Living in Seattle(ish), Day 18(ish): Time for the mortuary, and I’m a bad driver

For a bit of context, here are my two previous posts in the series:

Living in Seattle(ish), Day three(ish): 10 things I’ve learned
Living in Seattle(ish), Day eight(ish): regret in a screenshot

I’ve been in the Seattle area for over two weeks now, and am more or less settled in. However, that won’t stop me from continuing to share my observations of the area.

I’m tired

I’ve have zero energy ever since I got here. I sleep nine hours a night and am still dead tired all day. The fact that I hate the Pacific time zone only makes things worse. I’m not sure if it’s the lack of sunlight, permanent adjustment to the new time zone, or what. Some have told me to get vitamin D supplements while others have suggested one of those sunshine lamps, so I guess it’s time for me to go with one or the other so that I can at least be mildly productive.

I’m warm and wet

On one hand this doesn’t really come as a surprise since I knew it coming in, but Seattle isn’t really that cold and it doesn’t really pour rain all that much.

Instead it has been in the mid to upper 50s with the occasional dip into the 60s. So the temperature actually isn’t bad, and I haven’t even had to use the spiffy North Face jacket I bought when I moved here.

The rain is a whole different story. It drives me nuts. In Florida I was used to heavy rain for short periods of time, but the weather in Seattle is almost like Chinese water torture. It’s never really raining and it’s never really not raining. It’s just constantly drizzling. And it drives me nuts. But I still love it.

Bellevue isn’t Vanilla friendly

When I moved here I was excited about the fact that there were three Office Depots that are a reasonable drive from where I live. I figured stocking up on Vanilla Reload cards would be easy. While they all carry them, they’re almost always out of stock, which wasn’t the case in Tampa, where they were always available. I guess there’s more competition here than in Tampa.

I called one of the Office Depots this morning and was thrilled to find out they had some in stock. I then went to check-out and the lady working the counter started with small talk — “oh sweetie, what kind of a business do you have?” I responded with “oh, it’s a travel business.” She responded with “oh sweetie, that means you can help me get cheap Korean Air tickets to the Philippines?” Rather than explain that I really can’t I said “oh, I focus mostly on hotels.” She then said “oh sweetie, so you can help me with cheap hotels in Italy?”

She then proceeded to write her name at the bottom of my receipt in pink highlighter and said “sweetie, you do me a favor and fill out the survey on officedepot.com and mention my service, okay sweetie?”

I’m the worst #$&%*!@ driver ever!

Aside from in parking garages I’d argue my mechanical skills are actually very good. But I’m so directionally challenged that I couldn’t tell you which direction is North if I were looking at a compass.

Prior to Bellevue I lived in Tampa for 10 years, and even days before I moved I’d still get lost on my way to the supermarket. I’m just awful with directions. Awful. Worse than Delta is at justifying their SkyMiles award calendar.

And the problem isn’t even that I’m awful with directions. It’s that I’m awful at listening to directions as well. Siri would be spoon feeding them to me and I’d still do the exact opposite of everything she says, completely unintentionally. 425, 520, east, west, how the hell am I supposed to know the difference?

Yesterday I tried to go to Walgreens. Anyone want to guess how long that took? 90-friggin-minutes. NINETY of them. 5,400 seconds. How far is Walgreens from my apartment? About a mile, apparently. On the plus side I got a tour of Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, and even the local hospital, all of which I interpreted Siri as directing me to.

And I should clarify that in the 90 minutes I spent trying to find a Walgreens, I didn’t even find one. I instead ended up at Bartell Drugs, which is even closer to my apartment.

Two nights ago I went to a restaurant for dinner. The drive took about 15 minutes with traffic and I paid $10 for parking. When I was done with dinner I realized the restaurant was really only two blocks from my apartment. FML. The joy of continuously making right hand turns.

So I’ve made a pledge to myself — if it’s in downtown Bellevue I’m walking. Period. End of story. And if it’s somewhere else I’m setting up an IFR flight plan with alternative diversion points before I leave home.

Should the perpetually terrified person go on a ghost mortuary tour?

I don’t watch horror movies because I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep for days if I did. But I have this odd desire to do one of the ghost tours of the Butterworth Mortuary, which is apparently really well done. But I’m scared that if I do, I won’t be able to sleep for days. Should I do it?

So yeah, hello from the Pacific Northwest!