causes rats in laboratory cancer

Where.

2011-10-02T09:07:00.001-08:00

Where is my damn crockpot?

Where are the jeans I ordered?

Where is my cute little vintage crazy daisy pyrex bowl?

Where can I get an awe.some. but cheap vintagey old looking globe?

Where is that disc from Netflix?

Where is a tough question to ask. I mean, I ask why, I can come up with plenty of them.

Why the Kardashians?

Why did I lose my crockpot?

Why is this keyboard so ridiculous and Why am I using it?

Why am I not independently wealthy?

Why did Harry Potter have to end?

Why?

Why is the sky blue?

Why didn't I get a vote about that?

Mojo

2011-09-28T14:45:00.001-08:00

070, originally uploaded by randomjules.

Mojo loves his new and huge backyard. He leaps off the deck -- I need to get a shot of that. It's amazing -- and runs flat out in big loops around the yard. He does skid into the fence sometimes. He is not grace.

cranky.

2011-09-27T08:21:00.001-08:00

So cranky lately.

Moments of cool, like realizing that the grill blew across the deck yesterday, during our very blustery day.

But mostly. Shit.

The tiny number of people who have almost all the money in this country is obscene. Mark and I have worked hard and tried to save money and do the right things, and yet we still have a house in Tucson that we won't be able to sell FOR YEARS.

Are we better off than we were a decade ago? Hell, no. This economy sucks. We should be so very much better off than we are, and sadly, we are in so much better shape than a whole lot of people we know.

I really don't feel bad for the guy who nets $400,000 a year and doesn't want to pay more taxes. Pay me $400,000 a year and I will be thrilled to pay more taxes on that, because I realize HOW DAMN LUCKY I AM. Asshole.

Told you. Cranky.

On the other hand, we watched Terra Nova last night. Pretty good, not groundbreaking, but fun. Not thinking about it too hard, because then I will start to notice the holes and the unoriginal writing and characters and stuff...

And Pinterest. Sucked me in and won't let go.

I haven't started reading the SciFi/fantasy list yet, but I did get Guards Guards by Terry Pratchett on audible.com and started listening to that. So so so so so so very good.

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address in a Wordle

2011-09-22T11:08:00.000-08:00

This made me happy.

2011-09-22T04:47:00.000-08:00

Global Warming Poll Presents Challenge to GOP Candidates...
According to a new poll, 83% of Americans believe the planet is warming and 71% believe it is caused by humans. (That other 27% are running on faith alone...there is no peer-reviewed science of any kind that supports the natural cycle idea.)

But the current crop of Presidential hopefuls are all on the "global warming is crap" bandwagon. Which sucks for them, because most people do not agree with them.

This is the part that made me very happy...

The campaigns will likely look at the poll and ask, "How did this happen?" The answer may be found in the Republican campaign strategy book.The poll seems to show that the recent campaign appearances and debates staged by the field of Republican candidates has focused Americans on the concern about global warming. The more the candidates talk about the "unsettled" nature of the science, the more the public has become interested in trying to figure out what the science actually says. Playing down global warming, the poll indicates, has had the opposite effect on voters. The law of unintended consequences has turned on the candidates who deny the science, and bitten them on the backsides.

Politicians are so willing to take a stand and start screaming about anything they think will get them elected, and over and over again our country suffers because of it. Immigration, terrorism, personal freedoms and rights versus safety and security. So for a group of pols to get bitten in the ass by their own game, awesome.

While I find it impossible to believe that the politicians will learn from this, it is heartening to think that Americans might actually be thinking for themselves instead of blindly believing what politicians are spewing.

It's not class warfare.

2011-09-21T09:00:00.001-08:00

‎" There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there -- good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea -- God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along." - Elizabeth WarrenMore about Elizabeth Warren, running for the Senate in Massachusetts, here.

Noises

2011-09-13T08:45:00.001-08:00

early morning, september 12,2011, originally uploaded by randomjules.

Since I know live up against a field, outside of Rockford, in a v quiet subdivision...

The noises around me have changed. Quite a lot.

A plane just flew over and I noticed it, because we just don't hear planes here. We have lived for years on Army Posts, where they have helicopters and cargo planes. On Fort Lewis, WA, our house was across the street from the air field, and McChord Air Base is just down the road, so we got very used to planes and helicopters.

There is highway 20 just over the rise to the east of us, but I really can only hear the traffic early and late.

It's a breezy day, so I can hear the leaves of the tree behind our house rustling. Very soothing and peaceful sound.

And the bugs. I think this is the closest to country living that I have ever been, and I love all the bug and bird noises. Except maybe that really strange noise Thor and I heard last night while hanging out in front of the house.

I am really liking it here. The photo is the view out the back door yesterday morning... So very happy to be back in the upper Midwest! What's not to love?

ABF,,,

2011-09-12T04:26:00.001-08:00

Holy crap I hate this keyboard. I always get my fingers on the wrong keys. That title was supposed to say Dang.Anyway...I need a job. Because there is some seriously cool stuff I would like to buy, like a ton of stuff from Thomasville's Reinventions furniture line.But right now, I can't get a job. Because I am needed for other stuff. So my lust for industrial style furniture will go unfulfilled.Sigh.Also. My head cold has devolved into a cough. With disgusting mucus.

Wow.

2011-09-11T14:39:00.001-08:00

There are a LOT of noisy bugs in Illinois.

100 books part two.

2011-09-07T18:33:00.001-08:00

51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons Not something I have read. Not something I am looking forward to reading. I don't know why.

52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman I think this is the other Gaiman book I found on a plane. So once I get to unpack my boxes, I can read it.

53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson Seems tedious and complex.

54. World War Z, by Max Brooks Who doesn't love zombies? I love zombies.

55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle I know I had my sister's copy of this book. Don't know if I ever read it.

56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman Another Earth-at-war novel. Yay.

57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett Best opening to a novel EVER. I love this book. I love Terry Pratchett. Discworld rules.

58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson An epic. The hero has leprosy. *falls to the bottom of the pile*

59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold I am not buying the edition they show on the NPR page. The cover makes it look like a bad SF romance novel.

60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett I don't think I have read this one yet. But I know it's gonna be good.

61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle Looks like a classic....but another "fate of humankind is threatened" story. Not my favorite stuff.

62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind sigh. Young man on an epic mission.

63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy Thor thought it was weird. The punctuation was inconsistent and mininalist, and it had a dreary dead vibe. So looking forward to reading it now.

64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke This looks v much like a book that would appeal to me, and yet I have not read it. huh.

65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson Vampires. I hate vampire fiction. But now I am doomed to read at least one more.

66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist Sagas. Epics. Aren't there any light fun fluffy books on this list?

67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks I loved these as a teen. My kids won't touch them with a ten foot pike. But now. Ha! They have to. because I have turned this into a competition.

68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard Really? Really? ugh. ugh. ugh.

69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb Tess has these, but I can't borrow them, because I MIGHT CREASE THE SPINE. Tess is insane.

70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger It took me forever to read this. Because ugh. I don't like it very much. Thank God I don't have to read it again, because I think I got rid of it.

71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson Is it just me, or do really a lot of sci-fi/fantasy writers have three syllable last names?

72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne Another classic, read as a kid.

73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore meh.

74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi Interstellar war. I should have maybe actually glanced through the list before I decided to read them all...

75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson huh? (just go look at the description. See if it makes any sense to you.)

76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke Classic space novel. I like the genre.

77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey Truly wish I had glanced at the list before I got this dumb idea.

78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin Anarchists and Utopia. Okay.

79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury I remember creepy. And it's set in Illinois. hmmm.

80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire Yuck. Made it through a couple chapters. So ugh and yuck and repulsive. Won't be reading any more of it.

81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson I hope some of these series are good (I guess they should be, since they are favorites of NPR listeners...) I didn't realize this is more like 250 books than 100, what with all the trilogies and series.

82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde Enjoyed thoroughly. Want to read it again, and the subsequent works.

83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks Why is there so much fighting in space?

84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart i used to read Arturian stuff. I think this is one I missed.

85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson Could be interesting. Starts in a monastery though, and how often does anything good start there?

86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher homeland erupts into war, young lord or prince or duke or whatever must save the kingdom. sigh.

87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe okay.

88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn I have, until now, avoided Star Wars fiction.

89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan Borrowed this from Marilyn. Haven't read it yet. But now, I have to.

90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock Stars an albino prince. Okay.

91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury Read it a very long time ago. Bradbury was very good at creepy, if I remember correctly. We shall see.

92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley I like zombies. This book has vampires.

93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge Far distant future.

94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov Part of the Robot series. I love Asimov.

95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson Another trilogy. About Mars.

96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle Crud. I think we just got rid of this book. Now I have to replace it. Anyone know of a good used book store in the greater Chicago area?

97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis Time travel plots seriously piss off Tess.

98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville Sounds interesting, if dark.

99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony This looks fun. I wonder why I have never read it...

100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis I like Lewis, have read Narnia books a million times. I didn't even know these books exist.

Right below the list, there's a link to Heady, Not Heavy: 5 Smart Playful Summer Books...Why didn't I see that list first?

Top 100 sci-fi fantasy books, according to NPR.

2011-09-06T16:47:00.005-08:00

list here

Thor and I have decided to read the list. Although there is no way either of us is committing to actually reading everything all the way through. I read a bit of Wicked, and that counts, because ugh. I hated that damn book.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien Okay. Not starting with this one. I suppose watching the movies don't count.

2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams Really like the new Dr Who on BBC. Again, doesn't count.

3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card I haven't read this one?

4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert 8 million pages long, set in a desert...I lived this, why do I have to read about it. (Of course, these are just my impressions/opinions/random and illogical thoughts. Not meant to have any resemblance to reality. Or, as Jon Kyl would say, "not meant to be a factual statement.")

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin eh. Seems bulky.

6. 1984, by George Orwell Read this in college, in high school, lived through the Bush administration.

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury I have come around to the belief that while banning books is wrong, there is nothing wrong with throwing away the crappy ones. Not that this is a crappy one. I bought it a while ago, haven't gotten around to re-reading it yet.

8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov adore Asimov. Have read tons o' his stuff. Including the Foundation books. But looking forward to reading them again.

9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley been in my "to be read" pile for months now.

10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman Oh, my gosh. Best book, most amazing ideas, concepts. Loved loved loved this book.

11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman "I don't think that means what you think it means."

12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan I have read four of these. Or five. Or three. Nobody EVER dies. That is not realistic, even for a fantasy novel.

13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell Fascism on the farm. Woo. (so it's totalilatarianism. Sue me. Which you can do, because at least there we are still a free country.)

14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson

A seminal work in the genre that would come to be known as cyberpunk.

huh. Sounds interesting.

15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore a graphic novel. Cool. I like graphic novels and manga.

16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov see #8. I have read this more than once. Will read it again.

17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein one of those books one is sure one has read, but one doesn't necessarily remember the readin'.

18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss My children will love this. There are a bunch of their books on this list. Books I have now committed myself to reading. Whoops.

19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut I read Vonnegut when I was younger. Now for some reason I just feel like it would be too depressing.

20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley Read it several times. Holy crap, Shelley was wordy.

21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick Read Phillip K Dick a lot in high school. Really like it. Hated Blade Runner -- the Harrison Ford movie based on the book -- the first couple times I saw it, then I liked it.

22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood Feels like one of those books I should have read.

23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King I really really like some of King's stuff. Have avoided this one, though I am unsure why. Guess I will have to give in now.

24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke I dunno. I read a lot of stuff as a teenager, might have read this one. Will have to read it again to be sure.

25. The Stand, by Stephen King I remember the mini series, pretty sure I read the book, but have been wanting to read it anyway. And watch it on Netflix.

26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

Weaving contemporary imagery with Sumerian myths,

I really like new stuff, and I don't off the top of my head know what the hell Sumerian myths are, so cool.

27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury Another blast from the past. Adding it to my TBR pile. (to be read.)

28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut Have read this one.

29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman 75 comic books. Luckily collected into ten trade volumes.

30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess Haven't read it, really don't want to, but will try it at least. sigh.

31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein ??? Was this a really good movie or a terrible one?

32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams Rabbits!!! Read this one more than once as a kid.

33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey The Dragonriders of Pern. Have read everything repeatedly, some copies till they practically disintegrated, have multiple copies in my bookcase now. Or would, if I had unpacked them already.

34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein I am pretty sure I have read some Heinlein, just don't know which.

35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Always a sucker for a good tale with monks.

36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells Classic. Will read again.

37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne Deranged submarine captain.

38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys Never read. The title doesn't sound very sci-fi, it always seemed like it should be some sort of WWII novel, a coming of age and depressing as hell, novel to me.

39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells Read it, watched several movies, used to listen to the rebroadcast on radio on Halloween. Classic's classic.

40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny Zelazny is weird, but awesome. Abe ate the second book in the series, took me a while to find the right edition to replace it.

41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings a mystical orb, in five volumes. Not particularly appealing cover art (if you follow the link, you see a synopsis and cover of each book.) This one is falling to the bottom of the TBR.

42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley Love MZB, love her Darkover novels, have read Mists once or twice.

43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson Curious about this one, because it seems so run of the mill. But NPR listeners love it. We will see.

44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven Good book. Looking forward to reading it again.

45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin For whatever reason, LeGuin has always struck me as rather froufrou. I guess I will find out if I am right.

46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien

These creation myths of Tolkien's Middle-earth, for those who found The Lord of the Rings too breezy and slight

Can I get a woo?

47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White The first book, when Arthur was a young man, was very good -- at least I remember it that way, it has been many years since I have read it -- and Disney's The Sword in the Stone is based on it. Camelot is based on the last two books.

48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman I believe this is the Gaiman book I found on a plane, so I have it on my Kindle and in the bookcase. If my books were in a bookcase.

49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke Is this a book I have read, or one of those that everyone is supposed to read so eventually you think you might have read it?

50. Contact, by Carl Sagan Should have read this one, if I haven't. "Billions and billions." I miss Carl Sagan.

So. The rest of the list tomorrow.

urgh

2011-02-06T21:01:00.004-09:00

I saw a surgeon last week or two weeks ago or something...I lose track of weeks and days and things that are important to ordinary mortals. Anyway.

I think this is going to be a divergent and tangential post again, because why suppress what I am best at?

The surgeon tells me that the endless and really boring test where they shoot radioactive stuff into my arm and then breathlessly watch my gall bladder --

can I just insert here that I am disappointed that I have no powers yet, even though I have had THREE radioactive tests in as many years? Although, hey, since one of those tests involved eating a radioactive egg sandwich I think I dodged a bullet there. There is no superpower I wish to inherit from a chicken. Although super-scratching-in-the-dirt power could be handy when gardening...The whole laying an egg thing, no thanks.

right. Back to the gall bladder test...it works normally according to this test.

At this point I am thinking, "shit. Don't get to have gall bladder removed. Shit."

Please understand that I do not want surgery, I am not a huge fan of being in hospitals, really not a fan of those gowns. Pretty much hate those gowns.

However, having Crohn's disease means gut pain and nausea and stuff. Plus my parents and grandparents all had gall bladders removed, I have classic symptoms of gall bladder trouble, and so lately I have had lots of trouble with nausea and pain...so if the gall bladder is gone, at least the docs will know that it's truly the Crohn's causing trouble.

So back to "shit."

Then he said that the ultrasound showed sludge and stones, so that combined with my symptoms is enough to yank the sucker. But between this huge project I am involved in and my parents' 60th wedding anniversary, which means a trip to Minnesota for Mark and I at the end of the month, means that in March it's adiós gall bladder.

Changing topics slightly...

