OMG... less than 24 hours till PIE

it is true folks. yourses trulies will be going to see the one, the only:

sitka pie lady.


are we going to sitka (site of jews, russians, and recent hollywood pretty people filming)?


NO.

WRONG.

she moved here, has a shop in the marina far north and not accessible via bus, and it, apparently is the only shop there. we have to find it. there's nothing else.

let me take you back, back, back to a time when two fine tipping dusky locals came up to my crab counter oh but a few weeks ago...

me: "where you from?" (question asked to all - answer invariably is either arizona, vancouver, or the deep south)
them: "here"
m: "oh, wow, some local folk. what have you been up to today?"
t: "well, we are from here and are back visiting. today we went to see the sitka pie lady"

i had a gustatory heart attack - how could this be? a pie lady? a pie lady in my own town? my own town that has only one restaurant I haven't yet been two despite arriving five weeks ago - how?! who would deprive me of pie???!

they went on to explain that she is the pie lady from a restaurant in the sitka airport. people would get off their plane during a 30 minute layover to go buy a pie. not a slice of pie - a pie. the whole pie. if not multiple pies. clearly some evil local plot has been keeping me from my pie - fruit, peanut butter, chocolate - they've been pulling the polar bear furr over mine eyes.

i mean, clearly i love to eat... TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PIE.

they trotted off after tipping well (holler) and i stored this morsel of critical information away. my list of things to see in AK is now ranked 1) the pie lady 2)the indian island (no joke, actual island) 3)moose lodge 4)totem poles at the other massive totem pole park 5)tidepools (but i have to be careful not to get caught out and drown due to rapid tide changes)

i digress. back to pie.

after finishing my day i walked next door two weeks ago to the local watering hole and inquired of the ginger haired barmaid - where and how do i get to the pie. she related what she knew - vague directions without street names which seem to be the town hallmark and i proceeded to mi jameson on the rocks.

flash forward to today. fresh faced from my second day of unemployment and with wheels (rented a car to move into next apt - 2 bedrooms this time yall, we movin on up). excited to be driving and not lugging bags in the rain we thought we'd capitalize on our chance to explore past the bus boundaries and investigate this pie situation. K and I recalled different directions to said pie shop, and, without streets, a name of the store, a name of the pie lady, or agreement on whether it was north or south, we sought local aid.

nobody


had


heard


about


the pie lady.


no joke. but fair readers: i did not die. i proceeded to google. google had nothing. (where the fudge pie do you have to be to google something that exists and get NOTHING - locality check like whoa). but, if at first you don't succeed...

after erroneously calling other businesses in the vicinity of where i thought it should be, asking random shopkeeps around downtown, and questioning the visitors bureau i earned nill for my efforts.

saddened, we made our way to alaska car rental to pickup wheels for the next 24 hours. k - bless her heart - had the presence of mind to ask just oooooooone more time.

the sweet dowdy woman behind the counter is my new fav. person - she confirmed that the pie lady exists and her stalwart shopboy -a little too indie tinged for this town in his tattered nautical wool coat and long bangs - even pointed it out on a map.

i shall tell you what angels taste like when baked into a pie. stay tuned.

lox to knock off yo socks

We made lox yall! If your lucky you'll get some from santa at christmas.

Expect photos of a brunch soon...

which is better?

gay cruisers or lesbian cruisers?

the gays seem to be more fun but the lesbians seem to spend more and talk to each other so if you make a good impression on one people come in all day long saying "I heard this was good..."

so far we've had multiple gay man cruises and today was the first lesbian cruise since we've been here.

Highlight: A Top Chef contestant from a couple seasons ago showed up at D's lunch counter! This is her.

Lowlight: She was a snotty bitch and then we remembered that she sucked and got kicked off quite early.... p.s. as D so eloquently put it. If you are a chef you should know that crab season isn't really until december so don't order crab and then have a shit fit if it's not perfect!

green green

I've decided two things. First: the only way to make itlong erm in food service is to either be high or listen exclusively to stoner music. While my esteemd colleagues choose to puff uffon break I've tuned the ipod to sublime. Wishful thinking.


