Out Go The Lights

Earth Hour is tomorrow night. Last year, Little Sister and I were staying with the Brats for the weekend. Brat #4 is "uncomfortable" with the dark and didn't like the idea AT. ALL. But, being the awesome hard ass aunties that we are, we made her suffer through it. After much crying on her part and counseling on our parts, we finally convinced her it could be fun. An hour passed with three Brats happily playing cards and one watching the clock a little anxiously. The sad part is, when it was all over, I realized it was the wrong day. More than likely little sister realized I had told them all the wrong day. So on the one hand we made her suffer for nothing. On the other, guess who was the first one to turn out the lights the next night?

We might be teaching them to play poker for candy but look how comfortable Sassypants is in the dark. Next year the candy will be replaced by their college accounts.

Don't forget to participate in Earth Hour March 27, 8:30 PM (local time).

Wondering

Is it time to change the photo across the top of this thing? I just L-O-V-E the current one. Walking that pier was my sanity for many a semester and seeing the photo makes me feel connected to home. However, it's not home right now. Here's one that could work, taken last week on the way to Fairbanks. Just don't know if I'm ready to let go.

Ice Festival

Ice carvers from all over the world come to show off their skills at the Ice Festival in Fairbanks. Here are some of my favorites.

Reminded me of Iron Man.

(n)Ice rack

Ice octopus with incredibly detailed suckers.

Phone home if your fingers still work.

Ice jackets- Carhartt was a sponsor. Suprise.

Look at the shark's teeth!

All of the sea themed sculptures were amazing.

modern ice art

The blanket toss, missing from my Alaskan experience so far.

Ice slides. They looked really fun but the frostnip was taking hold of my toes. Time to go.

Full Circle Farm

On Kelly's suggestion I just signed up for produce delivery from Full Circle Farm. The fruits and vegetables are all grown organically in Washington state and shipped to members in WA and AK. You get a mixture of seasonal products but can sub out stuff you hate which are very few things for me.

Living in Alaska seriously enlarges your carbon footprint. Almost every single thing that's up here had to be shipped from the Lower 48 or beyond. Eating local is difficult and in the winter, pretty much impossible. Unless you're REALLY in to canned salmon and cabbage. So this option seems like the most responsible choice. I'm pretty excited about getting a big box of fresh fruits and veggies every other week. Along with my eggs from locally raised chickens and my meat from the local butcher, I feel proud to support environmentally responsible businesses and much better about what goes into my body. Ever since that summer school writing class at SFSU which I shouldn't have been in but read "The Herbivores Dilemma" and "Fast Food Nation," I've thought a lot more about these issues and how our national health is tied to SO many bad decisions when it comes to food. (But obviously got no guidance on my punctuation problem.) I mean, McDonald's was the official "restaurant" of the Olympics?? Disgusting! And completely ridiculous.

Anyhow, got any good recipes for rutabagas?

Correction: OMNIVORE'S Dilemma. duh. Guess I was thinking too much about produce.

St. Patty's Day

More importantly, Laura's 30th birthday. Go to this link, click Watch the Video and see how damn cute she is. Serious boob envy here. Happy Birthday, Lolly!
Not only does this make me miss my Laura but look how glorious it is in the City today. Oh to be in The Mission, specifically Dolores Park, with a beer and my friends.
And yet, it's pretty glorious here. The sun is shining and we're at a very comfortable 32 degrees. Took the pup to the park, played some Dr. Mario and just cracked an Arctic Rhino Coffee Porter from the Midnight Sun Brewery.Yeah, I'd much rather be a glass half full kinda gal.
Happy St. Patty's Day!

Wolf Attack

Jogging alone in Alaska with an iPod on leads to an unfortunate outcome. Good thing I don't jog, or live in the bush.

Update: Let's just make that jogging with an iPod anywhere. iPods are deadly.

Up, Up, Down, Down, B, A, B, A, Start, Start

I'm in Fairbanks right now. It's about 9 hours north of home but we drove up to Anchorage on Friday, stayed overnight, and then did the rest of the drive on Saturday. Mo's husband is building a pizza parlor in Denali Park right now so I dropped her off there before continuing to Fairbanks. It's so weird to me that I applied to the Denali Princess lodge when I was about 19 but life, in the form of a back surgery, got in the way. Now here I am getting a behind the scenes tour. Because I LIVE here.
I've totally lucked out on this trip so far. It was a clear and gorgeous day for the whole drive so I got to see the mountain with no cloud cover again. Then, last night I finally saw the Aurora Borealis! I'm so excited about that and am going out tonight to try to see it again. Keep your fingers crossed for a clear night.
Also, we just got back from a fancy pants champagne buffet brunch at the Pump House. All you can eat and all the good food you can imagine, complete with homemade whipped cream for the waffles and a carver for the prime rib. It was so perfect because I love breakfast but can never decide what to order, this way you get it all plus a dessert bar! And mimosas! I had to do a little happy food dance everytime I got in line and saw all my choices. Which was four times. And I wonder how I've made it up to 154.2 pounds (there's a scale here).
So now it's food coma and Tetris time. Killa Kelly ordered an old school Nintendo on eBay. Have I mentioned that I love being 30?

