Search Results for 'lI'

[WSMom]

Have you experienced this: I make a good friend that likes to get together and do some of the same things I like to do, and she changes jobs and moves to another city. The last three years I’ve had 3 friends move away, and now I feel like I’m starting over.

And what Kayleigh said: “I’m always happy to make new friends but sometimes feel I don’t have the energy or time to keep up with the ones I have”. What is up with this? What are we so busy doing that we don’t invite folks over for a meal or a cup of coffee. I’m talking to myself here, not you Kayleigh. My resolution for 2008 is to invite someone new over for dinner at least once a month, even if it means I’ll have to clean my house.

[swimcat]

I’d be happy with the bar food, a pitcher of beer and watching a game with my husband at the Rocksport on Valentine’s Day. I’m simple, but that’s one of my favorite things to do. I enjoy flowers, chocolate and fancy meals, but not on Valentine’s Day. It seems too forced to me. Hallmark holidays…

[hopey]

Here’s my experience as a transplanted Chicagoan…

The Seattle Freeze is real. After some discussion with a friend who relocated here from Iowa, we have decided that a lot of it actually results from an overwhelming fear of offending *somebody* by saying *something* wrong. Let me give you a really specific example.

I am nearly 40 years old and recently had braces put on my teeth. Not a single coworker in my office said ONE WORD when I walked into work the first day I wore braces. No one acknowledged there was *anything* different about me that day, outside of the surreptitious looks and a bit of a startle response the first time I opened my mouth to speak. It was my boss’s boss (who is from the Midwest) who casually remarked, “Oh hey! You got braces! How long will you have them on?” and chatted with me in a friendly way about it. I think the rest of my coworkers were worried that if they acknowledged I had changed anything, I would somehow be offended. Better to not say anything at all.

This is very different from the Midwest idea, which is that by commenting on changes in appearance, you are showing that you notice — and therefore, you *care*. It is an expression of interest and caring, not an insult or intrusion into an intensely private matter.

Extrapolate this into the way neighbors and people on the street interact, and you get a “friendliness” which exists on the surface but never delves any deeper. I know it’s not just me, because when I discuss this theory with other transplanted Midwesterners, they agree that I am spot-on. If it were not for my fiance and his circle of friends, I’m convinced I wouldn’t have made a single friend here in Seattle.

[Sue]

We got one of their doorknob ads as well, and then something that came in the mail. My husband mentioned that he saw the waving people too. We’re looking for an accountant this year and he said that this really turned him off – the hardsell.

[JenV]

Just came back from lunch in the junction and EVERY car on the east side of the street was plastered with Liberty Tax flyers. This, accompanied with their crazy waving people in the styrofoam costumes accounts to nothing better than telemarketing! I for one will be using Jackson Hewitt or HR Block- anyone other than littering, annoying Liberty!!

[credmond]

I’m usually the “sucker” who looks the Tourette Syndrome person right in the eye and therefore the one who’s caught in a conversation with said person for the 20 or 40 minutes I’m on that bus (obviously, depending on where I’m going). However, by looking folks right in the eye, I’ve had some amazingly enlightening and fascinating conversations with complete parents-born-in-Swedish-Hospital 2nd or 3rd gen Seattleites. I think a lot of folks from here are genuinely shy and not unlike Nova Scotia or New England in that regard. That may have something to do with the lack of winter light, but – wait a minute. I spent about 5 months in Stavanger a while back, during winter, and did not experience that same level of shyness. Maybe it’s just a North American Northern Lattitudes thing.

[Kayleigh]

I’m a native, but I’ve heard so many transplants here tell me that it’s incredibly hard to make friends that I believe it.

I’m always happy to make new friends but sometimes feel I don’t have the energy or time to keep up with the ones I have (that’s that NW introversion for you.)

Would love to hear about ways that people connect and make new friends here. I’m warm and approachable too…except on the bus! :-)

[swimcat]

I think people in Seattle do tend to keep a distance from anyone they don’t know well. I don’t know how many people I’ve come across while running through my neighborhood that won’t even look me in the eye when I go past! I’m certainly not scary looking; a younger, fit female in workout clothes, ready with a smile and wave and an out of breath ‘hello’ if I get any sort of look my way. And I’d say 50% of the time the people I pass don’t acknowledge me at all. I don’t think we have that large of a blind, deaf, mute population do we? Or are people just so shy they can’t even smile at a fellow neighbor? I’m extremely shy but make an effort to project warmth and approacability because if no one does, everyone will think this city is unfriendly.