Today I threw a pile of ribs in the oven at 275 for like three or four hours and then dumped some bbq sauce on them. Then to make sure there is nothing at all healthy about this, I shredded the meat and we had it over french fries. This is something that a rib place in the Netherlands did. Only they added mayo. Apparently there is an RDA for mayo in the Netherlands...anyway. We baked the fries, so it's not as terrible for you, and it's yummy.

Plus it's Superbowl Sunday. And like Christmas and Thanksgiving, it's one of those days where food has no calories, no fat content, no inherent bad, right?

Excellent game, too! Actually a real game, not a ridiculous blow out.

Happy Black Friday!

2010-11-25T23:36:00.003-09:00

It's still Thanksgiving here in the great northern wasteland, but for y'all it's Black Friday.

And Alaska is not a great northern wasteland. It's beautiful, but has more than it's fair share of crazies. Most of our politicians, for a start...

But this is not about that.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, whomever you are reading this, or maybe I am just shooting this out into space, hoping everyone had a wicked good Thursday. Some replacement karma for all those people whose driving makes me question their intelligence and brain capacities.

We had a quiet one. I got a 7.5 pound turkey breast. Mixed a couple of tablespoons of olive oil with dry mustard, fresh basil and green onion tops, salt, pepper, and THREE cloves of garlic (is clove the right word? It doesn't seem right, but it does. huh.) Added some chicken broth to the bottom of the pan. Which is an awesome rectangular roaster with a rack, nice and big, that I got for $10 at Fred Meyer's last year. Seemed like a good deal, and I really like the rack for roasting a turkey. Breast, at least. I think it would be great for a roast plus veggies too. I am going to have to remember that for when Mark gets home.

AND HE IS GOING TO BE BACK IN THE US VERY VERY SOON!!!!1!!!!!!!1!!!!

Sorry, just a tad excited about that bit.

Weird thing is, when I was carving the bird, the meat was so juicy I thought it was undercooked. No, silly. It's just when you roast the whole turkey, the breast meat gets a bit dried out.

It was garlicky and very good. We also had two kinds of stuffing -- one with herbed stuffing, sausage and corn, and one with herbed stuffing, sausage, apple, and apple cider.

The apply stuffing was a little too sweet, the ratio of cider to bread was off. But when mixed with the other stuffing, it was really good. Next time I wanna add some dried cranberry to the apple stuffing.

Cranberry Orange relish. Dump a bag of cranberries in a food processor or blender. Cut up an orange and drop that in there too, peel and all. Add 1 -2 cups of sugar to taste. Start skimpy with the sugar, it's better tart. I think I usually end up with somewhere north of a cup and a quarter, I think. Whirl it all together and that's it. It's better if it sits a while, it mellows a little. I generally don't get around to making it on Thanksgiving, in fact a few Thanksgivings ago Mark and I went to Fry's -- a fabulous grocery store in our Tucson neighborhood -- to buy a food processor, because I accidentally dumped a cup of orange juice into the guts of our blender and for some reason no one in my family was willing to plug it in and test it.

This cranberry is so much more fabulous than any cooked cranberry I have ever had. It's fresh and tart and delicious.

For dessert we had pumpkin pie. And a key lime pie from the grocer's freezer. Because I was just not in a pumpkin mood this year, and a light and fluffy pie instead of a heavy custard pie was a nice end to a big meal.

And then I talked on the phone for hours, since only a tiny fraction of my family is here.

Marilyn, my favorite sister, clued me into a really terrific Masterpiece Mysteries series. It's Sherlock Holmes, set in 21st century London. It's funny and entertaining and really terrific. Thor and Tess and I watched one of the three episodes on the internet...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/sherlock/series1.html

They are available until Dec 7.

It's available on DVD and I do believe that it will be on our Christmas list.

Oh, yeah. It snowed all day. We went from almost no snow, but plenty of ice, to four or five inches of snow. So tomorrow I can work off that turkey and stuffing by shoveling again. Yeah. Still not excited about the idea, but eh. Gotta be done.

I would post a picture here, of how lovely the neighborhood looks with a fresh layer of snow, but both the batteries in the camera are dead. oops.

Socks.

2010-11-21T20:10:00.004-09:00

I don't know why, but I am wanting to buy socks lately. Big thick fuzzy socks, brightly colored anklets, kneehighs with stripes and polka dots. Fortunately Costco has had boring socks as of late, because when you buy socks there, it's by the dozen. Or more.

So I got some stripy socks and argyle socks and some socks with orange toes and heels and pink dots. I resisted the thick fleecy slipper socks at Costco this afternoon, even though they were brightly colored and warm and fuzzy and cute...

I have been tossing socks as well, because really. Socks get ucky. Especially when you have dogs, because dogs are messy and track dirt and shed hair and are generally vile and filthy creatures.

Maybe I have been so into socks lately because I am FREEZING. I think I must be having the opposite of hot flashes. I get so cold. Chills. It started in Arizona, so it's not related to living in Alaska. And I have told the doctor, and had tests for thyroid and all that...The Internet says that a small percentage of women have chills instead of hot flashes, and we all know the Internets is never wrong.

Also. And this may be related to Mark being gone again for so long, but I have been wearing socks that are the same, but not the same color. I have like 40 pair of socks, little footie socks, from Costco. Some are solid, some are striped, a few have polka dots, some have a contrasting band around the ankle. I figure if I have a lime green solid sock on the left foot and a lime green and pink striped sock on the right foot that is close enough. Or a pink sock and an orange sock.

The reason this has to do with Mark being gone is that we are complimentary. Which does not mean you will find us in hotel showers (get it? Like the little bottles of shampoo in hotels...) That's not the right spelling anyway, but it is the right spelling of the wrong word, so spellcheck is not helping.

(And why the hell does my spellcheck not recognize the word spellcheck? I guess they spell it with a dash, but still. If I were selling a product, I would want the product to recognize the name of the product...But I digress. Really, "But I Digress" should be the name of my blog.)

Back to complimentary. Mark is organized and logistical and all planny. I am chaos and disorganizational and fly-by-the-seat-of-one's-pantsy. The longer he is gone, the more chaotic and unplanned our lives become. Which leads to me losing socks all over the place -- they are those no-show anklets, so they are tiny and easy to overlook -- and managing to only wash one of each pair. Lucky, really, that I can still find socks that sorta coordinate.

So Mark brings order and plan and sense to our lives, and I bring spontaneity and really good cooking and a wicked sense of humor and the occasional bouts of chaos. It works for us. Really well.

Thing is...I was at a field trip thingy for Tess's class, and noticed that wearing different socks is a thing amongst some eighth grade girls. So I am either tragically hip, or pathetic and old and looking like I am dressing way way way too young.

I prefer the Tragically Hip, meself.

Woo to the ooot.

2010-11-17T14:20:00.005-09:00

Life was complicated for the last eight months or however long it's been since I posted here. So stupid and annoying and complicated and scary and pissed-off-making that I really don't want to be able to go back and read how awful it was, because. Damn. I lived it once.

It's like high school. I would so not go back to high school, because high school was sucky.

It was also like high school because I was like "dude. Are you 13?" --

but only in my head, because to point out to people that they are acting like junior high is only to add to the drama --

to several people who love the drama. Who eat that shit up. (That is a disgusting metaphor and I am sorry I used it, but I am only backspacing to fix spelling and grammar and punct.u.a.tion. Other wise I won't manage to post anything. Plus this way you get the full on crazy that is me.)

So. Yeah. Every direction I turned. Drama. Draaaaammmmma. I hate other people's drama. I mean, my friends, my real friends, if they are having Things Happen. I am all about helping, listening, going to bad restaurants and eating food adults shouldn't eat with them, whatever they need.

But drama? Like she said this and I said that and she told this other person and oh my god shut the hell up. I don't care. You are supposed to be an adult, so f***ing act like an adult.

Oh yeah. I swear. More lately, because life is sucky. And more, apparently, when there are small children around me. Thor and Tess think so any way. One day I was shopping at the commissary. I wondered if we needed milk or eggs or iced tea or something, so I called Tess at home. Between the time I dialed the phone and Tess answered, I completely forgot what I was calling her about, so she says "hi, Majide*, 'sup?" (Go with me here. I will explain the Majide in a minute.)

I answered her, "shit. What was I calling you about?"

Tess: "Is there a small child around, Majide?"

Me: (defensively) "she's a newborn. She didn't understand what I said and she is probably too far away to hear me."

The baby was like three feet behind me. I had not said a word, swear or not, the entire time I was in the commissary. I think it is a plot to make me crazy. People with small children tag team following me. Why they would possibly want to do that is not important. Also, my family would all point out "short trip." (Driving me crazy. Short trip. I am most of the way there.)

*Majide. Remember there was a reality show about being on a Japanese game show? The name of the game show was Majide, which is Japanese slang for "Seriously?!". Somehow Tess decided that was a good name for me, so that is what she calls me. And, well, yeah. It totally fits.

So all the crap and trouble and angst and stuff and problems = gut problems for me. Stress + Crohn's = sucky.

So I backed off of stuff. I dropped a couple of volunteer things, because I don't want to end up in the hospital again. I am more careful about myself. I nap if I feel sleepy, because pushing and pushing and pushing just does not work for me. I am not that fond of hospitals that I want to push myself into one again.

Plus Mark will be home soon!!!! I don't know exactly when, because OPSEC requires that we not speak of anything important, like when he is flying out of a war or former war zone. So he will be home next month. Should be before Christmas Eve, fingers crossed.

I had nothing in mind when I started typing, obviously, and whatever was there is gone or vomited out onto this blog now, so I am outta here!

I am editing this to add that if you are reading this, you are probably NOT one of the drama queens I was referring to. Really.

Cmon, people.

2010-04-23T13:55:00.002-08:00

Or person, rather. There is someone who apparently thinks she is me, at least as far as my bank is concerned. I once again got an email from my bank saying that I had entered the wrong password three times and so my online account has been shut down until I jump through the hoops to change my password.

Which means I have to find my wallet and then dig out my ATM card and enter that info and give them a bunch of other information --

Don't worry, I do not follow the link from the email, in case it's not legit, but take the long way around of actually typing in the bank's web address --

and then once again set my password and hope I remember it.

I assume it's just some random person who thinks my username is hers, because my user name is not imaginative, and not someone trying to break into my bank account. Which would be a huge effort for little payoff, because this is my secondary account, they could maybe get 700 or 800 bucks at the very most, and we don't have a credit card with this bank.

The part that always makes me go, "umm, sure, but..." is the part where they tell me this message is also in my messages box on the website, which I cannot log into until I read the email and jump through the change the passwords hoops. And then I can access the message that tells me to go do all this shit before I can access that message. Is it me, or does this make no sense at all?

Because really, I have enough emails and messages and things to deal with to not really want to have a message confirming that I had to change my password to access that message.

Right. I know why they send it, I just don't think that they should send the exact same message -- the message on the web site should let you know what happened with the account without telling you how to get back on line. Know what I mean?

I suddenly think that I have accidentally veered back into territory where only people who know me really well will even have a clue as to what the hell I am talking about...

And my family members understood and were amused by my last post. Nice to know that I am still comprehensible to those who HAVE to love me.

Random photo of the day/week/month/millenium/eon...

There are benefits to snow in April. The mountains look all snow-cappy and majestic again.

Still really really tired.

2010-04-19T12:40:00.005-08:00

I know this because I was reading a blog of a friend of my son's cousin (my niece, but that is not as convoluted, and because I am reading this blog through this convolution, I convoluted it. Is that convoluted enough for you?)

Any hoo...I was reading this blog written by this kid who is doing a semester abroad in Berlin, and there were photos of these amazing fountains and stuff, that reminded me totally of being in Florence and Rome, man I love Italy, and I thought, "thank God I am not there." Because being in Europe means you have to think and everything is hard. Seriously. That is what I thought about, not all the cool art and how it's so easy to find amazing photographs and how you get really good Italian food, unlike say here, where they don't even have an Olive Garden (not that that is good Italian food, but hey. We don't even have mediocre Italian food. Sorry those of you who love Olive Garden, or Garden Botanika, which is what my family calls it sometimes, because we do wacky things like mix up our names. Seriously. The world would stop dead, start rotating the other direction and centaur ponies would bring each and every one of us a Ben and Jerry's if no one in my family screwed up a name every couple a hours...

Centaur Pony is a Thor thing. Ask him about it. It is way beyond my ability to explain.

What the hell was I talking about? Because I don't think I started out meaning to write about how I am incapable of telling y'all about Thor's centaur ponies...

Right. Olive Garden = Garden Botanika. Which is a lotions and potions* store that doesn't even exist any more. But which we still call Olive Garden sometimes. But not me. Because I don't have a Garden Botanika or an Olive Garden, because I live so far north Santa goes "WT*? Seriously? I have to live way the hell up here because the damn elves are allergic to deciduous trees, but what's your story?"

Further proof I am just tired. This post. Has more tangents than an algebra book. Although I don't know if tangent is even an algebraic thing, but it sounds right.

*"lotions and potions"...shower gel and lotion and stuff. By the time I am eighty, no one outside of my immediate family will understand a thing I say. Guess I better be nice to them, or I will be like that girl that got left behind on the island and by the time anyone found her, everyone else who spoke her language was gone. So it'll be me and some random sad foreign girl in the assisted living center, just jabbering away...

I really feel I should delete all of this and start over, perhaps try to veer into occasional coherence....

So. I was reading this blog, and looking at all these great photos of various awesome and amazing and cool fountains and stuff, and all I could think was that it is really hard to live or travel in Europe, because people insist on speaking their own languages and not becoming EXACTLY like the United States. Although if I were in Berlin, I would totally be going to McDonald's for an eiskaffe, where they brew a cup of really black coffee (because Germans like their coffee like they like their motor oil, strong and black. Right. I DO know that makes no sense, because motor oil is only black at the end, when it needs to be changed.) and put some of that soft serve ice cream in it, so that it sorta melts and it's really good.

I think y'all should feel sorry for the other people at the meeting I have to go to tonight, because I seem to be incapable of staying on track for more than a few words.

Because the universe hates me...

2010-04-16T21:58:00.002-08:00

My new adventure begins Tuesday. Tuesday at 1015. That's when Abe gets to see the vet specialists because his right kneecap is now doing the same luxiating thing that his left kneecap did, which required surgery to fix. A luxiating patella. Or at the very least, a something starting with the letter L patella. At least this time I didn't have to feel his kneecap sliding around. Although I am certain I will hear more about bones and shaving and cracking and slicing and gross and stop talking to me about bones and surgery, because that just grosses the hell right outta me.

Because of course I just got our taxes done, and we are getting a really decent refund. Which should nicely cover Abe's next vet bills. I shouldn't complain, I am very happy we have the money to waste on our dog instead of vacation or a new car (the Suburban is 14. And I still haven't fixed the emergency brake release, so that if I accidentally set the parking brake I will have to have the truck towed. Plus I have to get the snow tires removed and the passenger door inside handle replaced, because pretty soon you will have to roll the window down and open the door from the outside. And the leather seats -- which I am certain were a lovely grey leather at some point, are now stained and ripped and slashed in a couple of places. Dogs and old leather seats not an ideal combination.)

Plus I have been driving the Honda whilst Mark is gone, and my IPod connects to it. I have 484 songs at my fingertips. In the Suburban, I am limited to CDs and NPR.

On the other hand, I don't care if the dogs are in the 'Burb, I can throw a dead sawed-up Christmas tree in the back, haul icky recycling or seven kids.

Right I was discussing the dog. He has been limping for a couple of weeks. I was trying to decide if it was just stiffness from his other surgery -- cold mornings in Anchorage are tough on him sometimes -- or if there was something more going on. But he has been tripod dog in the last few days, not putting weight on his right hind leg. So poor Abie is going to go through all that again -- surgery and recovery and limping and being confined and ugh.

