Author: Xenia Rutherford

  • They Have Uber Here, His name is Harry

    They Have Uber Here, His name is Harry

    We were in the middle of watching “Jexi” (we see every movie that comes to town) when my husband got a call from the ER. Someone shot a nail through his hand with a nail gun.

    We had made the rooky mistake of driving only one car while Mark was on call. Usually not a problem as back in Boulder it is as simple as Uber or Lyft, but after Mark hurried out of the theater I started to wonder if this town had either.

    There were “No Cars Available” when I first checked the app after the movie let out.

    I decided to wait a bit and try again. The kids were still hungry even after consuming a vat of popcorn each, so we headed out to find a place to eat.

    “Mom, tell Anders to stop stepping on my heels!” my daughter screeched as I once again checked the UBER app. And again, not seeing what I wanted.

    “Anders, stop stepping on your sister’s heels,” I said with the authority of a mother whose disciplinary backbone was snapped in two, tossed into a fire pit, and went up in flames a long time ago.

    “Mom, he’s still doing it!”

    “I’m not doing anything!”

    “Mom! He’s lying!”

    “No, I’m not”

    “Yes you are! Mom!”

    “No Cars Available, Sucka!” read the app.

    A patrol car suddenly pulls up to the curb and stops. An officer leans across the passenger seat to talk to me.

    “Are you three okay?” he asks.

    “We’re fine, thank you!” I say cheerfully. And he drives on.

    I don’t know if he pulled over because we were the only pedestrians anywhere, and that seemed strange to him, or if he could tell my kids were about to come to blows.

    After crossing two big empty parking lots we came to a place called Paradisios which is just one of several restaurants in the area that specialize solely in American, Mexican, Greek, Chinese, and Italian cuisine. Because there was a wall mural featuring the Acropolis I figured my best bet was to order off the Greek menu page.

    I ordered the Gyros Platter as the waitress nodded (approvingly?)

    I then asked, “do you have Uber here?”

    She nodded again, “Harry.”

    “Harry?”

    “Yeah, there is only one Uber driver, Harry.”

    She peers at my phone which is open to the app. Still, “No Cars Available.”

    “Harry’s busy,” I say. She looks like she expected as much.

    So, it was a retro moment as I looked up the number called a cab company. The dispatcher told me a taxi would be there eventually but warned me I was way down on the wait list, that they were very busy, and that he had no idea when his driver could get to me. I’m old enough to remember this routine well. I have an anxiety provoking flashback of being at a friend’s apartment in San Francisco and waiting for a cab I had called hours in advance, only to eventually miss my international flight.

    “Mom, tell Anders to stop stealing my fries!” my daughter whines.

    “So, like what time….?” I ask the dispatcher.

    “I have no idea, just letting you know it’ll be awhile.”

    “Stop taking my fries! Mom!?”

    “If you had to guess is awhile 15-minutes? Or more like 3 hours?” I ask because I am capable of being that bitchy city-slicker from the lower 48.

    “I have no idea.”

    “Mom! He’s still doing it!”

    The cavalry arrived much sooner than expected, seven minutes maybe. I don’t even think Harry could have made it to us so fast.

    Pleasant enough Alaska Cab driver, but on the way home my mind was occupied thinking about Harry.

    What was he so busy doing that he couldn’t come get us?

    Was he out having fun?

    Will he always be “unavailable” when I need him the most?

    I don’t like to be ignored, Harry.

    The idea that I might never meet Harry is unacceptable somehow and I decided I can’t just leave it up to fate. I’m going to keep checking my Uber app regardless of whether I actually need a ride because one day a little car will appear on that little map and I’ll know exactly who is driving it. Then I’ll watch as Harry goes from being 10 minutes away, to five minutes away, to one minute away…

  • Can You Outrun a Bear?

    Can You Outrun a Bear?

    Only a couple of months living in our new home on the Kenai Peninsula and already I had accumulated a total of one friend. Her name is Allison, and she is teaching me squash. The first time we met it was for lunch at a cute bookstore and deli. My husband’s birthday was coming up and as I waited for her I found the perfect book for him, it was the very last copy of “Birds of Alaska.” My husband happens to be a proud “birder.” Perhaps too proud.

    As the store clerk was gift wrapping the book, Allison and I had lunch and discussed birds which naturally led to the topic of bears. Okay, I may have forced the conversation. At the risk of sounding like a tourist I had been asking almost every local I came across about the probability of being attacked by a bear while hiking. So far no one has rolled their eyes at the question making me even more concerned.

