Tag: winter

Alternative Transportation

People ski on the snow-covered paths at Portland's Irving Park

I’ve decided to drive the rest of the week. TriMet is warning of potentially long delays on the light rail as they have to run the trains slowly in the excessive heat. Excessive heat? What are they talking about? Look at these cross-country skiers in Irving Park! I was wearing multiple layers and thankful for it! Granted the thermostat said the house only cooled down to 77° overnight but I think it must have switched from Fahrenheit to Kelvin, it’s ccccooooollllddddd!

People ski on the snow-covered paths at Portland's Irving Park

I had already taken Ellie back to the house and gone out again for pictures when I came across this couple navigating the slight uphill climb near the dog park in Irving Park. I was moving more quickly on my feet than they on their skis, but we were all enjoying the snow in our own way. Portland’s Irving Park is a multi-use park for a variety of outdoor activities, Ellie and I visit the dog park, but this unusual winter storm added cross-country skiing to the list.

People ski on the snow-covered paths at Portland's Irving Park

Snow at a Distance

Our cat Boo sits in a picture window as a heavy snow falls outside

Boo and I have to enjoy this snow at a distance. Though inches apart Boo was separated from the snow by many degrees as he enjoyed the start of a rare heavy snowstorm from the warmth of one of our picture windows. For me I went out into the snow the next morning when Ellie and I took our walk, but am now separated by time. I can but look back and try to remember the cold and the quiet as we are in the midst of a long dry and hot spell in summer, surely as close to the sun as Boo was to the snow, the snowy night but a distant memory.

Melting Ice

A pied-billed grebe beside melting ice at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

A pied-billed grebe surfaces beside melting ice at Rest Lake in Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. Unlike the melting sea ice, the melting lake ice isn’t alarming, as during our mild winters it rarely freezes in the first place. A cold snap froze some of the shallower and smaller lakes and ponds, but it was nothing compared to the snowstorm that in a week would bury us first in heavy snow then thick ice when it melted and re-froze.

The Sea Was Angry That Day, My Friends

Patterns in the ice look like waves

Today’s post is a tribute to four things that have brought me joy.

The title is one of my favorite lines from Seinfeld, spoken by George in the episode “The Marine Biologist”, when his little lie that he was a marine biologist, told to impress a woman, snowballed and led him in the end to having to rescue a whale in distress. Thinking of my favorite lines from that show still make me laugh all these years later.

And whales are on the mind as I’ve been reading Herman Melville’s Moby Dick for the first time, I’m a fifth of the way in and have been enjoying it so far. It’s unfair as a modern reader to judge the whalers of the book by the abject slaughter that was to come, but even so, though I have yet to meet Captain Ahab or Moby Dick, and I don’t know the story of the book other than Ahab’s pursuit of his obsession, I hope the great white whale devours everyone by the end, save for Queequeg and Ishmael (who as the narrator I assume survives). I also hope that the whale can take to the land, and even the skies, scourge of wickedness no matter where it lies, no matter where it hides. Take care Captain Bildad, when you hear your a knockin’ at your door, that the great white whale lies not beyond!

That’s what Melville was known for, right? Superheroic whales? Shame the book was a failure during his lifetime, the opening line of “Call me Ishmael” is one of my favorites of any book for reasons I don’t yet understand myself, but it hooked me from the get go. I’ve been reading the novel on the train on my iPad, which has quickly become my favorite computer. It’s also the one I’d probably give up first if I had to, as I don’t use it for photography, but it has made riding the train so much more enjoyable than in years prior. And it’s gotten me reading books again. So hats off both to writers of novels and the engineers who designed the magic computer that lets me hold so many in my hands.

And finally, a tribute to the little refuge that is Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge where this picture was taken, not of the seas but a small section of ice in a quiet channel that froze in this rough pattern compared to the smooth ice that was all around it. I’ve spent more time than I’ll admit publicly in this spot looking for bitterns or whatever else might come by, and on this cold winter morning was treated to a variety of a patterns in the ice.