A couple of years ago, I was at the hair salon explaining to my 20-something-year-old stylist why we were moving from Colorado all the way to Alaska. It was a question I got a lot, and I gave her my usual, rehearsed answer.
“We think Alaska will be an adventure,” I said, “it’s just a mid-life crisis thing.”
Usually people smiled at this, and seemed to understand, so the fact that she looked confused had me confused. Didn’t she think Alaska sounded like an adventure?
Turns out, that wasn’t it.
“But…” she said as she slathered more hair color onto my roots, “aren’t you a little past the mid-life crisis point?”
Life Past the Mid-Life Crisis Point:
We spent this past spring break in Florida at the beach, and in Orlando. And during the week I thought about the concept of “age” a lot. Like, paranoid-ly, a lot.
For example, at 4:50 a.m one morning, I found myself sitting in the patch of grass that separated the two rows of rooms at our Cocoa Beach “resort.” Really, it’s a motel, and I love that it’s a motel. I stared up into the sky, waiting to see a rocket. It was due to launch at any minute.
I found out about this NASA launch the same way I get most of my practical information and life advice, and that’s from talking with store cashiers.
“Are you going to watch the rocket launch tomorrow?” this cashier had asked me as she rang up the food we planned to grill for dinner. I told her I didn’t know anything about it, and asked how I could see it. It suddenly hit me that “seeing a rocket take off” was not on my bucket list, and it should be.
“It’s at 5 a.m” she said, “and you just go outside and look up.”
No rocket, but I do see a face with a full head of hair and arms out wide, or maybe a face with a shark tail?
Five a.m. came and went, and a few minutes later I saw a man approaching from the beach. As he stepped into the light I recognized him, the young guy in room one. I saw him and his girlfriend the night before, also grilling dinner. I guessed they were in their early twenties, and watching them reminded me of how fun it was to hit motels like this one on a road trip with a college boyfriend years ago.
“Excuse me,” I said approaching him, “any chance you saw a rocket recently.”
He had. He tells me that the rocket launched thirty minutes early because the weather was right, and that I needed to follow the Kennedy Space Center web site for the up to the minute schedule changes.
I continued asking questions about the best beaches to surf (learning to surf is part of my too-late-for-a-mid-life-crisis plan) and where they had traveled from, and where they were going, and then I realized something. The guy looked less like someone interested in talking to me, and more like someone being held captive.
Oh no, have I turned into that chatty “old person” who corners the young? I could now see it from his point of view – just a few steps from his room door and the freedom inside. But, he can’t be rude to this older woman in a kimono robe who won’t stop asking him questions, and who keeps going off on the most random tangents.
By the way, the kimono robe is silk and perfect for travel because it’s super light weight, and it can easily be rolled into a ball the size of an orange and then stuffed into the corner of a suitcase which is otherwise wasted space!
A Few Things That Make You Realize Your Age:
I think I’ve been hyper-aware of aging recently for several reasons.
One: birthdays (obviously)
My birthday is always just a few weeks after spring break. And this one is a milestone one. I won’t say what year, but the average woman’s life expectancy in the U.S is age 76, so going by that, yeah, this birthday puts me well past mid-life.
Two: Moving your parents out of your childhood home
We moved my parents into senior living just a month ago. After over forty years in the same house, 40 years climbing up and down the same set of stairs without a second thought, and it seems overnight those stairs transformed into a dangerous obstacle course. So, after a few 911 ambulance visits, which is a few too many, my siblings and I moved my parents into the first nice and available room at a senior living center. The fact that their balcony just overlooked a store parking lot wasn’t ideal, but…otherwise, it was comfortable and safe.
Sad to say goodbye to the house where my parents raised their family.
Three: Amusement Parks
There is something about amusement parks that definitely make you realize your age. I chose Universal and Disney in Orlando this trip because it’s fail-safe choice for a successful family vacation. And I want my soon to be applying to college daughter to remember how much fun our trips are, in hopes she will still want to travel with us.
And I think she will, we are as dorky and obnoxious as the Griswalds (again showing my age with that reference.)
Kids and my husband Mark passing time in line for the Tower of Terror.
At Disney World it was more about the nostalgia. But at Universal it was more about the rides and which ones wouldn’t make you feel dizzy the rest of the day. For the first time ever, I passed on a roller coaster, and I love roller coasters. But I didn’t like the incline on this one at Universal. Aside from the upside of smoothing out my wrinkles, it just looked like a headache. Not a position I’d want to be in if it got stuck.
But at Universal’s Volcano Bay Water Park, I hit every slide even the one that drops out from under your feet and shoots you straight down from the top of the volcano (if you look closely you will see the tube in the picture below). Also at the waterpark I discovered a benefit to my age – I didn’t care how I looked in my swimsuit. Our stuff stayed in a locker the whole day which meant I ran around for hours in a swimsuit without a towel or cover-up. And, I don’t remember the last time I sat down wearing just a swimsuit and wolfed down fries and a slice of pizza. This freedom rediscovered made me feel both old and young.
Although this doesn’t mean I’m going to actually post or take a photo of myself in a swimsuit. There are limits.
As we retrieved our phones later that day from the lockers, and rode the shuttle back to our hotel I noticed a series of texts I had missed as were were busy having fun.
“Are you safe?” one read, it was from a friend in Texas who I hadn’t talked to in awhile.
“Are you and the family okay?” read another one from a friend in California.
And on the scroll of texts went.
Oh no, I thought, and I checked the news. Another Colorado shooting, this time at the King Soopers in Boulder. The grocery store my parents balcony overlooks (they watched the handcuffed gunman being led out). The store my kids hang out during lunch, as their high school is just down the street (thankful it was spring break) and I couldn’t count the number of times I have been in that store over the years, these days usually wandering the aisles listening to a real estate or true crime podcast…I would have been totally unaware. Later when I saw the photos, names, and ages of the victims, recognizing one employee I chatted with multiple times as she had been there for years, it dawned on me that an age like 51 now just sounds as young as it always was.
I couldn’t help but think of the stores we visited regularly in Alaska. My guess is a shooter like this gunman (who did not take his own life, but surrendered) would be less likely to attempt this there. If only because half the shoppers are carrying firearms themselves. But, if it did happen, it would likely have turned into a full on shoot out, people not being positive who was who.
The memorial and just behind, my parent’s residence.
So, I’m actually writing this post on the morning of my milestone birthday. And my husband Mark just read it, and reminded me that his grandfather lived until he was 102. His grandpa was the only doctor for years in a small town in Michigan, and I attended his 100th birthday there. I remember seeing one man, using a walker, approaching Mark’s grandpa, “Remember me, Dr. Hammerberg?” the man asked, “you delivered me 76 years ago!” If 102 turns out to be my number, then I’m actually a couple years too young to have a mid-life crisis!
So as not to end on such a tragic, sad note with the shooting, I’m wrapping this post up with a video my son watched over and over to get psyched up for the roller coaster I passed on at Universal.
“It’s not at the restaurant,” my husband Mark says, starting to panic. He had used my cell to inquire about his own, which he thought he must have left at the restaurant where we had dinner an hour earlier.
“And you checked the couch?” I ask, because 9 times out of 10 it’s in the couch cushions.
“Yes! I looked everywhere!”
It was clear he had at least looked in every drawer of our house, as they were all still open.
Years ago I came up with a rule that I felt would keep our marriage intact. I told Mark I’d help him look for either his keys, wallet, or phone one thousand times throughout our lives together, and then no more. I thought the number was generous but he blew through it within the first month after the wedding.
“You have only 10 left,” I said to him back in 2002, “Are you sure you don’t want to spread them out over the next decade or so?”
“Can you help?!” Mark asks me now, “my patients could be trying to call me!”
This is where he always gets me. I grab my phone back from him.
“Did you check Find My Friends?” I ask.
Mark shakes his head “no.”
I open the app and there is Mark’s smiling face marking the location of his phone, and it is somewhere totally unexpected.
“Your phone is on the other side of Sterling Highway,” I say.
The other side of the highway from our neighborhood is mostly woods. There are some houses back there. You can’t see them from the main road, you just know they are there because you see the entrance to their driveways, marked by three or more “No trespassing” signs.
