why my husband might die in his sleep tonight.

it is dark out when i wake up now. while i like it on one hand because i can sleep past 4 am without waking up, the dark and cold mean i do not want to get out of bed. i swapped out the beautiful quilts for a qualifill comforter this weekend--another month or two and i will add the Chilean wool blanked i acquired almost a decade ago on Chiloe.

this morning, we did the dog/shower shuffle. i take the dog out while adam jumps in the shower--he's the slower of us, so he has to go first. i stumbled towards the lights, flipping on every light in the house i could find, and then wandered over to stare at the temperature gauge. it is remote sensored to outside, so i know what temperature it is by number and because the little man puts on more or less clothes depending on how warm it is out. 37F. i shuffled to the closet and found my parka. Neah spazzed out, chasing something imaginary---might have been a vole, but i didn't see it--and smelling the frost. yup, first frosting. i remember thinking how frost meant freezing and 37 wasn't freezing, but with a coffee deprived brain all that thinking sounds a lot like COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD and Crunchy.

i dutifully informed Adam it was 37 outside when he emerged from the steamy bathroom. But, when i got out he clarified---it wasn't 37, he said.....it was 31 and i should have put my glasses on. i almost cried, but responded with---how the did we get somewhere where it is below freezing in September??? to which, let me preface by saying i managed not to scream in response, adam retorted, "no idea...i wanted to move to Florida."

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGH. Grrrr. Hissss.

40F....

happy friday.when we were off on that camping trip, i took a bunch of pictures of weird mushrooms....and today is the day you get to see the one that looks like a cracked egg.

Weeping egg mushroom



this morning was a whomping 40 degrees at our little apartment. i should probably remember that the next time i pull on my hoodie over my t-shirt, slide feet into flip flops and head out the door to convince the dog to do her business and not to try to play or eat the leash at 745 in the morning.  Let's be real though, the coffee hasn't worked its magic at that time of morning and i, therefore, cannot be held accountable for whatever stupidity ensues. also, for the record, i haven't broken out the winter jacket yet, just the vest....and i've only worn that once.



tastes like pig ear?

also, in tribute to football season, neah tried to bite the football. alas, her mouth isn't big enough. adam did rescue it before she managed to remove the laces....she was working hard on them.  it bounces and moves differently than her tennis or baseballs....so it took some getting used to.

And last but not least is the start of dinner the other night...quinoa, chard, and my favorite hand towel. while one of the ladies i work with will ACTUALLY be making moose in the kitchen (slicing up a kill from last weekend) i will stick with the moose/mess theme on the hand towel.

two weeks and one day

in two weeks and one day i get to do this again:

I am beyond excited that Mona is coming to visit for the long weekend. I cannot wait to squeeze her, hear about all her adventures, and watch West Wing. We will go walking, not hiking, sit in yummy restaurants and laze about.

In other news, i think i am the dog's problem. when Adam drops her off at day camp, she just whines and acts sad he is leaving her. when i drop her off all hell breaks loose and she barks like a nutjob.

also in other news, when it is like 47 F in the morning and i go out in my hoodie with wonder dog, i'm not actually cold. i take her out in the morning because i am scared of the dark...i have no idea why....and refuse to take her out at night. about the cold thing--i'm not sure if that means i'm slowly adapting to anchorage or if i have a really good hoodie or if the part of my body that acknowledges cold has just thrown in the towel out of frusteration at the permanent state of affairs.



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!

really really cold outside, but warm in the house!

Cold means 0F or -18C. It was -9F last night, which i think is like -21 or 22 C? However, it's still warm in here....warm fuzzies, heart full kinda warm in the house.

requisite cute Neah sleeping photo

First, the set up--a note about Anchorage TV and the weather. All news stations look like they film in community colleges. There's a blue backdrop, some big screen tvs that run illegible ads for the stations' websites with various strange pictures that bear no relation to whatever they are talking about. They have three fixed cameras that jump around the blue screened area to individuals standing in front of another flatscreen. Yeah, when things are video--it's powerpoint. Painful stuff. But the really painful stuff is the "forecast" which is never farther than one day in advance....the last forecast i heard (mind you, it was like 17F (-9C) when it was said) went like this. "It's gonna be cold tomorow."

I can hear what you are thinking already. Cold, huh? Never coulda guessed that. Ah my dears, cold has a whole new meaning here. It means, single digits and negatives in F. It means when you open the front door and massive version of the dragon breath when you breath out in cold weather happens and there's a cloud of steam. It means even wonder-dog doesn't want to play in the snow. In fact, she had to be carried home from her last walk because her paws were too cold. (collective awwww. Thanks.) Here's what cold looks like inside the house. It looks like your husband breaking the doorhandle because the door (and the screws in the door) froze shut and the screws snapped. Of course, husband will tell you it's because his muscles are made of steel.

 

These are inside our house--which stays at 72.

So you have to find ways to stay warm. We had two new ways this week.

1. The Bradens.

Dia and Jake came over to be our first house guests :) Dia made an incredible apple pie from scratch and yummy brownies. She also brought some beautiful orange roses that are starting to open. Jake and Adam talked philosophy, we played some Kinect and Neah tried to learn to be social. She came around eventually, but we clearly need to get her our more often.

It was great to feel like we were starting to settle in a little more, have company, etc :)

2. Full Circle Farms

We got our first box of yummy veggies. Fruit and veggies here are very expensive and not really tasty. So we opted for getting every other week deliveries of veggies to devour. We made a yummy Kale and Chicken stew, a delicious salad last night, and i am working on something for the parsnips this evening :)

Recipie contributions are of course welcome.

recurring theme: I'm cold.

TENGO FRIO. en serio. Hace 21 F.

Yeah. so this morning as we headed into work in our carpool (yes i carpool three days a week--two reasons, cheaper parking and less gas) at 7:30am it was 21 degrees F. 21. that's nonsense. There's no snow and there's nothing to show for this deep freeze except me, shivering, rueing the winds coming from the Fraiser River Valley. Yes, i am blaming Canada.

So i get to work, only to find that there are crazy people still riding their bikes to work. Seriously?? Which leads me to two important thoughts:
1. i must eat more. if all 103 lbs of me cannot survive this cold, there's no way we (royal we, meaning me myself and i) are surviving Alaska next winter.
2. i must buy ear muffs immeadietly. The metal in my ears is freezing and it gives me headaches.

To distract myself from the inevitable turning into a snowperson, i've been reading this website: http://mylifeisaverage.com/ it makes me laugh.

t minus 3 weeks

the other morning i woke up to find my car covered in a slick cold substance i call evil and most people call frost. digging through the jeep of wonders, i located a pair of gloves and a scraper and proceeded to blow my morning timetable scraping the car free of the evil icyness.  later, the local news said this was the first time it had dropped below freezing at the airport since March 21...it seems winter has actually come. This poses two problems to my morning schedule:
1. it means i am going to have to account for time scraping the car.
2. it means i am going to have to account for time drying my hair, so it doesn't freeze when i walk outside.

i'm not a morning person. i have never been, so far as i am aware, a morning person. in fact, i have spent the vast majority of the last 20 years being nocturnal. at one point i completely reversed my sleeping pattern--getting up at 6pm and going to bed at 6am. It was nice. i liked it. the world is quiet and there is less traffic.

classes are over and the ramp up to finals is on. I have one on the 12th and one on the 16th. gratefully, i am much more on top of things this semester and will actually have time to prepare. Colelctive deep breath---its the home stretch of the marathon.