Happy Birthday Mom!

While you are all out celebrating tonight, drink a toast to my mom, and wish her a happy birthday. Your present is on the way, I finally got the whole box together and shipped it to your address.

Love to you from Alaska

Tucum Saves Christmas

Smokey and I had a low-key Christmas this year. We decided to revive a tradition from his childhood and we started out Christmas morning by singing happy birthday to Jesus and eating donuts.

While it's hard to top that kind of a start to the day, we actually had stockings this year and a fireplace to put them by, so a big improvement over last year.




One thing that hasn't changed: bearcat. She knows those boxes Mom sends are full of stuff for her. And Frog staked out the new bag of catnip approximately two seconds after I brought it home last week.

The other half of the box contents are for these beasts. They only get one new soft toy per year now because that's as often as I feel like throwing my money away and cleaning up after them. Percy is the queen of rip and tear.

This year, it was an armadillo. Look close because in less than 20 minutes Percy had an ear ripped off. Tatonka was content to just carry it around.

We now refer to the living room as the cat play room. Oh yeah, we got presents too. Smokey got ice climbing/mountaineering gear among other things. And I got running shoes and a jacket.
We took the dogs for a walk through the park after presents. And we got a Christmas miracle. An ice cleat Smokey lost last week was sitting on a post. Then the miracle was balanced out by the truck not starting when we decided to go see Sherlock Holmes. We couldn't even jump it. So we took the trusty Tucumcari out of winter storage and transfered the skis and went to town. Never again will I go see a movie on Christmas. It was sold out. And so was the next showing. So we bought tickets for the next available showing and went skiing. Then we stuffed ourselves with theater food.

Annual Haircut

Two days before Christmas I got my annual haircut and donated another bundle to Locks of Love. She didn't go quite as short as I thought she might and I think I like it. No more being trapped in bed because my cat is laying on my hair on my pillow.

Fun for Cheap

I don't know how it's possible, but it's past 9AM and I just realized it's still dark outside. And I need coffee. Coffee is a great gift when you've stayed up too late, like a silly school girl. Except I wasn't watching TV or doing homework or even talking on the phone. No, I decided that I had some 'extra' time and volunteered to help J-Bomb with a tiling project. She's in a major home renovation time crunch as she is departing the country shortly for a very cool job somewhere where healthcare is not such a big deal.

And a very entertaining evening it was. K-Bomb and one of his kittehs were the only ones to take notice of my arrival. Eventually, Smnt, J-Bomb's imported new squeeze, finished cutting tile in the garage and on his way to deliver said tile for installation he noticed K-Bomb's interest in the front door. See how handy it is to have a search dog in your life? They are very intuitive.

Though I came dressed to get dirty, I was designated the 'clean' person and my main duty was to keep kittehs and mournful looking doggies out of the workspace. I also proved to be handy at sweeping floors, adjusting lights, and eating cheesecake. Damn good cheesecake. Smnt's baking skills possibly rival my own. Very impressive.

While I planned to return home to finish an assignment due today, I found the tiling work so mesmerizing that I couldn't leave until it was done. Also, I think J-Bomb would not have appreciated the cheerleader leaving in the fourth quarter. The floor looks great and will be ready for grouting tonight. Too bad I've got class tonight. But I know who I'm going to call when I have a need to retile something.

Jimmy Carter 1946-2009

Son. Brother. Nephew. Cousin. Uncle. Serviceman. Husband. Father. Soutmaster. Teacher. Father-in-law. Grandfather. Christian.


I didn't know you nearly long enough, but in your passing I got to hear a lot of stories that confirmed all my initial impressions. I'm nowhere near the top of the list, but I'll miss you just the same. Thanks for helping to make Smokey the man he is today.

Tofurkey Day

Ah, Tofurkey Day, and I'm home again in the snow. But I don't think I'll be relaxing on the hammock since it snowed 8" while I was gone and another foot or so since then. At some point I just stop measuring and count it as 'a lot'.

One of the great things about consciously choosing to spend a holiday alone (despite many offers from friends, thank you) is that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Limited of course, by money and what's in the fridge. In the case of the latter, I found it was not much, so I procurred supplies from the OPEN grocery store (thank you city living). I couldn't actually find a tofurkey like those I've had on this holiday in the past, so I just had all the side dishes. And I didn't once set off the smoke detector. And I ate my desert first. Yum. And then I joyfully shoveled the first layer of snow from the driveway, by hand, while playing fetch with the puppies. After a warm day or two I realized I should probably shovel the snow off the decks too, so I bought myself a nice new grain shovel. Isn't it pretty?

Today I get to figure out how to use the snowblower. Or I risk never actually getting Smokey's truck all the way up the driveway again. I think it might be easier to just fix the 4 wheel drive, but I guess the snowblower is free so I'll try that first.

