Jean's Northern Niche

Frostfish

One morning a few days ago it was -42° and I woke up to this on the window above my bed.

You know you are in Fairbanks and it's -30 or worse when...

Your eyelashes keep freezing to your hairy hat.

Your plug-in cord acts like a frozen snake.

You wonder if plastic-y dog food bags will split open if you try to carry them inside. Or would it be better just to leave it in the car for now?

You can blow frozen bubbles.

How long you spend outside depends on how fast your fingers freeze. In gloves.

You warm up your car for half an hour, but still have to drive 20mph until your tires get unsquare.

Your male dog pees standing on two legs. Both your dogs would levitate if they could. One of my dogs did attempt pooping while balancing on his two front legs!

It takes 15 minutes to put on enough gear to walk the dogs for 10 minutes.

Fifty percent of the cars in the parking lot are running.

It's clear at your house, but once to get to town you can't see doodly for the ice fog.

You have special temperature sensors set up to monitor your water pipes/tanks.

The first question people ask each other is, "What's the temperature?"

You leave your car running, with the dogs inside, not because they'd get cold, but because if you don't, the windows will be entirely frosted over with dog breath when you get back.

Long underwear!

The bunny boots come out!

If you lock yourself out of your house, it's a real emergency!

You have a cooler in the car to carry home groceries that you don't want to get frozen.

You wear so much gear you can barely bend from the middle and look like the Michelin Tire Man, just like everyone else. (Arctic Nightmare for men: out on the trail with  7 inches of clothing and 6 inches of peeing equipment!)

You are really, really, really glad you moved into that house with the indoor plumbing!

At night you know another car is headed toward you on the road because you can see their headlights towering straight up in the air. (Nope, it's not aliens!)

Feel free to add more...

 

Time for the Liberry Music Festival!

I'll be playing some music at the Liberry Music Festival, which includes my favorite food in the world, which is PIE. It starts at 2 at the Golden Eagle Saloon (all ages welcome) and continues on until midnight or so. There's a square dance in the evening, too! I'll be playing before and probably after the pie auction. It's a ball, come on down!

It's a Plaid, Plaid, Plaid Plaid World

My birthday is tomorrow, August 8. What do I want for my birthday?

Plaid. I love plaid. If I had a pair of plaid pants that were not some hideous plaid (such as purple and yellow, for instance) I would wear them. Plaid shirts are a dime a dozen and are useful, too, but good plaid pants are hard to find.

I don't have enough plaid skirts, and no plaid vests at all. I have only one very silly plaid Yukon hat, which I wear in the winter to cheer people up. SOMEONE has to be the jester. Purple, green and red plaid will do that.

I'm about to turn over a new motor vechicle page in my life. It's time for both the car and the truck to go bye bye and find new homes. Whatever I get, I am seriously considering having a plaid wrap done on it. I'm done driving little invisible silver cars. No one sees them. I have to honk: I'm here! I'm here! Don't pull out in front of me! Don't squish me!

This does not work with mooses.

No one would pull out in front of a red plaid car. Probably not even a moose. I'm thinking the Bruce tartan, as that is my family heritage. I think it would be just the best! Can't you see me motoring down the road in a red plaid car, two Scottish flags flying out the windows?f

So I suppose I could ask for a van or car or SUV for my birthday. Okay. I am looking for either:

1. Some kind of van, must have 4WD.

2. SUV: Honda, Toyota, Subaru all possibilities. I don't want to have to buy another car a year from now, so I'm not considering American cars. They barely run past 100,000.

3. Camry or Legacy Wagon.

4. Anything I get must be no older than the year 2000. I might make an exception for something that you only drove to church twice a year. As long as it was garaged. But the chances of finding that are slim. I'm done with cars older than ten years!

Whatever I get, it's going to look great in plaid. Maybe I'll two-tone it, with plaid on the bottom and as solid color up top. It depends on what I end up with.

If you feel slightly nauseous that I might convert your former car or van into the Plaidmobile, rest easy. It's much better than being the Hairmobile (I have two of those right now) or the famous Fishmobile, which I had to endure all winter until it was finally cured. Click on that link to be illuminated.

Of course there is one other possibility that doens't involve plaid, and that is making sure I have a TARDIS-blue vehicle and making it look like the TARDIS. That would be awesome.

I do want an iPad rather desperately. If I ever get one, I'll put a plaid cover on it. Wouldn't you?

