Green Thumb

As much as I complained about spending an entire Sunday trying to control the type of grass growing in the backyard, the spring is fun, largely because I have no idea what most of the plants coming up are.
I think that the previous owner went a little crazy on the planting - especially with hostas. I don't really get the whole hosta thing - they are just so big and ugly and they spread like crazy.
At any rate, I am on my way to the hardware store to get a couple of garden tools so I can clear out weeds in the flower beds, spread things out, and get rid of some of the millions of hostas that appear to be coming up.

house, a.m.

What to do when you get there

I'm reading, "The Lobster Coast,"it does a great job capturing the healthy loathing that Mainers have for folks from away. I'll write a book review once I'm finished, but I just wanted to share this quote which describes life in the summer on Monhegan Island but could just as easily pertain to my island [my island numbers and additions in brackets]:

In summer, the village seemed crowded. Indeed, the resident population quadruples [increases by 8x] to around 240 [4000] in the summer... In the early afternoon, when the waves of day trippers reach their crescendo, there can be as many as 1,500 [8000] people on the island... In the height of summer, many residents feel overwhelmed by the tourist onslaught... But others say it's not the sheer numbers that trigger resentment; it's the minority of short-term visitors who can't seem to grasp that they've arrived in a real, living island community. And a few think that they are coming to a resort like Newport or Nantucket, and arrive at the dock with golf clubs and tennis racquets (there are no facilities for either [We actually do have a tennis court]) or evening wear or high-heeled shoes... But the most dull-witted think they are visiting a theme park like Colonial Williamsburg or Disneyland. Monheganers have awakened to find day-trippers wandering around their kitchen and living rooms [walk into our house and demand to use the bathroom] and have apprehended them picking flowers [eating berries, using swings, garden hoses, and swimming pools] in the backyard. "Where is the t-shirt shop [ATM, McDonald's]?" one such person asked me ... and stood agape and confused at the notion that there wasn't such an establishment in the village. In fact ... there was no shopping [ATM, McDonald's] on Monhegan at all. She looked at me in horror and, after a long pause to gather her wits asked, desperation in her voice: "Well, why do people come here then?" (pp. 19-20, emphasis added).

So, anyway, in addition to completely understanding this quote, I've been thinking about travel. I have observed what I think of as 2 very different orientations to travel. I associate one such orientation with the Midwest and the other with Maine. However, this is likely because these are the 2 places I've lived.
1. Maine orientation: travel to relax. Most towns in Maine don't rush to build some cheesy museum, upscale resort, or hotel with a water park to try to get folks to come. The thinking is that the reason to come is all around you: the beautiful ocean and mountain vistas; the quiet -in most of Maine there is quiet in the background, if I sit absolutely quietly in my backyard here in Milwaukee, there is noise behind the quiet (e.g. cars several blocks away); outdoor activities.
2. Midwest orientation: travel to see and do. You choose your travel destinations and spend your trip seeing and doing that which one is supposed to see and do when a tourist in that place. The Corn Palace, Wall Drug, the Spam Museum, Circus World Museum, House on the Rock, all of those silly giant fiberglass cows, dinosaurs, cheeses, etc. - all of this stuff is supposed to recommend a travel spot to you and occupy your time while you are there.

When I met him, my partner had the latter orientation to travel while I was a number 1. When I go somewhere, I just want to hang out and do what the "real people" do. I want to go to grocery shopping to see what the different products are and how people go about buying things( e.g. supermarket or actual market), I want to walk around random neighborhoods, find a nice park and sit in the sun people watching, eat at the restaurants that seem to be the most local. I get very annoyed if I find myself in situations where it is obvious that I am a tourist (hard to avoid on account of height and race in many places). So, although I am happy to follow the Lonely Planet Guide's walking tour, I will NEVER pull the guide out to reference it if I am in clear view of other people on the street.

