Life: As Seen Through the Eyes of Ruth

Djuna and Her IV:

I’m getting much better at this and was able to give Junie her fluids almost by myself last night. Rob only had to step in to help once, holding the bag up for me so I could see the markings on it. I’ll adjust things a bit in my procedure so that he won’t have to next time. Junie and I were both much more comfortable with it, and the whole thing barely took 10 minutes. She really does feel better now, and is learning all about the water fountain, too. She’s able to drink from it without getting water up her nose even.

2^nd Hike of the Season:

The second “hike” of the season was not very well attended (again) but we had fun regardless. Mother met Rob and me up at Eklutna Lake for a nice leisurely stroll on the trails, and even managed to do some beach combing while we were at it. The weather was wonderful even though it was raining quite heavily in town that day.

1^st Discovery Tour of the year:

My first tour was this Saturday. I was rather nervous, even after the training session a few days prior, but managed to remember most everything and gave a good run I think. There were 9 people signed up for the tour: a family of 7 from here in Anchorage, and two sisters visiting from Nova Scotia and Maine. I need to work on the route I take: I only have 2 hours to talk and simply cannot show them the entire zoo in that amount of time. We ended up having to literally run to make it to the shuttle bus at the end.

Zoo Update:

We have a few babies at the zoo this year, most of them orphans. The most popular one would be the baby polar bear that was found up north and brought to us a week or so ago. She is cute beyond belief and is settling in to life at the zoo quite nicely. She will be moving on as soon as we can find a forever-home for her, but for now she is recovering in the infirmary. We also have 3 baby moose, 2 baby musk ox, 1 baby yak, and a new snow leopard that is one year old.

There’s lots of renovation going on as well. Expanding the polar bear exhibit to accommodate their future breeding is progressing well. They have the plans drawn up and are now focusing on raising the funds to start construction. At the same time, they will be redoing the old elephant enclosure to create a new habitat for our moose, and will be turning the old moose enclosure into a bigger area for the musk ox. The snowy owl gets a new flight pen soon, too, and the mountain sheep pen is being rearranged to make room for the mountain goat to have half of the rock wall. Repair work on the seal/otter exhibit is scheduled for this summer as well, so the harbor seals may end up back in Seward for a while, depending on how that goes.

Remodeling Update:

The remodeling isn’t going quite as quickly as I’d hoped it would. I got all the trim sanded and painted (thank you, Lorna!) and have just one more coat of dark green left to paint on the walls. Rob promised me that he and his son would come soon to finish the painting and install the trim. That leaves just the ceiling to do – and that can wait indefinitely. I plan on working out the furniture arrangement tonight using my trusty graph paper and measuring stick, and will hopefully get Rob to finish fixing the table and chairs for me so that I can move it all up there in the next few weeks. It’s going to be great, if I can just get there from here.

Homework for Katy:

My niece has a writing assignment for one of her classes in college (International Political Economy) and has chosen to write about Earthwatch. Since I am quite familiar with that company she has asked me to help her out. So – I have a homework assignment! It’s kind of fun, actually, especially since I know I’m not the one who is going to be graded on this… Anyway, she sent me a list of questions and I am going thru them one by one, writing up my experiences on each subject based on the three different expeditions I went on.  Once her paper is thru and she’s turned it in I’ll post my answers here for you to read: I think you might enjoy them.

My Job:

Today is my one year anniversary working at Treeline Construction! It’s a good job, despite the lack of hours during the winter months. I am hoping to fix things somehow so that I can continue working with them and not have to worry so much about paying bills this next winter. With a little of what I call “creative banking” I think I may actually be able to, but I’m still checking the papers each day for a part-time job, just in case. Maybe I can talk my vet in to letting me help out each morning?

Water Fight!

I was sitting on the couch relaxing after eating a stack of sourdough pancakes (with cranberries!) for breakfast, when he came up to me with the watering can in hand. He was doing the weekly plant-watering chore, and since there was a plant right beside the couch I thought nothing of it.

He watered me!

He SAYS he just intended to “pretend” to water me, but I have my doubts. He actually poured water all over my lap, and then said “Oops!”

I of course had to retaliate.

I tried to take the watering can from him, but he wouldn’t let go of it. We were in the kitchen by then, so I simply took his hand and made the water slosh out.

Of course, it got all over me and barely a drop got on to him. So I did it again, this time getting more of it on him. The watering can holds quite a bit of water, by the way.

In the end we both got soaked, and the kitchen floor got a good washing, too.

First “Hike” of the Season

The first hike of the season snuck up on me this year. I usually send out an announcement a week prior so that people can get their schedules arranged around the hike, then send out a reminder on Friday to ensure they all remember. This time, however, it was Friday night – almost Saturday morning, truth be told – when I looked at my schedule and realized what day it was. We had a poor turnout as a result: just me, Rob and Mother.

The 2011 Family Hiking Series began at the Bird Creek trail. I told people to meet up at the parking lot at mile 102.1 but that turned out to be closed for the season – so we had to park across the street instead. It was okay, just a bit scary crossing the highway right there.

It was such a beautiful day, even though it was a bit windy. We walked for a good 2 hours, down to the waterfall and back. I realized once again that I really do need to break down and actually buy myself a windbreaker. It also started to sprinkle a little bit while we walked, but that was okay. We need the rain, and it felt so good to be out and about that we didn’t mind getting wet.

That just gave us an excuse to stop at the Indian House for their scrumptious Fish & Chips afterwards!

IV for Djuna

Djuna had to go to the vet’s once again this weekend, this time to teach me how to give her subcutaneous fluids. I had been thinking this would mean simply giving her a shot once a week, but is actually a bit more involved than that. It’s an actual IV bag with a drip line and everything. Thankfully I don’t have to worry about hitting a vein or anything like that. I just poke it in her skin and that’s pretty much it.

The vet tech showing me how to do it all was very nice and understanding, particularly when I (rather surprisingly) almost passed out after seeing the size of the needle involved. That sucker is HUGE! My poor little girl…

Thankfully, since the needle is huge, the whole procedure only takes a few minutes. I’m to take a good-sized pinch of skin from Djuna’s shoulders, poke the needle in just under the skin, get it to sit comfortably on her back, then open the drip and let 100-150 cc’s of fluid flow into her. She gets quite a bubble of fluids on her back, which falls down either side of her shoulders (it looks like she has shoulder-pads) – but that gets absorbed into her body soon enough.

I am to do this once or twice a week for the next two to three months. Then she goes back in to get another blood/urine test done to see how the kidneys are doing. If all is well, we’ll continue with the IV, testing every once in a while to make sure it’s all good.

Another way to get fluids into her is to provide her with numerous water bowls all over the house. I even got my niece Lauren to track down a good deal on one of those perpetual water fountains for her (Thank You, Lauren!) so she can have fresh running water any time she wants.

I think she’ll enjoy that.

Birthday Camping Trip

Happy Birthday to Me! It’s a bit late: my actual birthday was on the 15^th but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had a chance to update my blog since then. Anyway, I am proud to announce that I am 46 years old this year. I worked very hard to get here, so I am not about to short-change myself by claiming that I’m younger than I am. Most people are a bit surprised by that, but that’s how I feel.

This year, Rob took me camping up north. We spent the weekend up in Talkeetna, officially to look at some property he’s interested in but really just to get out, pitch a tent, and ride our bikes a bit.

Our campsite was at a campground right near the Susitna River. The season is a bit early, so there weren’t very many other campers nearby. We did manage to gather a few of them at our fire though: one girl camping by herself – a guide employed by Parks & Rec – and another couple of girls up from Wasilla “just getting away”. We all stood around the bon fire (Rob can’t have just a little fire, it has to be a huge, impressive one) roasting marshmallows and telling each other our stories.

The weather was great: slightly overcast, but still nice and warm during the day with just the right amount of chill during the night to make you really appreciate your sleeping bag. I had been told that break-up was still going on up there so had come prepared for muck – but honestly it wasn’t bad at all. I barely got my shoes dirty!

Camping in town meant that we didn’t need to bring a lot of food with us: we ate at the brewery for dinner and walked down to one of the lodges nearby for lunch the next day. We did bring our breakfast with us, though: hot oatmeal cooked in our cups with water boiled in Rob’s new flash-boiler thingy that he got himself from REI. I don’t remember the actual brand name of the thing – but man, its way cool. It only took a minute or two and we were both not only enjoying our oatmeal but also drinking our morning cup of tea & coffee.

Talkeetna is a very bike-friendly place with a trail leading all the way thru town and on up along the Spur road all the way back to the Parks Highway. We didn’t go all the way out to the Parks, however. I have to admit I was very intimidated by the huge hill just out of town so turned around right there and headed back the way we came. I’m just not that good on my bike yet. I’m sure Rob would have had no problems at all, but he was a gentleman and let me dictate the course. We did explore a bit off the main road, in and around some of the subdivisions back behind the airport, though. That was fun, especially when we found ourselves at the corner of F Street and Beaver.