    “I was attacked by a bear while hiking with my dogs,” Allison says casually.

    “You were?!”

    She nods, “a mama bear with her two cubs. And it was in the springtime when bears are hungry.”

    “Black or brown bear?”

    “Black. I surprised her, I just didn’t see her until I was right in front of her, and she stood up and looked at me.

    “What did you do?”

    “Well, you’re not supposed to run.”

    “That’s what I read! No matter what kind of bear, you’re never ever supposed to run. So what did you do?”

    “I ran.”

    “You ran?”

    “yeah.”

    “But you’re not supposed to.”

    “No, you’re not supposed to. Everyone knows that.”

    Allison takes a big bite of her grilled tomato and gruyere cheese sandwich. I had ordered the same sandwich because some decisions in life are just that easy. But, at the moment I was too focused on her tale to think about all that oozing expensive cheese. Allison ran when she saw a bear?! I was fascinated, because deep down I knew that in the same situation, against all expert advice, I’d probably run too.

    “Didn’t you have bear spray?”

    “Yes, but I was downwind, I figured that it would just blow back in my face.”

    I imagined her stumbling around screaming and blinded as a bear reared up to attack.

    “So, I ran,” explains Allison, “I wasn’t going to stick around.”

    Now in my middle-of-the-night exploration of bear videos which were endless (but, I found an edited compilation of them right here) I tried to remember the rules.

    [su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-GbLAEd1PY”]

    See my post “4 Tips On How To Avoid a Bear Attack.”

    “With a black bear you’re supposed to act small and timid, right?” I venture.

    “No, you do that when you encounter a brown bear.”

    Of all the things I keep getting wrong…

    “With a black bear you need to look intimidating, and so I put my arms up like this,” Allison sets down her sandwich and puts her arms up above her head and makes “jazz hands.” It was intimidating, in a Broadway musical kind of way.

    “But then I thought, this is stupid, and I turned and ran.”

    “Did the dogs try to protect you?”

    Allison laughs at this.

    “No I kept telling them to run and they thought it was just a fun game, they kept stopping in front of me.”

    I had been thinking of getting a dog to help alert me to bears, but clearly they don’t always do so. And, in fact, sometimes a dog can make a situation worse especially if they bark at a brown bear. Again, it all depends on the bear.

    “The bear chased me until I got to the trailhead, “Allison continues, “then it stopped and turned around. I was lucky.”

    She was lucky. Speaking of lucky, during my research I found a few other lucky people. I’m looking forward to our bear viewing trip out of Brooks Lodge next summer. I both want and at the same time definitely don’t want to see a bear this close.

    [su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZREdbw_Mu_4″]

  • 4 Tips On How To Avoid a Bear Attack

    4 Tips On How To Avoid a Bear Attack

    Prior to our move to Alaska one question started to keep me up at night. What if I created a blog called “Poking the Bear” only to be killed by a bear? That would be so embarrassing. Such a violent death is a hard enough without it being ironic too.

    The idea of bears and being ill prepared for Alaskan wildlife overall concerned me. I didn’t want to overthink it, but I didn’t want to under think it. My mind kept returning to Walter Herzog’s disturbing but fascinating documentary, “The Grissly Man.”

    [su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9zixLoY5cQ”]

    We were already under contract on a house outside the town of Soldotna on the Kenai Peninsula. The house was surrounded by forest and spectacular lake views according to its on-line photos; we bought it without seeing it in person because when it comes to huge purchases we are savvy like that.

    Turns out those photos weren’t a lie, the views from our house are amazing, this is the view heading out the front door this morning.

    Sunrise, view from the front door

    Given our new home’s more remote location we could cross paths with wildlife at any time, and I probably wasn’t going to don bear bells and a hip holster with bear spray every time I went to unload the groceries.

    So, I started finding myself up in the middle of the night searching Youtube on all things related to bear attacks, which is quite the rabbit hole as one might expect.

    Here is a short list of what I found out.

    #1 – DO NOT SURPRISE A BEAR

    Wear bear bells, talk loudly, and try to hike in groups. You never want to surprise a bear. It is mentioned in this particular video that if you do surprise a bear, “you should walk backwards slowly, but don’t trip.”

    DON’T trip? Might need to sharpie that piece of advice on my arm so I don’t forget.

