Second costume hint

Feast your eyes upon my armbands and shudder in terror! Or at least keep your giggling to a minimum. Any of you slackers want to guess? KAES you are not allowed to guess since I told you what my costume is earlier.

Bazel, Not-Bazel, and A Thing that goes HISS in the Night

This is Bazel. I always think of him as Stuart Little in a cat body. He is sweet as sugar and white as snow.

This is Not Bazel. We call him Frog, as in Bullfrog, as in the horrible sound he makes that I think is supposed to be a meow. This guy kept getting brought to us when we put up posters for Bazel. Alex finally kept him inside when he got 60 phone calls and this same cat brought to our door twice in one hour. And he had a hard time convincing people that he wasn't trying to not give out the reward. He doesn't really know what to think of the dogs, but he has warmed up to Bear (though she still gives him a LOOK when he lays down too close). No one is looking for him.

This is Bazel. We miss him very much and are still looking for him at the shelter. We had hoped he was the kitty eating food off the porch for the last couple weeks. It started when I saw kitty paw prints in the snow on the porch one morning. We slept with the door open the next night and woke to kitty kibble eating, but made too much noise rolling over on the airbed to get a glimpse. The next night Alex put the food in a cup with a loop of duct tape inside to see if kitty had white fur. There was some white looking fur on the tape in the morning. I've locked the kids all up in the bedroom with me every night for nigh on two weeks in an attempt to lure the kitty further inside. I had kitty eating food almost two feet inside the door.

The scientist in me had deduced from nightime ramblings that if kitty was eating food at the same time every night, it was before 3am and after 1am (between 1:16 and 3:18 to be precise). At 1:21 this morning we awoke from a stuper to some horrendous noises in the living room. Alex vaulted out of bed and asked where the light switch was in the hallway. I told him, he ignored me, and he proceeded to run into a myriad of obstacles. By which point I too had exited the bedroom and deduced that it must be Frog singing because Bear was on the bed and the dogs weren't yelping in claw inflicted pain. Sure enough, Frog was singing to the porch kitty. Talk about an attack cat; he sure fits in with the dogs. Alas, kitty is a fluffy siamese looking thing, not my Beloved Bazel.

It's Friday, do you know where your coconut is?

It's Friday, kick back, relax, and put your feet up. '"Is that a coconut on your desk?" Well, as usual, that's a bit of a story. No one around here even really bats an eye at it. Most people sit in my extra chair next to the coconut and play with it. At one point we even took to calling it Wilson. Yes, we know the volleyball was named Wilson, but it somehow fit. You see, we have an office in Hawaii and everyone here just assumes I went there and brought it back with me. When this assumption is voiced I ususally respond with "Now what would our CAD operator be doing in Hawaii that she can't do from here?" usually followed up with "Never mind, let's send her and find out." So far this hasn't resulted in a Hawaii assignment.

One day a couple weeks ago I was in the office break room and I swear I smelled coconut. I should warn you here that I love coconut. Also, we have an espresso machine and a decent variety of bottled flavorings sitting on the counter. I've not yet bothered to make myself a drink as we don't have any coconut flavoring (or almond, but that's another story). Anywho, I was sniffing around and checking the bottles to see where that delicious smell was coming from when I was interupted by a co-worker (who I don't know well) coming into the room for some coffee. Upon being given a strange look I explained I was trying to find the source of the coconut smell. 'You do smell coconut in here, don't you?' He assured me he did, got his coffee and left.

The next morning I sat down at my desk and immediately smelled coconut. Oh no, it's finally happened, I'm losing my mind! Then I noticed one of my drawers was ajar. Huh, the room must not be quite level, that drawer's slid open a bit. It wouldn't close. So I opened it and found a coconut. THE coconut, aka Wilson. Since my officemate was not in yet, I went to said co-worker's office who met me in the break room the previous day and quieting sang 'I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts' as I slowly walked by his room. He burst out laughing. And replied with the next verse of the song later in the day as he passed my office. Which really confused my officemate.

Oh how I love office games. Enjoy your Friday. I have to work at my other job tonight, where costumes are mandatory. A preview of part of my costume:

Any guesses what my costume is? Stay tuned for more hints as I am bored at work.

