Muskeg Harpy

Alaska Romance Novel Project: The Deadliest Romance part Trois

2012-01-21T20:11:00.001-08:00

It's pouring outside and I'm pouring inside--though not bourbon as John Bickerson might have--it's red, red wiiiiiine. Yeah, I realize that making a Bickersons joke is just a wee bit dated. I'm not sure if anybody under 65 years old besides me and my brother actually get Bickerson jokes but I Don't Care. The first (and only) celebrity autograph I have is from Frances Langford. I love old things first and forever.

Well, after that screed are you ready for the Eye of the Storm?

(above from www.whiskeycreekpress.com)

This is the third and final chapter of the Men of Alaska Megabook. Did you know this MegaBook is 12,625 pages in my iPad? Well it is. Let's ride this bike.

First we meet Magda Karlson, an ex-CIA agent who now consults for whoever pays. I.E. she is a Private Investigator. She has been tangled in the web of smuggling involving people outside the major relationships of these Men of Alaska Megabooks. I haven't really recapped that heart-pounding action because I have focused on crab bait and the fact I hate meatloaf. She is intended for Kevin Henderson because he is the remaining Awesome Dude.

Magda picked up Kevin a few years back in Thailand when she was still CIA and he was a Russian Undercover Thug. They had some sort of ethics-breaching sex that somehow got her some huge promotion in the CIA but tainted her so she had to quit. There was Something More to their night of Thai Passion, though, and I can't wait for the sparks to come a-flying offa that thing. Will it happen on a Crab Boat?

Ok, so I know this is a family-friendly blog and all but I have to tell you something. I am married and have spent quite a bit of time on a fishing boat with my beloved. I have never been on something as big and fancy as a Huge Crab Vessel, so my experiences are from the smaller/shittier end of the boat spectrum. Be that as it may, I feel so amazingly unsexy on a boat that all of the Crab Boat Bangin' puzzles me. Everything is cramped. You stink so, so much. Work takes so much energy out of you that you can basically just shovel food into your slackened jaw before sleeping in your clothes. Diesel permeates everything. Gah, it is dang clear to me that the author has never spent considerable time cold on a boat where you actually have to make yourself change your underwear (and then reward yourself with an Oreo for being An Adult). So, reading these was a bit like Sci-Fi for me, so alien were they to me.

Ahem. Golly, I am just full of nonsensical asides tonight, aren't I?

Ok. So Kevin is back working on a boat and Magda ends up have to work for him as the cook/deckhand because plot. (Oh, Magda interviewed Kevin's Mom, Mona, and found some stuff out about smuggling rings. Namely that women are KEY.) FEELINGS, HISTORY, etc. Kevin takes her gun and locks it up and kisses Magda in a manner that makes it clear that she will not get her way by seducing him. He will win at the Mean Kisses game.

Kevin wants to finish the smuggling story. He is somehow haunted by it and is rather single-minded in his efforts to end it. Mona has promised to kill everyone he loves so, you know, his mission is a bit reasonable. Thugs from one of the involved crime families are watching them and he and Magda beat them up. Then they make out behind a building.

I'll say this. I like Magda. She is a fun badass.

So everybody is involved in this smuggling thing. Matt's (from book 2) biological father is a kingpin (or issssss heeeeeee). Magda's older brother is Priest Awesome Forger who used to work for one of the smuggling families. Bam. Strings be getting Tied Up. Somehow, the Priest works on the boat too. They shove off and begin crabbing.

They crab but that takes a back seat to the fighting all the evil doers. (Look, I'm trying to go into more details here but...) There are several fire fights and Magda is a pretty crack shot and ends up saving Kevin's life. She gets shot for her trouble. And abducted. Rape is threatened and Kevin pounds the rape-threatener (?) into the concrete slab.

Turns out the smuggling ring was run by women. By the wives of the crime boss dudes, actually.

Kevin and Magda and Matt and Kelly and Ethan and Charlie all live happily every after.

Whew. I'll have to be careful when I write about The Bachelors of Bear Creek. There's like 4 of them.

Alaska Romance Novel Project: Deadly 2 Electric Boogaloo

2012-01-16T21:33:00.000-08:00

(Look, I tried to find a picture but was THWARTED. Follow this link if you want to see all the explosions and hurt expressions.)

Hello my pretties! Are we all set to visit book 2 in the Men Of Alaska Megabook from the incomparable Jennifer McKenzie? I sure as heck am. Wooo burning shit and a boat and sidelong glances

This book focuses on Kelly Shannon, Ethan's younger sister and Matthew Sands, a coastie (human in the US Coast Guard) running from something and toward Kelly's blond ass--eventually. We open to a grim scene on board The Athena--one Kevin Henderson is at the helm and Pogie and he are recapping The Heart of the Storm for all of us who hadn't read it. Kelly, has just signed up as the cook.

Since we all read my awesome blog...blah blah Stabler and Mona were/are cogs in a smuggling ring Kevin and Charlie and Ethan may be killed at some point. Kevin wants to figure is all out and Just Does Not Have Time To Make An Asston Of Money On A Crab Boat. Boo freaking hoo.

Matt and Kelly meet on the plane and they flirt. "handcuffs," he says. "ooh, tee hee." she says. They are whisked off by their appropriate people. Matt jets into a truck and we learn that his former partner (?) Gina is dead and he is wanted for questioning. Gina was involved with the evil one, Ken Stabler. They (the Man) also thinks he has been smuggling diamonds--Conflict Diamonds, actually because why not. Matt is Barbara Kanook's bastard son and he behaves like a complete asshole about his mother's circumstances in raising him. I.E he is angsty and petulant. Matt is trying to get a spot on a crab boat to lay low for awhile. He has to go to the bar and meet with the Grand Poobah of getting-a-job and knower of things. His name is Dutch. Matt gets a spot with Pogie on The Athena. And the stage is set.

In order to keep Kelly from blowing his cover, Matt kisses the holy-moly out of her in front of the other crew. Oh poor Kelly was titillated and really mad. Inner Turmoil! Matt takes a turn at the watch and we are treated to a flashback of when he called himself Matthew Kanook and he said some pretty terrible things to his mother. Bam! We see him try to shed the skin he hated and live as Matt Sands. Zomg, his dad is some frillionaire named Trevor Pollar. Oh the life of a rescue swimmer has not prepared him to face his mother after such bad behavior.

Enough of that. Bleah. Matt describes Kelly as pretty and petite with sturdy arms and an angular nose. The crew razzes them both about their 5-grade romance behavior. Most of the talking happens in the wheelhouse. Except when the verbally spar about their mutual lack of partners. We get a brief break when they kiss while grinding bait. I don't know if you have ever dealt with crab bait, but crab eat the ocean equivalent of road kill. It is not a place for kissin.

Kelly's flash back-o-Rama includes reliving her crush on a guy who died when Kevin was lost to the Russians. (it is not that important, don't worry about it. She has baggage, there you go.)

A storm forces them to tie up in St. Paul. There, Matt learns of that someone could clear his name. Hooray. But then Kelly and Matt and Pogie fight because of FEELINGS and HISTORY. The smuggling and Mona and poor, dead Gina loom large in this fight. Matt, bless his heart, is being a lusty goat during his watch. His mind keeps wandering to Kelly's sweet, sweet ass. Pages are spent describing her pert, melon-y buttocks. I got so tired of reading about this fictional woman's behind

But it's not all crab bait and perky butts, we have a plot to advance! The Athena is boarded by one Agent Fowler and the Coast Guard. Matt hides in some little nook or cranny. Fowler is the Homeland Security Goon who is chasing Matt. There is some flouncing and whoa, The Acting. They never find Matt. He is too well hidden. Kelly goes to retrieve him. Aaaaaaaand now it's graphic time in the frickin' engine room

Diesel engine rooms on a steel ship are loud, greasy, hot, and incredibly cramped. It is not a place to take your pants off. IfyouknowwhatI'msaying. It's a good thing they're down there because they find the bomb. Aaaaaaaa. Get your survival suit and get on deck. Kaaaaaabloooie, buh bye Athena. Only one deckhand died, tragically. It was Dutch's son, Perry. Ethan and his boat pick up the survivors.

It is here that Kelly decides to tell her brother and Charlie that she intends to marry Matt--only he doesn't know it yet. Won't he be surprised when she just cold shows up somewhere in a wedding dress?! Oh yeah Miss Havisham eat your withered heart out.

So now it's clear that everyone is chasing Matt and he's all, "But--the one-armed man." Ha, you have to get squirreled away in some cabin by Kevin. Oh, FYI, Kevin has been on a one-man truth hunt into this smuggling ring. Well, So Kevin drives (HAAAA NOBODY DRIVES TO REMOTE CABINS IN JEEPS IN THE ALASKAN BUSH. Snowmachine? Sure. ATV? You betcha.) Matt and Kelly to some cabin where they can be safe and have a whole lot of sex. (And I mean whoa, nelly that is a huge pile of sex right there in that book.)

The bad people find them and they have to go and meet a Magical Native Relative and mush to a ranger station for help. Because everyone knows how to run a team of dogs. "Help" comes in the form of Kevin and a Witness-protection priest who is also Captain Master Forger. Priest Forger helps smuggle Kelly and Matt back to Dutch Harbor with the help of a herd of little old ladies. Have you ever noticed how little old ladies get their way? Don't sass the little old ladies!

Matt and Kelly wait for a special meeting of People With Info--I think there is a video tape of Matt Not Committing A Crime too--in the basement of a Bar. Kelly and Matt must like uncomfortable spaces because they bless the basement with their special brand of love.

Guess who is innocent? No, really, I'm sure you can figure it out. I'll wait.

Yay, you smart people! Matt is totally cleared of the charges and Agent Fowler gets put in his place and Charlie gets to put a surprise wedding for Kelly and Matt. She was just itching to get Kelly back for her own surprise wedding. Nothing like a super-fun revenge wedding!

As far as the plot of Intrigue--Mona gets indited and sent to jail and there are some names dropped by dying people. Blah, I know a good recapper would be thorough but I am not at all dedicated to that.

Book 3 next--Eye of the Storm. Kevin gets a little something something and finally (finally) solves this mess!

Alaska Romance Novel Project: The Deadliest Romance book I

2012-01-11T16:22:00.001-08:00

Crab fishing is the setting for this trilogy of good time romancin' fun. Ever since the Mike Rowe-narrated super reality show about rich boat owners and their hard-working crews captured the imagination of Real America, Crab Fishing has become A Thing. The Deadliest Catch is a super-successful reality show on Discovery that has spawned books, T-shirts, and an XBox game. And now not one but THREE frickin' romance novels. Whoa.

That thar is just the cover of the first novel. Yep. That's what a crab fisherman looks like. All waxed chest and jeans. Snort. These books are firmly in the Graphic Category. Debbie Macomber this ain't.

Book 1: Heart of the Storm

Charlene (Charlie) Henderson comes from a fishing family. Her dad, Bull, was such a crab fishing legend and her brother, Kevin inherited the boat. Charlene's mom, Mona, painted with a 6-inch Icy Bitch Brush, hates the fishing life. Charlene and Kevin grew up with another fishing wunderkind Ethan Shannon and his sister Kelly. They live in Anacortes, WA but fish the Bearing Sea--like most of the exceptionally wealthy fisherman. Charlie and Ethan have a history. There are FEELINGS and A PAST and they were separated by FISHING.

Well, at some point Kevin and The Daughter of Norway went missing and Charlie wants to get to the bottom of that. After interviewing a guy in prison she's off to Dutch Harbor to find her brother. Someone shoots at her plane on landing and she tells Ethan about it when he meets her at the airport. Gone was the tomboy and here was A Woman, Ethan thinks bitterly. He's pretty pissy about the way their relationship. They have feelings at each other--Charlie tried to make Ethan choose between fishing and her. He picked fishing, she left. He was upset and sad and went fishing. She feels bad but still looooooves his stocky-framed, chain-smoking self.

Yeah, these book has a lot of Angry Kissing and flinging the wimmins about, so be advised.

After allowing her to work onboard The Celtic Rose as the gender-appropriate cook while they fish and then run out to some place in the Russian part of the Bearing Sea, Ethan kissed her aggressively. Charlie has to practice putting on her survival suit so they can pass the Coast Guard inspection so they can fish. Charlie stops off at the local dispenser of wisdom, Barbara Kanook, to say hi and get some clothing and they're off. Ethan's butt is perfect, whatever than means, and poor Charlie has to look at it every time he climbs a ladder.

Philip (Pogie) Crane, Jamie Taylor, Gabe Hernandez, and Cal Hendricks round out the crew and they shove off. Wooo, life at sea. Charlie is a puker and vomits copiously the first night they are out. She rallies and makes my least-favorite meal of meat loaf. The crew loves her cooking and all develop crushes on her. Because she is the only woman and she feeds them.

Charlie and Ethan reminisce about their past naked times. They are frustrated and sleepless. They meet in the galley, both needing a cup of coffee. I wonder what will happen??? Nothing yet, sillies, we aren't that far into the book!

Blah blah, talking to the crew, moving pots. Bler Bler things. We find out that Pogie has a thing for Barbara. Kelly, Ethan's sister, is going to school for marine biology. Charlie takes a turn at the helm and lets Ethan sleep. Charlie keeps bugging Ethan to get to Some Island where her brother was last seen--ignoring that they would be entering Russian waters without permission and diesel on a crab boat runs more than $10,000 per day. (That is not an exaggeration.)

A Very Bad Man named Ken Stabler behaves like a Douchebag with an agenda while they offload in St. Paul. He had something to do with her brother's disappearance. Dun dun Dunnnn. Pogie tells her that people think Kevin and Ethan were running drugs or something and that's why everyone treats Ethan like crap and don't care about Kevin's disappearance. Is this the place to tell you that fishermen are the gossipiest bunch of old biddies on the face of the earth? Because they so totally are.

And now we have the Graphic Portion of the Heart of the Storm.

Nobody wants Charlie to just sleep with Ethan and leave. That would ruin him, they say. They explain what It Means to be a fisherman's wife. (It means shitty work with little to no pay. No way to talk to your partner for days on end. And owning a piece of glory.) FEELINGS oh the FEELINGS.

Suddenly, deckhand Cal mutinies and takes over the boat. Oh noes! And here comes Ken with a pile of Russians to take over The Celtic Rose. Cal is Ken's toadie and they are meanie means bent on stopping people from learning about Kevin's disappearance At All Costs! Like all evil masterminds, Ken spills his copious guts and tells of his evil tale of evil. Ken is a federal fisheries observer who dabbles in smuggling. Go, Ken, make that GS-9 work! There is tussling and some noses get broken. Charlie is stuck in "the stateroom" and sees a hulking blond man with violet blue eyes. Kevin's eyes. Holy shit, it's Kevin and he's speaking RUSSIAN. WTF, indeed.

Kevin is working with the Russian DEA, or something I can't really be bothered to care that much, and has infiltrated a the Ivanisovich mafia outfit. (I want to call him Ricky Sargulesh because I love Party Down so, so much.) Kevin, Ethan, the good crew members, and Charlie fight off the pile of evil Ken brought on board. Ken has placed illegal guns onboard The Celtic Rose and was intending to meet Ivanisovitch's boat for an illegal trade. Kevin wants to catch Ivanisovitch, so onward into the night they go.

Meanwhile, Charlie has learned that she loves both Ethan and the Sea. The only reason she thought she hated it was because her mom told her to. Mom is bitter awfulness, yes?

They steam into the night toward danger although they alerted the Coast Guard and the Russian Coast Guard. They meet the Russian ship and there is gunfire and stuff! Ethan gets shot and Charlie has to drive the boat. (Also? in order to run a boat that size I believe one needs a captain's license. It's not a Lund.) A rogue wave smashes the radar and the radio so they are in the dark. Ethan is bleeding every damn place, but they make it to St. Paul island to be medevac'd.

Everybody meets in the Hospital in...Juneau? Um, no. The biggest hospital in Alaska is in Anchorage but for really serious stuff people go to Seattle. This has been your friendly Bullshit Romance moment, love MuskegHarpy.

Mona shows up and is pissy and awful to everyone because she has exactly 1 dimension. Turns out that Mona told Ethan to take a hike and Charlie was better off without him. Mona! Kelly, Ethan's sister, is nicer and all, "I love you Charlie. You're so great. I missed you. Woot!"

There is a reason Mona suck so much, turns out she is in on the smuggling and Ken Stabler, nee Dillard, is her brother. Dun, Dun, DAAAAAAAA! Icy Bitch is a criminal, too. She will try to kill her kids at some later date.

Ethan, predictably, recovers from his injuries enough to ask Kevin for Charlie's hand. Kevin goes and runs the boat while Ethan recovers in Anacortes. Charlie and Ethan just don't want to be apart ever again and Charlie finally decides that she likes fishing after all. They get back out on the boat and Charlie is puking again, only this time it's because she's knocked up! Yay! nothing like morning sickness on a huge, vibrating, diesel-powered, steel beast.

All that's left is surprising Charlie with a wedding once they were back in Dutch Harbor.

Tune in again for Book 2 of the Alaska Man trilogy: Edge of the Storm--it stars a Coastie!

Alaska Romance Novel Project: Manhunt

2011-09-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

Know what? There are a lot of men in Alaska. They make up slightly more than 50% of the population. They are all ruggedly handsome float plane pilot, big game guides with perfect 5 o'clock shadows and devil-may-care attitudes. Yep, Alaska is the Hometown Buffet of elligable men for high-falutin' female executives. If romance novels are to be believed, at least.

World, I give you Manhunt, by Janet Evanovich (best selling author).

Oh, Alaska, where love Norman Rockwells out of every Thomas Kinkade cabin. Le sigh.

Alexandra "Alex" Scott quits here super-busy life and righteous condo in in New Yawk for a hardware store and cabin in the Fairbanks area. (Disclosure: I have never been to Fairbanks so this novel could be set in Spain for as much as I know about the place.) Bruno, her enormous rottweiler, and she make for the Banks of the Fair in a totally inappropriate BMW sports car. The meet-cute consists of Alex just about drowning off the ferry dock in Juneau and Rugged Stud Michael Casey, just goes by Casey, saving her stupid ass.

Know what? Turns out that they are neighbors up a completely isolated private road. WHOA.

The cabin Alex bought is nothing more than an unkempt shack in a thicket. She has a "half bath on a path" for her bathroom. Alex and Casey bicker the way two people destined to be together always do in books like these. Alex is determined to stay on her property, in the tent she brought, despite the lure of Casey's house nearby. I like her moxie. Go Alex! Casey eventually leaves her alone and Alex freezes her balls off in her tent--until Casey returns to keep her warm. After such a rough night, Alex succumbs to the allure of a shower and goes to Casey's house.

Alex tells Casey that she traded her life of glamor for a shack in the woods because her biological clock started screaming, "PUT A BABY IN MY UTERUS RIGHT NOW I AM ALMOST 30 AND I AM MUCH LESS PICKY." You know? That. Since Alaska has many men, she though her odds would be good. Nobody told her about the goods being a bit odd up here. Casey explains that he has no plans for any kind of relationship, because that's how guys in books like this are.

They are very attracted to each other and banter cutely through several home improvement projects. A shopping trip to town includes the purchase a leopard fur toilet seat, perfect for 30 below trips to the outhouse. After toilet seat shenanigans, they visit Alex's shiny new store. It is a man-cave sporting goods store that is a wee bit dank and dingy. The manager is a crusty old crank that is what is amazingly fantastic about Alaska. We love our crusty cranks.

Alex fixes up the old shack and makes it livable. I totally feel her about having to sand and varnish. Sanding suuuucks. She and Casey finally give into their attraction after she cleans his house and fixes him dinner as a "thank you" for putting her up and helping with chores. Casey becomes distant after because he has some Feelings for Alex, she is something like Heartbreak City or whatever. Before he becomes a complete douche, he arranges for contractors to fix up her outhouse. Contractors that are would-be suitors for the lovely Alex.

Alex only has eyes for Casey and Casey becomes a jealous bonehead because he is fighting his confirmed bachelorhood. And his baggage. Oh, sweet WXtex duffel, the baggage. Casey knocked up some lovely young thing from the lower 48 and she couldn't cut it in AK and they got divorced. Alex is just the same, even though she made fried chicken and biscuits over a woodstove and uses an outhouse. Well, until she burns it down. Then Casey convinces the codger Alex bought the cabin from to come back and take it. Alex has no choice but to move into a tent in Casey's living room. See, Casey wanted Alex gone but instead she gets closer. Logical!

Aaah, will they get together? Alex has to date a dog musher named Bubba for awhile and shoot a hole in Casey's ceiling with a .44. Casey confronts his shitty behavior and realizes that Alex is speshul and perfect and totally wife material. YAY!

A total score

2011-09-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

The thrift store had a FREE Alaska Romance novel that I adopted today. It's by Jacqueline Musgrave called Northern Lights. (how perfect is this book people who know me in real life!) I'm reading it right the frack now. Wooooooo.

Alaska Romance Novel Project: Oil Spill Edition

2011-08-14T16:31:00.000-07:00

Of all the thing to romaticize, the Exxon Valdez tragedy is not one of them. Nothing has exemplified corporate greed and the environmental costs of resource extraction quite the way that horrific oil spill has. So. Imagine my surprise when I found a Romance Novel based on the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
My pearls, they were clutched. I chortled with outraged glee. Way to take a proverbial oily lemon and make some greasy lemonade. I included the cover so you knew I was not making this shit up. I mean really.

Our story focuses on Marie Vicenza, an insurance adjuster from The City By the Bay (only San Francisco ever, sorry any other city on any bay) who just can't shake the feeling that Captain Craig Saybolt didn't really crash the Northern Light (the Supertanker masquerading as the Exxon Valdez). She is motivated by a huge bonus if Craig is innocent and the chance to prove she can run with the big boys. The money would free her parents from financial peril and provide a college education for her teenage son, Tony. Oh, and Marie is Italian--from her ebony hair to her family's Italian Restaurant. Marie spends all her time pouring over court transcripts and a well-fingered photo of the arrogant captain. Sigh. He gets out of prison soon and Marie should try and catch him before he disappears.

Marie jets off to the beautiful burg of Anchorage in hopes of talking to Craig and discovering his innocence. She shares a cab with a group of dudes bound for the Alaska Bush Company. This is not important to the story at all, I just thought you should know there is actually a strip club in Anchorage called the Alaska Bush Company. It is as real as this Romance Novel about the Exxon oil spill.

Back to the Action. Marie meets Craig as he is escorted out of prison. He exudes authority and has big shoulders, the better to carry all of his angry baggage with. Cute l'il Marie accosts him and tries to give him a ride back to town in her car. Craig gruffly won't have it. He trusts no one especially some "cute girl" from the Insurance Company trying to send him up the river. This begins the game of perky cat and aloof, angry mouse. Marie chases Craig all over Anchorage until he finally talks to her. They hash out all the details of that Fateful Night and the coincidences of nearly the entire crew of the Northern Light ending up dead. Except for the two that are demolition experts.