Jason, on the other hand, peruses countless guidebooks in the weeks before our trip, or even before we decide where to go, to see what it is one is supposed to see when in X. He writes a detailed itinerary for the trip and feels that no visit to Paris, for example, is complete if one hasn't seen Notre Dame, the Louvre (including the Mona Lisa), the E. Tower, Versailles, Disneyland Paris, and been on the tour of the sewers.

Our early trips were a disaster. We would just argue about how to spend our time and one of us would end up sullenly giving in to the other. He would be annoyed when I wanted to depart from the itinerary to wander around, go to church or the movies, or see where in X one goes to get their driver's license. I would be mortified to find myself in a crowd of people taking pictures of a double decker bus or perturbed that I waited for 30 minutes to see a poorly-lit Mona Lisa behind several feet of glass.

We've been together long enough that we've worked this out and I think we both get more out of our trips as a result. Instead of jumping all over (e.g. 4 cities/countries in 3 days), we travel to fewer places and stay longer. Ideally, I like to be in a place long enough that I feel like I will need to get a job and apartment if I stay any longer (about 12 days) but I will settle for a shorter stay. If we go to Seattle, for example, we stay there for 3 or 4 days without taking extended day trips to the Cascades or whatever. If we want to go to the Cascades, we go for a week, much of it spent camping in remote locations as far from the park loop road as possible We also divide our days. We get up early and do the touristy stuff before too many other tourist are out and about. Then we grab lunch and spend the afternoon putzing around so I can follow my nose. We divide our dinners between places Jason finds in his guidebooks and whatever street vendor or greasy spoon catches my eye.

Rediscovery: Cocteau Twins

In 8th grade I was all about the Cocteau Twins. The extent to which I was a misfit in general was clearly visible in my musical preferences. Up until 6th or 7th grade, my music of choice was "easy listening" (e.g. The Carpenters, Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot), a result of the fact that was what my mother played at home. After a very brief stint listening to the American Top 40 and trying to curl my bangs so that they would "pouf," I moved to the songs we were singing with my hippie choral director, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, songs from Godspell. I supplemented this music with a hodge-podge of other stuff I came across and liked, The Roches, Cocteau Twins, New Order, Indigo Girls, and the Dead Milkmen.

At any rate, as all my Cocteau Twins CDs were lost in the great car break-in of 1995, I have gotten away from them. However, I've been listening to them on MusicMatch jukebox lately and am reminded how much they kick ass - it's perfect "trying-to-deal-with-SAS" music.

The Stand (1978)

I have this memory of sitting on the floor in front of my dad, who was relaxing in his chair, reading. The picture on the book's dust cover (the book was hardcover) struck me as a scary one. A man dressed in white with blonde hair (I took him to be Luke Skywalker) was confronting a black monster that looked like a giant crow. I remember asking my dad if the book was scary and he said, "Yes." The picture was scary enough for me. I remember sitting and studying him and marveling at how long it took for him to turn the page. I tried to pay attention long enough to see him turn the page again. I remember thinking to myself, "Who would ever want to read a book without any pictures on the inside?"

a book with no pictures inside

First photo with my new digital camera

It's actually a nice camera but I need a bigger memory stick so the photo isn't the best quality.
Also, it is pretty dark in my study and the flash clearly flattens the picture.

I'm very excited about the prospects of a nice digital camera.

doogers

What I am NOT excited about is SAS. I am one of the lucky souls who managed to make it through my first few years of sociology without having to deal with the lumbering behemoth that is SAS. Unfortunately, my number is up. In a mostly vain effort to pay the bills, I took a research position this semester. Of course, I haven't kept up with it so now I find myself up against a firm deadline, trying to learn SAS so I can access a cryptic super-duper high security data set.

When it rains...

Just as my childhood home is being sold, the Scotia Prince, the ship with lights visible from the island as it came in and out of Portland Harbor every evening, is also up on the auction block. When I went off to Chicago for college, I brought a poster print of a watercolor of the Scotia Prince motoring out of the harbor in the twilight.