Results of biking to work

I decided to ride my bike to work this morning, no easy feat considering the state of my apartment after the arrival of my shipment of stuff from Portland. In my efforts to extricate the bike from it's position against the kayaks, I unearthed this:


...my birthday present from a friend. I had been meaning to hang it on the wall, but that led to discovering where the heater vents existed and the realization that the kayaks were in the way of turning on the heat,......and somewhere in there the hanging of the painting got lost. But now it is found and I love it. That is exactly how I feel in the morning when I leave the warmth of the apartment and that first blast of cold air hits me and I can no longer think. It's beyond 'what was I thinking?' it's so numbing I can't think anything. Luckily I have new lenses for my sunglasses, so the cold air no longer takes away vision function. I love Alaska.

Schnazzy new top and someday skirt

My adventures and mis-adventures are not limited to outdoor pursuits. Sometimes they appear in my crafting attempts.




Here we have a recently completed (Yay!!) sleeveless top I knit for myself. It looks very angular here, but pretty flattering when worn. The mis-adventure part comes in at the color change approximately 1/3 down from the top. I ran out of yarn about two years ago and stubbornly refused to pull this apart and use the yarn for a different project. I first tried to fix this by unknitting part way and changing the pattern. When that didn't work I set it aside for a while. When I came back to it I brainstormed potential yarn/pattern solutions, and the hunt began.




Eventually I found not only a yarn combination that I liked, but also some fabric that I thought would make a lovely co-ordinating skirt. I am absolutely in love with the beaded trim on the bottom of the top and may have to buy some more for the skirt. I'll update you as the skirt progresses, but I'll warn you, it could be a long wait since I'm much more motivated to sew wool pants right now.

These shoes were made for running

These are my faithful Ryka running shoes. I ran my first marathon in them on the island last summer (2007) and they are all done. I also wore them for the first few months of waitressing at the sport's bar. Now they are going to hop in the box and be mailed down to Nike for recycling.

This is Frog (aka Not It, aka Christopher Robin), not Bazel, checking 0ut my shoes. he says they are stinky and he is glad to see them go. Doesn't he look a stupid amount like Bazel?

Talkeetna Dreamin'

Not long after landing in Anchorage I came across an opportunity that I couldn't decline. Some times this seems like it was a brilliant idea and other times it seems like a moment in which I took leave of my senses. Unencumbered by the thought process or not, I bought some land. Or, rather, I'm making payments on some land.




As you can see, the road is in and the puppies approve. The electricity is also in. I'm sure this isn't how it looks now, but it is how it looked this spring. There's probably snow there now and it's likely colder than our daytime high of 12 today.

Of course I remembered to only bring my camera on a cloudy day. Trust me, we walked the whole development and picked out the only lot with a view. This is the view across the gravel road; the Talkeetna mountains are behind those clouds across the wetland. Trust me.......I'll get more pictures next visit. Not that I have any idea when that will be since I work 7 days a week. Rest assured it will happen.

This is the north end of the lot. There's only a couple lots between here and the end of the road. All the other lots have many trees, but not mine. The slough bends to the east just beyond my lot.

And this is the middle of the lot. You know, where the cabin goes. This view is on my screensaver. As a reminder of why I go to work everyday. And don't leave at lunch.

Working proof AKA my father's daughter

Proof that sometimes we never grow up. I think I spent more time playing in the mud and climbing trees than anything else as a child.



Here I'm tying to chip a soil sample out of the frozen ground. First you have to scrape the surface. Then you use a rock hammer to chip a chunk of frozen soil out of the ground. Then you put it in a baggie and wait for it to melt so you can test it.

Seriously? What is this shinning orb in the sky? I don't remember how to walk without my raingear on!

I'm a scientist, see me dutifully taking notes and drawing a sketch of the site? No, really, that's what I'm doing.

This summer I went to camp......and played in mud and learned to drive a mini excavator, and got a sunglasses tan on the two sunny days I saw.

See, I told you it was mini.

Wow, that's a muddy hole.

"Please Herb, don't bash my head in. I promise I'll let you label the bags next time."

See how much I like mud? I like it so much I've grown a shovel handle out of the back of my head.