    [su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftMLajDDkTM”]

    #2 – DON’T TURN AND RUN

    You can’t outrun a bear. Don’t try as you will just incite the bear’s predatory instincts.

    I have to admit, as someone who can almost run a mile in under three hours (not including a wine & cheese break) I’m relieved that “run” isn’t the answer. However, it did work for my friend Allison!

    See my post “My Friend Outran a Bear.”

    #3 – KNOW YOUR BEAR

    I only looked up the most common bears found in our area of the state. That would be the black bear and the brown bear, or grizzly.

    1. If it is a BLACK bear you make yourself look as big as in, “You don’t want to mess with this!” You try to be intimidating, you stand your ground, and you fight if he attacks.

    2. If it’s a BROWN bear you make yourself look small, as in “I’m a non-threatening meatless little thing, pay me no mind.” If a brown bear attacks, you cover your head and play dead which sounds, well that sounds impossible.

    https://www.themanual.com/outdoors/how-to-survive-a-bear-attack/

    #4 – ALWAYS CARRY BEAR SPRAY. OR A GUN.

    When it came to gathering information on bear attacks, I also did a bit of research off-line which felt sexy and rebellious. When we visited and just after we moved to Alaska I asked many locals their personal take on survival in bear country. The majority responded with absolute conviction that carrying a gun is the only valid protection.

    I had hoped tackling my fear of bears wasn’t dependent on tackling my fear of guns but I plan to go ahead and face both fears, with caution.

    Gameplan:

    1. Go on a bear viewing tour in Katmai National Park. I already have a cabin booked at the famous Brooks Lodge for such a thing next summer.

    2. Learn how to shoot a gun. The plan is for the kids to take the course as well.

    On the second point, I figure if we are moving to an area of the country where the majority of homeowners are also gun owners, my kids should at least know to treat and handle a gun. How as their mother I can go from encouraging them to join the March for Our Lives holding homemade signs that challenge the NRA to forcing them onto a shooting range is something I’ll have to reconcile later. But not now. Now I’m going to curl up in fetal position and nap.

  • Fooled by a Dummy

    Fooled by a Dummy

     

    How I was outsmarted by a dummy:

     

    In the bestseller “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/organizing-tips/a25908482/marie-kondo-book-life-changing-magic-of-tidying-up-tips/one of Marie Condo’s basic rules is to get rid of anything that does not spark joy. While my daughter took this to a whole new level whittling down her belongings to basically the clothes on her back, my son got rid of one broken Iron Man action figure and called it a day.

    And so, because I’m a mom who has chosen to buck the trend of at least trying to raise independent and self-sufficient kids, I packed up my son’s room. It was fairly easy going until I got to him. The puppet had been a birthday gift to my son from my in-laws a few years back, and he was a hit. I hadn’t seen my son play with him for a while though, and for sure the puppet’s tux and top hat were long gone.

    While I felt certain the stripped puppet no longer sparked joy, I also felt if discarded the puppet would find a way back and kill me in my sleep.

    In an attempt at a compromise, I put him in the box of stuff to donate. “I wish you well as I send you out into the world to make another kid happy,” I said, and there is a chance I said this out loud so he could hear. I then backed slowly out of the room.

    Well, what do you know. I was sure myself or my husband had set out all boxes for donation out on our driveway for pick-up back in Colorado. But, we are now in Alaska and curiously I opened this unmarked box and there he was at the top of the pile. 3,364 miles later. Ah, well played, sir.

    And on the opposite end of the spectrum, my daughter.

    When it comes to possessions my daughter makes Marie Condo author of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” look like a packrat.

    If we all have past lives, my guess is my daughter was a train hopping hobo during the Great Depression. One who could write something like, “An Expert’s Guide to Riding the Rails” if only a pen and paper didn’t take up so much space.

    Prior to our move to Alaska, the rest of us spent weeks sorting and filling bins and boxes. It took my daughter fifteen minutes to pack everything she wanted, and it all went in one backpack. One that met airline carry-on size restrictions.

    As anyone with a teen daughter can totally not relate to my daughter likes to shop but not buy. I will press a credit card into her palm, drop her off at the mall, and beg her to buy back-to-school clothes only to return hours later for pick and see her with zero bags in hand. She’d hop in the car and hand the credit card back to me explaining everything was either too expensive or nothing she wanted. Sometimes I think my daughter is an alien posing as an American teenaged girl, one that could have used a few more hours of cultural instruction before the big pod drop.