I have plaid socks, but not enough. And plaid hairbands would be really nice. Men have plaid underwear. Why can't I find any?

If there was plaid lipstick I would use it.

You know those tattoo sleeves? Don't they make those in plaid? I'd LOVE some of those!

Remember the cartoons where a bucket of paint could be a pattern? You could dip the brush in and paint plaid on the walls, house, Elmer Fudd, the Pink Panther....I'd like a bucket of that stuff.

There's a reason I named my business Tartan Tundra. I imagine plaid mooses and ravens wearing tams. The ground hogs in my imagination wear little plaid scarves and mittens. They golf out there. I'm sure of it.

Plaid clothing is almost always considered dorky. Sigh. I've always been on the fashion frontier.

Packaging Fail

Whose idea was this? A tiny cup of fruit, swimming in sticky juice, lid vacuumed on. These are impossible to eat.

I'm hungry. I just got these fruit cups so I'd have something healthy to eat at work. So I grab one and rip the top off. Juice and fruit squirt EVERYWHERE! Like, on the computer screen, the iPhone, the desk, my shirt, my pants, etc. Ole dog is thrilled.

I'm still hungry. So I hold it c a r e f u l l y  by the sides and try to pull off the lid. My fingers push down on the top, the vacuum pops open and juice goes everywhere. Mainly down the front of my shirt.

Since I didn't even get to eat a whole fruit cup yet, I decide to be even more careful.Feeling that I'm pretty clever, I tilt the darn thing until what air is in it is underneath the plastic pull top. Gently, I ease the plastic top up, oh so delicately, and delicately get juice down my front, leaving a nice dark splotch on the crotch of my pants.

Yes, but at least I got to eat most of the fruit!

I've gone from having the whole thing just explode to actually being able to eat some. But dang it, there has got to be a way to open these without painting the world with sticky!

Let's see, it's in a vacuum. What if I poke it with a push pin before I open the top? It would break the seal and possibly make it safe for human consumption. Oh, I'm feeling way too clever now!

Voiding the vacuum had no effect on how messily the cup opened. Sigh.

Moms send their kids to school with these things! Do they send scalpels with them? I think that is the only way to open the lid. That is, don't open the lid. Excise it with a scalpel. If someone has a scalpel and can try this, please let me know what happens. Just don't try it during an operation.

I am of the opinion that these are just booby traps to make fools of us. Inedible, possibly. Wearable, for sure.

Being Queen of My Castle

Being Queen of my Castle has good points, and bad points.

Good: I can do anything I want to and at any hour. Just the other night I practiced fiddle music at midnight, to the complete and utter joy of Bucky the parrot, who goes through wild birdie gyrations and yells, whistles, sings, and hollers in different timbres: Wow. WOW. WOW!!

Bad: If I want to eat something, I have to cook it AND wash all the dishes. There is neither the room or the plumbing for a dishwasher.

Good: No one in my house cares if the dogs are the "prewash" cycle.

Bad: If the dogs (OLE) decide that the taco bell wrappers are priceless treasures that must be unearthed time and again from the trash, I'm the one who has to put the garbage back, clean up, and take the garbage out. By which I mean bagging, (gagging), and taking the whole shebang to the dump.

Good: I never have to wait for the bathroom!

Bad: You know those new moisturizing lotions that also impart a "healthy glow?" I'd love to use those since most of the year I'm toad-belly white. In all the commercials they show a woman alone putting on this lotion, but they never show how she puts it on her back! It's impossible! And if you don't put it on evenly you look diseased. So teaching Sofie to put it on my back is out.

Good: I don't have to pick up and clean up around the house unless I want to.

Bad: I don't have to pick up and clean up around the house unless I want to.

Good: I can eat whatever I want to. This is the best part of being a grown-up. If I want to have ice cream for dinner, I can!

Bad: About 30 extra lbs.

Good: I can plant and arrange my yard any way I want to.

Bad: I have to hire guys with muscles and tools to get some house/yard things done. Like cutting down trees. And going up on the roof to close off the dead stovepipe so it doesn't rain in my house. I found out about that after it DID rain in my house. I *could* go up there, but I advised myself against it.

Good: I don't have to listen to snoring, clean the bathroom/toilet WALLS (seriously, why don't they just freaking sit DOWN?), have dinner ready, smell stinky farts, have someone say, "I told you so," or "You're just over-reacting again," or being asked, "Are you on the rag?" anymore at all. Which is good, because them's fightin' words.

