the view from here

if i tried, i could probably think of a way better comparison than this, but with each new week of science (though i am thoroughly enjoying it!) my creativity dwindles…

ever watch or read “the lion the witch and the wardrobe”, if so, you will remember the part where lucy makes her way through the wardrobe and finds herself not at the end of the wardrobe, but in a icy wintery land.

i feel like lucy, but only for that one part of the book, i haven’t thought about the book/movie beyond that point… all i know is when i look out my window to the drive way, the street, to my car…where the heck is my car?! oh yes, under the snow, to the trees, oh and also, to the sky, i see snow, snow, and more and more SNOW.  it’s just like the movie. this perpetual winter. one week of snow baby, it’s getting old.

i’m from the pacific northwest. i tell you, in my 26 years this has not happened, or if it did, i was a baby and don’t remember OR i was innocently enjoying freedom from school and building snowmen and eating snow.

so last week, three of my very close friends came to visit, and me, never really watching tv anyway, and being glued to my textbooks for finals did not even know that snow was supposed to be coming! i just woke up one morning and it was there! it hit me like a wall (on the back of a wardrobe) or wait, it hit me NOT like a wall in the back of a wardrobe, but like a secret snow land where the wall in the back of the wardrobe was supposed to be.

i was utterly astonished at first, but in the same way that lucy finds out pretty quick that icy wintery snowy lands are not all fun and snowballs and snowangels, but instead are more like one-half-goat people who try to sell you out to icy witches who want your brother to sell you out for some turkish delight- i too, quickly found that it is not all fun and games.. .instead i learned that portland does not have a efficient system for road clearing (understandable but for some reason shocking!) or salting or pebbling or whatever it is you snow city experts do…and so i was stuck, jenni was stuck, then we were free, then we were back and unstuck, then jenni and chan were both stuck, but now they are free. also, portlanders seem to have an aversion or indifference to young gorgeous women who get stuck in a snow storm and need to hitchhike up a hill…. NOT that i did that. i mean, gosh, i’m not that stupid… ehemmmm… so

there are a lot of hills around here…

there are also a lot of snow drifts, and today there is also ice… on top of the snow. so it’s like 2 inches of ice, then 6 inches or so of fluffly snow, then about a centimeter of ice… it’s like a snow hamburger…with two icy buns. today i fell through the icy bun, into a snow drift, that was disguised so cunningly as ummm.. not deep snow. the snow fell into my right galosh and it was not long after this that i shook my fist at the sky (i didn’t actually shake my fist, but the emotion was there) and i yelled to the clouds… “I HATE ALASKAAAAAA!!!!!!”

i know, i know, i’m in portland, but at this point… portland, narnia, alaska… what’s the difference??