A THIRD!

A visitor has come unto us this thanksgiving - we are thankful.





K's sister has arrived. she has brought with her a diminished volume of television watching in favor of exploring the island across the water, exploring a cave (turned out to be a farce), revisiting the totems and slinging back some cold ones.

We explored an alpine muskeg where we were met with closed roads - one because of explosives beyond the point of no return. 2 out of 3 of us turned back. D also found not berries, but medicinal herbs. tea ahoy! we'll let you know how that goes...

And best of all, she brought us news of a local guest speaker: dave valentine the life-long logger.





See photo attached. Or the whole shebang here





Thanks for new blood!

Oh Alaska

Still dogsitting which means that on snowy days your two favorite Alaska travelers are in two different apartments. What happens in this case? Obvi we gchat!

Danielle: should we get pie right now? they're going to steal the car from us soon

me: i don't want to go now....but I do think we should go again this week

Danielle: ok

me: also i called the delivery thing back because Brandee called me back but obvi said nothing in her message tomorrow afternoon between 12-3 is when they'll deliver so we can go then...

i'll come over to you first tomorrow

whatcha doin?

Danielle: nothing

seeing how my blackberry message is being shown in russian on my computer

me: are you kidding?

verizon is going to get an ass kicking

Danielle: yeah. but i keep waitig till i have the fight it me. and i just dont

me: i meant in person when we get home but the phone might be better...who knows

Danielle: we can start it tomorrow at the store

you'll be all mad good time to call

me: perfect....

they don't know what's coming

have you ever seen Fargo?

me: i haven't and it's on now....i'm kind of excited....

Danielle: i tried to watch it

it's boring

vh1 is showign one hit wonders

me: hmmm we'll see how far i get...

oooh!

Danielle: i want good chocolate cake

me: i want snacks...not condiments

Danielle: no go

you may have a potato

i want meat

not fish

dinner: fish

me: ditto

Danielle: :-(

me: ditto

Danielle: yo quiero pie

Danielle: this would be a good blog post

me: indeed...

fargo does = boring

watching CSI....again

took typing tests online this afternoon

my wpm is lowering with all this luxurious unemployment

Danielle: i cant believe a) you knew your wpm anytime since 7th grade

or b) that you're actually doing that

me: i had to take a test to temp...

and alaska is boring

Danielle: http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/

me: thank you!

are you posting or should i

Danielle: i can't post copied text

wtf

fucking property rights

me: on it

I know you are all now completely jealous of the exciting lives we are leading...control yourselves.

p.s. it is now 3:50pm and nearly dark...which wouldn't be a problem but we found out the other night that the wood bridge heading to our apartment freezes, so that our tires spin and don't move, after dark when the temp drops...

now back to CSI

Window

I just watched the rain turn into snow before my very eyes. While this was happening a float plane landed in the water right in front of the house.

It's not a whale, but it's pretty good.

Oceanic Farce or: Walking the Dog

Took the dog on a walk to the "beach" yesterday. I woke up and it was beautiful and sunny. Packed my plastic bag and set out. Weather was beautiful on the drive to the beach. Got out with mutt.

Turns out that when they say 'high tide' they mean it here. It was so high there was no beach to walk on. No matter. We changed course to walk the highway (known to locals as a "trail" - wtf). Ten minutes into our skirting the one lane freeway: it starts to rain. Naturally, this happens what living in a rainforest and all. Eyeing the ominous clouds and recalling there's a huge storm warning I thought it smart to turn back to the car.

I walk back to the trusty ford Taurus sedan with the trick locks that I've been gratefully sporting (courtesy of the dog owners). I get in and all the sudden cars start pulling in beside me. I was the only car in the lot and now there are 5 cars. All parked facing the water. All cooing and looking intently at the waves.

Well crap! what am I missing? i thinks to myself... i know! i'll turn on the radio - maybe it's whales!

the following are all of the radio stations in range:
christian rock
christian bible reading
old timey vaudvillian stand up


the end.
and none of them told me there were whales.


so i sat, eyes open waiting to see what everyone else was looking at. and then they started to leave.

i've decided they were looking at the waves (waves are rare here given that it's blocked by a bunch of other islands). But i'll kick myself if i've missed a whale....

and three minutes after driving away the sun came out.

ooh a rope swing

While we got some snow/slush today - hooray! - yesterday we actually had a nice, dry morning and early afternoon. We took full advantage and went for a nice walk around Ward Lake. Now I know you think about a lake in Alaska and maybe you think it's very large and surrounded by wild animals. However this one is in fact quite small maybe only a little over a mile around and there was a sign telling us about ducks in the area. I'm starting to think that I'm going to see more wild animals after we get back to Oakland - or at least the same amount...

It was beautiful and so calm, there are some houses or cabins on the shore that have fire places for day camping.

You can see the snow up on the mountain tops but until today it had not come down into town...it was like we were being teased.

We brought Randall, the maltese that we are currently dogsitting with us...while a little dog and kind of a tweaker he is quite cute. We did force him into some photos that I'm not sure he was so into but he's a dog and we needed props.

Overall this was a lovely calm nature walk around the lake. Our full album is on our picasa but the definite highlight of the trip was when we came upon a rope swing over the water. Please note that the weather is probably in the high 40s or low 50s, not exactly warm. What was revealed was that D is clearly more adventurous of the two and while there may not have been precipitation, a rare occurence, this trip still definitely involved getting wet!

She's sees the rope swing...but maybe the loop is too high off the ground to get her foot in...It'll work the same if you loop it around your shoulder, right?

Turns out it doesn't work the same....I was laughing too hard at the time to get a picture of her all the way in the water but she was.

We're both still laughing

high school musical: the real version

We are at this moment sitting in the ketchikan kings (as in salmon) high school auditorium to watch the community theatr production of the wizard of oz.

We wish wed had an extra cocktail at home.

I will def need a cigarette to get through this.

At least we switched seats with children thus getting adult width chairs (helpful fo tose of us thick madames...

2 children have touched me thus far. Oh god. Its starting

We are mountain women

our reward for hiking up a 45 degree hill to arrive at a trail head....

was pretty worth it. although my cellulite was on fire, there was a pretty pretty trail. glad we went when we did - on foggy days visibility can be five feet. many a hiker gets disoriented. on freezing days the half of the trail under water (seriously, it's walking through waterfalls!) would be uber treacherous. Pretty hike last week.

Currently we are holed up in our cabin/house watching the horizontal rain. The TV and radio just issued a warning to all ships saying they should all go the nearest harbor because a mega storm is a-comin. the wind is whipping. the rain is falling in sudden heavy downpour clumps ("rain dumps?" i forgot the term). They said the rain dumps could suddenly overturn boats. Whoa. The snow is capping the mountain behind our house. We live in mad nature.

Alaska women!!!!

on the bus

Girl/woman: "Want some gum?"(Obvi pilfered from childs haloween stash offered to a stranger)

Assburger young man: "uh... Yeah..."

G: "but - its cinnamon"

AG: "uh, then no. I'm not supposed to have spices because of my jujitsu diet"


?!?! REALLY...

We go on to learn that she's 18, has a husband,Drinks and smokes weed and would like to know the same about everyone else. AB asks for her name. She replies, "shithead".

Assburger then asks K and I if were a couple... But he wasn't sure if the question would make us uncomftorable.