“Ha! Look at that!” I said, “We’re at the corner of F and Beaver!”

Okay… so my sense of humor tends towards the gutter sometimes. What can I say? We had a fund weekend, regardless.

Yard Work

I found the best way to get the yard work done: have a garage sale! Oh, and invite your Mother, sister-in-law, and boyfriend, too. My sister-in-law raked the yard while Mother stuffed all the leaves into sacks, then Mother weeded the garden. Meanwhile, Rob was out back raking up all those weeds!

I tell you: my yard looks totally awesome now, and all I had to do was man the garage sale. I think that’s a pretty good trade.

After the garage sale closed down on Sunday I did go out back and help out; honestly I did. All those weeds Rob raked had to be carried over to the mulch pile – which is more work than it seems at first, mainly because there were sticker bushes hidden in the pile and I have no work gloves.

Once all that was taken care of we set to work on the fence between my “share-a-wall” neighbor’s yard and mine. Many, many years ago it had fallen down. I had it propped up with a 2x4 which worked quite well, but was not exactly a “professional job”. Rob fixed it up in no time, and even worked on removing some dead branches from the spruce tree in the corner. My mock orange now has lots of room to expand, and the birds have more room to get to the birdfeeders as well.

The fence between me and my “share-a-yard” neighbor was our next focus – and it turned out to be a lot more work than we planned for. The soil right there is completely saturated so all the posts are severally rotten. In fact we just barely touched them and they all fell over leaving the fence propped up by only a nail on either end. Rob tried to dig some post holes but the mud was so bad he couldn’t get the posts set. We’ll have to pick up some cement and hope that fixes the problem.

Happy Mother's Day

I hope you all had a good Mother’s Day this year.

I’m almost embarrassed to say that my mother worked at my garage sale for her special day. I swear she said she didn’t mind, but I still feel bad about that.

I did take her out to dinner, at least.

Rob and I took her to probably THE BEST Italian restaurant in town: Pizza Olympia. They are 3 generations of extremely good cooks offering up home-made pastas, pizzas, and desserts.

We treated ourselves to a glass of wine (a Burgundy for Rob, a Blush for Mother, and Chablis for me) before our main course of Leg of Lamb, Seafood Linguini, and Spaghetti with Mushrooms, followed by yet another glass of wine and an order of baklava to be shared.

Oh my gosh, it was all so good!

Garage Sale

My garage sale went rather well this weekend. I want to send out a HUGE thank you to my mother and sister-in-law for helping out. I doubt I could have done it at all without them.

We set up around 9:00 Saturday morning so that by 10:00 we were ready for our first customer. Heather brought 3 tables to add to the 3 I had, and Mother brought change to seed the money box with as well as tons of food to keep us all well-fed.

The stream of garage-sailors was fairly steady all day long on Saturday, but slowed down considerably on Sunday. While sales were good overall, the total amount made seemed a bit low to my mind. Not that I’m complaining at all – I’m happy to be rid of the stuff, and any price at all was more than I had to begin with. Still, two days of extremely stressful work for only $150 hardly seems worth it.

My next door neighbor set her stuff out for sale on Saturday, so our customers had two sales to browse thru, right side by side. My neighbor across the street joined in, too, but she brought her items over to my garage instead of opening up her own.

Rob was with us all weekend, too – but spent his time up in the spare room. He prepped the walls all day Saturday, and painted all day Sunday. He didn’t get as much done as he’d hoped to – but what he did get done looks just wonderful. I’m very excited about finally getting my Craft Room, and can’t wait to set it up.

First Bite

I got my first mosquito bite of the year!

Not many places would see that as being at all noteworthy, but I actually saw an article in the Fairbanks newspaper talking about just such a thing! I guess they were hard up for news that day.

Regardless, I always make note of it, simply because it means that summer is actually here – FINALLY!

Hypothetical Question

Let’s say you work for Company X.

During the course of an average day at work you run thru 30 to 40 pieces of paper, well over half of which get thrown away after a few marks are made on them. 

Company X has a recycling program so you don’t feel quite so bad about wasting so much paper, but you just recently started to save it all to take home and use in your home printer. After all, work related business only used one side = there’s still another side completely blank that can be used.

Could that be considered stealing? 

Company X was just going to throw it out anyway, and you have every intention of recycling the paper when you’re done with it. It just will get more thoroughly used than if it had been left at work.

Renovations Update

I thought I’d take the time to update you all on the renovations taking place in my house, even though I really don’t have much to report. Motivation seems to have stalled out, on both Rob’s and my part.

We did go shopping again a while ago, so now I have on hand pretty much everything I need to be working on it. The only thing we haven’t bought yet is the molding & ceiling materials; Rob thinks he’ll wait till last to deal with those. We did come up with a plan for the ceiling, however, and worked out some of the details on how exactly it’s going to be done.

My plan for this week is to set up the sawhorses out on the driveway and get to work on sanding trim. I have “goop” that I’m to fill all the old nail holes with – that’s my first task.

My second task will be to take the sander that Rob loaned me and get to work. He brought both an electric one and a hand-held spongy one: I’m thinking the spongy one will work best, since I don’t have to be perfect. The goal is to just scuff it up a bit so the paint will hold.

That is my third task: painting. Once I get all the holes filled and the sanding done, I can just line everything up on the sawhorses and paint it all in one fell swoop. Theoretically, at least. I really should find some newspaper to put down, or I’ll be cleaning paint off the driveway along with all the oil my lovely ex-roommate left behind.

Back up in the room itself, I borrowed Mother’s carpet shampooer and cleaned real well. Then I took some carpet freshener and sprinkled pretty much the entire container on the floor (how was I supposed to know you didn’t need that much?) to help counter the smell of cat urine. That took several more passes with the vacuum to clean up, but now it smells nice and fresh!

Washing the walls with a mixture of 25 bleach/75 water took care of most of the dirt, dust, and grime – at least up to the 7-foot level. That’s as high as I could reach without going to get a chair to stand on. I was feeling a bit lazy that night, so just called it good. Rob can touch up the tops when he comes over next.

I had a lot of help that day: Thing was being so cute. She does love a clean carpet and was rolling around that whole evening. I had to take several breaks to roll around with her, of course.

That’s pretty much where things set now. Hopefully this weekend will see some real progress – but honestly I’m not holding my breath. Whatever happens, happens – and whatever doesn’t happen, doesn’t happen.

It would be nice to have my craft room set up, though.

First Official Bike Ride

My first official bike ride of the season was supposed to have taken place this past weekend. Rob came and picked me up Friday after work and we headed off down the road.

He had to stop and get gas, however, so we pulled in to the Huffman gas station - which just so happens to be conveniently located right next to a bike shop that he’s been wanting to check out, so of course we had to go in.

Rob is probably one of the most suggestion-prone people I have ever met. He went in there “just to look” and walked out convinced that he needed a new bike. All that salesperson had to do was tell him that it would be better if he had a taller bike, and he was hooked.

I was rather impressed that he didn’t buy a new bike right then and there, truth to tell. He managed to wait almost a whole 24 hours!

Getting back to our bike ride, by the time the salesperson finished with him it was well past 7:00. Both of us were quite hungry by then so we stopped in at the Indian House for a burger and a drink. I do like that place, but honestly neither the burger nor the drink were all that good. The bar tender watered down my Whiskey Sour (because, of course, I’m a girl and couldn’t possibly want a grown-up male drink like that) and the cook put bacon on my veggie burger.

Some people just don’t seem to be able to grasp the whole concept of “vegetarian”.

 Once we finished our meal and chatted with the bikers who’d joined us, we decided it was way too late to go bike riding after all. We opted instead to go window-shopping at The Castle, although I don’t know exactly how we went from “let’s go on a bike ride” to “let’s go to The Castle”.

Djuna’s Kidney

Djuna had another doctor’s appointment early Monday morning, this time for a sonogram to determine what’s going on with her kidneys. The results were both good and bad, as is usually the case.

There were several people in the room: Dr. Trout the specialist, Dr. VerSteeg her regular doctor, a vet tech whose name I didn’t catch, and myself. Of course, Djuna was the star of the show: there were several comments on how sweet & tiny she is, and how they didn’t have to shave her belly much at all since she’s pretty much bald down there to begin with.

The procedure lasted roughly 45 minutes, with me & the vet tech holding Djuna on her back giving Dr. Trout access to her belly, and with Dr. VerSteeg standing by observing.