Hmmm. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Turns out nobody really liked old Craig. He is/was a hardass captain and didn't win any hearts and minds with his brusque manner. As a result, nobody would stand up for him at trial. Nobody believed Craig when he said he was knocked out by someone and the ship steered aground. Blah, blah, plot. innocence. Blah. Craig underestimates Marie's tenacity and virtuous intentions. She is doggedly earnest and optimistic. So much so that when he callously brushes her off, she chases him to Valdez. Like all novels in Alaska, Marie ends up the object of male attention and her paramour feels the need to punch a guy to defend her honor. She is miffed because she was in control and Craigy-weggy got in the way.

They decide to boat out to the site of the spill. Craig wanted to go alone but takes Marie in order to protect her from all the unsavory menfolk in Valdez. They boat out and he carries her to shore to poke around. Marie expresses her fear of the ocean. Craig grunts, "Women don't belong at sea." Oh, up yours Craig. They saunter on the beach that was destroyed by thousands of barrels of oil and both Craig and Marie have a sad about it. Oh! All that destruction for our consumerist lifestyle. They are very attracted to each other at the beach destroyed by corporate greed and criminal negligence.

Returning to Valdez, they continue to plot a course toward Craig's vindication and grow more attracted to each other. Marie makes a stereotypically appropriate dinner of spaghetti at Craig's shack of sadness and masculinity. There is some Swirling after Marie proves she cares and understands how tough life has been for Craig. The story now moves out of Alaska and back to The City, again the only City San Francisco, where Craig and Marie find new leads.

Are you tired of this story yet? Boy, I sure was. Who would frame such a hard working captain who was so good that he saved a bunch of downed pilots in 'Nam? (Of course he was in Vietnam.) Who was good enough to tell Marie's son, Tony, that prison wasn't full of Righteous Dudes. Who had to go out in the yard and chop wood to work off his attraction to Marie with real man labor. Craig, a real mensch.

It was all a ploy by a trio of Texas oil tycoons to discredit the Alaskan Pipeline. To force the government to shut down the Alaska operations in light of extreme environmental risks. Ha ha, what?

Craig get's his job back and Marie decides to move to Anchorage. But before Marie and Tony can move, Craig shows up an proposes! They are going to be married! They love each other! Yay happy ending and a moral. Blame Texas.

I drove to Homer today

2011-07-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't really had a solo road trip before. Sure, I've driven myself around but I have never really just gotten the car and gone. Today I left Moose Pass and drove all around the Kenai Peninsula to Homer. It was pretty fun.

The highlight, really, was this sign in Sterling.

I love signs like this so much. I want one in my yard, for my house number. I love the kitchy diner look of these signs. Sadly this is all that's left of the Truck Stop. I know it would have been staffed by a fleet of women named Doris and Irma. They would call you "Hon" and keep your coffee mug full. Pies would be spinning in that spinny pie thing that places like this always have.

Let's talk about Homer now.

Homer is more spread out that I'm used to for an Alaskan town. It runs miles in each direction from the spit along Kachemak Bay. The gently rolling hills are dotted with traditional-looking farmhouses and honest-to-goodness bales of hay, rolled up midwest style. The soil (of course I looked, sillies) is a dark loamy sand, probably organic-enriched loess or other eolian deposits. It was beautiful stuff and I'm pretty sure you could grow carrots like, whoa.

I divided, in my head, Homer into two very distinct areas: Tourist and Local. The tourist section is the Homer Spit. Here, charter shacks and touristy junk shops line the narrow sandy spit out into the bay. Yeah, the Harbor is here and the bulk of the fish processing facilities. To me, that was a minor part of the Spit, which is unfortunate because I love commercial fishing. I walked around and looked at the stacks of crab pots and the rows of longline drums. This was all hidden away behind tiny, brightly colored buildings shouting to the cruise ship passengers. "Come catch some Halibut," they all screamed in varying degrees of rugged. I couldn't bring myself to go into the Salty Dawg, arguably one of Alaska's most famous landmarks, because of the glut of people getting their picture in front of it. I wanted a sweatshirt but didn't end up with one. I didn't want to be That Girl.

Away from the Spit, the town mellows into as much of a Midwestern-looking liberal town as can exist in Alaska. I visited both bookstores and felt the pages of almost every book on fishing and seaweed. I had breakfast at the Two Sisters Bakery and lunch at the Mermaid Cafe, in Old Town Homer. I bought myself some Smartwool clothing that was on sale, my present to myself is practical clothing. How boring am I.

I drove back at about 2 pm, knowing traffic would be a bearcat. I missed Ninilchik. I wanted to see the boats launch into the pounding surf. But it's ok. It's pretty important not to see everything in one go. You have to save something for next time.

So now I've seen Seward and Homer in addition to all the towns in Southeast. Frankly, I am surprised how interchangeable they all are. The scenery and the outdoors around the town vary greatly but the towns and the shops really don't. They all sell the same old crap. There's always one cool bar and one really great coffee place. Round this out with a harbor and a grocery store and you have Anytown (coastal) Alaska.

People who know me in real life--I've been putting pictures of my time on the Kenai on my facebook page.

Alaska Romance Novel Project: Mail Order Bride

2011-07-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

That's right, kids. I'm back. I have a glass brimming with box wine, my give-a-shit-o-meter is pegged at "Attack of the Eye Creatures" production values, and if you don't get that MST3K joke there, well, then I don't care about you.

Kidding! Come huddle around the tale from the glittery pen of Debbie Macomber. I have to be drunk because black-out drunk heroines are key plot points in the novel Mail-Order Bride.
The mail order bride industry is alive and well in the Greatland. It is a practice that I don't pretend to understand. I'm sure people end up happy or whatever, but I could not hitch my wagon to any of the premium individuals who have to purchase a wife from a catalog. There is a reason that local woman have avoided them. Sorry foreign women there are no winners here!

This little tale is not of one Czech bride moving in with a 65 year old gillnetter. No. This is the loving tale of Caroline Meyers of Seattle and her lovably drunk aunts who conspire behind her back to mail her to the Alaskan Interior. Caroline was a jilted bride and her life is, like, soooo sad. Aunty McDrunk sez to Aunt tipsee-dee, "We should totes send Caroline off to marry this guy Paul Trevor. But we should tell her that we're sending her on an Alaskan vacation, guided by Paul Trevor, to clear her head after such terrible relationship drama. Let's not forget to include a thermos of our plot-point alcoholic tea."

And so begins this Swirler. Ms. Macomber's books are hilariously chaste (Oh, yes there are more to come). Characters do sex to each other but it is always after they are married--typically after knowing each other for mere weeks. It is grosser than actual premarital sex.

Here comes Caroline sloshing off the flight to Fairbanks! Pilot John loads her drunk ass into a Cessna and they're off to Atta, her new home. Except she thinks she is on vacation but everyone else knows she's off to be married as soon as the prop stops. Being the last to know is really great! John tells Caroline that Paul runs a pump station on the pipeline and is the only white man in town. (I will not get into why Paul felt he needed to import a White Lady to marry because thinking about that makes me feel gross and conflicted. I really don't know how Alaska Native people would react to this. Maybe it's my liberal white guilt.)

It's a good thing that Paul is pretty hot and Caroline is attracted to him otherwise it may be wierd to drunkenly marry a perfect stranger in an Athabaskan village. Paul whisks Caroline off to the meeting hall and a Russian Orthodox ceremony conducted entirely in Russian. Will she marry him? Everyone made her feel so welcome! It really is good service, treating all the tourists to Atta this way. So Caroline accepts and the two are married. Paul kisses the holy moly out of her and she is super sure this is a very nice dream. Paul wastes no time getting her out of the hall and back to his cabin. Where Caroline passes out in the homey room complete with hand-made quilt. Paul is happy that she fell asleep so he wouldn't tear at her like a wild animal.

But oh, the next morning. When it was not a dream and Caroline is hung over and married to some guy in Alaska. And she realizes her Aunts set her up. I'm surprised that she wasn't more pissed at her only living relatives selling her up the river. Caroline, very reasonably, wants out of this arrangement and is willing to get the sham of a marriage annulled or divorced (becausetheytotallydiditnotheydidn'twinkywink). Paul says no way and he paid for her trip and she is stuck up here and she could just deal with it.

Paul has to go to work and he makes Caroline promise not to run away. She pinky swears, fingers crossed, that she won't. But then she jumps on the first/only plane headed for Circle Hot Springs in a not-warm-enough coat. Circle Hot Springs boasts a lodge filled with hunters. Hunters who treat Caroline like meat and make her dance to avoid rape. Paul walks in and refuses to "save" her from the disgusting men until they demand that she strip. Nobody sees Caroline naked but him. Having taught her a lesson, he flies home with her. Then she isn't allowed out of his sight.

Caroline must go where Paul goes. Progressive, feminist values! Let's recap this love story:

Caroline is mailed to Alaska to marry some guy
She, very reasonably, wants out and because Paul says no she runs away
He teaches her a lesson in obedience by making her dance in front of letchers
Caroline must be supervised at all times to keep her in a marriage and a place that she hates for a month. A month is what it takes to love a guy holding you against your will, I guess.

Paul hauls Caroline off to the pumping station every day until he can find some kindly girl to babysit her. Their evenings are spent playing Scrabble and betting on the outcomes. Surprisingly, not really, Caroline really starts enjoying Paul's company. No, it's not Stockholm Syndrome it is twoo wuv. Gag. Tanana, the pregnant girl babysitting Caroline, takes her to the meeting hall to knit with all the other women of the village. The stitching coven tell her how luck she is that Paul is such a fine, virile man. Caroline decides they all know this because he has done the nasty with all of them. Oooh is she mad. And sad. And betrayed. So Paul pins her to the wall and kisses her until she isn't mad anymore. That's some Jim Talbot shit right there.

After that night, Caroline accepts her fate. She begins practicing her nursing trade. She totally left her job without any notice in Seattle! How convenient that there are sick people in Atta. Paul and Caroline finalleee consumate their marriage after a party of some sort. But then Tanana goes into labor. (A pregnant woman in the first act of a romance novel must give birth in the third!) Caroline delivers the breech baby. Like you all knew she would.

Larry, the guy who jilted Caroline, writes a letter and Paul punishes her for writing back by not letting her go to Fairbanks with him. Cripes, this guy is a real peach. He fumes in Fairbanks while a wise elder talks to Caroline about Paul's baggage. A woman left him and he didn't follow her to get her back so Caroline better not ever leave because Paul won't come after her. Then the whole town gets sick and Caroline has to save them all on her own because Paul was weathered out of Atta.

Caroline has had enough and wants to leave. She eventually makes her way home to Seattle and her drunk Aunts. The stupid aunts write to tell Paul that Caroline is pregnant, she isn't, but the Aunts are meddlesome. Paul returns and he has shaved and is better looking for it. Caroline is happy because he loves her more than the woman who left Paul the first time. Caroline won!

I own this book as part of a Romance Mega Book called "Solution: Marriage." If there is something that solves problems, it's getting married. If that doesn't fix ya, have a kid!

ARNP: The Healing Touch by Christine Flynn

2011-05-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

I shamelessly have run through all the Alaska-themed romance novels in my local library. What they must think of me, checking out this literary trash and every bad movie ever made. I justify it because this is SCIENCE. I am doing RESEARCH.

Ahem, so. The Healing Touch is special because it is a Forest Service based romance novel set in Alaska. Yerp. This book is set in the fake town of Mist, AK which clearly is a complex of the actual towns of Hoonah and Pelican. It's Hoonah for the logging and USFS office and Pelican for the barkeep side character of Rosie, who is an honest-to-God real Alaskan Institution. The rest is pure, sweet Graphic Swirler circa 1991.

We begin with the heroine, Lara Grant, running over a bear cub with her truck. An event that causes her to flash back to the baggage she will unpack thanks to the love of a Good Man. Lara grabs the injured cub and takes it to town. (Real Talk: She should have been mauled by the actual mama bear who was probably in the ditch when this happened. Remember when I said biological inaccuracy makes me itch? Yeah. This.) Ain't much in the town of Mist, except for Cole MacInnes and his Ranger Uniform of hotness and bear healing. The drowned "musk rat" looking Lara (Cole's thoughts) brought an injured and bleeding cub in for Cole to Heal with his Touch.

Cole's office consists of Cole, some maps, and a book of regulations that "he tended to ignore." Heh, except he was the District Ranger and in 1991 Hoonah, and northeast Chichagof in general, was a hopping place. Logging was in full swing and there would have been a boatload of other bureaucrats bureaucrating around the lonely, brooding Cole. Somewhere, the author thanks the public affairs officer with giving her the straight skinny on what life is like for the lonely SEAK feds. Cole also flies into Sitka for a big meeting and carries a .375 for the big, bad brown bears. So it's not all bunk.

Well, they sew up the cub and Cole checks out her ass while noting that she is the queen of Cheechakos and is terrifically unprepared for the wilds of Alaska. Cole tells her about the man-eating carnivores with claws like razorblades and a thirst for human flesh: Bears. Also, Cole spends a lot of time scowling at various things--Lara, a flapping shutter, bears, federal regulations--pretty much anything because he is Deeply Wounded and needs a Touch that can Heal. They swap stories and drink whiskey by a wood stove while waiting for the storm to abate. Lara has bought the local store, but the wound that she needs some of that Touch with the Healing, has come with her from California.

Lara has to nurse that cub back to health and figure out how to run a store in a remote location. The whole bear-healing is particularly distasteful to me so I will be brief: she bathes it, walks it on a leash, gives it a diaper, and cries when she has to release it into the wild. I hate this part of the book.

Sigh. Onward and upward, shall we? Mist has 1 phone and bi-weekly plane service. Lara has to navigate the extremely difficult shipping circumstances to stock and manage her store along side the chatty, supremely pregnant Sally. (A pregnant woman in the first act has to give birth in the third.) Rosie, the government appointed Salty Redhead of Wisdom, owner of Rosie's Bar helps Lara as much as a government appointed Salty Redhead of Wisdom does in situations like this. Lara and Cole stare, brood, talk, misunderstand, mutually admire physical traits. Mist is sorely in need of a teacher so kids don't have to go to boarding school. Guess who is a teacher and just moved to town but is escaping her past so can't be around children because her past involved children? This is a Thing.

Lara confesses that he husband and unborn child died in a horrible car accident and she ran as far from San Diego as was possible. Do you want to Touch this pain with some Healing, Cole? Do you? What is your hurt, Cole? Oh! It's the classic abandonment by father, raised by a magical Tlingit elder, taken advantage of by some horror of a woman in need of a Green Card hurt. Well, there is a petite, dark-haired woman who has a Touch that can Heal. HEALING. Woot.

My very, very favorite part is when Cole flies her to a remote location to deliver groceries to the local hermit Asa. While they're flying over the landscape Lara points out a patch of land devoid of trees. "Is that a clearcut from a logging operation?" She asks? "It's a muskeg" Cole replies. "I know it looks like a clearcut but loggers have nothing to do with them." HAHAHA. (At some point, Cole visits the logging camp and talks about how the owner is a good logger and runs a clean show and is real good about cleaning out the creeks. FS propaganda machine is clicking right along here.) After they land, the deliver things to Asa and Cole teaches Lara how to shoot the mythic .375 after kissing her.

The whole shooting scene is an extended metaphor for sex. "She reached for the gun, looking partly defiant but mostly uncertain as her slender fingers wrapped around the stock. It was heaver than she'd anticipated. Feeling its weight, she quickly grasped it with her other hand too." *Cough.* "The safety is off, " he warned her. *Snort.* "You're going to get some recoil and if it's not tight enough you'll bruise yourself when the stock kicks back." Ok, I'll stop now. Guns = phallic objects forever and ever and always.

At some point Lara's roof caves in. Her roof needs some Healing Touches from Cole's Tools. Roof be another metaphor for broken things in need of fixing. This book is positively rife with broken shit In Need.

Poor, knocked up Sally give birth. Lara has to help even though her own, wrecked ladybits will never know the joy of childbirth. Lara, you see, is an empty husk of a woman since she cannot birth no babies. Who will Touch Lara's Womb with some Healing? She cries it out on Cole's shoulder under her new, repaired roof. There is some Healing in the Touching that goes down on Lara's little settee. Cole's even feeling like this Lara woman is Touching his Wounds of Abandonment and he is feeling a bit, dare I say it, Healed.

That damn bear has to make one final appearance after he is released in the wild because he gets a thorn in his foot. Cole and Lara Heal that Thorn with their Touch. Bah.

Cole finally asks Lara to marry him because they are fully Healed with the mutually Healing Touches. He doesn't even care that Lara is only half a woman, he loves her just that much.

My day, she is made

2011-05-21T15:09:00.000-07:00

So I stopped by the library to return some DVDs today. No big whoop. But. A librarian with the last name Bryner stopped me to tell me that she and her husband found my blog. Who cares about a Bryner you may ask. Well, Bryner is the last name of the infamous Claude Bryner, he of the hilariously bad movies. She tole me about Claude's terrible taste in movies and how he would watch anything. When he passes, he wanted his collection to go to Kettleson Memorial Library.

I asked if I offended her, she said no. In fact they read all my entries and howled with laughter. I couldn't stop grinning. This totally made my day. I suggested a film festival celebrating some of the brighter entries in his collection. She is a bit more embarrassed about Claude's taste than I am. So thanks, Internet. You rule.

Now, I'm off to load up by shiny, red, new Peugeot pepper mill. Wheeeee.

Alaska Romance Novel Project Innagural Edition

2011-05-19T19:26:00.000-07:00

I have a shameful secret. I enjoy romance novels. Especially those taking place in Alaska. They are the Lady Steven Seagal of literature: overly serious, predictable, and unintentionally hilarious. I have a small, incomplete collection of thin volumes bursting with purple prose. Rather than hide my little habit Ima share it with you, internet.

I disagree with most of these books. The relationships are typically lopsided. The sexism is like, whoa, and getting knocked up is the ultimate goal. What really bothers me, however, is when the author gets little facts wrong. Like calling the trees in some fictional community on the Yukon River "Pine Trees." Yes, there are plot holes that you could drive a Bearing Sea Crabber through but it's the biological inaccuracy that drives me insane. So--any and all Romance Writers who want to include Alaska as a character--get it the eff right. There is a person Who Cares.

So. I'll start off with my little grading system that I will use to describe my key to romance novels. There are 3 types of the, um, intimacy in these books I will describe them as follows:

Graphic--There are anatomical terms described. Fluids are discussed. It happens more than once.
Swirlers--Physical contact is discussed in incredibly vague terms. Someone sees fireworks in a cloud of ecstasy.
Graphic Swirlers--No anatomical terms are described, but they are given hilarious euphemistic terms. *cough velvet sword cough*

There ya go. Now you know what kept my field partner and I in fits while staggering though miles of Tongass woods.

Without further ado, I want to present you with the book that started this whole bad-taste chapter in my otherwise highly tasteful life: Untamed Desire by Beth Brookes.

This #53 from a series called "Second Chance at Love" where women who have failed at relationships find an even better love later in life. (Later is early 30's.) There is a lot to make fun of this book from 1982, firmly entrenched in the Graphic Swirler category. The protagonist, Storm Reynolds, isn't really one of them.

Storm is a pilot. A good one. For all of the stupidity I've read in romance novels, it's still pretty great that this book from 1982 has a badass lead. (I stay away from early 80's books, unless they have Alaska in them, because of the awful rape/sexism/and general ickiness.) Aaaanyway, Storm arrives at Bradford Outfitters in Anchorage, AK to begin her new career as a bush pilot. She is fleeing some baggage, looking for her Second Chance At Love. Her new boss, Jim Talbot, is an asshole.

I don't mean in the "Ooohhhh he just needs understanding," as described in the book. He is a grade-A asshole and immediately makes Storm feel like garbage because he has baggage. (He is in need of a Second Chance At Love.) He is super-attracted to Storm but tells her that women shouldn't be pilots because his dead wife died being a pilot while pregnant with their child (spoiler). Therefore women Jim is attracted to shouldn't be pilots because piloting in bush Alaska is dangerous and Jim can't handle loosing another woman. Okay? Yes. Perfect sense.

Well, this outfitter specializes in moving chartered hunters/fishermen to remote areas for recreational killing purposes. They fly people from Seattle to Anchorage then out to little camps scattered around interior Alaska. Storm has to deal with the exact breed of entitled, visiting hunter that swarms the Greatland. A client can't keep his hands off her, she is an exceptionally hot redhead, and she smashes his hand with a clipboard. Awesome. Jim is upset that someone touched his "Untamed Storm Goddess." (A name he gives her when she fights with him about her fitness as a pilot.) I have no problem with the interactions between personalities here, but chartering from Seattle to Anchorage? Bullshit. Alaska Air was around there and they would have just taken a commercial flight to Anchorage.

Storm and Jim spend lots of time in various cockpits, bantering as people destined to be together obviously do. Storm gets mad and fights back like a woman with spine. Although it's a spine clothed in the worst 80's rayon shirts with attached bow tie. Jim admires her pluck and her willingness to put her head down, work, and not complain "like a woman would." Oh, but he riles her up with his holding her job above her head. She gets so riled that he can't help himself and grabs her about the shoulders and kisses away her anger with bruising, punishing kisses (urk).

Finally, the facade that Jim has constructed comes a-tumbling down when they have to medivac a kid. Arriving at Storms apartment during a rainstorm, he huddles on her couch and confesses his not-at-all predictable baggage about his dead wife who died. That levy broken, nothing can keep Storm and Jim apart except that this happens on page 94 of 183. More little hitches to this giddy up are in store for out lovers. Namely, Storm has to tell her ex husband to take a flying leap and realize She Matters and is Good Wife Material.

Because a woman is not complete until she can make some guy happy.

Oh, and they crash in a plane somewhere because of sabotage or something. But not before Storm enjoys a fine glass of Rose Wine on Jim's Polar Bear Rug of serious romancin' in front of a predictable fire. Nuthin' like pink wine on a dead animal that sez, "Woot! Sexy Alaska Time." After they crash, because of the sabotage not bad piloting, while waiting for rescue, Storm reveals she is teh preggers. Their tears of joy mingle as they embrace in a downed Aztec. (Plane, not ancient central-mexican culture.) Storm promises to stop flying when she's 6 months along to, "Keep [Jim] from worrying himself silly."

Isn't that nice? I know my tone is mocking but this book has a special place in my heart as the first Alaskan Romance I ever read.

I'm taking suggestions. I have a stack but if you have anything awesome in the Alaska-romance world, let me know.

Things I have no patience for

2011-04-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

Stupidity annoys me on an average day. Nothing makes me throb with anger more than stupid people boarding planes. Especially Alaska residents. We fly more than anybody.

