a(hhhhhh)yyamiha

 Aside from the gift of the mixer, i got a pretty great set of presents this year.....bob and lissa!!! they arrived very late with a gun case and big jackets. we promptly got them snow boots---since we got a few inches yesterday this turned out to be a rather brilliant plan--and they decided that the fact that it was only 60 degrees colder than at their house might be okay. in other words, we've been scurrying to the car and inside places for a few days to aclimitize them.....tomorrow starts outdoor adventure land with FUR RONDY!!

 There was some trepridation before entering the apartment for the first time----after all the watchdog tried to eat lissa last year. We went through the new routine:

• call her name,
• be excited,
• act like seeing her is the best.thing.ever.
• They held by the door, ready to flee when i let the creature out of her box if she didn't realize they weren't moose. as i rounded the corner, it was obvious her nose had already told her we weren't alone. She was eyeing the hallway intently, looking a little confused.  All the worry proved for nothing though because Neah recognized her maternal grandparents, talked to them excitedly, and promptly placed them in assigned roles....

Lissa was assigned keeper of the bone....see upper right hidden sofa stash. Bob was assigned tug of war partner.

They are staying around the corner at a b&b, which is very convenient. in fact they can see our apartment complex from the back porch of the place....except that there's like 5 feet of snow out there, so venturing into the back yard without snow shoes is a no go. and while there has yet to be a welcome moose there was welcome moose footprints and pee outside the b&b to greet them.

now, off to take pictures of stop signs buried in snow.

weekend review...

 Here's our weekend in reverse....Fur Rondy, dinner in Girdwood with the scenic Kenai Peninsula, walking along frozen creek beds with the puppy (make it big, it's worth it!), and the moose at Walmart. Thank God the Bar is over.

 

brrrr.

The forecast for today said "COLD" just like that, in caps and italics, like it was shivering. I see why. its down almost 20 degrees from yesterday, down to a nose hair freezing -3F (-19C). It would probably have been helpful if i had bothered to look at the handydandy remote thermostat from outside before taking the dog out to terrorize the neighbors with her new found need to bark at all living creatures.

It didn't happen though, the looking to see if i would freeze not wearing 8 layers, because i can only think of one thing: my impending doom. make that two things, my impending doom and my really overwhelming desire to be working, seriously, i want to work, i'm good at it, and yeah. i can't stand sitting in the house. it makes me a crazy person. back to doom, in a week and a half i sit for one of the worst exams in the country. at present, i spend 10 hours a day in a folding chair trying to drill all rules of law into my head, eating endless boxes of triscuits and not much else, and contemplating what dogs dream of when they bark in their sleep. also, i'm allergic to something mysterioius in this apartment (because i never leave. my world is 400 feet big). i have no idea what it is, but it causes various parts of my face (usually eyebrows or eyes) to swell and get red. it's possible i am allergic to my hands, but that would be problematic.

my daily solace comes from having stolen/borrowed/absconded ten of my parents coffee cups out of a collection of 30 or so. today a 20 year old mug with a hen and chicklet are telling me to "Have a sun shiny day!" ok cup, work your magic!

delayed post re: Planetarium

each year, adam's firm has an annual shareholder meeting. the meeting moves around their various offices from year to year and this year it was here in anchorage. i'm sure everyone was just thanking their lucky stars they got to come here in the dead of winter. anyways, the firm organizes various events to keep people entertained. since adam was the anchorage newby--he had to organize the associate event (drinks dinner and games night at the Captain Cook). The partners organized the next night's event and spouses were included. It was pretty awesome. We went to the University of Alaska Anchorage planetarium.


http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/planetarium/about.cfm

I stole their picture. click the link. anyway, its a pretty state of the art thing. I hadn't been to a planetarium since i was a kid and we went to UNC-CH's. it had one of those light globey things in the middle that shot stars up and moved them around. UAA's was an entirely different experience. we started off flying around alaska and then out into space. it goes essentially 3-D. we checked out a skull flew around inside it and then checked out a mouse and flew around inside it too. The program was on blackholes--although we spent a lot of time at the end talking about pluto and eris the 'not' planets and their 72 friends out there on the edge.
Also, i had no idea that there was a break in Saturn's rings. sure didn't show that on star trek's fly through our solar system sequence. all in all, it reminded me that while i like to think of myself as a big important person in the scope of life, i'm really this infinitisimally (making up words) tiny little thing in the grandiosity of space and time. now if only there was a way to reconcile the two.

shake-shake

not that i'm complaining, but our apartment is a 1970s relic. So, weird things happen--strange noises, thin walls, you get the drift. i've been not so eagerly lying in bed each night for the last month talking to God about how, if i'm going to be up here and s/he's going to give the east coast of the US all the snow, (S)He could at least give me some shimmy shimmy shake shake. get your mind out of the gutter--even though i'm married and that's legit.

i've been asking nightly for an earthquake. a feel-able one. not one of those dinky ones when i'm not paying attention or i'm asleep. well, i finally got my wish.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/AK10/55.65.-160.-140.php

i done got me a 4.6 out on the Kenai! it felt like--well, if my floor was a sauce pan, like someone shook it like they were shaking something they were sauteing. yeah, no idea how to spell that. we just got a new neighbor--so i thought maybe she was doing something really strange, but no! vindication was mine when the red box popped up on the map.

moose-check.
snow-check.
dog-check.
cross-country skis-check (never been used, but are acquired)
earthquake-check.

suggestions for things to add to the list?