Djuna was good for the first 10 minutes or so, but then decided that she was done and we could all go now. She wiggled and squirmed a bit, getting that gooey gel all over. When that didn’t work, she wriggled and squirmed some more and even vocalized a little bit, which is rather unusual for her since she doesn’t normally say very much. By the end of the procedure, she was getting a little bit annoyed with us all to the point where the vet tech was slightly worried that she might actually start growling. Honestly, I don’t think Djuna would ever growl at me, regardless of what torture I was subjecting her to. But you never know…

First the good news: they found the other kidney! It was hard to find, and is a bit smaller than the other one, but its there. More good news is that Dr. Trout thought that the left kidney (the one we saw in the x-rays) is healthy and should function properly now that the infection is cleared up.

The bad news is that right kidney actually has stones in it. Apparently this is quite rare in cats, so I’m glad we had the sonogram to find them. Dr. VerSteeg says she will do some research on kidney stones in cats to try to determine our plan of attack. I’m guessing that surgery is not really an option, but perhaps a change of diet will help.

Djuna got her third and last mega-shot of antibiotics, then jumped back into her travel case and waited for me to take her home. She’ll have to go back one more time in a week or so to get a urine sample taken, but other than that I’m thinking she’s done with the doctor for a while.

Assuming of course that we can get those stones taken care of…

Ready to Peddle

Got my bike all fixed up for the season!

Rob got me a basket for it: it’s a cute little white wire mesh one that attaches to the front handlebars. It’s removable, even, so I can take it grocery shopping with me. I plan on stringing some colorful ribbons on it, with bows and streamers.

Because, you know, that’s what you do with a white wire mesh basket on your bicycle.

The same day he installed the basket, he also installed the water bottle clip for me. The only problem I can see with it at its current location is that if I should happen to ride through a mud puddle (which of course I would never do as it would muss up my pretty purple flowered bike!) the mouth piece of the water bottle would get all grungy. Rob suggested banding a plastic baggie over the mouth piece to protect it – but then what do I do if I need to take a drink? Not quite sure how I’m going to deal with that. I may end up just putting the water bottle in the basket and foregoing the clip altogether.

Last but certainly not least, he aired up the tires – they had gone a bit flat over the winter months. I have a little foot pump for it, but it’s rather a bear to use so we opted for his big air compressor. I will not always have access to that, however, so I need to get familiar with what I have and make do with it.

I had planned on riding to work at least three times a week – but honestly I don’t see myself actually doing that. I just do not feel like riding a bike that early in the morning, you know? I’m more likely to take it out for a spin after work, when it’s nice and sunny out. I printed out a map of the area I live so that I can plan out my rides, starting small and working my way up to the longer routes.

For the real bike rides, I am going to get a bike rack for the car. Rob has a friend who is giving one away; he says he’ll snag it for me. We just have to wait for her to come home from her year in Spain. Once I get it, I will be ready to ride, if anybody cares to join me!

Just please take it easy on me. I’m not the best bicycler in the world…

Roadtrip!

Lorna picked me up Saturday morning at 9:00 and we hit the road running! I so needed this – to just get away from “life” and have no agenda. It was perfect.

The weather was certainly less than perfect, although I do love a good rain storm. That’s what we had: a good rainstorm. The windshield wipers could barely keep up with it along the coast between Anchorage and Portage. The wind was blowing fairly well, too.

We made it all the way to Sterling before pulling over to stretch our legs and fill up with gas. We considered stopping at Fred Meyers in Soldotna a few miles down the road for another stretch and a mocha, but the parking lot was crammed full of cars so we just kept going on in to Homer.

It was around 2:00 by the time we made it to Homer. Neither of us had eaten anything yet that day so we stopped off at the Two Sisters Bakery for a bite to eat. That’s a cool place: I do recommend it, if you’re ever in the area. It actually reminded me of a place I’d eaten at in Ketchikan a long time ago.

The Homer Library is quite famous for being one of Alaska’s first LEED Certified buildings, so of course we had to stop by and check that out (no pun intended). Wouldn't you know it, they were having a book sale! We spent a good hour browsing all the books before purchasing our finds and heading on up to our next stop.

The Bear Creek Winery: my new favorite place! We sat down at their counter and proceeded to indulge in tasting a variety of their wines while snacking on fresh parmesan cheese and crackers topped off with a salmon pate. I don’t have a list of all the wines we tried but did manage to walk out of there an hour later with two bottles in my bag: a bottle of their Pomegranate Wine and one of their Black Current Wine.

I’m not a huge drinker; normally a glass of wine will last me all night. But that wine tasting – they poured two fingers worth of about 10 different wines for us, which we sampled in the space of roughly 45 minutes. That’s a lot of wine, and I was definitely feeling it.

So our next stop was the Spit. We pulled off on the side of the road, clambered over the rocks down to the beach, and walked along the shoreline. It was overcast and windy, as is usually the case for Homer, but was still quite beautiful. I just love beachcombing: poking through all the kelp and seaweed looking for whatever critter didn’t quite catch the receding tide.

Walking 4 miles on sand, however, is very taxing. By the time we got back to the car we were both feeling it. Thankfully, our next stop was Fat Olive’s for dinner.

I had the best sandwich: 3 types of Toasted Cheese with Apple Smoked Bacon and slivers of a Granny Smith Apple. Who would ever think to put apples in a cheese sandwich? I’ll be doing a lot of that now, I can tell you.

Finally we headed on up to Lorna’s cabin. It’s quite a drive, so we saved that for last. It’s a cute place; rather a shame she’s planning to tear it down, but it really does need to go. There is so much wrong with it that it’s actually cheaper to just start over brand new.

We did a few chores around the place: put together the new weather station Lorna had bought, replaced a circuit breaker, worked on the water pump, and walked the property line to see what was what out there.

The next morning we kind of just took it easy and relaxed for a while. Neither of us was in that big of a hurry to get home, so during the drive back we stopped quite a few times to just take in the scenery.

Eventually we did make it home, where I settled in for some snuggle time with my girls.

Rejected

I found myself with some time on my hands so stopped in at The Hole look, where I got my piercing and tattoo done.

I told the lady at the counter that it seemed as though my piercing was moving and I was wondering what was going on. She immediately said, “Take it out. Now. Your body is rejecting it.”

I was stunned. I had no idea that could even happen, and for her to be so bold and blunt like that. Wow.

But, as she explained, if I were to have left it in it would have eventually been pushed out and I’d be left with flaps of skin on my eyebrow – whereas taking it out while it’s still a hole means that it has a chance of healing completely without a scar. So I paid the $10 fee and had it removed.

It’s strange. I’ve haven’t even had the piercing a whole year, and yet I find that I’m really missing it. I feel somewhat incomplete now.

Once it heals thoroughly in a couple months, I may consider trying it again. The lady behind the counter told me that if they pierce it deeper, going behind the previous piercing, the scar tissue might act as an anchor keeping the ring in place. She also recommended a different ring – one with less of a profile to it.

Of course, my body could just reject that one, too. We’ll have to wait and see.

The Price of Gas

What is the price of gas where you live?

Here in Anchorage, Alaska it’s averaging around $4.11 per gallon, but on my recent road trip we stopped in Sterling to fill up and paid $4.65.

It’s a wonder we’re all still even taking road trips, isn’t it?

Oh, and what kind of gas mileage do you get? I drive a 2001 Nissan Sentra and average around 30-35 miles per gallon.

The Mad Dash for Freedom

I was standing at the door last night, talking to the missionaries, when Djuna made her mad dash out the door. I was shocked: she’s never done anything like that before!

She slipped though our legs and made it all the way down the steps. She didn’t even slow down; she just made a bee-line down to the bottom, then turned around and ran right back up the steps and into the house again. I had just enough time to say “Hey! Get your butt back in the house, young lady!”

The look on her face was priceless. I could just tell she was thinking “Hah! I made it all the way down the stairs! Beat that if you dare, Thing! I am a Fearless Warrior Cat!”

Yeah, I’d say the antibiotics are working. She definitely feels better.

Update on Djuna

Well, she’s definitely feeling better. This morning she was racing around the house, showing off how fast she can run. The antibiotics they gave her on Saturday really made a difference, thank goodness.

Her doctor called first thing Monday morning to check up on her. Looks like my little June Bug has a fan at the vet’s office! I reported that although she was still very sleepy, she was being social and wanted to be where everybody else was.

The doctor told me that the specialist had studied the x-rays and couldn’t find the other kidney, either. It is either simply not there or is hiding behind some other organ. The one kidney they could find is definitely not a healthy one. They suggested a sonogram to get a better picture of what’s going on in there.

My financial situation being what it is, I am hesitant to pay for a procedure that would not add to or change her current medical plan of attack, although it would be nice to actually know for sure. I may have it done anyway, regardless of all the other bills I have waiting to be paid.

In the meantime, Djuna is fighting off the last of the infection (I hope) and will just have to be careful in the future so as to not jeopardize her defective kidney any worse. She only has one, so has to take care of it!

