping on the front porch and peered out to see three of the young ones assembled on our doormat. For a while, I'd see the family around the property, but I've lost track of them now. They're probably all grown up and indistinguishable from all the other wrens.

This morning in the wee hours we heard a crazy cacophony of birds. The racket was coming from a tree across the street, and Enrico stopped by on his way to work to see what the fuss was about. There he found a raccoon, calmly eating a bird. He said the raccoon was surrounded by all manner of birds - crows, wrens, starlings, robins, flickers - angry and protesting with all their might. Many of them would normally be enemies - I've seen crows raid other birds' nests for a snack - but they were all united against the raccoon. Not that it made much difference. Not much they could do against such brazenness, not to mention the opposable thumbs. I hope the raccoon wasn't eating my little wren friends.

And, on top of that, the peregrine falcons who live downtown on the Washington Mutual tower lost their entire brood this year. All three babies died. Falcons have been nesting in that tower for almost 15 years, and each year the good people of Puget Sound follow their adventures excitedly, thanks to a video feed. Remember the year Stewart had to raise the chicks alone after his first mate, Virginia, died tragically after crashing into another glass skyscraper? Oh, how we cheered him on, that plucky single dad. Our hearts were warmed when he came back the next year with a new wife, Belle. But this year, there is tragedy again. The scientists are investigating.

It's hard out there for a bird.

The bitch-slapping continues, but it's PURTY

Yesterday's slapfest began with hail. Possibly the most intense hailstorm I've ever experienced, which is something coming from a Midwestern gal. It completely covered the ground in white like snow. Here is our front walkway, with mug inserted for scale:


The pounding on the house grew so loud that Nelly resigned herself to the end of the world and took refuge under my desk, basking in the grim satisfaction of being proven right that the world is headed for hell in a handbasket so long as she isn't in charge of it.

But she was mistaken, because then the hail turned immediately into snow. Enrico took the dogs out for a long walk, because they LOVE snow, especially Nelly. It's probably the only thing that turns her curmudgeonly soul back into a playful puppy. She rolls, she flings snow up into the air gleefully with her snout, she digs, she hounds Toby to chase me, chase me, CHASE ME NOW! Then Enrico attempted to shovel our sidewalk with a garden shovel since we don't own a snowshovel. Why? BECAUSE WE LIVE IN SEATTLE, that's why.

The end result this morning is a layer of crushed icy hail covered with four inches of snow. The radio keeps insisting that Seattle "only got about an inch of snow," proving once again that the entire south end of the city apparently forgot to turn off its cloaking device, rendering us invisible to our fellow citizens downtown and northwards.

It would be no big deal in the midwest, but of course we have these big hills here and sometimes nothing short of tire chains will get you where you want to go. Enrico reported a slew of cars abandoned at the bottom of our hill last night. I had one appointment scheduled today, clear across town, and while I could probably make it in our trusty Subaru, it can wait. It's only my accountant.

Meanwhile, it's pretty. It's so very, very pretty. Here is the view out our bedroom window, just after sunup:

Annual review of a great night

On Tuesday I attended the 37th Annual Messiah Sing-Along & Play-Along at University Unitarian Church, the BEST Messiah sing-along ever. It's the best because they do they whole Messiah - every movement, note, repeat and da capo - and we, the people, get to do all of it. The arias, the recitatifs. Even the orchestra is volunteer. The only people who are arranged in advance are the conductor, harpsichordist, and a first chair for each string section. This year there was apparently "a near-riot" at the door, as tickets sold out much earlier than usual.

It's the populist Messiah, a musical barn-raising: a few people have a plan and know what they're doing, but other than that you work with whoever shows up. As a result, some things come off beautifully, while others are a bit dodgy. But that's all part of the fun.

