After a traditional Christmas breakfast I took the dogs on the traditional Christmas Day walk.  I wondered that it felt so cold and abruptly we were in the middle of thick, heavy snow.  This felt like the kind of snow fall you get high up in the Alps, where sitting in the chairlift leaves you with a lap of snow to brush off once you get to the top.  As we walked back home we passed houses whose occupants had actually come out front to cheer on the white Christmas.

It was all gone in a few hours.  I hope those same folks didn’t then gather on their lawns to cry and mourn its disappearance.  Anyway it made for a nice backdrop once we returned home and Mrs The Fyd and I opened presents.

Various:

I have a heavy bag and a speed bag set up in the basement.  It’s useful exercise to punch things that won’t hit back.  Yesterday evening I was rat-a-tatting on the speed bag when the internal bladder popped.  Reactions: ‘bladder’ is a funny word; I flinched and ducked like I was having a flashback to the ‘Nam; I was quietly satisfied that my manos de piedra had reduced a flimsy bit of Chinese-sourced rubber to a status of a discarded party favor.

Heather Armstrong is one of my favorite writers on the intertubes.  Not only is she funny, but brave and honest.  These seem traits shared by her husband, who writes about Heather’s depression and how it affects their life together.  It’s all worth reading, but a certain passage is worth me repeating:

To the people out there who denigrate mental health awareness and treatment, I say this: You aren’t helping. You are making it worse. Stop being an arrogant know-it-all. You aren’t right. You are wrong. If someone tells you they need help, your opinion means less than that of professionals. Stop being ignorant. Stop being obstinate. Stop insisting that your loved one, partner, child or co-worker “get over it”.

Indeed.

 In other news, the other evening the dogs completely ignored a dead rat we passed on the sidewalk.  I am glad for so many reasons.  As much as I enjoy playing tug-of-war with Vinnie, I would have to draw the line at the carcass.  In the past we have come across dead squirrels, ranging in squishiness from ‘man-hole cover flat’ to ‘looks alive like it just fell off the power line’.  Despite their, especially Boris’, obssession for chasing live squirrels, we have safely passed each of these dead specimens.  Once Vinnie sniffed at a dead crow, but that’s as close as they’ve come to necrophagy.  What would happen if we came across a dead person?  I’m reading Philip Roth’s Everyman right now, and there’s a scene where the main character, in his youth during World War II, sees the corpse of a German submariner washed up in the surf of the Jersey shore.  Not specific to my circumstances, but worth noting as an example of a good writer weaving history into the complexity of a character’s past.

This is a sad tale, but it is also an example of first-class journalism and writing.  I read the original story of the two deaths in the Oregonian, thought it was odd but never saw any follow-up.  Thankfully Nancy Rommelmann has the instincts and chops to find out far more than the original reporting uncovered.  Nancy is one of Portland’s own and there are more examples of her excellent writing at her site.

Speaking of Portland’s own, I saw our city’s Chief of Police while on my way to work this morning.  She was sitting in the coffee shop on the ground floor of the company’s office building, engaged in what I’m sure was serious cop talk.  This is apropos of very little, except that Portland is still a small enough city that it’s not unremarkable to see our city officials out and about, unattended by any entourage.  Except I just remarked on it, which proves what?

This article about the Western Culinary Institute reminds me of my experiences with its graduates back in my restaurant days.  I don’t recall any of them lasting long; one thing you apparently don’t learn in cooking school is the speed necessary in a busy kitchen.  The article says that the WCI is misleading potential students about how lucrative their career prospects will be; I would add that the hopeful Iron Chef wannabes should be aware they are paying actual money to aspire to perform dangerous and back-breaking labor in a filthy, stifling, and cramped environment, with drug-addled maniacs screaming and yelling at them — waitstaff and kitchen staff alike.  They’ll get roped into double shifts and shafted by greedy management and owners and the chances of their ever seeing overtime or any decent wage are laughable.  I see WCI students downtown, in their chef coats and houndstooth pants, proudly carrying their knife cases, and feel sorry for them.

Thursday morning I was walking to the bus stop when I passed a parked car with its driver’s side door open.  I was a little startled because the car was empty and no one else was on the street, then I noticed all the broken glass on the street.  The rear window had been smashed to gain access to the front door lock, and the thief had apparently left the door open after abandoning the ransacked vehicle.  I felt sorry for the owner, imagining having to discover the violation early on a cold morning.

Finally, I’m sorry that the Oregonian can run an article on Portland bloggers, and neglect to mention Michael Totten.  Even if one disagrees with his views — and in these over-politicized days, it would take more time to pin him down on the spectrum than a knee-jerk assessment would provide — he is travelling to dangerous places and reporting on them to a wide audience, and is writing stuff that matters.  He’s arguably as influential, especially in a global context, as any Portland blogger.

Congratulations to Chris Onstad on Achewood being named Time’s Graphic Novel of the Year.  Onstad has a talent for writing that makes me go cross-eyed with envy, but only briefly until I need to relax and uncross my eyes so I can enjoy the strip.

Virtue may be its own reward, but the true benefit a writer receives arrives with the affirming correspondence of a reader.  Without this, a writer is merely whispering into the void.

I just walked over to the windows here at the office and it looks like we’re under water.  On the eleventh floor.  It’s been pouring rain lately.  Yesterday evening I drove in the downpour and wished I had not.  We’re used to rain but in these amounts even the locals develop apocalyptic twitches.