Djuna is Very Sick

I took her in to the vet's on Friday because she has been very lethargic and won’t wake up even when I come home from work. When I do get her up, she just wants to be held so she can sleep in my arms. She tried to jump up into my lap once and didn’t make it.

The vet weighed her (5lb 4oz), checked her heart (good), poked around at her tummy (all good), cleaned out her ears (gunky black tar, as always), took blood and gave her fluids subcutaneously. She told me I should make sure she pees/poops and eats/drinks (she is/does).

Saturday (today) the blood work results came in = not good. Her white blood cell count is through the roof, indicating a severe infection. I took her back in for x-rays and a urine sample.

The urine sample came back VERY infected. The vet says it’s highly unlikely that an infection that bad isn’t in the kidneys, too. They gave her a mega-shot of antibiotics hoping that it will work, but went ahead and sent a sample of the infection off to the lab to make sure. If the shot doesn’t work (lab will tell) I’m to bring her back in on Monday for another type of antibiotics.

The x-rays came back inconclusive, to say the least. First, they could only find one kidney. They don’t know if they’re overlapping each other in the x-rays or that she simply doesn’t have two. And the one they could see was not the shape they expected to see. It’s supposed to be shaped like a kidney bean – hers is more like an orange. They’re going to send her pictures off to an expert to see if he can determine what’s going on.

Back at home, Djuna is sleeping again. I've made her as comfortable as I can, and will try to get her to eat some canned food tonight.

Thing is very worried.

Too Much Food

Back when I had a roommate, it was our agreement that each would only eat the food we ourselves bought. Apparently she had a hard time with that concept: she kept eating my food!

Eventually I just stopped buying food altogether because I didn’t want to pay for her meals (petty, I know… but that was just the tip of the iceberg with her).

Now that she’s gone, I am really enjoying food again.

In fact, it may become an obsession with me. I find that I keep going to the grocery store and buying more food – even though I have enough at home to last several weeks.

Just this week alone I’ve gone three times, each time carrying home several bags of groceries. My freezer is stuffed full to capacity and the fridge is not far behind.

Who knew having too much food would ever be a problem?

It’s All in the Detailing

Rob and I spent the weekend out in Palmer detailing the Nissan so it can be sold.

That’s hard work! I can’t believe how exhausted I am - and I have some very strange bruises to show for it, too.

But we did get a most excellent meal out of the deal: Mother made meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, biscuits, and a wonderful Portobello mushroom side dish especially for me. I ate so much I was barely able to go back to work after dinner.

Here’s a brief list of what we did:
     Pressure wash the exterior
     Pressure wash the engine
     Soap up and hand wash the exterior
     Polish and wax the exterior
     Add pin striping for extra “sex appeal”
     Clean the glass & chrome and blacken the trim
     Fix the camper shell
     Vacuum the interior with a shop vac
     Dust and clean the interior
     Haul all the trash out
     Change the oil & filters
     Air up the tires
     Replace the floor mats
     Clean & polish every surface with all types of cleaners

So, if anybody wants to buy a beautiful purple ’97 Nissan pickup, 5-speed, 4-wheel drive, with a camper shell – we have one for just $2,700.00. It would make the perfect graduation gift (hint, hint).

What Are You Reading Now?

Read any good books lately? Post a comment and let me know, please. I love to hear what people are reading – who knows, I just might find my next favorite book!


I’m reading At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson which is a really good book. Bill Bryson is one of my favorite authors; I’ll read pretty much anything he’s written.

Here’s the review by Amazon.com for the book:

Bill Bryson turns his attention from science to society in his authoritative history of domesticity, At Home: A Short History of Private Life. While walking through his own home, a former Church of England rectory built in the 19th century, Bryson reconstructs the fascinating history of the household, room by room. With waggish humor and a knack for unearthing the extraordinary stories behind the seemingly commonplace, he examines how everyday items--things like ice, cookbooks, glass windows, and salt and pepper--transformed the way people lived, and how houses evolved around these new commodities. "Houses are really quite odd things," Bryson writes, and, luckily for us, he is a writer who thrives on oddities. He gracefully draws connections between an eclectic array of events that have affected home life, covering everything from the relationship between cholera outbreaks and modern landscaping, to toxic makeup, highly flammable hoopskirts, and other unexpected hazards of fashion. Fans of Bryson's travel writing will find plenty to love here; his keen eye for detail and delightfully wry wit emerge in the most unlikely places, making At Home an engrossing journey through history, without ever leaving the house. --Lynette Mong

Hold On To Your Hats!

Wow, the winds are really blowing today. There’s a High Wind Warning in effect with winds up to 75mph possible. The weather service described it as "a dynamic and dangerous storm" that has moved into the Central Bering Sea.

The power was down earlier this morning – about 5,200 people were without for a couple hours. Oddly enough, it was right here in this area where I work (and live) and yet the office wasn’t affected. Don’t know how we managed to avoid that one…

The really exciting place to live right now is False Pass. You might remember that I spent some time in False Pass last year during my job with the Census Bureau. They are experiencing winds exceeding 100 mph down there! I can just imagine how that must look.

"Damage reports include...public safety building roof partially blown off," the weather service reported. "Several other buildings have lost parts of their roofs and some have completely collapsed. At least 2 homes have completely lost their roofs. The medical clinic windows were blown out. A 4-wheeler spotted tumbling down the street."

Spring is Coming

Spring is just around the corner: you can feel it in the air, despite the new coating of snow we’ve accumulated these past few days. People are getting antsy and restless, eager to get outside and start DOING STUFF. Like hiking! And bicycling! And camping!

The Family Hiking Series for 2011 has been set. If anybody is interested in going hiking with us this year, just let me know. I’ll add you to the distribution list so you’ll get the email reminders containing the instructions on how to get to the trailhead. We’d love to have you join us!

My personal goals this year are 1) climb a mountain (Lazy Mountain, in Palmer) and 2) walk the entire coastal trail in one day. Both goals aren’t that big when compared to World Peace or Curing Cancer – but to me, they are both things I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. This is the year I’ll actually do them. Hopefully.

I have great big plans for my bike this year, too. I fully intend to ride it to work at least three times a week. I acquired a hand pump in case I get a flat tire, even - and best of all, Rob got me a basket! It’s so cute; it’s a white wire mesh one that attaches to the handlebars in front. It’s removable, even, so I can go shopping with it. I’m going to decorate it with colorful ribbon even.

Another sign of spring: my work hours have gone back to full time. This is a good thing on so many levels: it means the company has so much work they need me for a minimum of 8 hours a day, AND I get an actual paycheck with enough money in it to cover all my bills!

Won’t that be nice for a change.

The Craft Room

Mother and I came up with the great idea of hiring a contractor to re-carpet and re-paint my spare room, so I called around and had one come over to give me an estimate. The man was very nice and had a lot of information to share with me about my ideas. We took measurements, talked paint & carpet colors, and came up with two plans of attack: Plan A (my preferred design) and Plan B (in case the first one was not doable). He left an hour or so later saying that he’d email me the estimate and let me know when the job could be done.

It took over a week, but finally I got his estimate. To put it mildly, let me just say that I was shocked. Stunned would be more like it. Plan B came in at $4,000.00 while Plan A (the one I really wanted) came in at close to $8,000.00! For paint! And carpet! In a very tiny room! With hardly any funky corners or odd cut-outs!

I think not.

Once again, Rob came to my rescue. He agreed with me that there was no way in h*** I would be hiring a contractor to do the work for those prices, and assured me that he & I could do the work ourselves. Well, except for the carpet. He doesn’t know how to do carpet, so we’ll just shampoo the existing carpet really well and call it good. The rest of the work is definitely do-able with minimal effort.

We even came up with a cool design for the ceiling, since I won’t be getting my Plan A design. We’ll call this Plan C, I guess. I’m happy with it; it will look very cool once we’ve finished it.

We’ve made a start at it already. He and I bought paint, painting supplies, and window blinds the other day. He got started on pulling off the trim, and I plan on taking the nails out tonight so that I can sand & paint them over the weekend.

Funny story with the blinds: we’re at the store, wandering the aisles to see what we might need to get our job done. We don’t have a cart, so he’s just carrying the blinds in his hands. We end up at the trim & molding section and he sets the blinds down so he can look at the various trim available. Not 5 minutes later, we turn around and discover that my blinds are gone! Our first thought was that a clerk had restocked them back in their “proper” place – but no, they said they hadn’t done that. So what the…? We walk up and down the aisles again, and eventually find them = in a cart, in a random aisle, just sitting there innocently with no one around. So we take the blinds back, and take the cart too.

So there!

Heat Seekers

Devons are heat seekers.