There is the great potential for fun drugs for him, though...morphine makes him the calmest and limpest dog I have ever seen. He just lays there, eyes glazed.

So at least I don't have to make a decision about poor Abie based on what we can afford. And I can be very hopeful that surgery will correct things, and he will go back to being cheerful and goofy, although with what seems to me a death wish, considering that he willingly engages in combat with Mojo...

Bye bye snow...

2010-03-29T14:18:00.002-08:00

No, not this snow...

This snow:

The snow drift that has been hanging off the roof for a couple weeks finally collapsed under the weight of the icicles forming on the bottom edge.

So does this mean we only have six more weeks of winter? Maybe!!!

More Photos...

2010-03-21T12:23:00.002-08:00

Sorry I haven't been around. My volunteer life has been extraordinarily stressful as of late -- there is a person making life hellish for many people, and I am trying to help get it resolved. Which involves talking to lots of people, lots of phone calls, lots of trying to figure out just what the hell is going on. On another hand, I have spent a ton of time trying to figure out how to make data look pretty on the computer, which is very much beyond my skills. Unless the data is a photograph, of course! But making info look good in a directory -- I have zero skills in that arena, even after hours of working on it.

But we have had a streak of warm sunny weather (warm being relative, of course. It only has to get a few degrees above freezing to be considered warm around here, although we have had temps as high as 50!!! Just once or twice, but it is working on those gigantic piles of snow! So we should be snow-free by the end of May! Still better than having temps of 107 by the end of May (sorry all my pals in Tucson, but dang. I am not a lizard.)

To the photos!

I know. I have a thing for snow removal equipment. I don't know why.

Zachary (my kid) is standing, my nephew Este is in the chair, and my Dad is in the mirror.

This is the drift hanging from the front of the house since the last big snow.

This is that same drift today. It's melting, but since it's on the north side of the house, it hasn't completely melted away yet.

See? We have our bits of grass showing too...

But it's the exception. This photo was also taken today. We have snow.

Mojo today. He is digging the whole laying out on the deck in the sun thing.

New Photos!!!

2010-03-15T23:31:00.002-08:00

Just one for tonight...

Thor was waaaaaay more nervous about driving than I was about riding with him.

He did great, by the way.

I am not always a huge fan of machines...

2010-03-12T14:07:00.001-09:00

When the problem is caused by a machine, here are my steps:
Turn it off. Unplug it. Turn it back on.

Turn it off, unplug it, kick it, turn it back on.

Turn it off,unplug it, hurl it across the yard/room/street, look
around to see if anyone noticed, go pick it up, plug it back in, turn
it on, whack it really hard with my hand, get really pissed cause
that's stupid and painful, call it foul and vile names, type in
insults if it has a keyboard.

Dig through my toolbox -- which is inevitably filled with loose
screws, handleless screwdrivers, screwdriverless handles, those stupid
pads that are supposed to stick to the bottom of chair legs but in
reality somehow end up stuck to the dog, nails that are too bent and
dull to pound into anything harder than styrofoam, the hammer with the
mysteriously sticky handle, the random screws and bits of wood left
over from Ikea flat packs, and all the other tool detritus that my
husband cannot throw away but doesn't want to put in his own tidy tool
tower -- give up, go raid my husband's tool cathedral, and take the
stupid machine apart.

Buy new machine because I am much better at disassembly than putting
stuff back together.

Get husband to do whatever it was I was originally trying to do, since
by this point I have thought of 47 other things to do. Or suggest to
my kids that using this tool is really fun, and they should try it
(Thank you Tom Sawyer).

Cerberus and Lincoln.

2010-03-05T00:00:00.000-09:00

I did not name them. But I do let them live in my house. Because I am teh awesome Mom.

(Cerberus)

(The Linc)

self portrait in a Honda.

2010-03-04T00:00:00.001-09:00

The photo of the lily I promised you.

2010-03-03T00:00:00.000-09:00

Also...

2010-03-02T18:46:00.004-09:00

Whoa. The earthquake in Chile moved the earth off its axis by 3 inches.

And yet my children cannot manage to flip off a light switch.

Tonight, driving through the Fort Rich gate, the guard dropped his CLIP. His clip full of bullets. I feel very safe and secure now, knowing that the gate guards have real guns with real ammo, BECAUSE I SAW THEM.

Even the studliest of guys looks ridiculous in a Snuggie...

2010-03-02T18:28:00.003-09:00

So, really, what chance did Zach have of not looking like a complete dork?

Publish Post

edited to add...This. This right here, posting an enormously embarrassing photo of my child on the intertooobages, this is why I had children. This is a good day.

Earthquakes suck.

2010-02-27T13:16:00.003-09:00

And tsunamis that refuse to be great breaking news suck too. Woo. The water in Hawaii is dirty from their teeny little tsunami. The people on MSNBC are beating this boring horse, but it ain't running. Wait! Wait! There are rocks showing in the surf offshore on the Big Island in Hawaii! So pretty much the tsunami in Hawaii is like a speeded up tide. That is big news. Never mind that there was an 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile -- they don't have any awesome shots o' destruction to share with us? Instead the Powers That Be are hoping for some big exciting tsunami action in Hawaii.

I still haven't downloaded and uploaded those photos. Maybe I will do it today...Although I have lots of stuff to do today, including dragging Tess to her school twice so she can play the drum for three minutes at the start of their play. She is really good at drumming -- even playing on her own, she keeps the beat, no speeding up or slowing down.

Don't get it...

2010-02-26T14:40:00.003-09:00

I don't understand those who say that they don't want health care reform because they don't want the government telling them which doctors they can see and stuff like that -- right now, you are limited in the US by the insurance companies telling you which doctors are in your network, which hospital you can go to, which tests you can have, which procedures they will pay for, and on and on and on.

Argh.

It's still snowing, we must have over six inches of new snow so far. I have to take some photos...

Mark sent me some flowers for Valentine's day, which I completely forgot to photograph, but there is a lily that just opened up and is gorgeous. I did remember to grab my camera this time --

But I am too lazy to download and upload the photos tonight. So you will have to wait until tomorrow. Sorry!

Ha! It's still Thursday in Alaska.

2010-02-25T21:50:00.003-09:00

So I haven't missed a day after all.

Today was ugh. I was having a thing done in the doctor's office, and she dropped something on the floor. Something that needs to be sterile. So I got to lay there in a very uncomfortable position -- it's way tmi,but if you really want to know, give me your email address and I will fill you in -- while the nurse ran around looking for another one. Lucky for me, somebody had one. But geez. Really? You had to drop the one not easily replaceable thing on the floor? It couldn't be a swab or a tongue depressor, something easily and QUICKLY replaceable? Oh well. Good story, in the right company...

Oh, yeah, then I get home and it has been snowing, so the wonderful little Civic -- which is an awesome car, I love love love it -- can't quite make it up the VERY slight incline in our driveway, because there were three or four inches of snow. So I had to hop out and shovel a couple feet of driveway between the car and the garage, then back up and take a running start at it. I love the Honda, but it is not really the best car for Alaska winters. It's really not an issue, especially since I have the Suburban too, which does really well on snowy and icy roads, but even with the Honda, I mostly am driving in Anchorage and Eagle River so it's only days like today when we get 6 inches of snow where I might have a problem. Eh. It's completely worth it because it plays my IPods.

This afternoon I took a long nap on the couch. I guess going to bed at midnight and getting the kids up at 5:30 is taking a toll on me.

It's been a long day...

2010-02-24T22:23:00.003-09:00

And I should be going to bed. I have a doctor's appointment in the morning, and I never get enough sleep so it's very hard to get up before 10 am. Tomorrow I have to be out the door by 8:15.

But I am very happy that I get to go to the doctor tomorrow, that that visit and the lab work and prescription that accompany it are free. I don't pay a dime. I get thousands of dollars worth of drugs every year, drugs that do an amazing job at keeping Crohn's at bay. I get allergy medicines and the drugs for my ridiculously-slightly too high blood pressure (thank you endless crushing stress), and any and all the tests my doctors order for me -- the random ones everybody should get and the ones that come from having the digestive tract from hell. Two sleep studies and the machine that keeps me breathing all night. Hospital stays, ER visits, radioactive egg sandwiches. All free.

I don't pay a dime.

God damned socialized medicine at work. I don't have some cadillac health care plan, I am married to an Army guy. So all my medical care is provided by and paid for by the US government.

I know it's not always perfect. I had symptoms from Crohn's disease for 18 years before it was diagnosed, but in those 18 years, there have been great strides forward in military family health care. The US government can get it right.

My Mom almost died this Christmas. Thanks to the valiant efforts of the nurses in the Cardiac ICU, she survived. Some death panel there -- an 80-something year old woman, and they are spending lots of resources to keep her around. We are all very grateful for that. And again, it's government provided, since my Mom is on Medicare. The doctors talked about choices and issues and complications and heroic measures, but never once did they suggest that we should let her die, to preserve resources for the next person. The younger, healthier next person. So much for your death panels, Governor Palin.

But then wander over to Lou's, and he will guide you to another blog. One with a person who isn't so lucky. Start asking around, and I bet you can find lots of people who are either without insurance themselves or know somebody who is.

Health care is not a luxury. Having access to drugs that save your life, your sight, your kidneys or heart, that should not be a privilege. Dying too soon, too young, because some worthless person at an insurance company gets a bonus for denying as many claims as possible, because some heartless and thoughtless and subhuman exec thinks that making money for the shareholders is far more important than some average person's life, that should not be happening in this country.

Dear Republican Politicians. I am an American Citizen. I am married to guy who has spent the last 20-whatever years serving our country. I have spent countless hours volunteering for military families and civilian families and the communities where we have lived. I am a real American. I want health care for every single person in this country. I want health care reform. I want my friends and family to have the same "privilege" that I have -- to be able to go to the doctor when they are sick. To go to the doctor when they feel great, so that they don't die early from undiagnosed and untreated diseases. To be able to buy food and heat their homes and get their prescriptions filled.

I know I haven't been political on my blog much, because I don't want to offend. But this is who I am. I am very liberal, very progressive, very non-Republican, and I am pissed. And tired. And worried about my kids and your kids and everybody's kids.

I am a real American, and whenever somebody says that Americans don't want health care reform, well, they sure as hell are not speaking for me.

Worm holes and black dogs...

2010-02-24T19:51:00.003-09:00

Secret Mom and Lou think they have worm holes, too, and Lou wonders where his socks end up. I am suddenly relieved that I only have a small kitchen-to-Suburban wormhole. I would hate to endlessly find someone else's socks on my kitchen counter...

Mojo dented the wall today. With his head. Not to worry, though, Moj has a head of steel and thus bounced off it without noticing. Very unfortunately the wall doesn't bounce back so well...

Today was a class -- FRG Fundraising and Finances -- then off to the hospital for lab work, then a quick lunch, to another meeting, then home --but wait! A phone call (curses. Finding my cell phone bites me in the keister.) before I even get home summons me to another meeting...When I finally actually do get home, the dogs have once again ripped into the kitchen trash.

And I have no tequila.

Oh, yeah...

2010-02-23T13:03:00.003-09:00

Did I mention this here? I found my cell phone. In the Suburban.

From now on when something is missing, I am checking the Suburban first. The dogs were missing -- turns out they were in the Suburban. (We had taken them with us somewhere, and nobody remembered to let them out...an hour later we couldn't find them until I opened the door to the 'burb to go drive around to find them. I had even been on the elliptical trainer a couple feet from the 'burb and didn't realize they were there. They are very patient dogs.)

Thor's wallet? In the Suburban.

And now my phone. Perhaps we have some sort of tiny wormhole...stuff gets sucked from the kitchen counter to the Suburban. It would be great for bringing in the groceries if it were the other way around, although I would really hate for the carburetor to show up on the counter.

It's Tuesday.

2010-02-23T11:29:00.001-09:00

I have nothing.

Except my basil plant -- if it is basil, why would I buy a basil plant when I don't particularly like basil...is not dead. It's a dead looking stick with three sorta green, slightly crunchy leaves.

(I may be back later...but I didn't want to miss a day of PoEvWeeDy!)

The Further Adventures of What the Hell Was I Thinking...

2010-02-22T10:21:00.003-09:00

I think I should rename my blog...because I am the anti-organizer, and wonder what the hell I was thinking when I realize what I just did or did three days ago or two weeks ago.

Really, if you are one of those super-organized people, I hate you (just a little and only the anal parts...shit. That came out wrong. Whoops. We are on an accidentally bottom themed moment here, all completely inadvertent. Let's try that again -- just a little and only the super organized bits. Doesn't have the same ring to it, but less open to misinterpretation. I was not in fact insulting your behind.)

But that's beside the point -- what I meant to say is that if you are one of those super-organized people, I am your kryptonite. Spend enough time around me, work with me on a project, and I guarantee you will start losing papers and slacking off by playing Farmville on Facebook. You will find yourself ignoring your internet calendar to browse the intertoooobs for shoes and fabric. You will purchase items for a really fun new hobby and spend exactly 37.2 seconds on that hobby for each dollar you have spent.

That is how completely unorganized I am at the moment. I am so unorganized I am contagious.

Also, my basil plant died.

(And I know I skipped the weekend, but hey. If I post every weekday, that's like my own version of NaBloMoGo or whatever that acronym is... It's PoEvWeedy. Post Every WeekDaY. Works for me! Avatar coming soon!)

From the Glad It's Not Me file...

2010-02-19T22:36:00.002-09:00

Thor is camping this weekend. In a snow cave. Well, tonight he is "camping" in a cabin, but tomorrow morning he will be building a snow cave to sleep in. He was looking forward to it, especially since a couple of his good friends are in the same troop and camping too.

Me, no. I am not thrilled with the idea of snow caves. Not thrilled with the idea of shoveling up a huge pile of snow and then tunneling into it. Especially not thrilled with peeing in the woods at night in Alaska in February. It's been in the high 30's this week, so I have been scraping the snow and ice off the driveway. That is enough of the great outdoors for me at the mo, although I think Tess and I might go to Potter Marsh tomorrow just to check it out.

The car is again filthy. Can't tell what color it is filthy. Headlights barely seen filthy. Because the entire world (or at least the roads) are all slush and muck and gravel and dirt and bleh.

Tomorrow if it is still heatwaving, I will be opening windows in every room in the house to get some fresh air, especially after the Mojo fart incident the other day. Nobody is evil enough to deserve to live in Mojo funk.

Mostly I spent today driving to Eagle River and back home...I had a meeting at my friend's house this morning, then dropped Thor at the Lion's Club for his Boy Scout trip, then finally to Eagle River one last time because Tess was playing the drum for her middle school's opening song in their play. We only stuck around for about 20 minutes to watch the play (Something about Juliet -- it's a Romeo and Juliet parody, I think), but it was a long week and we just wanted to get home. There was one last piece of pizza sitting on the counter waiting for me (yeah, I totally love courting food poisoning by leaving food laying around for an hour on the counters...), I thought there was one last piece of pizza waiting. Nope. What was waiting for us was the pizza cutting board and the pizza cutter on the kitchen floor. Apparently one of the dogs decided it was his slice o' pizza. Probably Moj. He has been kinda pushing the counter surfing idea lately. I am chasing him out of the kitchen ALOT lately...

Oh, well. I really didn't need that last slice of pizza...I just hope this doesn't trigger a repeat of the tasty Mojo farts...

My cell phone is missing...

2010-02-18T10:28:00.003-09:00

And has been missing for over a week. This is pathetic. Where the hell did I put the stupid thing? Of course it was almost out o' battery, so calling it was useless. I am sure I will eventually find it somewhere stupid. Until then, I swipe the kids' phones or just go crazy, and step out of the giant communication bubble.

