As some of you know, I have been on the lam in Seattle for the better part of a week, and there’s still a couple days to go before I wrap up all my business here and head back to Florida from whence I came.
This has been a long journey back to the homeland, one that allowed me to soak up the Pacific Northwest existence once again, which I find to be in stark contrast to that of Florida.
This is not a slight to Florida by any means. I’m sure others who have relocated to the Northwest could also deliver a long discourse on the differences between the Seattle area and their own homelands.
This only came to mind as I was sitting with my friends, talking about the uniqueness of life here, at least before the dark period of Californication when we were flooded with Californians who tried to makeover our culture into an image of their own. We can thank them for the fact that there are almost as many sushi places as there are Starbucks in Seattle. Not an entirely bad thing, by the way.
I always delight in talking Native Seattle to people who are transplants here. As soon as you start mentioning the Kalakala, Ivar Haglund, Brakeman Bill and Bobo and Fifi, their eyes start to gloss over. These are the code words that separate a born and raised Washingtonian from those who try to fake it by buying some flannel and making a simple coffee order sound like a recipe for rocket fuel.
I am fortunate that I can speak Northwest fluently. I know how to pronounce all the cities around here that have Native American origins, including Puyallup and Quilcene. I know the difference between sockeye and king salmon. I remember the years when you couldn’t swim in Lake Washington and that the Metro of Metro bus fame originally was created to clean up the lake, not manage the bus system.
Of course, I know what it’s like to be a Patches Pal and at one time I could sing the theme song from Stan Boreson’s show (Zero dockus, mucho crockus hallaballooza bub. That’s the secret password that we use down at the club!).
As anyone from here knows, January isn’t exactly the season for great weather in Seattle, at least not in the classic Florida way. In Florida right now it’s 75 degrees and sunny. In Seattle, 48 and well, at least it’s not raining at the moment. In fact, the weather guys must have had to create a new icon for what it’s doing today. It is a sun with drops of precipitation falling off of it. I guess there is a 100% chance of Raisun today.
To anyone from Florida, this seems like a recipe for gloom and doom. There, it’s sunny 200+ days of the year. Here it’s 200+ day of clouds, or partial clouds, which yields another Northwest favorite weather term, “sun breaks.”
But people here aren’t gloomy or doomy at all. They are still amazingly optimistic about life and everything it has to offer. In many ways, the weather summarizes the whole vibe here. Just like the eternal optimism that tomorrow might be sunny, people here seem to be eternally optimistic that tomorrow will be a better day all around.
Case in point. I went to Costco the other day. In Florida, the nearest Costco is about 90 minutes from where I live, so I have to make due with Sam’s Club. There is, of course, no comparison between the two. Sam’s is just a warehouse version of Wal Mart. There’s little to no emphasis on quality, any more than there is an emphasis on that at Wal Mart.
So there we are in Costco. As usual, it is packed to the rafters with people because it’s free sample day, a tradition here in the Northwest where everyone and his mother goes to Costco to consume an entire meal in dim sum fashion, bounding from one demo station to the next in search of free samples of foods that they have no intention of really buying.
But this isn’t about the free food. I have no patience for waiting in line to have a sliver of pizza bagel or a blob of cheesecake. If I’m really hungry, I’ll get one of the “to die for” hot dogs at the cafe and follow it up with some ice cream.
As I roamed the aisles, waiting for my friend to finish her shopping, I happened upon the true essence of Northwest optimism. There it was, right next to mound of cable knit sweaters. Swimsuits.
That’s right, swimsuits. A couple hundred of them in all sizes and colors. In January, on a day when it was still freezing outside.
I stopped dead in my tracks. I almost checked the calendar on my iPhone to see if I had stepped through some kind of time warp. I hadn’t. It was still the end of January, and there were swimsuits for sale.
Of course, I had to take a photo to prove this to my friends back in Florida where swimsuits are available year round and everyone seems to have a dozen of them.
It took me some time to figure out why these swimsuits are there, for it can’t possibly be for swimming purposes.
I can only chalk it up to an error in shipping. These must have been intended for the West Palm Costco and instead, somehow ended up in Seattle.
Now that makes perfect sense to me. There is no way that people in the Northwest can be this optimistic. Swimsuits in Seattle in January. An obvious mistake.
Sadly, as I stood there reconciling this confusing conundrum in the North Seattle Costco, I felt a twinge of sadness for the shoppers in West Palm. I’m sure they are just as mystified about why there’s a pile of Goretex coats for sale at their store.
Out in the Emerald City (still), resisting the temptation to buy any flannel, even at the behest of Denise K.,
– Robb