Ask anybody who shares a home with one; they most certainly will agree. It could be because they barely have any hair at all or it could just be they love to be toasty warm. Regardless, they will find the sweet spot and take full advantage of even the tiniest puddle of sunshine.

For me, it all started with of the Alien: what little hair he had was across his back, leaving his belly entirely naked. He would sleep for hours on top of the cable box, which I thought was so cute – till I noticed he was actually developing bedsores. I quickly created a bed for him out of his carrying case, putting a heating pad wrapped up in one of my towels inside, draping another towel over the top of it to retain the heat better, and taking the door completely off. He very happily moved in and within a few weeks the bedsores healed.

Humorous aside here: He always smelled like toast to me. He was also about 300 degrees! I had to occasionally get him out of his box just to air him out.

The Alien passed away several years ago (and is greatly missed) but now I have two more Devons, Thing and Djuna.

Another humorous aside here: Thing always smells like coffee to me (which is odd, since there is no coffee in this house) and poor Djuna, I’m afraid, smells like her litter box.

My house is now equipped with heating pads in almost every room because of my girls. The brand new woolen electric blanket Mother got for me quickly became the property of my girls; it is laid out across the foot of my bed during the day and moved down to the floor in the corner of the room at night.

Djuna LOVES that blanket. Every time I go to move it she gets a panicked look on her face and rushes over to the blanket, spreading her feet out to cover as much of it as she can (which isn’t much at all considering the fact that she is a teeny tiny thing weighing barely 5 pounds) as if to say “No! You can’t take it! It’s MINE!”

So you can imagine my surprise the other day when I walked into the bedroom and saw her all curled up comfortably on the bed and not on the blanket!

Apparently my new Memory Foam Mattress Topper has now been claimed as hers, too.

Phone Conversations

ME: Hello!
ROB: Hey, got a question for you. Who should we call for an injured bird?
ME: What’s going on?
ROB: Well, one of the guys here at work says there is an injured owl in the parking garage. He says it’s been there for several days now. It’s up on the 7th floor, and it just sits there staring at him. We wanted to call somebody to come get it, but don’t know who to call.
ME: Hmmm, I think you should call Bird TLC. They’re the ones that take in all the injured birds around here. They’re your best bet.
ROB: Okay, I’ll give them a call.
ME: Let me know how it goes. If that doesn’t work, I’ll come up with another idea.


ME: Hello!
ROB: It’s me. I called the bird people but they didn’t answer. Their message said “If you find an injured bird, pick it up – put it in a box – and bring it on in” but I don’t really want to go pick up a two and a half foot owl!
ME: No, I don’t think that would be a good idea! Two and a half feet – that’s a big owl! Wonder what kind it is?
ROB: I haven’t seen it myself. The guy here at work says it has a reddish splotch on its chest, like its hurt or something.
ME: Tell you what; let me call a friend of mine. She volunteers for the Bird TLC all the time. She’ll know what to do. I’ll call you back and let you know what she said.


BRITT: Hey, Ruth! How are you doing?
ME: Hi, Britt. I’m good – how are you?
BRITT: Getting ready for the fund raiser tonight. Should be a fun evening!
ME: Hey, I’ve got a problem I think you can help me with.
BRITT: What’s up?
ME: Well, a friend of mine works downtown and parks in the parking garage that is the bus depot. Do you know that building? He says there’s an injured owl on the 7th level. We tried calling Bird TLC, but didn’t get an answer.
BRITT: Yeah, they’re all getting ready for this fund raiser tonight. Let me call Dave – he’s already downtown, so could pop over and get the owl easily enough.
ME: Oh thanks! We’re all very concerned about it.


ROB: Hello!
ME: Hey, I called my friend from Bird TLC. She’s having some people head over to the parking garage right now to take a look and see what they can do. Tonight is their big fund raising event, so they’re all over at the hotel there, getting ready. They should be able to get the owl right away, and get it to the hospital.
ROB: That’s great! I’m on my way there right now, too. I want to see it before they take it away.
ME: Cool – you’ll be able to watch them catch it even!
ROB: Yeah, that would be cool. Oh, here they are now – Hi! Yes, I’m looking for the owl, too. – Hey, Ruth, the bird people are here. I’ll call you back, okay?
ME: Okay, I’ll talk to you later.


ME: Hello!
ROB: (laughing heartily) Hello!
ME: What’s going on? Did you find the owl? Is it okay? Did they catch it?
ROB: (still laughing heartily) Oh, we found it alright.
ME: Well, what’s going on?
ROB: (laughing even harder) IT’S PLASTIC!!!
ME: What! It’s plastic??!!
ROB: (HA, HA, HA!) Yeah, it’s plastic! I can’t believe *John Doe thought it was a real owl! (* the name has been changed to protect the innocent)
ME: Oh My God; that’s hilarious! It’s plastic…
ROB: The bird people are all laughing, too.
ME: This will probably end up in their Christmas newsletter.

Bear Creek Winery

My good friend Lorna gave me a bottle of wine from the Bear Creek Winery for Valentine’s Day this year: their special edition of Chocolate Raspberry Wine.

To celebrate my new-found freedom of NO MORE ROOMMATE, I decided to open it and have a glass the other day. To no real surprise, I discovered that my bottle opener had been taken. I will give her the benefit of the doubt and say that perhaps she honestly didn’t realize that she took it, since there was a ton of stuff in the drawer most of which was hers. However, she did leave behind her crappy bottle opener and she did take my good one – so it is a very great stretch of imagination to actually believe that it wasn’t done on purpose.

Regardless, I did finally manage to get my bottle of wine open, and boy is that ever a good wine! I really like it, even though it is a red wine and I do tend to get some rather impressive migraines from red wines. It’s well worth a migraine.

In fact, I like the wine so much that I went down to the liquor store today and got two more bottles from that winery. I didn’t get the Chocolate Raspberry flavor this time, though: I got a Rhubarb Wine and a Spiced Apple Wine instead.

The Bear Creek Winery is a local one based out in Homer, so I feel good about buying and supporting local businesses. And the liquor store I went to purchase them is Gold Rush Liquors, another local business, so now I feel twice as good about buying and supporting local.

http://bearcreekwinery.com/

I Worked Hard This Weekend

And yet – looking back at it – I honestly can’t see that I did all that much. My body feels like I got run over by a Mack Truck, however, so I know I did something.


I hadn’t slept well at all Friday night, so after working at the Zoo for two hours on Saturday I tried to lay down for a nap. My girls were quite happy to join me, and even Tommy came and sat near the couch where I lay – as close as he could be without upsetting Thing, who still growls at him at every possible opportunity. I still couldn’t sleep however, so just ended up vegging out in front of the TV for a while.

Eventually Rob came over to help me switch out my bed. I have a double-sized one that I am giving to him so his daughter could use it, and am exchanging it for the queen-sized one that has been waiting for me in my garage for the past few weeks. With my back the way it is there’s no chance of me moving mattresses by myself, but for Rob it was no problem at all. He took the double-sized mattresses down to the garage while I vacuumed and cleaned up in the room. Then he had the queen-sized mattresses up in the room ready for the linens to be put on. It looks really good now, and isn’t nearly as big as I thought it would be (which is good).

I will at some point want to get new linens though. The ones I have now are actually for a king-sized bed: they work, but are a tad bit large. I think I can get one of those “bed-in-a-bag” deals from Bed Bath & Beyond that contains sheets, pillow cases, comforter and everything for a reasonable price. Especially if somebody had a coupon for them that I could use! (Hint, hint)

Sunday was mostly cleaning up my place, getting the spare room ready to be re-painted and re-carpeted. I have all sorts of possibilities in my head, so Rob and I went to Home Depot to see if my ideas are actually do-able and affordable.

We looked at paints and came up with a color scheme: I’m thinking of walls being a dark green with 1” thick light green stripes spaced about every foot or so, a light green ceiling, and trim & molding that is a darkish orange. Trust me; it will look much better than it sounds. I hope it will, at least.

We looked at carpets and got a few ideas on which ones I might want: I’m thinking a nice oatmeal carpet with tiny flecks of green and orange it in.

We looked at window blinds and actually came up with an idea I hadn’t even considered before: I had originally wanted wooden blinds with a pretty valance over the top, but found a really nice woven reed matt that can be used as window shades instead. I’ll still have the pretty valance, though.

We also looked at trim and molding, and have a plan of attack that will achieve the desired end results without having to take out a loan. Rob has all the tools and skills necessary to “make” our own, so we’ll be able to save quite a bit by not having to buy the ready-made ones.

At Burlington’s Coat Factory, I got myself a new shower curtain for the spare bathroom, as well as a good bottle opener. We also looked at bedding while there, but I didn’t really see anything I wanted.