Second: evryone here grows. I haveto do double takes consistently to see If im in mendicino. Seriously why is everyone so open about this. I'm obviously a square and frakly almost look the picture of a DEA agent (rolled into town, know nobody, no history - smells like feds to me...)

40 oz...

on the hunt

No no, we're not going hunting....yet. We are on the hunt for a new apartment. Some of the prices are coming down (slightly) and lots of people are leaving so on our day off yesterday we went trekking around and looked at some options. We've narrowed it down and are looking at 1 pretty seriously. It's straight up a hill which all of them seem to be but just have images of sliding down it on my butt after falling on ice, or very unsuccessfully trying to climb up a hill of ice. Look out for stories of these events once winter comes....oh dear.

Additionally K is obviously on the hunt for a man at the same time. That is, unfortunately, a search with sadder prospects than the apartment search. There is one potential victim however, as you all know, K does not like to do a lot of work and he, in the words of his employer, "thinks at the speed of a glacier". Even my boss, who is not always observant, commented that he was a little slow.

What does this mean? He has been coming into K's store on a regular basis and not buying anything, only talking to her and being easily distracted by her....um....assets. All this is incredibly flattering however the encounters are generally ending with ok "see you tomorrow" or "I don't have a tour tomorrow so I'll be working the next day". And again you all know that K has very little patience and so is getting more and more frustrated by the day.

I'm sure some of you are saying "Just ask him out K" or "give him your number, duh" but at a certain point it turned into an entertainment of it's own and now K is watching to see if the love affair will ever blossom, a la molder & scully (spelling?) stay tuned...

ummm

Umm, also, it turns out we live in a rainforest....oops!

p.s. it's raining again

alaska wireless...

Jigga What?

So, as we spend more time here we have come to notice some stark differences between Alaska and our home state of California....

Differences between Alaska & California:

• In Alaska, the Walmart is tiny (like actually really quite small) and does not carry good sweatpants and only one long sleeve shirt (for women).
• In Alaska, fat people have love lives
• In Alaska, there is an ass at the end of our street
• In Alaska they don't recycle (at all)
• In Alaska they don't hug trees they clear cut them
• In Alaska a bus transfer is a radio call from one bus driver to the other announcing the number of transfers and where

We expect that this list will continue to grow as time increases so stay tuned...

Quinoa: couscous 2.0

Need I say more? Try it people!

pop goes the racism: another american classic

So, in my traveling wilderness nostalgia for that which never was in my life i really wanted to obtain a copy of Little House on the Prairie.

I have vivid memories of maple candy formed on new snow and was intrigued and delighted when i read about how the kids in the story fried and ate the pigs's tale - it seemed appropriately rugged reading for this frontier adventure i've assigned myself.

Lo and behold while trolling the tiny Salvation Army in town, there were three Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Striving for modesty in my possessions (i know - how new of me right?) I only purchased one: Little House in the Big Woods.

Hiding from the rain in the laaaame coffee shop (that hearkens to smith/northampton/lesbianism/low caliber service in exchange for metro-cosmpoolitan buppieness) i dove into the book.

Spring took me through flowering prairies. Autumn was pig fattening, hunting, and meat smoking. And winter was boring. So boring that Pa had to play the fiddle to entertain the youngins. His ditty (to the tune of pop goes the weasel):

"There was an old darkey

And his name was Uncle Ned,

And he died long ago, long ago.

There was no wool on the top of his head,

In the place where the wool ought to grow.

"His fingers were as long,

As the cane in the brake,

His eyes they could hardly see,

And he had no teeth for the eat the hoe-cake,

So he had to let the hoe-cake be.

"So hang up the shovel and the hoe,

Lay down the fiddle and the bow,

There's no more work for old Uncle Ned,

For he's gone where the good darkeys go."

