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Aug. 5th, 2005
Home sweet home
Aug. 5th, 2005 03:25 pmI'm feeling more and more like a Seattleite. For example, this weekend is SeaFair and I hate it!
The whole event seems designed to make people who live here hate it.
They close the main floating bridge multiple times in the middle of the afternoon both leading up to the weekend and through it for the Blue Angels to be able to do their practice and demos. This is of course the kind of thing that a 'real' Seattleite doesn't care about since it only affects those 'east-siders', and in fact they keep the bridge between Mercer island and downtown open for all the rich and influential Seattleites to go about their business--namely clogging the water ways with boats as they float about consuming alcohol and showing off who has the prettiest mistress. If you do live in Seattle proper though, you hate SeaFair because of the Blue Angels buzzing your house over and over again every day for 4 days in a row. Meanwhile huge crowds of traffic-frustrated, drunk, overheated people descend on the waterways, cheer on the equivalent of water-based NASCAR, and generally act like asses.
Naturally, all this happens during what is always the hottest time of the year, leaving true Seattle folk huddling in their non air-conditioned homes wishing for the release of death and the days before outsiders ruined their lovely Emerald City. For the record, by 'hottest' I mean anything over about 88 degrees. Obviously these people have never lived in the south where we combine killer heat (100s+) with killer humidity to ensure that you drown to death in your own lungs.
In a practical sense what this means is that I don't have easy access to Seattle from the east-side and have to cope with a billion other people who are grumpy, overheated, and trying to get around without the primary arteries of traffic for the entire region.
A simple solution is to avoid the highways for the entire weekend and plan all my activities to take place on the east side. Unfortunately, I've lived here long enough and become enough of a Seattleite to realize that the east side in fact largely sucks: Bellevue is a soulless imitation of California, Kirkland is full of plastic people, and Redmond is full of bored millionaires and confused rednecks.
The reason I'm writing all this is not because I'm actually grumpy, overheated, or particularly frustrated. Rather I'm commemorating the moment when I realize that this place has in fact become home.
Anyhow, I have no idea what's up for my weekend beyond today's plan to grab some lunch, restock my larder, and clean house.
The whole event seems designed to make people who live here hate it.
They close the main floating bridge multiple times in the middle of the afternoon both leading up to the weekend and through it for the Blue Angels to be able to do their practice and demos. This is of course the kind of thing that a 'real' Seattleite doesn't care about since it only affects those 'east-siders', and in fact they keep the bridge between Mercer island and downtown open for all the rich and influential Seattleites to go about their business--namely clogging the water ways with boats as they float about consuming alcohol and showing off who has the prettiest mistress. If you do live in Seattle proper though, you hate SeaFair because of the Blue Angels buzzing your house over and over again every day for 4 days in a row. Meanwhile huge crowds of traffic-frustrated, drunk, overheated people descend on the waterways, cheer on the equivalent of water-based NASCAR, and generally act like asses.
Naturally, all this happens during what is always the hottest time of the year, leaving true Seattle folk huddling in their non air-conditioned homes wishing for the release of death and the days before outsiders ruined their lovely Emerald City. For the record, by 'hottest' I mean anything over about 88 degrees. Obviously these people have never lived in the south where we combine killer heat (100s+) with killer humidity to ensure that you drown to death in your own lungs.
In a practical sense what this means is that I don't have easy access to Seattle from the east-side and have to cope with a billion other people who are grumpy, overheated, and trying to get around without the primary arteries of traffic for the entire region.
A simple solution is to avoid the highways for the entire weekend and plan all my activities to take place on the east side. Unfortunately, I've lived here long enough and become enough of a Seattleite to realize that the east side in fact largely sucks: Bellevue is a soulless imitation of California, Kirkland is full of plastic people, and Redmond is full of bored millionaires and confused rednecks.
The reason I'm writing all this is not because I'm actually grumpy, overheated, or particularly frustrated. Rather I'm commemorating the moment when I realize that this place has in fact become home.
Anyhow, I have no idea what's up for my weekend beyond today's plan to grab some lunch, restock my larder, and clean house.