I am not a shopper, so by this time I just wanted to go home. Of course, once we got there, we got sucked in to cleaning some more. Got the binds moved from the spare room into my bedroom. Got the windows as clean as we could get them, both inside and out. Got started on the bathroom, but will need to finish up on that later, when I can get a scrub brush and some bleach to disinfect the walls, ceiling, and flooring with. Rob even went down into the crawl space and came up with a plan to try to stop my house from resettling so much.

Finally I convinced Rob to stop. We still had to get the bed set up in his house, and get all that stuff organized and cleaned up. He had some pictures to hang up, some furniture to move around, and will eventually need to get some sheetrock hung and painted.

But that’s a job for another day.

IditaZoo 2011

This Saturday was The Alaska Zoo’s IditaZoo program, in celebration of the more universally known Iditarod Race. I got to work my 2-hour shift at the “Nome” Checkpoint station, near the porcupine exhibit.


“Nome” is the last stop in the Iditarod race, so at the zoo this was the last stop in our game of trivia. Each player gathered stamps on their map from all the checkpoints, and then got to turn them in at my station to claim their prize after answering one last question. I had 3 prizes they could choose from: Alaska Zoo Calendars, Alaska Zoo Pencils, or Alaska Zoo Animal Books.

I don’t know what it was like at all the other stations, but I had a line probably 15-20 people deep pretty much the entire time I was there. I went as quickly as I could, but I had to spend at least a few moments with each child to make them feel special and encourage them to think of the answers. Hopefully the crowds understood that and didn’t get frustrated with the waiting.

They did have the dogs right next door to watch while waiting, at least. Andy Larson, husband to Katie the education director at the zoo, brought his team over to meet everybody and give rides. They were very happy to be there, and got to show off their harnesses, boots, and sled. I got to enjoy the sounds of 16 very excited and happy dogs all day! I call that a win-win situation.

By the time I got to go home, I was a frozen block of ice, however. A nice hot cup of tea and some fuzzy warm socks (pink with purple and green polka dots) warmed me up eventually. Thing and Djuna did their part by curling up in my lap as I worked on the computer a bit.

The First Hike of the Year

Plan A was that Rob and my brother were to go ice climbing while Heather and I spent the day doing crafts. However, since things rarely go as planned, we had to switch over to Plan B: the 4 of us go out hiking up at Hatcher's Pass.

I have to admit that I was not very thrilled at the thought of going hiking. I am in full hibernation mode it seems, and the thought of hiking out in the freezing cold wind and deep snow was not my idea of a pleasant way to spend the weekend.

Thankfully, I was wrong on every count: the weather was wonderful, with clear blue skies and no wind at all. The company was great, too. Rob and I along with my brother Reed and his wife Heather – and we met up with Heather’s friend Audra and her dog Phoebe along the trail even. The trail itself was nice and easy, although if you stepped even 6” off the trail you did sink up to your hips in the deep snow. We know this because Heather accidently wandered off the trail and showed us!

It was perfect; just absolutely perfect.

We spent a good 2 hours up there before heading on back in to town to visit with Mother for a while. As always, we had stuff to exchange: I gave her some bread, a pair of socks, a pen, and some stickers for her cards – and she gave me some old photographs and a sack full of cat toys for my girls (who are in cat-toy heaven now with more toys than they know what to do with). We all sat around her table, sharing cookies and tea (or coffee, in Rob’s case), and talking about whatever came to mind.

Cookies and Tea are always good, and I would almost never turn that offer down, but I really did need some real food in my tummy – so our next stop was the grocery store to stock up on some fresh veggies and beer. Once we got back to Heather’s house, she cooked up the best stir-fry ever! It may have simply been that we’d all been out in the fresh air that afternoon, but honestly it was really good food.

Around 7:00 that evening I finally got Rob to take me out to Stewart’s house where I got to pick out a new gun! Stan left one for me in his will; all I had to do was choose – and there were plenty to choose from. I almost chose another shotgun for myself – a nice double-barreled one – but since I already have a shotgun and can barely shoot it anymore due to my back injury, I figured I should maybe get something else instead.

I chose the 1981 Winchester 30-30 that comes with a nice leather sling. It’s smaller than my shotgun, but I’m told it will kick much harder so I will probably have to have a butt-plate installed on it to absorb some of that impact. Also, since my neck is about 2 inches longer than a normal person’s, I can use the butt-plate to lift the gun up enough that I can actually shoot the thing, again just like my shotgun.

All in all, it was a great day.

Good Friends

I have such wonderful friends! I am so very thankful for each and every one of you – just wanted you all to know that.

This past week, I got to spend some time with a few of them:

Rikki and I had lunch at the Perfect Cup on Sunday. I met Rikki several years ago at one of the first Architectural Conventions I went to. She was a vendor selling Autodesk products, and I was working the registration table. We hit it off and have been friends ever since. She is quite pregnant now, so I got to hear all the latest news from the maternity ward. I am looking forward to the day when I can meet the little one!

On Monday I met up with my friend Anne for lunch at Terra Bella’s. She has a Gluten Allergy, and this place serves very tasty gluten-free food. Plus, it’s all organic – can’t beat that! I met her at that first Architectural Convention as well. She was on the planning committee, as was I, and also helped out at the registration table. Anne has been very helpful to me during my drama-infected roller coaster ride, giving me some very good advice and just being there so I could unload on her.

Then on Thursday, I got to have dinner with my friend Katie. Katie and I have been friends for well over 10 years. She works at the zoo and was the one who “convinced” me to sign on as a volunteer there. Rob joined us as well, so the three of us had a nice long chat. I am afraid it went a little long, however. It’s technically Katie’s lunch hour; I suppose a 2-hour lunch isn’t so bad if as long as it’s not made a habit.

Fur Rendezvous 2011

This weekend was the start of the annual Fur Rendezvous, a celebration of the miners and trappers that colonized this area. Back in the day, this was when they all gathered together to sell their furs and socialize a bit. Nowadays they have such events as The Running of the Caribou, the Out House Races, Dog Sled Races, Snowshoe Softball, Ice Sculpture Contests, and various Arts & Crafts shows throughout the two-week event.

Pretty much every single Fur Rondy (as the locals call it) in the past 40+ years has been bitter cold, with temperatures well below freezing – and this year was no exception. Although, I must say, it was actually one of the warmest ones in my memory banks: I do believe the temps only got as low as perhaps 10 below, although I did not have a thermometer with me so am only guessing.

Saturday was spent with Rob’s Snowshoe Softball games, so we didn’t get to do much else. We were both quite exhausted by the end of the day so just went home and slept it off. I honestly don’t know why I was so tired: I didn’t do a thing but sit there and watch. Perhaps it was the cold weather – that does seem to take it out of a person.

Sunday, after a breakfast of pancakes down at the IHOP, we finally got to see some of the sights around town.

Our first stop was at the University Mall. They had a coin collector’s show set up, along with the CanStruction competition. Both were not quite as impressive as I’d hoped for, but the coin show did spark my interest in my own collection again. I’m going to have to go thru and take inventory to see what I have. Who knows – maybe I have that ONE coin that’s going to ease all my financial woes?

Hey… It could happen!

From there we headed over to the Antique Car Show. Rob is really in to restoring old cars and happily fell into a nice long conversation with one of the guys there; talking about all the cars they'd ever restored and comparing experiences. I was content to sit in the corner and watch all the people since I really have no interest at all in cars other than to say “Ooo, a red one!”

We did eventually move on, heading downtown to view the ice sculptures. The wind had picked up again by then so we didn’t linger very long – but they did have some very impressive entries. It always amazes me that someone can do such intricate work with a chainsaw and a hunk of ice/snow.

By this time we were hungry again, so on our way to view the Native Arts & Crafts exhibit we stopped off at a little café and had some really good sandwiches. The crafts were very impressive; I think we even got some ideas for summer projects even – not that we’d be half as good as these artists are. Still, it will be fun to try our hand at a few things.

The crowd downtown finally got to us so we opted to head to the Northway Mall on the outskirts of town to see the woodworkers show. Wow… what incredible work!

The first thing we saw was the most beautiful hand-made wooden canoe that was being raffled off: one ticket for $5, or 5 tickets for $20 – proceeds to go to the local woodworkers club. There just happened to be an ATM conveniently located just around the corner, so Rob went ahead and purchased 5 tickets.

Boy that would really be something if he won! It really is a beautiful piece of work.

All the other entries in the show were equally impressive, ranging in skill levels from the beginners to the experts. Interestingly, the chain that kept the crowds back from the tables holding all the entries was made of wood. It was one continuous chain all carved out of one piece of wood. I have no idea how long that took to create, nor how long the original piece of wood was.

It doesn’t seem like much when you read thru all this, but honestly we were exhausted by then so again just went home and crashed into bed.

