Irony

It's only fair.  Sometimes Frog sleeps on her bed and she lays on the floor.

Darkness...for lights!

Post sunset glow

Teaching...

... a friend to sew so she can make a minke Cat in the Hat baby blanket for her friend...or a guy to knit..at a dinner party...it makes me remember that it's in my blood.

Turning knitting into a group project

....at a dinner party not at my house!

Constantly changing cats

In a fit of cleaning before having brunch guests for the first time since the move I put the bowl of cat toys upstairs in the hallway next to a cat bed that I dropped in the bedroom doorway.  I returned two minutes later with something else I was trying to hide upstairs to find Frog rooting around in the bowl of toys he previously ignored completely.  I was so amazed I took a 90 second video.  He then laid down in the cat bed, which he has ignored for months, and has reclaimed it as his favorite place.

That it isn't any worse...this time

Amazing friends with stories

I have three friends (so far) who have gotten up on stage and told one of their amazing stories.  Cheers to you all for your humor and bravery.

Sunrises over mountains

Veterans who get to come home...

...and build planter boxes for their daughter's porch...

...and give ornery dogs a talkin' to....not that this dog listens to anyone....

...and walk around their land with their daughters....

Thank you

Being greeted at the door

Memories and Sunshine

Dogs as co-pilots

Sunset from campus after avalanche workshop

Pumpkin

Tataco

Tuesday

Afternoon Office Window View

Catitude

Month of Gratitude

Sailing Away

 For those of you who didn't get to see or haven't heard, we did get to raise the sails and sail away from the dock.  It was a short sail, just around the point to our first experience of buoy tie up for the night.

 The next day looked like perfect sailing weather, but as we exited the calm of the point we never again thought about raising the sails.  Our 22' craft was amazing in 4-6' seas.  We were suckered in to increasing worsening conditions and eventually found a kelp bed which helped us decide to head for Friday Harbor.  Which we eventually got to.  6+ hours later.  The boat that tied up at the dock just in front of us had the same journey and commented that it was rough seas.  They were 15+ feet longer than us.

We got back on the horse the next afternoon and had a few glorious hours of perfect sailing.  When we headed home on Friday, it was perfectly flat.  Which was nice for motoring but a bummer for sailing.  So Chad livened things up and fell overboard when we were nearly in port and nearly at dark.  I turned around and fished him out, but his phone was worse for the swim.  Definitely not going to be a boring life.

In which I bike and boat during the dog days of summer

 Where were we?  Let's see, I think I mentioned the long drive north and moving the piano into the second floor and maybe I mentioned two office moves?  Not sure anymore.  Sorry about that.  It's summer in Alaska and it's full throttle all the time.  Now that we are down to less than 16 hours of daylight each day the pace has gotten frantic.  I'll try to catch you up.  The big dog and I went to our first water workshop (following one day of land work) down on the Kenai.  We had unprecedented weather. 

He had an absolute blast and we both learned a ton.  Which is really good because that is his retirement plan.  He started land work (for humans that aren't likely to move around anymore) last year and the water work builds on that.  Not that he has slowed down much at all. 

 And since I happened to throw the lake boat on Ite (meteorite....) I got to paddle every night after working all day on the water.  It was awesome.  Loons and eagles and awesomeness all around.

 Not only did the big dog turn 9, but his mom turned 10.  We celebrated with new toys and swimming.  Percy chased ducks.  And almost drowned.  My wonderful man swam in and rescued her.  She could barely walk when he got her back to land. Turkey. 

I have even squeezed in a little hiking.  The kind right in my back yard.  This is an amazing place.  I love it here. 

And after an early morning bike ride to 6am yoga on my birthday, I took the dogs swimming.  The ducks were a lot bigger and Percy didn't chase them.  I was grateful.  It was a sunny day and I decided not to take them with me for the rest of my adventure because I was worried they would cook in the sun.  It was a good decision. 

Because even though the last two times I have hiked Bird Ridge on my birthday it has rained on me, this year it was sunny and very warm.  And the view was awesome as always.  I rarely repeat anything - I don't read a book twice or watch a movie twice or even hike the same trail.  But this trail for my birthday?  It speaks to me. 

And then I paddled my kayak in Portage Lake.  It's at the toe of a glacier.  I could bore you with some details here about what all that means, but I will hold it back.  There were icebergs.  It was cool. 

 I was happy.  Even though my real goal had been to paddle my beautiful wooden kayak on my birthday I was happy to at least have my perfect man in his wooden kayak with me - and my boat is set up in the garage and we work on it regularly.  I suspect him of actually working on it without me because he misses the work. 

 We had blue confetti cupcakes with coconut cream cheese frosting at home.  They were awesome.  I can see it will be a challenge to keep my place as head baker.  And when I returned to work the next day, my ever perfect co-worker had made me a cake from scratch.   She also made ice cream.  With local currents she picked.  I can't even begin to compete with that, so I just bow to her talent and enjoy the fruits of her labor.

