Goodbye 2021

A holiday visit to the van Koi family in Lynden

I expect to finish the year having driven less than 6000 miles on my Subie, less than 500 miles a month. I fill the tank twice a month, spending around $100/month for gas. I'm also riding my bike a lot less, and have much less tolerance for cold, wet weather now that I don't have to gear up and get out in it every day. I haven't ridden since I test-rode my new bike back in October, and I miss it.

Water under the bridge, and over Main Street

On the other hand, our normally wet autumn months have been extraordinarily wet this year, starting with drenching "Pineapple Express" storms in November. The Nooksack River has flooded twice, mostly farther inland toward the foothills in the east. But the water went over the banks in Ferndale, flooding Hovander Park and Vanderyacht Park, and flowing under the railroad crossing by the car wash until it began to spill over Main Street toward the lower-lying section of downtown. Several local roads were flooded, washed out or had sections collapse. I was stuck in town, unable to make it to Bellingham for a day or two, and wasn't sure what route I could take to get to work. For the Christmas holiday weekend, we are having frigid temperatures and snow. And the furnace in my apartment isn't working.

I keep thinking of a short story by T.C. Boyle, which I read sometime back in the 1980's, called "Bloodfall." It's about a house full of layabout stoners (trigger warning: it's pretty revolting). One day it begins to rain blood. The story goes on in some gory detail, as it rains blood for several days while these slackers are stuck inside the house with each other. At last the blood rain stops and they venture outside, where blood is still clotted on the trees and lawn and running in the gutters. Just when they think it's all over and the world is going back to normal . . . plop, plop, plop . . . feces begin to splat on the sidewalk around them.

That's kind of how 2021 has seemed sometimes. As I may have said before: Things can only get better. Or, worse things have happened.