On the map we are given an exact address. Mark and I stare at it, confused.
“How could my phone be there?” He asks.
“I don’t know, did you visit your mistress today?” I ask.
“I don’t think so. Could someone have swiped my phone when we were at the restaurant?”
We had been seated at a high top table near the bathrooms, but no…this seems unlikely. Still, it was right there on my phone, Mark’s face on the map with an address.
“Let’s go,” Mark says grabbing the car keys.
“We’re going to just show up and accuse them of having your phone?”
“My patients could be trying to reach me!”
At this point I ask myself 2 questions.
One: Should I change out of my pajamas? My pajamas, by the way, happen to be hospital scrubs. I figure for Mark, after a long day working in scrubs and surrounded by people in scrubs there is no better sight for sore eyes than coming home to a wife who is also wearing scrubs.
I used to go out in public in these scrubs every once in awhile, like on a late night run to the grocery store. I figured people would just assume I had just gotten off my shift. Not only lazy but shameless of me, I know.
But I have stopped doing that. In these covid days, the sight of hospital scrubs in the grocery aisle have shoppers wheeling their carts around and scurrying away in the opposite direction or throwing themselves up against a wall of cereal to get away from me. Could be my imagination, but I don’t think so.
On this outing, however, I decide to stay in the scrubs. I figure it’ll lend legitimacy to our urgent mission to retrieve the phone.
Question Two: “Should we bring the gun?” I ask Mark.
These are words I never thought would come out of my mouth. Mark laughs at this, and I guess I am half joking. Which means I’m half not.
People who live in town, and people who live out of town:
“It’s the Wild West out there,” my in town friend says of those who live in the more remote areas of Alaska. One can and should assume every household has guns, and the further out you go, the looser the interpretation of law becomes.
My friend and I are taking our usual morning walk around her in-town neighborhood which I refer to as the trick or treat neighborhood. There are street lights, the houses are close together. There are a lot of families with young kids. And, it seems everyone knows everyone.
The “trick or treat” neighborhood. Mid-October, 8 a.m. The mornings are getting darker…
“Good morning Staci,” my friend waves at a woman across the street who is walking with a headlight. A man in a truck drives past and my friend waves at him too.
“That’s Mr. Sweeney,” she says.
“From the store?” I ask.
She nods. I’m referring to a hunting and fishing store nearby. It’s called Sweeneys.
There isn’t a person we pass that she doesn’t know. She says she feels safe in a neighborhood where everyone looks out for each other, noting if anything is amiss.
But, many people move to this state because they don’t want neighbors popping in, or keeping an eye on their home. They don’t want neighbors to even be able to see their home. 95% of the state is wilderness, so creating your own private world in the woods is easy to do.
But, we are now about to infiltrate someone’s private world in the hunt for Mark’s ever elusive phone.
“The Hunt” Act II:
“This is it, turn left,” I say looking at the map. And Mark does. We ignore the “No Trespassing” signs and head down a long gravel driveway, eventually we see house lights through the trees.
By the time we reach the house, the couple who lives there is already outside to intercept us.
I am a little relieved to see the house is a nice one, well cared for. The couple looks to be in their early 50s. You never know what your going to get when you head down a blind driveway, I was worried we’d end up in front of some meth lab structure because unfortunately, there are those in Alaska. It’s a problem. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/inside-alaska-meth-opioid-epidemic-701855/
As we step out of the truck, the husband calls out, “Can we help you?”
Mark and I stay next to our truck as Mark starts apologizing while simultaneously asking about his phone and how maybe someone in their house accidentally grabbed it from a restaurant, because our app says it is there.
I smile a lot and make interjections about how he’s a doctor and his patients need to be able to call him.
The two of them look at my scrub pants. I knew I made the right call wearing them.
“Well, my parents did go out to dinner, but they wouldn’t take your phone,” the wife says.
“Oh it’s an old phone nobody would take it on purpose but maybe we could ask..?” Mark suggests.
“They don’t have your phone,” she states, firmly.
There is a long tense moment of silence as we stare at each other. I look at Mark.
“Okay, well, thanks, sorry again for showing up like this,” Mark says, to my relief, “my wife actually joked before coming over that we should bring our gun for safety.” Mark laughs as if the idea of that is preposterous, but the husband and wife both nod. Makes sense to them.
“Nah, you’re good here,” the man says, relaxing, “but I wouldn’t go to our neighbors over here, or the ones behind us.”
He points in the two directions.
“Or the two properties over there,” the woman says pointing in the only directions that hadn’t been covered yet.
“And definitely don’t go to that big farm across Sterling,” the man says.
The couple suddenly becomes very animated as they tell us about their youngest son crashing his ATV (all terrain vehicle) on the farm, and the farm owner still won’t let them retrieve their ATV a year later. He said if they tried he would consider it trespassing.
“Can you imagine?” she asks, looking at me, “an 11-year-old boy is injured in a crash and he doesn’t even care. He made my son walk home!”
I shake my head, no, that I can’t imagine. And we all exchange exclamations of disbelief, and comments on how crazy people are. Now that we’ve moved past the question of whether or not there is going to be a shoot out, it’s starting to feel like we are leaving a friends house after a dinner party.
We chat a little longer and then it is friendly waves good-bye before we get back in the truck and drive up the long driveway. The wheels making their way across the gravel is the only sound as Mark stares silently ahead. He looks defeated.
I pull out my phone and look at the app again. Mark’s photo is no longer at the address we had just driven to. I can’t believe where the app is telling us the phone is now.
I Think I’m Turning into an Out of Town Person
I’ve always loved city life. Prior to kids I’d give up square footage for anything located next to the best restaurants. My studio in Beacon Hill, Boston was maybe 300 square feet, I could cook eggs from my bed as I started the shower.
After having kids, we have only lived in suburbia, in trick or treat neighborhoods. But since moving here and living in a house on the outskirts, I am not sure I can be an in-town person ever again. How can one go back from such privacy and 360 views?
The kids love 4-square but we have a gravel driveway, so we found this volleyball version of 4-square.
In our plan to eventually return to family and friends in Colorado, we are considering a move to a house in the mountains. Mark has always campaigned for it. It took a year living here for me to realize that I could get behind such a plan. (Unfortunately, I am a little late. Covid and low interest rates has made the real estate market in Colorado’s mountain towns explode.)
I would never live off the grid or some place so remote that there aren’t neighbors within walking distance. I like something in between, like what we have found here. As outsiders coming in, we might have been taken into the community fold in a quicker way if we had chosen to live in town. So, not only are we physically on the outskirts given where we decided to live, but we are on the outskirts socially as well. But then we have met people in Alaska who have felt they were never taken into the fold until at least 20 years of living here. But being surrounded by such beauty is worth it. Our two only and immediate neighbors on either side of us are amazing. And people do pop by on occasion. Most recently one of Mark’s patients came by to drop off a basket of veggies from his garden.
“You’re husband changed my life, I can finally garden again,” the man tells me, referring to his new knee.
What to make with all these veggies?Ratatouille!
“The Hunt” Act III:
“You won’t believe where it says your phone is now,” I tell Mark, as I look at the Find My Friends map.
“Where?” he asks, his hope restored.
“It says it’s at our house.”
“What?! Why did it give us this other address?”
“I don’t know!”
Only, I do know. It’s my frenemy Siri, getting back at me for swearing at her the other day. She could have been more cruel though, I decide. At least she sent us to the only people in that neck of the woods who didn’t come at us with shotguns.
End Scene:
Mark’s phone is found under a cushion on the couch.
Photo Credit for our family shot. We met Todd around midnight one night. We were all in a field outside Fairbanks hunting for the Northern Lights (but that’s another story). He offered to take photos of us the next day. I had no idea how lucky we were to have come across such a pro until I looked up his site. http://www.toddrafalovich.com
The Safeway cashier has stopped scanning my groceries. She stands staring just past my right shoulder at nothing. Her eyes are filled with tears.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
The cashier nods absently, but mostly she remains paralyzed by a memory that clearly weighs heavy on her.
“She saved my life,” she tells me again,”I’ll never forget how she saved my life.”
There was no one in line behind me, I figured I had some time to probe. Delicately, because if she started wailing it wouldn’t look good. For either of us.