Scotia Prince, photo from Portland Press Herald, taken byJohn Patriquin

i know, i know, just get over it

OK. I have never spoken with Mary and I have spoken with Dad once since I got back from Alaska. I called and we were on the phone about 2 minutes before he got a call on the other line. He said, "Oops, I've got to go. That's the boss." I said, "OK, maybe you can call me later." And that was it.

Today, I received, from Mary's email account, the following email - which starts out as if it is written by my dad but it is clearly not.

Dear Kids,
As most of you know, Mary and I are planning to sell the main home on [-] Island. We plan to keep the cottage and perhaps, if the Lord wills [my dad would NEVER write this], add on to make it a year-round home. We are trying to clean and fix up the main home and make it more presentable for sale to maximize the return [my dad would never write this].We are finding we could use some help from as many of you who can participate as possible. On May 30th the Memorial Weekend we would like to have you all come and help. We will supply all the food if you will supply the strength, endurance, energy and time[my dad would never write this]. (We know this is impossible for some but we would like you all to know what is going on. Come if you can).Please let us know by May 14th so we can purchase paint and whatever else is necessary.

Love to each of you,
Dad and Mary

I memba how it used to be.

My Maine accent was heaviest before 7th grade. That's when tracking started in the Portland Public Schools. I was tracked into classes primarily with first generation Mainers (people whose parents had moved to Portland from elsewhere for work and, hence, spoke without heavy Maine accents). I became very self-conscious about my own accent - but, of course, I was insecure about everything during the dark and terrible middle school years.

I used to say "memba" instead of remember. Na Hampsha instead of New Hampshire. Propity instead of property. I could go on and on. I did have a bit of a Maine accent left when I got to college - most obvious in words that I hadn't had much opportunity to use off the island. At the end of my first year of college I went on a road trip to Sault Ste. Marie with some friends. There was a monument to ship building or sea-faring or something. In the center of the monument was a large propeller. I said, "Look at that cool old propella."

When I learned of this survey, I decided to see how much my Maine-ish has been diluted by my years in the Midwest. Of course, Yankee is an awfully broad category, especially for an instrument that claims to distinguish between Midwest and Upper Midwest, but we can see that I am less than 50% yankee. It's sad, really.

Your Linguistic Profile:

45% Yankee

35% General American English

15% Upper Midwestern

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

word to the wise

Let's say you are acquainted with a woman who is 5+ months pregnant. You haven't seen her in a bit and you expect her to be sporting quite a belly. When you finally do see her, you are surprised that she doesn't really seem to be showing.

In such a situation, do NOT say (unprompted, anyway), "Oh, if I didn't know you were pregnant, I wouldn't have ever guessed." Or anything along those lines.

Why? Because the woman in question undeniably knows that she is pregnant, that she has a gargantuan belly that keeps her from wearing her old clothes, sleeping on her back or her stomach, and even comfortably riding the recumbent bike at the gym. Sure, that belly is going to get bigger but her uterus is already the size of a basketball and if you tell her that you don't see a thing you are just telling her that, in your eyes, she was always huge.

fallacy of misplaced concreteness

Just thought you would want to know.

Day on the water

Last August, my partner, my dad and I took one last sail before I left Maine for Milwaukee. My dad has a great boat, Ruach, a 32 foot Pearson Vanguard – beautiful, with a heavy fiberglass hull, the boat is a tank designed to handle the roughest seas. It was a beautiful day on Casco Bay – 75 degrees, sunny, with a light wind out of the south east. We sailed through Whitehead passage and past Ram Island and Ram Island Ledge Light. We saw some White-sided Atlantic dolphins. We traveled down to Halfway Rock and then looped back behind Long Island. We dropped anchor at Little Chebeague and ate lunch. We sat reading for a bit and then I took a swim.

It was a bit choppy on the sail back to the island, the breeze had picked up a bit. After we arrived at the mooring, Dad and Jason covered the sail while I headed below deck to close up and change out of my swimsuit. I came back above board to find them loading the dinghy for the trip to shore. I hopped aboard first as I was to row. Then Jason, who sits in the stern came aboard. I turned the dinghy to make it easier for dad to climb in the bow. As he was descending the ladder from Ruach, his wallet slipped out of his jeans pocket. I reached for it, and in so doing, I knocked it into the water.