1. Not knowing which is the aisle seat vs the window seat. The diagram is right there and invariably people sit in the wron seat and look confused when you point this out. This has happened literally every flight I have ever been on. I haven't called the offenders morons...yet.

2. Sitting in the wrong row. It's printed on the ticker and the wall. Last time I checked 11 looks nothing like 13.

3. Invading my personal area. I agree that the armrest is Alsace and we can fight over it, but please, don't put your elbow on my side. I paid for my little three-dimensional space and I want it. You are already closer than I like strangers to be.

4. Reading over my shoulder. I am embarrassed enough by the trash I read on planes. Dont further shame me by looking at the torrid prose then back at me.

Bleah. I need a frajillion dollars so I can always have an empty seat next to me.

Reconnecting

2011-04-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

I never realize that I am half a person when not in the woods. Anytime I am in the deep dark I feel myself swell. Like my soul inflates and I am a whole person again. Yeah, I live in a rural town surrounded by the same woods that lift me up. But it's not the same.

Remoteness. No cell service. Working long hours. I feel more alive there than pretty much anywhere. Except for fishing. The siren's call of fishing and the ocean is a constant. I was built for labor. No two ways about it. I need to feel my body scream and ache with work. I need to be physically tired every evening. I want bruised forearms and scraped knuckles.

I need the woods. But they don't need me.

Spring and other hardships

2011-04-17T12:11:00.000-07:00

It's trite, I know. Going though the piles of memories and reliving several stages of your life all at once. This weekend is free dump time in my fair burg and in an unusual pique of cleanliness I am purging several years of junk. And mending things I have crammed in a mending box. And listening to music from Muskeg Harpy-- the college years.

The croonings of Lauryn Hill return me to my total shit apartment sophomore year. I happened to also be fixing my first ever reusable grocery bag. (I got it in Germany on a visit to my best friend when I was 15. It features a frog and a turtle kissing under a rainbow. Google image search failed.) Two of my 5 senses were fully immersed in the past that I was like, "whoa."

I remembered my first time at a disco in my super trendy outfit I bought I Rome. I saw, again, la Pieta and David and the early works of Van Gogh. I laughed, once more, at my mother's inability it understand train directions in Frankfurt. My belly prickled with heat against the stupid money belt that was too bulky to hide under my clothes on my thin hips. I remember how much I hated that damn belt.

My mending pile includes a bunch of t-shirts I can't bear to part with. From university, from high school, from tDF. There is a quilt in the future, if I ever get around to it. Maybe if my sewing machine doesn't have to live on the kitchen table during projects. My best intentions will go back into storage along with those memories of Week Of Welcome and how cute my the-boyfriend-now-husband looked in his blue camo shirt.

The dump will be the final resting place of the smoker my dad bought in 1974. There is no redemption for it anymore. Not after it gave tDF food poisoning last year. Most of our wrecked xtratuffs will go too. Each pair smells like mushroomy forest with undertones of salmon slime. They probably have more than 500 miles on each of them, between walks to work, work in the woods, hikes on the weekends, and treks down the boat ramp. I have never thrown a pair away. I have like 6 pairs stashed here and there. It's time. No, I will not make them into a planter or some other decorative item. I do have some standards.

Yesterday, I took the computer that I had in school to the e-waste recycling. My 1998 e-machine that I wrote every lab report, my senior project, and angry emails to various ex-boyfriends. It felt good to be rid of the clutter that I hadn't turned on in more than 4 years. But a piece of me was on there. I don't really know her anymore, so I can't bring her back. She'll surface at some point. When I least suspect it and am vulnerable. The way memories do.

Chores

2011-04-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

I am no stranger to sucky jobs. There is sort of a grim satisfaction from taking in an unpalatable task and seeing it through. This is why I like the challenge and pain of splitting our firewood with a 1-pound maul. My shoulders scream but I have a tidy pile of kindling and wood to burn later. I think this is my fine, eastern European blood talking.

It's spring and I am slowly working my way through all the spring-related tasks. Taxes. Cleaning the yard. Changing all the batteries in the thermostats and smoke detectors. Changing the fluids on my truck. ( Note that I said my truck. It actually is our only truck but I lover her so much that I have taken over sole ownership and care.)

Today I changed then oil on my Toyota. It was not fun. I used to change the oil in my little ford about 4 times a year. It was a 20 minute task since the engine was pretty simple--no ac, no power steering, manual transmission made it a dream to troubleshoot and maintain. This Toyota is then premium version which means there are wires, hoses, and manifolds filling up the entire engine compartment. It would be a clusterf*ck if it didn't run so well. To get at the oil drain plug and filter a person has to remove the skid plates. It's not too terrible of a big deal except that the driveway is gravel and the bolts were ratcheted down by someone more burly than me.

I scooted on my back on the sharp rocks under a filthy undercarriage that rained down dust in my eyes as I reefed on rusty bolts. They all came free with the only casualty of one bloody knuckle. The oil change went off without a hitch after that. It took an hour and a half. Thank goodness we only need to change oil only once or twice a year here. No roads=not much driving.

Not that I finished up that little chore, it's off to do the taxes! You know it's a good day when changing your oil counts as the fun task.

FYI. Don't google image search bloody knuckles. Urk.

On moving heavy things by myself

2011-03-15T18:16:00.000-07:00

I've gotten quite used to not having my husband around. I don't really like saying that, but it's the truth. He's down south, laboring away on the Rusty Mistress (Our new name for our boat, Axel) while I toil away here in the dregs of winter.

I buy whatever tickles me at the store and have switched almost entirely to organic food. I can justify the expense for just me, plus I can try all the brands and types to see which one I like best. My meals have shifted to nearly entirely vegetarian with the occasional venison chop or salmon fillet. It's nice, just cooking for my taste and only when I feel like it. I had to stop the "I'll just eat cereal for dinner" thing that wasn't entirely healthy. I have managed to cook for myself about every other day and have been pleased with the results.

I made this totally kick-ass Cambodian salad. It's an alaskafied version from my favorite Bay Area restaurant, Chez Sovan. Their watercress salad with BBQ beef or chicken is a-mazing. Last time I was there, Sovan kindly told me her dressing recipe and my local store had her suggested brand of fish sauce. I marinated a venison roast in a puree of lemongrass, shallots, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, sugar, and lime. It wasn't quite as sweet as Sovan's I think there is a glaze involved that I missed. But so what. I'm so growing watercress this summer and going to make this salad all the damn time. Gotta get on that marinade-glaze combo for deer and fish, though.

That dinner? So not acceptable to my 220# husband. He needs more to fill him up. One of the pleasures of cooking for me.

Aside from eating whatever I want and watching all the cheesy tripe on Netflix Instant Watch, there isn't really an upside to living without my partner. He missed my wearable art show where I was a space wonder woman, complete with vampy makeup. (I don't have any pictures...yet.) I had to do all the shoveling myself when it snowed and nurse myself through 2 sinus infections. I hate being sick and having to choose between laying down and making tea. Today I had to move really heavy doors around so that his brother and fiancee had a place to sleep. I should have asked a neighbor for help but I didn't. It's done now.

Bashing my foot with a self-closing door made me really miss tDF. He usually is around to help do things that I can't. Only a few more months to go before he's back with the boat.

On Dead Things

2011-02-23T07:24:00.000-08:00

Taxidermy is a helluva thing. Growing up, it was pretty much relegated to the natural history museum or rednecks. It sought to educate or it was shorthand for "dumb hick" in the media. Note, when I talk of taxidermy, I don't mean antlers. Antlers have an artsy, structural appeal that transcends preserved skin on the walls. Alaska, is the land of stuffed dead things. It does one of those circle things where you start at "kinda cool" move into "holy shit, that's a lot of taxidermy" right into "that's so many dead creatures it's cool again." like a John Belushi sketch.

I realized there are only a few categories of mounts (that is the technical term for taxidermed things). These are: Fierce, Majestic, and Furnishings.

Fierce runs the gamut from wolverines to bears. I challenge you to find a bear mount that doesn't have it's mouth open, ready to tear out your trachea. It is 100% like that Far Side comic. In the Anchorage Airport, there is a display with two mouth-open polar bears in a plexiglass display. One is standing up on two legs, one is down on all fours. Both want to eat your innards. In the wild, though, these two would fight each other rather than you since their personal space bubbles are huge due to the sparse food in their range. Also, up on two legs is a curious, checkin things out pose for a bear. Think of it like prarie-dogging in cubicle land. Up is not a fight pose.

The smaller, varmint critters are usually taxidermed as fierce. Perhaps the hunter wants to feel justified killing a 9-pound thing. These have their teeth bared and are protecting a kill or carrion. These approach furniture category since they often are in a coffee table, but they are fierce first. Wolverines are the most common fierce little thing, but they are pretty much super badass so they get a pass from me.

Next up are the majestic creatures. These are often antlered/horned quadrupeds looking wistfully in the distance with their dead, glass eyes. You will find several deer, sheep, boar, goat, moose, caribou, elk or bison heads staring wistfully through you, to your soul. I doesn't matter if it is a full cape mount or just the face, they all look like this. They are pining from the leas or crags they came from. Ducks on the wing or other fowl in flight fit here too. Look at that goose, trying to migrate when someone shot it and decorated the den with it's carcass.

Last is furniture. This category includes all the wall hangings, rugs and decorative items featuring the skins of dead things. Wolves are most often furniture. Wolf pelts as decorative throws are common enough not to warrant notice anymore. Bear skins on the wall and floor are in about every other home in Alaska. The funniest by far are the plexiglass scenes under the fauxoak coffee table. You can stick anything in your own, personal natural history museum in the rumpus room. I have seen fish, quail, muskrats, and snakes. The taxidermist is an artist and likes to include various twigs and berries to complete the life-like scene.

Anyway, taxidermy is inherently funny. It's doubly funny to me since I found out how much it costs. (It is incredibly expensive.)

My boat is sexy

2011-02-16T15:19:00.001-08:00

I've been buried by a boat for about a week and a half. I have ate, slept, breathed boat work. Fun isn't the word I'd use.

Axel on the lift in the Ventura Boat Yard. This is after her wheelhouse was cut off so it could be trucked.

Boat, right after she arrived. Note the abundance of crap stuck to her hull.

So clean, pretty and gray. Getting her to this state was an awful affair. I have done many dirty, gross jobs in my life but scraping/grinding/painting the underside of this boat was by far the worst work ever.

From this...

To this. It's all worth it, I guess. She is so pretty. I like to stand under her bow and just rest my head against the steel. It will be a lot more work.

Hello Gorgeous

2011-02-07T18:24:00.000-08:00

I finally saw Axel. She's beautiful. Although Axel is a german boy's name (Thanks, H!) the boat is clearly a she. Axel is simply too lovely to be masculine. She is stout and graceful, in the way Ed Monk hulls just are. My camera crapped out so I don't have any pictures (will have some soon).

We'll start the transformation process tomorrow, and all the ugly will go away.

The keel is a thick steel i-beam with a 10-inch flange. I think the steel cladding the hull is 1/4 corten steel, but it may be A36. (I've been learning ASTM steel standards and specs. Yay for me!) Everything is largely intact and there will only have to be small patches over some pinholes in the hull. The deck is about 80% intact and a few panels will have to be scrapped and replaced. We had to cut the wheelhouse down to be able to truck it so that will require an entire rebuild.

I only have 2 weeks to be here and work on this with tDF. Hopefully we'll make some strides and be able to weld right after I leave. In the meanwhile I'll be scrapping all the assorted sticky gunk from everywhere. The stern has a pretty attractive accumulation of bilge water, hydraulic fluid, diesel residue, and fish ick.

I never knew I could love a boat, but I love Axel. It's my first child.

How to survive an Alaskan Winter

2011-01-26T17:55:00.000-08:00

1. Spend as much time writing a play about yourself in your head as possible. Make sure that you fight mythical battles and ride a dinosaur at some point. Flying would be acceptable as well.

2. Eat fatty foods. Coconut? Yes. Bacon? At least a pound per week. If it can be fried, you should totally fry it and dip it in mayonnaise. (Yes. I am a fry in mayo person. It's my awesome Euro persona.)

3. Bitch incessantly about the weather. Carp that sunny days are too short, that the snow is too cold, and especially about 36 plus rainy is the worst weather on God's Green Earth. The communal suffering through natures worst warms my cold, dead heart.

4. Watch the worst movies ever made and feel good about understanding why they are hilariously bad. This is also called liking things "ironically." As I am not a hipster, I like things in the regular way. I am not cool enough to experience things at an ironic level.

5. Turn on all of your lights. Crank up your favorite jams. Get stupidly drunk. Dance in your living room. Exercise would work here but I like when my walls throb with Blackalicious and I'm dancing like a saucy penguin.

6. Try not to lick the garden catalogs that always arrive while you are buried deep in the asshole of January. Slow dancing like you're in 7th grade with the Burpee catalog outside manages to take care of #5 above so try it.

7. Practice not stabbing anyone with a "Think Spring" sign or attitude. Maybe make up a dance routine where you instead practice your CPR moves? Try remember if it was 15 and 2 or 30 and 2 or if you even have to breathe for the other person. Going into the wayback machine to all of the training that you have for actually saving a life may keep you from stabbing the Pollyanna.

8. Get the Internet. Seriously.

9. Remember how hard you worked in the 18 hours of daylight in the summer. Heeey. That kind of sucked and you were actually looking forward to winter when all the skin peeled off of your hands from all the salt water. Think about how relaxed you are as you are crawling the walls with cabin fever and seasonal affectiveness disorder.

10. Think Spring!

Point Conception

2011-01-21T08:39:00.000-08:00

TDF called me last night just as I was meeting a friend for a glass of wine. Axel was up and running and they just reached Port San Luis. Rather than anchoring up for the night they decided to run all the way to Ventura. I could hear the relief in his voice, he was out of Morro Bay and finally moving Axel toward hauling out. He and his brother were running all night, they figure it will be about 18 hours to get from Port San Luis to the Ventura Harbor. I know adrenaline and giddiness will keep them awake. Still I worry.

This trip takes them past Point Conception, where the cold Pacific meets the warm Pacific. I have heard tales from my Dad's Seascout days about the nasty waters. I've only seen it from the safety of land, never from salt water. The weather is fine, the seas are calm.

Hope to hear from him soon.

UPDATED:

They arrived safely at about 1 pm this afternoon. Whew. Axel ran like a top.

Plants of the day

2011-01-20T13:28:00.000-08:00

Galium aparine--Sticky-Willy
Cakile edentula-- American Searocket
Bidens tripartite--Three-Lobe Beggarticks
Impatiens noli-tangere--Western Touch-Me-Not
Orobanche uniflora--Naked Broom-Rape
Primula cuneifolia--Pixie-Eyes
Najas flexilis--Wavy Waternymph

Shovel wars 2011

2011-01-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

We share a passive-aggressive relationship with our neighbors. It seethes throughout the year, but it burbles forth during snow storms. We live on a steep, privacy drive shared by our 4 houses. The city doesn't plow so we are all responsible for snow removal. I could give a shit about driving to my house and would prefer to build a snowboard jump and play. The neighbors behind us feel the need to drive to their house EVERYDAY. Who will break down and shovel first? It's usually them.

When we let them shovel the drive first, it sets a pissy mood that persists until the herring spawn in march. One year we got a "talking to" when they felt we weren't pulling our weight. We explained our desire for an ATV with plow to clear the whole road. Neighbor man freaked out about that method. "it makes things icy," he whinnied. Apparently the only way to clear the snow on our unravelling gravel road is to use the human snowplow thing he uses. He also has a well-documented fear of gas-powered tools. They finished off the conversation by neighbor lady telling me about how my life is incomplete and I don't understand anything because I don't have kids.

Now, I am about as stubborn as they come. Like dig my heels in and keep fighting even when I realize I'm wrong stubborn. I also managed to marry they only person more stubborn than I am. We are a helluva pair. After that, I vowed to never use the stupid tool they suggested because I also don't like anyone to tell me what to do. Also, I promised tDF an ATV.

Welcome to the shovel wars.

Things simmered down after the supersnow year of 2008. We shared an uneasy peace. I know they don't like us so I always smile sweetly and wave whenever I see them, forcing them to acknowledge me. (This is a tactic I learned from a bless-you-heart southern woman, queen of passive-aggressive.) Obla-Dee, life goes on.

It snowed yesterday, as it often does in the hell month of January. It's supposed to snow more today and tonight. I shoveled the driveway.

I shoveled it my way, and with a snow shovel we got out of a dumpster a few years ago. I should probably add that uphill neighbors don't actually shovel the whole drive, but just the wheel tracks. Plus his shoveling manages to create a river down the center of the road that contributes to the further degradation of the gravel. (I am many things, but I am a soil conservationist and engineer first.) I cleared the whole damn thing. Cleared so that the snow melt will drain off the road and not down the middle of it.

I win. I don't know what I actually proved, but I still won.

It was very cold today.

2011-01-13T17:34:00.000-08:00

But it is no longer dark when I drove home at 4:30.

Small things.

My least favorite body part

2011-01-12T15:34:00.001-08:00

We all have one thing we would change about our physical selves. Many women, like that mascot of all women Cathy, are dissatisfied with their thighs. Other people want to be taller, shorter, thinner, or curvier. Me? I want my sinuses to be functional. My sinuses are malformed enough that they don't drain correctly. This leaves me in the enviable position of having virtually no sense of smell and a chronic infection.

I stayed home sick again today because the ick clogging my nose descended into my throat, removing my ability to talk. I have sat around for two days eating, hacking, and watching Friday Night Lights. I am ready to cram an endoscopic surgical instrument up in there and root around until everything is smooth like the LA river.

I will never win Americas Next Top Normal Nasal Functionary.

Noodling is my eigth wonder

2011-01-10T17:31:00.001-08:00

(Photo from here at thefastertimes.com)

As I'm sure you've figured out, I like fishing and weird things. When these two combine, it's a veritable Voltron of Awesome. I can hardly speak, there is so much awesome. Fold in legitimately crazy people and women with big hair wearing Joe Diffie T-shirts, and I am a puddle on the floor. I am speaking of Noodling. This is where you stick you hand in a muddy hole at the bottom of a river or lake and wiggle your fingers until a catfish bites down. Then you yank the poor critter up and heave it into your awaiting Bayliner Capri.

I discovered Noodling while we were living in a USFS bunkhouse. We had like 9 channels of television luxury at our disposal and PBS aired the most interesting material by far. One wintry night, I was washing the dishes while the Noodling Documentary played in the background. It is a hour long story of three brave men/families who noodle in the wilds of Oklahoma. The three groups couldn't be more different. I have named them according to several distinctive traits:

The Catfish Whisperer: This guy is like a goofy little kid with delusions of how famous he really is. Once, he was on Letterman and he released videos of his exploits. He tames a snake by having it repeatedly bite him and spends the bulk of the documentary wearing bandages from a copperhead bite (he was playing with it).

Family Plumber: Family plumber is a big redheaded guy who noodles with his dad and son. They launch the family Bayliner and root around in muddy holes with their buds. Plumber's wife is appropriately big-haired and sports a Joe Diffie shirt. (Joe Diffie sings the best country songs about gravy.) Plumber notes his introduction to plumbing was fishing out some turds blocking a sewage outlet for $10. "Either way, you're noodling."

ZZGearhead: This is an uncle/nephew team who have that exact look you would expect of aging gear heads. ZZNephew has a partner named Tami, the first-ever crowned noodling queen. (You can totally see her arse through the netting shirt she wears around.) ZZNephew is afraid of letting his young son participate in sports because that would take him away from the lake.

All of these guys are super-proud of the fact that they are men who work with their hands. Doctors and Lawyers don't noodle, just these salt-of-the-mudhole men.

I must add that freshwater situations where noodling occurs is scary-ass water. Water is murky, full of leeches, copperheads, snapping turtles, or beavers. There is also the very real possibility of drowning while participating in the dumbest way to catch fish ever. At one point, they show the piece of asphalt that their buddy drowned under. You can get yourself stuck and drown with your fingers in a hole. I refuse to enter a body of water with leeches or to participate in an activity where drowning is common. (Yes, I know people drown in salt water often. But that is LEECH-FREE water.)

After this first introduction, I bought the dang DVD and made everyone I know watch it. I can't recommend it enough. Short of watching the DVD, you should totally google image search "noodling."

Figuring it out

2011-01-04T19:23:00.001-08:00

We got the internet last Wednesday. The great leap forward, it is a heck of a thing. Thank God for my brother who is actually caught up with technology. He hooked up our situation. Now, I can blog from the comfort of my home and not the library. We still need to hook up our big old Mac desktop, but the iPad is a-workin.

I've been catching up on the past 7 years of internet. I have been visiting the place where he drinks tequila and she talks dirty in spanish. And the place where I can prove that is really what Dolf Lundgren looks like now. Oh and get to watch the Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling trucker movie with child sidekick (Over The Top). It is the gold standard for 80s vanity projects.

And trying to refigure this whole blog thing. More things to come now that I can easily upload photos and whine from my old Stihl bar stools. Need to get the power pc online to fully interface with the rest of the world.

I'm glad to have the distraction, though. Today I put my husband on a plane down south for who knows how long. He's going to fix up Axel and bring her home. It's a bit of a rabbit hole since we don't know how bad or not so bad it really is. All I know is that we're going to paint her grey and blue and I've got to configure a galley. Netflix instant watch will keep me warm.

Boat? Boat.

2010-12-29T09:56:00.000-08:00

Boat. BoatBoatBoat. Boat! Boat-Boat Boat. Boat? BoatBoat: Boat. Boat Boat Boat Boat; Boat.

My ever-hilarious husband told me yesterday, "And you thought we'd run out of things to talk about after we finished the house." Ha. Joke's on him. The house isn't done. My life is SO FUNNY and full of unfinished, expensive projects.

The Boat has taken over our lives. That floating clinker is the only topic of conversation. Do we register it in Alaska? How do we transfer California commercial dungeness permits? Where can we find 7x19 steel rope for less than $2.75/foot? Neat! Forfjord anchors are made in Seattle. Shit. They cost $900.

$1000 is a magical price point for boats. Everything seems to cost a grand. You start feeling pretty good about only spending $400 on a thing. Like you're winning the lottery except that little item needs a bunch of other stuff to make it work, bringing the total up to the magical grand. In the interest of self preservation I have stopped paying attention to the cost of things. It's my ostrich-like survival instinct.

What's a girl to do? This girl has focused on the color scheme and how tidy the deck will be. We have decided on light grey for the body with black accents. Grey is considered a hiding color, it disappears against the water and clouds. It's about as stealth as you can get in a 40-foot boat.

We're thinking of what to paint on our fly bridge. What do you think of this? I like how it captures the essence of life at sea. All that's missing is an Orca.