Another part of the fun is meeting the people near you. My neighbor this year was a lovely, elegant woman, recently retired to Seattle from a a career of teaching music overseas to children of US military personnel. She had come to the sing-along the previous year by chance, and declared it to be one of the best musical events she had ever attended in a lifetime of musical events. Alongside the moments that are painfully off-key or off-tempo, she marvelled at the moments of improbable beauty, where "if you close your eyes you can imagine we're a great professional chorus, singing in a beautiful cathedral." That's exactly it, the addictive nature of this sing-along. And the beautiful moments aren't just the easy or well-known bits, either. Of course the Halleluja Chorus sounds great - it isn't very hard to sing. Sometimes a terribly difficult aria - written for one voice, not 100 - soars and flows so exquisitely it takes your breath away.

This year we had a lovely alto section, while the tenors were quite thin, oddly enough. The orchestra was huge, which is a mixed blessing. When you've got an orchestra of varied skill levels playing three hours of music that they've never rehearsed together, more people tend to be more ragged than fewer people. More wrong notes, poor tuning, early entrances. But that's not the point. This year? Three string basses, hauled out on a night of pouring rain! A trumpet player who also brought her cornet for the The Trumpet Shall Sound, really a rousing duet between bass and trumpet. Two people brought period instruments - crude, recorder-like ancestors to the clarinet and oboe. Damn hard to keep in tune, which added to the raggedness, but also to the fun. The conductor is a wonder, keeping us all moving.

Having recently shifted from soprano to alto and learned that harmony is HARD, I ordered a score back in November and have been practicing along to a CD. Boy, did that help a lot, although I learned that not all Messiah recordings are equal. The one Enrico checked out from the library somewhat at random was great, but when it had to go back, I bought my own, impetuously assuming that the London Philharmonic Orchestra would serve me well. Alas! Of the four major alto arias, they gave one away to the bass (But Who May Abide the Day of His Coming), truncated one down to a third of its full length (He Was Despise'd), and eliminated one entirely (the very lovely Thou Art Gone Up On High) - leaving only O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion unscathed. The tempi of the choruses alternate between Plodding Through Molasses and Bat Out of Hell (I forget the Italian terms - larghetto? prestissimo?). But I believe I've ordered one from Amazon that will fit the bill when it comes time to practice again next year.

(P.S. If anyone would like a two-CD set of the Messiah by the London Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus - it's free to a good home!)

The Saga

The Saga of the Storm

This story is probably familiar to anyone who lives here, who can rightly say, So what? Quit yer bitchin'. But, I'll record it for out-of-towners and posterity anyway, and any lessons that can be learned.

Day One: The Day of Great Wind
In retrospect, I probably should have given more credence to the weather reports, but you know how the media are about storm predictions. So dramatic! So overwrought! I knew we had plenty of emergency supplies, but I probably should have filled up the gas tank and battoned down the hatches a bit more. By midnight the wind was howling so loud that sleep was impossible. I heard the wind chimes clanging, clanging loudly, and then go silent - shredded to bits, as it turned out. By 1 am the power was out. I got up and looked out the windows with the dogs, watching the trees gyrate and sway. I went back to sleep knowing we'd wake up cold.

Day Two: The Day of Great Darkness
It was pitch dark as well as cold on Friday morning. We live on the slope of a valley, a big bowl where we can see for miles around - and we saw no lights, none. We heard on the radio that 175,000 people were without power in the city of Seattle, and another 700,000 around Puget Sound, but we didn't need the figures to realize we wouldn't have power by nightfall. Enrico works downtown where power was reportedly on, so he went to look for a bus. Most buses in our neighborhood run on electric trolly lines, but he found a crowded deisel. He called me to report that there appeared to be no electricity south of Jackson Street - basically the entire southern half of the city.

As I work from home, I had no office to go to, and no hope of escaping to a wireless coffee shop. Not without more gas in the car, and the radio reported two-hour lineups at functioning gas stations. With 14 hours of darkness ahead, I dedicated myself to preparing for the night - pulling out candles, batteries, blankets, the radios; cleaning up the kitchen before the hot water ran out; tidying up clutter that would just get in the way while fumbling in the dark; and boiling water on the camp stove to fill our thermoses. Periodically I'd call Enrico at work, and the sound of clacking keyboards and ringing phones made it seem like we were on two different planets. I'm on this primitive planet, with no hope of escape, and he has travelled through the stargate to the Land of the People of the Light.

