Search Results for 'nG'

[Michell]

We have recently added a Newfoundland dog to our family. I am looking for recommendations for a Vet that specializes in or sees a lot of large breed dogs and a dog grooming services for large and hairy dogs. If you have any advice (good or bad) please share.

Thanks!

[Kayleigh]

Sue, you are entirely right.

I hadn’t heard people talk about the Seattle “freeze” until the last couple of years. So I think throughout my 20s, I internalized a lot of the social “rejections” I got and now I rarely ask new people over for dinner. I need to reach out more anyway, though.

I hope it’s a boundary thing and not snobbiness that keeps people at arm’s length. I would hate to think this city with all its liberalism and compassion somehow thinks it’s too good to meet the neighbors for coffee.

I have been told so many times by newcomers that I’m a “breath of fresh air” because I’m both more direct and open and more friendly than is typical Seattle. Which is kind of funny, if you know me, because I am sometimes reserved and shy. Makes you wonder what the other end of the spectrum must look like!

[hlywdsm]

Lattemom,

Your right in that you still have to apply for the passport…But you don’t have to pay to have your picture taken. You can take your own picture, and then resize it to the requirements. Why exactly would you pay (get ripped off) to have someone snap a picture of you if you own a digital camera and at the very least the basic software that comes with Windows or that Mac thingy? If you are like (I think) most people you want your picture to be decent, and if you take your own you can make sure of that.

[Erik]

Velvet –

He’s black and probably a mix of lab and chow…approx. 90lbs (rescue dog). Me, I’m scary looking…but actually if you look at the top of the WSB page, the silhouetted dude walking along Alki during the sunset…if that’s not me it’s my doppleganger.

[Sue]

Squareeyes, I’ve never had a hotel deny me the right to see a room beforehand, so that’s a good idea. When my friend wanted to stay at the Moore downtown, she asked me to check it out since it seemed like the price was too good to be true. They made me leave my drivers license at the front desk in exchange for the key, but they did let me go up and take a look.

[JimmyG]

I’m guilty of the not saying hello when I pass people when I’m out walking my dogs.

Tomorrow I’ll try to smile and say hello, see if I can’t get the Seattle Freeze to thaw a bit.

[JimmyG]

I find that type of in-your-face advertising very irritating and won’t do business with anyone using those tactics.

But it must work because Liberty uses it at all of their locations. The Uncle Sam guy from Liberty Tax in Burien is a pain.

[TheVelvetBulldog]

Erik – what does your lab look like? I’ll say Hi the next time I see you walking in the neighborhood. (I have to assume from your post that YOU’RE terrifying.) :-)

[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.

[JenV]

we usually celebrate with a nice dinner at home. this after a few years of trying to find some place in WS to have dinner and finding everywhere packed to the rafters. one year we ended up at Ho-Win- and we were the only people there! that same year we ended up there for Cinco de Mayo as well… ;)

[beachdrivegirl]

Awesome thank you!!!

[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…

[Erik]

Hopey –

You’ve hit the nail with the ‘Seattle niceness’ insight. I often tell people that ‘nice’ people scare me cause I don’t know what they’re really thinking behind the mask. I think my boss would worry if I was ever ‘nice’, she prefers my direct approach as she knows I’ll tell her what I really think of something. That’s how I show I care. :)~

[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.

[natinstl]

We are using Thompson for a wood stove install and I’m questioning some of the install process. Has anyone ever used them before?

[Erik]

As a native WSer and scandihoovien my family was the epitome of aloofness. I’ve always been kind of the weirdo (comments from the peanut gallery are accepted) in the family as I will go up to total strangers and say what’s on my mind. This used to bother my late wife to no end when she was with me. I will admit that a massive shy streak comes over me when I see an attractive lady.

I’m amazed daily when I ride the bus that the seat next to me is almost always empty even if people are standing. The people I work with laugh when I tell them this because they know me as a goofball and not a scary person. I’m just direct in my approach.

If it wasn’t for my lab and our daily walks around the point I’d probably never meet any of my neighbors.

[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.

[JimmyG]

As a Washington native and WSeattleite since 1991 I think it’s what you make of it. I’m sure that if I went looking to connect with new people in the area I could do so easily.

Since I don’t know any different way than how it is here I certainly don’t feel any “freeze”, but for people just moving into the area from outside WA it might be difficult.

[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… ;-)