Bad: I still need help with heavy stuff. Or let me say, I can do pretty much anything, but it takes a lot longer than if some person with muscles was available. When I say a lot longer, I mean moving a dresser, for instance, might take a guy 5 minutes. It might take me half an hour or longer. You ever done this? Scrooch the Big Thing about three inches. Pant. Scrooch it a little more. Breathe. Push on the other side three more inches. Shake out your arms. Turn around, put your back into it, push with your legs, and it goes about five whole inches. Pant. Repeat.

Good: Peace and quiet!

Good: I don't have to share my computer. And if there was a mate in my life, he or she would have to get their own computer. It's not happening any more than I'd share my violin. Not gonna happen!

Bad: You know when you have a bump, or an itchy spot, and it's in a place where you just can't get a good look at it? If it is on my back, I can put on a tank top and have my neighbor take a look, but elsewhere? No way, José. And I'm not going to pay $200 to go to the doctor and say, "Hey, can you take a look at this thing on my ass?"

Good: I am in control of everything around my personal domain.

Bad: Ack! I have to find the title to the truck and the divorce papers and I have to write to the Department of Redundancy Department about this and that and my shoe size and the government and ACK!

Good: All in all, the good outweighs the bad. And that's very good because I don't think another person could fit in my teeny house, anyway! However, this place is eminently expandable, which is yet another good thing. So no limits!

Come play music with us! Music Mondays at my studio!

I don't usually cross-post my music stuff too much, but this is a free community jam just for fun. All ages are welcome (kids must have parents with them). If we overflow my little studio there are bigger rooms available, and the skeeters aren't so bad, maybe we can play outside. All the information is HERE, at the Tartan Tundra Music site.

We alternate between song circle and acoustic jam. And both at once, if people get confused. :D It's all good.

Summertime Skin

With all the nice, warm weather, and all the bathing suit photos on Facebook, I think it's time for my favorite beach cartoon. It just says it all.

Alaskan Summer 2011

Last year, if you recall, we kind of skipped most of summer. Instead we had rain, rain, rain and more rain. There was fungus growing on mushrooms. It was bad.  I was worried that all that precipitation would mean we'd have another winter that was skanty on snow, but luckily I was wrong and we had a very nice three or four or five feet of snow altogether. The skinny trees either side of my driveway were bent down so far with snow that the water truck couldn't make it in to fill my water tank. So they got whacked down and stacked to the side of the driveway. There they remained, covered in snow and pushed back by the snow plows. We will return to this, anon.

Right now it's summer. Spring doesn't really exist in Alaska. Have you heard Johnny Horton's song, Springtime in Alaska? The songwriter, who was clearly clueless, claimes that "In Springtime in Alaska it's forty below." It is if you consider February Spring. Otherwise, when Breakup comes, and the snow melts, that's when it's Springtime in Alaska and it's certainly not forty below!

So Springtime in Alaska looks like Last Fall Revisited. There are no leaves, all the brown grass and fireweed is still sitting there, crumpled and mushed. Some of the Fall colors are still around in the tundra, reds and yellows. That's Spring. Not much of anything, really.

After the snow melts we all wait extremely impatiently for the trees to leaf out. This generally happens about the second week on May. This year it was late and some of us were thinking, "Uh oh. Maybe they aren't going to leaf out! Aaaack!" I kept scanning the hills, looking for the tell-tale reddish color that is the harbinger of new buds that produce leaves. Day after day they were brown. Dull, ugly brown.

Then finally, on May 18th it happened. Leaves were visible at my house, albeit teeny-weeny! It took them a long time, more than a week, to fill out and grow to full size. Once the leaves are in, it's SUMMER!

 

Instead of a bunch of nasty rain, we had gorgeous blue skies and puffy lamb clouds. Gentle breezes wafted my flags and chimes.

There were no mosquitoes at my house for almost two weeks! It was wonderful!

Before the mosquitoes were out, the fires started. That's the price we pay for dry weather here in the boreal forest. At one point a forest fire was two miles from my house and my truck was loaded and I was ready for evacuation. But the wind was with us and blew the fire away from my neighborhood. That fire, the Moose Mountain fire, is now contained. It was a close and scary call. Since then we have had days of smoke, but haven't been in danger. This is all a part of summer.