Gah. Sorry for the whine. This really is a good thing, but it's a huge project and my husband, my best friend in the whole world, has to move into his parents house for 3 months to fix Axel. I get to stay here an work to pay for everything. Short term sacrifices for long-term gain, right?

I can focus, too, on the fish we're going to have in a few short months. Last night we ate the last chunk of white king we froze last summer. I can look forward to all the white king I can eat, once Axel is seaworthy and up here. Soon, it will be Fish? Fish. FishyFishFish. Fish.

Our Big News

2010-12-20T13:51:00.000-08:00

We bought a boat. It's a big, old, steel crabber that we're turning into a troller. I know I've talked about fishing and boat shopping before, but it wasn't real until I send a check with several zeros off to a Broker. The paperwork was final on Friday. We got her for a song.

Her name is Axel. All GnR jokes are welcome as well as any other Axel related humor. We are going to need it in the coming months. She was built in 1978 in Portland Oregon to be a halibut dragger. She spent time as a troller and a crabber. We found the builder and talked to him--he built the boat from some Ed Monk Jr. designs.

She needs a complete overhaul. You can see daylight through the wheelhouse roof, the deck has holes, and there are at least 3 abandoned hydraulic systems lurking around the bilge. She is rusty, filthy, and held together by duct tape. The hull is sound and the motor runs like a top. Although it's a Detroit 4-71 also known as a "Screaming Jimmy." Detroits are notoriously loud and leaky. The galley is topside, in the wheelhouse, so that will make my life easier than on the Leona. Axel boasts at least 3 places to sit. I am sighing in anticipation of that luxury.

Boat stands for "Bust Out Another Thousand." We need more of those fun little acronyms too. We spent at least that yesterday buying a Racor and GPS. I now know what a Racor does. It separates water from diesel and filters the fuel. I can die a happy woman.

This purchase is the next phase of our life. Our fishing life. Our food-producing life. Our hemorrhaging money into outfitting a boat life. Our selling salmon off the Axel to the public life. Our oh-holy-shit-I-own-a 40-foot-steel-boat life.

I coined a new phrase through this whole mess: "Winning the Alaskan Lottery" is defined as marrying a woman with a government job.

Superstition

2010-12-10T17:48:00.000-08:00

We have something very big happening in our lives right now. So big that I can't even overshare on the internet about it. (It is not a kid, so stop that right now.) I want to talk about it but I keep myself from doing so out of fairness to my husband and my inability to eat crow. Not a huge fan of the whole mea culpa game. I prefer to avoid the whole mess altogether.

I don't really like the roller coaster that major life decisions take you on. Remember that scene in Parenthood where Steve Martin is on a life roller coaster at his kids' play? That scene is awful and scary and gross. I wish my life were a sunny day, walking the gentle slopes, and nothing more surprising than an eagle calling to its mate. If I had my way, life would be boring and predictable and I could plan for every contingency.

So I've been living my life with fingers crossed, avoiding cracks, and not spilling salt. I don't want to jinx this very big thing, and I'm running out of "good vibe" euphemisms to throw at it. It's time to avoid thinking about it because I so don't have control over any of it.

On a more positive note, I ran 2 miles yesterday and am pain-free today. The library got a slew of new music in so I've been bopping along to Cat Power and a swear-free Kanye West. I have been referring (in my head) to the swear free music as neutered. Actually, castrated would be a better choice.

If I have no control over many major life things, I can at least listen to music that has swears.

Running

2010-12-09T16:59:00.000-08:00

My musical taste, much like my fashion sense, has not really evolved since High School. Normally, it doesn't really bother me. I like whiny, indie, alterna humor music. It fits in perfectly in my fractured, technicolor mind. Except (you knew that was coming, didn't you Internet) for when I'm running.

I have proudly run every other day for two whole weeks now. My shin splints are gone but the same old shit on my ipod isn't cutting it anymore. I recently discovered the Decemberists and love love LOVE them. Just last night I was laying on my floor reveling in Picaresque. Today, out running it wasn't working. I can't listen to songs about shape-shifting lovers and infanticidal Rakes while pounding the asphalt. I am finding myself skipping through the bulk of my music because it is too slow to distract me from my task.

What does manage to work shouldn't be surprising to anybody. It's music that makes you want to shake your ass. I skip They Might be Giants to listen to Blackalicious. I avoid the Eels in favor of a raucous Gogol Bordello tune. Mr. Bungle is still working out ok, but I need something else. Salt 'n Peppa is in heavy rotation after scoring Very Necessary at a garage sale. (Ok, yes there is a whole world of music online. I am not online at my house yet. I KNOW what this makes me. A cheap-ass luddite who still buys cds. Working on a remedy.)

Running while listening to music gets me out of my head for a small 30 to 45 minutes every other day. It is a break that I sorely need, but I need new music to pull me upward and out. Where should I start looking?

The five fortunes on my office wall

2010-12-08T17:34:00.000-08:00

A four-wheeled adventure will soon bring you happiness.

You will go far, but be sure to come back.

Your positive attitude this month will improve your present problem.

Someone will give you something.

You may attend a party where strange customs prevail.

Mid-90's Country songs for Engineers

2010-12-07T11:39:00.000-08:00

I am proud that my partner is from America .
(American Made--Oakridge Boys)

I came of age near a river named the Chattahoochee, where I drank heavily.

(Chattahoochee--Alan Jackson)

We are from the southern region of America. We like yams and silence.

(Song of the South--Alabama)

In the event of my death I want to be taxidermied and left in a drinking establishment near the jukebox.

(Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox--Joe Diffie)

A woman's life is hard. Before it was hard, she signed her letters in a cutsey way. This woman is going to find success in her father's world but has a desire to emulate her mother.

(XXXs and OOOs--Tricia Yearwood)

People have fun in an area zoned for agriculture.

(Getting Down on the Farm--Tim McGraw)

It is evident you are unfaithful. Your boots have been under several women's beds. QED

(Whose Bed HAve your Boots been under--Shania Twain)

I live in Tennessee because I make poor choices related to dating.

(All my Exes Live in Texas--George Strait)

I ignored every one's advice and followed my instincts. Now Dwight Yoakam and Lyle Lovett are fighting over me.

(I Feel Lucky--Mary Chapin Carpenter)

I am an alcoholic. I rationalize ruining your wedding by drinking with other alcoholics at a dive bar.

(Friends in Low Places--Garth Brooks)

I make really good gravy.
(Good Brown Gravy--Joe Diffie)

Did you Guess them? Come up with more! It's pretty fun.

feeling every bit of 31

2010-11-30T17:20:00.000-08:00

So I started running this week. This is my annual attempt to become a regular runner. I get about 3 sessions in, develop debilitating shin splints and stop. I have repeated this pattern for the past 7 years. I am insanely predictable.
What brought this bout of fitness on? Age. I know I am not that old, but I know that a lifetime of problems can be circumvented through regular exercise. Also, I'm finding it harder to go from the no-exercise winter into hard core field work in the summer. The old corps doesn't bounce back like it used to.

Running is something I used to enjoy and would like to again. Some of the best worst days in high school were doing liners or wind sprints after soccer practice. I managed 1 liner today and it just about killed me. Perhaps I should look into something lower impact, but that would be letting my stupid shins win. I will not let such an innocuous part of my body dictate my life.

So I'm sitting here, thinking about the nice bath later and maybe some ice packs to bring the swelling down.

Oh, and while we're lamenting lost youth, I got 7 Brides for 7 Brothers on DVD from the library. For those of you who know me, you are laughing pretty good right now. I only have it on VHS and thus haven't seen it for a few years. Wow, is that ever a cheesy, sexist movie. From Howard Keel singing about "the beautiful hide" of his intended to the 6-couple shotgun wedding. I don't know if I can call it a favorite anymore, but that barn raising dance off is still pretty spectacular. And the fact that one of the girls is named Dorcas. Yeah, it's biblical but that doesn't make up for the silliness.

It's no Oklahoma.

Cooking for one

2010-11-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

So with the old man gone on an adventure, I'm all alone in my messy, messy house. Daily, my house gets un-messied but my food ennui has taken hold. When I'm living by myself I like to sit around and read and generally ignore the world around me. I can quietly sit at my counter, read whatever I want and eat soba noodles every night.

It's a form of bliss, really.

What I've learned is that I don't really like to cook for one. It's sort of sad and boring to make food just for me when I'm perfectly happy with oatmeal and a salad. (I also enjoy not having someone ask me what's for dinner the second I get home.) My Everyday Food has a "cooking for one" section that has things like Meatloaf for one. I am quite adventurous, food wise, but any food called "loaf" that isn't bread is not a food for me.

In addition to the little cleaning widgets I need to manufacture daily, I guess I should add cooking to that. It keeps me from going to bed at 8:30. Tonight, I'm making a baked pasta thing with lots of vegetables and cheese. It is not that interesting but it is an achievement beyond last nights leftover miso and salad.

I guess I get so excited about not having someone up in my business constantly that I neglect taking care of myself food-wise. What do you all cook for yourself?

Man voice and two broke-ass trucks

2010-11-15T17:56:00.000-08:00

My weekend was super fun! What did you do? I bet it wasn't as fun as mine. Wednesday, I started feeling a tightness in my throat. I thought it was just some weird spore thing from the crap old ford that we were driving while waiting for our new truck to arrive on the barge. Alas, it was Laryngitis. I went to the Doctor on Thursday (Paid day off for us Feds) and got a scrip for antibiotics and steroids. I didn't fill it because I avoid things like that until it gets really bad. On the way home, the transmission all but fell out of the bottom of the Ford.

Nice! 1 vehicle to go to the dump. Yay!

Friday, tDF tries to get a gasket to fix our little Toyota. We thought it was the oil pan. Turns out it was a cracked head or blown head gasket spewing oil out on Sitka's Streets. That is two irredeemably broke down trucks that are headed for recycletown. Awesome! We get to walk everywhere.

Also on Friday, I start having sinus pain and gross sinus things (it was rhinorrhea) so I decide that my symptoms are bad enough for the drugs--only ain't no 24 hour Walgreens in old Sitka so tDF came home empty handed. I suffer through some movies and can't even talk on the phone because I have no voice. I can speak in one of those irritating and exhausting hard whispers.

Saturday, I finally get my Rx after the nose starts expelling a rainbow of grossness. This is a new level for me, she of the chronic sinus infections. I take my pills and feel better. Yes, it is a placebo thing but I don't care because it stopped feeling like my sinuses were trying to dislodge my eyeballs. I also made some Tom Kah Kai and relished in the spicy, hot chicken soup.

So here I am, finally with a voice but it sounds all scratchy and deep. We call it "man voice" or "Terrible Blues Show Host" voice (inside Sitka Joke). I have a few more days of pill-taking but am eternally grateful to the miracle of mold.

Oh, and our new truck came today. I love that little thing.

We didn't buy a boat

2010-11-09T17:33:00.000-08:00

No boat for the Harpy-Fisherman household...yet. The year is young, we have until April to get us another maintenance nightmare and cash hog. Our trip was pretty dang fun, in any case. We stopped and looked at all the weird roadside stuff like Babe's blue balls and some metal dinosaurs. Oh, you want a picture? Well here:

Look at how cute my husband is, acting like a T-Rex. The artwork here was pretty amazing. someone in Gualala created these out of scrap metal. I wanted one so bad but they wouldn't fit in our tuff new truck.

We slept in the back of our truck off the side of the road and in harbor parking lots most nights. Campsites were deemed too expensive most nights but we stayed in a few along the way. The best one was the Umpqua State Lighthouse campground. They had free showers and you could rent yurts! Oregon State Parks beat the pants of both California and Washington parks. California was aggressively signed everywhere:

How awesome is this sign? Thanks, Sausilito Harbor, for printing the gold-standard in entitled asshole signs. We joked that California's new ad campaign should be Look, but don't touch, and really, don't breath on any of our things either. We couldn't get out of the state fast enough. The scenery was amazing and all, but the attitude of everything was really off putting. Except in the harbors.

This trip really brought home the fact that Fishermen are the same everywhere. The uniform, the speech, the impressively foul language, they are the same north to south. Actually, I was surprised that there weren't any yuppie fishermen down south. Here, there are the younger Patagucci-wearing right along with the wool sweater-clad salts. There, only salts. Everyone we talked to was really surprised to talk to us, young fishermen trying to get in. (We aren't even that young.) The whole industry is dying and those working in it have an average age of 50--much like farming. There's not future in fishing on the west coast. It's pretty sad.

Back to fun trip things. I went to Goonies Beach! This was my all time favorite movie from age 5 to about 9. My crush on Brand, Josh Brolin, is embarrassing these days.

It was very exciting. TDF didn't want to be Sloth or Chunk so he took the picture instead.

We did, however, buy a commercial power troll permit while travelling. Now we can sell the hand troll permit and not have to hand crank fish and weights. Our elbows are rejoicing!

He's negotiatin' on a bench in Bandon, OR. Bandon is a pretty, little tourist trap. I think it would be a great place to spend a week.

More, later.

Home again

2010-11-08T17:17:00.000-08:00

Surprisingly, the weather hasn't been awful since I've been home. Just wanted to give you all a little pic from my trip.

I'm under Babe's Big Blue Balls! I have never before been in front of a fiberglass scrotum before.

Paul isn't as anatomically correct.

Turn the page

2010-10-28T18:11:00.001-07:00

Well, this is interesting. Blogger does not seem to like my new iPad. This is the first post written on my magnificent new toy. I can only write in the HTML window which sort of sux but I guess I'll have to find a app or something.

Anyway, before I rudely interrupted my very important thoughts with my iPad braggy gripes, I was going to tell you all about out my awesome trip. We are, as of this writing, in Cresent City California, driving north in our new truck. We just went through the redwoods today and they we're beautiful and tall, but I guess I've seen tall trees before so I wasn't as impressed as I should have been. Plus it's raining so I am not too pleased.

What has struck me the most are the fees and the no fun zone that is the great state of California. Everywhere along highway 1 no parking signs were posted. Plus this hilarious one in the Sausilito harbor that said "don't disturb the rocks." we totally took a picture. We call this the no fun zone. It's like the whole state in grandma's plastic-coated living room. Oh, and campgrounds cost $35per night to $65 per night. Hotels aren't that much.

Tomorrow we get to Oregon and I cain't wait.

Living in a remount island-bound small town makes a road grip extra fun. I have loved driving the past few days. The 6-cyl Toyota really kicks some ass. The tunes are a bit on the slim side. There is only so many times you can listed to the same 6 CDs, no matter how good they are. (Belle and Sebastian are pretty awesome.)

I'm figuring out this new toy of mine. Any apps I can't life without?

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin' in the Blackout

2010-10-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

Due to high winds (gusts to 70mph) our hydro power is down. A tree blew into the power line and now the town has to operate on diesel power. BUT this town, in its amazing foresight, does not have enough diesel power to run the whole town. So we get rolling blackouts! Whee. An hour of electricity and hour without all the livelong day.

The radio people said we could be under these blackouts for up to 3 days. The city electric department says blackouts will last for at least 3 days. I'm glad I was awake during semantics in High School. Those are entirely different situations! The communication is amazing. Plus, the electric department is in contract negotiations with the city so they are going to take every bit of time to "prove" how valuable they are.

I have decided that the best way to spend this time is drinking heavily. Nothing says "awesome" more than drinking to the light of the 1 candle you own while it howls outside. I even came up with a themed drink to commemorate this occasion:

Woodford Reserve Bourbon
Tumbler

Pour at least 3 fingers of Bourbon into glass

Drink.

Look at what an incredible cocktail this is! I call it Muskeg Harpy's RollingBlackOutDrunk. Try it next time you have, nay, get to experience a rolling blackout.

I should have the giggly-cute attitude that everybody else seems to have. I simply can't muster the bonhomie. It is awful, inconvenient, and stupid management by the City. At least I still have a bottle of bourbon at home.

Ribs and Cheesecake

2010-10-05T17:12:00.000-07:00

Fall is here. I don't go in for that Martha Stewart holiday-themed decorating anything, so fall is weather related not gourd 'n mini pumpkin centerpiece related. Fall is such a crappy time of year that any attempt to make it festive falls so very flat. In other parts of the world, fall is brisk and shiny. A time for rosy-cheeked, scarf wearing shenanigans. In my world, it's 60 mile per hour winds and 4 inches of rain in a day.

Ain't no hay rides at the punkin patch in Sitka.

Because the weather is shit, the light is leaving, and I have time to putter I spend lots of time cooking things that are not healthy. I like lots of butter, bacon, cheese, and pretty much anything with a glycerol group. My inaugural "fall blows" meal was for tDF's birthday. It was ribs, steak fries, coleslaw, and Cheesecake. I would classify this as a healthier version of what I typically make (nothing was fried or wrapped in bacon).

I coaxed the Miller-Lite Weber knock off into smoking a small rack of ribs on our porch in a light drizzle. I managed to get that pinkish smoke ring through the meat, so I was feeling pretty good about myself. The sauce was something in my shiny, new America's Test Kitchen cookbook. It was good but I lost points when I revealed it had corn syrup. (My husband is on an anti-corn syrup kick.) The oven fried steak fries more than made up for the corn syrup, I believe.

A growler of the Baranof Brewing Company's seasonal ale showed up on our doorstep. It has like 12% alcohol so it made the evening a little fuzzy-edged.

We didn't really need dessert after but we plowed ahead. I made a huckleberry compote to have over the dense cheesecake. Consequently, I learned there is a low-fat cheesecake. Of all the things to make low fat, this is possible the worst. Actually, the worst is fat-free half-and-half, but that is not something a person strives to make. Just an abomination you can purchase. Aaaanyway, we ate until we felt like bursting. Everything was yummy and I got excited about food again.

I'm looking forward to a winter full of the ribs and cheesecake diet. There will be a vegetable or three, I'm sure. I think squash needs to be in the rotation, but at $1.37/lb it's pretty expensive. If only the mini corn and gourds were edible.

Using our house for a bank and other 'Murican themes

2010-10-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

Five long years of our lives were spent pouring every last penny into our luxury house on the hill. Every evening. Every weekend. Every gov'ment holiday. I even rolled change so we could do things like rent movies. Our goal was to spend $1 once rather than finance that $1 and end up paying $3. Our deb-adverse shuffle paid off when we financed our house last May. We owed about 25% of what it was worth. We celebrated by renting 2 movies and buying sugar-snap peas for our salad.

We live large. Oh yes, we do.

I know I've been thrilling you with our adventures on the high seas, making commercial fishing that much less romantic. This lifestyle shift has sort of taken over our lives. I spend "free" weekends building spreadsheets on income/expenses for commercial fishing. Last week we drank beers and tallied our season's catch (4,865 pounds). See, we're fiends for the fishing. This isn't going to stop and the next logical step is owning our own boat and building a viable business based on commercial fishing.

Unfortunately, commercial boats are more than Toyota Tacomas or Kamik boots. Boat officially stands for Break Out Another Thousand. Buying a boat is like buying a house without any hope of building any equity.

Fortunately, we built our own little equity farm. We can borrow against our house! Whee! refinance to buy something else that doesn't retain value but maybe will make us some money! We are now as American as the debt crisis and apple pie. I am not exactly happy about doing this but borrowing against a house provides better terms than a boat loan. There are fewer strings and hurdles but it still squicks me out. We would be building a debt layer cake.

I immediately had to call my Brother who set me straight. "It's not like you're buying a jet ski and financing a vacation to Disneyland," he told me. I felt at least a little better. We decided it was like starting a small business or trying to finance that ground-breaking indie film (ha). Having the means to buy a decent boat and gear allows us to focus on fishing and not trying to cut corners on boat maintenance to save money.

We're going to the bank and set the paperwork in motion. I know talking about money in America Is Not Done, but you all really need to know what goes into building a life and career in Commercial Fishing. People take out a tremendous debt-load to buy into the industry (at least those who do not inherit permits and boats). People fish because they love the life it affords, not because it's easy or lucrative.

I'll keep you posted. I feel more adult doing this than when I first bought homeowners insurance.

It's hot and sunny here!

2010-09-16T16:32:00.000-07:00

I have remarked before that weather her matters. Eliza Dolittle would be just fine discussing the weather in Southeast Alaska, it's all we talk about. Her cockney slang could stay hidden in the polite discussions of unseasonably warm September or an incredibly shitty June. Fyi, the 150 year average of rainfall for September in Sitka is 11.28 inches. We are a bit low this month.

So, yes, as the title of this blerg states, It's been bloody hot and sunny for darn near a week in the Greatland. So hot that they're catching blue sharks of the cape of Kruzof Island. This means there is a current of warm water somewhere off shore. TDF is thinking about going tuna fishing on the Leona. Yes, fricking tuna fishing in the Gulf of Alaska. Man, I loves me some albituna. Plus you troll as fast as our boat goes (like 6 knots) which may be pretty fun.

My tomatoes, grown inside, are showing signs of finally ripening and my celery is finally becoming tall and stately. I'm leaving work early to go and sip some minty booze on my porch and lay in the sun. Because I can and because I know that soon it will rain and be dark.

Make minty cocktails while the sun shines, kids! You'll regret it on a rainy day later.

Crater Mountain High

2010-09-15T17:34:00.000-07:00

Finally found the picture! Here we are lounging in the hummocks in Crater Mountain. I love all the red in this photo.

In other, decidedly less awesome, news we are trying to buy a truck. This post is sort of a Hail Mary of truck purchasing. Our list of requirements is not long, but each requirement further narrows the choices by at least half. Since you asked, ahem, here is what we want:

Toyota Tacoma extended cab

6-cyl

Four-wheel-drive

Manual Transmission

Less than $10k.

Finding this golden goose of a vehicle is very hard. It wouldn't be if we lived in TN, somehow that's where all the awesome Toyotas meet up, like some sort of yuppie truck Jugaloo gathering. Do you know anybody who has one of these unicorns? We have ca$h money to spend.

Buying a truck has made me realize that I'm some total Luddite crank when it comes to cars. I can't stand automatic transmissions and power windows scare me. We had this large suv *coughSuburbancough* that fell apart from the inside. The Power windows were the first to go, then many things followed. It was really fun watching a piece of Americana rot into America's Temperate Rain forest.

All of these woes remind me of my first, and really only, Truck. She was an 1989 ranger with a Mazda engine. Everything was manual, including the steering. I totaled her on the freeway at Christmas and managed to rebuild her with a crazy drunk guy I knew. I learned the Bondo Method of bodywork. She started life black and I sold her as a pearly purple. I never did get around to fixing the gaping hole in the upholstery. I miss that little thing.

What was your first car? Do you miss it?

Vacaaaaaaaaaation

2010-09-10T13:27:00.001-07:00

My husband and I haven't really had a vacation the entire 7 years of our blissful married life. We have had "vacations" and a trip to Baja that was infinitely more fun for him than me. Most trips away from home, they are not vacations and should not be referred to as such, are to visit family. (Hi, family reading this. We love visiting, really.) It's great being warm and seeing loved ones, but it's not the adventure that he and I desire.