    Now you might be wondering about stuff that isn’t clothing? A couple of years earlier my daughter spent a day ridding her room of anything extraneous which appeared to be almost everything. Old photos and greeting cards, her stuffed animals and old dolls, a porcelain piggy bank from Tiffany’s (a baby gift from a good friend) and all her books including yearbooks.

    I was startled when I saw the yearbooks in the recycling bin.

    “Why would you get rid of your yearbooks?” I asked

    “I never look at them,” she answered.

    “Don’t you think one day you’ll want to look at them, just to remember middle school?”

    “No,” she answered, looking at me like I just asked the stupidest question ever. And maybe it was.

    While my husband admired and cheered on her ruthlessness I could help but feel a little sad. The cold and swift removal of so many icons from her childhood was something that was hard for me as her mother to not take a little personally. So in the aftermath I admit, I went to our curbside trash bin in order to rescue a few things. The piggy bank, photos that were still pinned to a pink sequined framed bulletin board, and one lime green, big eyed-stuffed dinosaur. It was a stuffed animal that still “brought joy” to me at least, because it had been the very first toy I bought for my baby on the day I had an ultrasound and learned I would be having a human girl.

    End note:

    Perhaps I should be thankful for the stowaway. Two weeks into our move to Soldatna, AK and my son’s puppet is still his only friend.

    Puppet
    Do you promise we will be very best friends forever?
    Yes. Do you?
    Yes.
  • Seward in the Off Season

    Seward in the Off Season

    How long should one stare at a Puffin?

    It’s a question we all ask ourselves. Personally all the Puffin time I need is two minutes. For my husband it is at least an hour, so in Seward he was in Puffin heaven.

    Seward Harbor

    It was the first weekend in October and we were in Seward for my daughter’s high school swim meet at Seward High. The school is surrounded by such spectacular mountain peaks that for a moment I decided there was no way the students there could ever stop noticing them. But I know that’s wrong, of course they have stopped noticing. They’re teenagers. I actually felt the need to take a photo of the school’s football field. When my son asked me what I was doing, I said “can you imagine seeing a football game here with those mountains as the back drop?” He looked at the field confused, then responded, “mom you’re so weird. Can we go now?”

    Seward High School football
    Seward High School’s football field, surrounded by stunning mountain peaks.

    Since we had never been to Seward, we decided to stay overnight and do a little sightseeing. Seward is located on Resurrection Bay and is known as the “Gateway to the Kenai Fjords.” There are multiple adventure outfitters running kayak tours and fishing charters out in the summer but we had missed the season by a few weeks. Most of the recreation businesses and the adjacent restaurants were located in the harbor area and had already shut down for the season. My husband loves the quiet, locals only feel of any place in the off season. I do too, but this time I had a feeling like we had arrived too late to a party where the only people left are a couple making out and one guy passed out on the couch with a loose hold on a soggy box of crackers. Oh great, now the couple is grabbing their jackets and heading out.

    Making a note to come back next summer to do the Kayak tour. If kayaking in Kenai Fjords National Park is anything like kayaking in Antarctica, the kids need to experience it. And yes, Antarctica, here is my sister in front of me, you can’t hear it in this mini video, but in the distance we’d hear glaciers collapsing (see end of this post about Obama visiting Seward to review the effects global warming)

    On this October weekend what was still open was the Alaska Sealife Center.

    The Sealife Center is located by Resurrection bay, and inside there is, well, sea life. I assume we all know what a seal looks like which is good because I wasn’t able to get a good photo of one. My sister (in video above) is an amazing professional photographer check out marlarutherford.com, she has shown me the camera settings one needs to get a clear action shot, but despite this all my seal shots were blurry.

    Left: I was able to get a great clear photo of this Tiger Rockfish though!

    The Seward Sealife Center isn’t exactly the Atlanta Aquarium, but then Seward isn’t Atlanta. So there’s that. It’s pretty small, and each ticket was $30. I knew my husband Mark was going to struggle to make this one cost effective. When it comes to the price of admissions for any aquarium or museum my husband determines the return on investment based on duration of visit. Me, I’m happy to pop in and out and maybe learn a few things on the way before hitting the gift shop. The Sealife Center gift shop is quite nice.

