All My Little Words

“widespread problems caused by mortgage failures“

I’m sure there are many people out there who would argue that this has nothing to do with anything and I don’t know what I am talking about, but I feel something uncanny on this one.

I’ll continue to be patient and wait, thank you.

I almost forgot about this little rant, that was inspired the other day by the Stranger’s article on bird flu…What does density have to do with bird flu? Well, if you read the article, it talks about how flu spreads, how many people we all come into contact with each day, and how quickly it’s going to spread now compared to pandemics of the past because of the number of people we deal with each day.

I am a confirmed city dweller. I like the outdoors and the countryside and wide open spaces, but not for day to day living. I like to eat out, and go to bars and socialize with friends, and not have to drive 18 miles each way to buy groceries. But I am entirely opposed to the kind of density that condo lovers support and defend.

Part of the plan to discourage spreading flu is by use of “social distancing” – keeping people from being together in large groups in any one place. How are you going to socially distance people when they are living inches away from one another? Even if every single person living in any multi-residence dwelling sees fit to self-quarantine themselves, every single one of them that is infected on their way home is going to leave behind a trail of germs that will expose potentially hundreds of other people. Even as close as their own homes, they are going to leave germs on the handles of the public doors and elevators, and that’s assuming that they never go to check their mail, do their laundry, or go to get more food while they are sick. And that’s a real stretch considering that even the article points out that if you are living in an apartment (or, *cough*, condo) that you won’t have room to stockpile enough to make it through your own illness, much less everyone else’s.

Even if you lock yourself up in your apartment/condo without getting yourself exposed, and you stay healthy, you’re going to run out of food before everyone else gets healthy. Even if you were to have a healthy friend or relative go out to get more supplies for you, (another point discussed in the article) they will potentially cross someone’s trail of germs, and bring them to you.

So I hope that I haven’t been squeezed out of my house yet when the pandemic hits, because not only do I have plenty of space in here, and a minimum of potential contaminants, I have plenty of space for all the supplies I could possibly need, for well over three weeks time. Three months maybe? Maybe longer.

And if I’m really lucky, enough people will die off that there will no longer be a housing shortage and I won’t have to worry about becoming homeless anymore.

I read this article yesterday. WOW.

I know, I know….if it were me, or someone I knew I’m sure I’d want me/them to be rescued. Um, actually, if I were lost in the woods, I’d be pretty pissed if I didn’t figure it out myself and someone else rescued me, my logic being that if I get myself lost in the woods, I probably deserve to die, if I can’t find my way out. That’s natural selection, y0.

And honestly, I don’t see myself getting lost in the woods in the first place. It may be because I don’t go hiking in the woods, especially not in places where there are hundreds of square miles of nothing but trees and tiny deer trails. If I did, I sure as shit wouldn’t do it in just yoga pants and a thin shirt, even if my plan was just to go for a day hike. I’m sorry for being all doom and gloom, but I won’t even go out for the evening without extra clothes. I am always thinking, “What if it gets too warm/cold for what seems appropriate now?” I would not be able to set out on a hike without it occurring to me that I COULD get lost and feasibly end up spending the night outside, in freezing weather, and possibly rain or even snow. You would have to force me at gunpoint to go on a hike like the ones described in the article without at least a small backpack with something to eat, water, a lighter, a jacket, etc. And the people who tried to drive through the Oregon wilderness on logging roads? I’m not even going to voice an opinion on that.

On the other hand, I was pretty impressed by the people who do not work for the Forest Service, and didn’t know the lost hikers, who wanted to help find them, especially the guy who predicted (correctly) where the lost family in Oregon would be. Why these people aren’t getting together to form a Search and Rescue company is beyond me. Because if someone I knew was stupid enough to get lost in the woods, it sounds like I’d be way better off hiring them than asking the Park Services to do it. Nothing against the rangers, but I’m sure the government can’t afford to provide them with the resources private parties can scrape up. No, I guess you shouldn’t HAVE to pay to get found if you are lost, but if someone I loved were lost, I think I’d rather pay than have them found dead.