Well, dear readers, we are taking a dang vacation. Our plan is to drive the west coast from Santa Barbara to Blaine over a 3 week period. We are shopping for a boat, so this is a business vacation. Bah, don't care. I finally will get to see that weird part of Northern California with all the hippies and the statue of Paul Bunyon. We plan on joining the rest of America by sleeping in our car in a Wal Mart parking lot.

Our hope is to purchase a new truck and drive it up, filling it with all kinds of fall goodness and cheap fishing gear. If we're lucky, we'll buy the truck soon and can bring AK plates with us. We have no plans except to stick to the coastal routes and see as many harbors as possible. (I will be wearing my Xtra-tuffs so that any local who fishes will see them and know that I am awesome, and fish too.)

Any must sees? I like the strange and unusual. Roadside attraction stuff like giant balls of twine.

Things you should know about commercial fishing

2010-09-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

1. You are at least damp all of the time, if not soaked. Parts of your body will peel off due to being wet and salty all of the time.

2. You will stink. From sweat and from rotting salmon-ick stuck to your body. Salmon ick ranges from blood to viscera. I peeled a chunk of spinal blood off of my shoulder over the weekend.

3. You cannot be claustrophobic. The fo'c'sle is dank and you sleep in a coffin like place near the ceiling. The hold is dark and cold. The hatch to the hold must stay closed all the time (even when packing fish) to keep the ice from melting.

4. Repetitive motion is the only motion. You scrub the deck at least 20 times per day. The salmon get clubbed in the same manner with the same arm (Hammerstein). The path between the wheel house is worn.

5. Breakfast can make or break the day. Eating is secondary to catching fish so eating before you're pulling them keeps the hunger pangs at bay. Warm breakfasts are best, but anything will do. I know that if I don't eat I become nauseous, crabby, and hard to work with.

6. Things break all of the time. The wash down pump stops working if it gets too hot. You will lose stuff over the side. There will be electrical fires. You must be able to fix the situation and move on.

7. Mornings are dreadful and amazing. Getting up an hour before dawn in an Alaskan summer means regularly rising at 3 am. This is a time that should not exist, yet manages to be spectacular. The way everything is purple and quite. The potential of another day on the water. It breaks your heart, it's so perfect.

8. Only breakfast is more important than sleep to functioning. Get some when you can. It's never quality sleep--the motions, the noise, the damp--but it is something.

9. Have a clean change of clothes to wear at night. You do not want to smell like fish guts when you are trying to enjoy pork chops or a beer.

10. Coming back into the harbor, late at night and tying up to the cannery is about as exciting as it gets. When they lower the tote down to you and you fill it with your catch, and they have to keep lowering it because you caught more than 1,000 pounds of salmon flesh, you take a breath. The icy cold and the way your back screams from shoveling out all of the ice doesn't matter.

Grumplestilskin

2010-09-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

Some days you get the Baar. Well, dude, some days the baar gets you. Today I was the carrion picked at by the vultures. I was gum under the shoe. I was the bag full of only yellow gummi bears. I had to re-image my gov'ment computer. This means that I have to reinstall every program, reestablish every connection, and mostly remember what on earth I had on the thing.

I got home at 11pm last night, got to work at 8:15 today. Have to go fishing at 5 pm. I should be more excited about fishing, but I really just want to lay down and read for awhile.

Burned the Flight of the Conchords cd, though. Foux de fa fa should get me through the day.

Work is not a four letter word

2010-08-19T17:48:00.000-07:00

I often forget I'm working when I'm at work. I have the privilege of living and working in the most beautiful place on earth. to wit: my paid adventure in the wilds of Kruzof Island. I had to finish the field work for mapping the soils of South Kruzof, a young volcanic terrain with the iconic Mt. Edgecumbe. I am lucky lucky lucky.

Four intrepid souls packed into a remote shelter via the Mt. Edgecumbe trail. It was rainy, sunny, foggy, and wonderful. We packed out more than 80 pounds of soil to send off for sampling.

This is part of the trail as you move away from the volcanic plains near saltwater and onto the plateaus at the flanks of the cinder cone. The trail is a narrow, gravel path with cedar logs as both steps and drains. It blends very nicely with the surroundings.

At the top of Mt. Edgecumbe, we had our first sample site. Here we all are in the alpine meadow. I'm taking a point with my semi-awesome Trimble Nomad. (It is incredibly crotchety, a neat tool but so very temperamental. I want to throw it against a tree at least once per day.) We had to dig a soil pit, describe it and pull samples out to send off to a soil lab.

Make no mistake, I love dirt. I love my job that lets me study dirt. I love the touch, taste, and smell of dirt. Here I am, placing the measuring tape for the official photo. I am super happy. That is not a fake smile, I really like what I'm doing that much.

The shelter has 3 sides and a wood stove with a few bunks in the back. Basic, and perfect. Up here, you pretty much only need a roof. I believe this was burrito night, we ate really well.

After Edgecumbe, we hiked up crater mountain. She sits just to the north of Edgecumbe (in the background of the above pic) and is not really a cinder cone. I felt like I should be wearing a dirndl and herding some sort of sheep. The place was otherworldly.

The vegetation is tundra, the same as caribou feed on and is found in the main part of Alaska. It's dominantly small grasses, heathers, and forbs. I just wanted to sit quietly in this landscape.

I wanted to camp there instead of the shelter. We were lucky enough to have a clear day to hike up here as the day before was foggy and wet. This is an andesite dome that is the main part of Crater mountain. The little waves in the foreground are formed by frost heaving from freeze-thaw cycles in permafrost. They are perfectly contoured to fit the human body and are immensely comfortable.

They aren't the organic soils I was expecting and they even had spodic development. Weird.

I love my job. Do you love yours?

Meet Rodgers and Hammerstein

2010-08-18T17:54:00.000-07:00

In the feverish existence of commercial fishing, I named my biceps. I believe some people refer to these as "guns." I have never had much muscle definition in my arms before and while white-knuckling the trip home through 20 kt winds I decided it was high time to name my newly defined arms.

Lefty is Rodgers and Righty is Hammerstein. I am right-handed, and use that one to wield the gaff/bludgeon and kill fish. It deserves to be called Hammerstein. (Was thinking about Gilbert and Sullivan but I love Oklahoma! more than a GenX/Y/Millenial really should.) I am a big-budget musical girl always and forever.

I have never named my body parts before, so this is my first step into some ill-conceived adventure in whimsy. This also speaks to the complete lack of filter I get when working near 22 hours straight. Yesterday began at 4 am and ended 2 am this morning.

Continuous work! That's what fishing is! At least every day began with a hot cup of high octane coffee and something hot off the propane grill. It was needed too because we caught at least 39 kings yesterday. "At Least" because I'm pretty sure I lost count here and there. The day ended after off loading 1500 pounds of fish flesh at the cannery.

Tired doesn't even begin to describe how I feel.

Deer Killin' Machine

2010-08-12T17:52:00.000-07:00

I done married one. He loves a good Deer Killing any time of the day, any day of the week, any elevation in the greater Sitka Area. (He especially loves packing 50 # of meat out through the absolute worst terrain created by opportunistic logging and cliffs.) While I was luxuriating in Denver last week, he shot another one.

We still had a ton of venison in the freezer in the garage. I "haven't cooked deer in forever and have been neglecting my wifely duties." Ahem. It could be the piles of sh*t that are not mine in and around the freezer preventing me from getting at said 2009 deer meat. But, let's not fight. Let's talk about Demi Glace and 15# of sausage!

Oh yeah, I made a lot of sausage. Both bulk, and stuffed into casing with my handy Kitchen Aid meat squirter (sausage attachment). It took 2 days but I think it was worth it. We made spicy italian sausage, but I made it a bit more mild so it would be versatile. TDF even took pictures, but they all look kind of gross (not cleaning the house for, like, weeks ftw). Also, you have all seen ground meat and sausage so picture it in your minds eye and bask in my awesome sausageness.

My real triumph was the Demi Glace, or meat jelly. I got to use the Wyoming Saw I bought tDF for his birthday and cut up the leg bones of the deer. I felt like the most awesome french person with a Saveur subscription. It's a James Peterson recipe where you roast the bones with veggies and aromatics before simmering them for hours. I used the crock pot for simmering because I take shortcuts like that. The final broth was reduced to a scant cup on the stove over a couple of hours. I froze it into little glass jars to break out for special food occasions! I love how full and round the flavor is. I could eat it with a spoon.

The bones were cooked again to make a broth that's pretty nice. It should become chili or stew very shortly. Not much cooking right now, though. We have another king opener on Sunday then I have to work in the field again. Summer fun just never ends at the Harpy-Fisherman household!

Also? All this deer death talk reminds me to share with you, Internet, that we saw Deliverance last night. It was disturbing. Not the "Squeal Like a Pig" Hillbilly rape shenanigans, but the sinking the bodies in the river with rocks. And how Normal Dudes could just kill people like that. Not the uplifting, heartwarming tale I was expecting.

Snowflake Kittens

2010-08-07T14:59:00.000-07:00

This is the product of the Venn Diagram of Romance novel readers and cat people. This may not be so much of a Venn Diagram as concentric circles. I found this on the free shelf at the library a few weeks ago, but didn't pick it up. Later, talking to my brother about Brokeback Mountain (I finally saw it) we talked about this book, Snowflake Kittens. He made me promise to go to the library and pick it up.

Luckily, it was still there. I read this thing in its entirety in about 2 days. The book is 3 regency-era novellas involving kittens and spinsters. So that Venn diagram above also should have Women-of-a-certain age..

I, as you may guess, only retained the important plot points. Character names, not so much. Here you go! Snowflake kittens:

Story 1: An injured war hero from the Napoleonic wars returns home to take over the estate after his brother and wife die. Soldier inherits their two spawn and, yup, a kitten. While riding home (stoically) he sees the new tenant covered in unladylike mud. She knows she offended him by doing her own gardening. What a strumpet. She has a puppy, a yellow lab.

Through a series of dumb regency maneuvering he realizes the tenant is a well-regarded governess who inherited enough $$ to retire. How perfect! Someone to govern those two precocious kids, one with a moppet-law mandated lisp. He's not sure he can be around her, though, because he desires her oh, so much. (This is a chaste book, so the language is quite mild. As you would expect a kitten-themed romance novel to be)

After the kitten is lost in a snowstorm and tennant-lady's dog retrieves/saves it do the two starcrossed 40-somethings get together. It is a very happy ending for all.

Story 2.

Confirmed bachelor rides into the moors to visit his self-exiled brother. Bachelor invited the lady who broke off the engagement with his brother. But Bachelor really likes the lady. Oh, and brother is super-into treasure hunting for Roman relics on his estate. AND, a mangy, pregnant cat befriends bachelor and brings him gifts of jewels from a neighboring estate.

Got it?

This is fairly straight forward, but bachelor is constantly creating work for his Valet by getting dirty and petting the filthy cat. (I can imagine Jeeves not really tolerating this behavior from Wooster.) Well, the cat was trained by a band of rogues who steal from estates through the moorlands. They manage to steal the cat back and Bachelor has to ride out in a snowstorm to save her. The only person who cares is the lady (brother's former fiancee and currently the squeeze of bachelor) and she is suitably impressed by a guy who would brave the weather to save a cat.

She is proposed to over a batch of kittens.

Story 3.

There is some sort of convoluted custody arrangement that doesn't really matter Dude is engaged to a shrew. Lady is engaged to a fop. They both want custody of some kid that are their mutual relations. The two kids put on plays and make all the adults watch. These are elaborate plays where the 4 or 5 kittens, all with names like "Hope" or "Prudence."

Fop and Shrew hate kittens and one kitten "attacks" them and they shriek from the settee. Dude and Lady can't keep their hands off each other. Stealing kisses while playing billiards. There is also an admiral who hates the French. All the plays are morality tales that tell the stories of our four lovers.

Fop and Shrew elope which leaves Dude and Lady to marry and adopt the adorable moppets and their 5 kittens.

There are more books: Mistletoe Kittens, Valentine Kittens, Spring Kittens, Wedding Day Kittens. You should totes check them out.

My favorite screen grab ever

2010-07-09T14:49:00.001-07:00

Bad action movies are the bestest. Nothing is better than Carl Weathers and Ahnuld shaking it out man-style. I want to make a motivational poster that just says: Teamwork! or Strength through Diversity or Biceps. Think about how they can help you succeed.

Mostly, I needed to post this so I can come back to it from time to time as it makes me blissfully happy.

If you don't know this is from Predator, you are missing out.

55 Kings, 24 Coho, 2 Chum

2010-07-07T19:13:00.000-07:00

I done beat the hell out of some fish. Literally. One of my many jobs was to knock the incoming fish out and bleed them to prevent them from flopping around the deck and losing their scales. And steering the boat. And cleaning the non-king/Chinook salmon. And cooking. I tried cranking the gurdies and did a few times but was physically unable to do more.

It was the hardest I have worked in a long time. Harder than fighting fire. Harder than thinning trees. I am exhausted to the core. And unbelievably happy.

Every morning started at dawn, which this time of year is 3 am. TDF was pulling the anchor at 3 while I laid in bed below for a few minutes longer. Once the chain was up I had to get up and turn off the anchor winch and start driving so he could set the gear. Between turns, I would throw food together for breakfast and pray the coffee maker would brew 2 cups worth of coffee. That thing is a crotchety piece of work. It makes me very sweary.

Oh, my, was I ever sweary. Every fish that I couldn't beat down was a filthy motherf***er. Mom, you would be so proud of me.

That was my view for nearly 18 hours a day. Those are the tattle tales in front (the little V things all the way on the bow by the anchor). They are springs with cowbells on them hooked to the trolling line. When a fish strikes a lure, they bounce and jangle. After awhile I could tell the difference between a King and a Coho on the line. I could even estimate the size.

My dear, dear husband would sing, "ring my beeeeelll, ring my bell" by Anita Ward while waiting for a strike. All I could think of was More Cowbell.

The first hour we were fishing we caught 10 kings, and by noon there were 18 kings and 15 coho onboard. It was chaotic. I was running between the wheel house and the pit, making sure to both steer and bleed the fish while tDF hauled them over the side. Thank God for adrenaline because otherwise I would have collapsed.

The wheel house.

We ran around the Sitka area quite a bit. We fished as far south as Whale bay and as far north as Salisbury Sound. We wanted to stay longer in Whale bay but ended up leaving early due to incoming bad weather. It was supposed to blow 25 knots and we couldn't get stuck out there with a hold full of Salmon. You have to sell within 5 days of catching the fish and we couldn't let $2,000 worth of fish go bad.

I am tired today, but wanted to leave you with a few photos:

Me holding up a 45 pound king we caught in whale bay. I can barely hold the fish up by its gillplate.
TDF with a really huge king from Crawfish inlet. This one hit the line like a ton of bricks. Look at how fat his tail is.

King opener

2010-06-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

Wish me/us luck. We're going out for a whole week to hopefully slay lots and lots of fish.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Freaking awesome boots

2010-06-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

I wear boots nearly every day of my life. Everybody does here--we all march around in our $80 pairs of Xtratuffs. They are part of the uniform, just like a rain shell and a fleece. They are sort of cute but boring. I am an individual, just like everyone else. Well, since I was stuck in Juneau all day due to a mechanical* I went shopping. I wasn't planning on buying boots but these were on sale.
How cute are these??!!! I had to only pick one and I got the ones just like those pictured above. PLUS they were on sale since it was summer. They are Kamik boots and they are so awesome that the company has a recycling program for their broke-down boots. I am very happy to look like me and not some schlub when I wear skirts and rain boots. I now have stylish ones. I have a feeling I will be buying more of these boots. YAY! BOOTS!!

The world's saddest pancake

2010-06-10T17:45:00.000-07:00

Hello Internet! Sorry for the silence, but I've been very busy and important. I am now a deck hand with a commercial fishing license from the great state of Alaska. We have successfully sold 1 whole King Salmon ($87, kids!). I have made the worst pancakes of my life onboard the Leona. Let me spin you a yarn, matey.

So, we are now trollers. I haven't really worked the gear but that's because I drive the boat and am not fast enough. I also am in charge of the galley, such as it is. Please, let me take you on a tour with words of the great galley/berth of the Leona.

The back of the area is full of Perkins Diesel engine. The loud beast that powers our boat through the briny deep. The alternator squeals if we put too much load on it. Too much is defined by the on board computer (heh), the 12v coffee pot, and the water pump. When we get off the boat I still feel the solid thrum through my body from the motor. Forward (toward the bow) is the double berth, sink and "stove." This is a stove in the academic sense of a metal box that gets warm. Pretty much I can touch it with my bare hand. I am not bragging about my super-tough Alaska hands but slamming the crap nature of the stove. Ever seen a stove that takes 20 minutes to cook an egg while on full blast? Yeah, it sucks in ways I never knew were possible.

So, this stove is really meant to heat the small fo'c'sle, whatever.

Cooking on this boat means a fundamental shift in our eating habits. I am a make-it-from-scratch, no processed nothing, over packaging is eeevil person. Guess what we eat on the boat? Over processed, packaged, nonsense that sort of nauseates me. Oh, and nitrates. Lots and lots of processed meats. blerg.

On this, our maiden voyage, we decided to try pancakes. I bought Kustez reluctantly and got ready to make some. I fried, read: warmed until brown-ish, some apples in a pan then dumped the batter over it. I should mention that this is between steering the boat above from the wheelhouse and hopping down below to tend my breakfast treat. I let the pancake sit for 15 minutes on one side and flipped it. It was pallid and anemic. It cooked for a bit longer then I dumped it in a bowl with maple syrup for tDF (whom was actually filthy and fishing).

It was raw in the middle. Ever had a molten pancake--like one of those chocolate cupcakes that are undercooked on purpose? Well it was that but in pancake form. So, so gross. That stove is only good for heating dish water. I can't even begin to tell you how frustrated I am with that situation.

We have what tDF refers to as a crack torch--an MSR single burner backpacking stove. Ths heats water better but can't really be used in all weather. Having something like that roll on its side would be tragic in a wood boat built in 1926.

What should I cook where there is no refrigeration, room, ability to actually cook, time, or energy? NEW FUN PROBLEM!

Another year on this earth

2010-05-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

Today, I am officially another year older. As my dear, dear brother says in my early-mid 30's. Now, I have to shop in the matron section of the store. Maybe. I think you have to birth something in order to officially be a matron. I'm more of a matron-in-training.

I have celebrated the day with shopping at the thrift store (totally scored a red pair of doc marten mary janes. I know they are no longer on trend but I live in Alaska and nothing is on trend here.). We also had a really nice dinner out at the one nice place in town. It's the steakhouse. It is notable, mostly, for having a salad comprised of entirely verdantly green leaves. None of that pallid iceberg there. I also had a creme brulee with rhubarb sauce. I need more creme brulee in my life.

Tomorrow I will do as little as possible. Because I can.

Our biggest, fanciest news is...we got a regular mortgage. Just like normal 'murcans. It feels funny to celebrate debt, especially paperwork-intensive debt, but I don't care because we are bleeding less money into the interest leech. We were celebrating that too. The bleeding less part, not the debt part. Because nobody should celebrate debt. That most certainly doesn't butter my beans.

(Can you tell I've had a big fatty glass of Malbec?)

Anticipation. I'm getting itchy.

2010-05-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

This is a pretty rough time of year for me. It's almost field season which means I am rarely parked in front of my two screens of gov't computing and out tromping around. I finally get to go on little townie missions--a wetland delineation or two and a stability assesment for a trail re-route. Better than nothing.

The weather looked like it was improving but it feels cold again. I just want summer so much.

my life, in 4 pictures

2010-04-29T16:21:00.001-07:00

I promise not to eat your brains, even though that's pretty much what this face looks like it wants. Really, is me after using the paint sprayer.

King crab, fresh of the boat. They are spiny.

He barely fit in our new crab boiler and pot. We need a bigger pot. (Yes, it is a he. It is illegal to keep lady crabs.)

Me with all the trash-tastic schwag from the stuperbowl at a bar. We got 2 miller lite beer cozies but tDF didn't want to hide is mirror pond in such a way. That is our only BBQ. It is not very good.

It's a nice day for a white salmon

2010-04-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

Winter King, White King, or that totally kick ass salmon, call it what you will. Half of one came up the driveway last week fresh off the Leona. It's sort of a tradition to eat the first fish of the season and we ate the frack out of this lovely white-fleshed king.

No, this isn't a 6th type of salmon we get. It's the winter version of the mighty King/Chinook. Their flesh turns white and fatty through the winter due to diet (not sure what exactly they eat). We were only introduced to this in Alaska, we had never heard anything like this down south.

White king parts! There are belly chunks and the collar along with fillets. The fish was probably 30 pounds in the round (whole).
Look at that! I haven't had winter king in about 3 years and was so very, very pleased.

This is fattier than normal king salmon so it can be pan fired, broiled, or grilled easily. It doesn't dry out the way leaner salmon does and it will baste in its own fatty liquid.

It dawned on my today, when i had to get up at 4:30 am to help with boat things, that my life is going to be very, very different. As long as fish like this comes home I think I can take the early mornings.

Bring you kid to work day: subtle sexism edition

2010-04-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

I am prone to rants in my personal life. My husband often bears the brunt of my loud, opinionated personality. Let's all take a moment to feel bad for him. Ok! So. I am currently really, really irritated at the whole Barbie-sponsored bring your kid to work day thing.

I applaud Barbie's whole Dream it-Do it stance. Everyone should follow their dreams and become who they are and do what they love. HOWEVER, is there any other toy on the face of our fair planet (Happy earth day, planet) with more baggage than the Barbie? No. There is not. The website reference Barbie's 120 careers. With a few nods to the health industry and generic science excepting, Barbie has held very few science/math jobs.

Yes, when I was a little girl I didn't exactly dream about my current career. BUT I didn't look to Barbie for career advice. She was too busy in the complicated soap operas I embroiled her in.

Even the 10 women to watch are lacking in the sciences realm. Three of the women are in fashion while 1 is a scientist. How will this help the little scientists out there? Also one is the marketing/self-promotion whiz Danica Patrick. I hope any future race card driver I spawn also becomes the face/boobs of a web registry place. So proud I would be. I thought the 10 women would be actual women, not celebrities. Barbie dashes my hopes again.

The Internet is for ranting and funny lists. I really want to support people doing what they want and love. Some kids, yes even little nerd girls like I was, like science and outdoorsy things. We need role models not plastic toys.

Let's turn this around for a call for Actual Career Barbies based on the really great women we all know. I'll start:

Kayak Ranger Barbie: with little paddle, ponytail, and 3 season tent, she's up for any and all adventures on the seas.

Fish-Tech Barbie: Carhartts, chest waders, hard hat, and back pack shocker will monitor the heck out of your streams.

