So for the second time in about a week there’s snow on the ground in Portland

Apparently before I showed up that was a hella rare thing, to the point that bars would post pretty undistinguished by Pennsylvania standards pictures of their storefronts “the day it snowed”

Since I’ve been here we’ve had two winters with one snow day and now this one with two so far

For all the 4wd Subarus and light pickups no one can drive for shit, Portland doesn’t have any plowing or salting capacity, and you realize how flat it isn’t. They put chains on the buses and people stay home

It’s not clear whether this is fluke (coast and inland mountains, the Columbia Gorge, and the Pacific Ocean all do weird things to airflow, when these come together things get crazy) or the new normal, since I’ve been here the summers have been droughty enough for the grass to turn yellow and apparently that’s new too

My concern is how this affects the viability of a motorcycle as year-round exclusive transport

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to walk a fucking mile through the snow to feed a friend’s cats