“Damn!” I exclaimed. Dad jumped into the dinghy and we all peered over the side to watch his wallet settle slowly into a bare patch of exposed sand between beds of eel grass. The water was only about 15 feet deep but the tide was on its way in, so we needed to act fast.

“I’ll go in for it,” I said, “Let me put my suit back on.”

I grabbed my bag, climbed back aboard Ruach, and changed quickly into my damp bathing suit.

“Islander, come here and look at this!” Jason called from the dinghy. I jumped down and looked into the water to see the strangest thing. There were 2 large carp on the bottom examining the wallet. As we watched, a third carp arrived. Then, to our surprise, one of the fish began to nudge the wallet with what would be its nose if it had a nose. Before we knew it, the carp were batting the wallet from fish to fish in what looked like some crazy game of aquatic volleyball.

“Well,” said may dad with a bemused look at Jason and me, “who would have ever thought that there is such a thing carp to carp walleting?”

MKE

Meetup.com recently decided they needed to make some money - this makes sense as they have a staff and offer a worthwhile service - an easy way to locate and network with local folks with shared interests. However, they decided to remedy their financial troubles by charging meetup organizers for each meetup. The fee is $19.00 a month or something like that but, for folks who have been with meetup for a while, they are extending a deal - $9.00 a month for the rest of the year. Organizers are encouraged to pass this expense along to their group and, in fact, are able to make money on their meetup if the so choose. In addition to use of the meetup website, organizers get a whole bunch of really cool stuff for paying up - table tents and professionally printed meetup cards and the like.

So, my book group decided that this whole scheme is a bad idea. What about targeted marketing for Pete's sake? Why not charge a meetup.com membership fee instead of passing off the work to the organizer? Should small groups like mine (3 -6 people per meetup and 9 members total), pay the same fee as a large group that really uses meetup resources for networking (e.g. Democracy for America)?

We decided to move off meetup.com and, while I was creating a home on blogger for the group, I came across this blog. I am curious about Mike. Did he ever manage to get through "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets?" Did he decide to call it quits with the films there or did he go on to pirate "Prisoner of Azkaban?" Did he come up with that Q*bert template himself and, if not, can blogger bring it back?

That is all.

Desperate

So, I've been holding off on the acquisition of a lot of preggo clothes. I reasoned that if I could just make it until the weather warms up, I can save money by picking up a few pairs of BIG shorts and capris and couple them with ratty t-shirts to make it through the summer.

The warmth is here, although it is going to cool down again for the next few days, and I am caught unawares. I am sitting at home wearing a pair of Jason's shorts and one of his t-shirts. My legs are bright white and my feet and ankles are horribly swollen. I look and feel so horrendous that I actually cancelled my meeting with my advisor rather than face the world in this state.

Hang on, I just realized why the bells at the Catholic church in my neighborhood have been pealing for the last 20 minutes or so - there must be a new pope.

Anyway, my summer plan - sitting in a child's wading pool in my back yard wearing an old t-shirt and cut-off sweatpants and drinking smoothies - is fine and good except for when I need or desire to have a bit of interface with the rest of the world.

Mmmmmm... breakfast

I started the morning the way that I have found most beneficial over the past few months - a small glass of unsweetened cranberry juice and a bowl of total raisin bran. However, this morning I am just not satisfied, so, as we speak I am heating up leftovers from the Palomino - half an order of toffulo wings! Now, that's breakfast!

What dreams

I often have dreams in which I am telling people off. For example, last week I dreamt that I got into it with one of my brothers and ended up telling him that I thought he was an arrogant S.O.B. who never took more than a ceremonial position in family matters. People who really care, I told him, are there when the crowd isn't there to notice what a supportive sibling you are. I actually believe that sometime I will say something like this to my brother.

