Into the Dark

The year is flying by.  This time last year the Irish lad and I and all our possessions were on our way to the great state of Alaska.  We were probably struggling through the South Dakota nightmare storm at this moment, soon to be at the Great Falls KOA where the lad rested for four days. Pak and I went out and walked a part of the great prairie every day, stopping on the way back to harvest veggies for dinner.

The lad is a Sourdough having made it through a winter here. And he says, yes, he is sour and dough-like which of course, is not true. 

In less than three weeks we went from morning and evening commuting light night to dark.  The morning dark is especially unpleasant and well, black.  I have a two-minute combat commute on Minnesota in the morning that forces one to be instantly awake and aggressive.  Seems like other drivers are affected by the sudden dark as well...

At the day job we have to leave the blinds down until sunrise around 10, so customers can't read our computers.  It's a fish bowl my friend Steve says.  On the plus side, the sunrises and sets are glorious.

All family and spouses/others have been participating in the annual first snow/first stick snow guess.  The lad and I guessed earlier and are no longer in the running, although we thought he had won as he witnessed snow at work.  He was instantly disqualified by the judges though who all sent strict and to- the-point emails stating the snow must be seen in one's back yard! 

The Chugach range, Sleeping Lady, and Denali all have a thick white covering that can't be called Termination Dust by even the most die-hard of ostriches.  The Chugach Mountains lie East of Anchorage and every day that covering gets a little lower and a little thicker. Won't be long now.  It was 23 yesterday morning.

We of course, are not completely prepared for winter as the tires need to be changed over.  The lad did put up plastic on all the exterior house windows and that has helped this drafty, poorly-built, and poorly-maintained house quite a bit already.  The lad and I have had an ongoing argument re getting a woodstove as I find the forced air heating to be ineffective for my arthritic joints, but I fear the lad will win as the only wood for burning is birch which he refuses to pay for.  We did bring up the kerosene heater which he will install in the living room and we will pay $10/per gallon for fuel.

Right now we are thinking how to seat and entertain guests for Thanksgiving in this tiny and over-crowded house and are contemplating getting a storage unit.  I hate to, but there is just no room for a gathering and I do love Thanksgiving.  Not because of the settlers but because it combines family and friends and food!   We hope to have both siblings and their spouses and a friend with no family here but not everybody has RSVP'd yet.  One sib is designing a signature cocktail and I am thumbing through holiday recipes.

The PFD checks have arrived and been spent by now, but not for us until next year.

 Then came the AK Federation of Native week-long gathering which flooded ANC with 5000 Natives and clogged the roads.  This year's theme is "Strength in Unity" and the keynote speaker was John Baker, the Iditarod champion from OTZ.  He raced 16 times I think, and won the 17th time.  I would have liked to have been a part of this but work took priority.  Maybe next year.

Halloween is nearly upon us, and boy, does this town love Halloween!  Houses are decorated nearly as much as for Christmas with strings of lights and skeletons.   We are not sure how many trick or treaters we will see.  The lad will be trying to sleep before the night shift and I will be home at 5:30.

So, the point of the last three paragraphs is to illustrate how clogged and manic the roads are just now.  I fear it will last til after the New Year and then folks will settle down for the last bit of winter.  Combined with the dark, it does seem manic, chaotic, and unnecessary.  But oh well, we are in a city now!