Actually I don't really care if people can call me or not -- and we still have the landline, so it's not a big cone of silence around me or anything -- but I don't like that the kids' schools can't get in touch with me instantly, since Mark is oh, yeah. In another country.

I have been watching the Olympics -- I love men's short track speed skating. That is my favorite this year. My least favorite? NBC's coverage. Dudes. I really don't need all the freaking "ooh, look how cute or terrible or tough or determined" various athletes have been. I really just want to see a bunch of athletes doing their thing.

I wonder if they have any speed skating around here...probably not. This is a big hockey town, and I am not big on hockey. I used to love it, but I get really bored with the need for violence on the ice.

Plus yesterday there were six crashes on women's downhill yesterday, and you only showed three of them. It's like NASCAR. We watch for the crashes and spills. Don't want anyone hurt, but seriously. Skiers bounce. No serious injuries yesterday, so c'mon. Show us the "agony of defeat" moments.

I got nothing else at the mo. I haven't had coffee yet today. I got up so late I didn't even have the four minutes it takes to use my Keurig coffee maker. By the way, if you lick the top of a used KCup, you get grounds in your mouth. I don't know, I was trying to figure out if I had used the cup that was in the coffeemaker. yeah yeah yeah. Everything you are thinking at the moment, I was thinking to myself in the immediate aftermath of the licking. Bad idea. Kinda dumb. What was I thinking. However, this gives you an out for the rest of the day. No matter what you do, you can think, at least I don't have a tongue full of coffee grounds through my own utter stupidity. Although toungueful is pushing it, bud. It was more like a teeny little bit, right in the middle.

I should stop typing now.

Yeah.

2010-02-17T14:08:00.002-09:00

I am back. Stop giggling and mocking. Yes, there is a very good chance I will be back again in another two months, but maybe maybe maybe I will stick around a little this time...

But. I am tired of thinking of others and pulling punches and making sure I am not offensive, so at least for today I am going to be blunt and me. Liberal liberal liberal me. Cranky me, sometimes swearing, occasionally a tiny bit well, obscene? profane? dirty? whatever you want to call it...

Like this is me. I burst into Thor's room -- his door was closed -- but I burst in and as I am, I think I should knock, he is a teenage boy after all, what the hell am I thinking? And of course, because I am me and not able to stop myself around my kids, I say something along the lines of, but slightly, a teeny bit, just a little less direct than this: "I should knock and wait, you could be, um, enjoying yourself in here..." (C'mon. He's 17. I have to bug him about sex and stuff.) I did not actually say the m word, but I was about to, when I realized he was on Skype with four friends. His mike was open and right there. I whipped around and closed the door, not waiting to find out if his friends heard that or not...

Zach's friends would totally not be shocked by this, because this kind of thing is what I do sometimes.

In other news, I found on Huffingtonpost.com, a perfect description of Sarah Palin.

I will miss you when you're gone. Your entertainment-value quotient is off the charts, especially for "over educated", cultural-elitist snobs like me. There's the maddening little sing-song delivery of your speeches, with those weird, unmotivated upticks and misplaced emphases that suggest you are literally reading "your own words" for the very first time. For anyone who appreciates real oratorical skills, like those of Churchill, MLK or Pliny the Elder (you can google all these names, sweetie), it's like having knitting-needles kicked into one's ears over and over again. There's your matchless ability to grind grammar and syntax into a non-intelligible word-pulp containing the odd sharp, indigestible fragment of John Birch ("Bomb Iran!") or Jesus-Freak ("More Divine Intervention!") insanity, the frequent cheap slurs against your political enemies -- who, I can't help noticing, are sprouting up even in the madder precincts at your own end of the political spectrum -- and the usual genuflections towards Boy Jesus and Saint Ronnie (who I bet wouldn't touch your ass with a forty-foot pole).

Thank you to Kara Vallow, who has written exactly what I feel when I hear Gov. Palin speak. I didn't like her as governor before she was chosen by McCain, I didn't like her when she was running for VP, and nothing I have seen of her since then has changed my mind. I am putting this here because I love the wording..."the odd sharp, indigestible fragment of John Birch ("Bomb Iran")..." It captures what I have struggled to explain.

Changing the subject again...dang. Mojo is farting up a storm, like I said on FB, it's like bad lasagna and I can taste it. I can't get away from it, because I can't put him outside -- too cold for my short-haired, thin-coated baby to stay outside long -- and because no matter where I go in the house, Moj follows. I am sitting here with a vanilla scented candle almost singe-ing (how do you "ing" singe without making it sing?) my nose hairs...

Merry Christmas!!

2009-12-25T08:30:00.002-09:00

The news is much more hopeful this morning. Mom is doing better, awake and talking. All the vitals are looking better. Still a very long way to go, still not out of the woods, but much better news than we dared to hope for.

The kids are playing video games, the sun will come up in another hour and a half or so (it's only 8:30, so it's still dark as night out there, but each day is getting a whopping 6 or 8 seconds longer!!! Unlike in the summer, when days lengthen or shorten by 5 minutes. Weird place to live. Just weird.). It seems very quiet without the dogs around. We had to drop both of them off yesterday since we are flying tonight. I am thinking a shower sounds wonderful, some more coffee, maybe making some muffins. We also have fresh pears (thank you Jollies!!!!) so we can have a great breakfast, laze around for a while, pick up the rest of wrapping paper, and pack. And eat meatloaf, Zachary wants to make a meatloaf for our Christmas dinner. Works for me!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T23:38:00.002-09:00

November and December were tough months for us. Mark deployed for a year, Thor and Zach were dealing with lots of school work and tests and big projects in high school and college respectively, and in the last two weeks my Mom has gotten progressively worse health-wise. She's in the hospital now, we are alternating between hope and not, and the kids and I are flying into Minneapolis on Saturday. We have to wait until Saturday (and hope we make it then) because there is a HUGE storm hitting Minnesota. So not the most festive Christmas ever. Sigh.

But there was bright spot tonight -- we open presents on Christmas Eve, it's a Scandinavian upper Midwest Lutheran thing, I guess -- and while we were opening presents, Mark called on Skype! From over there somewhere! So we talked to him and opened presents while he watched and told us a little tiny bit about his life there. I was feeling kinda terrible that Mark wasn't there to join us, but then he was!

It was tough for a minute. Mom and Dad visited us this summer, and Mom bought me the reissue of the 1950 original Betty Crocker Cookbook, and then she and Tess wrapped it up and Tess slid it under the tree a week or so ago. I had very much been looking forward to my cookbook, but with Mom being in such a precarious and fail state it was really hard to open.

But I did, and I love all the crazy illustrations and photographs and recipes. When life is a little calmer I will post a couple pictures of my favorites. And of the kids talking to their dad on the computer.

Tess made me a really awesome shelf -- another photo to post -- and Thor had pottery he made in pottery class this past semester. More photos to take and post.

So I hope you all are having a calm and peaceful and wonderful holiday, whatever and however you decide to celebrate!

Fireweed.

2009-10-24T00:00:00.001-08:00

This is fireweed. It grows all over the place. When the blossoms reach the top, it means summer is over...

And when it turns red, it means 6 weeks until snow. This photo was taken on September 19...so we should have snow any time now. (I think we should have already had snow, last year our first snow was around the 5th of October. This year no snow yet.)

(I think I am remembering this Alaska old wives' tale right, but if I screwed it up please let me know. I have at times a truly sucky memory.)

By the way, I am not complaining about the lack of snow. I know I will be excited for the first snowfalls, but I remember really really well how long winter lasts.

So Let's Pretend...

2009-10-23T18:03:00.004-08:00

Let's pretend that I am not a horrible blog owner who neglected you all shockingly for months, in favor of writing very short and not incredibly interesting tidbits on FaceBook (shoot me an email if we are not already friends and you want to rectify that...). I would also like to pretend that I have not neglected the laundry to the point I have about 10 loads left, after doing 10 loads this week. Yeah, I so totally ignored the laundry there, the kids had to dig deep and wear their second string shirts.

I think I am in denial about how much laundry there truly is...I was sitting on the floor sorting clothes -- I had dumped it into one big pile -- and Abe was reduced to giving me the sad puppy eyes, because it was chest high on him and he couldn't get through or around it. Abe likes to lean on me...

(No I am not posting a photo of my enormous laundry pile.)

Yesterday in between folding loads of laundry I vacuumed our bedroom. Mojo has to be with me at all times, and I kept having to make him move so I could vacuum where he was laying. He hates the vacuum, perhaps the fact that I occasionally can't help but suck up his jowls has something to do with his dislike...I sat down to hang out with him for a minute, because he looked so cute and because I was sick of vacuuming.

Abe and Tess wandered in, and since Tess lives to pester the dogs, they ended up having a wrestling match on my freshly vacuumed carpet. Tess discovered that if you blow on Mojo's back, he tries to lick your face. Actually he lunges at your head and licks ferociously. And if you get Moj worked up, Abe has to get in on it too.

Both dogs, looking fairly psychotic. Note that they are mere inches from my head.

Mojo's all time favorite move, grabbing Abe's hind leg and dragging him around. This is not my favorite thing, because Abe has had four surgeries on his knee (congenital deformity. A hazard of pit bulls. We think Abe is probably part pit because of his brindle coat and because there are many many many many many many pit bulls in Tucson.) See how lovely and freshly vacuumed the carpet looks? It so did not look lovely under a fresh coat of dog hair three minutes later. Abe is shedding like crazy lately. Also, proof I did not spend all day on FB -- laundry basket and vacuum.

Mojo with a mouthful of Abe's face. This photo makes me want to rinse out my mouth, just thinking about how much dog hair Mo must have on his tongue after he does this.

Now to completely change the subject.

I have taken some photos lately that I haven't posted here...

Taken on September 19. We haven't had snow yet, but all the leaves are long gone.

Trumpeter swan on Potter Marsh. Potter Marsh is one of my favorite places in Anchorage.

This is why I love Potter Marsh. Big sky, big views, mountains, birds, salmon, lots of interesting plants to shoot.

Deadish weeds.

Even a train.

The downside of Potter Marsh is that the Seward highway runs all along it, and the Seward highway is very busy. There's also a shooting range nearby, so you sometimes get the added ambiance of rifle shots. Makes it feel like the real Alaska.

Tired.

2009-09-18T14:24:00.003-08:00

That's all. I am just tired. I have a stupid cold that is dragging on and on and on, which means I don't get to use my CPAP machine because I can't breathe through my nose, which means I don't get a good night's sleep, which means my immune system gets even wonkier, which means my cold drags on and on and on...wait, this is where I came in.

argh.

A photo. Because I love you all.

2009-09-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

This is obviously NOT a farm in Minnesota.

Zach and Thor...

2009-09-18T14:14:00.002-08:00

This one's for you...

For those of you who have never been in our family room, Tess (and Thor) spend lots of time messing around with their avatars. Sorry, Tess.
see more Funny Graphs

weekly winnerage!

2009-08-29T21:11:00.004-08:00

I have taken thousands of photos since the last time I posted weekly winners, so it's gonna be tough to figure out which ones to use -- and really, since I have so many to choose from, you all are probably gonna expect really amazing and awesome photos, no? I hope I do not disappoint...

Weather in August. Definitely not in the desert any more...

dragonfly

my stupid dog last spring, out on rotten ice. very fortunate he did not fall through...

My Dad and son, on the boardwalk at Potter Marsh

fireweed. when the blooms reach the top, summer is pretty much over, and when it turns red, there will be snow in six weeks. that's what they say, anyway

the barn my grandfather built in the late 1800's, I think...

another moose wanders through the neighborhood

Part of the Weekly Winners roundup, thanks to the Sarcastic Mom!

Another photo of Alaska...

2009-08-29T20:56:00.002-08:00

We were at the Westchester Lagoon, in Anchorage. We stopped to watch a couple of salmon swimming into the lagoon from the Cook Inlet (salmon spawning are really fascinating to watch. Although I am certain that eventually the thrill of watching fish swimming in place against the current will wane...). There was a grebe (a kind of duck) floating nearby. It went under to catch a fish, and because there is a white panel under the water -- perhaps to help count the salmon, they are very concerned about how many salmon return each year -- we could really see how the bird swam around. Very very cool...

The Farm

2009-08-28T22:48:00.002-08:00

When I was a kid we would go visit my uncle on the farm. The farm where my Mom and her brother grew up. Every kid should be lucky enough to spend some time on a farm. Farms are awesome. Farms are fun. Farms are dangerous, but we were very lucky kids. There was more than one occasion when one or another of us kids could have been badly injured or killed, but we all survived with all limbs, teeth, and eyes intact.

(Brains, I dunno. There were sometimes some marijuana plants growing on the farm, but a really weak strain. I don't know how much of a high was possible...but I am certain one or another of us tried it out anyway...)

My grandfather built the house and the barn and the outbuildings, I think in the late 1800's. The house and barn are still standing, the barn roof is amazingly straight -- no sag at all. Pretty impressive, I think.

This is a great house -- lots of gorgeous woodwork. No one from my family lives there now, but this summer we drove by and it looks pretty good around there. Weird too, since the land has been flattened -- there used to be a small hill behind the house. And some of the buildings are gone. No more chicken coop, no cows, no pig sty. Honestly, though, I don't miss the chickens. I hate chickens. Vile yet delicious creatures that they are. Smelly and stinky and mean. But tasty.

I can't post two days in a row without a photograph of Alaska, so...

The Daily Alaska:

The Little Susitna River, in Hatcher's Pass.

Playing with Photoshop

2009-08-28T11:46:00.002-08:00

I love playing with Photoshop. Last night I was practicing removing stuff from photos. I have a snapshot of a cemetery in Wisconsin. It's not a great shot, the light levels are wrong, the colors are muted, and there is a plant stand, a rope and a road that detract from the image. So I removed the offenders, punched up the colors, and adjusted the levels and contrast. I also tried out the image in black and white.

And then I made them into a movie, to show how the photograph morphed. I haven't done these movies before, but it was really fun. I just wish I could remember what program I used...I really need to start taking notes on some of this stuff I do.

I am having a really good time with my reliable and big-memoried new computer!

Daily Alaska!

2009-08-27T18:08:00.002-08:00

There is a lake next to the airport here, Lake Hood. Float planes take off and land here, and the lake is surrounded by docks where the planes are tied up. It's one of the things we do with visitors from out of state. There are so many places in Alaska that are accessible only by boat or plane that there are lots and lots of private planes buzzing around all the time.

I got a new computer! Because the old one sucked. It just was so unreliable, I couldn't take it. I am trying to get all our photos organized and sorted, a job made slightly more difficult because I really stupidly accidentally told Photoshop Elements to catalogue all the images on my external hard drive...all 100,000 of them. There is a scrapbook program on there and a bunch of games. Each with dozens of images. Plus several backups of our photos, so that there are two or three or eight copies of a bunch of photos.

I am so sick of dealing with it, and still have another 50,000 images to delete, and another 30,000 to organize. I cannot believe we have that many photos, but I love taking photos. Dozens of photos...

Wildflowers.

2009-07-24T14:40:00.005-08:00

My bloggy friend Kim at Frog Ponds Rock...These are for you and your Mum.

And because I know you love skies...

Whoa!

2009-06-05T14:30:00.002-08:00

This whole senior advisor/senior spouse thing is still sorta freaking me out. Next week we will be having the entire brigade over for burgers and brats -- fortunately the entire brigade consists of about two dozen people so far. Whew.

But now I have to call a sergeant and tell him what I need from the unit for the BBQ. Weird. Like "Sergeant, I need some tables and chairs, and the Commander (woo. That's Mark. Again, weird.) will be tasking the various sections with bringing drinks and salads and stuff." Cannot begin to explain how strange this all is.

And to see Mark as the Commander. He was talking to a young soldier, and the soldier seemed kinda nervous. Yeah, because my husband is the big cheese. Hard to wrap my head around that one.