However, last night, I had one of those dreams which occurs every month or 2, in which I was actually physically violent toward a member of my family. Unlike the dream described above, I know that these dreams are just fantasy. In fact, a large segment of my violent dreams is spent building up the emotional state that leads to me banging people's heads on walls, etc. They are curious dreams because I have never felt so violent in waking life and I wonder what they are for. I suspect many of my most emotional dreams are occurring to exercise neural pathways that don't get a lot of use - just to keep me primed in case I ever need to kick someone's ass.

Marrying Mary

Lately, I tend to wake up sometime between 3 and 5 a.m. and lie there for some time, my mind wandering until I am brought back to reality - that I am lying in bed awake - by the feelings of fetal dancing. The other day I woke up from a dream in which I attended my dad's wedding, instead of going to Alaska. This is the first dream in which my dad’s wife appeared – probably because last weekend I saw photos of the wedding and, so, saw Mary for the first time. Now that I have a face to attach to her person, I imagine I will see her from time to time in dreams.

We were at the wedding reception and I still had not even exchanged so much as a word with Mary. Finally, she was making the rounds and she approached my table (I was sitting there with my partner and several siblings). She looked at me and I smiled at her, eager to finally meet her. Then she said, with a puzzled expression, “I’m sorry, I have no idea who you are.”
That was it for me, I stood up and stormed away. Then I woke up.

My brothers tell me how nice she is. I keep telling them that I don’t doubt for a second that she is nice. My sister tells me that she thinks Mary should have taken a little time to reach out to us. I keep telling her that it is not Mary’s job to keep us in the loop and make sure that we get to know one another, that’s dad’s job. Even in the dream, and when I woke up, I knew that I wasn’t upset with Mary. I am upset with my dad.

It’s difficult to take on the role of family matriarch when your mother dies: to spend the first several days of your winter break cleaning your father’s house (which hasn’t been cleaned since the last time you did it) and decorating for the holidays so that when everyone else gets there you can celebrate Christmas; to be the person that your dad calls whenever he needs anything, wants to talk about how lonely he is, or is wondering why he hasn’t heard from one of your siblings in a week or 2; to be the person responsible for updating the extended family about what everyone is doing and organizing the immediate family when necessary. I know that I didn’t have to do all of those things, but people expected them of me, I would have felt like I was shirking my duty if I didn’t do them, and lastly, I feel like it would have been disrespectful to my mother’s memory not to maintain some semblance of family life and order in the family home. I had this dream once in which I walked into my dad’s kitchen and my mother was there cleaning. Sometimes when I dream about my mum, her presence isn’t problematic but sometimes in the dream I am aware that she shouldn’t be there because she is dead. This dream is one of the latter. When I saw my mother cleaning the kitchen, I asked, “Mum, what are you doing here?” She looked at me with a mournful expression, “They kicked me out of heaven to come down here and clean this house.”

So, the point is, for the last 6 years, since my mother was ill and asked me to put on the family Christmas in her stead, I have felt a tremendous amount of responsibility to keep my family together. I always hoped that dad would remarry and I am glad he has found someone, but I feel like my family, instead of growing larger as a result of this marriage, which is how I have always felt with sibling marriages, is dwindling. I don’t know if I just need to recast my relationship with my dad and siblings and recognize that, although the form of the family will change, we will still care about one another and keep in touch and all that. I don’t know if I just need to let dad settle into his new marriage and eventually he’ll have some emotional energy left for the rest of us. I don’t know if I should say something about how upset I am to feel so irrelevant - that I worked too hard to be cast aside without a thought. I don’t know if I should just assume that dad and his wife have her family complete with grandkids, so dad’s children and his biological grandchildren, when they finally arrive, will never be too important, and move on.

This whole thing really get to me – puts me in an every other day funk that can only be remedied (and only in the short term) by a trip to the gym.

Down and out?

I'm thinking of throwing in the towel here, folks. I mean, what's this supposed to be for anyway? I thought I might feel more connected, like my world, for all practical everyday purposes is bigger than a house, 2 dogs and a partner, and perhaps even become more connected. Alas, I feel increasingly like that one older woman I've seen several times at Pizza Shuttle. She sits there, smoking cigarettes (when will Milwaukee get with the program?) and speaking loudly to herself and anyone else who cares to listen. If you look her way, she catches your eye and you feel that she is speaking directly to you - that it would be really rude to turn away but yet you don't know her, you don't know what she's talking about, and, after all, you don't really care anyway.