Slime Line Barbie: Head net, long gloves, and Xtratuffs make this lady ready for all that comes down the stainless steel chute at her.

Soil Scientist Barbie: Filthy, ripped pants, orange field vest, Razorback shovel, she'll hike anywhere and dig the pit to prove it.

What about you? What barbies would you propose?

free dump week

2010-04-19T15:26:00.001-07:00

Last weekend was one of my most favorite weekends of the year: Spring Clean up. For 1 glorious week we get to get rid of all the rotting awfulness in our house/yard for FREE. Maybe you all don't really know, but it costs an arm and a leg to dispose of trash here. Normally it is 7 cents a pound, which can add up.

Remember that awful boat we cut up and took to the dump last year? Sure you do! That cost over $400 in dump fees. WHEE. Living on an island is super fun. We got rid of a bunch of old, rotten crap in the yard, lots of insulation, drywall, a boat trailer, and temporary flooring. 6 little toyota truck loads left our house and we look much, much less like trash.

There will be more. The event lasts all week and I can find more things to get rid of.

This effort it to encourage all people here to clean up their yard because if it wasn't free, nobody wants to pay to get rid their trash. Even so, there are some amazing properties around here.

Eat them up, Yum!

2010-04-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

Fish heads, Fish heads, rolly-poly fish heads.
Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, Yum!

Ask a fish head anything you want to
They won't answer.
They can't talk.

About 9 fish heads rolled up to the old homestead yesterday. Eight made it into the house. A raven and eagle fought over one of them yanked from the bucket. It was entertaining. The eagle won.

Now that tDF works down on the docks he's meeting lots of people who are willing to give away fish and fish parts. Yesterday, it was a bucket full of Black Cod heads. Black cod is also called Sablefish or Butterfish. We don't eat the heads, internet, but we eat the cheeks and collars.

I had a very, very bad experience the last time I ate Black cod and so was a bit skittish about trying them again. I persevered, though. Black cod is a fatty fish and has slime equivalent of an albacore. Plus, these were frozen so it was challenging work cutting out the cheeks.
Here is a bowl full of heads with guts attached. The collar is just behind the gill place and is around the belly. Most of the heads had some lungs/digestive system still attached.
Here I am ripping the collar off after cutting it free of the gill plate.
There really is a lot of meat on a collar. There are few bones and just a bit of cartilage to deal with. The cut also has a fair bit of fat so they broil/grill very nicely.
This is a bowl full of collars. They aren't completely cleaned yet. I peel back the membrane and scrape out all the blood. Blood ruins the flavor of most fish, plus it will discolor the very pale flesh.
This is the cheek. Forward of the gill plate and under the eye there is a pocket of very tender flesh. Halibut cheeks are bigger and better-known than black cod cheeks. These were a bit challenging to excavate because they were frozen. It was hard to differentiate between frozen flesh and cartilage.

Here is the bone structure behind the cheek. You have to cut away the membrane around the eye. There isn't a ton of meat to be found but it makes perfect little medallions.

Here is a nicer, larger cheek. These went into a salad after a quick sear on the stove. I broiled the collars for about 8 minutes with Tamari and sachiko. The flesh is delicate and flaky but covered in fat. Much the way king crab is delicate and fatty.

Tonight, I'm grilling them. They need surprisingly little to be delicious.

Also, I know these are gross images but this is my life. I get buckets of who-knows-what to deal with on a regular basis. Living up here is messy, bloody, and sticky. I love it.

Boat-shaped hole

2010-04-12T09:34:00.001-07:00

They say that owning a boat is like having a hole in the water you throw money into. They aren't lying. Slapping the word 'marine' onto something drives the cost up at least 20%. Also, tDF has very expensive tastes. He wants a marine monitor back in the pit so he can watch the Novatech outputs and stay on course.

Hey, look at all the new frickin' terms.

Here is a picture I got from the Oregon's Choice Albacore page. It's a nice illustration of the various parts of a salmon troller. The outriggers dangle the gear away from the boat and you hook 20-foot long leaders 2 fathoms (6 feet) apart along the cable (Below). The gear is controlled by stabilizers, big wing like things that keep the gear more or less in check.

Our permit allows us two lines in the water, so the above illustration isn't quite accurate. (Power trolling allows 4 lines, more like the above picture but you get the point, right?)
Anyway, each hook is baited with herring or you drag plugs or hoochies. DO NOT google image search Hoochie. Search for Fishing Hoochie instead.

Those are hoochies of various colors and patterns. Some glow in the dark. I love the hoochie isle at the gear shop. So pretty. There's also plugs and spoons. I don't know what works and I couldn't find any good pictures. A plug is a conical chunk of wood or plastic with some hooks. A spoon is a flat piece of metal bent so it wiggles in the water. Salmon can be finicky so you drag a variety of tackle.

At the end of the lines are heavy lead balls. These provide the weight to pull the lines down and keep them from fouling. "Fouling" is nautical for tangled. Once you get your lines out you sit around and watch the sky. Until your cowbell at the end of your outriggers (or poles) starts a jangling. Then you reel in.

We have to hand-crank gurdies to bring in the lines. Gurdies are like big, brass fishing reels. We crank from the pit--a lowered section in the stern (Back) of the vessel that puts us closer to water line. Then, as the lines come up, you gaff the fish and swing them on board. Then the lines go back out, rigging them with the most successful lures do maximize your gear. Then you clean the fish.

Cleaning commercial fish is pretty straight forward. Canneries buy fish in the round, meaning whole but gilled and gutted. It's important to take the time to clean out all the viscera and the long vein along the backbone. Blood causing spoilage so removal is necessary. They then get iced down in the hold. Trolling is a quality fishery so you want your salmon to be as pretty as possible. Plus, you get more $$/lb the nicer the fish are. Crummy looking ones get number-two'd and bring less per pound.

This is only the very basics. The electronics on board are astounding and very, very costly. We're trying to get the Novatech chart plotter up and running on 12v power. This little program is a GPS enabled mapping thing where the background is nautical charts, thus eliminating the need for a frillion paper charts.

Look at the Leona!

All new adventures soon. Right now, we're working on the foc'sle (folks-ole) trying to get it ready to take out for a week at a time. The foc'sle is the space forward of the engine and under the bow to sleep/eat/cook in. She is a teeny space. New bilge pump goes in today. Whew.

Equinox

2010-04-08T10:09:00.000-07:00

Finally, he says hello. Peeking shyly around Verstovia earlier than yesterday. He watches me, curiously, as I untangle my gear. I'm embarrassed by the state of things. I don't want him to catch me in such a disheveled state, but there's no hiding from him at lunch.

bolder, he stares down at the deck of my little Troller. At me. Knee deep in tackle I neglected last September when I was staring down another winter without him.

He says goodnight from Edgecumbe, whispering he'll come earlier tomorrow. Promising to meet me before I cast off.

Didn't see that coming

2010-04-03T14:11:00.000-07:00

A friend, out of the blue, called to see if we wanted to buy his hand troll permit and lease his boat for the summer. Guess what? We did.

The Dirty Fisherman is now a Dirty Commercial Fisherman.

Looking to a summer learning how to be a deck hand and cleaning fish. Wow. I'm still stunned.

Harbingers of Spring

2010-04-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

Can anybody else only think of Starbuck when they use the word harbinger? Yeah, well I am an isolated nerd who watches a lots of DVDs. On to an actual harbinger.

It is spring here in the great Southeast Alaska which means erratic weather and herring. Our weather goes from snowy to sunny and back to rain in the space of 2 hours. This is both strangely beautiful and downright irritating. I've been waiting for my garden to dry out enough to turn it over, but the weather is thwarting me. Mostly, the weather can't make up its mind and folks around here call that equinox weather.

Spring brings life back to our dreary little corner of 'Merica. It comes on the back of herring. Mid march Sitka Sound begins to fill up with sea lions and whales feeding on the huge schools of herring waiting to spawn. They are the first batch of spawning fish we get to meet then we have euchalon, steelhead, kings/chinook, sockeyes/reds, pinks/humpys, chum/dogs, then cohos/silvers. Everybody needs to reproduce and they seem like they're in such a rush during the sunny months.

Like every other thing that swims in our sea it has a multimillion dollar commercial fishery built on it. Herring politics are only slightly better than halibut politics around here, but you don't care about that. You want to know how they fish for the little silver buggers. Well, they seine for them. Seining is where you have a big boat and a little boat with a net stretched between them. The little boat zips around a school of fish and ties off to the big boat. Then net is closed and the school is hauled on board.

Seining for herring (from the Juneau empire)

Sometimes the herring will dive to the bottom (PANIC!) and the boat will roll severely. Remember that scene in Finding Nemo where they have that school of fish work together to beat the eeevil fisherman and the day is saved? That really happens.

The openings (times where the state deems it legal to fish) used to be about 15 minutes long and boats used to team up/ally where one boat actually fishes and the others ram other boats out of the way. Combat fishing, they called it. Now the openings are 2-3 hours long so the excitement of battle isn't really there anymore.

Hauling in a seine full of herring. (From national geographic).

Also, each group of boats or teams of boats have a spotter plane over head. When I went out the road last Thursday to watch, I counted 11 planes working above about 47 boats. Also, a film helicopter and the Coasty helicopter were buzzing about. It was a sight. I took pictures but the were of the far-away variety and not that great.

Herring are also a primary fertilizer for the local gardens. You can read about it here. What's spring like where you live?

Raingear for the rest of you

2010-03-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

As I was walking in to work in the absolutely pissing down rain I thought of this post. Much of the world, at least where I am from, can get away with a simple hooded sweatshirt. I used to. Now, I am absolutely snotty about my foul weather gear. I am choosy and have different rain outfits for different occasions. Oh yes, I even have "fancy" rain gear.

When I first moved to the great, rainy southeast of Alaska I bought a full set of slicks. Mine were a deep green Grundens/Helly Hansen set. Like below.

These totally keep the rain out. Also Hellys have a petroleum smell when they're new and everybody can tell when you have a new jacket on. They also create an issue I like to call "Swamp ass" Where you pretty much sweat as hard as it's raining. I stopped wearing slicks in the woods because I couldn't stand hiking in rubber. Plus they're really heavy to wear and carry in your pack. I learned there is a balance between keeping the rain out and breathability that foul weather gear misses.

I still wear my slicks in the boat because that's really what they're for--places where you don't move much and there is a lot of cold water coming at you.
Here is me, in the snow in Yakutat taking of my rain gear because it was too dang hot. See the snow? It was better than being soaked from sweat.

After I ditched the slicks I moved onto tin pants/jacket combo. What are tin pants? Why, they are the best thing Filson makes. BUT if you don't need them then you don't want them. They are not really that comfortable. Think of coating a really heavy pair of jeans with beeswax and walking around. Also getting your legs waxed all the livelong day. Not that awesome, but for what I do they're perfect. They repel water, breathe, and don't get ripped up by the brush. They cost a pretty penny. Expect to pay at least 100 big ones for a basic pair of tin pants and upwards of $130 for hunter style or double fronts. Also, remove the buttons if you are a lady since suspenders make it difficult to poppa-echo-echo in the woods and if you wear a belt, the buttons dig into your hip bone.
Here I am in all my field glory. Those are tin pants I have on. I'm on my second pair, the first got turned into a skirt. I love my tin skirt, it's the only one I know of. Anyhoodle, tin works until it gets really, really cold and it stiffens up to the point where it won't bend at the knees and I have to use my arms to pull my legs over blowdown. It is well worth it, though. Plus I look like a logger. Everybody wants to look like a logger. Notice my lack of rain jacket? It is indeed raining in that photo but hiking is sweaty and I only put on a jacket if it's really coming down.

And now for the townie rain gear I sport now. I only buy uninsulated, unlined rain gear since I'm good at layering and I tend to overheat in the woods easily. Contrary to popular belief it really isn't that cold here so arctic gear and heavy jackets are inappropriate for 98% of the year. Plus LAYERS. I have burned through 1 ultralight jacket and am working my way through my second. (First one was a Patagonia something or other and my current one is a Mountain Hardware thing.) I am really hard on rain gear since I am usually both wet and covered in dirt the cuffs of the sleeves wear out first. I am willing to shell out some dollars on a decent jacket. My mountain hardware jacket has pit zips--a great feature for jackets under normal circumstances. There aren't really any pictures of these since I hate wearing them.

I have a janky pair of Red Ledge rain pants that are regularly abused. They used to be for walks to work but they get deployed in the field quite often.
Here I am on the Stikine flats with my trusty .375 and rain pants. They weigh nothing, dry quickly and keep most of the rain out. I really need a new pair because these are rain pants in the academic sense anymore. That is an really huge white bog orchid. They normally are only about 6-8 inches tall.

I know nobody cares, but up here it matters. FYI the worst day in the field was in Yakutat where it rained 12 inches in 24 hours. It was a mess and it didn't matter what you had on, you got soaked. The hardest part of that day was getting out of the truck,

Busy.

2010-03-19T18:21:00.001-07:00

We have been busy lately, hence my blog related silence. I have many pictures and stories to tell you, oh interbob, but not much time.

We have been painting like crazy. Maybe we bought 10 gallons of paint that was too blue? I think it's perfect since we have so much of it. Having it = it works in my little world.

I also ate the "parts" of a king crab that don't include the leg or claw meat. I grossed out the people who were watching. Turns out all those people from the Philippines at the crab shack eating the crab butter were on to something. The back of a king crab is full of white fat that is pretty much like the bacon of shell fish. It was amazingly good. I should have saved some to spread on toast but I think my husband would have heaved right in front of me.

We used an old paint sprayer, I got some on the walls and some in my eyes. It wasn't altogether pleasant. Ok! time to leave work now.

The SeaAlaska bill of suck

2010-03-12T17:51:00.000-08:00

Please read this http://www.themudflats.net/2010/03/12/mail-bag-juneau/ written by my friend Barth.

I know I'll just write something mean and spiteful about this really bad bill. I don't wanna be full of venom on such a lovely snow-y day.

Airport Lounges!

2010-03-08T10:36:00.000-08:00

I am currently in an Anchorage Airport lounge, drinking coffee, trying to drown out the Fox News awfulness blaring on 3 tvs. I don't really watch TV, I don't really pay attention to the news. I didn't know there was an entire channel devoted to unnecessary fear-mongering and outright lies.

I mean, I've heard about this phenomenon, but never really experienced it. Ugh. It makes me ill. There was a whole segment on textbook reform that had no point except to frighten people about the liberty bell. (Like it would be removed from 'merican history by the Godless liberals who hate America.) At the end, I wasn't sure who was trying to reform what. It all centers around Texas whom the textbook publishers coddle.

I was sort of appalled, and relieved that some of my recent less than pinko liberal leanings were not of the Fox news variety.

Doors. Not intuitive

2010-03-02T17:34:00.000-08:00

All of you who have never purchased a door over the phone rejoice. I have done it. And I have done it wrong-ish. We got our order from Lowes (frickin' final-ly). And the RH inswing door was not there! They sent a LH inswing door. ARGH.

Here is an image for all of us who need this kind of visual help. Handedness on a door is determined by standing outside (the exterior of the door) and opening the door. If you use your right hand--or the hinges are on your right as you face the door. That thar is a Right Handed door. Opposite for the left. See? Easy-peasy.

You bet your sweet "Black Dynamite" quote I will be using this graphic in the future because we do not need another Lowes debacle.

Our toilets were also delivered. We ended up with Toto Drake's in cotton with an insulated tank and soft-close lid.
Doesn't it look like it's smirking? Nothing like a smug toilet.

Pork shoulder in cider brine

2010-02-25T17:48:00.000-08:00

Way, way back in October Lakeside, the lesser of our 2.5 grocery stores, had a huge meat sale. Loving meat sales the way I do, I bought a large slab of pork loin plus other porky goodness. Rummaging around the freezer (we got a new one for free!) I unearthed the last little bit of oinky goodness. I tend to be a one trick pony when I find a recipe that works and can reasonably be done during the week between my actual job and the house job. This pork is one shining star for me.

I got the recipe from a Bon Appetite cookbook but always modify it. The only thing I really keep is the cider:salt ratio. Anyway, take 4 cups of cider, 3 T kosher salt, a few whole herbs/spices (I love clove and bay leaves) bring it to a boil, then let it cool. Just stick your pork in a non-reactive bowl and cover it with the brine. For a shoulder I let it sit for about 2 days, but 1 works for chops or something more delicate like a loin.

I then wilted some leeks and shallots in a dutch oven, seared the shoulder, and baked it at 350, covered for a couple of hours. I had to deglaze the pot with some leftover brine so that the leeks would char too terribly. I would have made gravy with the brine but since I had to clean the house in preparation for a contractor there was no gravy. It was super tender and the fat had that perfect crispness that is the only reason to eat pork.

It's not really special but it keeps me going during these long days of drudgery. Having salty-cider pork is really a highlight right now when the low lights are dealing with unhelpful people at Lowes, trying to find anybody to ship a towel dryer via USPS, and breathing drywall dust. Later this weekend...Ima bake some bread.

Broken Buttercream

2010-02-17T13:31:00.000-08:00

I can't win for losing. I like to bake sweet things, but I don't really like to eat sweet things all that much. As a result, I sort of don't really finish things. Take cupcakes. I'll say I made them "healthy" when I don't feel like making frosting. My old man things a cupcake without frosting should not be--he'll ask why I even bother. But when I do make frosting it has at least a stick of butter in it. Then he wonders why I'm trying to kill him with all the butter.

Well, last night I made cupcakes. With frosting. But the frosting was sort of wrong. It was a brown sugar butter cream where you cook some egg whites with sugar then beat them. you then beat butter a couple of Tablespoons at a time until smooth. The frosting turned out lumpy and sort of gross. It tastes fine but the color was bleah and the texture had little butter chunks that I couldn't beat out. Anybody have a good technique for butter cream frosting? I've done the sugar plus butter and the egg white frosting, but this little stiff butter cream eludes me.

Also, piping on brown sugar butter cream is sort of interesting, if I were interested in making artificial dog crap. It is a very bad color.

Weekend fun

2010-02-16T09:46:00.000-08:00

It seems that when I get a day off from work, it's really "a day off" from "employment." I always work much harder on my days of work than when I'm actually at work. My regular job does not include moving drywall or appliances nor does it mean touching icky things like insulation and oil-based stain.

I HATE insulation. My personal hell is installing in above my head where it can rain down awfulness all day long. Every have an insulation in your eye? It is worse than smashing your hand in a door or burning yourself on a cookie sheet or shocking yourself with a hot wire. I hate insulation so much.

Our shining beacon of a house is almost completely drywalled, just a bathroom and some closets to go. I love watching all the ugly studs and %$@# insulation disappear. Everything is clean and white. Drywall hides a lot.

upstairs living

Downstairs living

Food news! I have some. Slowly, the winter doldrums are slipping away and I can finally do something about my SAD. This weekend I made our favorite miso-marinated salmon with some braised hijiki and carrots. I also make a venison roast by marinating it over night in some carrots, onions, shallots and white wine. The marinate became the base for a sauce I served with the meat. I even went so far as to make a roux. (Not that a roux is difficult but this winter if it took longer than 3 minutes I wanted nothing to do with it.) I was very proud of myself.

Oh, and our new washer and dryer arrived yesterday. I am really getting excited about laundry now.

WHEE! My life is so fun.

A suprise on the way

2010-02-11T09:35:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I'm actually writing this. We are hiring someone to come and do all the mud-and-taping of our drywall. We never hire anyone and are diy to the core.

Whoa.

A trip down memory lane

2010-02-09T17:42:00.000-08:00

And a trainwreck of my former hairstyles. Today, my mom scanned some pictures of me related to past blerg posts. Since I don't have anything important to say today, I'll post the photos and link them to their appropriate post. Also, I know my hair is terrible in all of these. Please don't make fun of the various perms/wedges I had. I know, already.

Soccer

electricity

Dirt Dirt Dirt

I am awesome at house things

I ate heart! but in 7th grade I dissected one.

There you go. (Sorry, Merissa)

Another 3 day meat sale

2010-02-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was spent chasing down switches, temporary lights, and figuring what in holy moses was on each 15-A circuit. It was great. I only was shocked twice. Personally, I feel getting a bit of the old 120 volt is good for the system. Keeps that biological electricity on its toes. I also got to play with my new Gardner bender wire strippers. I still haven't fixed my tool belt since my brother used it over Christmas. It pulls my pants down and somebody tried to throw pennies down my crack while I was hooking up some switches.

Such a busy weekend also means we ate badly. Like turkey burgers, western family crinkle fries, doritos, and Seamart ass-doughnuts level of bad. Since we ate exclusively at the mart by the sea, we visited their 3 day meat sale! Yes, a couple of times a year meat goes on sale here. It is very boring meat. Pork chops, some sort of beef roast, greasy chicken and bacon were all on sale. I wasn't allowed to buy any meat (besides bacon) because we have a freezer overflowing with uneaten meat. Sigh, I didn't want any meat anyway (kicks puppy).

I have such plans of cooking/baking such glorious food. Plans that get smeared into the asphalt of my life. My one flaw (yes, I only have one) is that I can't drag myself out of bed early enough to get to work at a reasonable hour which means getting home super, duper late. By the time I get home tDF is all, "ALSDKFJAWEIUR FEED ME I HUNG DRYWALL AND STUFF ALL DAY." Then I'm like, "OKOKOKOKOKOK I'LL FIGURE OUT WHAT I CAN MAKE FROM WHAT WE HAVE IN 23 MINUTES." In short, I'm blocked by my laziness.

I did manage to make toasted pecan butter cookies last week. First cookies in at least 2 months. I also have every intention of iron cupcaking this month, but Passion? I need a cupcake about passion? I wonder what Fabio would look like in cupcake form? I think it would be buttery and sort of unappetizing. Things that inspire passion in me (food realm) include salt, salty smoked meat, bitter dark chocolate, whiskey, cheese, and bread. A cupcake I would actually like to eat would not be a very pretty or sweet one.

What kind of soccer player were you?

2010-02-04T16:10:00.000-08:00

After reading about the unsung heroes of football (offensive linemen) and thinking how I hope Peyton Manning gets sacked a WHOLE bunch this Sunday. (There is nothing I like better than a Peyton sacking. Maybe the little dance of the really huge guy who does the sacking comes close.) I never played football americain, I played actual football. Or soccer. And I miss it terribly.

I realized I was the offensive lineman of the soccer field. I was a midfielder, who spent the game running from one end of the field to the other and yelling at people to get a move on. Midfielders tend to run more than any other player distance-wise. Because of this, we tend to frown on the show-boaty strikers and the slow-moving defenders. I started life as a left, outside midfielder (we tended toward the 4-4-2 formations) because I was fast and mean enough to take on the other teams' fast right midfielders and I had a killer throw. It worked out well since I've always been scrawny and could throw elbows and hip-check and rarely get called for it. Refs never seemed to think my little self could possibly be the culprit.