Still, it was mild outside, probably in the 50s, and our evening of candlelight seemed like an adventure. Seattle City Light reported that of 65 main lines down, they'd managed to get half up on Friday, reducing the number of powerless from 175,000 to 55,000. They hoped to get the rest of the main lines up on Saturday, and the secondary lines on Sunday.

Day Three: The Day of Great Cold
Saturday we toured the neighborhood with the dogs - an amazing number of trees down including a big chunk of our maple tree which politely but narrowly avoided bringing down either our fence or our living room window. Not everyone was so lucky. Our neighborhood commercial district was back up and running, and we went out for lunch and dinner, hoping we might have power by evening.

But as the day wore on our hopes faded: City Light reported much slower progress than expected, as they encountered damage in the south end that was stunningly worse than anticipated. By the end of the day, only 10 more main lines were up instead of the remaining 30, and 36,000 people were without power - including us. The rural and suburban dwellers were in even worse shape, as PSE battled trees down over an immense, forested service area.

And worse yet, the temperature was dropping fast, predicted to go into the 20s at night. Not unheard of in Seattle, but rare, and cruel that it should hit right now. Would our pipes freeze? Was there anything we could do about it? Cities around the region opened emergency shelters.

Hardest of all was the fact that there was electricity all around us now. Where once we were in the majority, now we were surrounded by people with power, even right across the street. I didn't begrudge them their heat, but somehow when the entire valley was black, it was easier to be resigned. Now we passed the bustling commercial district, and houses with their Christmas lights blinking obliviously a mere eight blocks away. When the sun set, the cold suddenly became like a physical companion in our house, sucking the life energy from us. Our breath appeared in enormous, billowy clouds, and even the dogs were cold. We hunkered under blankets and read each other stories. We went to sleep with the dogs between us, tucked under a blanket for warmth.

Day Four: The Day of Great Breakdowns
Worse than going to bed in a 35-degree house is waking up in a 25-degree house. How do you get out of bed in that kind of cold? Enrico got up to let the dogs out and feed them, and I bleated weakly that he should check all the faucets to see if the pipes had frozen. Reassured that they hadn't, I went back to sleep.

Eventually I got up and killed some time by calling my family to complain piteously about my lot in life. We went out to breakfast at the only diner, surrounded by fellow refugees. Waiting for a table, I heard somebody say to his companions that "No, my power never did go out, go figure!" - and I was overcome with an urge to yell at him, GET OUT OF THIS RESTAURANT, today this place is only for people without heat or light! But I restrained myself.

We had an offer from friends for a place to stay, and after breakfast I came up with the brilliant idea of asking them if we could come over for a few hours with the dogs - have a shower, get some coffee, just be warm for a while. Toby had started to shiver and I was increasingly unwilling to just leave the dogs in the cold house. Of course they have fur, and they spend time in colder weather than this - but it's one thing to run around, it's another to just sit with no way to get your blood moving. Nelly's coat is thickly luxurious but Toby's is thin, and he's had shivering fits on camping trips warmer than this.

So Enrico called the friends, and they said they'd be glad to have us over - in about three hours' time. I started to cry. I had a picture in my head of heat, and a SHOWER, and changing out of the clothing that I'd been wearing for 72 hours straight because it was too fracking cold to disrobe. It seemed like a respite was right in my grasp, and to see it slip by even three hours caused my pluckishness to collapse like the downed trees that surrounded me on all sides.

Enrico really, really hates to see me cry. Thus my breakdown was immediately followed by his own, which took the form of focusing all of his considerable mental energy on finding a solution to all our troubles. Trained as an economist, I could see him trying to construct an equation in his head that would solve for all the variables - heat, food, unhappy wife, shivering dogs, collapsed tree...