 We have had an amazing string of sunny days.  It's rainy today, which is the only reason I have any energy to finally write this.  I can't get anything done inside when it's sunny.  I bike and / or paddle.  It's awesome and ridiculous.  I have been on a mission to check out the new single track and bike every trail in town.  Not much running going on, but I'm sure I'll catch up this fall.

Oh yeah, Tonka and I have been busy on several searches as well.  And there's a lot of etcetera tasks with the dog group.  In short, it's been a busy summer.  So far the moose have mostly stayed out of my little garden and I'm eating salad and peas every night. 

On the Road Again

Thanks to my blogging yesterday I got caught up on Gunny Girl's blog and found some extra enthusiasm for hitting the road last night.  I did the Gold Nugget triathlon last month and had very few miles on my vintage Schwinn before the race.  I have no idea how many miles actually because it took me a while to realize there were two batteries on my wireless computer and get them replaced.  And then I measured my distance in km.  Mostly because I can't figure out how to change it to miles. 

It was a fun race even without enough training and my time was not much different than 5 years ago.  And I still suck at swimming.  But back to last night's ride.  I had originally planned to bike to work, but bailed when I saw it raining.  Hatman wanted to ride after work since he now also has a vintage Schwinn road bike (thanks craigslist) and he did some tuning on it last weekend.  It poured rain.  I mean really dumped.  We perservered and he got to see a bit more of the trails, including the coastal trail.  Did I mention it was 46 degrees?  Somehow the temperature is not in metric, just speed and distance.  Which turned out to be 31 km.  In a couple days he will recover and we can go again. 

Eklutna Paddle

I had a list for Memorial Day weekend.  And paddling was on the top.  But it was a reward, so I scheduled it for Monday.  I will not traumatize you or bore you with before and after pictures of the garage or the studio or the kitchen.  Just trust me when I say that I really needed a break. 

That's why I went somewhere nearby, because later in the summer I don't think I will appreciate it as much.  Also, it took me a really long time to get the rack on the car and the boat on the rack and the gear in the car (mostly because I had to find it in the recently 'organized' gear closet - modifications pending).  I probably would also not have appreciated the conditions I paddled in if I had not been working so hard.  Despite what it looks like, I was not alone on the lake.  Lots of other people were suckered in by the sunshine and suffered with me in the wind and the wildfire smoke.  I swear I thought there were mountains up there but you would never know if this was your first visit here.  It was all worth it.  And as soon as I order the missing parts for my kayak rack, I'll be out paddling again.  Until then, I will try to figure out how to install my new disc brakes on my mountain bike. 

Women Run

A little bit of my weekend adventures.  No pink this year, the flamingo needs a rest.  An amazing number of people thought I had cat ears.  I will never understand humans.  Other adventures involved cleaning the garage, scrubbing the chrome on my table and chairs, swapping said furniture with the loaned version and returning them to their owner, vaccuumming and shampooing carpets, and continuing to be amazed that there is still stuff in the garage that does not live there and needs to somehow find a home inside.  Aren't you jealous??  I also took the road bike for a spin and I might have eaten ice cream.  More than once. 

Earth Day

When I was in Denver a couple weeks ago I had a small window of time to do something fun.  I chose the Natural History Museum.  I'm actually thinking about making it a life theme - to go to as many Natural History Museums as possible.  Amazing what the interpretation of the concept manifests itself as.  Very different than Chicago.  I think Portland has one too.  Hmm....anyway, the point was to wish you all a Happy Earth Day and encourage you to find something you can do to make the world a better place.  There are several websites out there with recommendations and I trust you can pick one that fits your life.  I'm going to continue my quest for a paperless household.  Because paper is heavy to haul around....and store....and stuff.  And because before you know it you will be a fossil in a museum somewhere and it won't matter how good your paper records were that the tax man never came to inspect.  So focus instead on getting outside more and maintaining paper files inside less!

Last Ski Weekend

Technically the resort does not close until next weekend, but I won't be around to participate.  And frankly, good luck with that.  There are trees and rocks in places I have never known them to be on this mountain.  I have serious doubts about there being enough snow for any backcountry tours when I return.  But even a crap ski season is still a SKI SEASON.  

It's always amazing to me when someone recognizes me and says hello.  I totally did not recognize my boss, even after he said hello, until almost a minute later.  I was trying to be relatively incognito in my green jacket.  I was originally scheduled to do dog work, but I could not find my beacon.   The irony of that is sooo not lost on me.  And no, my dog could not find it either.

It was beautiful and sunny in town.  The extreme wind on the drive to the mountain should have made this scene not really a surprise, but somehow it still was.  The amazing part of skiing here? Constant change.  One minute it's almost sunny and you are flying down the hill.  In the blink of an eye you can not tell where the ground is and all I can think about is not getting injured.  I'm tired of injuries.  

The rest of my weekend.....was spent attempting to tame the chaos.  My legs ached immediately upon exiting the chairlift because I spent 12+ hours the previous day schlepping stuff up to the 2nd and 3rd floors.  I'm looking forward to seeing the results, both in my legs and my abode.  When did I acquire all this crap?