I’m dreaming of a white…New Year’s?

January 2, 2004

A few months ago when I was talking to someone who had gone to college in Minnesota and had partially moved out to Portland to escape the dreary midwest winters, I confidently told them that it snowed in Portland about every other year, and never for more than a day. That is, snow one day, gone the next in the middle of the night melt.

Well I feel a bit sheepish now. We got some snow a couple of months ago and I exclaimed that I had been right, for it snowed one day, then next it was just very wet out. But somehow in the last few days, Mother Nature has managed to deposit somewhere between five and six inches of snow all around the Portland area. Yesterday was the brunt of it, as it began snowing around 6 AM according to my Dad. When I woke up a little after 9 AM, there were already several inches of snow everywhere–including on my uncovered car. So I got up, puttered around for awhile, and then bundled up to take a broom to my car, sweep off all the snow, and get the cover out. Now when it’s snowing fairly hard, that’s no mean trick, and by the time I’d finished getting most of it off, it had started piling up again fairly rapidly.

Good thing it was New Year’s Day and everything was shut down for the most part, anyway. Happy New Year, all! I spent my New Year’s Eve watching Return of the King for the second time, this trip with my Mom and my sister. We’d been trying to find a time that we could all go together before the 31st when a few free tickets my sister had were going to expire, and since we’d called off the movie a previous night on account of predicted snow (that did fall, but was gone the next morning), we decided to risk it anyway. As we walked out of the theater at 10:30 PM (from a 7:00 showing…erg, what a sore butt movie), it was wet and a little chilly–no snow in sight. When I got home, I thought “Pssh, I don’t need to put the cover on the Mustang tonight.” About 12 hours later or so, there I was out in the snow, trying to get four inches of snow off my car. After the movie, however, my Mom, my sister and I had a champgane toast at midnight, and then I went to sleep. I guess that’s my first New Year’s somewhat celebration since 1996, though not exactly what I had in mind. My Dad offered to pay my way to the Rock Bottom Brewery’s New Year’s party ($75 for music, dancing, open bar as far as I knew, and a toast at 12), but I turned him down since I didn’t have anyone to go with. That’s my idea of a good New Year’s party, but frankly, I’m not a good mingler with people I don’t know. I’d prefer to have to at least one person that I even somewhat know so that we can be each other’s life rafts in a sea of unfamiliar faces. Well, I had a good time anyway. It was a good movie, but I think if theaters are going to show movies that long they need better cushions.

And no WAY could I have made it through all three movies in one sitting. Uh uh. My butt would have gone to sleep and never woken up.

Prior to the movie, however, was a trip downtown to my Dad’s office for a pizza lunch and then a trip out to McMenamins #18: The White Eagle. The White Eagle is one of the oldest buildings that houses a McMenamins, I’d wager, built in 1905 and formerly the site of a Polish friendship club, according to my Dad. I’m not certain when it became a pub for McMenamins, but apparently it’s one of the staples of the Portland music scene, as well as one of the handful of McMenamins hotels, with a few rooms upstairs for rent. We were going to go the the St. John’s McMenamins today, but it seems that the weather has prevented that for the time being, since there’s still a great deal of snow on the roads and more expected this weekend.

Well, 2003 was certainly an interesting year. It saw the end of my time in school–not just college, but ALL my school unless I got back to grad school. I’ve been going to school for practically my entire life, so it’s a bit strange. I wish I could say that I ended it better than I began it, but I started the year quite satisfied with many things and I ended it unemployed, nearly broke, and still living at home. Not exactly the best ending to a year, but hopefully next year it’ll end much better that this one began. Here’s to 2004 and the possibilities it brings!

Since I’m snowed in and haven’t really been doing much lately, I don’t have a whole lot more to say. I did uncover one piece of information that I was happy to come across. Earlier last year, I got in a huge fight with a friend of mine over something that I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand why they got mad at me so quickly for a very innocent comment, and I didn’t understand why things kept going on that way despite all my offerings of an olive branch. Well, every now and again I read this person’s LiveJournal, just because I’m sort of curious what they’re up to since they WERE my friend at one point and I’m not one to dismiss friendship so easily, and I finally found the cause of the fight: there was none. It was deliberate, a blatent attempt with no goal other than to give them an excuse to drop me from their life. I knew that there wasn’t good cause for it. No one could be that touchy and heartless.

2004, then, begins with me a little wiser and a little older. Hopefully I won’t make some of the same mistakes I did in 2002 and 2003, but the odds aren’t good…a guy can always hope, can’t he?

I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year’s Eve. I’ll be back soon when I have more to write about.

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