Weather Caprice, A Not-Totally-Sensible Plan, Mysteries of the Missing

I don’t understand what is happening with Seattle weather lately. It’s absolutely bizarre. It’s hot and cold by the hour and I never know which coat to wear. I have a white-noise machine I turn on before bed with a “gentle thunderstorm” program, and a few nights ago, I awoke startled to the crack of ear-splitting thunder, wondering if something had gone haywire with the volume, only to realize that we were in the middle of real-life thunderstorm. It stormed and raged freezing rain for hours, and by the time I left the office that day, it was so hot I had to take off my coat and sweater. Spring and early summer in Seattle is always a bit temperamental, but this is ridiculous. I cannot abide these bipolar weather swings. There is only so much layering one can do, and I just want an iota of predictability somewhere in my life, for goodness sake. Also, I can’t wait to ditch my overcoat for a few months. The day that I can walk to work in a light jacket is the symbolic beacon of hope that we will actually have something resembling a summer in Seattle.

I was delighted to meet with a friend/co-worker for lunch recently. I never even have a proper lunch anymore, much less go out with co-workers, so this was a real treat. After multiple forced cancellations, we were finally able to make it to our arranged date at a neighborhood Italian place, at which I ordered what turned out to be a huge platter of spaghetti, another rarity for me. Pasta smack in the middle of the day! But the company was the real delight. I have always admired this person, and she was generous enough to spend some time listening to me when I found myself in a crisis a few years ago. At our lunch, she told me that her whole life, she had always longed to go to graduate school, and she finally did when she was in her early fifties. She was drawn to a surprising passion and has no regrets that she pursued it despite the late-ish stage of her career. She told me this because according to her, I lit up with passion when talking to her about my own surprising, perhaps-not-totally-sensible career direction that has been forming over the process of working with my mentor. The excitement I feel about this potential direction is unwavering and undeniable. It doesn't involve graduate school, thank goodness, but it does involve some very do-able education and classes. We’ll see what comes of it.

I’m not a big true crime fan—I think it’s a bit morbid to find entertainment in the violent deaths of our fellow human beings—but recently I’ve been listening to a Missing Persons podcast, which I find less grisly than true crime and which leaves the door open to some hope. These podcasts give my mind a mystery to latch onto so I don’t obsess over stupid things that I can’t control. The missing persons stories are extremely vexing—people just vanishing from the world under mundane or sometimes very odd circumstances. The mundane ones are the most upsetting to me; the ones where someone is just gone, with their car keys on the hall table and a half-drunk cup of tea still sitting on the counter. Some of the stories are from earlier decades when we didn’t have cell phone tracking and cameras on every corner, but some of them are very recent, and I find it extremely puzzling that such a thing could happen with all of the technology we have and everything being recorded 24/7. It’s my hope that as many of these people as possible are found and that their families get the closure they deserve. I think about each and everyone of them more than I probably should.

On a cheerier note, just because, enjoy this quite fascinating video about the miraculous sea star. (Warning: references to Satan and glue-sniffing.) 

--Kristen McHenry