“Which cat was it?” I ask softly, “Ms. Pebbles?”
She shakes her head no. No, it was not Ms. Pebbles.
“It was Trix,” she says, still staring off in the distance.
A few years back I made a huge, life changing decision. I decided I was going to be more “present” during everyday encounters with people. I was no longer just going to say, “hi” and “thank you.” I was actually going to stop listening to my podcast on how to be a better person, and be a better person. I was going to take off my mammoth stereo headphones (earbuds give me the willies and I don’t understand how I’m the only one on that, and also I’m too old to care about looking like a dork) I was going to make solid eye contact, and I was going to beat employees to the punch by asking them how their day was going first.
This decision was for sure an, “I’m turning into my dad” thing. But since moving to Alaska, it was also an “I have no friends to talk to” thing. So there’s that.
But the plan wasn’t to make anyone cry.
My daughter appears at the check out, out of breath. Visibly relieved to see she’s not too late, she throws down a box of Cheezits. Then she notices the distraught cashier.
Tatum looks at me as if to ask, “what happened?”
What did happen?
There are “cat people” and many of them happen to work behind the register at the grocery store. I know this because the sight of our cat food on the conveyor belt usually compels them to announce themselves.
When this cashier saw the cat food, she asked how many cats I had. I told her I had two. Given my new rules of engagement, I went on and said they were named Albert and Georgie, and they were getting used to their new home here in Alaska.
And then she said that she used to have two cats too, Ms. Pebbles and Trix, but that she had to give them up because her step-son is allergic. She said she gave them to a shelter and she has a feeling they didn’t find homes. I responded saying I was sure the shelter placed her cats into very nice homes. But she shook her head “no,” and explained again that she had to give them up even though one of them saved her life. And then she started to cry.
And now here we were. The two of us and now the three of us. And I really want to know, how had Trix saved this woman’s life?
Of course maybe it was an emotional kind of “save”, but my mind started scripting out what I hoped was the actual story. I had a vision of Trix saving this woman’s life by body blocking an attacking grissly bear.
It would be a lot like what this cat did to protect a kid from a dog (viewer discretion advised) only, in my version it needs to be bear.
I was about to ask the big question, but Tatum gives me a look. She senses I’m about to say something that might escalate the woman’s emotional state, and I know she is worried that somehow her Cheezits might not get scanned.
“What a good cat,” I say, simply.
“She was, she was a good cat,” the cashier agrees. She takes a deep breath and then returns to scanning the remainder of our items, including Tatum’s Cheezits. Tatum snatches her Cheezits the moment the box passes successfully across the scanner.
Then that was it. The cashier was back to her cheerful, professional manner as if nothing had happened. She handed me my receipt and let me know how much money I had saved.
“Why did you make that lady cry!?” Tatum asks me in the parking lot.
“I didn’t make her cry,” I say, as I enter the names Mrs. Pebbles and Trix into my phone.
“What are you doing now?!”
“I’m putting in the cat names so I don’t forget.”
“Why?! Mom, oh my gosh! You’re so weird!”
I wondered how Trix was spelled. My first instinct that it was spelled like the cereal, instead of like magic tricks. But was that because I heard the name in a grocery store? Ever since I decided to blog I have been making notes. I wasn’t exactly sure why I was making one now though. It might have something to do with the idea that with our new move, we might also want a new pet, and for the first time, a pet that isn’t a feline.
Should We Get a Dog?
I guess I was just excited by the idea of a hero cat, because there are so many stories about hero dogs. I never grew up with dogs, we have always been a cat family. So, I’m a little defensive about cats.
That being said, for the first time in my life, I’m considering adopting a dog. A hero dog preferably. Everyone here seems to have a dog. Along with trucks, RVs, and guns, dogs appear to be a key part of the last frontier lifestyle.
And if We Get a Dog, What Breed?
A Few Good Suggestions:
1: Australian Shepherds
“Get an Australian Shepard!” yells Todd, one of my husband Mark’s ex-coworkers.
This is after I had yelled at him a list of reasons why we might need a dog in Alaska. At the top of that list, of course, was that dogs could help protect us from bears. By this time, just two weeks out from our move, I had already seen all those videos of dogs chasing off bears (I ignored the one where a dog just made things worse.)
“They’re great dogs!” Todd is turned towards me, but his eyes are fixed on Mark who is a third of the way through the French Canadien National Anthem.
We are at a “going away” work party for Mark which is being held in the back room of a small Denver Sushi restaurant. It is a room designated for karaoke. So far it has pretty much been a one man show. Mark blew through all the Willie Nelson and John Denver songs and is now off playbook singing (acapella) the French Canadien National Anthem.
“Ton histoire est une épopée! Des plus brillants exploits!” Mark belts, then pauses to speak into the microphone, “feel free to join in everyone.”
Todd somehow manages to tear his eyes from the spectacle in order to pull out his phone and show me photos of his Australian Shepherd.
“He’s so cute!” I yell. I like that he’s not too big, but he’s not so small as to be eagle bait. Chiwawas are not the dog to have in Alaska.
Todd shouts out a bunch of reasons why Australian Shepherds is the perfect dog. And after another shot of sake, I’m 100% convinced that’s the dog we will get. I feel so relieved to have finally decided.
“Protégera nos foyers et nos droits!”
But, as Mark brings home the final verse of the anthem with his trademark flourish I worry about the part about Australian Shepards being high energy, task oriented, and needing a lot of attention.
Cats don’t need that kind of of attention. Cats are easy.
2: Sled Dogs
“How about a husky,”” Mark suggests, “or an Alaskan Malamut?”
We were in Willow, Alaska for an afternoon of dog sledding. Willow is the official starting location for the Iditarod each year, and at this dog sledding lodge, these dogs were retired from the great race, but still begging to run.
Tatum doesn’t know much about dogs, but she was sure dog sledding was “mean,” and she started off the day as a reluctant participant.
I asked her afterwards whether she thought dogs were happy or not, and she agreed that these dogs looked very happy. They certainly looked ecstactic to be pulling our sled. Whenever we stopped they’d bark their heads off demanding to know why.
As with any treatment of pets though, it just comes down to the owner.
Tatum is in the sled in front of me, her dad is the musher (dogsled driver)
Tangent Time: The Iditarod 2020
If you don’t know (because you didn’t watch the Disney movie “Balto”) the Iditarod commemorates the”Great Race of Mercy.” In 1925 there was the diphtheria epidemic and when pilots couldn’t make it to the remote, snowed in town of Nome due to a blizzard, a dog team was sent with the serum. Against the odds, they made it.
Known as “The Last Great Race on Earth” the Iditarod an is important tradition here, and that’s why they are making changes in the wake of controversy to keep the dogs safe for example vets travel with the teams, and dogs are able to be subbed out (which wasn’t originally the case.)
It’s not like the Broncos are playing down the street, dog sledding is one of the only sports around. And this year, it was pretty much one of the only sports still happening in the world as everything started to shut down due to Covid-19.
We were at the Iditarod’s ceremonial start in Anchorage on March 7th. The finish line in Nome didn’t have anywhere near this crowd just days later as the state starting shutting down with the rest of the country. A few towns on the trail didn’t allow the mushers to even pass through as they have traditionally in the previous 47 years.
Iditarod 2020 start. Nine days, 10 hours, and 37 minutes later, only a handful of people were there to cheer for the winner, a Norwegian team.
My final thought on getting one of these dogs – while sled dogs are fun and tough enough to scare off a bear, I don’t know. I worry that moving to Alaska, starting a blog about the state, and then adopting an Alaskan Husky or and Alaskan Malamut might come across as being too “on theme.”
Also, like the Australian Shepard, I suspect these dogs might be too much for me to handle. Any dog that can run the Iditarod is likely to be unimpressed with an owner who whines about speed walking a block.
3: Corgis
“I love Corgis” gushes the man in the MAGA hat sitting at our kitchen island. I see another glimpse of the pistol that’s strapped to his belt as he reaches in his back pocket for his phone. He then shows us a video of his corgi barking at a squirrel he managed to trap in a cage.
The man is Henry, and we just met him on our door step 3 hours ago. He showed up at our door with 1/4 pound of moose meat from a previous year kill. I put the moose meat in the freezer as Mark invited him to sit down for coffee.