Matanuska Ice

Saturday afternoon after a long day of dog training and studying at a coffee shop while waiting for Smokey's class to be over I got a phone call inviting me to visit the Matanuska glacier the next day. And since that sounded like a lot more fun than cleaning the house and studying, I said yes! It was a glorious sunny day.

Very sunny. Very important to have sunglasses on glaciers.

And why else would you visit a glacier but to climb the ice? I can't think of any reasons because it was certainly very cold and windy outside of the protected area we were climbing in.

Sometimes you fall off the ice though, that's when you are glad to have a harness and rope and an awesome solid anchor system at the top.

Just like anything else, you pick yourself up and keep going. I chose to grunt when swinging the axe after my fall. I think it helped.

One. Move. At. A. Time. The most entertaining part of the day was the young man in our party visiting from Spain. He had not only never been ice climbing, but had never been on a glacier, and never been in such cold weather (it was about 17 F).

Eventually the top appears and it is always a surprise. Much better than looking for hand and foot holds when rock climbing. Cold, but way more fun. Can't wait for next time. Sorry Mom.

And nothing beats the lighting on the glacier. Night falls early and quickly. But any day on the glacier beats every day in the office.

Moonrise to walk back over the rocks by.

Clearing Out The Cobwebs

We are firmly in the grip of Autumn here, some would say far past the normal start of winter, but I'm okay with that. This year Autumn has meant few bike rides and returning to school. This is the building I spend a fair amount of time in, trying to remember things I learned 10 years ago.

And one glorious view from campus. I can actually see this view most of the ride home. If my poor bike will ever speak to me again. I went for an awesome ride with J-Bomb a couple weeks ago and was mortified to discover that I literally had to clean the cobwebs off the handlebars. Very sad.

And as any front lawn of a higher education institution should be, mine is covered with goose poo.

QG 2009

I debated with myself for a while on whether or not this truly belonged on Crafty Mo, but ultimately decided that it was more of an experience than a project. So, I give you - Quilt Gathering 2009!

Quilting is not the only activity that takes place here. This year we had a fruity pincushion project. Aunt Owl Owl has her disected pear parts assembled, with fusing attached, waiting patiently for assembly while the needle is threaded.

Her fearless daughter is nearing the pear assembly completion point. Amazingly I don't have any pictures of completed pears. My mom made hers out of pear batik fabric, very cute.

Besides stitching on projects, we also have roaster pans of goodies for everyone. Since this gathering is a celebration of my maternal grandmother, who sometimes stored her projects under her bed in roaster pans, we each get a new storage container each year. Sometimes it's roaster pans and sometimes it's other fun vessels. Last year it was canvas bags we got to decorate.

Besides stitching, we.....gather.

.....and gather some more......

...and then we have show and tell. This is the only picture I have of show and tell this year. This is a little piece my Aunt Lou Lou cranked out for my guest, KAES, which coordinates nicely with the American Hero project KAES brought along to work on at the QG.

With this group there is always some kind of pranks or sneakiness going on. Here is a project that my mom cut out and drew seam guidances on for my Aunt Owl Owl........while she was sitting next to her. She even asked her several times what she thought about it.

The matriarchs are in fine form here; Mom, Aunt Lou Lou, and Aunt Owl Owl. Fearless leaders of fun, laughter, and life.

The next generation, my sister and I, continued the family reunion weekend with a road trip to see our paternal Aunt Char and Dad on the east side of the state. We crashed at Mom's for the night and related our milk saga to her in the morning. As we were the last to leave the QG site, we got the fridge leftovers for our journey. This included a half gallon of ice cream, a box of popsicles, and two quarts of milk. After our journey begins my sister explains her hillarious laughter to me by way of telling me she has developed a lactose intolerance. Due to the relative heat wave and desire to not destroy the rental car, I ate the ice cream and we shared the popsicles. By the time we got to drinking the milk all I could say was 'Mmmmmm...milk'. I don't even like milk and I haven't had ice cream since.

Tahoma

So, I realize that I have been procrastinating blogging because I desperately wanted to go in order, but all the sailing pictures are on the laptop at home and I have a much better chance of sneaking in a post at the office. So you'll just have to keep waiting for sailing and Kyle pictures, and instead see pictures of my recent trip to Washington. The three weekends previous to my trip I was watching my friend's quilt shop. And kayaking on the (huge) lake in front of their house. Smokey came with me on the last weekend and was gracious enough to provide some proof of my kayaking. Note, however, that it is so foggy I could be anywhere. Very fun paddling.

My good friend, KAES, was gracious enough to pick me up at the airport and drive me around town to pick up a few last minute (forgotten/forbidden on airplanes) items for my trip. Then she drove me to the trailhead where I met up with Skippy and Al, two librarians from Minnesota, who had organized the trip. They were having a very interesting discussion with the ranger when I arrived. It seems they didn't read the fine print on the permit paperwork and so hadn't actually activated the permit by picking it up before hitting the trail. She was very kind and came back in the morning to create a unique hand written permit for us and call in an activation. Little did we know this was the beginning of our notoriety with the rangers. I think we all had a slight panic and doubts about the trip when we woke up to ice on our pack covers and table.