But it was fun! We just might do it again next weekend…

Snowshoe Softball

Rob signed himself up for the Snowshoe Softball games at this year’s Fur Rendezvous Celebration. His first game was at 8:30 in the morning, so we bundled everything up and headed on downtown bright and early in the morning. His team was the first one out on the field so had several feet of fresh powder to deal with, not to mention the snowshoes that were probably 20 years old. But they all gamely strapped on their gear and took up their positions.

It was a riot! Have you ever tried snowshoeing before? It’s been a while for me, but I do remember it being a lot more work than it seems to the casual observer. And to have to run in the darned things is almost impossible, particularly in several feet of fresh powder. Most of the players kept losing their shoes mid-stride, causing some rather impressive face plants and tangled up legs.

Rob was actually one of the few who didn’t lose their shoes, but mostly because he had strapped them on with about 6 bungee cords on each foot. That doesn’t mean he didn’t do some face plants, however. As I said, it’s hard work running in those things.

The softballs they were using were a bright fluorescent orange color, the theory being that they would be easier to find in the snow. That wasn’t exactly the way it turned out, however. Pretty much every time the ball made it out into the field it would get lost in the deep snow, and they’d have to spend several minutes searching around for it. That did give the batter at least half a chance to actually make it to first base, however – so I guess it wasn’t all bad.

That first game was a long one, even factoring in the One Strike rule. By the time it was over (they lost) all the team members were completely exhausted. Thankfully their next game wasn’t until 2:30, so we had a chance to go home and switch out some gear. Rob had originally thought to bundle up, but having worked so hard out there in the ball field, he overheated.

The second and third games were basically a repeat of the first (they won the second, lost the third) with the exception being that the snow had been packed down by the previous games so was much easier to navigate. The wind picked up, however, dropping the temperatures way down. I managed to stay out in the bleachers for the most of it, but ended up missing the last 10 minutes or so because I just couldn’t take the cold anymore and had to go sit in the truck to warm up.

Oh Happy Day!

My roommate is gone!

She moved out this weekend, and I have my house back. She hired professional movers to help her, since she had so much stuff, and had a big moving van out in my driveway the whole day.

I spent the day with Rob, only stopping in once to make sure my girls were safely locked in the library. While I was there I counted at least 5 guys, all tromping thru my house with their winter boots on, getting ice melt and snow all over the place. I completely stressed out just in the 10 minutes I was there, so I am very thankful that Rob let me hang out with him.

When I got home that evening she was gone.

She left a huge mess, though. He room has nail holes all over the walls, garbage all over the floor, several cables and extension cords left plugged in, and various other items left behind. The bathroom has things I don’t even want to identify left behind, and will need a lot of attention and elbow grease to clean up. The garage is littered with trash, used tape, parts of boxes, and miscellaneous debris spread out all over. Even the kitchen was left in a wreck, with food out on the counter and in the freezer, and the fridge is filthy. She even left a pair of boots behind at the front door.

I’m going to consider all the things she left behind as payment for cleaning up after her – since I was not smart enough to have charged a security deposit when she moved in.

Mother has said that she would come in one weekend to help me shampoo all the carpets. Kelly, Heather, and Rob have all said they would help me paint the walls. Rob has already changed the locks on my front door (the roommate did not leave her keys when she left, so that was the FIRST thing I did the next day).

Room by room, I am slowly reclaiming my house – straightening up and getting re-organized again.

Life is Good.

The Art of Writing a Letter

I’ve had several comments lately about the fact that I write letters each week. And I mean actual handwritten letters sent in an envelope thru the postal service, not typed emails or short little texts over the phone.

It’s really not that big of a deal; I just love to write, and have several friends that enjoy receiving my letters. I’ve even gone so far as to make my own cards now instead of buying them like I used to. In fact, I’m now making my own envelopes even.

I wonder if I could make my own stamps… wouldn’t that be something!

Anyway, it all started back about 20 years ago when my Grandmother moved to Montana. She got set up in a nice little apartment that was close to my Uncle. It was just a one bedroom; big enough that she could live comfortably, and have guests over for tea occasionally – but still small enough that keeping it clean didn’t overwhelm her. It was in a fair sized complex that had a nice courtyard she could sit outside in the sun and socialize with the other residents.

One of her favorite things to do was walk down to the mailbox: she got to take some fresh air, chat with the neighbors along the way, and get a little bit of exercise each day.

Back then, I was buying cards. I would look for ones that had pretty pictures on the front, perhaps of flowers or animals. I would write about my day, how the family was doing, the things I’d done at the zoo that week, any interesting tidbits of news I’d heard – just little things like that.

She would take that card and show it to everybody she came into contact with that week. She’d display it on the table in her apartment, and even take it to the neighbor’s to have them read it. Believe me; those cards got a lot of mileage!

Grandmother has passed away now, but I still enjoy writing. I have two nieces in college that are on my mailing list. I have several friends spread out over the globe that get letters from me. I try to send everybody a birthday card, but am not quite as diligent as I used to be about that.

My only complaint would be that I don’t received nearly as many as I write. I suppose that’s why I have email and a phone!

Guess Who Got a Ticket

I was heading off to work the other day and got pulled over by a cop. I figured that he had seen me not quite stopping at that last intersection. Oh, I slowed down - enough to shift down to first gear (which is pretty darned slow) at least, but I did not come to a full and complete stop.
I pulled over at the nearest side street and waited while he walked up to my window. He was very nice, polite, and courteous.

“May I see your license and registration, please?”

I handed them over, having already gotten them out of the glove box & my purse.

Then he informed me that my windows were tinted to dark! He got out his meter to show me, even. According to state law, the left/right front side windows can’t be darker than 70% - mine were at 36%. The left/right rear side windows can’t be darker than 40% - mine were at 14%.

This was a $160.00 ticket!

Thankfully, it was a correctable ticket: all I had to do was have the tinting removed and then take the car down to the Anchorage Police Department and show them. If the car passed the meter test at that time, the ticket and the fine would be removed from my record.

Once again, Rob came to my rescue. He took me down to the parts store and we got some window tint removal goop and got to work on it. We did the right front window first, just to see how it was done.

First he had to take my door apart so that we could get at the whole window. Then he sprayed the goop all over the tinting and covered it up with plastic so it wouldn’t evaporate off. After setting for half an hour (longer, actually, since we went upstairs and had dinner while it set) we peeled the tint film off. Surprisingly it came off rather easily; I expected a lot more difficulty. Then he sprayed the goop all over the window again, and set to work with a razor blade scraping all the glue off. That was the real messy part! But it worked, and soon enough the window was clean. Putting the door panel back on was tricky, since several of the clips had broken off when he removed it. A little glue strategically place, and my door was back to normal.

The next three windows went relatively quickly after that, since he knew what he was doing by then. And best of all, when I took the car down to APD it passed with flying colors and the ticket is history.

No More Ticket!

Of course, now everybody can see into my car – and I have zero protection from the sun while I drive. I’m going to have to get a pair of those hideous glasses that wrap completely around your face to block out the knife blade of sunlight as it flickers thru the trees.

But hey, I’m compliant to the law.

Giving In to Temptation

I tried to resist. In fact, I did resist - for a whole weekend. But today, I finally gave in. I just couldn’t hold out any longer.

I went to the bookstore.

The bad news is that Borders is going out of business. They are closing down their Anchorage store, and will no longer be my supplier – unless I order online, of course.

The good news is that everything is on sale. Not so great a sale right now as they only just announced the closure. I’m sure as time goes on the sales will get more and more impressive. The supply, however, will continue to diminish so the odds of getting that specific book you’ve been looking for will diminish as well.

Like I need more books!

But I ended up getting three:

The Diamond of Darkhold
By Jeanne DuPrau

At Home: a Short History of Private Life
By: Bill Bryson

Seeing Further: the Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society
Edited by: Bill Bryson

Marian Call in Concert

I treated myself to a night out on the town this weekend. Rob was off ice fishing with his buddies, and I was really not interested in hanging out in my house because of the whole roommate issue – so I got tickets to a jazz concert at The Organic Oasis.

I arrived about 40 minutes early (I am chronically early for everything, it seems – heck, I was even born early) so ordered my dinner and wrote a few letters while waiting for the music to start. The Organic Oasis has probably the best salads in town, in my humble opinion at least. Their yam stew is pretty tasty, too. Add to that a nice hot mug of Yerba Matte tea, and I was quite content to sit there and wait.

They had their normal layout of tables and chairs but added numerous folding chairs to the mix, and even so ended up with several people standing up at the walls to watch. Tickets were just $15 a head, but even so I’m thinking they made a pretty good profit that night.

Finally Marian Call came on stage, wearing a “slinky dress” as promised. She is normally a “jeans and sweater” type of girl, so this was rather unusual for her. She looked quite stunning, I have to admit. Accompanying her on stage was the standard electric guitar player, a base player, a piano player, a drummer, and a tenor saxophonist = all of whom were very good, and got plenty of opportunity to strut their stuff. The only thing missing was her old typewriter (circa 1930s?) which she uses as a percussion instrument occasionally.