As I brewed a pot, it occurred to me that I have been too harsh of a judge on people who innocently welcomed into their home strangers, only to end up dead.
I pull out Mark’s favorite mug simply because it is the biggest mug, but I pause when choosing a mug for our unexpected guest. Maybe I should give him one of the disposable to-go cups instead? That might seem rude. Instead I select a mug we bought at the gift shop in Mesa Verde’s national park. It is the smallest mug we own.
Three hours and multiple Mesa Verde cups of coffee later, Henry is now telling us about his Corgi. By then I had decided to “lean in” to his visit, however long it might be, and I was appreciating it. It was just very interesting. At the very start of his visit, as if to address the elephant in the room (MAGA hat) Henry brought up all that is great about Trump, as we quietly listened. I have a brand new rule: Don’t discuss politics with anyone who is armed.
So we moved on to trips around Alaska, and guns, and finally, dogs. Which is ironic, because this whole meeting came about with a discussion on cats.
Possibly in retaliation of this ongoing deciding-if-we-want-a-dog process, we have doubled down on being cat people. My friend helps at an animal rescue shelter and I offered to foster a litter. So now, we have Albert and Georgie, and five foster kittens.
Albert isn’t too sure about these foster kittens, and looks like the feeling is mutual.
Henry’s wife had come by earlier that day to look at our kittens, and she selected one. Then we got to discussing Mark’s bbq prowess but that he had never bbqued with moose meat and she went and told her husband, and he came over with the moose meat. Sweet.
When I held up the kitten she wanted, Henry shook his head. “We can’t have a cat. We are living in our RV until we get back to our dry cabin, it’s just not practical.”
I knew his wife was from California, and she chose to move to freezing/bordering on the Arctic Northern Alaska to live in a dry cabin (which is a home that doesn’t have any plumbing much less a computerized system that notifies your plumber with issues) after she met Henry on-line.
Really, that is a true “poking the bear” move and she’s the one who should be writing this blog.
One last Cashier with a Cat Story:
I was at the area’s one Walmart buying double the cat food now that we added a litter of kitties. Times have changed since my last cat convo with a store cashier.
This cashier is wearing a mask, and there is a plexiglass-glass partition separating us. I was just starting to wonder if there would ever be a day post-Coronavirus when I would be invited to engage in banter about cats when….
Seeing the litter and cat food, the cashier looked up and asked me, “do you want to hear a funny story about cats?”
“Yes!” I shouted.
The cashier went on to tell me how she was in the shower one day, listening to the radio, when a commercial for cat food came on. In the radio commercial there was a cat meowing. As the commercial ended, the cashier still heard meowing. Confused, she got out of the shower, and found her neighbor’s cat running around her apartment. The cat had come through her bathroom window looking for the cat that was meowing on the radio.
I laughed much louder than intended. But what I was trying to say with that laugh was, “that’s right sister, we’re not going to let masks or this plexiglass divide divide us by preventing us from chatting about cats!”
The mask I happened to be wearing was one of my son’s ski masks, although he never wore it, and I like that it is light t-shirt material. I still wear it sometimes as I keep losing the other masks. If I looked a little scary laughing in this mask, the cashier didn’t let on.
And speaking of cashiers, I thought of the one who worried that the animal shelter didn’t find Ms Pebbles and Trix homes (and hopefully they did) because two of our five foster cats were just adopted. To very nice homes, I think.
And it’s not hard to see why these kittens went fast.
Look at these faces. I’ll bet they could even turn dog people into cat people.
The other evening my husband Mark and I were on a peaceful stroll when we came across this we shoot to kill sign. A not so subtle warning to trespassers.
I had just been thinking our walk was similar to our post-dinner walks in Boulder, where we came from. Mountain views, similar style homes and buildings, the smell of pine…but you wouldn’t see a sign like this in Boulder.
And if you did (but you wouldn’t, but if you did, only you wouldn’t) the sign probably wouldn’t be posted outside the doors of a Health and Wellness Center.
My guess is this clinic is “by appointment only.”
“That’s ironic,” Mark says.
For sure such a sign encourages you to ask questions. Like…
“Are we trespassing?” I ask Mark.
“No, this is a public thoroughfare,” Mark responds, looking around.
I look around too. I had been too busy yapping to notice before, but it was looking and certainly feeling like we were on a private compound. There was this health center flanked by multiple lodge style sleeping cabins. At the moment all of them were dark and it was very quiet, but I couldn’t say for sure that no one was inside. There were several trucks parked outside the cabins. I listened for the cock of a rifle.
“At least I think this is a public thouroughfare, “Mark says.
“Psst…dude, you might want to be sure,” the silhouette poster man says in a low whisper, “Oh, and also, nobody uses the word “thoroughfare” anymore because it’s dumb.”
4 Classic Alaskan Accommodations
1: The Adventure Lodge
We had purposely wandered this way to check out what the accommodations were like at this lodge. We wanted to view options in case we had an overflow of guests at any given time. Our house only has three bedrooms, and a closet sized room I managed to squeeze a full mattress into.
Like many of the “adventure lodges” in the state, this one is geared to groups wanting to hunt or fish. Or see bears. There are guides and private planes to fly you to the best spots here on the Kenai Peninsula (also known as “Alaska’s Playground). The lodge is on a lake, and the decor is very practical and efficient with multiple beds in each room so you can fit everyone in.
Earlier I had seen on-line that as part of your vacation you can experience Cenegenics, which had sounded kind of random and I skimmed over it. Now seeing the building I was more curious about what Cenegenics was.
I looked it up. My quick takeaway, Cenegenics is a hormone optimization program designed to:
Reverse your biological age (I want that)
Protect you from age related decline (I want that too)
One middle-aged male endorser of the program says, “I feel like I’m a 21 year-old boy!”
Not bad. No wonder people are willing to risk a round of bullets in order to get in.
I wonder though, how many hunters are seeking a vacation package where they can shoot a bear and at the same time rebalance their hormones? Seems like a pretty niche market.
I also wonder how many people with a license to carry firearms are even willing to admit to an “imbalance” of any kind?
But, who knows, hunters more than anyone are forced to face the concept of mortality, and maybe that’s enough to motivate them to seek out ways to delay their own.
In any case, with or without the Cenegenics program add-on, this place looks like the perfect Alaskan adventure.
I like their highlight reel.
2. Cruises
Covid-19 restrictions will of course hurt the tourism industry here this year, especially cruise ships and the ports they visit (mostly the cute town’s in “The Inside Passage” of Alaska) The big cruiselines are hoping to start up in July. There are small ship cruises that plain to be operating again sooner, like Uncruise out of Seattle, and I need to mention Linbald Expeditions given I went with them to Antartica, my post on that https://pokingthebear.org/aboard-the-national-geographic-explorer-in-antarctica/
The 3-4 hour day cruises, however, are already running. We just did an afternoon cruise in Seward. Only one family per boat (there are bigger day cruise ships that fit 100 but are now only taking 50 people for social distance) I liked the small boat option, many times you’d look over to see porpoises right there swimming alongside you at the appropriate distance of 6-ft.
Heading out of Resurrection Bay, Seward
3.The RV/Camper
When it comes to traveling during an era of social distancing Alaska has several things going for it: wide open spaces, tons of individual family cabins for rent, and RV camp sites with views you’d pay a fortune for anywhere else. Every time I see another RV on the road, and I’m starting to see a lot, I have to admit RV road-tripping is a genius way to vacation right now.
Basically you’re sheltering in place while on the move.
And when I vacation, I like to be on the move. I feel it makes the vacation feel longer because the days don’t blend together. If we have one week, I like to switch locations at least once during that time.
Another thing that has happened since we have been here is Mark has become an avid birder. Yep. He is regularly armed with the bird book I bought him for his birthday and the binoculars I borrowed from my brother for that Antartica trip, and never returned. He has become an overnight expert on birds, making me jump every time by shouting out a bird name (and then humbly looking through the bird book to be sure he was right.)
Drawn to our birdseed wreath it’s a Stellar’s Jay!!Called it right.
Imagine all the birds he could spot if we roamed the country in an RV?
But, also, I now have this fantasy of an RV doubling as a guest house in our driveway.
