Now that Hurricane Sandy is definitely more than the product of an overactive meteorologist’s imagination (similar to the supposed NYC impact of Hurricane Earl in 2010 (or was it Irene last year?) and St. Louis’ “Snowpocalypse” in 2011), I’m caring hard about all of my East Coast friends and hoping that they had a chance to hit the liquor store before everything disappeared and that they won’t be without power for too long.

It’s sunny and 60 in Seattle at the moment, and I say “at the moment” because it generally changes several times a day. We’re in a bowl between mountain ranges and surrounded by water, so we have our own little microclimate here that allows us to see the Olympics and Cascades in the distance even when there are clouds in the sky. It’s pretty remarkable, actually, and I keep reminding myself that we don’t have the severe thunderstorms or tornado warnings of the Midwest and that the earthquake threat isn’t anywhere near what it was when I lived in Southern California and we had one, and no one who lived there thought it was a big deal at all.

…I didn’t mean for this to turn into a humblebrag about how great we’ve got it compared to the East Coast. Especially now that the East River is flooding? If it helps any, our kitchen sink is broken and I can’t get the landlord to call me back about a plumber. So see? Everything is terrible, you just happen to win the terrible medal today!

So, stay safe, stay dry, stay as lit (both with candles and booze) as possible. By nature, this will all blow over eventually. Do whatever Ron Fucking Swanson would do. I carved him into a pumpkin for you:

(No it’s not Vladimir Lenin, and this was my first time carving pumpkins in maybe 15 years with only a paring knife so thanks for not commenting on the likeness to a Russian dictator, which I’ve already done in my head about a hundred times.)