2nd favorite photo 

whining

I am probably going home for the first couple of weeks of May to do some final interviews. I got roped into throwing a baby shower for my sister-in-law while I am there. I don't mind throwing a shower for her but the whole thing is turning into a big pain. First, I needed to find a relative to give me her house for the shower. Now I need to coordinate with this relative to get everything scheduled and done while my brother and sister-in-law are seemingly unable to get me a list of people to invite (apart from the obvious aunts, cousins, and neighbors). At the same time that they are NOT giving me a list of invitees, this same brother is inviting people to attend a shower on the 14th even though I haven't tied my cousin down to the particular date when I can have her house, although it is now apparent that it will NOT be the 14th.

And then, here is the particularly selfish and whiny part, there is the fact that I am not going to be home again before I have MY baby so, if I am going to have a baby shower with my family, it would have to be during this same time period but I KNOW that no one will think of that and, of course, I won't say anything.

If you decide you want to take pity on me on account of the fact that I will not be having a baby shower with my wonderful family, feel free to buy me something from my registries!

Some ice sculptures

This sculpture was easily 18 feet high. The coolest thing, beside the detail, was the fact that the chains were real. The chain around his waist was actually blowing and clinking in the breeze.

Isn't this the best? Originally the frog's tongue was extended and grabbing a fly but it warmed up a little too much so the tongue broke.

This ice building had stairs on one side and a slide going down the other side.

I really liked this whimsical sculpture. Originally the kid had was blowing a horn.

Mindless

My partner is a planner. I can't tell you how many hours the two of us have spent discussing the details of intricate "what ifs" over my objections that my time is being wasted. The example most immediately available includes the countless hours of research on and discussion of the 20 cities/universities where he felt he was most likely to be offered a faculty position. Of course, the city in which we ended up and, for that matter, even the places where his second round interviews occurred were not included in our list of 20.
Well, given that our pending change in family status is exactly the type of thing one spends a bit of time discussing anyway, I find myself drawn again and again into discussion of the delivery itself. My partner wants to speculate as to the details of the event. Will I scream at him about how he did this to me? How long will it take? Will I end up asking for drugs? How awfully does it hurt anyway?
I begin to feel queasy the second he starts speculating about how it will all play out. Even though I have read countless books on pregnancy and child development in the last few months, I usually skip the delivery part, especially if there are photos. Now, I'm not one to advocate abstention from thinking. However, in this instance, I think the less cognitively involved I am the better. I mean, my body should be designed to get the job done. I don't think about sneezing outside of my awareness that the sneeze is coming on, apart, perhaps, from bringing a hand or tissue up to my face to spare those around me or the computer monitor in front of me. I think the same approach will be best in the case of delivery. It is just too much to think about what my body will be doing.

Gluttony

My doctor would be horrified to hear about my dinner this evening. I heard about this bar called The Palomino which is said to offer great vegan entrees. We decided to go for an early dinner to beat the smokers. When will Milwaukee join the rest of the civilized world and ban smoking???

It was so good and so FRIED - which is why I am a bad parent-to-be. At the top of the menu was the bar's motto, "If it tastes good, it will taste better fried." We started with the toffalo wings - that's right vegan wings with vegan ranch dressing to dip them in. I thought my partner was going to weep with joy when they arrived at our booth. Then I had the vegan sloppy joe with sides of sweet potato chips and fried pickles (yes, I know, I should be jailed for reckless endangerment of an almost child). Jason got the chicken fried tofu with the onion haystack and red beans and rice. Everything was good. We ordered way too much and the bill was only $24.

Next time I am going to try the tater tot po'boy with fried okra and slaw and I am going to save room for dessert so I can try the fried banana split.