Lucky uncle ned.

Grieving with the familiar sting of yet another childhood classic gone the was of le american bigotry we slug our way through the drizzle past spawning salmon to the movie theatre.

I can call it the movie theatre because it's the only one. I thought my pain might be assuaged by watching the life, loves, and times of two white chicks. That's right - I finally got to see Julie Julia.

It was snugglie like a cup of hersheys cocoa homemade hot chocolate (follow the recipe folks - it's foolproof). Or perhaps satisfying as the snuggies we both received courtesy of our sister from another mister stuck in oakland. Either way, the movie was good. 96% good!

There's been a lot of food in my life, and in response to the Frenchie on Top Chef claiming french as the supreme cuisine, K and I were posing the question: if you had to eat just one comida for your entire life what would it be?

I said west indian. K said that was cheating because it is the result of colonial fusion. I said it's fair game. But this raises a good question: What is your favorite pre-colonial cuisine?

OK.

it's been hard to post given a. our reduced internet capacity (please see photos for our "alaskan wireless") and b. we're working like immigrants.

you heard me: like IMMIGRANTS!

an appropriate response given by scribe was, "well, as chris rock says - if you have a job that an immigrant can steal... you got a fucked up job."

and indeed i do. my feet are consistently on the verge of bleeding after standing for literally up to 9 hours. this is a whole new angle for an econ class: 'do you want to stand up for 9 hours? let's have class today standing up. oh, what's that billy - you don't like standing up forever? THEN GET A BA!'

i know. i'm a powerful teacher. can't wait to slap that lesson on em.

highlights:

-the 67% decipherable chef is from oakland and promises to make me adobo crab (?)

-the other chef (who has the shakes) likes K and finally had a first prolonged first human conversation

-we got off early today because the cruise ships couldn't dock in the city because there were 16 foot swells

-D attempted to catch fish with her bare hands... while tipsy. she grasped fish 3 times... fish, incidentally are slippery.

-i eat HELLA crab

-being single and without a criminal record, addiction to alcohol prescription medication, or marijuana makes us two of three women we've met yet... including teens.

-no pregnant women have tried to run us over in a borrowed vehicle, then gotten out and said, "i'm still gonna rip your throat out bitch," and then punched us in the jaw (unlike our one coworker/friend here... pobrecita)

-we're gonna sew!

-K like broccoli

-a lumberjack gave me a piece of wood

-we can work an espresso machine better than any barista at the lakeshore OR alameda starbucks

-the bus is one dollar

lowlights:

-the bus does not seem to keep any perceptible schedule

-working 10 days in a row (pah - labor laws shmabor laws)

-we're not friends with any indians yet

-we apparently can't get hurt here because, as advised by a local "hell no, i'd fly to seattle for any important shit"

-it rains like... a rainforest yo (who knew that was indeed a literal translation)

-we only kick it at the pussy smoke free bar because we're too tired to walk farther

-there's two places to shop: Tongass Trading Company (akin to big longs meets pier 39 meets REI... but smaller), or Walmart. Walmart had one option of long sleeve t-shirt to buy. ONE.

-there is no curry powder... anywhere

at least tim gun can keep us company.

US Men of Steel!

Ok, we are both too hungover and exhausted to write a real post about this yet. However I needed to put in a little teaser.

Alaska women are, in the words of Beyonce, african and bold! There was lots of naked man and lots of groping. D and I were actually shocked by some of it. There is so much to tell but it will have to come soon.

Now, back to bed to kick the all day hangover and be ready for work tomorrow morning at 8:00am...ick!

Photo Albums - there's more!

Ok, so we had our first day off and that obvi resulted in more pics. From now on you can check the gallery for new albums.

See our pics, or go to the following link http://picasaweb.google.com/katie.e.oneil

mini football!!!

baby boys playing football outside our windows!!!! perk of living near a school ball field - it's adorable!!