[herongrrrl]

I wonder if some of it is a reaction to the huge, rapid influx of people to the region? The population growth I’ve seen in my 38 years here is just staggering. That, or maybe the long dark winter stuck indoors breeds a lot of introversion? ;)

What I find curious is that my own close-knit circle of friends is made up predominantly of people who AREN’T from around here,and I wonder if that’s a product of the fact that so many people who live here now aren’t from here originally or the inability of adult “natives” to “thaw” each other out enough to be friends. I know I keep people at arm’s length until I’ve had plenty of time to get to know more about them. And come to think of it, the other “natives” I know here do tend toward the introverted.

A friend of mine from PA and I have discussed this issue a lot, and I really think it is just regional culture. IME, it just takes time to “thaw” us out on an individual basis, and folks newer to the area shouldn’t expect that the cultural rules from their region are going to be the same as the ones here.

[credmond]

I lived here in the ’70s before Seattle was ever thought to be cool by anyone outside Puget Sound. I moved back here in ’03 and knew, literally, two people in the entire Northwest. During the four years me, my wife, and son have lived here, we’ve developed a whole new set of friends, many of which are neighbors, many others who live in other neighborhoods. We didn’t experience any “freeze” and I have found Seattleites to be generally as open and forthcoming (on street, random, bus-stop, etc. meetings) as any “friendly” place I’ve visited or lived. There is, though, an undercurrent of Nordic “rightness” to a lot of the city’s sociality, perhaps newcomers are experience that and interpreting it as a “cold shoulder” or “freeze.” Me, I love this place and it’s denizens – human and other.

[TheVelvetBulldog]

“m” – “the cat’s meow…” LOL. Actually, I’m not “supposed” to have cats now, but I got adopted by one a number of years ago and the landlord just sort of got used to the idea since there weren’t any problems with it. Which led me to getting a new kitten a few months ago…ahem. (Just for the record, no problems with that little fuzzball either.) :-)

[TheVelvetBulldog]

Offer me chocolate, and I’ll be your best friend forever! Ok, ok – being facetious. I’ve lived here my whole life and so can’t be objective about this. I do get tired of being Seattleites being stereotyped as “snooty” though. I mean geez, just ‘cuz we’re so much smarter and cultured… ;-)

[WSMom]

I keep reading about the “Seattle Freeze” – how Seattleites are polite and friendly on the surface, yet don’t reach out to connect with people on a deeper more satisfying level. I do find this to be generally true. I’m wondering, do you have any ideas of how we can help “thaw” Seattle out?

[WSB]

FYI all – I am closing this topic at the request of the user who initiated it. The user also has requested that the content of their posts be deleted, which is a request we as editors can grant but do not guarantee to anyone; I have chosen not to delete the entire topic as there has been a lot of participation. Obviously if anyone else wants to continue a discussion on this general concept they are welcome to open a new topic. Sorry and thanks. We will be writing a separate forum policy (our comments policy is on the second half of the “about” page linked from the top navigation) as soon as possible and also posting it here so everyone is clear.

[JimmyG]

A lot of response to this since I left yesterday afternoon.

I’ve got two words that all of us should keep in mind: “Personal Responsibility. Especially for the now-fired worker and Lattemom.

Lattemom keeps telling us she didn’t fire the guy, as if this makes it not of her doing. Yet it was only at your impetus (your initial complaint) that he was fired. Yes the worker chose to use foul language, he’s an adult and now he’s paid a very high price for using swear words.

I’m still waiting though for lattemom (or anyone) to link me to any study which shows the permanent negative effects to a child of hearing swear words from a stranger. Even though that’s not what happened in this case. I also find it interesting how diligent lattemom has been in posting after posting in order to justify her stand.

What’s that saying about protesting too much?

[Franci]

Lattemom – I’ve been following this conversation since yesterday. I’ve waited to see how things played out before posting, but I have to say that reading your posts yesterday afternoon, I felt a lot of angry energy coming from you in those posts, simply because people were expressing their own opinions, which don’t happen to be in agreement with yours.

It sounds like this guy was having a really bad day, made some unfortunate choices, maybe he did or did not deserve what he got, I don’t feel like I’m in a position to make that judgement.