    To draw out the time, Mark read and re-read every plaque in the center, and quizzed Tatum and Anders on the two different types of Puffins (answer: tufted and horned) and various fish species until they started to hide from him. I knew it was time to ditch my family when Tatum came running to me to announce, “dad is being inappropriate in the touch tank!” Of course he is. I looked over to see Mark was cracking himself up/embarrassing our son by loudly “oohing and ahhing” as he fondled an anemone.

    Did you know Seward is the “Mural Capital of Alaska?” You did? Oh. I didn’t.

    I snuck out of the Center and wandered Seward’s cute downtown. That’s when I noticed all the murals. My favorite is this one downtown by Byron Birdsall.

    Seward Mural Capital Walk

    A 360 View

    My second favorite mural is one of two puffins (left: tufted, right: horned) on the side of our hotel in the harbor. Hotel 360 is the perfect hotel to stay at. If you want a water/glacier view, make sure to request one. Early this morning I opened our blackout curtains to see this sunrise.
    Doesn’t matter the season, Seward is always stunning.

    Seward harbor view
    View of Seward Harbor from Harbor 360 Hotel

    I miss the Obamas

    There is a confections shop called Sweet Dreams in Seward and in the two days we were there we visited it twice. If we had been there a day more it would have been thrice. There is a photo in the shop taken when Obama came to visit Seward in 2015. When I spotted it I felt nostalgic.

    Obama was there to climb and view Exit Glacier and see firsthand how the effects of global warming. It has been dramatic. When it comes to the glaciers in the area, what we are seeing today is just a little ice peeking out compared to the mass it once was. It’s unnerving.

    Still feeling the Obamas, on the ride back to Soldatna we listened to Michelle Obama on the podcast, “Conan Needs a Friend.” Every once in a while we find an episode on a show that the whole family loves listening to. This one was both funny and inspirational, making me feel like a good mom for exactly 56 minutes.

  • The Art of Seduction

    The Art of Seduction

    For sale: Rare! One of a kind sexy portrait of me. 1989. Artist unknown. 

    While packing up the garage, I came across this old portrait of myself. As I stared into my eyes I asked the me who was smirking back, “do you spark joy?” Keep only what does is one of the main rules in Marie Condo’s book https://www.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing-ebook/dp/B00KK0PICK but this was a tough one.

    It was 1989 and I had just returned from visiting my brother in the peace corps in Mauritania, Africa. During my days with my brother’s host tribe, I spent less time learning about the irrigation system he was building and more time consumed by fever, dysentery, and severe dehydration. I just remember being curled up in fetal position in the lap of a medicine woman who occasionally spat on me to cool me down. But, this is a whole other story.

    When I returned home my mom, who is always one to “strike while the iron is hot,” raced to find a photographer to shoot my portrait while I was still 10lbs down. Then I’m guessing she raced to the set of “Dynasty” to find this impressively shoulder padded and beaded dress. I was reluctant to participate but my mom insisted I do it for her “after all the things she has done for me” – like laundry, and all my take home math tests (still mad at her for only getting us a B- in Geometry) The other half of her argument was that I should want to photograph myself now because, as she assured me over and over, I will never ever be so skinny again.

    And so I squeezed into that dress (“See Xenia, you have only been home a week and already this is fitting tighter”) and I sat for a make-up artist who made sure I looked 40-years-older, and then we met up with the photographer. Unfortunately, I do not have his name to give credit where it is due. I am sure, however, that my mom had hired only the best out of all the Denver area middle-aged male photographers who take photos of young girls in the basement of their hard-of-hearing mother’s home.

    For months afterwards, I didn’t see any results from the shoot. I went off to college and forgot all about it. And so, I was taken off guard when I returned for winter break and there “she” was in all her glory, hanging above my parents dining room table. “She” being me, perched effortlessly on a velvet love seat in the foyer of the town’s best brothel. Sized at 18×20 inches without the frame, my portrait had soundly replaced a collection of Dutch inspired collectible plates as if they had never existed on QVC.

    My parents lived and still live in a modest split level home in Boulder. The ceiling isn’t high so it took up most of the wall space, really you couldn’t not look at it. For many years “she” taunted unsuspecting dinner guests; every time one reached for the salad bowl, or passed the salt, or simply looked up to answer a question, there “she” was daring you to blink first while smiling that mysterious Mona Lisa smile.