We puttered around. We went for a long walk. We went to the friends' for showers. We left the dogs and went to a coffee shop to read the Sunday paper. I broke down and bought Toby a fleece coat - pastel green and fuzzy like a baby's feety pajamas, with little pink swirls. Enrico was a little apalled, in solidarity for the affront to Toby's manliness, but I didn't care. As the day wore on it was clear - once again - that we would not have power for a third night, fourth if you count the night of the storm itself. By now, the Christmas lights were getting on my last nerve. It was like electricity pornography, this obscene display of energy consumption.

City Light hoped to get the rest of the main feeders up by midnight, but then they would have to start on all the secondary lines and individual transformers. They predicted 18,000 still without power by Monday morning, with many people out at least until midnight Tuesday. Still the suburban and rural folks were worse off, an inconceivable quarter million of them without power with no end in sight, and people were starting to fall ill and even die from carbon monoxide poisoning - bringing grills inside, hooking generators up improperly.

Temperatures were once again dropping into the 20s, so we accepted an invitation from Zena and her husband to spend the night. They have 18-month-old twins, two cats, and a dog, so they are basically saints for taking us in. Nelly wants to beat up their dog, and both of our guys want very badly to eat the cats. But we made it work, and it was very much appreciated.

Day Five: The Day of Great Wandering and Great Joy
By now I was getting the hang of this. I took my agitated dogs home from Zena's and went to a couple of meetings. When I returned mid-day, there was an army of City Light crews on my street. Six bucket trucks, a dozen guys, replacing multiple power poles. When I got home Toby greeted me happily in his little green coat - in a palsy of shivering. I had planned to head back out to a coffee shop to get some work done, but clearly the dogs couldn't stay. They couldn't keep warm sitting still in a 35-degree house.

So I threw my plans out the window and threw the dogs in the car, and - as my grandparents used to say - we went bummin.' I bought some lunch and ate it parked by the lake, listening to NPR. I took some business calls. We ran errands. Periodically I'd swing by the house, and the City Light crews were still working away. The neighbors were out, and I met people I've never once talked to in 10 years. The crews were hoping to have us up by 10 pm, but making no promises. The damage was - par for the course - worse than expected. We went to the grocery store and bought cookies and fruit for the City Light guys. I didn't ask them when they'd be done; I just thanked them.

By late afternoon I was home, under the blankets with the dogs next to me. They were curled into the tightest little balls, nose to tail, under a blanket, and when I got up at sunset to light candles and boil water, they didn't move. They were just four glowing eyes under a mountain of blanket.

We had an offer of lodging from another friend for Monday night, and Enrico and I debated the pros and cons. The promise of having our home back within a few hours was too tantalizing, but of course it meant another cold, dark evening, and maybe the power wouldn't come up. Our friend's house would be warm and inviting and completely dog-friendly, but we'd be sleeping on the floor. After weighing the options, we decided to stick it out. Enrico walked the dogs and I went to the store for hot deli food and more candles. We had just set up our meal - dragging the dogs' beds into the dining room so Nelly and Toby could be nearby without lying on the frigid floor - when the lights went up. Just like that. I could have run outside and kissed the City Light crew. We watched a Jeeves and Wooster episode on DVD, and put the emergency supplies away. The furnace ran for three hours straight to heat the house back up. At first it seemed surreal to have the light, and so many options again; but soon it seemed surreal that we'd ever been without them.

The utility crews have been working 18-hour shifts since Thursday: 18 hours on, 6 hours off for sleep, often in their trucks or in substations to maximize sleep time. I'm sure they are getting massive overtime pay, but so what? They have to be exhausted and COLD. Their families are without them, a week before Christmas. A lot of them are probably without power too, and when I think about the extra effort it took us just to live our lives for the past four days, I wonder how the spouses and children of these electrical workers are managing. I want to find a way for us, the grateful residents of Puget Sound, to somehow throw them all a big thank-you party when this is done.

So today I emptied the fridge, and restocked the food, and answered email. I know that there are still thousands of people in the cold, with no idea when it will end. I know those crews have been joined by colleagues from around the country, but are still working 16 hour days. I wish them all the very, very best.

Next up: Some things I learned, about human nature, the electrical grid, neighborliness, emergency preparedness, why people used to sleep with their livestock, and the apparent but tragic extinction of the hot water bottle.

