The sun came out on Monday, perfect weather for building a snowman, getting stuck in the driveway and filming the next webisode of the Curvee-award-winning “Finger of God.”
The day’s events provide some comic relief after about a week’s worth of disruption to the daily routine by bitter cold and then the weekend’s heavy snowfall.
At least the snowfall – about four inches downtown – left behind a winter wonderland. The weatherman is predicting on-and-off showers, in advance of another storm expected on Christmas Eve. That storm will pack both rain and snow.
The City of Renton has been keeping crews busy in 12-hour shifts to clear main arterials of snow. That worked, but it also meant that some folks got stuck in big piles of snow blocking the driveways on those main streets.
The city has six trucks that plow snow and dump sand.
Because the forecast is calling for less snowfall in the coming several days, the city is planning to focus efforts more on the neighborhood streets in the next 24 to 48 hours, according to the city.
Today is the first day of Winter Break for students in the Renton School District.
Garbage pickup was canceled today and Waste Management will assess the weather and street conditions again before it makes its decision about Tuesday’s collection.
For some, the joyous season hasn’t been completely joyful.
Monday morning, Rod Stewart stood outside his antique shop on South Third Street, in the sun, but worried about his shop and others on downtown’s row of antique shops.
The recession has taken a toll on Stewart’s business and the weekend snow has kept customers away on the last shopping days before Christmas.
Stewart said his business is down about 40 percent over last year.
“Business has been very very slow,” he said.
The last five days have been particularly slow because of the weather, Stewart said.
“That really hurts,” he said.
And that’s why he has put up a sign on the front door of his shop.
“Help Save the Antique District. Buy Antiques for Christmas,” it reads.
“That’s the whole truth,” said Stewart.
A couple stores down the way, tattoo artist Kevin McPherson had figured out what to do with all that snow if you didn’t have a snow shovel – build a snowman.
The snow was sticky enough to roll up some really big body parts from the snow on the sidewalk in front of the Ancient Arts tattoo shop.
“It’s probably the only snowman downtown,” he said.
He got a lift – literally – from Mike Moskowitz to place the massive middle snowball.
Moskowitz, a longtime barista at the nearby Jet City Espresso, hopes to open his new venture, the Liberty Cafe, on Jan. 1, right between the tattoo shop and Happy Delusions.
But Moskowitz had some other duties on this cold Monday morning. He was the sound man for the producers of “Finger of God” who were filming the third webisode of this story of Renton.
The team that put together “Finger of God” took home best picture honors in the recent Renton FilmFrenzy designed by Renton Community Marketing Campaign to promote Renton and the arts.
The winners received a Curvee award.
The filming took place outside, along Wells Avenue and inside Happy Delusions on South Third. It seems in the storyline that wepisode writer Bob Anderson has a beef with Happy Delusions proprietor Mary Clymer.
Clymer has been a big hit with her “I Love (a big red heart stands in for Love) Renton” T-shirts. But Anderson claims he already came up with that idea years ago.
All in good nature, Anderson said, “We’re going to sue. It’s our idea.”
After the interior shots, the film crew headed down to Wells Avenue and set up the camera across from The Comic Den for some exterior shots. It seems that comic books played a big role in the lives of some of the film’s producers.
Other dramas were playing out in downtown Renton not too far away.
Metro bus driver Jocelle Jorgensen-Caswell stood by her articulated bus, waiting for chains, at the Renton Transit Center. She drove from Seattle to downtown Renton and had waited about an hour for a mechanic to arrive to chain up her bus.
She’s been with Metro for about 10 years. Rarely has she seen worse conditions. The pigeons have even lost all sense of worry about humans, walking boldly nearby looking for a handout.
“This is horrible,” she said.
But, she was optimistic.
“We’re getting there – for however long it takes,” she said.
THE POLAR BEAR DIP
The second annual Polar Bear Dip is 11 a.m. Jan. 1 at Gene Coulon Memorial Beach Park.
Sponsored by the City of Renton, the event last year drew about 85 participants.
After the dip, the nearby Ivar’s will have some hot chowder for the brave souls.