The sounds of summer are birds, oodles and oodles of birds. Ravens, whiskey jacks, chickadees, so many warblers that I just call them the Teeny Green Birds. Magpies, who have moved up from South Alaska what with global warming. Moose start appearing with calves in tow. The sounds of Spring include screeching brakes as people attempt to avoid hitting a 2000 lb. moose, or god forbid, her calf.

Sometimes it sounds like the world is taken over by dinosaurs, as heavy equipment roars to life again. I hear big thumps and booms as the lumber mill goes into action, the rumble of diesel engines, and the thunder of big tires on dirt roads. Large trucks towing giant yellow iron, some with buckets, some with blades, block roads and make kids go, "Wow!"  All this activity happens when the ground unfreezes enough to build something!

Summertime you can't get there from here. In a place where the temperature can swing 70 degrees in one day, the roads go through hell. As the sun gains ascension, the warmth thaws the ground and roads sink. Work that has needed to be done on city streets is once more do-able. Orange cones rule the day and Fairbanks can become a Disneyland of Detours.

I've memorized all the lumps, bumps and sunken spots on my road home. Alaska can eat up a vehicle pretty quickly if you aren't proactive about things like that. It's not just the cold that's hard on your transport!

One the thaw is over, I've got a lot of work to do, even around my small place. For one thing, there is an entire winter's worth of dog poop to scrape out of the dog yard. There is no way to clean it until it thaws. If you've ever tried to pick up dog poop that's frozen to the ground or to the snow, well, it's impossible. I'm not going to stand outside in -40° to chip poop out! Luckily I always have a music student who is young, strong and who wants to make some money by cleaning out the whole yard for me and the dogs. This is a good thing!

When the trees got whacked down because of the heavy snow, (I bet you were wondering if I'd ever get back to that, right?), there were some birch trees that I had my eye on. Bucky needs new perches, and birch is ideal for that purpose. So once the branches were free of snow, I dragged them back to the front yard. I plan to borrow my neighbor's loppers and cut Bucky some nice, clean perches.

I went out to do this the other day, and what do I see?

 

They just couldn't be left out of the greening up! No matter they were just sticks lying on the driveway!

Let me remind you, those trees were cut mid-winter and frozen at sub-zero temperatures!

There is one thing for sure: Alaska always surprises me!

Am I In The Minority?

Sometimes it is good to live in a place where the time zone is four hours earlier than the East Coast. That meant I was watching President Obama tell us about the killing of Osama Bin Laden at 7ish or so, instead of midnight. It gave me time to think.

Which time I didn't actually need. How did I feel? Mixed feelings, to put it mildly. Slightly nauseated. Slightly relieved but also disgusted.

I always felt that the reason Osama bin Laden hadn't been killed by our armed forces was because there was a conspiracy or agreement that we would look like we were going after him, but ultimately we wouldn't actually get him. It seemed crazy that one guy could evade an entire government for so long.

On the other hand, the CIA has never been able to get Castro, either. And I'm sure they have tried.

So maybe O bin L really was wiley. Maybe he really was that hard to kill.

Be that as it may, it disturbs me to see people PARTYING over the death of someone. Death  is not a partying item. Death is death. Dark, final, and a doorstep to the next world. He will get what is coming to him, be sure of that. I just don't feel like going out in the street and waving a flag.

Don't get me wrong, O bin L was a very bad man, who killed thousands upon thousands, not just in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon but all over the place, Muslims as well as others. And I'm not just talking about his suicide squads, he targeted non-wacko Muslims, too. Not just Americans.

It makes me sick, though, to see people cheering in the streets. O bin L affected my life, yes, by making it horribly inconvenient to take an airplane anywhere. Now I have to have a passport just to drive from Alaska to the Lower 48. It now takes six months to get a passport.

If anyone thinks that this situation is going to change with the death of the head madman, you are mistaken. Now we will walk around fearing retribution from his brother wackos.

It had to be done. Agreed. But you won't see me out in the streets because I just don't feel that way. Instead, last night I said prayers for both the souls of those killed by Osama bin Laden, and for O bin L himself, that he moves on to the next stage of whatever his (insane) journey is. He is out of our world now.

And I will not be seeing the movie that is sure to be made. The title "Hard to Kill" has been taken. But I'm sure they'll come up with something.