We loaded up on water from the lake before hitting the trail. Probably I should have just let these two pump all the water for the trip. The pump only lasted one more day and failed while I was using it. But the first thing to fail was my camera, a victim of the cold, it stopped working less than an hour after we left Mowich Lake. We were lucky in the pump department and a nice pair of local folks loaned us theirs.....which died while I was using it eight days later. Luckily by then Skippy had called her husband for additional food and he had also sent along a ton of iodine tablets. Neither Skippy or I will ever hike without them again, especially with the anti-iodine taste tablets.

While we paused many times on the trail for the others to take pictures of the mountain I just stared at it. Until day five or six when I realized it had been blisteringly hot instead of cold and I got an inkling that my batteries may have recovered. I was lucky and they had, so I finally got to join in the mountain paparazzi.

Skippy hurt her foot along the best portion of the trail to do so and Al and I left her at Box Canyon after she had hitched a ride with a lovely elderly couple to Longmire. Despite our late start and slow mile to the road, Al and I were at our reserved campsite for the night by 2:30, where we ate lunch and decided to push on. As the sky became cloudy, we trudged up the worst (in my memory) few miles to Reflection Lakes. Thankfully we had both seen them before on previous trips to the park and were only a little dissapointed at the clouds preventing reflecting.

The next morning on our way to meet up with Skippy again (a day early), we observed some very impressive cairn building skills. In my opinion, this is one of the only cool things Skippy missed on that section of the trail. Mostly Al and I were trying to stay in touch with our inner mountain goats and walk light as butterflies so as to not slide off the side of the ridge. When we weren't being confused by where we were going to cross the road, that is.

Yes, this is the same mountain. Sometimes it was very hard to believe. Some sides had a really snowy face and others, like this one, were very rocky.

It's a miracle, really, that we finished the hike in only 12 days. Once Skippy and Al were pros at identifying berries they were as obsessive as me at snacking on the biggest juiciest ones. And there's always a huge juicy one waiting for you around the next bend.

Evidence of the mountain making it's own weather. While these clouds look scarey, they didn't prove troublesome to us at all.

Another frequent site for me, handy cams at work. I think they are taking a picture of a scene too beautiful to be real. It includes a quaint cabin and the mountain in the background.

The second suspension bridge. Turns out when you have your pack on and are crossing a suspension bridge it's a whole lot different than when you cross without your pack. I know this seems obvious, but it wasn't something I thought about until I got across this hummer. All I could think about was 'don't look down' and 'wow the other bridge was not this scary, what happened?'

Ah, Skippy. Taking in the sunshine after the rain. See how she generously leaves her pack cover on to keep the rain away? I kept my rain jacket close at hand for the same reason.

Andesite columns. Was looking forward to learning about these in Geomorphology, but will have to wait as my schedule was too full. And I'm a little too old to be as ridiculous about that as I used to be. This formation is called the 'Devil's Pipeorgan'.

Several times we found ourselves looking down onto the clouds. It was a little odd and made me feel like I might be flying.

Several miles of trail led through an old burn area from 1928. It was amazing to see how slowly things grow back at that elevation. And also how slowly things break down. In theory I understand this, but it is different to see it in person.

Very postcard view. We saw a black bear in this burn area. He was very small and unconcerned with us. Apparently the berries were far more interesting.

The legendary Golden Lakes. Our journey here was less epic than expected, made all the more sweet by the quaint ranger cabin, lack of bugs, and beautiful weather. Our guide reports that you can see some awesome sunsets from this camp. We didn't stay to check it out since it was lunch time when we arrived and we knew there were a million switchbacks between us and camp.

And along those switchbacks were seeps. Or what I assume would normally be seeps if it wasn't as dry as it was during our visit. It obviously isn't dry for too long or the green moss carpet would not stay so green.

I don't know how, but in all my time in the woods I have never seen this. This is a fir cone, plentiful along the trail. The seeds inside the cone have sprouted and are sticking out. Very cool. I think that makes me a wood nerd. Or maybe a tree nerd?

The last bridge, one of many similar ones crossed on the trail. Sometimes they were obviously installed this year. Sometimes former ones (or parts of former ones) were obviously strewn about. Made me glad to be hiking in the autumn instead of the spring.

Al's pack exploded after we got down the hill to their pick up point in town. Mine and Skippy's looked very similar. In fact, mine is still exploded on the stairwell at the house. Just one of the many benefits of living in a house instead of an apartment. I'm already plotting for the next trip. In-between studying, that is. And Smokey is home from his trip too. All safe and mostly sound.