Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Snowed In!

With 13-16 inches of snow in Portland so far, no sign of melting, and another storm expected today, this could be The Year Without Christmas! Well, no. Of course Christmas will be here tomorrow, no matter what. But this could be the first of my 42 Christmases not spent with my family. As much as they are clamoring for us to drive across the mountains to Bend, the thought of driving 200 miles with tire chains seems like a pioneer-level adventure that I am just not up for. All I can imagine is throwing a chain somewhere on Mt. Hood and -- off on the shoulder in a sleet storm -- trying to jerry-rig something out of bungee cords and Christmas ribbon. To distract myself from the idea of my mother weeping over her empty Christmas nest -- or, in truth, drinking martinis and eating oysters Rockefeller without me -- I have been playing with my blog. I have a couple of ideas for organizing and rearranging things. For one, I think I have figured out how to have an alphabetized directory of past reviews over on the right side. Right now, I have every book review listed, but that is getting too long, and will just get longer. I think I can make a series of alphabet letter links that will lead to a list of books sorted by title. Using that same system, I also plan to have a list on the right side of my annual reading lists. Not necessarily of interest to anyone but myself, I have kept track of the books I read, in order, each year for the last five years or so. I am going to make a list of links that will lead to each year's book list. I can use these lists to keep track of when I read what. We will see how it goes. But I think I will have a couple more snowy days to play around with all these changes. And to celebrate Christmas, of course. Although it won't really be Christmas without oysters Rockefeller. Or my mother.

12 comments :

  1. I don't know how Floridians can even celebrate Christmas -- none of the regular Christmas imagery works. It ould take powerful imaginations, I think!

    It so seldom snows in Portland, that everyone is in a twitter. This will be only the fifth White Christmas since they started keeping weather records in 1894 or whatever.

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  2. Gruesse aus Muenchen! Wir haben NOCH keinen Schnee, dafuer koennten wir im Freien ein Weisswurstfruehstueck am Viktualienmarkt haben. Schade, dass du nicht hier bist. Frohe Weihnachten :-)))

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  3. Not one inch of snow here!

    This is all very funny!

    We(Luisa, Paula, and I) are sitting under the Christams tree and are playing all the nice presents building houses and...and...

    In the garden there is absolutely no snow, after having had three days of rain...

    Take Your skies or snowboards and get on the trail to Bend not having Your mom alone with the martinis. How sad could this be?

    We wish You in every case a very nice and obviously White Christmas.

    Best Regards from

    Neuhausen,Bavaria

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  4. Hi Sonja! Hi George! Have a Merry Bavarian Christmas! I'll send you some snow and you send me some weisswurst! :)

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  5. MORE SNOW! It was supposed to warm up, rain, and melt the snow. Instead, we're inside a snow globe!

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  6. Merry Christmas!

    It's our (Vancouver's) first white Xmas in 10 years! Yay snow!

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  7. Hello Rose City Reader. I found your blog through J. Kaye. I had a feeling when I saw your name you were from Portland. I have family stuck in the same snow right now. So I have to know...is Powells your favorite bookstore? Do you practically live there (as I know I would if I lived anywhere in the vicinity)?

    Merry Christmas!

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  8. HI Gilion

    I saw that you can understand my mom's German ;-)

    so: Ich wünsche euch auch Frohe Weihnachten und nen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr.

    Eine gute Tochter überwindet jeden Weg zur Mama, auch wenn dieser über den superverschneiten Mount Hood führt ;-)))) HeHe

    Big hugs and kisses from mini Rike too.

    R.

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  9. Hi BookPsmith -- thanks for stopping by!

    Yes, I love Powells. It is definitely one of the best things about living in Portland. Although, I confess that with all this snow, amazon was my favorite books store this Christmas.

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  10. Hi Rike! And Philli!

    Yes, I could read Sonja's message. Aber Ich lese besser, als Ich schreibe. ;-)

    So as much as I wanted to see Mom at Christmas, I did not want to drive over the mountain in the snow!

    Hope you all had a great Christmas! And Happy New Year! Will you have a Sylvester party?

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  11. Hello Gili,

    just got back home to Vienna..thank you very much for the presents..we love them and I love it that they are from Portland..makes me miss it even more :-(( The hat is really great and right now it is so cold that we will have lots of chances to wear it.

    Thomas has to work on Sylvester so no big party for us....but this is OK, next year then.

    Wish you a wonderful New Years Eve. To say it in German: Rutsch gut ins neue Jahr.

    Rike und Phili

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