Inktrails from Alaska

Caution: Dangerous Furniture!

Yesterday at Tartan Tundra Music studio, where I work giving music lessons to all and sundry, there seemed to be a definite theme: Waiting For Mom.

It was snowing and I supposed the various Moms felt less inclined to leave the warmth of JoAnne or Fred Meyer or wherever it was they were shopping. Meanwhile, back in the studio I was visiting with my students while we waited for their arrival. Which was fine, yesterday. I had enough time between students that a bit of visiting was fun. Normally it's not okay, as I have to continue to teach the next student, rather than visit. Yes, yesterday was definitely an odd day.

So the second-to-the-last student packed up her violin, and I gave her her reward for a great week of good practice. I then sat down in my office chair to do some paperwork. She asked me a question while coming through the practice room door, behind me. I turned a bit, and leaned too far, and the chair started going over! I caught myself with my hand on the floor and slammed my bare feet down to pull the chair back up.

Everything seemed fine, as I was upright again, albeit feeling stupid for falling over, so I laughed and answered her question. The next student arrived and we had a pleasant lesson.

After seeing the last student out the door, I suddenly realized my left foot felt odd. In fact, I couldn't walk on it because it felt like a ping pong ball had suddenly grown between the ball of my foot and the little toe mound. Perplexed and sore, I sat down and looked at the bottom of my foot to find a huge, black hematoma. I tried to walk and found I couldn't. Not on the bottom of my foot. I put my boot on. AAACK! No, that wasn't going to work, I could barely fit it in the boot! I immediately yanked the boot back off again. Ow.

So I put my foot up on the desk for ten minutes and called the ER to see if this was something I should go in for. I was pretty sure it wasn't. I've had a hematoma before and knew that it was a broken blood vessel that would probably take care of itself. Still, I wanted a medical opinion.

Well, you know what they say at the ER. You could have your guts hanging out, and bleeding out your ears and they'd say the same thing. "We cannot give a medical opinion over the telephone. You must decide whether you should come into the Emergency Room or not." So helpful.

Called my friend who is a nurse. No answer. Called her husband, no answer. Called a friend. No answer.

I'd just found the New Theme for the Day! The No One Will Answer The Phone theme!

By this time I figured out that I could walk with my foot tipped up on its heel. VERY gadorky! It looked even better if I crooked my back and talked like Igor.

The dogs were perplexed.

I jammed my foot into my boot (minor OW), got my backpack, and grabbed the dogs leashes. Our next hurdle was descending a huge flight of steep stairs.

I am proud to say that Ole and Sofia not only didn't pull me down the stairs, as they usually do, but they minced down every so slowly and carefully, watching me the entire time. Good dogs! They'd been with me all day and I know they desperately need a good wee.

Since I have an automatic transmission in my car, and the injured foot was the left one, I made it home without incident and got immediately in my bed with my foot elevated, iPad in hand, and watched three episodes of "Monarch of the Glen." By that time the hematoma was down to a manageable size and the day was won!

And I have learned my lesson: use caution when using dangerous furniture! Maybe I should find some kind of Office Chair Safety Seminar? Or better yet, I should give one and charge big bucks. Right?

Grumpy Alaskan

WARNING: The person writing this post is very grumpy.

Why? Because we are supposed to be entering the Break Up season (otherwise known to other, more temperate regions as Spring). For us it means that the snow starts to GO AWAY. Yes. I'm making shooing motions here.

It is snowing, and is supposed to snow some more. And some more.

The raven mating season is past. They made their water-dripping noise, and have gone on to do their own family thing. The water-dripping noise usually coincides with actual WATER DRIPPING.

It warmed up, I got one tiny icicle drip off my roof. And...nothing. Everything froze up again.

Two weeks ago I plugged in my freezer(it's outside) because we'd had about a week with above freezing temperature.

I had to plug it back in again. Grrrr. It was below zero when I got up this morning. GRRRRRR.

For a while I didn't have to plug in the car. I had to plug it in this morning. GRRR.

My whole yard is hard-packed snow, except for the new stuff falling now and I am still in winter boots and coat. I'd really like to wear my Converse but that is not going to happen any time soon unless I want to fall and break myself. And have cold feet.