In other news, we are approaching the big race. Miles and miles and 70-some hours of sitting in a voyager canoe (a long canoe that can seat about a dozen people). I am not racing. Mark is, with seven friends, co-workers and complete strangers. It's the Yukon River Quest, if you want to google it. I have some photos of us in the canoe, still though trapped in the camera, since my computer is down. Still. With the blue error screen of severe annoyance.

(insert random and colorful swearing here. As spicy or tame as you would like. I am not fussy.)

This weekend they are doing more canoeing practice, so I will this time get a photograph of them in the canoe, from shore rather than from a middle seat. I really love canoeing, but sitting in a canoe for hours and hours and alll day and night and day and night and day and ....not for me.

Alrighty. Cannot sit here all afternoon. I must attempt to fetch a mower from self-help -- the Army hands out mowers and shovels and rakes and hoses and grass seed and various and sundry such items to those who live in government quarters -- our grass is getting ridiculously long. Except for the backyard, which suffered greatly under our dogs less than benevolent attentions over the winter.

Then I have to continue to clean and plan and obsess over this dumb brigade BBQ (it's really hard to remember to say Brigade instead of Battalion. Flailing around as the senior spouse, that's me...).

Plus the Army Birthday Ball is tonight, so I have various primping and preening and...let's just stop right there. I am wearing a dress, so all you ladies reading this know what I will be doing for the next several hours, and you gentlemen reading don't really want to know. Right? Right.

Hey! Two posts in less than a month? I am on fire!

I am around...

2009-05-31T13:46:00.002-08:00

But very busy lately.

My computer has crashed, as well, which means I have to use Thor's to go online. Except Thor is home for the summer, so I have to compete with him for it. I don't always win...

Part of the reason I am so busy lately is that I am suddenly a "senior lady" and a "senior adviser"...that's what happens when your husband is the deputy commander of a brigade. Now I have new responsibilities and new meetings and social things to go to, which is great. I don't mind that part at all.

It might be a little weird for some of the spouses in our brigade, though, since I am so not the stereotypical LTC's wife, at least according to some enlisted spouses. I regularly hear how I am not at all like an officer's wife...

I am working on getting my photos -- which are on my external hard drive, not the crashed computer, thank goodness -- available for posting again, and I have a thousand digital copies of slides my father took, which means I can eventually, once I get this all straightened out, post photos of myself as a small and adorable child. Oh yeah, and my siblings, too. Not that they are or were as adorable as me.

Too cool...

2009-04-29T22:42:00.002-08:00

I logged onto Librarything.com -- a very cool website that lets you catalog all your books, really handy when you have upwards of 2,000!!! -- and discovered a really great message was waiting for me...

Yesterday I logged on and noticed that the Early Reviewers list was about to close. Early Reviewers is a program through librarything.com -- you sign up and request a preview copy of books from various publishers. It's free, and there are usually a couple dozen books available with hundreds of people signing up for each one.

So today, I get the message that I have been chosen to receive a copy of This Will Kill You: A Guide to the Ways in Which We Go.

Here is the Amazon listing for this book...

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0312540620, Paperback)
Have you been attacked by a great white shark? Gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Been exposed to anthrax? No, you haven't, or you'd be dead. This Will Kill You reveals the intriguing facts behind the many ways humans bite the dust in encounters with deadly bugs, hungry predators, natural disasters, and freak occurrences. Thoroughly researched and illustrated, not to mention thoroughly hilarious, this book describes in deathly detail what happens to the body when it’s struck by lightning, slimed by a dart frog, or flung from a mountaintop.
No other book has ever peaked under the Grim Reaper's robe in such a straightforward and irreverent way. With a foreword by a physician at the Mayo Clinic , an afterword by a funeral director, lists of history’s most notable deaths, and a unique death rating system, everything you need to know about the ways in which we go are included in these pages.

This is great, because this is the book I would most have liked to receive. The one book on the list that I actually thought to look for. Yeah, I am a little weird and gory at times. I have a small collection of books on death and plagues and cholera and the Black Plague (and I just ordered a couple more plague books. I don't know why I am so interested in this stuff. I just am.)

So I will write up a review and post it here (and on librarything.com) once I have read it...

Woo! Spring!

2009-04-28T15:04:00.003-08:00

It's in the 50's and sunny. Those last belligerent little piles of snow must surely be gone soon, no?

There have been the first tiny hints of green as well...the houses across the street seem to have a greenish sheen to their lawns. I haven't spotted anything budding yet, though.

Bears have been spotted out and around town, so they are leaving their dens.

Our day is now sixteen hours long -- sunrise at 6 ish and sunset at 10 pm ish, according to NPR. It's very weird, the days get longer by five minutes a day, so seems like we went from hardly any day at all to almost all daylight.

The mountains are still snow-capped. Maybe not as snowy and magnificent as they were earlier this year, but still pretty dang awesome looking.

Sheesh.

2009-04-27T11:17:00.003-08:00

I never worried with any of the kids if they were eating. They were all great eaters.

(Besides which, they were babies. Nine peas is a full serving for a baby. I have always wondered at the moms who worried about their kids not eating, when really what they were worried about was that their kids were not in fact eating meals that would have made a longshoreman go "whoa. That's a lot of food." There's a reason baby and toddler dishes are little...)

Any way. So. Not one to worry about whether the kidlets were eating enough, even when Thor spent six months eating pb&j instead of ANYTHING at all that I made for supper. He ate apples and banana bread, which is a great vehicle for sneaking carrot and wheat germ and flax and oatmeal into your kids.

Now, these days, if Abe is eating, if Abe deigns to sniff at the food in his dish, I walk the other way around the kitchen counter so as hopefully not to disturb him. I will wait to refill my coffee cup. I will sit at the computer for an extra minute (like that's a hardship...) Because YAY! He's EATING! Not that he's particularly skinny or underfedish, but the dog just doesn't eat as much as he should. (Mojo, on the other hand, wouldn't miss a meal if he were in a coma.)

Because of course, I have adjusted my life to the dogs. Right now I have Things To Do, but I am reluctant to get up because Abe just curled up next to me and looks so content. (Both dogs feel compelled to follow me about the house all day, so once I get up, he will feel the need to follow me up stairs and to the bathroom door...)

Right. Edited To Add...I didn't mean you, obviously. I realize there are kids who truly seem to think food and eating are optional. But really, I have met moms who seem to think they have not done their job unless their offspring downs the equivalent of a nine course Thanksgiving meal thrice daily. Those are the moms I was referencing up there, not you, my loyal reader!

Right. Posting TWO DAYS IN A ROW.

2009-04-18T20:58:00.004-08:00

Are you stunned? Me, too.

Zachary called it a drought of posting, but then he skipped calling me for days and days and days, so we are even.

(Zach it would kill you to maybe call your mother? You are too busy with the college stuff to pick up the phone?)

We rearranged the family room...I don't know if I mentioned that here...

It involved unloading three tall bookcases, each with five shelves absolutely stuffed with books (But it alphabetical order by author! You should be impressed. Mostly our books have been shelved by the "hey! I can stuff it in right here" method.) plus a short bookcase with three shelves. And the computer armoire, which is pretty but damn heavy. And the TV cabinet.

Mark and I moved the TV into position, and then I muscled two of the tall bookcases into position and one short one. And loaded books back into one short and one tall bookcase.

Then Thor and I moved the last bookcase into position, and realized the whole lineup -- which consists of two tall and two short bookcases plus the tv cabinet -- had to be shifted three inches to the left, because of the cable outlet. We could have left them in place, but then the last bookcase would either be bending and kinking the cable as it comes outta the wall, or the bookcase would have to be four inches away from the wall.

And if one is four inches away, the rest of them would have to be four inches away too, so they line up right and evenly and tidily...

But bookcases four inches away from the wall means that things would always be falling behind them, and it would look stupid besides.

So Thor and I muscled the bookcases over, unhooked the TV (because we did not want to drop the TV and wreck it, because we only have four other TVs. Yes. I think we have too many TVs. I don't know why. Perhaps the TV fairy likes us better than you.) and shifted the whole shootin' match three inches to the left.

(Unfortunately Thor just unplugged everything without you know, looking to see how it all fits together, which means that the DVD player is still not hooked back up. We have to use the XBox to watch DVDs right now, because no one is interested in wrestling with the stupid cords behind the TV...)

Now we have a bookcase in the living room, which is nice, except that it's got a bunch of books by Jimmy Carter and Al Franken and books about liberal values and stuff. Since most of the people we know are far more likely to have a McCain sticker on their bumper than an Obama one, it could get a little interesting.

But then, I have not really tried to hide the whole idea that I am a liberal progressive kinda gal. There are more of us than you might think in the military family.

If you go up the stairs, on the landing is a big old institutional green/grey metal barrister cabinet. It is awesome, and will be even more awesome when someday I have it painted bright red and fill it with dishes in my kitchen.

When I have a kitchen that has enough room for a bright red metal barrister cabinet...

I know. I am a terrible person.

2009-04-17T14:58:00.003-08:00

Ignoring all of you for weeks.

No reason, really, other than just so not having the energy to go online and read and comment and write.

And I have had things to write about...

Lets see...Finally the snow is MELTING!!! The last snowfall was Easter Sunday night, and it vanished within two days! YAY!

Although at the time, it was disheartening to walk out Monday morning to this:

Did you notice that my Suburban is standing in the driveway? I used to have a warm heated garage stall for it, but that was before this...

That's Mark's old Jeep in the top photo and ~~his~~ our new Honda Civic behind it, and Mark driving the new Civic home for the first time, and a shot of our car (and some snow mixed with ash. Because we did get that one time of ash falling on us, our teeny brush with Mount Redoubt.).

Completely juvenile moment...the newsreader on BBCAmerica news just called Captain Phillips (the guy who was held by the Somali pirates) the world's most famous seaman.

Say it out loud to yourself. See? Juvenile. I told you.

Also...We went to Spamalot last night. It was awesome. It was full of Monty Python humor (I fart in your general direction.) and John O'Hurley played King Arthur. Great sets, great songs, great actors, the whole thing was fun from beginning to end. I have a couple photos of Thor and Tess waiting for it to begin in my phone, now I just have to figure out how to get them into the computer. I may never manage that feat, as it would most likely involve me actually reading the damn book that came with my new phone...

Oh, yeah, more awesomeness...

This is the new Civic's radio. See what it says? That's right, it says IPOD! One of the awesomest things about having a vehicle built this century is that it comes with a built in IPod connection. A BUILT IN IPOD CONNECTION. My Suburban is so old even the cassette thingies -- the ones you plug into your IPod and then you can play it through your car stereo -- those thingies don't work in it.

But now, I plug my IPod directly into the USB hub in the armrest. So very cool.

Unfortunately for me, I drag the dogs with me a lot, because they LOVE going for a ride. They are psychodogs if you say go or ride or put on socks. (I must put on socks alot before I go places, because they get crazed when I do. Of course I put on socks alot just before I go somewhere, because I don't much wear socks or shoes at home. Hereditary hot feet.)

I gotta go get Tess. So there you go. I posted something!

Random Facts Courtesy of Thor...

2009-03-27T15:48:00.002-08:00

Thor occasionally tells us things that no one would know, or would realize they ever needed to know...

To cover the earth in a living blanket would take 255 x 10 to the 14th power squirrels!

(That's 25.5 quadrillion squirrels.)

Assuming squirrels float, of course.

No Volcano problems for us...yet.

2009-03-26T09:52:00.003-08:00

Mount Redoubt erupted, six times so far, throwing ash 9 miles into the air.

But the winds up there are blowing away from Anchorage and the MatSu valley (that's where Wasilla is), so mostly the ash is falling on uninhabited area. There's a lot of that in Alaska.

However, we still have a chance to have fun dealing with the ash. Trace amounts of ash have been detected in Anchorage. And last time Redoubt blew, it was active for five months (I think.). So if the winds shift and it erupts again we could be dealing with the fallout. Woo.

Tess is very disappointed -- she was really looking forward to days off from school (I should point out to her that those days will be added to the end of the school year...I don't think she would be so thrilled to miss school then.).

Personally, eh. We just replaced the water pump and oil lines on the Suburban, so I am perfectly happy to not have volcanic ash sucked into the engine. My only real concern at this point is that it not mess up my plans to fly to Minnesota in May for a family reunion.

Other than that...spring has not sprung yet. We had a dusting of snow last night, it's in the 20's and all the snow that got slushy over the past couple of days when it was warmer is now frozen and thus the roads are really rough with small slippery patches.

CNN just said Redoubt erupted again, sending ash 13 miles into the sky. I guess we have to start watching for ashfall alerts. That's a new one for us...

Spring! Spring!!

2009-03-18T15:50:00.002-08:00

It's spring somewhere. It's in the 80's in Tucson. My sister in Washington has bulb-y things like crocuses blooming in her yard. It's hit 60 and the annual giant puddles have appeared in my parents' yard in Minnesota...

And in Anchorage, we have snow. Lots of snow. But south-facing roofs and streets that have the sun shine on them are bare, sorta, or at least bare with icy edges.

But while it's only 30 degrees out, the sun is shining brightly and it feels like spring is way down the block, around the corner and down a couple streets. Because when you step outside you feel a bit o' heat from the sun, even with the breeze having that icy chill to it from blowing across the snow.

Another sign of spring...since the Iditarod is almost over, people on post are finally taking down their Christmas lights. That's right, people leave their Christmas lights up (and on! Turn them off already!) until the middle of March.

Christmas lights are not festive in February. Icicle lights do not cheer the heart in March. Christmas lights should be off by the middle of January. I don't care if you leave them up until a warm day, but damn. Turn the things off already.

In other news I have finally finally finally finally finally finally stopped coughing! No more hacking up the odd lung every couple of hours, no more waking myself up in the middle of the night, and best of all, I can finally start using my CPAP machine! Which is awesome, because I found out last year I stop breathing an average of seven times an hour when I sleep. Which means that on an average of seven times an hour I rouse enough to start myself breathing again, and that means I don't ever get a good night's sleep. But now. Now I don't always wake up in the morning feeling like I got a crap night's sleep.

Daily Alaska photo...Last September, somewhere on the back forty of Fort Richardson.

Just a little reminder that Alaska is not all snow...

I hate long hair...

2009-03-16T10:51:00.002-08:00

I live with a guy who has almost no hair. I mean, there are plenty of hair follicles on his head, he just chooses (okay, he's in the army, so his choices are limited) not to take much advantage of them.

But Thor and Tess both have long hair. (And I can't find a photo of either of them at the mo showing their long hair. You will just have to take my word for it.) Tess's hair is pretty much to her waist, and Thor's is halfway down his back.

Aside from having to help them brush it out occasionally, because not only is it long, but it is a mixture of coarse and fine hair, so it tangles easily...

I also hate long hair because it is EVERYWHERE. Doing laundry I pick long hairs off the clothes as I dump them in the laundry and more long hairs off the clothes as I fold them.

Then there is the vacuum cleaner. I love my vacuum cleaner except for one thing...the carpet brush is hard to get off and back on again. But every couple of weeks, the brush gets so full of long hair it no longer works properly.

So I must disassemble and cut the hair off (hair is tough. I use a steak knife to saw through it -- and yes, it is dedicated to stuff like that. I don't toss it back into the scary drawer. [The scary drawer is the one full of sharp and pointy knives. We didn't use to have a knife block in it, but now it's not quite as scary. ]).

On their heads, it's gorgeous. Thor's is a coppery red and really really thick. Tess's is brown under and has a deep hint of red on the top layers. She used to be a blond blondie, but it is gradually getting darker. I think eventually she will have brown hair with some seriously nice coppery highlights. Like mine, only better. Mine is mostly just brown.

Weekly Winners!