When I got better, I was moved to center midfield. This pleased my mouthy self who got to yell at everybody else from my orbit, but still work dang hard. I never really scored but I got a couple of assists over the years. My world was defensive. (Oh! The one and only time I blacked out in my life was when I was playing stopper and some so and so pulled a maneuver like the one pictured above and I went-to quote my dad-ass over teakettle. Neat!)

Southeast AK is not a place for soccer. Some folks play indoors but I like the dirt and the grass. So, who are you? Did you play? My husband was a goalie, which says a lot about him. TDF could best be physically described as a solid cube and has always been so. He liked to charge the flashy strikers and pluck the ball from their feet. In little league he was the catcher so, you know, goalie is a nice fit.

Maybe I'll dust off my old Kaisers and do some liners at the football field next week. I need to get in shape for field work.

Mt. Edgecumbe and other volcanoes

2010-02-03T16:10:00.000-08:00

Several times a day I get to see the lovely Mt. Edgecumbe. I didn't take the above picture but that's pretty much what he looks like on my walks to and from work this year. (Mt. Edgecumbe is a he because volcano is un volcan in french. Masculine and all that.) Different light yields a different feeling volcano. Near. Far. Lumpy. Graceful. The gamut.

I am also working on Mt. Edgecumbe right now. Not physically, but paper-ly. I am slowly grinding through 30+ years of data to try and finish the soil map for the south end of Kruzof island. It is a very slow, occasionally rewarding process. I have classified all known pedons for the island (There are about 200 soil descriptions for the survey area in question). Googling Duric Cryaquods led me to the Japanese soil science arena where I learned the words Kurobokudo--Volcanic ash soils and Anshokudo--Dark colored soils. Do is soil in Japanese.

Those little nuggets aside, it really has been a trial of my limited organizational skills. For those of you who are not soil scientists, mapping soil and completing in inventory is like filing all the same papers in different ways until everything seems to fit. It's one of those "scientific" things that I love. Today, for example, I made a binder with all the soil pedons with lab analysis for the survey area I'm working on. This dull little binder now holds all the characterization data for the several benchmark soils out on Kruzof. Except, of course, for the stupid andisol in the alpine.

Why would an andisol be stupid? You may ask because you know that andisols are soils derived from volcanic tephra and are therefore really neat. Because there is not one described on my forest and so we will have to do A LOT of work to come up with a new soil series. There is a silver lining, though, we would get to name the soil. It will likely have some name like Edgecumbe or Kruzof. Boring and acceptable. Just for once I would like to name a soil after something other than geography. Like McGillacutty. Or SoreFoot. Possibly Cranky.

The lab data always throws me because I don't work with it too often. Trying to figure out if a pssc is medial always has me squinting at all the dang 15 bar water figures--I can't tell oven dry from field moist because all the lab test numbers are from the old version of the soil survey lab manual. It's ok, though, it's way better than production NEPA or meetings.

I love my little dirt nerd world. There is an end, of sorts, in sight because we have to meet with the dirt nerd overlords in Palmer in early March. A whole week with other soil scientists sends me into such a tizzy. Well, that and the alpine field work this summer to describe that dirty old andisol. (I personally am hoping it's an Alic Haplocryand, but that's just me. It could just as easily be a Spodic Haplocryand.)

Garbage Bears move to the Bronx

2010-02-01T13:14:00.000-08:00

Hey, remember when I talked about the bear getting into our trash with her cubs? Well! Since she died (not sure why) the cubs were taken into custody. One little one died when a Tranq dart hit his/her lung and the other 3 were shipped off to the local bear gulag called "Fortress of the Bears." They now reside at the Bronx Zoo.

Last summer was simply awful with bear/human negative relationships. There was at least 2 sows with broods terrorizing the garbage cans in town. Yes, we need to manage our garbage and we do need to behave in a responsible thumb-having manner. No attractants = no bears in theory. I get an uncomfortable feeling about this whole issue. I strongly believe that when I am in the woods (i.e. any non-urban environment including trails near town) I am in the Bear's woods. It is their space and I understand they have a pretty specific line-in-the-sand about them.

Where is my line? Am I allowed to have one? Does my driveway and house constitute my special area--it is where I cache food and all. Are we as people entitled to this? Why are we more tolerant of bears in our yards than deer or slugs? I wrestle with these questions quite often.

At Anan, they have established a pretty strong Bear vs Human space. People get this little viewing platform and the bears are discouraged from climbing on it. My Brother says it's a lot of work keeping the bears in line and out of the human area. It is persistence. (The human area does not include the outhouse, much to my glee.)

One lady I know in town hates the rescue bear thing. When a sow dies, she feels, her cubs are supposed to die too. It's just nature.

I know that these bears will help educate people about the ills of rapid development of open spaces. We all need lessons in treating the natural world with more care. Personally, I'm more worried about the loss of arable land than bears. But nobody will ever think a Mollisol is cute.

My first experience with Alaska

2010-01-29T09:52:00.000-08:00

Do you remember Tom Bodett? The guy who used to pitch Motel 6? Yeah, "We'll leave the light on for ya" and all. That guy. Mr. Bodett was my first taste of Alaska. Way back before he was a famous pitchman, he had an NPR show called "The End of the Road." It was about the local color around his town of Homer. My family and I used to sit at the kitchen table from 6-7 on Sunday evenings listening rapturously to the stories about people even stranger than we were. I think I was about 9 years old.

We eventually bought some of his tapes to listen to on our long car trips. Other tapes that fueled our 6 hour trips to our "cabin" were the audio from our favorite movies. Like Christmas Story, we used to listen to it in the car.

Ahem. When I first moved to Alaska, I began obsessively collecting Alaskana--or Alaskan kitsch. I still haven't really outgrown that (ask me about my collection of Alaska-themed romance novels sometime). In my collection are two of Tom's books. I read them when I first bought them about 7 years ago and they've sat on my Alaska Bookshelf since. I finally re-read one of them, prompted by my Brother reading it first.

Once you get past the somewhat dated essays on computers and technology (hello 1986!) you see what a cozy, isolated life we really lead up here. Weather up here is our Alpha and Omega. Fish, especially salmon, are found at every potluck. Our cars are held together, like ours, with plumber's clamps and bailing wire. People are kind, if a bit fiercely independent.

The essay that really struck home probably shouldn't have. He was writing about visiting a big city during a book tour and learning how to be callous toward homeless people. It was painful because I tend to feel pretty uncomfortable around homeless people because I don't know what to do. There are lots of societal rules about How One Should Be toward poor people that conflicts with my jelly doughnut interior. (I am a total softie.) In this essay, Tom had an opportunity to buy a particularly rough looking guy some food, but didn't. With me, I had granola bars in my backpack during our recent wander around Seattle that I didn't give anybody. It's a big thing and a nothing all at once. I guess that's why it bothers me so much.

In Alaska, it's easy to pretend these problems don't exist. Homelessness isn't really a huge problem where I live--poverty and not enough to eat certainly are. I don't know why I'm thinking about this today. Sometimes we are a bit molly coddled up here and it hurts to realize it.

I am awesome

2010-01-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

At least in the Natalie Dee Hot Dog sort of way. I just found out that I --officially--will become a GS-11. A few more signatures and paperwork and I will move up from my little GS-09.

For those of you with actual private industry pay scales this is a very big deal. It's about a 15% increase in pay but about 100% increase in prestige. Ha. Prestige in gov't work.

I am very happy with today.

Back in the saddle

2010-01-26T12:55:00.000-08:00

Every time I hear/say back in the saddle I think about the Ween song, "Waving my d*** in the wind." I don't really know why, but that number really makes me think about getting things done and back on track. Plus, the swears always make me laugh. (Ahem, I warned my mom that I have a potty mouth when we began her bathroom remodels. She didn't believe me until I let loose an especially meaningful SOB when I dipped my pantleg in vinyl glue. Then she said that I swore like a sailor. It was a Hallmark moment.)

We returned last night to a warm house with more than 200 pounds of luggage. It's always a game for us, trying to get a lot of stuff--but not too much--back home after a bout of lower-48 living. This time we had to bring more than 50 pounds of tools back plus a HVLP (High volume low pressure) paint sprayer and a welder. There wasn't even any room for my new salts and spices. Those were mailed along with several new movies. I won't tell you which movies they were because they are all embarrassingly bad action-adventure movies.

The biggest tragedy is I forgot the pint jar of preserved lemons I made 3 weeks ago. I was so looking forward to making a lemon curry with them. I need a box of meyer lemons sent to me STAT.

Our flight out of CA was super early and our flight to AK was pretty late so we took the shiny new Seattle light rail downtown. I love public transportation. We ended up at a lighting store and bought an exterior sconce for the apartment (maybe it will be installed today!) and looked at the huge variety of low-voltage cable halogen systems. It's pretty like candy and expensive like jewelery. I will spend all the potential jewelery money of my life to buy all the gorgeous glass and steel sconces and pendants.

And now I'm back at work, staring down a number of fun projects. I am also sick. Airport always gets me a bit sick since I live in an isolated bubble islands. But it's deer stir fry tonight and a salmon something tomorrow. It will be nice to eat regular stuff again. My digestive system needs it.

Plumbing: A cautionary tale

2010-01-17T15:59:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time in the possible careers of mine (between Engineer, Wildland Firefighter, and Paramedic) I wanted to be a plumber. There was something about pipes and fittings and water that seemed so pleasant and easy. Gravity, right? Not so hard. BUT I only wanted to deal with new construction, not any used plumbing. The thought of working with broken drain/sewer lines was gross, even from my little idealized starry-eyed picture of plumbing.

So, why should you care? Recent experiences have totally cured me from wanting to work in the plumbing trade. (Except for the socially acceptable mooning, that's still very appealing.) We are down in CA working on my Mom's bathrooms. One is a total gut-and-replace of every dang thing in there. The origional 1960's tub was cut in half and removed and a new tub went it. In hooking up the drain to the new tub my adoration of plumbing died.

My mom had not used this tub in at least 4 years. She had not even dumped any water down the drain. This means that all the water in the P-trap had dried up and there was the potential for sewer gases to upchuck through the drain. See, the water in the P-trap acts like a plug that keeps sewer gases from entering your house and going up the vents instead. But her house did not smell like a terlet. Why was that? Well, it was because the cast iron trap had rusted shut and would pass neither water nor air. Good for the indoor air quality at my Mom's house, bad for tDF who had to replace the trap and go in the crawlspace twice. A crawlspace rife with cat crap and a dead rat. IT wasn't until we bought a shop light to see better in the crawlspace that tDF learned that he had been crawling through piles of dessicated turds. He was thrilled.

Bad, bad cast iron trap

(Aside: my mom fell over laughing at the following exchange:

tDF--is there more cardboard up there (he is in the crawlspace now)

me--How big of a piece of cardboard

tDF--Big enough to cover up this dead rat)

Also--every time I have to go in the crawlspace and I carp about it, my dear darling husband asks me if I still want to be a plumber. I should add that he says this smugly.

Back to plumbing. We have been teaching my mom about routine maintenance of her various house parts. Most importantly she should use every fixture and drain at least once per month to keep everything flowing and to make sure your p traps stay full. This is a good rule for everybody in the interwebworld.

USE YOUR DRAINS AND FAUCETS AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH TO KEEP EVERYTHING MOVING. IF YOU DON'T YOU WILL HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER MAKE YOU LOOK AT NASTY CLOGS IN YOUR DRAINS.

gross. GROSS.

So, Plumbing is not for the faint of heart. It is for only the iron-stomached among us. Although, since my sense of smell is very bad, maybe I should reconsider plumbing...except for the cat crap. No. No plumbing for me. Soil Science forever.

Sunny January

2010-01-03T20:40:00.000-08:00

So I'm visiting family on the lovely Central Coast of CA. It is about 70 degrees during the day. And sunny. It is fabulous. My in-laws used to live next to a huge pasture but now that pasture is strawberries. Sunday morning, we walked around the rows of berries and gleaned a few sun-warmed berries from the vine. (They were from the organic field.) Later at the grocery store I stood slack jawed at the $ .59/lb potatoes and the $.63/lb broccoli. I forgot about the price of food here.

On Monday we went for a hike along a beach near Point Sal to look at the chert middens. This beach is where they filmed the 10 commandments and Hildago. There is still detritus from the 10 Commandments filming. They did a really bad job cleaning up after themselves. After the hike we were hungry so we stopped at a local Mercado for some tacos. The Mercado (markets) here typically have a deli counter and a butcher counter. The meat behind the glass was so pretty and the chorizo and linguica just looked so tempting. I got 2 carne asada soft tacos with pico de gallo and a pineapple soda. The meat was perfectly cooked and citrus-y with a little caramelized edge.

Later we visited a friend who just built a brick oven in their back yard. We made about 9 different pizzas and I spent the whole time trying to figure out where I could put one in my house. My favorite last night was a green pizza with pesto, waxy potatoes, pistachios, and truffle oil. I made one with purple potatoes, red onions, fennel, and olives. SO FUN. The dessert pizza had marshmallows melted over the top. Normally, I think marshmallows are sort of sweet-gross but here they were just the right gooey balance to the chocolate and cherries.

I always forgot my camera because I'm lame, but I'll try to be better when I go pick up my gallon of local honey. This place is a veritable food paradise. Oh! and shopping at the discount mall is always fun. Always.

Failure pie

2009-12-28T13:52:00.000-08:00

Between hangin' sheets of Totally Awesome Drywall (4 x 12 half-inch goodness, kids!) I managed to bake some cookies. They were terrible. Like disappointingly awful bad. It was not my fault it was Martha Stewart Baking's fault for putting together a gingerbread recipe with 1 cup of butter and 1.5 cups of sugar. All my little snowflakes gooshed into star-ish things that were paper thin. And too dang sweet.

I couldn't bring myself to actually throw the 2 pans I made away. Instead, I put them in a Tupperware thing and stuck them on a shelf. I forgot about them until I realized I had to make by brother a pumpkin pie. I didn't want to make a crust because one more bloody thing to do at the end of drywalling sounded like the utmost torture. So. Lemons, meet lemonade: I totally made a crust out of those terrible cookies. Like a graham cracker crust but gingersnappy.

It actually worked. I surprised myself when that got turned around into something edible. People, do not use that recipe in that book. Find a better gingerbread recipe. And, um, just so you know that the suggested serving size of Redi-whip lite cream (only 15 calories) is 2 tablespoons--5 g. Each can supposedly has 40 servings in the 198 gram can. Anybody who wants healthy whipped cream from a can should probably not be eating it. I was very angry at the Redi-whip people on the way home from the store. You can even ask tDF and my brother.

Over the salmon hump

2009-12-23T09:31:00.000-08:00

After whining about my self-created, nonexistent problem, I finally did something different with all the bloody salmon in my freezer. What finally did it was a delivery of 2 beautiful Meyer lemons to my cubicle by a workmate. I don't live on mars, so we do get citrus here reliably, but it's always, um, rind-y and inconsistent. These lemons were ripe and wholly a different species than what I am used to. And thanks to Peter over at cookblog who suggested making a curry with lemon.

Well, I did that last night with a fillet of Coho/silver salmon caught in mid-August. I made an Indian style curry with onion, garlic, black mustard, cumin, coriander, and lemon peel. I roasted the spices, then ground them up an cooked them in the softened garlic and onion. I stirred in the strips of lemon peel and deglazed with the juice from the lemons and about 2T Ponzu. The salmon was cubed and seared before stirring in the spice mixture. The whole thing was finished with red sea salt. It turned out well if a bit sharp/bright and "pointy" but I think that's the Ponzu. I felt the flavors were all at the top or front or whatever foody term that indicates a lack of depth. I really liked the citrus-spicy-salty flavor with the bits of salmon.

Next time I'll use wine or some wet veggie like tomato or a cream-like substance. I didn't go for coconut milk because I wanted to try something a bit different from my usual curry. (Curries are de rigeur for halibut and rockfish around here.) This will for sure get a go sometime in the near future, with some tweaks.

Also, cubing the salmon and searing it was just different enough to make this dish more interesting. The texture was different, something I never really thought about with salmon because salmon is so very much salmon. The searing and simmering helped keep the fish from becoming tough and overcooked but still had some bits of caramelized flesh that is just so good.

This little foray also pulled me out of an I-hate-everything-drywall-ick-Christmas-is-dumb funk I've been in. I was actually feeling so much better that I cleaned up our little front room and desk area and did some housey paperwork. With the solstice behind me and enjoying salmon again it feels a lot better around here.

Happy Solstice

2009-12-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

Solstice didn't matter until I moved to Alaska. I grew up where soccer was a winter sport, fercrynoutloud. Now it matters oh so very much.

These are the darkest days of the year. I tried to capture the sunset at 3:30 pm yesterday, but the shivering kept making the pictures blurry. It turns today, though. Thank goodness, because I'm on full-time cranky mode. Everything feels like such a chore.

Actually the best stretch is from the spring equinox to summer solstice. Twelve hour days just getting longer.

Aaaaaaaaaaaanyway. Take the time to go out and look at the sun, knowing you'll see more of it from now on.

Alaska, for me.

2009-12-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

I honestly didn't know what I was getting into when I moved here, in June of 2003. I knew it was a big, dang state. And there were salmon. And it was "dark" for enough of the year that people talked about it. I knew it was an adventure, or at least it would be.

The time between getting a job offer with the federal gov'ment and actually starting said job was about 2 months. Before I was offered a job as a soil scientist in Wrangell I was a recent university grad, working 2-3 jobs, with a boyfriend of 3-ish years. I stepped off the Malaspina on June 20, 2003 a married lady (yes, I am a lady) with a steady, full-time job. Between the job offer (April 1ish) and June 20, I had:

Romantically slammed my day planner (Franklin Covey, fo' life) down on the middle seat of my purple, rebuilt 1989 Ford Ranger, demanding that the future husband of mine to "pick a date to get married before I had to report to work on June 20."
May 31! Woot.
Crabbed that I wasn't proposed to (see above)
Was proposed to, in a park somewhere by Arroyo Grande
Attended 3 bridal showers all over the great state of California
Sold my beloved 1989 ranger that I rebuilt myself after totalling it on 101 in 1999.
Put all of my worldly possessions in a huge cargo container parked in the driveway of my future in-laws. This includes my terrible college furniture that I have to this day.
Got married, after having my best friend's mom safety-pin me into my grandmother's wedding dress. (A hilarious tale of broken zippers. I call it Broken Promises: Dry cleaners From Hell. look for it nowhere.)
Drove up to the Bay Area to watch my brother graduate from High School. Longhorns!
Drove to Bellingham, WA to get on the ferry. We stayed in Dunsmuir, CA; Salem, OR and Bellingham at the finest Motel 6's.

look at how young and naive we were.

Watching the tiny town of Wrangell come into view was more peaceful than I imagined. It wasn't surreal, it was too right to be surreal. I was home. The very kind folks at my new work had scrounged up an air mattress and some chairs so we would have someplace to sleep/sit. We unpacked our 1986 brown/tan suburban and went to have the most expensive pizza and pitcher imaginable. Since then, $50+ on pizza and beer has become normal.

The next day all of our stuff arrived. All the glorious garbage we convince ourselves that we need. In boxes. Everywhere. To. This. Day. My husband, the Dirty Fisherman, reminds me how he unpacked the whole house in Wrangell while I was at work. Starting a brand new job and filling out a mountain of paperwork that could only come from Uncle Sam. (Later, I learned to call him Uncle Sugar because he sure was sweet to us.) I think my 4th day I was on a helicopter on the way out to the Madan sale to look at some limestone outcrop that could have Karst features.

That was only a 4 hour excursion in the woods but it was the hardest hiking of my life. I can't begin to describe how difficult it is to move in the woods here as a newbie. It's like slipping every 1.5 steps, sliding back 2, smacking yourself in the face with a branch, wondering how to carry that goldang rifle over your shoulder, trying to understand why you are working up here, and finally seeing a cedar tree so big it would take 5 people to encircle it. That night I was knock-down, drag-out exhausted. I slept like the dead, which was a feat because it was near the solstice and light for 18 glorious hours a day. Hiking in the woods became a right of passage, a puzzle, a sense that I was someone who could move through the woods with aplomb. Every other forest is too easy now, it bears no resemblance to the complex mystery of my temperate rain forest.

I learned how to be married here. That it was ok to yell (as long as the neighbors couldn't hear). That partnership means working together and explaining why you hate/like things. Understanding the difference between roommate issues like the dishes and relationship issues like feelings and family. Knowing why your in laws were laughing at you when you fight with your husband. Learning that halibut bait smells so bad it makes your eyes water but shrimp bait is way, way worse. Finding out that it was ok to be different from your spouse, as long as you talked about it.

I remember the first pile of local shrimp that made their way home. WTF heads? Watching all the others, I learned the proper picking technique. My boss took me out on the water after we had been there about 2 weeks. We could only afford 1 fishing license so tDF got to fish. Pulling the first king salmon of our lives over the rail, dragging the first little slabs of halibut, and opening the crab trap filled my hear with such glee. This was how I eat now. We eat things from the sea, that we catch ourselves. TDF was offered a deck hand position. 20% of the take of a gillnet, longline, crabber boat. We were in, we were tied to the industry. Half of us made our living on the water.

Evenings were spent drinking beer, cleaning shrimp or crab or salmon or halibut. Our freezer filled with little packages of meat. I learned how to cook. Easy dinners: Shrimp pasta in tomato-basil sauce, teriyaki salmon and peas and rice, Halibut enchiladas. More difficult failures like salmon bisque and successes like duck-au-vin. August brought berries like I had never seen. What to do? What to do? It was so new, clean, real.

My little California heart was broken. Then rebuilt. It only feels Alaska now. I am home.

Did you misc me?

2009-12-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

Of course not! The interbob is rife with other, more important dilettantes. I have lots of charming things to talk about. Very few are related.

We had our annual Christmas cruise around the sound. The Christmas party really is the best. We sit on a boat for 3 hours and look at whales and nature and mountains. (Pictures will be added later.) It was a BYOB event, we didn't B. I refuse to drink with work mates, I may say something either stupid or mean. Sometimes I may say a stupid/mean thing.

There weren't as many whales as in the past but it was a clear, cold day. Huge rafts of otters watched us motor by. My camera didn't really want to work because it was 22 degrees. A humpback was slapping the water surface, killing fishes to eat. I have never seen anything like it. Oh, and it was catered by the hospital.

Ahem, Alaska is the only place where you can have a Hospital cater your Event. I know when I'm thinking of high quality food items, I think about the hospital. No, I never think about that horrible year that my dad was in and out of the hospital and the jello that came in colors rather than flavors (red or yellow). Or the fact that everything looks steamed. It wasn't bad, but, eh. Hospital Christmas food.