I would say Airstream, but such coolness comes with a price tag. Apparently there is an airstream club that comes through Soldotna every year. And while I want to be a part of that club I fear I wouldn’t fit in. It would just be a matter of time before I’d be called out for my non-stylish Walgreens reading glasses and my preservatives forward diet, and eventually shunned by the cool kids for being less airstream, and more mainstream.
I figure we could always string bistro lights outside so that at least the airstream people wouldn’t feel too uncomfortable saying “hi” to us.
Actually, I have no idea if there is an Airstream RV type, I just know renovated airstreams are retro chic and regularly make it into aspirational lifestyle magazines. I have been going down the wormhole of RV makeovers. The more dramatic RV renos seem to look like a stationary tiny house, totally gutted and with regular house furniture. Makes for more dramatic “after” photos, but impractical if you plan to actually drive it.
And, I don’t want something too big so I’m thinking maybe the Minnie Winnie. Last photo of a Minnie Winnie reno.
The Minnie Winnie is tighter on space and I’d have to accept Mark’s bird books could take a whole shelf, but I think it could work.
Maybe I’m just thinking Minnie Winnie because I’m more familiar with it, a couple of summer’s ago we took a trip to the Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. We had many games of Risk by lamplight.
Our first trip in a Minnie Winnie
If you had told me, at any point in my life until now, that I’d be looking into actually buying an RV of any kind I would have laughed in your face. Hard. But, now I can see Mark and myself as empty nester RVers one day.
I picture the two of us, years from now, quietly preparing breakfast in tandem while parked at a campground. Or in the driveway of our daughter’s boyfriend’s home.
“Mother, can you hand me the spatula?” Mark will ask me. And I will pass him our only spatula not knowing how or when I started letting him call me “mother.”
There is a knock on the RV door. I answer.
“Mark,” I call out, “We need to leave! It’s the roommate and he is tired of being blocked in every morning! He says it is time for us to move on!”
“What?” Mark calls back.
“We need to leave!”
“I can’t hear you!”
“Then turn off the fan!”
“The what?!”
“The fan!”
“The pan!?”
“The fan!”
“The what?!”
“Mark!!!”
4. The Guest cabin
I found this flyer in my car the other day. I had picked it up a few days ago this structure was just sitting on a corner in town with a “for sale” sign on it.
Wish I could see the transformation once someone finishes this cabin.
The log or wood cabin is a popular choice for guests visiting this state, and they are everywhere on Airbnb. But what if we had our very own cabin right here on our property for our friends and family. We could hook it up to our plumbing so it is an actual bedroom en suite.
“Stop calling it a guest cabin,” Mark tells me if only because I keep calling it that. “We need to refer to it as a utility shed.”
Apparently, having a shed on one’s property is okay. A cabin isn’t. It is considered a second home. I don’t know who would say anything though as judging by everyone else’s yard here in Alaska, anything goes, we see structures three times larger than the house itself. Shelter for big toys comes before shelter for family in the order of priorities.
“Yes, I meant this could be a shed, for your tools,” I agree, “and if you get tired while organizing your tools there will be a bathroom and shower so you can wash up, and a bed so you can nap.”
Now looking at its dimensions, I think it would take up too much property space. I don’t think we will get that many visitors for it to make sense as a permanent fixture, and I fear we’d just end up filling with junk. If we make a big purchase, I’m definitely leaning more towards the RV option.
Security Measures
As Mark and I head down our driveway I think back to that sign on the Wellness Center, the sign really isn’t a bad idea. It might work better than a “No Solicitors” sign which I had been meaning to get. Especially for anyone claiming that they aren’t technically solicitors.
Where we live now, there are only two people that come down our driveway, and that’s the guy with the snowplow and UPS which is why it is extra unnerving when we did have solicitors on one dark night this past winter.
I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard my daughter Tatum talking to someone at the front door. From the top of the stairs I saw her standing talking to two men. Who were they and why had my daughter opened the door for them? How many times do I have to tell her, unless it is the UPS man (delivering something like an Amazon box containing closet dividers) one NEVER opens the door for strangers!
I knew why she thought it was okay this time. The two men looked young and innocent. They were in their late teens, maybe early twenties. Or perhaps they were middle age and on the Cenegenics program. In any case, few things get me riled up more than strangers ringing my doorbell and especially at night, and especially when Mark isn’t here, and especially when we are living in a house that is this remote. I don’t like it, and I just don’t like it. I really don’t like it.
As I head down the stairs in my robe, the boys look up at me.
“Good evening Ma’am,” says one, “We were just talking to your daughter about her faith. Can I ask you…?” was the last thing I heard clearly before I started mumbling “no, sorry, no…” and softly closed the door. As if they wouldn’t notice that I just shut the door in their faces if I do it softly.
“Oh my god Mom, that was so rude!” Tatum says.
I’m sure those boys were harmless enough and of course they think they are doing the right thing, it’s just…no. I really don’t like it.
Rules of Gun Club
“We should put up one of those “Don’t expect a warning shot” signs on our front door,” I joke to Mark.
“Yes, and we should get a gun,” Mark not-jokes back.
Ugh the gun subject again.
“I forgot to tell you,” Mark continues, “tomorrow I’m going to join a gun club.”
But, I guess join a gun club first, and learn how to handle a gun second. That’s apparently how we are doing it because the next night I joined Mark at the gun club’s membership orientation meeting.
Basically, the orientation was a laundry list of all the ways to get kicked out of the club.
Speaking from behind his covid protective mask, the owner/manager of the club lectured us military style.
Some rules he listed off I understood because they were in english, like, “Pick up after yourself! Yes that means your shell casings too! We’re not your mom, clean up after yourself or you’re gone!”
But other rules, I just had no idea what he was saying as they were too technical. They sounded important though.
What I heard was, “You blah blah blah, and you’re gone! And, if you blah blah blah? Oh, you are definitely gone!”
I didn’t hear him say, “If you blog about this club you’re gone!” So, I think we’re good on that.
I wonder if everyone could tell we didn’t belong. Well, me for sure, but also Mark. Certainly no one else was dressed in an oxford button down shirt, khakis, and penny loafers. Coincidentally this is what Mark wore on our very first date. And every day following.
“Xenia, Mark needs to change up his style!” My mom would often tell me until she gave up, “He needs to dress more hip hop!”
I think by “hip hop” my mom really just meant…not khakis.
When the owner/manager took Mark’s membership paperwork and payment, he was no longer so stern but quite friendly, more so than with the other new members, unless I’m totally imagining this. Seriously, I might be totally imagining that. But while he was chatting up Mark I felt like perhaps he appreciated the business casual attire, and he took it as a sign that Mark wouldn’t cause trouble. Or maybe he could tell Mark will be one of those members who pay the annual dues only to use the club once. Maybe twice. And that will very likely be the case.
What the manager/owner probably wouldn’t appreciate is that not only is Mark not a NRA member, which is strongly, and I mean strongly recommended at the gun club. He wouldn’t guess that our family is somewhat active in campaigning for stricter gun legislation.
I don’t know, we may be transforming in ways I can’t identify just yet, but that was all a part of this move to Alaska adventure package. I am not sure whether our “after” picture will be an improvement or not, but my guess is that it will at least make it on a list of ironic images.
Ending this post with one more bird shot taken from the boat trip in Seward. A Bald Eagle, no need to check the book.
Things are thawing out here in Alaska. I’d say we are just a day or two away from being able to extract my son’s homework from the driveway, which is now three months past due.
More original than the “dog ate my homework” excuse.
Spring, Alaska’s Ugly Season
Spring here is referred to as, “The Break Up.”
This is the time of year when ice begins to melt, and white snow turns to dirty snow, or slush. It’s hard to know whether the car should be in 4-wheel drive or 2-wheel drive, or whether you still need to keep out your winter boots with good treading.
My son Anders discovers he chose the wrong footwear.
It might not be fair of me to call spring in Alaska “ugly” because it’s still pretty. It just has such stiff competition. There is summer, the fan favorite, and there is the elegant beauty of fall. And then there is winter which has its own dramatic allure.
Summer
We moved to Soldotna during the summer. And everyone loves summer, especially summer on the Kenai Peninsula which is known as, “Alaska’s Playground.”