The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld

For my fellow Seattlites: Next Saturday, October 7 at 7:00 pm, University Unitarian Church, ACLU of Washington and others* are sponsoring an event you won't want to miss:

The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld

A mock trial with dramatized testimony and cross-examination, featuring:

• Jennifery Harbury, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee STOP Torture Campaign, and author of Truth, Torture and the American Way
• Pramila Jayapal, Executive Director, Hate Free Zone Washington
• Ron Slye, Professor, Seattle University School of Law

At Pigott Auditorium, Seattle University, 901 12th Ave. For more information visit www.rumsfeldtrial.org or email info@rumsfeldtrial.org.

"These events occurred on my watch. As Secretary of Defense, I am accountable for them and I take full responsibility." - - Donald Rumsfeld, 2004 testimony to the Senate Arms Services Committee

* University Unitarian Church, ACLU of Washington, Amnesty International Puget Sound, Hate Free Zone Washington, American Constitution Society-Puget Sound Chapter, the Legacy of Equality, Leadership and Organization (LELO), Seattle Fellowship of Reconciliation, Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War, Rainier Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation.

International Day of Peace Vigil

Hey my fellow Seattlites - the coalition of progressive U-District churches is holding a 24-hour "moving vigil" for peace as part of the International Day of Peace on Thursday, September 21. The International Declaration of Peace will be read at noon. Enrico is thinking of attending the midnight to 3 am shift...hard core! You don't have to be religious to spend some time focusing your silent meditation on the goal of peace.

Check out the schedule here.

Possibly my favorite night of the year

Last night I went to the 36th annual Messiah Sing-Along at my church. It was my second time attending the event. It's not really a church function, more like a community function that happens to be put on by my church. If you've ever been to a Messiah sing-along, usually (in my experience) they are like going to a performance of Handel's Messiah, with an orchestra and soloists who are professionals or part of an organized amateur group, and then the audience can stand up and sing along with the choruses.

This sing-along is not like that. In this sing-along, everybody performs the whole Messiah - all three parts, with every recitative, aria, repeat and da capo. There are no soloists. The orchestra, too, is made up of people who show up to play. Of the 500 or so people in the room, only the conductor and the harpsichordist are professionals.

I find this experience to be profoundly, movingly and unabashedly populist. It's more like a musical barn-raising than a performance. There's an indescribable sense of community, of all these people who show up, on the same night at the same time each year, to craft together this beautiful, famous, complicated, 4-hour piece of music. There are many, many wrong notes. Some pieces are quite shaky, while others achieve startling clarity and beauty. But of course the orchestra has never played together, let alone rehearsed. There are over 100 people singing each recitative and aria, rather than just one practiced soloist.

As in a barn-raising, we tackle our project one step at a time, knowing that we are not experts but trusting that we have the basic tools to do the job. In between each of the 53 pieces, the conductor gives any instructions or heads-up - "ok orchestra, we're doing the version in G minor on this next one, and sopranos - the key is to keep those sixteenth notes light!" After each piece, we all applaud an aria particularly well done, or a valiant effort at something difficult - after all, we all have the score in front of us, we can see how hard it was, and we know our section will have its own challenge soon enough. The conductor is enthusiastic as well as gifted - how she keeps us all together is truly a wonder - and she compliments without patronizing. "Bravi, basses, that was magnificent, truly!"

I myself, having sung soprano for years, have shifted to alto, my voice no longer able to hit the high notes. So I'm learning to sing harmony, which is much harder than singing the melody (after all, you can almost always pick out the melody easily enough). I've decided the altos have some of the most beautiful arias in the whole Messiah, including Oh Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion and the haunting He was despis'ed. And that terribly tricky one, Thou art gone up on high, which went off so well this year. Plus we have the only duet in the entire Messiah, a bear of a thing with the tenors, late in the third part when everyone's tired, which didn't go off so well this year. But standing in the midst of 100 women, all singing in unison, "Lift up thy voice with strength; Lift it up, be not afraid!" - the wrong notes seem to disappear with the power of it.