I don't WANT to sweep off the damn car AGAIN.

I'm wearing sunglasses while driving to deal with snow glare...

The people in my building at work who smoke have peppered the parking area with ash that is ground into snow. So delightful.

And the yellow snow for which my dogs are partly responsible, that's just gross and I want it GONE.

Not to mention people burning all KINDS of crap: oil, coal, tires, grandpa's recliner...so that we are choking and gacking every time we go outside. Especially in town. It's the worst air EVER.

My nature is to look on the bright side and I'm fighting the urge to say, "Well it could be worse, it could be..." BUT NO! I'M GRUMPY AND BY GOLLY I GET TO BE GRUMPY!

I'm going to go to work now, and on the way I will be irked by at least ten more things that are pissing me off about this extended Winter.

So there!

Alaskan Spring: There's No Such Thing

We obsess over "Spring" as no other state in the union does because in no other state does winter last nine months. We don't really have Spring. We have Winter, Summer, and Breakup and Freezeup. There are no early crocuses for us. It's mid-March and I still have at least two feet of snow everywhere. I'm still wearing my winter boots and down jacket.

It's time for it to be over! For one thing, my fingers are starting to poke out of my little red, knit gloves with the texting fingers.

We've had a week of wind, and all the snow is off the trees now. I no longer have to go out with my hood up to avoid a big glob of snow down the back of my neck. Wind in Fairbanks is uncommon and also uncommonly nasty. Today there is yet again wind. Temperature: 1°F. Wind chill: -12°. Looks like I'll be dressing ludicrously puffy again.

It would be nice to see my front step again. And open the gate to the dog yard in both directions and more than just a little 30° swing that allows us to squeeze in and out.

All the snow and ice has melted off my car! Yay! True, there is still one glob gluing the aluminum-covered cardboard onto the front, but if I park facing the sun, that will go, too. As soon as it is regularly above 20° all the time, I can take that sucker off! Plus I can start saving on my electric bill by not having to plug in the car, too. We still aren't hitting that yet. I'm getting impatient. Everyone in Fairbanks is getting impatient. 

We have about twelve hours of light a day now! Mind you, the angle of the sun as it grazes the top of the world here means that compared to you in lower latitudes, our sun is wimpy. But for us, it's glorious!

Another Rite of Spring is having the hard pack (snow) removed from ones driveway. This will happen soon, and will result in mountains of SNIRT (mixed snow and dirt) everywhere. The dogs love this. It always turns into a huge sniff-fest, as dirt that has been under the snow for nine months is suddenly revealed.

This is from a couple years ago. I'm hoping I'll have huge piles of snirt sometime this week. Ole is doing his best to remove the hard pack from the dog yard.

When the snow goes away we get to revisit Fall, and see all the dead plants and even some of the Fall colors. The trees will be bare, and everything will be rather brownish-red. We'll be able to look into each others' yards and see all the junk the snow was covering up: cars, trucks, wrecks, garbage of all sorts, lawn furniture, toys (of all sizes) and so on.

The retreat of the snow is hard on my dogs, as they live for winter and love snow, both playing in it, on it, and through it. And peeing on it. We are approaching the season where they frantically search for a bit of snow to pee on. It takes them a while to get used to dirt again, and it is funny to watch Sofia find a tiny spot of snow and try to fit herself on it just to pee.

When the snow goes away all of Ole's fur rubbings on the fence are taken away by birds, who then build fuzzy nests.

Unfortunately, retreat of the snow also means emergence of the all the poop that has been frozen all winter. I don't want to elaborate further.

Right now people are looking up, squinting at the branches of their trees and saying, "Is that a bud?" It's not, not yet. But soon! One of the most exciting seasonal events here is Green Up. One day all the trees are bare, with tiny green buds and the next day BOING, and we have LEAVES! And once again our junk is hidden from the neighbors.

You could say that for the 6 hours that it takes for all the trees to burst into leaves, we have Spring. But once the leaves are out it's Summer, baby!

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. It still looks like this out there. Sigh.