And, with the midnight sun only dipping briefly out of sight it’s not so much that you can’t sleep, but that you don’t want to sleep. A friend here told me in summer she feels like a “superhero” simply because with longer days, she does so much, and gets so much done. “You could be gardening and then you notice it’s 10pm!”
Heading out for a trip around the lake at 9:45 pm. The sun will hang out there for quite awhile.
We spent the last month of summer (our first month living in Soldotna) in a cabin rental on a lake called Loon Lake. It is called that for a reason. The call of the Loon bird is spooky, especially listening to it at night or in the early morning mist. I love the sound. In case you need a reference, this is the sound of the loon. It’ll just take the first couple of seconds of the video to get it.
Fall
We moved out of the rental and into our new house at the beginning of fall. I only wish there were more Loons on this lake. Otherwise it is perfection.
Nuff said. No one can name fall as the ugliest season.
Winter
Winter was the season I was most worried about.
All I heard from friends before we moved was:
“How are you going to handle those long dark winters?!”
“I could never do winter in Alaska.”
“Winter will suck!”
When I mentioned our move during my annual physical, my doctor prescribed me three different medications; one for depression, one for anxiety, and one for sleeplessness caused by anxiety, then she handed me a five page print out on SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and a list of top rated sun/light therapy lamps. I had not come in to ask for meds, but walking out with all those prescriptions for depression and anxiety had me feeling depressed and anxious.
Was I underestimating winters in Alaska? Could they really be that bad?
This vision of myself on a winter night began to haunt me. I am curled up in the corner of a dark house. From the moonlight streaming through the window you see I am cradling a broken sun lamp in one arm, and a bottle of vodka in the other. I am muttering to myself, but it is unintelligible. As we close in, we start to make out some words, something about why I had to kill my family? Suddenly the sun lamp flickers on, it’s fluorescent light reveals my face covered in blood. I turn and stare into the light, the muttering stops as I begin to laugh.
But…as it turns out, winter might be my favorite season. The deeper we got into winter the more stunning it became. I am perhaps in the minority here, but I don’t find winter depressing but inspiring.
I couldn’t stop taking pictures of everything and anything, including our driveway being plowed.
And I kept having to pull the car over to take photos of trees! By the way, note that winter isn’t non-stop darkness.
I only recently learned that this is called, Hoarfrost. Had to double check the spelling on this one.
hoar·frost – /ˈhôrˌfrôst/ : A grayish-white crystalline deposit of frozen water vapor formed in clear still weather on vegetation, fences, etc.
Also had to pull over and take a shot of our neighbors down the street.
Half-expecting the centaurs from Narnia to trot out of the woods.
No way could we call winter Alaska’s ugliest season. I’m ready for summer, but as winter melts away, I miss winter by visual comparison. Here is a photo of the same cabins.
More real than magical.
I survived one winter without feeling the need for the meds, although I did turn on my sun lamp (“Happylight” as it is called) a few times. But it hurt my eyes. And that might be telling of why I probably fare better in winter here than most, and why summer here is a little harder for me. I’m not really into the sun or bright light in general.
Neither is my sister. Whenever we meet for lunch we fight over the seat facing away from the window. And by fight, I mean physically, to the point where customers turn and stare and the manager starts to walk over. Usually though we make an effort to avoid this by choosing restaurants with plenty of dark booths.
It hurts my eyes just looking at a photo of it.
Of course, to be fair, from a travelers perspective spring is like any season here. It has its own set of adventures.
2 Big Reasons to Travel to Alaska in the Spring:
1. It is less expensive since spring is a shoulder season.
Well, that’s all I have to say about that.
2: Spring is when life emerges
This is the time of year bears come out of hibernation. Given the title of my blog I’m still determined to not be ironic and be mauled to death by one. And so we have been avoiding hiking trails at the moment.
Assuming travel opens up given the current covid-19 lockdown, we are hoping to drive to Seward to do a little whale viewing before spring ends. This is the time when the grey whale migrates to the Bering Sea passing through the fjords of Seward on the way.
There are all kinds of bird festivals to view their migration in the spring. This year, those festivals have been switched to on-line affairs. Will be interesting to see how that works out.
In the time since I began writing this post, the ice in our driveway has melted and whatever homework had felt itself so important to be preserved forever in ice is now un-identifiable. We can also probably put that snow shovel in storage.
My 13-year old son Anders had just started at his new middle school. I was there to pick him up on that first Friday of the school year, anxious to hear how week 1 went.
“Mom, I made a ton of cool friends today!” my son exclaimed as he hopped in the car and gave me a hug, “thank you for moving us to Alaska!”
“I told you being new could be fun!” I said, prying his arms off me so we could give each other high fives.
Wait, that didn’t happen.
This did though:
“Mom, I hate this school! And I hate Alaska!” my son said as he got in the car and threw his backpack onto the floor. “Why did we have to move here?! This is so stupid! I just want to go back home!”
Sensing he wasn’t happy, I asked Anders if something in particular had happened. That’s when he told me that one of the “bad boys” at school told my son that he looks like a lizard.
“And what did you say?” I asked.
“I said, “Thank you, I get that a lot.”
“Good one.”
“But mom, now those boys are calling me “Lizard Boy” and I hate it!”
“Maybe they’re just trying to joke around with you?”
“Trust me, they’re not.”
I wasn’t expecting this. Unless the name “Lizard Boy” came with a set of superpowers I could see why he’d be upset, especially given that he’s the new kid just trying to make friends and fit in. My heart broke as I looked over at my son who had tears welling in his large, reptile-like eyes.
Anders is not used to being picked on, in part because at home he was always flanked by cousins and friends he’d known his whole childhood. Now he was bottom of the social food chain, and he was on his own.
“It’ll get better,” I promised.
“What if it doesn’t?” he asked.
“It always does. You’ve seen this movie.”
My son is big into making “movies,” or at least he is big into filming himself making Jim Carey-esque faces.
Prior to our move we began watching all the films that start with a new kid starting at a new school, and there are many: Karate Kid, Mean Girls, Twilight, Goosebumps, Back to the Future, Bring it On, Grease, Inside Out…this last one Anders watched over and over, it hit home.
(If you have any more “new kid” movies let me know!)
It made Anders feel better watching these movies because they always end well. Kid forced to go to a new school where he/she encounters obstacles before eventually finding greater wisdom, confidence, and friends. Its a classic storyline.
The one movie I didn’t show him was, “Carrie.”
I forgot John Travolta was one of the bullies in the movie!
Ultimately, week 1 wasn’t the school start I had envisioned for Anders, but I knew he would survive being the new kid and ultimately have a greater capacity to empathize, which I told him would be useful as a movie-maker, or whatever industry he eventually chooses. Of course a 13-year-old boy doesn’t really care about having greater empathy, so my teachable moment was a big fail.
I did a search on the effects of switching schools as a teen. Many authors warn that being uprooted, especially in your teen years, could cause lasting trauma, increased anxiety, and destroy confidence. Especially if switching schools happens more than once. But I went to 3 different high schools and look at me, I’m totally well adjusted and sane if you don’t include the times I’m not.
I actually found changing schools made my high school years more fun and interesting. And new perspectives certainly makes you realize that what is right in front of you isn’t that important. Too many kids don’t realize there is a whole world beyond the hallways of their hometown schools.
Of course when it comes to switching schools, no child, or circumstance, or experience is ever the same. I got lucky. And, at least in the case of the first high school I went to, which was a boarding school, the friends I still talk from that school say it was one of the best experiences of their lives.
Like my son, the start of my new school year there was a little, or a lot, awkward.
The Boarding School Abroad
When I was 14, I stopped wearing baby pink. For my mother, my evolution into wearing jeans and darker clothes was a particular hallmark of juvenile delinquency. She was so concerned she felt she had no choice but to send me to a boarding school in Switzerland.
Or, perhaps I sent myself. One day my mom suggested we fly to San Francisco for a shopping spree and to visit one of her dear old friends. I should have known something was up when she didn’t argue as I selected an array of black sweaters to try on, or when later that afternoon her dear old friend opened the front door and asked, “Are you Mrs. Rutherford?’