    About a decade ago I hijacked the portrait from my mom’s house while she was repainting the dining room as I figured it had had its time to shine. Now, here it was again after years of facing a wall in our garage. I was left with a tough decision on what to do given our move to Alaska. I mean, it didn’t spark joy and so I wasn’t going to pay to move it to Alaska, but I couldn’t just toss it out either. Even Marie Condo could agree there are exceptions to the rule, right?

    I came to a decision. Store it for now, but eventually when I find time I will place it for auction with Sotheby’s. I wonder, should I offer it up as a pre-auction opportunity before it goes public? Hmm no, I don’t want to incite any fights among friends or family. I’ll figure it all out later, for now “Contact Sotheby’s” is yet one more item on my long to-do list.

  • Is Death a Bad Omen?

    Is Death a Bad Omen?

    Signs are everywhere. Signs that can be interpreted as good or bad, depending on who is doing the interpreting.

    As we move through our daily routines we don’t often notice signs. Within our comfort zones we are just less likely to look for them. But, when we are feeling vulnerable we become hypersensitive and aware. At these times signs suddenly appear out of the woodwork, or in this case, out of the woods.

    It was day one of our new life on the last frontier. It had been a long journey to up and move here from “the lower 48” not just in terms of distance, but financially. For example, a smallish box filled with half used but still good bottles of conditioner, body lotion, and gentle exfoliating face scrub to help brighten a dull complexion costs over $50 to ship. That’s almost enough to accept a spouse’s suggestion that those items should be tossed or given away. Almost.

    It was a long journey emotionally as well. There were the countless sleepless nights. There were even more numerous rants from my daughter about how we were going to “ruin her childhood.” There were all the “maybe we shouldn’t move” gatherings with friends. And there were the bittersweet dinners with my parents and my husband’s parents where they showed up looking old, and then continued to age at an accelerated speed throughout the evening.

    Whatever the obstacles, we decided to come anyway. We had made the trip, and we were just unloading our car in Soldotna, our new home on the Kenai peninsula. We were finally here, but nothing was settled. I was desperate for signs that we had made the right decision.

    Because I embrace all that is cliché I rented a classic “Alaskan-style” cabin for our first month in Alaska. Just as the photos promised, the cabin was charming, clean, and had stunning lake views. This was definitely a good sign. And, bonus good sign, the owner left us a canoe to use. I shoved my husband Mark, and my daughter Tatum, towards it and got ready to take a thousand and one post-worthy pics.

    Moments later, I was getting what I wanted. The jagged snowcapped mountain peaks in the distance. The mirror like surface of a lake surrounded by trees that doubled in height standing on the shoulders of their own reflections. Sunshine and blue skies, and occasionally, one of those cute little floater planes crossing overhead. And there was my husband and daughter bonding (as in my wildest dreams) as together they steered the canoe. I mean, come on, when it comes to living “the Alaskan dream” it couldn’t get any better than this. Or could it?

    Cue the moose.

    From the corner of my eye I spot him stepping out into the sunlight from the shadows of the forest. A moose sighting on day one! And the moose was headed our way to give us closer look! Good signs galore.

    Foaming at the mouth, I darted around trying to get a shot of my family in the canoe in the same frame as the moose who was now walking along the water, his long thin legs looking too delicate to carry the rest of him. And, indeed his legs did seem a little wobbly.

    I thought the moose would walk past at a safe distance, but instead he stopped right in front of our dock, just under the deck to our cabin. It was prime viewing from my spot as well as from the canoe. The three of us watched him standing there.

    “I’m ready to get out,” says Tatum.

    “We need to wait until he’s gone,” Mark tells her, “moose can be aggressive.”

    “But I want to get out now.”

    “That moose could kill you!” responds Mark in his classic 0 to 60 style, “do you want to die!?”

    Tatum starts paddling forward, Mark starts paddling backwards.

    “Stop it!” She whines

    “No, you stop it!”

    “He’ll move on in a second,” I assure everyone.

    The moose sits down.

    He starts to nibble on the leaves of a nearby bush, but it seems to me to be more out of habit than hunger. He stops nibbling, and sits there breathing very heavily. I have never seen a moose this close, but there is something wrong with this one. He seems to be struggling to hold his head up.

    After a moment he lays the rest of his body down, his head flat against the grass and face looking up towards me. I would say he is looking directly at me but his pupils have engulfed the white of his eyes. Hard to know what he is focused on, if anything. He snorts in despair.

    Crap, I think this moose is dying.