I do believe that in any given moment people are doing the best they can, and if that was the best he could do in that moment then he was obviously hurting in some way and was in need of compassion from those around him. I completely agree with JT that expressing concern for someone instead of judging them could have brought a completely different outcome.

[Kayleigh]

Lattemom, that’s an interesting, derisive (presumptuous and wrong, also) stereotype of people who swear. Would you like me to offer an equally derisive and presumptuous stereotype of stay-at-home moms?

[Anonymous]

Lattemom- you keep explaining that you yelled back “nice language” as if that was asking him to stop when in fact you were contributing to his rage. If you felt so strongly about reporting him, just do that instead of inciting him further. Or if you really wished for him to just stop, how about a sincere “are you OK?” That usually jars people out of there trance and maybe you would of genuinely made him reflect on what he was doing. By the title and contents of your first post, what I’m hearing is the hall monitor tattling and hoping we’ll all somehow be proud. Now we’ve got one pissed off dude out there somewhere. I’m worried about who he’s going to take it out on now. Protecting invisible children might be making one at home less safe. That doesn’t mean we should tolerate a free for all in society, but you seem to be more concerned about being right than actually making a difference.

[WSMom]

Hey there Lattemom:

Reading this thread made for an interesting morning. I’d like to suggest that you re-read what you have written and consider the “tone” of your voice. Your first message did sound to me like you were proud of the fact that you got the disturbed man “fired on the spot”! Perhaps that wasn’t your intended message, but your later writings dug the hole you started yet deeper. Loosing a job is huge; no insurance, can’t pay the bills…it’s something we universally worry about. I’m sure you generally feel compassion for the person experiencing this, it just didn’t come through in your writing.

[Erik]

Wes –

Of course we can and sometimes will be swayed in our thinking by what we hear, read, see. But individually we all have to run this information through our own contextual filters to see if it’s something we want to influence our lives. Just because so and so says I must believe such and such doesn’t necessarily mean I will. I’m quite skeptical by nature and will want to do my own due diligence. It doesn’t mean that what the other person told me is wrong, I just haven’t bought into it yet. I guess that’s why we love having discourse on this forum…lol.

[swimcat]

Nope, I never had a problem. I paid rent on time, never complained and kept a clean apartment. Landlord’s thought I was the cat’s meow- there are some crappy tenants out there (my husband owns a rental property so I know) that do much worse things than bring a well-behaved, litter box using cat into an apartment… Now, if I had a boy cat that sprayed, well, let’s just say that cat would not be moving anywhere with me if it had those problems. I would not want to live with that stink, much less ruin someone else’s property with it.

[Bonnie]

Well, I don’t believe people should be using that kind of language, especially around children (but it sounds like no children were there???) but I wouldn’t feel good about getting somebody fired. You don’t know what is going on in his life.

I just can’t believe that they would fire someone ON THE SPOT like that. Maybe he was a problem worker…we don’t know.

[Kayleigh]

Lattemom, I “get it”; I just disagree with you. I don’t care how bad his language was.

Now someone is standing on the unemployement line, without the medical insurance he likely needs to seek help for what may be anger management issues or a chemical imbalance.

How about teaching children to control themselves and not others? That will serve them better than freaking out over the “f” word.

[cruiser]

Good morning Lattemom,

Have you calmed down yet? With all the shouting you were doing on this forum last night, I’m worried about you:) I hope you’ve had your morning latte and are relaxed so you can go about your wonderful life.

Acemotel,correct on the firing thing no doubt:)

ps Lattemom maybe you could go back and edit out the offending words as this forum is open to all including children…or do I need to report you to WSB and get you fired!

[Ken]

ba-dump bump

The last day to change your voter info or registration via the web page is tomorrow, the 19th before the primary.

For the caucus, you just have to be registered somewhere and show an id, or utility bill or one of the usual formes of ID to sign in.

If the PCO knows you are a resident they can allow you to sign in but you need to make sure your voter registration matches your current address asap.

Reminder: The caucus is the only place to make your preference known on the Democrats running for President. No Dem delegates will be awarded in the primary. The caucus is paid for and organized by the parties and is therefore not mentioned by the King Co elections division on it’s web site. See above post for links.

Washington Democratic precinct caucus, Saturday, Feb 9th at 1 pm. It should last about 2 hours. Snacks and coffee available. :)