We entered this woman’s living room and splayed out on a large coffee table were all kinds of boarding school brochures. By the time we had to leave for the airport, I was signed up for one.
That night we returned home and my dad, who was always out of the loop (and I suspect he preferred it that way), was surprised to hear we had spent the day in San Francisco. He was even more surprised to hear I was going to a school in Europe. When he dared ask one too many questions, which was probably 3 total, my mom’s impatient response was for him to mind his own business, after first signing a check.
My mom was certain that at my “finishing school” as she optimistically called it, I would be trained in all matters of refinement, and that within a year I would evolve into a young lady whose poise and worldly charm could one day land her a doctor.
Success!
Apparently, other school attendees went on to marry princes, oh and the French president. I just looked up “Finishing School” on wikipedia and the one I attended, Chateau Mont-Choisi, was listed as one of the most famous ones (it closed in 1995). Two Chateau Mont-Choisi Alums include Princess Elena of Romania and Carla Bruni-Zarcozy.
Alum Carla Bruni-Zarcozy was a supermodel, dated Mick, married the French President, and is a professional singer.
Certainly, as you’d expect, there was a lot of money at the school. I suspect my parent’s home, where they still live today, looked very different than any other student’s parent’s house. My parents have always been funny with how and where they spend money, the general rule was money was spent on experiences, not stuff. My dad had a used car he bought for $500. Except for a Laz-y-Boy chair, their furniture is at least 40-years-old. When two of the four burners stopped working on the kitchen stove my mom didn’t care. “I don’t need four burners anyway,” she would say as if she got lucky. It was only a decade later that the stove was replaced and after a third burner broke. And I remember for almost a year my dad routinely replaced a big bowl in the basement to catch a trickle of water from a cracked pipe in the ceiling because he didn’t want to pay for repairs. Paying a plumber a few hundred dollars to keep the house from collapsing into the basement was a unneeded extravagance. A girls “finishing school” in Switzerland was not.
The day I arrived at Chateau Mont-Choisi, I was the first in my room to arrive. I selected a bed by the window and immediately set up framed photos of friends and my cat, and I put my clothes in the adjacent closet. Then my dad and I went to lunch.
When we returned, my second of three roommates had arrived. And, she had moved all my stuff to another bed. She had also moved my clothes out of the closet, and hung hers inside. Bold move.
She was Swiss-German, I’ll call her Ann. Ann was tall, had shorn red hair except for a long thin braided tail. She often kept a pack of cigarettes in her white tee like James Dean. And on that first day she wore a yellow and black polka-dot poodle skirt. She wore this skirt every day afterwards as well. I can’t think of Ann without thinking of that skirt.
Ann didn’t speak english, and she pretended not to understand when we mimed the situation, that being that she had switched out my things. I was intimidated, I just wanted to make friends, and so I was about to just let it go. But my dad wasn’t having it, and he got the headmistress involved. And yes, she was called the “headmistress.”
I got the window bed back and, as a result, launched a war. Our third roommate eventually arrived, and to my relief she spoke english. She was Canadian. Because she seemed to get along with me, she was included on Ann’s, “sweet-revenge-for-not-giving-me-the-window-bed” list. Ann would “accidentally” throw away our stuff, or just flat out steal our things, including our underwear. In return, we would accidentally drop her new bottles of nail polish off the balcony, which made a colorful splash.
The dynamic at our school was one made up of cliques defined by nationality.
There were just a handful of us in the U.S. gang, and we were referred to as, “Les Americans.” Included was my Canadian roommate. She campaigned to have the other girls at least say, “Les nordamericans.” It didn’t stick.
Not that we didn’t all mix it up, we did live together after all.
Left to right: Friends from Iran, Barbados, Canada, and Switzerland.
At some point during the first semester, Ann had been ostracized by the Swiss-German gang. And the Germans wouldn’t take her (Swiss-German and German social circles were separate). So, in the end, Ann’s roommates turned out to be her only friends. We had long ago called a truce realizing our “war” wasn’t sustainable, or fun. The truth was we were all away from our families. It was lonely enough without having to go to bed at night feeling like you had an enemy 4 feet away, sleeping in the better bed by the window.
One day, only a few months into the school year, Ann begged me and another girl to help run away in the middle of the night. I don’t want to incriminate the other helper so I will just say she was one of, “Les Nordamericans.”
We helped her pack, kept watch, and I locked the front door behind Ann when she left. There wasn’t exactly high security. I remember looking through the old stained glass in the door as Ann’s poodle skirt scurried up the steep driveway, and disappeared into the night.
On reflection, helping her run away wasn’t the loyal or wise thing to let her do. I didn’t have the experience or maturity to recognize it then, but I’m certain Ann had several issues that needed professional attention, but sending your kid to therapy just wasn’t the thing to do then.
Fortunately, Ann survived, and made one last appearance. She returned for the rest of her stuff about a week later with someone who was family friend, I think. I don’t know, we were still mostly miming to each other. I stuck around to give her one final, smokey hug (I swear that’s all it took for the cigarette smoke to transfer permanently onto my clothes). I also stuck around to keep an eye on my stuff. Fool me once…
I do remember, in a sentimental moment, giving her one of my favorite music tapes. One she had always asked to borrow. It was my A-ha cassette tape and giving it away hurt. “Take on Me” was the number one song and the coolest video in 1985. When the sun was out and we all laid out on the deck, not quite frying in the alpine air, “Take On Me” practically played on a loop.
There couldn’t possibly be anyone on the planet who doesn’t remember, but this is for old times sake, and for my Chateau Mont-Choisi friends who actually read my blog sometimes:
So, what loose point was I making in all this? I have no idea, sorry let me look back. Ah, okay, so, bad first impressions and bad school starts don’t determine how things will eventually play out.
Week 20 at a New School – Are Things Any Better?
So, is my son’s real life movie of being the new kid going to conclude in a positive way?
That’s what I wanted to know, but stopped asking. My kids would get annoyed by my desperate inquiries.
“Are those boy still calling you “Lizard Boy?” I asked for the last time.
“What? No! That was so long ago. How do you even remember that?”
Oh, a mom never forgets!
“I was just wondering.”
“Mom, you’re so random.”
I had been hearing names of friends, and Anders has been playing videos on-line with a handful of them. I guess that counts as out of school socializing. But still wanted to see how he was integrating for myself. We had made him sign up for his middle school’s nordic ski team as we had heard that was a popular sport, and a great way to make friends.
My Son’s First Nordic Ski Race:
A huge eagle soared overhead as I hurried down the hill to my son’s first race against Seward. I had brought my big camera to mark the event. Despite being in a hurry, I stopped and tried to take an action shot of the eagle. Will I ever get used to seeing Alaska’s amazing wildlife?
I made it to the starting line just in time, Anders saw me and waved. My presence had been noted, phew. He was in one of the multiple long lines of skiers in team jackets. The race was about to start, so no one was socializing. This made it hard to tell how well Anders was getting along with his school peers, and I was dying to know.
Another eagle soared overhead and landed in a tree as the buzzer sounded.
They kids were off. Anders was somewhere in the middle as the skiers poled it uphill towards the woods. Inside those woods are the town’s well known Tsalteshi Trails. It is a pretty cool set of trails that thread throughout the wood, and most trails have overhead lights so you can ski day or night, or on days that look like night.
I stopped thinking about Anders and whether or not he getting along with other kids when my eyes wandered up towards the tree tops.
What’s up with all the eagles?
It was a little startling looking up to see all these eagles. Spooky even.
It made me wonder…what would it have been like if the birds Alfred Hitchcock went with in “The Birds” weren’t crows, but eagles? Because I’m all about tangents…
An American crow weighs 0.7-1.4 lbs and is about 17 inches long.
An American eagle weighs 6.6- 15lbs and has a wing span of up to 8ft.
The greatest weight on record for what an eagle can carry in flight was a 14lb mule deer. A bird like that could do more than muss Tippi Hedrin’s bouffant.
I start to take a lot of photos, none of which do the birds any justice, when I spot a dad standing near me. He looks curious as to why I’m taking a bunch of photos.
“That’s like, a lot of eagles, right?” I ask him.
He look up and nods, but clearly he isn’t as impressed.
I feel the need to further explain.