Super secret scientific stuff.....

I am so small compared to the not-so-mini excavator.

Under the boardwalk......

Herb and I are contemplating the universe on the boardwalk in front of the village store. There are no roads in this village, just boardwalks for ATVs to roar around on.

Who doesn't like to crawl around under proped up buildings and stick pin flags in the ground?

Latest fashion in summer garb; hardhat and plastic bag extra.

To Adak and back

Adventures come in all shapes and sizes. One day late this summer as I was working a low tip producing section of the restaurant, a group of friendly folks trickled in to my large table. This turned out to be a good thing; we hit it off from the start and I discovered one of the couples included a pilot for a major airline. It turns out his route for the next month included the weekly flight to Adak Island and back. And he had an open seat for next Thursday and by the way, what was I doing next Thursday? And would I like to come along? Oh boy, would I!!



This is a view of Mt. Illiamna from the plane. Go look up Adak Island on the map. Then trace the route from Anchorage to Adak. We had a sunny flight for only the first part of the trip and lost sight of the islands far before we reached Dutch Harbor.

Adak is the farthest island along the Aleutian chain you can reach via commercial airlines. It was cold, windy, and rainy during my short visit. I understand this to be the normal weather here. We had a couple guys from my other job working on a project here and they had some weather stories to tell. It is also lush and green and gorgeous. The islands appear to shoot straight up out of the ocean; most of them are very rocky with velvety green caps of vegetation. And no, I didn't see the caribou, they were on the other side of the island.

Why is there even an airport of commercial airline size in this place, you might ask. Well, because the entire 'town' used to be a military base. Complete with McDonald's. Most of this has since been mothballed. I took some other cool pictures to ask Alex's dad if he recognized anything from his days here. I'm looking forward to another trip someday after this glimpse. But probably not by sailboat.

Hiking on the Kenai

One weekend we decided we'd had enough struggling with boats and put ins and take outs and we decided to resort to good old fashioned hiking. Armed with a new trail book and topo maps of the Kenai, we picked out a trail, loaded up the dogs and took off for a day hike.

And this is what we found. This is not the trail we picked out. In fact, this is a couple hours drive beyond the trail we picked out. We were so lost we didn't even know we were lost. What looked like an obvious turn on the map was far less obvious to us on the ground. After stopping at a local pottery shop, we ventured back the way we came and ended up on this lovely trail. The other one is still on my list, but Alex hiked it with the dogs while I was away this summer.

Spring came so late here that we were able to pick spruce tips and we made spruce tip syrup the following week. We also picked fiddleheads, but no berries. By this time on the island the salmonberries would have come and gone.

We stopped for a while at our turn around spot (the place in the trail where the snow was still too deep for us to wade through) and looked at the peaks across the creek. Alex was doubtful we would see anything and was a little surprised when I told him I saw a goat. He then supplemented my find with a pair of black bears. And then I added in a trio of bald eagles. We decided to stop looking at that point.

Moose-adventures

Not long after we moved to Anchorage and were enjoying the glorious spring sunshine, it snowed. And then it snowed again. And then Alex went south to visit family and it snowed more than 10 inches. I had to buy a broom so I could get all the snow off the windshield. I didn't even think about driving my truck. The first red stoplight I approached all the snow from the roof slid onto the windshield and I had to wave people around me while I cleaned it off with my bare hands.

And what did Tatonka think about all this? He thought it was glorious! He loves snow; he loves jumping off the porch onto the snow. He loves.......what is it Tatonka? What are you staring at so intently?

Oh, that. That is a moose. Please don't bark at it.

Apparently the moose is hungry and this is easy food to find. We eventually stopped keeping track of our daily average moose sightings, but it took a while. Our apartment complex is near some protected wetlands, so there is a high population of moose in the area. Oh, and you can't shoot them in town, so they aren't so afraid of humans.

Remote Villages

As you may know, I spent many weeks this summer in remote Alaskan villages. This entailed flying into Kotzebue (go look that up on the map) and then on to Selawik and Kivalina.

This is the area around Selawik. If you were good and went and looked at a map, this view will likely not surprise you. The whole area is flat and surrounded by water. Water, water everywhere, but some of these villages don't have any in their houses.