2009-03-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

Weekly Winners courtesy of the Sarcastic Mom!

As if using the elliptical trainer wasn't bad enough, this is my view. I am watching Roswell on DVD to pass the time...

Volcano preparedness. Bottled water, extra canned goods. Not much beer though. Must fix that.

Thor and Tess have gotten into this war game/model thing called Warhammer 44k. They spent much of their spring break painting tiny little models.

Tiny little models.

Teeny little grumpy heads.

Thor or Tess took this photo. You can see how tiny the guys are. Apparently you then build some kind of battlefield and roll dice. That's all I know about the game.

One raven thought there was something interesting in the street. Pretty soon there were eight or ten checking out whatever it was. We have to be careful not to have overflowing garbage cans, because they can get into them and make a big mess.

Pecking at the ice. I don't know why.

Abe has a thing about birds. He would really really like to be chasing the ravens flying away.

Tess was in the city-wide 6th grade honor band. She had a three note solo on the tympani...it was great.

Tess on the tympani.

Moose in the neighborhood.

It was really icy one evening. The next morning, we saw four or five cars like this.

The Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet. Icy and cold.

Cool pattern in the road.

Weekly Winners....Fur Rondy Edition

2009-02-28T20:18:00.003-09:00

Weekly Winners courtesy of the Sarcastic Mom!

It's been an exciting weekend here in Anchorage. Thursday night we had a moose visit...

The whole story, complete with the dog trying to protect us from this moose, is here.

It's also Fur Rondy time -- The Anchorage Fur Rendezvous celebrates Anchorage's history. We went downtown today, to watch the sled dog races and check out some of the other events.

A musher about to cross the finish line.

Dogs pulling.

Musher. If you look closely, you can see that his right foot is off the sled. He is pushing along with his foot as the dogs race toward the finish line.

A race to the finish.

The dogs looked like they were having a really good time.

Tess watching the race.

Snow sculpture contest.

model for the snow sculpture above.

Waiting for the hatchet, machete, saws, shovels, picks, and creativity.

Ready for a long day of hacking and sculpting and chopping.

Most interesting and unique sculpture. (I think it is modeled on some kind of fruit or vegetable, like in the photo on the sign in front.)

It was snowing pretty heavily all day.

Snow building up on Tess.

Fur auction. I have never seen so many fur hats.

The carnival. First time I have ever been on a Midway in the snow...

Thor and Tess went on the Ferris Wheel. There is a guy hanging off the thing pounding on a wheel with a hammer. I don't know why, but it made Mark and I a little nervous. Thor and Tess thought the ride was great.

Heading back to the car.

Thor throwing himself down the hill so I can take a photo. What a guy.

I shoveled the drive. I hope Mark wasn't planning to use his Jeep before the snow plow clears our street...(also, you can see our dogs watching us in the living room window.)

Mark removing the pile of snow in front of the Jeep. Guess he thought he might want to use it.

Lots of snow. No snowplow yet.

And finally, last Sunday we took the Suburban through the car wash. (Everything is grimy and filthy, because we had some warmer weather...lots of slush and muck.)

Mark.

Water being blown off the windshield. I really really like this shot.

Daily Alaska...my big backyard!

2009-02-27T13:20:00.003-09:00

For some reason the mountains around us the past couple of days have seemed bigger. It could be that they have more snow on them again, or that I get used to them and just don't always see them. As in really pay attention to them, not in as they vanish or anything. I am still not used to seeing mountains out there every day. Right there, out my back door.

Last night, right out the back door, we had a visitor. She ate some of our bushes, and left a little pile of poo by the neighbor's fence. Tess was working at the computer when Abe started barking, around 8:30, I think. She looked out the back door and saw a moose reaching over the fence eating our bushes! No wonder the dogs were getting excited. There was an interloper in their yard. (In the photo above, the bushes on the right were the same height as the bushes on the left before the moose showed up...)

This was taken from upstairs...I like the enormous shadow of the moose behind her.

The moose snacked on several of our bushes, cropping close to a foot off of a couple of them. Then she wandered along the fence to the neighbor's yard, where she laid down in the snow for quite a while. We could see her ears sticking up. She was just laying there. It's really quiet around our neighborhood on winter evenings.I too this photo this morning. Those are all moose tracks, the area to the right is where she laid down for a while -- we thought it would be a bigger area. The brown up to the left I believe is some poo.

When the moose got up, she nosed at our bushes a little more and then wandered around the side of the house. Tess and I and the dogs were looking out the window at her, and she stepped closer to the window, seeming to look at us. It was a little freaky, she was just a couple feet from us. Then Mojo jumped up at the window barking furiously and she spun around and walked off across the street. Mojo startled the heck outta Tess and I, jumping up like that. It was dark and hard to get any good photos, but there are moose tracks leading from our window, and the moose is standing eating a tree across the street.

A while later the moose was right in front of our house, two feet from the front window. We locked the dogs in the bathroom at that point, because I was rather concerned for the windows and the woodwork. I took a couple photos, but they really didn't turn out too well because it was so dark. (They all have a yellowish cast because our outdoor lights are yellow. They also come on slowly, which is great when there is a moose around, because it doesn't flash on and startle them. Handy.)
One of the last photos I took turned out to look like there is the ghost of a moose walking through our yard.

It was pretty dang fun and exciting to have a moose wandering around last night, although I think it is a little hard on the dogs. They were quivering with excitement or something while we were all standing looking out at the moose. And it was lucky we have a DVR, because we had to keep rewinding and pausing whatever it was were watching, because the moose was far more compelling than any TV show...

Daily Alaska -- weird and random edition

2009-02-26T11:56:00.003-09:00

It's been filthy here. Grime and road spray and yuck. I would use some snow to clean off the back windows of the Suburban and a mile down the road I couldn't see out of them again. (The window on the left is the side window, the one on the right is the rear window. Can't see a dang thing through it...)

It's been hard to tell what color some cars are, and also, license plates are unreadable. On the plus side, all the stupid political bumper stickers are not visible. Which is okay with me.

So last Sunday evening on our way home from Costco -- where we got Tess a new pair of Sorel boots, black, which she was very happy with, unlike the gray ski pants we got for her (we truly did not notice the pink lining. Tess HATES pink. She is not at all a girly girl...) but we did not get spinach. Both the commissary and Costco were out of spinach this weekend. Which is awful. I love spinach. I need spinach. Although I was reading a book yesterday which reminded me that I should really be eating a variety of leafy greens, like romaine and arugula, so I want to add those to the spinach, not give up the spinach...back to the point! we stopped at the car wash.

I took a bunch of photos in the car wash. The best one was this shot of the water being blown around on the windshield.

Yes, I do take my camera with me most of the time, and I will try to take pictures of just about anything.

Daily Alaska, Days are Getting Longer Edition!

2009-02-24T21:05:00.004-09:00

This is a photo I took on the 6th of February. It's a gloomy cloudy day, but it was also still pre-sunrise at around 9 am. The street lights are still on, and everybody had their headlights on. You can even see the headlights of the snow plow shining on the road ahead of me.

And yes, I took this photo while I was driving. I point the camera in the general direction of what I want to photograph, and hope for the best. When my sister and I were driving from San Diego to Tucson last February, we took a bunch of photos this way...many of them ended up being shots of the sky with just the very tops of the rocks and trees and mountains. Sometimes it works better than others.

This is a photograph I took at around 9am on Monday. We are gaining almost 6 minutes of daylight a day right now. Which is awesome. Sunday night we were surprised to be driving home at 6:15 pm and it was still light out. Before we know it, we will be having the all day all night sunlight thing happening. Once again we will lose all track of time, and find ourselves preparing dinner or thinking we should run to the store and realize that it is actually 11 pm...At least I have made curtains for our bedroom so we can block out some of the light. I had trouble sleeping with all that light last summer. Funny how i can nap on the couch in the middle of a bright sunny day, but any light at night makes it really hard for me to sleep.

See? It's light out! Sunrise is already happening, we don't need our headlights, and woo! some of the snowpack is gone from the roads, because we have had more days with sunshine than snow lately. The freeway (that's right, we have a freeway in Alaska...one freeway, that ends in downtown Anchorage) is bare and dusty. There are long stretches where the lines are completely hidden by dirt and grime. Which sometimes makes it a little exciting to drive, since people wander between and straddle lanes.

I have lost 7 pounds, I feel compelled to use the elliptical trainer every day, and I am keeping track of every calorie I eat. I have more energy and I am still excited about the whole idea. And, amazingly, I still love spinach, even though I eat it almost every day...

Mark came back from Thailand, was home for about a week, and is leaving again for several weeks very soon. I will be relieved when he stays home for a while. I am so done with him being gone.

Daily Alaska -- the yucky slushy mushy dirty edition

2009-02-19T13:11:00.002-09:00

It's snowing today, so we are not having the slushy mucky day that was yesterday. Everything on the ground is white, everything else is gray. Not a faboo sunshiny day here in lovely Anchorage, AK.

Last week Thor and I spent hours (well, okay, an hour at least) on the driveway, dealing with all the ice leftover from the ice coating we got in January. It was not fun fluffy easy-to-shovel snow, it was the grimy mucky nasty dirty stuff.

I am so proud...this is Thor wearing his pajama pants while shoveling. He takes after me, for sure.

I'm still here!

2009-02-18T11:45:00.004-09:00

I am just adjusting to the changes in lifestyle I have instituted lately. I am still (starting my third week! A couple more days and it will officially be a habit...) tracking everything I eat, keeping my daily total calories below 1,700 for the most part (I accidentally first typed 17,000 calories. That would be a really really easy diet...) and using the elliptical trainer almost every day. For an hour.

Lucky for me Thor hooked up his portable DVD player to the TV in the garage, so I can watch DVDs while I kill myself...Today I watched Hairspray! while I ellipticalled away. It was great. There is so much music and so much music with a fast tempo it helped me go faster.

The first time I saw that movie, during the scene between Christopher Walken and John Travolta as the Dad and Mom (Travolta plays a hefty woman in the movie, plays her really well in fact) I was distracted by the thought that "oh, man, they are not really going to kiss, are they? " I am very open-minded but that is a step too far even for me, I think. If you haven't seen it, I won't tell you if they do or not...

Anyway. Keeping track of everything (absolutely everything. Every bit of margarine on my toast, every tiny little Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Mini, even the creamer in my coffee.) and using the elliptical and cleaning out the closets (I started spring cleaning early this year, I guess) is using up alot of my energy. To the point where even looking at a blank "create post" page is too much work, never mind filling it up...

But Mark will be back from his latest trip to far off countries today, so life will be back to more or less normal (and I can sleep a little later in the mornings, since Mark gets up with Thor, who has to catch the school bus at 6:30 am. I know. It's crazy.) so I will be back to trying to post something, at least my daily Alaska photo, every day. You lucky lucky people.

(Plus I really need to catch up on your blogs. I have been neglecting them shockingly lately. I am all apologies.)

Terri tagged me for this meme. Fifth folder, fifth photo. For some reason my fifth folder only has one photo in it -- my digital photos are horrifyingly unorganized, chaotic like the rest of me, but it's one I really like. It's me and Mojo, the day we brought him home. Valentine's day, 2005. I think it was 2005. Pretty sure it was 2005. This was Mojo back then, back when he had been starved and neglected. He weighs about 20 pounds more these days, and is very secure in our home. He's such a good dog.

I need to get to the airport now, so I will hopefully be back in a couple hours to post my Daily Alaska!

The Daily Alaska...Thor and I were using snow to "clean" the back windows of the Suburban...and since we were standing there with all that grime blank slate...

Yup. It said "DIe CaPITalIsT PIg" for a couple days, until the road grime got too think. Oh, yeah, we are having a heat wave -- it's hovering around freezing -- and so we are dealing with grime and muck and slush and all that wonderful stuff.

Happy VD!

2009-02-14T13:48:00.000-09:00

Daily Alaska -- Thor Falls Down Edition...

2009-02-12T19:26:00.003-09:00

The Re-enactment...

Because for no discernible reason I feel compelled to post everyday...

2009-02-11T20:42:00.004-09:00

Here's another photo from the toilet.

I have started using a new app on my IPod touch, called Lose It, which is awesome and wonderful and amazing. You tell it how much you weigh, how much you want to weigh, how much weight you want to lose a week (unfortunately this is no Biggest Loser, no Bob and Jillian to make you work out for twelve hours, so the most you can hope for is two pounds a week. Bummer.), and it tells you how many calories you should eat every day to meet your goal. Then you enter everything you eat and all your exercise (vigorous sexual activity burns 55 calories an hour. I am thinking the people doing the figuring weren't doing it right, if that's all the calories they burned...).

I started using it a week ago, I have been tracking my food for a few days before that, and I have been using the elliptical trainer almost every day since the beginning of January. In the last week or so, I have lost three pounds. Woo! And lost it without "dieting" -- I still eat chocolate and salsa con queso (but with multigrain baked chips, not tortilla chips), Doritos, Coca Cola, pastrami sandwiches, and my hotdish made with breakfast sausage and pasta...I just am careful about how much of the junk I eat, and I love apples and spinach and sweet mini peppers, so there's lots of food I can eat as much as I want.

It's feeling like a real change -- I love being able to figure out if I am eating too much fat or not enough fiber, too many calories (or freaky! not enough calories, according to my daily log, I can still eat 1,000 more calories, but I had a huge salad for supper and am so not hungry! Weird.)

And I have actually started needing to use the elliptical trainer. I feel better when I use it.

The big question is, can I keep this up?

The Daily Alaska

2009-02-10T17:06:00.002-09:00

The moon was full, and going over the horizon quickly this morning. I stood on the toilet in my bathroom to take this photo (the only window in that bathroom is a high narrow one that doesn't open -- which is really stupid in a bathroom!) -- that was the best angle for the shot...

favorite photos that I did not take

2009-02-09T12:58:00.002-09:00

Me. In St Peter's Cathedral, Vatican City. I am wearing red shoes, jeans, and a sweatshirt with white letters. It's like Where's Waldo, but way easier...

weekly winners

2009-02-07T17:01:00.006-09:00

Weekly Winners courtesy of the Sarcastic Mom! Find more great photos and great people here !

Taking the day off from blogging...

2009-02-07T12:16:00.002-09:00

Since it's noon and I haven't eaten breakfast, used the elliptical trainer, vacuumed, answered some email from my husband, or had lunch. Basically I have showered and fed the dogs. Two very important things, to be sure, but hardly a strain.

So here's a photo. Enjoy.

Daily Alaska:

This is the pile of snow at the end of the driveway. The photo was taken before the sun came up, so I ended up with an obviously digital and over-saturated photo, but that's the way you can see the detail -- the way the wind was blowing when it snowed,k so that there are little tiny drifts behind the lumps of icy snow.

(I suppose this sort of counts as blogging, but since it only took me two minutes it hardly counts, I think...)

No Running Water in the Alaskan Bush: The Daily Alaska

2009-02-06T00:00:00.003-09:00

Last week, I linked to Mudflats.net, to a story about buying groceries. There is another post, from the same woman, explaining how they handle life without it. Again, I really am very sure I would not want to live like this. I hate laundromats and I love showers too much.

Here's the link...Life in Nunam Iqua - Water.

Last night we had a pretty good snow for a while, and I took a couple photos.

I had just gotten the snow off the Jeep and shoveled around it. Didn't last long...

Snow swirling under the street light.

And the pile of snow that used to be the kids' fort.

This morning I shoveled all that lovely snow off the driveway. There were 3 or 4 inches of snow on it, so it took an hour. But an hour of shoveling is 500 calories. So it's not all bad.

The Daily Alaska

2009-02-05T12:25:00.001-09:00

tiny little flakes
falling for a long long time
make for lots of work

Zach! Don't Look!