“I just moved here from Colorado,” I tell him, “and we spot eagles there every once in awhile, but definitely not like this.”
“Wait,” the man says, suddenly excited to talk to me, “are you the wife of the new doctor?”
In keeping with my apparent need to reference movies in this post, remember that movie “Doc Hollywood?”
We chat a bit and then I see the skiers starting to come out of the woods. I eventually excuse myself and make my way to the finish line, Anders will want to see me there.
But Anders doesn’t even look for me. Just past the finish line a bunch of boys have gathered to compare times. A couple of them look in Anders’s direction as he get his number, “dude, what did you place!?”
At first I think they are probably calling out to someone past Anders, but then I realize they aren’t. They are talking to my son who heads their way, and is subsequently pulled into the fold. I hear a lot of laughter and joking around. And it was just a lot of joking around, like friends do.
“I was 37,” Anders says.
“Dude, I beat you, by a lot!” says one.
“Dude, 37?! I got 28!” says another, “you suck!”
And they all start “duding” each other, and Anders says something and they all laugh. His teammates seem to really like him, like, really like him. Nearby, I stand and watch with what must surely be a creepy Joker grin on my face.
One of them grabs Anders’s arm, and points to a table being set up by some parents. Bags of chips and cookies are being opened, and Anders and his friends look like they’re trying to qualify for the olympics as they ski past me to the table of rewards.
It is dark as night and 14 below zero on this winter morning in Alaska, and I’m driving my son to school.
There are no streetlights on the highway we take into town, but this morning there is a huge full moon lighting the way. The moon hovers just above the tree line. A creeping mist and the silhouette of the passing forest creates a spooky effect.
“Wouldn’t this be this be the perfect setting for a horror film?” I ask Anders, a huge Hitchcok fan. He nods, staring out the window.
“Let’s listen to our podcast,” he says, grabbing my phone.
Our podcast is “My Favorite Murder,” stories of horrible true crimes told by two female hosts who have a great comedic edge. Due to its graphic nature and highly inappropriate language, the podcast has become one way this mother and son bond.
Coincidentally in this latest episode, the case discussed is about an Alaskan serial killer known as, “The Butcher Baker.”
The Butcher Baker was actually a baker who probably made fantastic muffins and pastries. Unfortunately his alter-ego was a psychopath. One who brought women to his cabin which was so remote, it was only accessible by boat or float plane. There he’d strip and torture them, then send them out into the woods and hunt them down like prey. He was able to get away with murdering at least 17 women before he was caught. It was a real life horror story turned into John Cusack/Nicholas Cage movie. https://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Ground-Nicolas-Cage/dp/B00EQ1187S
One of the hosts of the My Favorite Murder podcast, takes a detour from the telling of the Butcher Baker story to expound on how Alaska is the perfect place for a criminal “to get lost.”
Do people come to Alaska to “Get Lost?”
There is a saying that anyone moving to Alaska is running away from something. For me that something was a small laundry room with no place to fold, but for others could that something be the law?
Upon hearing the news that we were moving to Alaska our friends fell into two camps; the ones who envied the adventure. And the second and much larger camp, the ones who were horrified. Weren’t we worried about the remoteness, and the cold, and the dark, and seasonal affective disorder? And, surprisingly, a couple people asked if we weren’t we worried about the criminals? It didn’t occur to me that that was even a thing. “You should check the sex offender registry before you move,” one of my more concerned friends advised.
I didn’t check the National Sex Offender Public Website before I moved because, well, perhaps I didn’t want to know. It wasn’t going to change anything for us. I exercise caution and remind the kids to do the same wherever we are. But I checked the site today, six months after living here, and I compared it to our previous residence in Boulder, Colorado.
As of January 15, 2020, here were the numbers:
Boulder, Colorado. Population around 108, 000. Number of registered sex offenders, 11.
Soldonta, Alaska. Population around 4,500. Number of registered sex offenders, 44.
If the site’s map is accurate, there are two registered sex offenders on our lake alone.
Given the numbers, do I feel less safe here on the Kenai Peninsula than I did in Boulder? If we’re talking less safe from wildlife the answer is yes, but people? No, for some reason, I don’t. Of course being surrounded by such beauty makes it easy to feel a false sense of security. I try to be careful not to let my guard down because even in Narnia there is evil. And these days, Soldotna is Narnia.
Narnia by DayNarnia by night. No wait, this is also day, full moon at 10am
Next to the year I lived alone in a raucous, rent controlled apartment building in Los Angeles, there is only one period of time where I felt on edge about who lived next door. Or in this case, across the street and two houses down.
I remember the moment a neighbor in Boulder told me a convicted Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) had been released after 14 years in prison and was now living with his mom across the street.
I had never formally met his mother, but I knew she had lived in our neighborhood forever. She and I exchanged hellos over the years whenever I was outside while she was walking her dog. She would often stop and ask how my kids were doing.
She was so nice, surely her son’s crime couldn’t have been that bad.
It was bad.
Years earlier and armed with a gun, Christopher Lawyer had attacked several strangers. He had broken into the home of a female college student injuring her before she was able to escape. He then came across a young female mail carrier, and dragged her into his car. He duct taped her mouth and eyes before he drove her some place remote, and raped her for hours at gun point. Afterwards he apologized to the woman for the fact that their first date, “had been a little awkward.”
Sexually Violent Predators vs Sexual Offenders
There is a difference between a sex offender and an SVP. The definition of an SVP is much more narrow. This is the legal description https://definitions.uslegal.com/s/sexually-violent-predator/: SVP or Sexually violent predator is a person who has been convicted of or charged with a sexually violent offense. An SVP must be diagnosed with a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes the person a danger to the health and safety of others if not confined in a secure facility.
Given their mental diagnoses, SVPs are capable of attacking total strangers, which makes their future targets hard to predict.
“I wish I could make you feel better about this,” my smart, bad ass sister-in-law who is a New York City District Attorney said after reviewing Lawyer’s profile, “but I don’t know how this guy ever got released.”
How did he get released? And why wasn’t the neighborhood notified? Why weren’t his victims who still live in the area notified? He had already been living there a week before anyone knew and in the meantime the elementary and high school buses were making their usual pick-up and drop-offs directly in front of his house. No more that 200 feet from his front door.
Everyone was concerned including the Boulder police department, this was the first time someone with an SVP status had been placed in the city of Boulder. One day two parole officers stopped by my house after checking in on Lawyer. They had noticed my 13-year-old daughter and her friend chatting outside in our front yard and felt compelled to come over to warn us. I remember the female officer looking me in the eye and saying, “If I had kids and lived here, I would not let them hang out outside.”
At the time I was on the HOA board and our meetings usually looked like this; eight of us sitting around a kitchen table, snacking on cheddar cubes while debating appropriate punishments for neighbors not tending to their dandelions. That all changed with Christopher Lawyer’s arrival. We had to start booking a room at a conference center for the HOA meetings because suddenly everyone in the neighborhood was attending the meetings, including Christopher Lawyers mom. The truth was, like any other parent she was just trying to do the best by her child. It was sad to see her try to assure the room he was a non-issue. She calmly admitted that yes, a long time ago her son “had a bad day” (he wasn’t the only one) but that he was totally rehabilitated and it was silly to think of him as a threat. She went on to say he was very being very helpful by planting herbs in her garden. Responses to her ranged from sympathy to anger. I specifically remember a father and ex-cop from Australia seated behind her, he was having none of it. “It’s not a matter of if he will re-offend, but when!”
Lawyer Vs. Lawyers
Being placed in a close suburban community run by an HOA wasn’t ideal for someone like Lawyer; someone trying to fly under the radar and blend back into society. For one, practically half the neighborhood he had moved back to were lawyers too, but by profession. A team of them searched out the answer as to why someone with Christopher’s history was allowed back in the community. Eventually they got what at least felt like an answer; Lawyer’s mom had professional and social connections to multiple people who served on the parole board that granted her’s son’s release. These were the same people she planned to call when he was taken back in for parole violations.
I do think if Lawyer had moved to rural Alaska, his chances of flying under the radar would have been a million times better. That being said, if he violated probation by trespassing on another’s property in Alaska, he’d be more likely to be shot on site. With little to zero community outrage over the fact.
