Mommy kissing Sata Claus

We went and saw Santa on Saturday and Finn was not at all freaked out by ole St. Nick. He was pretty freaked out the night before when he saw Santa in Clatskanie but momma went up there with him so he was OK. He listened in to Santa and pointed out his Gaga and Papa in the crowd. I bit of a shout out to his posse. My work had a Santa Saturday for the employees and their kids and it was really great. You could create a naughty and nice list for Santa to refer to when talking to the kids and we got to wrap a toy for Santa to pass out. We didn't take advantage of all that but will next year for sure.

Storm Update

My Aunt Jamie works at Centrailia College in Central Washington and commutes from Oregon a couple times a week. Centrailia and neighboring Chehalis were two of the hardest hit towns by the most recent storms. Here are some pictures and a story about what my has had to deal with going back to work:

I'm in Centralia now. Silly me! I thought that Jackson Highway would be open and I could just sail in to work the "back way." Well, I forgot that Kresky floods as well and I would have to travel another 30 miles out of my way with all the other people. Then I had to witness first hand all the people cleaning out their flooded houses which really upsets me. I never should have come in. I was protecting my vacation hours when I could have just called in sick. "Hello this is Jamie, I'm home sick today, sick of this water devastation." Is that excusable? Anyway I'm here and it is much more ugly than depicted on the news. Isn't it always.

Bathroom Etiquette?

I need a ruling on a bathroom situation I ran into the other day. (feel free to click on the image to make it bigger if you need to) A and B are stalls, C and D are urinals with C being full sized and D being for people like Kyle. Here’s the situation: When I came into the bathroom there was someone in stall B but A, C, and D were open. I only needed to go numero uno so it was a choice between C and D. The thing is, the dude in B was taking a wide stance and it felt to me like he was pulling a Larry Craig. I don’t like using D when I can avoid it because I feel like it is too low and leads to sprayage. What is the right move in this case? Do I use the man size urinal roaming feet be damned or do I use the peewee weewee and risk backsplash?

Wet and thankful

Storm Watch 07 is back up and running in the Northwest. I’m sure you have either seen the news reports or experienced first hand that last couple of days but in case you are wondering we are just fine. In Beaverton we didn’t have much of the destructive wind of the coast or the saturating rain with the mud slides ad flooding that goes along with it. My parents town was hit hard and I have some family with flooded basements and muddy driveways and this blog’s top commenter, Aunt Jamie, can’t get back to her school in Centralia because !-5 is closed in Central Washington. It has been a good indoctrination into the Winter weather of this area and while it hasn’t been fun we have managed. We signed up for a covered parking spot and there was one right in front of our door. I parked there once and woke up to a note on my car threatening towing. Turns out the spot was promised to someone else and it hadn’t been marked in the ledger. We were given another spot farther away and when I saw the guys whose spot I had stolen I apologized. He understood the confusion and we chatted for a bit that night and the next day when I returned from an emergency diaper run. Later that evening we got a call from the Leasing office letting us know that we can have the good spot. The guy thought we could use it more then he could, even though he had been waiting for that spot to open up for a while. We will have him and his roommate over for dinner to thank him soon but my appreciation for his sacrifice won’t be satiated anytime soon. I am more thankful then I think is necessary and I don’t want to make him feel uncomfortable every time I see him. But the thing is it rains a lot, and getting Finn in and out of the car, plus any other things that need to get out is tough, and what he did made that much easier. I want to hug him and look into his eyes while holding both shoulder and say thank you as my eyes well up. But that’s creepy and unnecessary.