Now I can’t find the article, but not too long ago, I read one about people living in little rv towns in the parking lot of some public storage facility somewhere in Ballard.
I live in Ballard. I’ve seen plenty of people parked on the street just a few blocks from my house clearly living in RVs (little, old, run-down crappy ones, not some fancy schmancy $450k type models) and even little old pick-up trucks with camper cabs on the back.
Apparantly, a number of these people are not your run-of-the-mill, garden variety homeless, living in a van down by the river. A good number of them are people who are pretty much just like you or I, but can no longer afford the cost of an apartment in this city. (Much less a house.) I guess in a few cases, they technically do make enough money to rent an apartment, but saw no reason why they should be spending 80% of their hard-earned wages on a room that is barely bigger than the RVs in question.

This story rang especially true with me because I live in a house in Ballard. I was recently informed that my house will be sold, within the year, perhaps by the end of summer. While I get first crack at it (so no bidding war) and it would be a private sale (so little or no commissions for real estate agents etc) and I’d be getting what anyone trying to buy a house in Seattle would consider the deal of a century…can I really afford a HALF A MILLION BUCKS?
Maybe I can. Maybe I’ll pull it off, or some miracle will happen. But what if I don’t? Just in case, I started looking around at other rentals. While there are some houses that are within “my price range” (meaning what I pay now or a bit less) and some of them are even big enough and allow pets, most of them are MUCH smaller than my current home, and MUCH crappier. Apartments are WAY worse. And how do you go back to living in an apartment after you’ve lived in a big house? How do you tell your kid that he doesn’t get a yard to play in any more and that he can’t have a basketball hoop? And what do you do with two adults, a child, three cats and a dog in an apartment? Are you serious?

So basically, I’m screwed unless that miracle happens.
Wish me luck.

Why, OH WHY, do we so deeply feel the need to bust pot growers?

The article not only specifically references meth lab houses (my point being, why not turn off all efforts to bust pot houses in favor of busting meth houses?!?) but also clearly states that the growers are businessmen running a business. NOT gang bangers shooting people, not some slacker burdens on society, but people who are making a lot of money doing this.
Isn’t anyone thinking about the fact that this has got to be a large part of the economy?
And what’s the harm, by the way? The article also talks about how the houses appear to be quiet homes. That you would never know they were occupied by growers from the outside.
I’m betting that they are well maintained (so as not to attract attention) and QUIET. Hell, no one even actually really lives there. Sounds like the perfect neighbors to me. I’d love for every house on my block to be a grow house! Then maybe I wouldn’t have weeds growing in my yard from all the houses where people DON’T bother to maintain the outside to keep up appearances. Maybe I wouldn’t have to worry about those jackasses who are lighting off fireworks!
And did you notice the part about how they can make enough money to pay off the mortgage in a few years? Um, hello? When 97% of Seattle really can’t afford to buy a house (whether they think they can or not).

I was talking about this yesterday. The question came up “Why would you be speeding if you had a whole bunch of pot, and prescription drugs that were not prescribed to you in your car?”

100mph is not really speeding in California. Eeeeeeveryone drives that fast there. Sounds like from the number of times he’s been stopped, the CSP is keeping an eye out for Al III. And why wouldn’t they? There isn’t much better for them than a high profile traffic stop, complete with press releases.

This is why I hate it when people complain about the weather here. Even I thought it rained a lot this winter, and even in the last three months. But according to the article, rainfall was lower than normal, by which I would think normal would mean some sort of average over the entirety of Washington’s recorded weather history.

It’s also a good example of why I hated everyone in my neighborhood that was setting off fireworks last night. My house (and plenty of others) is almost 100 years old. I’m pretty sure some random firework landing on it would burn it to the ground.

Okay, back to things I’ve been meaning to do.

#1 This is a perfect example. Victoria and I talked about doing something…just.like.this.
Too bad it’s not exactly going where I would have gone with it. I see why she is featuring the people she is featuring, but I see much more interesting and fashion forward outfits pretty regularly.
As an interesting aside, I used to cut this guy’s hair. Not that he actually has any, so what I mean to say is that I used to buzz it all off.