2009-02-04T00:00:00.005-09:00

My son Zachary is kinda obsessive about his cell phone and his Zune and his books and his video games and the cases his video games come in and, well, pretty much his stuff.

Seriously. Like a year and a half ago, I was holding his Zune while he was driving, and it slid down my leg onto the floor. If you bring this up to him, he still gets a bit ranty about how I carelessly hurled his Zune down onto the floor of the car. Although, really, his car is very low to the ground and I don't think you could drop anything from a height of higher than two feet onto the front seat floor...

So when he gave me an IPod touch, he bought a really nice leather case for it, and he mentioned I might want to (read SHOULD) get a screen protector for it.

So, Zach, really, I am right about you and your phone and your Zune, and I totally did nothing to it in the car that could have even gotten it sticky, much less scratched or damaged it - admit it -- but now, I think you should look away.

Because this is what the screen on my touch looks like today...

That's just sad. This gadget that is my most favorite inanimate object possibly EVER, and yet it looks like I use it while eating chips and sneezing. (But, hey, this photo has some totally awesome depth of field to it, did you notice? Plus, I think you could lift my fingerprint.)

I really like the case, it's made with recycled and leftover materials, so no cow died directly that I might encase my toy in leather. Nope. The cow died for my shoes and my car seats, but my touch is encased in the leftover scraps. I feel noble.

This is why I love this thing...

Sneezies. A ridiculously easy and mindlessly addictive game wherein you trigger a sneeze chain reaction:

and food IQ, in which I keep track of everything I eat and which makes me really think twice before I eat that potato chip. It tracks calories and fat and stuff, and so far it is really making me stay on track. Like for lunch today I had carrots, spinach, grapes, walnuts, and a string cheese. What I wanted for lunch? A Kirkland chicken bake, which is really delicious chicken and veggies in gravy encased in dough, and 600 calories and 22 grams of fat. Yeah. An hour on the elliptical burns about 500 calories, so while the chicken bake is in fact delicious, it is not an hour on the elliptical trainer delicious.

Now my special chocolate cake with the chocolate glaze, totally worth an hour on the elliptical.

(This is a screen shot of my breakfast -- an apple with cinnamon and sugar.)

And because my sticky messy screen has absolutely nothing to do with Alaska and everything to do with the fact that I misplaced that little black cloth that came with it...

The Daily Alaska.

Yesterday's sunrise, or perhaps more accurately, yesterday's a little while after the sun came up. I think,even without me farting around with my Photoshop Elements, that it has a sort of impressionist painting feel to it.

Later the sky cleared, and we had a beautiful, bright, sunshiny and whoa cold cold cold cold cold cold day. Like a high of FIVE cold. Sixteen below once the sun went down cold.

Still, I am very happy to be here, and not in Tucson, where I would be dreading the very soon return of ridiculously hot weather. (But I really miss my friends and family in Arizona. sigh. Can't you all move to Anchorage, just for a couple years?)

Still no ash. But there's more snow, with seedy underbelly

2009-02-03T17:17:00.003-09:00

First, yeah, no ash, no lava, but lots of seismicity. The best Anchorage can hope for anyway is 1/10 of an inch of ash and a couple of days of being inside. The kids have already had three days of school canceled due to ice, so if we get hit with ash, they will be making up days at the end of the school year, since they only built in two snow days into the school year. Bummer for them.

The Seedy Underbelly of Our Winter Wonderland...

Let's skip right to that, shall we? You know you want to know. It's my own bit of seediness, this time. Not the cars in the ditch, the snow melting on the garage floor (though I will be documenting that stuff later, and worse. Much much worse. Slightly nauseatingly worse.).

This is me, shoveling, this afternoon. Note the fab-u-lous leg ware...not the stunning blue suede boots, but the wonderful pajama pants. I didn't wear them to bed, I don't actually wear pajama pants to bed much because they tend to twist around my legs or bunch up at my knees, which I find unpleasant, but I do wear them when I am just hanging around the house. And since I had not yet showered and was planning on sweating on the elliptical after shoveling, I chose not to change into jeans just to shovel the drive. Plus at times I am deeply deeply lazy.

Not only that, but I did a fairly half-assed job of shoveling. And I took this photo at a very weird angle. Hopefully I will not receive a threatening letter from the Housing Office...I don't know how long I can get away with messy edges, icy patches, and generally unacceptable amounts of snow removed. (That's one of the things you get when you live in Army quarters...guys driving by to check out how well you have shoveled. Or mowed the lawn. Or put your garbage can in the garage in a timely matter. Which judging from the bear bites and claw marks on our garbage can the previous tenants of our quarters failed to do.)

Ouch...and the Daily Alaska. plus volcano watch.

2009-02-02T15:16:00.003-09:00

I have been using our new elliptical trainer almost every day. Burning 500 calories! Which is swell, except I think I ate about 47,000 calories yesterday watching that sad sad Superbowl. I had to watch, but of course the Cardinals lost.

Also, there is a really cool app I downloaded onto my IPod touch (have I mentioned lately how much I love love love my touch? It is awesome and wondrous and fab-u-lous.). This app allows me to enter all the food I eat and it keeps track of calories and fat and stuff. I can even include the calories I burn by exercise. It's much easier to bypass that handful of chips if I have to look at how many calories I am eating, and I know how long it takes me to burn that many calories on the elliptical trainer.

(The touch has been sucking up my time, which is why I am remiss in reading the blogs I try to comment on regularly. I promise to get back to reading and commenting, I miss you guys!)

The Daily Alaska is a shot of a raven hanging out waiting for the eagles to clear out so he can go check for leftovers. I love watching ravens. They are one of those animals that look sorta regal and majestic, until you see them hopping around the neighbor's garbage can or trying to fly off with a slice of bread.

latest entry from the AVO...

Redoubt: Restlessness at Redoubt Volcano continues. Seismic activity remains elevated and is well above background levels. A vapor plume is intermittently visible in the AVO web camera. It appears to rise no higher than the volcano\'s summit.An observation and gas-measurement flight to the volcano is en route now.AVO continues to monitor potential activity with seismic, satellite and radar data. The volcano has not erupted.The Aviation Color Code remains at ORANGE and the Volcano Alert Level remains at WATCH.

Woo. Elevated seismic activity! Maybe we will be watching the ash fall soon. I am very happy to be far enough away that ash is the only danger.

weekly winners...no volcano yet edition

2009-02-01T12:58:00.003-09:00

Driving is annoying these days. The roads are a combination of snow pack, ice, and bare roads, so around curves the lanes sort of unexpectedly merge. Or it's just plain hard to figure out exactly where the lanes are.

Thor took this photo of steam rising from a local power plant.

This was a little weird...I could see the moon, but it was snowing.

Mean Mom photo.

Zach, who lives in Arizona, is the only one who regularly drinks tea, but still, my cheese box in Anchorage is still full of tea.

Some of my favorite cups and saucers. I bought them in London a few years ago, even though I knew it would be a pain in the neck getting them home in my carryon. Cute dishes are worth it.

The snow plow leaves trails of snow for the snowblowers and trucks to pick up. Sometimes lately we have these piles of snow running down the side or middle of our streets for a couple days. It's not the handiest thing.

Waiting for the snowblower.

Outside the front window.

Another footprint from one of the dogs. And the snow that's easy to shovel, because it's very light.

These plants are much prettier in the summer.

Weekly Winners! Thanks, Lotus, you Sarcastic Mom!

And oh, yeah, the volcano is still at Watch status. No change. Here's the latest message from Alaska Volcano Observatory:

Unrest at Redoubt Volcano continues. Seismicity has remained relatively constant over the last 24 hours and is still well above background. A vapor plume is intermittently visible in the AVO web camera. It appears to rise no higher than the volcano's summit.

An observation and gas-measurement flight to the volcano yesterday noted continued vigorous fumarolic activity and runoff of muddy water down the north flank of the volcano. Volcanic gas was detected; data analysis is ongoing to compare these measurements with previously measured gas output.

Staff are currently monitoring the volcano 24 hours a day. We will issue further information as it becomes available.

I didn't know Seismicity was a word.

No volcano yet. Other stuff instead.

2009-01-31T00:00:00.002-09:00

You know how I pointed out Abe always looks confused or befuddled or maybe just a bit nervous?

Perhaps it's due to his big brother Mojo.

Because while Abe looks confused or nervous in lots of photos, Moj just looks demented. Look at him. Would you want to wake up from a nice nap in a sunny spot, stretch a little, glance up and see that staring at you? You might wander around looking a little apprehensive too.

(And just so you know, I am just kidding. Mojo and Abe get along great. Moj is occasionally cranky, but then Abe has been known to drop toys on Mojo's head when Mojo is sound asleep, so I think they are even.)

The Daily Alaska

Want to come sit on my front porch with me?

Yeah. Me neither. My butt gets cold just looking at these photos.

VOLCANO!!!!!!

2009-01-30T12:13:00.004-09:00

Yeah. Mount Redoubt, 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, is gonna blow.

Probably. It's been very seismically active since last weekend, and they are thinking this is significant.

But Alaska has ten percent of the world's active volcanoes -- that pesky Ring of Fire. No, not the Johnny Cash song...

but the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Anyhow. Alaska has ten percent of the world's active volcanoes, so this is not a surprise. People are buying dust masks and air filters for their cars and furnace filters for their homes. We are not going to go anywhere if we have ashfall, so I won't worry about the cars, and I will be rooting around in the garage to find the dust masks we have for painting and fabric dyeing. I have to go out anyway, so I will buy some too, if there are any left in the stores.

We have a freezer pretty well stocked with meat and frozen veggies and pizza and egg rolls, plus several dozen cans of veggies (they had a great sale on them, so I stocked up. Turns out I was planning ahead instead of being cheap.) And Costco quantities of rice, and four or five brownie mixes, so the food is covered.

We will have to cover the computers and tvs and stuff with garbage bags, so ash doesn't get into them and wreck em, and not turn them on, because the fans will suck the volcanic dust into them. whoops.

So I might have something interesting to blog about, but I won't be able to turn on my computer. We have forced air heat, so there is potential for ash to get into the house that way, even if we stay inside. Plus we will have to let the dogs out occasionally.

But the ash can't last forever, and my camera card holds at least 5,000 photos. So sooner or later, if this thing blows, I will be telling you all about it.

For the Daily Alaska...
Today is snowy, but with a very bright spot in the sky...

This isn't a great photo, but you get the idea. The little white specks are not dust on my lens, but teeny little snowflakes, and the bright spot is the sun almost burning through the clouds. It was bright enough you couldn't look at it directly, anyway.

Behind those power lines, usually, I can see the Chugach Mountains. Except today there are a whole bunch of snowflakes and clouds between me and them. Okay by me. I like snow. And as a plus, I really don't think there are any active volcanoes in them. whew.

My children always say I am mean...

2009-01-28T14:43:00.004-09:00

That when they were worried about their little dragons rather than me when I fell in front of a large group of Europeans, it was no more than I deserved. That when Zeke asked me if I was going to remember it every time I said ouch after my concussion (I fell skating, hit my head, and have a gap of several hours in my memory.), it was my own fault that my children are sarcastic little rats. That the smart aleck answers should be no surprise.

So it should be no surprise to anyone that I would choose this (insert downward pointing arrow here) as my Daily Alaska:

This is the first in my new series...The Seedy Underbelly of Our Winter Wonderland.

This morning there was a weird whumping sound going on. Actually it's been going on all day. Just "whump. whump. whump." don't know what it is, but it bugs the dogs. They keep barking at it. Weird damn dogs. I opened the curtains to see if I could see anything going on, the source of the whump, and instead I saw this...

A bunch of guys milling around in the parking lot down the street from us. At about 9 am (and could I just point out that it's 9 am in that photo, and yet looks like early morning or late evening. I am so done with these late sunrises...and yes, I will be cranky about the sun being out all night. It's not natural.) they lined up, yelled "hooah" or something, and then scattered:

I didn't realize we lived that close to some unit.

Also, I find it really annoying that I managed to make those two photos such different colors. They were taken just a few minutes apart, and yet, I didn't do exactly the same thing with Photoshop, so they look different. Ugh.

I told you...

2009-01-27T13:57:00.003-09:00

Abe always looks puzzled or confused or wondering or perplexed. I think it's the shape of his eyes, maybe the way his ear always stands up. Only one ear stands up because they wrecked the cartilage in his ear when he was a puppy. I don't know exactly how, one day I noticed it was floppier than the other. But I do know they play really hard. Both of them used to be covered with battle scars all the time. They played really hard. They still play hard, I think they just don't play quite the same way. Currently they try to grab the other one's hind leg and knock him over or they do the chest bump.

Instead of a photo today, I am going to post a link for The Daily Alaska.

It's a post on The Mudflats, an Alaska blogger. This post is a description of what it's like to go buy groceries when you live out in the Bush in Alaska. It's pretty shocking how expensive stuff is -- 2 loaves of bread are $11.98, gas is $7.25 a gallon, and 144 Huggies diapers, a whopping $82.55. (I suppose she could use cloth diapers, but they have to haul water to their house, and it costs them a buck for 10 gallons...She didn't describe how she does laundry, but I would think it can't be cheap either.) I live in Anchorage, and I like Anchorage. I have no desire to live out in the Bush, and can't imagine why anyone would want to. But I know people who love this lifestyle, anything to keep them out of crowds and large groups of people. Go check it out. It's really interesting and surprising.

Daily Alaska...Dang it's cold edition

2009-01-26T13:33:00.003-09:00

The Daily Alaska:

Okay, compared to a couple weeks ago, it's not that cold:

(Tangent alert...This thing is great. There's a unit outside so I can see how cold it is without having to step outside or near a window or open a door or anything. But it connects to some satellite and that's how it tells what time it is. Except that apparently they didn't think the Alaska Time Zone warranted inclusion. So mine is an hour fast, set to Pacific Time. Jerks.)

But the dogs were making me crazy. See, if it's way below cold, in the negative digits, they run out, poo and come right back in. When it's bright sunny and 19 degrees, they don't want to go outside and sit down, but it's warm enough that they want to go out and hang a little while, see if there are any neighbor dogs to bark at, watch for cars and trucks coming down the street, sniff the wind for moose. But they don't want to go out and sit down. They want to go out, do their stuff, smell and bark and make sure the world knows this is their territory, and then come back in to warm up for ten minutes.

Which means every few minutes I was letting them in or out. Or one in and one out.

And the house feels overheated today. It's hard to get the temperature right sometimes, especially with forced air heat. It feels way too hot in a lot of buildings, unpleasant. And I love fresh air, as opposed to air that has been conditioned or heated and funneled through dusty ducts and is full of indoor pollutants.

So I opened the back door.

Which is right next to my computer. Five feet behind me. (I almost wrote one less foot, but then I remembered Momisodes post about the Chinese New Year, and how you are not supposed to say that word...and BTW, happy New Year!)

The dogs loved it. They went out and barked at the cars and trucks driving down our street, then ran in to the front window to bark some more as they drive past the front of our house. Then they would get bored with that one and go back outside to wait for more trespassers.

Lucky for me, Target had these on clearance this past weekend:

Unfortunately these arm warmers didn't come with a matching pair of toe and ankle warmers.

I have closed the door again. Too cold. There is a window open in the living room, but just a crack because it's on the ground floor, and there is a window seat right in front of it. So I can easily imagine the dogs getting all worked up about some car driving past and going right out the window to confront it.

Other random stuff:

Went to Costco. Means king-size quantities of stuff we (maybe) can't live without:
dish soap, cookies, food my husband can make (the Thai Kitchen stuff), instant (and surprisingly good) mashed potatoes (I know. Instant mashed potatoes, yuck. But these taste buttery, they have a decent texture, and when I am pressed for time, they are a decent side dish or a good shortcut for making shepherd's pie), apples, grilled chicken strips, frozen egg rolls, mini sweet peppers, broccoli, spinach, cans of diced tomatoes, potatoes. I love Costco.

