Happy New Year?

New year, new look for the blog.

I am so not one of those people who embrace change. While I did vote for Obama, I am against change.

But, the old profile picture of me was from 2005 and I have aged and gained hundreds of pounds. It was time to update the photo and to update the old Blogger template as well.

2005:


2009:


Surprisingly I actually have more hair that I did in 2005. God bless Propecia.

As I think about 2009 I am not super optimistic. W has destroyed the weather and the economy.

I can remember when I moved to Seattle 25 years ago an average winter was 50 degrees and drizzle (that’s 50 degrees Fahrenheit for my international readers). I remember entire winters where it never got below freezing. Now we have rosemary and hummingbird killing temperatures in the teens, huge windstorms, horrible floods, and worst of all, snow. The 4.5 million people in Puget Sound were cut off from the rest of the world last week when all the roads in and out were all blocked. On one level I kind of like the idea of being a little island of our own separated from the rest of W’s Jesus loving wasteland, but gasoline and groceries mostly come in from the outside world, mostly. Nora keeps saying we are one windstorm away from being Afghanistan. She is right.

This snow thing is just pissing me off. It’s really embarrassing to live on the west coast and have to deal with snow in any way. For the first time in 25 years I had to put chains on. I was good, I read the directions on the box and it only took 4 hours to put the chains on. Suddenly I had super powers and could drive to the store everything. Then after 3 weeks of that crap it came time to take the chains off. This time I did not read the directions. I managed to get the chains all wrapped around the axle of my car. I had to go buy a bolt cuter to try to cut them off. That didn’t work so I had to try to take the tires off. I do not do tires. Suffice to say several hours of temper tantrums and cut hands did not help and I ended up calling AAA. I love them.

Aside from the weather there is of course the economy. We are facing serious layoffs at work. The lay offs are supposed to be based on performance, not seniority, so I might be fine, but you never know. Maybe I will squeak though. If I don’t squeak though I think I am more emotionally able to handle this now than I was with the mermaid. I am not able to handle this financially now however. I gave all my extra money to Hillary. Seriously, my concern is that there are just no jobs out here right now. Unemployment from the state will not even cover my mortgage. What is a middle-aged Clove Head to do?

Honestly and totally seriously I would love to be a prep cook in a kitchen chopping up carrots for 4 hours a day, then spending the rest of the time working on my blog. This 4 hour prep cook job would pay $124,000 a year and be based in Maui where the housing prices have suddenly gone down by 85% so I can afford to live there.

Hmmmmm...perhaps I should just through this out to the universe. What is a middle aged Clove Head to do? Sell the house and go to cooking school? Send some of the better travel logs to some magazines to see if he can actually get published?

I know what to do. I will do what I always do.



Happy New Year!