In Fairbanks: city slickers

Fairbanks was, by far, the most "exotic" location we visited on our trip. When I say exotic, I mean it is the place that was the most dissimilar from other places I have been. In Seward, we were on the water. It was a great little fishing town. Anchorage was a small city. Fairbanks, however, particularly the downtown area where we stayed, seemed the most removed from the world I know. Granted, the activities we traveled to Fairbanks to see, the World Ice Art Carving Championships, and the North American Sled Dog Speed Trials made this trip what it was.

We arrived fairly late in the evening. Our hotel was downtown and we quickly learned that downtown Fairbanks is much maligned by many - particularly the University folks we spoke with who talked about how dangerous the area is. It was seedy, but interesting. The first night, we ordered food - pizza - and stayed in the hotel. We hoped to see the Borealis while we were in Fairbanks so asked the hotel staff to wake us if the lights were out that night. Then we went to bed.

The next morning we resolved to find breakfast. I was concerned about getting enough calcium and protein on this trip so we ate big breakfasts every morning (eggs, eggs, and more eggs for me). We checked the weather report before leaving the hotel - I could see the wind whipping snow past our window. The temperature - 5 degrees with wind chill placing you at 15 - 25 below. We bundled up - Jason's first opportunity to don the fancy expedition weight long underwear he purchased for the trip. We left the hotel and wandered into empty downtown Fairbanks. None of the diners on Jason's list were open so we ended up at a little hole in the wall called the Trapper's Shack.

The Trapper's Shack was a strictly local establishment. I definitely got the sense that "downtown people" in Fairbanks are similarly situated to "downtown people" where I am doing my fieldwork, folks at the bottom of the class structure, living in low-rent, poor quality housing, and isolated from new opportunities that come to the municipality (which are situated in the outskirts of a city with summer-only public transportation). We sat down and ordered. I noticed over Jason's shoulder that there was a couple at the counter who had turned and was staring at us. Not quizzically, but with that annoyed and disdainful expression that islanders pull out for tourists who are where they shouldn't be. They were speaking to each other as they stared at us and I could intuit what they were saying. It was something along the lines of, "F***ing city slickers from Anchorage."

Afterwards, Jason and I talked about how obviously we were outsiders. Jason did not shave the rest of the trip.

After breakfast we went over to the World Ice Art Carving Championships. They were quite spectacular. So spectacular, in fact, that we went again that evening to see the lighted sculptures.

This is a life-sized ice pig in the children's area where all the sculptures could be climbed upon.

ice pig

mushing

I was surprised at how small the dogs were - probably averaging not more than 40 pounds each. I was also surprised that very few of the dogs appeared to be any of the northern breeds (e.g. huskies) but I suppose that doesn't matter too much on a 25 mile loop (run in under 2 hours).

The dogs were rearing to go - howling and barking and yipping. It was quite a scene.

dogs

Incidentally, there were dogs EVERYWHERE in Alaska. People brought them to work with them. At least every other pick-up truck had a dog sitting in the bed. On top of that the dogs I saw, apart from those in the race, were completely chill. Perhaps it is so cold in Alaska that dogs have really slow metabolisms that keep them calm at all times. At any rate, it was clear to me that Alaska, despite the cold, is a great place to be a dog. In fact, I bet that if you developed a dog happiness index Alaska would be one of the states with the happiest dogs.

Fur

That first afternoon in Fairbanks we went downtown to see the sprint sled dog races. To our surprise, the Alaska Trappers Association was hosting a pelt auction in conjunction with the races. It was so cold Jason thought that he would benefit greatly from a beautiful pair of beaded beaver over mittens. I, however, thought that it would be extremely foolish to spend $300 on a pair of mittens he would never be able to wear in the lower 48.

wolf pelts

Incidentally, the last time I saw so many people wearing fur was in Russia. It is a bit shocking the first time someone walks by with the remains of an arctic fox draped over their shoulder.

moon

This is my favorite photo. It was taken on the train from Anchorage to Fairbanks, just north of the Denali stop.

In Alaska: What would Jared do?