On Sunday, we left for Juneau to shop. The ferry ride was uneventful except it was full of High School Basketball teams and whoa nelly, do they have some energy. They turned the lights out in the forward lounge and because I didn't want to nap at 3:30 pm, I went to the aft lounge. It was more entertaining watching the antics of 14-17 year olds than my book. I forgot what high school was like. Don't miss it.

We lodged at the luxurious Driftwood Motel in a room right next to the lobby. It was very, very loud. And the door on the bathroom hits your knees when you sit on the toilet.

Monday morning we were up at the crack of 8. We read the Juneau Empire over breakfast and howled at the Roughhouse boxing article. You need to read it because of the following quotes:

"Sheakley squeaked the win away from Lauthe despite a smoking habit."

"After trading power on the mat, Willis who said he watched a lot of MMA in preparation for the fight, got Horton, a ten-year friend, into a guillotine and it was over."

"Roberts said he was going to work out more before attempting MMA again. "

Oh gosh. It was funny. Especially since tDF is related to people who are MMA fighters. I am of the opinion that MMA is puerile silliness. We finished breakfast and began spending money.

I do like to shop, but these bursts of extreme shopping make me physically ill. Mostly because we never anticipate how long we will spend in a huge box and forget to bring water and food. We started at Costco at noon and spend a fortune on staples like black beans and butcher paper. Eating a quick hot dog at 230, we left to look at chainsaws for a bit then ended up at Home Depot at about 4. We closed the store and filled 3 shopping carts and 2 of those trolley things. Win.

We started off looking for a hot water heater. They didn't have one in stock and then had to listen to some guy who "knew his water heaters" tell us some stuff. I really hate people who try to sell me stuff without first asking me what my needs are. It's like somebody insisting that you really need this side of beef because it's grass-fed and perfect, but never bothering to find out that you are a Vegan. Same sort of loudmouth insisty crap that makes me so mad. (Oh, the other thing that I hate? When the salesguy tries to sell me some sort of flooring based on looks or the fact that it's made in Italy because I'm a female and can't possibly understand anything else about flooring.)

After we processed that we would have to order a water heater through some other source, we moved on. To ducting, toilets, and tile. We didn't buy a toilet. We spent 3 hours in the tile section. Our intent was to buy tile for a bathroom floor and tub surround. The tub surround didn't happen for 2 reasons: 1. we liked the glass tile but didn't like the $10/sf price. and 2. all the other tile was sort of ugly and boring and white. We don't want another white boring bathroom. The flooring is pretty neat, sort of a sand stone colored porcelain tile. It will look nice in the bathroom, with the white tub and sink. We hope. I don't know, by the time we finally picked out the floor all the fight had gone out of me and I was immensely agreeable to everything.

By this point we had filled up a cart and trolley with tile, grout, lights, and whatnot. We had much more shopping to do! It was a good thing we went to Costco before because I had to go get us some cliff bars and fruit leather to push us through to 9pm. Somehow we filled another cart with blades, bits, $17 sheet rock knives, a texture blower (Hi Di! Finally broke down and bought one!), and lots of painting crap. I even busted out the calculator to figure out the best deal on Killz2 primer. Turns out it was the 2-gallon size at about $12/gallon vs the 5-gallon size which was $15. An associate (or whatever) came over to tell us how to save money by buying the 5-gallon pails. Hoho! Me and my Ti-83 told him. I first told him that we would buy the 5 gallon buckets at the $12/gallon price if it would make him feel better.

I was a bit punchy by then. Especially since tDF decided to ask him how much primer we would need for our house. My patience tank was deficit by that point. Checking out was a delight. Packing in the 18 degree evening was simply a lark. BUT we got that shit done and it's here and unpacked.

Dinner was at the Breeze-in convenience store. The only thing open at 930 that wasn't the deli/grease counter at Fred Meyer. We bought more things at Fred Meyer (It's like a Target, all you without one). We bought some Brown Sauce. I have no idea what it is, but it was in a hilarious movie called Intermission with the beautiful Cillian Murphy. I hope it's no yeast based like Vegemite. Some bad coffee and a stop to fill a tire with air later we are rotting in the Alaska Marine Highway parking lot for our 2:30 am departure of the Malaspina.

The ferry shows movies about every 2 hours or so while underway. Our Movie? Snow dogs. I thought it was going to be the Paul Walker one. But it was Cuba Gooding Jr. is bad at nature in Alaska; OMG hilarious CGI winking dogs voiced by Jim Belushi. This movie was James Coburn's last, a sad fact for our man Flint. The cheeze factor was set to Velveeta and copious. (Kevin, they have it at the library here. Plan on Borbun and Snow dogs. Perhaps we'll make a themed drink?)

Now, home. Working on our steel stair railing. We have justified the purchase of a welder. heh. My life is one, big dollarrhea.

chatham

2009-12-09T16:11:00.000-08:00

I have typed the word Chatham at least 750 times today, if not closer to 1,000. My nimble data entry brain started thinking, "What is a Chatham?' SOOOOO

A Chatham is:

a county in North Carolina.

a scenic lighthouse on Vancouver Island.

a landmark royal dock in Maidstone, UK (in Kent?)

Some islands near New Zealand

A British Naval Vessel

And a sub area on the Tongass, where I've been entering data.

The survey brig that accompanied the HMS Discovery's voyage up the west coast of North America (captained by Vancouver). Chatham got it's name because Vancouver wanted to impress William Pitt, earl of Chatham.

Things I think about at meetings

2009-12-08T17:13:00.000-08:00

1. Wow. I can't believe the schoolyard antics and petty nonsense from this bunch of sallies.

2. Why do we even have to watch safety videos from 1992. Also, that shot of OSHA woman in the foliage is immensely distracting.

3. How many times can I chew this piece of gum in the next minute...GO!

4. 83.

Northern Exposure Project

2009-12-04T13:16:00.000-08:00

Northern Exposure is my favorite tv show of all time. Forever. Period. End of Story. It has been since I was a little hellion living in Sunny Temperate California. I wanted to be Maggie O'Connell when I grew up. All short-haired badass that she was. A wee part of me will admit that I moved to the Greatland because of an early 90's TV show.

I bought all 6 seasons (including the exceptionally dumb Paul Provenza Season) and watch them repeatedly. As a jaded Alaskan now (nobody prays louder than the newly converted) I scoff at parts of the show. SURE, you flew snowmobile parts from Petersburg to Yakutat, Maggie. Um, clearly this girl doing research in Metlakatla would not be on the railbelt to hang out with you, Chris-in-the-morning. Aside from the geographical/ecological stupidity that comes from filming in Washington, they got many things right. The people and the relationships mostly.

So. Because 3 minutes of googling revealed that nobody else has done this (I think) I'm going to recap all 6 glorious seasons of the best show that has ever been on TV (to me). Beginning with the Pilot.

Let's meet Joel. They have written Joel Fleischman, played by Rob Morrow, as "New York Yuppie Jew" against the entire Universe. I have very little experience with folks from the east coast, so I can't adequately judge how close to the mark they are with Joel. All he really needs to do, though, is react to everything around him. He succeeds. The first scene is one that every Alaskan knows well: inside of an airplane stuck next to that guy who just won't shut up. Joel is that guy. See, the only scholarship he could get to attend the illustrious Columbia Medical School was indentured servitude for four years in Alaska. He feels that it won't be so bad because Anchorage has 5 Chinese restaurants. Then he can go back to NYC and become a super-rich Doctor.

For whatever reason, the Anchorage Hospital that Joel was supposed to work at is full, but they are shipping him to the Alaskan Riviera instead. Note: there is no such thing as the Alaskan Riviera in real life. Joel is screaming "breach of contract" and other outraged legal stuff, but ultimately he ends up on a 12-hour bus ride north. Note: Driving that far north on a bus will not land you in a place that is lushly forested as Cicely. The bus dumps him by the side of the road. Joel, sitting dejected on his luggage/golf clubs, looks pretty bad. Since it's 1990 there are pleats on his Seinfeld slacks.

Lo, a truck (appropriately beat up and large) driven by the one and only Ed Chigliak. Ed asks Joel if he's "into Rap" (1990!) and they head off. Ed stops in the middle of the road, gets out and starts walking though the trees because he's home. It's up to Joel to drive to Maurice Minnifield's palatial Log Home Eyesore. Maurice, a former astronaut and current frillionaire, rappels down the side of the building. He is the picture of healthy virility with a checked flannel tucked into jeans belted at his ribcage.

Once cleaned up and inside the log cabin of animal heads and olde timey stuff, Maurice tries to sell Joel on the future of Alaska as a destination. And subtly tells Joel, "I was an Astronaut, son." Joel and Maurice drive into the booming metropolis of Cicely in Maurice's huge, convertible Cadillac. Maurice will not shut up about development opportunities and his media empire (a radio station and newspaper). Note: Radio is a very real part of every Alaskan's life, we live and die by our local stations. They enter Joel's new practice. It's a dilapidated building with peeling paint and animal poop on the floor.

Then we meet Marilyn Whirlwind. I love Marilyn. She nods with a neutral expression to Joel's, "There is no Job!" Oh, she's the receptionist, and always has a tray of whatever Joel needs before he asks.

Joel, now, is completely unhinged. He runs into Holling's Bar (the Brick) to call Anchorage doctor because he doesn't like it and wants to leave. He's stuck! While calling Elaine, his fiancee and legal council, to look at his contract he lets loose a vile deluge of insults about the various rednecks within earshot. Dejected, Joel bellys up to the bar for a Seltzer and an aspirin. Note: Every town in Alaska has the bar everybody goes to. There may be several in a town but there is room for only one in everyone's heart. Holling, wearing a stupid leather vest and bolo tie, gives him club soda. Also, Ed comes by to exposition Maurice and Holling's falling out. Later, an irritated Joel confuses Maggie O'Connell (his landlord) with Maggie O'Connell (a Prostitute). Maggie is a Pilot, not a whore. Like a Pilot with her own plane and everything.

Joel is now home, in a rustic cabin by the lake. And Joel and Maggie Hate Each Other. This will at least be the B-plot, when it's not the A plot, of the entire series. The next morning, Joel is treated to the amazing scenery around him and runs 7 miles into town. To work. Where he again tells Marilyn there is no job. He treats some people, including one beaver (because HAHA Alaskans would take their pet beaver to the doctor) and one couple having marital problems evidenced by stabbings. Mostly, we learn that Joel cares.

Ed wanders in to bring Joel to Maurice. Ed is Maurice's errand boy. Maurice is out on a lake, in a skiff "duck hunting." Mostly, its a clunky way for Maurice to shoot a gun over Joel "I'm a New Yorker badass" Fleischman's head.

Back in Holling's Bar, we learn the following things: Shelly, an 18-year-old beauty queen, left Maurice for 62 year old Holling; Holling and Maurice are no longer friends; and if Joel leaves, there would be a fine of $10,000 and 18 years in jail. Bad news for Joel, he is stuck. He meets this news like a Real Alaskan: by drinking heavily. Plowed, Joel compliments Maggie on her red lips and how pretty, but not great looking, she is. Pretty like Dorothy Hamill. Hungover Joel ends up sleeping at Maggie and Rick's house. Rick is also a pilot who appears without a shirt as often as the script will allow. I guess he is attractive, or at least "attractive." He looks like Gary Cole to me.

FINALLY, we're at some festival. It's realistically named Midsummer Jamboree or whatever. (This is why duck hunting was sort of stupid. Nobody duck hunts in the summer.) All the festivals and get-togethers have somewhat silly names up here, so good for the writers for figuring it out. Maurice emcee's something and shouts, "NORTH TO THE FUTURE!" Which is, sometimes, Alaska's state motto. Joel and Ed eat a Moose burger/caribou dog respectively. We get a fleeting glimpse of Chris-in-the-morning, our favorite philosophizing DJ. Holling and Maurice share a meaningful moment. Aaaand scene.

Honestly, the Pilot is not as interesting as the rest of the series. Over time, the cast hits their stride and we meet a whole host of incredibly interesting minor characters--Adam, anybody? I love this show, especially when it gets better. Also, it realistically portrays Native Alaskan folk as just folks--no real fetishization that I notice. Maybe an Alaska Native has a different perspective? If so, I'd love to hear it.

My diamond shoes are too tight

2009-12-03T12:28:00.000-08:00

Yes. I am going to whine about a problem that is not only a pretend, made-up non-problem but one that I totally created. I have too much damn fish and deer in my freezer.

Specifically too much Salmon. Yes, poor me. We need to be eating Salmon 2-3 times per week and deer at least once, if not twice a week. I am in a food rut. Plus with it getting dark at 3pm, I just want to go to bed at 6:30 and not be finishing dinner.
The deer is less of a problem than the salmon because a deer comes with different cuts that require different cooking--stir fry/stew quality meats, roasts, braises, etc. There is a lot more I can do with deer than with fish simply because it will tolerate different types of heat. Above is the first venison roast of the season--just a paste of rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Salmon, not so much. There are a few ways to cook salmon to change it up. Slow roasting, broiling, pan frying, poaching are pretty good. Adding a sauce or making a fun salad works too. HOWEVER Salmon, no matter what you do with it, always tastes like salmon. It is delicious, don't get me wrong, but there is only so much you can do with it.

I am in a Salmon Rut. There are only so many times per month that my dear, sweet husband will tolerate the miso marinade broiled salmon that I so dearly love. I have tried almost all of my recipes for salmon/trout/steelhead in my cook books and magazines. Everything I find online is a variation on something I already know how to do or have ruled out after trying. Salmon is such a distinctive flavor that most recipes feature the taste of salmon (as they should). Thing is, I am quite tired of the bloody stuff but I still have to prepare/eat it because it is in my freezer and that's what you do up here.

Have you noticed that I am moody? I have tripped at least 3 times today and confused Apple Computers with Toyotas. (But they're kind of the same, right?) I should be baking too because starchy sugar-fat is awesome. All I really want to do is go split firewood with a heavy maul.

No salmon tonight. That will have to wait until Friday/Saturday. Tonight is pepper steak stroganoff.

Groaners on my mind

2009-12-01T17:19:00.000-08:00

I know the house-related ravings are less popular with my 5 readers than the Alaska/food ones. But Blogs are for we narcissistic delusionals who think someone cares about what we think. Lately, I've been thinking about toilets. Or Groaners, which some neighbor/friend calls them. No, I haven't been spending an exceptional amount of time on/in front of them. I just have to buy two in the near future and I want to make a good choice.

Our current toilet sweats like Whitney Houston due to the glacial meltwater that is our residential water source and the fact that we actually heat our house. We laughed, LAUGHED at the people who suggested getting an insulated tank to prevent a toilet from soaking the floor and walls. Now, we are stuck with a sweaty toilet that cost too much due to a reduced rough-in. (Standard toilet rough-in distance is 12 inches. The more you know.)

Also, we will not buy a super-cheap toilet because those do not have glazed traps. You know what you get with an unglazed trap? Way, way more clogs. That is not a pleasant situation. So, here we are. In need of two toilets that will flush the unpleasantness away and will stay cool as a southern belle. Not a tall order.

Except. Did you know toilets can have style? I did not know they could. And they can be even described as cute.
Ok, that is a freaking cute toilet. It's a Toto Aquia Dual Flush with DualMAX(tm) flushing technology. (The only thing stranger than toilet techno-terms are tooth brush ones.) Toto toilets have some of the best flushing per gallon of water used around. Plus you can make all sorts of Wizard of Oz jokes. Unfortunately, this toilet costs like $340 in America so it would cost us at least $450 here in super-remote America.

You can have a sleek, modern, Stark terlet too:
This guy designed our bathtub. I can't get behind (her her) a wall-hung toilet. Too many potential problems. BUT you could clean your bathroom with a fire hose if you install one and none of that weird toilet-ick that tends to accumulate around the base of one.

You can buy a groaner with classical details. This is the Devonshire comfort height toilet by Kohler.Look, it's practically a Doric Column. You just need a life size statuette of David and some brass trim and you have a class-ay bathroom. Also, I really don't want anything in my house in the "Comfort Height" category. Blah Blah easy to sit on for olds. Comfort is one of those words that people use instead of better words. Plus "rest stops" are sometimes called "Comfort Areas" when it's a bunch of crappers for people and a horrible dirt patch that functions as a crapper for dogs.

Oh, and the only ONLY choice for bathroom fixtures like tubs or toilets is white. None of that crazy pink or tourqoise. No. It is ugly and we will all make fun of you.

The Magnificent Seven

2009-11-30T16:58:00.000-08:00

In honor of the TV show that we never knew existed staring, among other people, Ron Pearlman as a gunslinging preacherman here are 7 things I did recently:

Cut one of my fingers wide open when carving the turkey on Thanksgiving. Fortunately, my blood didn't overwhelm the delicious briney goodness of our Turkey.
Bought a new washer and dryer for the apartment. I guess Black Friday deals also work over the interweb at Home Depot. WHOO BETTER WASHING MACHINE THAT DOESN'T WIGGLE THE ENTIRE BUILDING.
Read books at the library about how people "manage" to live in houses that are less than 3,000 sf. Oh, and all the cute design-y elements that help them live in said confinement.
Found tile I really like: (it's 12 in x 24 in porcelain tile) below.
Emptied my dehumidifier daily. It fills up every day, to its 6 gallon capacity. I am amazed at the moisture up here, still.
Paid our really huge electric bill. Our all-electronic radiant heat has been on for only about 1 month and it is sucking the juice. We like to go outside and watch the little meter spin. It's like throwing money down a toilet and watching the coins swirl. WHEE.
Moved 20 5-gallon buckets of drywall mud we had delivered. Each bucket weighs 62 pounds so I managed to move 1,240 pounds of mud. This is about 9.5 times my body weight. In doing this I pulled my right bicep. Oh, and as an added bonus they almost had to use the child's blood pressure cuff on my at the doctor today because the adult one seemed a bit too big. (I didn't tell them about my awesome mud-bucket work, though.)

Isn't that tile neat? I want to get it for my house. love love love.

Oh, and the magnificent seven was sort of awesome/terrible. All the tired western drivel, but some key actors from Northern Exposure were there. I don't care what they do, Maurice will always be Maurice (even on One Tree Hill or whatever) and Holling will forever be Holling (Heard he started working on stage again? Maybe?).

Crank and File

2009-11-23T17:42:00.000-08:00

At work today, I wondered how many people were between me and the President, authority-wise?

President/Vice President (Since I'm not sure of direct lines of supervision)
Secretary of Agriculture
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture
Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment
Forest Service Chief
Regional Forester
Forest Supervisor
Watershed Staff Officer
Forest Soil Scientist
ME!

So, what did I learn here? Not much but I was entertained for about 3 minutes.

t'anksgiving

2009-11-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that another year has gone by and it's holiday time again. Thanksgiving is on Thursday and I am not so ready for it. I came up with a plan: make pie crusts tonight, let turkey thaw until Wednesday when it goes into its brine, make pie and cranberry sauce on Wednesday, Turkey and potatoes and gravy on Thursday, then eat until I burst on Thursday.

I made a huge mistake, according to my dear husband, I invited 2 people over to eat with us. He's upset that he may have to share a 12 lb turkey with anybody else. We are pretty lonely folks up here and he's used to my cooking for 8 on holidays for just the 2 of us. The man likes his food.

My trouble is in the vegetable realm of the menu. I can't get excited about any of them. And I don't want to spend a lot of time on prep/cooking. Oh, and tDF thinks orange food = the devil so no sweet potatoes, yams, squash, cooked carrots or anything else orange. He wants steamed broccoli with cheese sauce like his mom makes. I asked what's in the cheese sauce and he thinks it's velveeta. I tried not to hork.

In the middle of all of this food angst we're trying to get the vapor barrier up in the house so we can begin drywall. This laborious process included squeezing black goo from a broken caulk gun into every crack and taping the edge of plastic with really expensive tape. I am so glad to go to work on Monday because I won't be covered with black stickiness and fiberglass.

Spicy Italian Sausage

2009-11-18T09:52:00.000-08:00

I tackled sausage this year. This was not my first time at this particular rodeo. A few years ago I made a batch of exceptionally bland deer sausage that languished in the freezer until I finally tossed the little chubs out. Now, armed with my fantastic Charcuterie cookbook, I made a pretty fair batch of Spicy Italian deer sausage. (seriously, if you like salty dried meat as much as I do you should totally at least look at this cookbook at the library/bookstore. It's amazing.)

Our biggest hurdle in the sausage game is the fat we need to add. Deer is exceptionally lean and you need to add a huge (up 30%) amount of fat to make a decent sausage. Up here, we can really only buy feed-lot pork that totally takes away from the clean, wild game we're eating. It would be like washing your face and then smearing dirt all over it. I solved this problem by buying extremely expensive uncured bacon. I need a slab of nice, farm-raised pork back fat. Yes. Merry Christmas to me (HINT).

Anyway, so I trudged home from work (in the snow because it finally snowed) thinking about what type of sausage I would make. My first thought was to make 2 different types but then laziness overtook me and I settled on the spicy sausage.
This is 3.8 pounds of deer scraps as measured on my new Ikea $11 scale! I seriously love having a scale. It will make baking so much more interesting. (I am a boring.) Since the recipe calls for 4.5 pounds of meat I had to have the calculator out to make sure everything was proportional. Sausage making seems a bit like chemistry to me, it's important to get the right ratios.

I measured out all the relevant spices. This recipe calls for toasted fennel and coriander and fresh basil and oregano. I had no idea what 24 grams of fresh basil looks like. It's a frickin' pile of basil.
I tossed the diced meat, bacon, and spices together before letting the meat chill. In the past, I've always spiced the ground meat rather than grinding the spices with the meat. It's a technique that seems to distribute the flavors much better.
More tossing. I just wanted you to see how much basil this actually was. I've only added about half of it at this point. My poor basil plant looks shorn. (Also, these picture commemorate the first time my husband took pictures of me cooking VOLUNTARILY. He makes fun of me for blogging about the nonsense in my life. This is a step forward. Progress.)

The whole mixture was cooled in the freezer for about 20 minutes so the fat would grind easily.
We then ground the meat through the grinder attachment for my kitchen aid. I used the small die to get a really fine grained sausage. TDF really got into pushing the plunger "into the meathole." He wouldn't let me grind meat anymore because it was "[his] meathole." Sigh, we live a very isolated, strange life.
Finished sausage. Deer meat is naturally very red and all the paprika, cayenne, and red pepper flakes helped make the meat an especially brightly ruby color. Overall, the sausage was a bit salty--because I used the called for amount of salt plus I used bacon for the fat. It wasn't too bad after the sausage had mellowed overnight.

I didn't stuff the sausage into casings because I don't have a stuffer. Thus, I froze the sausage into logs for slicing or crumbling. We had it for breakfast yesterday and tDF made a burger with it for lunch. It was, he noted, a bit too spicy for a burger but was good all the same.

Now, I want to make more! MORE!