This is Kivalina. The arch is made of bones.....from what animal? Anyone?

Back in Selawik. The town has two bridges; one to the airport and one to the main part of town. My jobsite was on the island inbetween. The utilities run across the top of the bridge because the plant is on the island. There are no vehicles here, just ATVs.

Shock, gasp!! Are those wind turbines? Why yes, they are. Alas, the switch to turn them on and allow them to generate local electricity is in......Anchorage.

This lovely silver box was the bane of my exisitence in Selawik. It is the utilidor (ours is usually underground, but you can't do that in permafrost) and it was between us and the river (aka the highway) that the barge delivered all our supplies and equipment to.

Ah Kotzebue. Where else can you see such an impracticle boat parked next to the road? Kotzebue, where all the restaurants are run by Koreans.

Back in Kivalina Lagoon, we watched the locals tow a dead whale out into the sound. I decided maybe most of you would not actually want to see this, so I refrained from posting my pictures of that. Everyone who is anyone has a motorboat, ATV, and snow-go.

Inland boating

Whittier was not my only boating destination this spring/summer. Alex and I also went canoeing at Fire Lake and kayaking at Eklutna Lake.

We also got up at 4am one morning and drove out to Eagle River and floated back to the bridge. This entailed an extensive amount of driving around and nearly running out of gas as well as putting the raft together and pumping it up with a hand pump. We now have a foot pump because I had to row after pumping up two of the tubes and my arms were a little bit tired. We were going on second hand knowledge and I now think these people had not actually been to the area before. We put in on a tiny tributary not much wider than the raft and proceeded to push our way through the willows. Just when I was sure I couldn't stand it anymore and was awake enough to consider walking back to the truck, we found the counfluence with the main stem. And what do you think we saw at this confluence? Giant bear tracks. No problem, it seems like a beautiful day to die and I've just rowed through hell, so why not?

Return to Whittier

After a few weeks the memory of the rainy, foggy trip to Whittier took on more of a nostalgic view and we decided to try again.

With seemingly much better luck. It was very sunny this time and we could see all the mountains we knew must be there.

What a beautiful day! I look like I'm having a great time, don't I? See how I'm actually sitting on the rocks? What looks like a smile is actually a frozen face. Not only is it cold, the wind is blowing so hard it takes us four times as long to paddle back as it did to paddle 20 minutes out. One of the local outfitters came and asked if we needed help. Have you ever paddled as hard as you can and realized you are actually going nowhere? Literally. Technically we could have walked the boat back to the truck on the rocks, and at times were willing to try, but it would have sucked even more.

I haven't had the chance to try again, but I refuse to give up on this kayaking oasis.

Kayaking in Whittier

After securing housing and jobs, I set about exploring the nearby wonders of Alaska. Playing in the ocean near Anchorage is dangerous due to the tides and mud flats, so you have to drive a bit to put your sea kayak in the water. We decided this apartment was going to work based on the fact that the kayaks could fit inside if we leaned them on the kitchen counter. The rudders hang over the kitchen counter. Luckily there is ample counterspace, so it all works out okay.

Unfortunately, my kayak was damaged on the journey north due to some overzealous strapping to the rack action, so we used a rental from Alex's work. The drive to Whittier is short, as long as you hit the tunnel when it is open to traffic going in your desired direction. I love the idea of a shared resource, but not when I have limited exploration time.

The town itself is pretty small with some very interesting stories, mostly due to it's isolation. The state ferry accesses the town during the summer, as do cruise ships who disgorge their passengers onto the trains and buses. There are also a couple good food places as well as kayaking outfitters. And one cool shop with local handmade goods. I bought a scarf there for $30 and it is so cool I'm wearing it now instead of one that I knit. The alpaca fibers are from the owners animals and they are super soft.

Eventually we got on the water.

Can you guess why there was some lollygagging about town first? It was cold! I mean numb your ass while Alex decides he wants to rock fish and you can't paddle around while he does this cold. This was May and is apparently normal weather.

The other highlight of this trip was this really cool sea bird rookery. There were thousands of birds congregated here to lay eggs and the noise was deafening.