    Seeing it too, my husband and daughter have called a paddle truce and are now sitting quietly in a slow spin.

    “I don’t think you have to worry about the moose,” I tell Mark, “you can come in.”

    “What’s wrong with him mom?”

    I text the owner of the cabin who happens to be in fire and rescue, “I think there is a moose dying next to the cabin.” He suggests that the moose is probably just resting. I text him a photo. He tells me he will be right over.

    “Did someone shoot him?!” Tatum asks. She is against anyone owning much less using a gun, and that includes hunters. Post-Parkland shooting she was active in the “Never Again” movement, participating in her school walk out. She went to a rally in Denver, marching with her homemade sign that read, “Help, we are hostages of the NRA!” I expect that her views of gun ownership will help to shape the ongoing debate concerning all the injustices recently heaped upon her. Not only has she been forced to switch schools in her sophomore year, she has been forced to move to a particularly gun-friendly state.

    “I don’t think he was shot,” I quickly say, “maybe he’s sick.”

    “Plus moose hunting season hasn’t started yet,” Mark says, “And, it is illegal to shoot such a young moose, look at his antlers, the antlers need to at least have three prongs on each end.”

    I’ve stopped asking myself how my husband knows anything he knows.

    The canoe is now docked and Mark and Tatum walk past the moose who doesn’t even lift his head. Tatum stops and stares at him sadly. She knows.

    “Come on Tatum,” Mark says, “let’s go to the grocery store.”

    Tatum doesn’t move.

    “You can get Cheez-its.”

    The word “Cheez-its” turns out to be the word that cracks her frozen horror. “Okay,” she says and escapes up the stairs.

    “Who knows how long he was walking, probably got hit by a car,” I suggest.

    “Maybe,” Mark says, “but if it’s not that and he’s sick, no one should eat the meat.”

    (Note: there is actually a call list one can sign up for to get free moose road kill meat https://pokingthebear.org/the-roadkill-list/)

    I waited on the deck for the homeowner. The moose didn’t have long, his breaths were much more shallow now. Ugh.

    I suspect most would say seeing death on your first day in a new home is a bad omen, but I couldn’t afford to agree. Not for myself, and not for my daughter who was going to come back with all kinds of new reasons as to why we should go back to Boulder. I needed to turn this around somehow. If this couldn’t be manipulated into a good sign I was at least going to make it into a meaningful sign, and meaningful is better than good anyway. Right? Right.

    So, let’s break it down. Given my vulnerable state, why did the universe send me such beautiful creature only for it to die at my feet? What was the take away supposed to be? I looked into the moose’s huge black eyes for answers but all I got back was a vibe that read, “Um, this isn’t about you.” Which wasn’t helpful at all.

    Then it came to me! It was a lesson I learned years ago when I was dealt a bad card, literally. I was 14-years-old and accompanying my dad on his business trip to New Orleans. Not able to partake in any of the adult fun, I wandered the streets looking for something to do. I turned down one alley and saw a sign that read, “Tarot Reader.” I was intrigued. Soon I was sitting at a kitchen table across from a woman who surprised me by looking less like a Big Easy mystic and more like a suburban soccer mom. Belted jeans and I think a tucked-in polo shirt. Anyway, we were in the middle of what was a fantastic reading: it turns out I would be rich and famous and find great love! But then, I was dealt the Death card.

    Flipping over a tarot card and seeing the word DEATH below the image of a skeleton is unnerving even if you don’t believe in any of it, but soccer mom was quick to comfort me. She explained the card wasn’t necessarily bad, it just meant that there will be transition. Death marks the end of one chapter, and the beginning of another. Death can be very good, in fact. I remember her telling me something like how I was about to embark on an amazing adventure. In any case, I walked away feeling that my $30, a lot of money for a teenager in the 80s, had been very well spent. That soccer mom was good.

    The eyes of the moose were becoming duller, his breathing very shallow. I didn’t know if it was more inappropriate to stay or leave, neither felt right. I decided no creature deserves to go out on the image of my exhausted and bloated-from-air travel face. So, I said a little prayer, then retreated back across the deck far enough to where I could only see his hind legs. After about thirty seconds, one leg suddenly kicked out and then kicked again. Then all was still. It was the end for him and a transition for both of us.

    If interested in knowing how the moose died, check out “What Happens to Hunters Who Break the Law?

    Also, unfortunately it was decided that the moose was inedible. https://pokingthebear.org/the-roadkill-list/