Marian sang quite a few well known songs as well as several that she wrote herself. One that got a lot of audience participation was “I Wish I Were A Real Alaskan Girl” (or something like that) wherein she talks about how tough a real Alaskan girl is, able to skin a bear – fix a flat – and eat Rudolf for breakfast and Bullwinkle for lunch. She also made mention of the popular bumper sticker that states Alaskan Girls Kick Ass, and when she brought up the fact that a real Alaskan girl has long flowing hair on her legs I had to laugh as I realized it’s been probably a good 6 months since I last shaved.

Another song that was well received was about Karaoke. I have no idea how she managed to do this, but she stood up on stage and belted out some of the WORST singing I’d heard in a long time, as typically you would find when listening to the general (drunk) public singing Karaoke. It was hilarious, because she’d switch from her beautiful voice singing the verses to that awful caterwauling at full volume for each chorus.

If you ever have the chance to listen to Marian Call sing, I highly recommend it – but in the meantime, you can look her up on the internet and download her songs from there.

New Digs for an Old Rut

For the past few years I’ve been carrying all my letter writing materials (pens, cards, address book, stamps, and labels) in an old Victoria’s Secret bag I got when I went to Seattle with my sister and her daughter about 6-7 years ago. The bag was already quite old when I started to use it for writing my letters each Sunday; it finally fell apart this weekend, giving me the perfect excuse to buy something I’ve had my eye on for quite some time now.

I got me a brand new Star Trek Lunch Pail (the original series with Captain Kirk, Spok, and the whole crew) from Hallmark! It’s so cool.

As an added bonus, it had actually been marked down from the original price.

Next time you see me at The Perfect Cup on Sundays, sitting at my corner table drinking my cup of tea, you will see my lunch pail proudly displayed on the table next to me.

Rearranging The Furniture

I’m going thru a lot of changes lately. I’m not very good with change, so I’m fairly stressed out even though I know it’s all good and I’m actually the one initiating this change.

Rob came over the other day and helped me change out my old computer desk. It was just about ready to fall apart as it stood there, so we were just in time. In fact, it actually did fall apart when we started to disassemble it. It’s now a pile of broken pieces in the garage waiting to be hauled away to the dump.

A good friend had given me her old computer desk which was much nicer than my old one, so it is now in place and looking so fine! That meant, however, that I had to find an alternate place to file all the paperwork one acquires in life, since the new desk doesn’t have a filing cabinet drawer in it like the old one did. So I had to clean out the desk upstairs that has been unused for the past 10 years or so, and was just gathering dust.

Mother gave me one of the beds from the farm, so that is my next big change. It’s a queen size bed; my old one is a double size. Since I had to clean out the desk anyway, I went ahead and rearranged my bedroom a bit to squeeze in the bigger mattresses. I will again call upon Rob to help me move things around, since there is no way I can do it by myself, and in the process I will give him the double sized bed for his daughter’s use.

Once my spare room empties out (End of March – just hang on till the End of March!) I will be rearranging the heck out of that room, too! I plan on asking my sister to help me paint it some fun colors – maybe a soft terra cotta orange, or a quiet avocado green? – and get some nice wooden blinds and a pretty valance for the window. I have an old wooden table waiting for me in the garage that will go in the room after Rob fixes one of its legs and helps me refinish the top. I’ll add the 5 antique chairs Mother gave me to that, as well as the lamps, end tables, bookshelves, and craft cubbies – and voila! Instant Craft Room!

I’m actually pretty excited about it.

The Job Situation

Sigh.

The job I’ve been counting on fell thru. It was with an architectural firm, and they currently are “experiencing a lull” so are not hiring at this time.

Yeah, where have I heard that before?

But they do still have my resume on file and will contact me when/if things pick up.

Again, where have I heard that before?

Honestly, it’s enough to make one just give up on the whole industry! What I’m doing instead is accepting the fact that I will be working for less than unemployment wages for the next few years, and will just be happy that I have a job at all. It’s not that bad of a job, either.

They are getting a new program; I will have to learn it in the next few weeks, before the season picks up. I’m fairly excited about that, except that I know it will take me even farther away from ever getting a “real job” in the future.

I’m still putting out an ad for pet sitting, and am currently working one of those jobs as we speak. Tommy is a huge orange fluffy boy who is just the sweetest guy. He’s here at my house till his human can find a place to live that will accept both a cat and a dog. Thing and Djuna are not very happy about having a yucky boy in their house – but they’ll get over it, I’m sure.

So, I guess it’s not all bad news. Just not what I wanted…

I Just Want My House Back

My roommate is being a very mean and vindictive person. It seems like she goes out of her way to irritate me with all the petty things she can dream up. Her latest: she thawed a hunk of meat in the fridge. Nothing wrong with that, per se, except that she neglected to put in on a plate so it ended up bleeding all over the fridge – and I had to spend an hour cleaning it up. This is the THIRD TIME she’s done that! You cannot tell me a 50-year old woman who cooks all the time doesn’t know that meat bleeds! Even a vegetarian knows that.

To be honest, I have to admit that my tolerances are stretched extremely thin at the moment. There has been a lot going on lately, and I really didn’t want a roommate to begin with. But my last roommate didn’t give me nearly this much trouble so I know it’s not just me.

As soon as this one leaves I will never have another roommate, not ever.

Well, at least not for a year or so; that’s how much money I have saved up to pay for my house bill. After that, we’ll have to see what I can come up with. Theoretically I should have a real job by then, with good pay and full hours. Of course that’s what I said two years ago, so I honestly don’t hold out much hope on that side of the equation.

The refinance went thru, so now my payments are $170 lower each month: you gotta love that! In fact, there was no payment at all for February, so I get to “stockpile” the rent money and have just a little bit more breathing room out of the situation.

End of March: all I have to do is survive till then.

April 1 I have my Mother and sister coming over to help me clean the carpets and paint the walls in there (I’m thinking a nice terra cotta color, or perhaps an avocado green). Then I’ll get Rob to help me decorate (oddly enough, he’s better at that than I am). Then I’ll set up the antique table and chairs I have in waiting for me in my garage, move the craft cubbies up from the dining room, and be good to go! Heck, I may even set up a nice heated bed for the girls in there.

This Makes Me Sick To My Stomach

So, Stan’s two daughters came up for the memorial. Apparently, neither of them had been very close to him. He’d been up here in Alaska for over 25 years, but they had only come to visit him once each. Neither of them ever sent a Birthday Card or a Christmas greeting.

Anyway, a week prior to their arrival for the memorial they phoned Mother, the realtor, the lawyers, and the neighbors so often that they all stopped answering their phones. They also called each of us, asking for money and rides and a place to stay. They ended up staying at the farm and driving his truck while they were here. I don’t know who picked them up at the airport, or who took them back either.

While they were here they continued making phone calls all over the place, their main objection being to cut my family out of the entire process as much as possible. They thru accusations out left and right about us all, and tried to get Mother taken off as executor of Stan’s will. They even managed to “steal” Mother’s lawyer out from under her, since he couldn’t represent both at the same time.

Worse yet, they managed to pack up and steal well over 4000 pounds of stuff from the farm. We are only just now realizing what’s been taken: antique furniture that Mother bought in Mexico when my brother was born almost 50 years ago, shooting medals that Mother had won in her Colorado days, a full size quilt that my Great Aunt Kathryn made as she lay dying from cancer, tools from the shed out back, 2 lawn mowers, the wood stove that was in the barn (which didn't even work, but left a big hole in the roof in the taking of it), gun cabinets belonging to other people. The list goes on…

One of the more shocking things taken: they very carefully went thru the rolodex and took hundreds of address cards, some of which had account numbers and personal information, all gathered by Mother and Stan over 20+ years. They left all the blank cards, which meant they very carefully looked at each one to make sure they got them all – then they tried to hide the rolodex behind a built in bookshelf.

They even vandalized the farm before leaving! There are broken windows and the place is just trashed.

Just the other day an obituary showed up in the paper: written by them, not by us. They very skillfully cut out a whole 25 year period in his life by not even mentioning Mother, any of us kids, or even the grandchildren (Stan was the only Grandfather most of them had ever known).

My brother is livid. He may very well go down to Oregon and physically get all that stuff back - and break some kneecaps in the process. I do know he is threatening to press charges. I support him 100% and will do anything and everything I can to help him – not to get the stuff back, but to … I don’t know, get even? Make them pay for what they’ve done to my family? Try to make them see just how awful they are?

The will has a clause in it that states if anybody contests the will, they get $1.00 and that's final. In my mind, they both more than contested the will. I would love to see mother enforce that one on them both: they deserve it for what they’ve done.