Earlier today I listened to War All the Time by Poison Idea, one of the all-time great albums.  Sometimes one doesn’t pay complete attention to familiar songs, but today for some reason I was really listening to the guitar work.  Which led, amidst the enjoyment, to the sadness of remembering Pig Champion’s death earlier this year.  The band had been defunct for some time before that but his death certainly foreclosed any future reunions, which is too bad because I did not see them play live often enough.

I did meet the frontman, Jerry A., a couple of times.  The singer in the band I was in at the time befriended him.  Let me just say that Mr A. is among the more intimidating men I’ve ever met.  I don’t think I much registered with him.

When I saw the Accüsed last time, at one point the singer Blaine pointed out that PI drummer Thee Slayer Hippy was in attendance.  That was before Pig’s death, and it would have been great to see the two bands play one more gig together.

Last week the weather turned cold.  By cold I mean the mercury dipped below freezing in the middle of the night a few times.  Last weekend was sunny but chilly, with whipping winds to make me grumble as I raked leaves.  Then it began to rain again, so I cursed under my breath as I walked to the bus in the morning.  I mean, there were only a bare few degrees between myself and the solidification of water, and I recalled with a shiver how the wind had treacherously brought tears to my eyes recently.

Today a business correspondent in Minnesota emailed that it’s now gotten chilly there; five degrees yesterday morning, but twenty-four today, so it’s warmed up.  That won’t stop me complaining.  I like rain, or else I wouldn’t live here.  I just don’t enjoy being cold, and cold rain makes me feel unsafe.

My step-grandfather actually researched weather patterns to find a retirement spot with very little wind.  He did not like blustery weather.  Unfortunately this research led him to choose the pit of Roseburg, Oregon, as the place to settle down.  I cannot believe that Roseburg is so famously becalmed that this unfortunate move couldn’t have been avoided, and hence I might never have become so familiar with that awful little place.  Not that this is the point — the point is that mapping one’s happiness to the weather is a pernicious habit.

We had a house guest this Thanksgiving weekend just past — Camas, a husky-mix with one blue eye and one brown eye.  Camas is a nice dog with a dumb name.  Camas does not like other dogs much, so when his owners want to board him, he stays with us instead of at the dog care facility Mrs The Fyd’s employers run.  Camas does not mind our dogs too much, and seems to not hate staying with us, although he seems to find many of our habits strange, if not blasphemous. 

He also gives the appearance of being unnervingly smart.  The last night he stayed with us, he had me out of bed in the middle of the night several times, letting him outside, giving him treats, feeding him kibble, all in a vain effort to stop him from looming over me in the dark, what with his wolf-silhouette and growling and all.  Finally I bottled it and woke up Mrs The Fyd and whined about my fears of being bitten in my sleep and how the dog wouldn’t leave me alone.  Yes, I bailed out and let her deal with it.  Then again, that was appropriate; it’s because of her employment that the dog was in our bedroom in the middle of the night, manipulating me with his weird eyes.  I mean, fuck it, I don’t bring my work home with me.  Notice that neither of our own dogs lifted an eyelid to help me against the canine fiend.  I doubt there was even a hitch to their snoring during this trying period of my life.

So getting up in the black of night to deal with my wussiness was probably annoying for my dear wife.  Not nearly as annoying as having to hear Chuck Berry sing My Ding-a-Ling over and over and over again.  I’ve had that song in my head all day.

As a life-long Democrat who has felt in recent years as if his party has moved away from him, not the other way ’round, I currently find my electoral choices greatly curtailed.  I have far too many policy differences to switch allegiance to the GOP, and yet the candidates offered to me by the Dems don’t represent me on the fundamental issue of the war.  That’s fine; I believe they came to their positions honestly and thoughtfully, as I have mine.  If there’s no one I can vote for without feeling a sense of moral compromise, well, that’s not addressed anywhere I’ve seen in the Constitution.

Still, when a candidate from a nearby congressional district seems to better fit one’s political leanings (thought not, of course, in all particulars), one wistfully, but not seriously, entertains notions of crossing a river to move to said district.  I’ve written before of Rep. Brian Baird’s battering by the anti-war Left.  Here is more on the man from today’s Oregonian: 

Baird has never received as much national attention as he did last August, when he announced his opposition to immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

Baird was promptly criticized in his own party, and praised by Republicans. The southwest Washington Democrat initially had voted against the war.

Now, Baird notes progress in Iraq. “Each month has been progressively better,” he said.

He believes troop levels can be substantially reduced beginning next year, but some presence will be needed in the following years. He said he is troubled by the inability of some people to consider the consequences of withdrawing too quickly.

While Baird stands nearly alone among House Democrats on this issue, he said overall momentum in Congress has shifted “toward keeping the increased number of troops on the ground through early next year, “followed by a gradual redeployment.

Baird noted that in 2002, the Bush administration was criticized for having “suppressed any contradictory opinions or evidence prior to going in” to Iraq.

“To some degree that’s happening on the left right now,” he said. “And just as it was a mistake for the Bush administration to do it, and it led to bad policy decisions, I think it’s a mistake for it to happen on the left. We need to have a diversity of voices.”

Emphasis mine, naturally.  Anyway, this is not a premature post talking of victory; things could quickly go rotten again and there’s been too much pain and death for triumphalism (by whichever side) to be tolerated.