Happy Birthday Ike

Happy Birthday!!

Thanks, everyone. 49-eff’ing years old. Damn. But yes, it has been a good one.

I haven’t been around here today mostly because I had a little adventure last night coming back from a Christmas party with both of my boys in the car. We managed to get to the party up at the top of Queen Anne Hill just fine. But coming back down the hill I took a bad turn down a pretty steep hill that was so slick with ice it looked like it had been freshly Zambonied. The back end started drifting sideways and pretty soon me and the boys were slow-mo spinning all the way down the hill.

I was lucky. there were cars parked all the way down the right side of the street, but the car stayed to the left as we were spinning, and then was stopped fairly softly by the curb of a traffic circle. If that hadn’t of been there we probably would have kept spinning for another block until we hit something.

When the car stopped I realized there was a little crowd of people watching us, comprised of car owners who had also spun down the hill, assorted neighbors, and a group of around 20 drunk carolers. Every direction out of there was steep ice. I have a Subaru Outback that does pretty well chain-less on easier slopes, but I wasn’t going to try sliding down another sheet of ice and risk hitting a parked car. Someone called a tow truck, and the driver walked two blocks up to where we were to say that he wasn’t about to get his truck up there, even with chains on. So, I drove the car up onto the sidewalk so it wouldn’t get hit, and my little boys and I trudged downhill, where we eventually got to a street where we hailed a taxi and got home way too late.

So today I bussed over as close as I could get and walked up hill to the car. It had warmed up a bit so the ice was more of a hard slush. I managed to drive downhill and keep the car in a straight line so I didn’t hit all the cars tightly parked on either side. The trick is: use The Force. Stick it in granny gear and just let the wheels turn, because if you hit the brakes too hard it’s going sideways. (This is a Seattlite trying to be a cold weather driving expert, when we’ve had this kind of snow and ice maybe 10 days over the past 10 years.)

Anyway, time to stuff stockings. Merry Christmas, y’all.

Happy Birthday!

High five!

Happy Birthday Ike

Glad you are home safe for Christmas Ike! :)

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas, Ike!

Happy Birthday Ike.

Wow you really live up to your name.

Happy Birthday Ike.

“Happy Hatching Anniversary” - a strike of genius, no? :D

Happy Birthday from me, too - where’s that LEGO man, anyways?