(The instant potatoes are in that gray carton behind the really good cookies. A whole big carton of goofy little mashed potatoes pellets.)
And these:

Stroop waffels. Caramel wafers. Completely delicious cookies from the Netherlands. The caramel gets all warm and gooey when you balance it on top of a hot cup of coffee. Just don't forget it or it falls in and you end up with a ucky sludge in the bottom of your cup. Very hard to find in the US. Actually, this photo sums up my Dutch experience pretty well -- Dutch, German, Belgian food plus Polish pottery. (The Belgians make the best frites in the world -- they should be called Belgian fries, not french. Ask Jientje, she will tell you. )

And finally, one of my favorite and most treasured things.

This is a little box my grandfather carved. Just a little box, with a little cat on top. I don't know how old it is, except way old. No real value, except to me and my family. It's one of the things that movers never ever get to touch -- along with useful stuff like dishes and bedding and clothes and books and computers and TV and video games -- you know, the stuff that makes living in a hotel or an empty house easier, there is a box of stuff like this that we drag along with us when we move. The important stuff.

Weekly Winners

2009-01-24T23:01:00.003-09:00

As usual, we can thank Lotus the Sarcastic Mom for feeding our Weekly Winners habit!

No more gorgeous frost, but at least it snowed a little bit.

fresh snow, fresh tracks

Nice ring to it... President Barack OBama.

slippery roads

unfortunately the fence was not the only victim of the slippery roads...I wonder where the scarecrow's head landed...

blowing snow? or a bit of fog? I dunno.

the sun doesn't reach down into some of the valleys in the winter.

It's tough, but somebody has to photograph all the gorgeous mountains.

We love the sunshine and the mountains and the snow.

fog in the valley.

Yeah. I don't know how many more photos of mountains and snow and fog I can take. So I thought I would throw in these photos of my new favoritest gadget ever in the history of the world:

My IPod touch. It is awesome beyond words. I can check my email, listen to music, store my favorite 400 photos, keep my calendar, check out YouTube videos, play games, surf the web, check my twitter and facebook pages, watch podcasts of Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow, write myself notes, and oh, yeah, listen to my music!

See that brightly colored bar at the bottom of the screen? That means that I have used a big chunk of my IPod touch's 8GB memory for music and video. The purple section means that I have to either get busy watching those podcasts of various news shows or delete them...since I have barely started loading music onto it -- I only have 166 songs on there so far. That is not enough. There's not even any Linkin Park on it yet. That ain't right.

Wordle.net

2009-01-24T13:43:00.004-09:00

Wordle.net is really fun and addictive and I think I will be heading back there regularly. You enter your text or your blog address and the program makes a cool word cloud. You can mess with shape and color and font. Crazy fun. (If you click on the images it takes you to larger images of these at wordle.net.)

my blog

this is the wordle for one of my favorite posts ever:
hysterical hanta virus infection!

Oh, yeah, apparently there was an earthquake this morning, 62 miles deep in the Cook Inlet.
158 miles SW of Anchorage.

I didn't feel anything, which is fine with me. I am not a fan of earthquakes.

The Daily Alaska.

2009-01-24T12:56:00.003-09:00

Last Summer.

Today. Yes, it is snowing.

The Daily Alaskan.

2009-01-23T15:20:00.004-09:00

Last summer I took a walk with the kids. It was shockingly lush and green -- kind of obscenely so after the harsh Sonoran desert. Really, all the thick grass and plants covered with blooms and so many plants and trees and so tall and green and growing with abandon. It just felt obscenely and embarrassingly fertile. Like the plant world equivalent of those fertility idols with the big bottoms and boobs.

Can't forget the Daily Alaska...

2009-01-22T14:30:00.002-09:00

Although, really, today's should be the Daily Arizona.

Because this is what happens...

when you have a cute little Santa ornament (really cute, very little - only about an inch high) made of wax. And you put it away with the other ornaments in the garage in Arizona. Because garages in Arizona are stupidly hot. You arrive in Anchorage, it's Christmas, you buy a tree, haul the bins of ornaments out, start unwrapping them. You find a chunk of tissue paper with the remains of the wax ornament melted into it.

This past weekend, Mark and I put away all the ornaments and decorations. We hauled the boxes of holiday stuff out of the store room in the garage, and rearranged everything. Packed up all the Easter stuff together, got all the Halloween stuff in bins and piled them all up together, walked through the house, gathering up all the last bits of Christmas stuff. Used the very last empty Rubbermaid bin (tub? I call them bins, I think because of my years of living in Europe and having friends who don't speak American!) for the lights and random bits.

Then that evening I was talking to my sister on the phone when Mark wandered by and set a basket down next to me. It was full of ornaments. Christmas ornaments. Christmas ornaments that I had been looking for, but thought had been packed away. Christmas ornaments with no bin to pack them into. Christmas ornaments that are still in the basket on the window seat in the living room, because I hate packing Christmas ornaments up and I don't have an empty bin. Plus I threw away all the extra tissue paper, the tissue paper that turns out was extra because I missed a whole basket full of ornaments. Sigh.

I should have a t shirt made....

2009-01-22T10:20:00.004-09:00

History because I have a rather gruesome (really, the sanitary habits of the people of the Middle Ages leaves so very very much to be desired! And I would suggest you avoid reading about it if you have a weak stomach...) fondness for books about plagues of the Middle Ages.

Lit because I read. Incessantly. Too much. All the time. Ask my family.

From this time forward, you'll hold the title:
Uber Cool History / Lit Geek

Carry it proudly!

Quick Fun Facts:

375218 unique people have taken this test.

Based on these unique user's answers...

29.8% of test takers are gals,
68.4% are guys,
...the rest (1.8%) are confused.

(I am not confused. I checked girl.)

15.5% of test takers get aroused by "iPhone," while
36.9% get utterly ill.

(Me and the IPhone -- meh. I have my IPod Touch. I do not want it to be my cell phone or my camera. I like having three separate items to do those functions for me. I don't want my camera to play music or make calls, I don't want my phone to take photos. I want my IPod to play music and videos and store my favorite photos. If one thing did all those things, it wouldn't do as good a job as my three separate things do.)

32.2% of all test takers would choose the Internet over sex, and
26.6% of married test takers prefer the Internet over sex.

(Choose the internet over sex? I like you guys, but not that much.)

Only 4.5% of test takers own a Jar Jar Binks t-shirt, though
49.7% of them don't own a lightsaber (priorities == messed up).

(While there are half a dozen light sabers in this house, none of them are mine. I own no Star Wars action figures, toys, guns, clothing,books, nada. I just play with my kidsSW stuff.)

I really really like this guy's message...

2009-01-21T09:39:00.007-09:00

From IllDoctrine.com

***** ***** *****

The Daily Alaska...
We had a little snow yesterday. So now the sheets of ice are barely covered with snow...great potential for wipeouts. Makes me want to find some icy sidewalk and lurk with my camera ready just in case somebody wipes out. Or I could just try to get the dogs playing in the backyard -- there's a sheet of ice in the middle, that has already taken Mojo out twice. I wonder if he still remembers...

This is a close up shot of a paw print in the new snow on the deck:

WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-01-20T10:09:00.004-09:00

It's a brand new day. And a very very good one.

Screen shots from NBC this morning:

I really like the bottom of the screen...President Barack Obama.

A sudden change at WhiteHouse.gov...

What a change in the Vice President's office...Joe Biden is so cheerful and open, and Dick Cheney always struck me as surly and angry and unfriendly.

the Daily Alaska photo. An obvious choice for today, the Bald Eagle.

Weird Dreams. Daily Alaska.

2009-01-19T00:00:00.000-09:00

A couple nights ago, I woke up around 3 am-ish. And didn't go back to sleep for a long time. I coughed, I flipped over, I poked Mark (gently) because he was snoring, I thought about the questions I was going to ask for the interview with Patsy and Kim. I thought about whatever it was that I should have done the day before, or what I should do the next day. Wished the stupid dog would stop stretching and scratching the wall -- Mojo starts out curls in a ball, then as he gets warm, he stretches out, then he rolls over onto his back, then flips over onto the other side. Unfortunately sometimes this means his legs get sorta crunched up against the wall or the side of the bed or me, if he's sleeping on the bed when Mark is out of town. Then he starts dreaming and kicking his legs, scratching whatever they happen to be pushed up against...

But. Eventually I fell asleep, only to have a freaky dream.

I was in a house, at night, my house, I guess, but not exactly the one I am living in now. It was dark. I went out the front door and looked around the neighborhood. All the houses in the neighborhood were either under construction or boarded up.

So I was watching some construction or something at one of the houses down the street when I heard a gentle moo. And then another one.

I went inside and closed the storm door, just as a heifer came around the corner of the house and looked in at me. I slammed the door, had a lot of trouble trying to get it to latch.

There was more mooing from the heifer, except it was louder and much much meaner sounding.

I finally got the doors latched, but the cow started kicking at the door. I backed away from the door, listening to this ferocious mooing and kicking.

Then I woke up.

Eventually I gave up, got up, and went downstairs. I turned on the tv and read until probably around 7 am, when I finally fell asleep.

I slept until about 7:20, when my family started getting up.

What a really great start to the day.

the daily alaska...

Thor doesn't seem to realize he's not in Arizona any more. And yes, it is snowing.

Weekly Winners - heat wave edition

2009-01-18T00:00:00.002-09:00

Weekly Winners courtesy of the Sarcastic Mom! Find more great photos and great people here !

It warmed way up this week. Our lovely snow is all gone, leaving behind it's evil ucky sloppy slushy twin.

All the frost and snow has disappeared from the trees. My gorgeous winter landscape has become a grey and ugly and depressing landscape.

Some of these photos have already appeared this week on my blog. Sorry if you have already seen them!

sad Christmas tree leftovers

Proof of a visit from the duck-footed man

do not fall into the ditch

I'm melting!

no more white

chipping away...

and the reason for the chipping.

freezing rain on the deck

sad remnants of the big fort

these were almost completely buried at one point

last night our power went out. Right in the middle of Kung Fu Panda (we didn't get to finish watching it until this morning. Great movie!) And since we had candles burning, and my camera was right there, I did a little tossing...

Just move the "n" in Santa, and you have Satan...

rainy days

weather moving in, across the Chugach Mountains

Daily Alaska Photo

2009-01-17T15:40:00.003-09:00

The clouds finally broke, and we had a beautiful and warm sunny day.

I have finished the questions...Feel free to answer them if you would like, except for Patsy and Kim. You two have to answer them...

1. What is your earliest childhood memory?

2. What is your dream vacation? Where would you go if you had unlimited funds and were excused from all responsibilities?

3. Where is your favorite place to be?

4. Tell me about your favorite book or movie or song or something.

5. If you were the supreme ruler of the universe, what petty little pet peeve would be a capital crime? And what would be the punishment? (Like, would people who suck their teeth at the table be banished to the outer rings of Pluto? Or maybe people who drive for miles with their left turn signal on might be allowed to only ever make right turns...)

Truly random photo. and the daily alaska.

2009-01-16T10:07:00.004-09:00

Patsy tagged me for a photo meme...since photos are one of my favorite things, this is fun. I haven't actually checked which photo I will be posting yet, so it could be some horrible blurry photo of some random child's tongue or eye. Or the 8,000th photo of snow I will have posted on my blog.

Our snow is ucky and dirty and melting fast these days. No more winter wonderland for us. It looks more like that seedy carnival with the dodgy rides and the botulism corn dogs these days.

Big puddles of brown water, gray ice on the roads, all the leaves and dirt and road gunk and stuff that has landed on the snow and been buried is now on top. The nasty gray overcast sky doesn't help... Typical spring melt, but in January for some reason.

I think I prefer the really cold clear crisp days, especially since walking and driving wasn't absolutely treacherous. Last night I had a thing, and getting into my friend's car was the first challenge -- the sidewalk and driveway are sheets of ice. Then the parking lot when we got there was a sheet of ice. They melted the ice only on the sidewalk up to the front door, the rest of the sidewalk and the parking lot were solid ice and everybody had to walk very very carefully...like a bunch of creaky old women.

So here's the meme:
1. Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or where ever you store your pictures.
2. Go to the 6th folder, then pick the 6th picture in that folder.
3. Post that picture on your blog and the story that goes with the picture.
4. Tag 5 people you know (or don't know) to do the same.
5. Leave a comment on their blog or an e-mail letting them know you chose them.

This photo was taken in Tucson, at the Boneyard. The AMARG -- The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group -- is the final resting place for hundreds of planes. When the military retires a plane, or a group of planes, they park them here in the desert. They also buy obsolete planes, planes that are past their airworthiness date. Some of them are mothballed, and could be called back into service. Others are cannibalized for parts, and the government actually makes money with this organization -- when we took the tour, the guide said they were making around $12 for every dollar they spent. Shocking in a government agency, I know.

It's amazing to see from the air (the link above has an aerial photograph). There are dozens of rows of planes, and at night it is the enormous pitch black area on the edge of Tucson.

One day we took the kids to the zoo, and all day we heard and saw Army cargo planes flying overhead. It was a fleet of planes that had developed cracks in the wings, so they were being mothballed. And the next few times we drove past the Boneyard, we saw them sitting there.

It was a really interesting place to take photos. I took a bunch of photos, and then I played with them with the Photoshop CS3 free trial I had downloaded (and which program I am still lusting after, but at $650, lust is all I will do.) This photo is part of that batch of experimentation.

The Daily Alaska Photo...

The visit from the ~~pigeon-toed~~ duck-footed man is captured for all time (or until we get some salt or ice melt) on our driveway. (I edited this, because Lou is right...pigeon-toed feet point in. See the comments.)

2008 in Review. Part April. and the Daily Alaska.

2009-01-15T00:00:00.001-09:00

April. Already hot in Tucson. Mark was still in Anchorage while the kids and I were still in Tucson...

Zach went to his senior prom. He met Jessica there, for some reason, so I didn't get to see her. Bummer.

Thor finally got his braces removed. He was kind of in shock. I mean, yeah, he usually takes goofy portraits -- the majority of his school portraits have looked like he was out under the bleachers getting stoned beforehand. (Thor knows I think this, he finds it funny. It doesn't bother him when we mention it...)

All was not swell in April. The Suburban's driver's inside door handle broke. Leaving me with the white trash option of rolling the window down to open the door, or crawling across to the passenger door. The right rear door handle broke too. We fixed them before we started our trip to Anchorage...13 days of travel with two broken door handles, no thank you.

It was Abe's turn to pick up a cholla on a walk. I really really hate cholla.

Aqua Caliente is a park in Tucson. It used to be a ranch. There's a warm springs there -- it used to be a hot springs and a cold springs near each other, but the rancher thought it would be a great idea to dynamite the springs, make them bigger. Instead, he made them merge into one warm springs...Guys and their explosives.

In April the desert is in bloom...I love cacti flowers. They are so bright and colorful and waxy.

Octotillo...one of my favorite Sonoran Desert plants.

Oooh and Zach got a tattoo. Yeah, it's PacMan. He had been talking about this tattoo for a year or so, he is very happy with it, and he has been told repeatedly his PacMan and ghosts will spread as his bicep gets bigger...

Mojo and Abe went with me to pick up Tess from school all the time. They love being in the car. I think they liked it better in Tucson, since the windows could be rolled down more of the time. When it's ten below, I do NOT open the windows for them.

And the Daily Alaska Photo...

We warmed up. Way up. It was 44 degrees ABOVE zero today. Last night we had freezing rain, the kids got out of school for the day because the roads were too slippery (they have their fingers crossed for tomorrow being a snow day too). This is what my driveway looks like after a dusting of snow, which we didn't get to brush off before it was hit with the freezing rain.