The Big Secret
I moved here five years ago (actually, five years and a few months ago), and we already had a few friends in the area and struck up more friendships over the course of getting jobs. At one point I decided we should have a housewarming party, and after very little thought, I picked an afternoon during the last weekend of July.
The newcomers are all eyeing each other uneasily, and wondering why that was silly of me. In fact, I didn’t find out myself until shortly before the party bombed, when I found out I was competing with a host of other parties, festivals, and events such as the Microsoft Company Picnic (If you live in Bellevue and you don’t know at least eleventy-dozen MSFT employees, then go hang out at the mall parking lot, and introduce yourself to anyone driving a car with one of those stupid looking orange dangly things.). It turned out that the last weekend in July was “the busiest weekend” in Puget Sound and no one had let me in on the secret.
Every last-weekend-of-July since then, I’ve had sudden flashbacks of having to eat a mountain of coldcuts and drinking beer for the rest of the summer (and fall). But my lesson is learned, and not only do I never host anything in July, it’s my first piece of advice to newcomers (The other piece of advice is about inviting precisely five times more people than you think you have food for, and there’s also a bit about “don’t give anyone any notice, because then it gives them time to find something better to do”.).
What’s your secret to life in the PNW?
Never, ever say “Pike’s Market” or “Pike’s Place Market”.
1. Never refer to I-5 as "The I-5".
2. Try at every opportunity to fight "The Seattle Freeze". In other words, strike up conversations with people in bars, coffe shops, wherever. There’s a myth about Seattleites that we’re cold and difficult to approach. It’s not true.
1. Enjoy the sunlight when it arrives. Exult in it. Don’t sit indoors, trying to think of something to do when it’s sunny outside. Just go outside. You’ll thank yourself later.
2. Learn to love the rain. It’s actually quite soothing when it comes back again.
3. Don’t try to park downtown. Just don’t.
4. I’m with Joe–don’t buy the mularkey about us being cold. That’s only in trendy places where people are trying to be hip and pretending that we live in a bigger city than we do.
5. Take 99 instead of 5.
6. Be here. It’s extraordinary here.