Fur Rondy

Princesses of dead things

More dead things

Pooper Scooper, most

important guy in the parade

Fur Rondy is the ceremonial beginning
of the Iditarod.
















The Fur Gallery. That's right, you heard me. Fur Gallery.

Snow sculptures. Next week, ice sculptures.





The outhouse races. First, come up with a theme and name.




Next, build an outhouse on skis and put your lightest, most well humored friend inside. Then push it in a race against other outhouses. Good times.

The belly/muffin top contest. First, get fat. I mean, put on your "winter coat". Next, go to La Mex. Then, loose all of your dignity. Not so good times.
Had a few more pictures of the parade but blogspot is annoying as all hell. Plus I need to get my butt in gear and pack for Fairbanks. Spring Break baby! Yooooowwww! Let's get crazy with some long underwear and wool socks!

PS: This formatting in not at all what my unpublished version looks like but it would take way too much time to fix it. Damn blogspot.

Final Olympic Installment

A good time was had by all.








































Thank you, Friends, for the best weekend and the chance of a lifetime! I am so, so blessed.

Brain Games is now.....over :( :( I think you have to probably be of a certain age to have that line burned in your brain. Here's a tissue for you...

Now we need to move on to Fur Rondy and coming up... SPRING BREAK! Don't pack your fikini yet, we're headed to Fairbanks. Average temp somewhere below 20 degrees but it's Ice Festival time!

Olympics Continued

The Olympic rings in Whistler Village, the line to get a photo in front of them was intimidating. Much more do-able in the early morning.

I want to go to there.

Jealous.

The Whistler Sliding Center and Village from above. Almost went to the Skeleton event but in the end, the Village was more fun. Apparently, after Canadian Jon Montgomery won the gold, he came straight down the gondola into the Village and was immediately surrounded by pitchers of beer and boobies.




Vancouver TV station interview platform. I tried to avoid all cameras but pretty sure I ended up on Portland news after rolling out of bed at 7 to stand in line for those damn mittens AND Swiss news while watching the men's long jump gold medalist be interviewed.

Slicker 'n Sweat on a Doorknob

That's how the local DJ described the roads this morning after an accident closed a major roadway. I don't know anything about sweat on a doorknob but considering how much my car was sliding around, I'd say it's pretty damn slick.
In an effort to recover from all the fun I've been having lately, I'm going to save the posting for another night and get into bed with a good book. Which reminds me, I wanted to do a little book review here. I read The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls and loved it. It's about 4 siblings who grow up in extremely adverse conditions and is written by the third sib. It's no wonder I loved it, right? We may not have faced the conditions this family did (I think the first line of the book was something like, "I'm three years old and I'm on fire.") but we went through a lot and the book made me miss my brother and sisters. There's a point where she's describing a neighborhood brawl they get into and I actually had to put it down for a few minutes, I was all verklempt. Ah, the days of getting scrappy with bullies in defense of the sibs. Kind of like New Years really so I guess some things never change. Anyhow, the Glass Castle. Read it, you'll love it. Goodnight.

Medal Ceremony

This was the same night that Shaun White was presented with his gold. Unfortunately it happened at another venue so the haircut wasn't possible. It was very cool to be at a medals ceremony, we sang the national anthem a lot because the US kicks ass. Another Don't for flag handling: If you're short and holding a waving flag, go stand with the short folks. Every time the Star Spangled Banner played, this woman next to me would hold up her flag which would then gently wave into my head for the whole song. I was trying to be patriotic, but really it was trying my patience.
You can see that for one of the events, two athletes got the exact same time so there where two silvers and no bronze. Also, in the picture of the Austrian Linger brothers showing off their gold for the double luge, you can see the Mosh Pit sign. FYI, double luge is total gay spank bank material. Not that there's anything wrong with that and of course I mean the teams that are NOT brothers. But I digress. The sign was for the Deadmau5 show after the ceremony. In case you happen to be totally unhip like me and have no idea who that is, he's like the hottest DJ in the world right now. But, I am not into speed, glow sticks, raves, nightclubs, nor do I live in the UK. Or anywhere close to where trends are current, so I had no idea who Deadmouse was. When the show started, we were right in the middle of the body surfing, dancing, jumping up and down thing that I would've totally dug at 16. Now, I'm just too damn old for that stuff. I hung for about 20 minutes, and it was pretty cool because the crowd was SO positive, but after that, it was really time to give these old bones (and rods) a rest. Someday I'll impress someone by saying "Dude, Deadmau5? I was in the mosh pit at his 2010 Olympic show!" It could happen.