Ch- Ch- Changes

I have been terribly remiss in updating this blog, and for that I apologize.  But, in my defense: there's been too much going on!!  Well, really just two things, but they each took up a fair amount of time . . . I swear!

First, the Companion came to visit in late March, and we took a trip to Alyeska for some skiing and some swimming.  And guess what?  He proposed!  That's right: the Companion and I are engaged.  Fancy that.  We got up there on a Tuesday, he proposed that evening, and we didn't tell anyone else until Friday morning when we got back to Anchorage.

OK I lied.  I told our waitress at Seven Glaciers Restaurant that we were engaged.

A lovely view of the mountains.  What this picture doesn't show is that, earlier that week, a hapless young woman (aka "me") crashed into a ski rack (that happened to be located in front of a restaurant window), sent skis flying everywhere, and then was asked only, "Geez, lady, are you OK?"  On the upside, this meant that I could spend the rest of the day in the pool with impunity. 

We also had a meal at Jack Sprat which was, as everyone has said, delicious.  Those glasses above are our beer steins.

Back in Anchorage, we saw some moose in the neighborhood.  This was a load off, as I knew the Companion was running out of time to see these guys.  And I still love seeing them myself -- it never gets old!

News #2: I got a job!  I flew out to D.C. in early April for some interviews, and then checked out a firm in Denver later that month, and was lucky enough to get a few offers out of all that.  Making the decision was incredibly difficult, and took a fairly long time and much angst, but I finally selected one of the D.C. firms, and still feel really good about that choice.  I'm already looking forward to picking an apartment with the Companion, and making other plans for after I'm back in the lower 48.

So in looking at pictures to make this post, I realized  . . . I never blogged about snow machining!  Up here, they call "snow mobiles" "snow machines," so snow machining is snowmobiling.  In March, several clerks and I went down to Ninilchik to take a snow machining trip, and it was . . . intense.  The views were beautiful, and it's great to say I did it and have the story to tell, but I have no desire to snow machine again, and was honestly pretty glad to be back in the comfort of my car once the whole thing was said and done. 

And here's why: first, those machines do not have power steering, so you have to throw your whole body weight into it every time you want to turn.  And since you're often maneuvering over terrifying ledges, it becomes very important that you turn well.  So I spent about 40% of the outing living in abject terror of the impending end of my life.  Second, we stayed in a cabin the night before our trip.  Sounds nice, right?  Well OK it was nice.  BUT.  There were chickens outside, which was cool during the day, but at night turned into CAW-fest 2012, aka "I'm a rooster so I'm going to crow like 500 times tonight so that you can't get any sleep."  Also, as some of you may know, I'm more comfortable in urban environments, so whenever I'm staying some place rural (especially when, hypothetically, THERE ARE NO LOCKS ON THE DOOR), I always spend a fair amount of time imagining how many murderers are hiding in the wood pile waiting to hatchet me. But, as you might have guessed, I didn't steer myself off of a ledge, and I didn't get axed to death in my sleep, so it was a pretty cool trip and I'm really glad I went.

That's all for now, but stay tuned, because I've got another neat trip coming up in a few weeks!

Iditarod: The Last Great Race

As you might have guessed from the title of this post, I went to the Ceremonial Start of the Iditarod this morning.  Fantastic!  And yet another example of Alaska doing it's thing, aka being awesome.  Here's the run-down, mostly in pictures:

All of the dog teams were transported in these back-of-truck carriers.

Sleds.

A team getting ready to go.  Sled dogs are fairly lanky.  Think distance runners, rather than sprinters.  If you're interested, there's an Iditarod documentary on Netflix instant that will tell you all of this . . . and more!

 I suspect this isn't a racing dog, but isn't she pretty?

A fellow Texan?  If not, he's certainly crazy enough to be: I MUST PROTECT MY COWBOY HAT.

Some folks had the good idea to watch from the parking lot.

Not a great shot, but the best one I have of the dogs running.

Me, being cheery!

Six Months

It's been six months.  Half the year.  Half of my time here in Alaska.  Every time part of life passes by like this, I can't help thinking that this is how life passes in its entirety: quickly.  I still have a very vivid memory of my first day of college, and yet here I am, almost ten years later. Seeing bald eagles out my window (just sayin'.)

What I'm getting at is this: there are things that drive me crazy about this place.  Terrible roads.  Minimal dining options.  12-hour flights to see the people I miss.  Always having to brush snow off of my car.  But there will come a time when I will wish like heck that I could be back here.  Because there are things about this place that I love.  My new friends.  Seeing Denali from my office window.  Being young.  Learning to be a lawyer.  Learning to ski.  Moose in my backyard (just sayin'.).

Perhaps I sound overly earnest, but I don't care (OK I care a little bit, but not enough to prevent me from posting this).  There are few things in life about which I'm often overly earnest, but this is one of them: we only get one shot, so we need to make the most of it.

Ignorance Is Bliss

One of my favorite things about this year has been lunch.  Almost every weekday, several (if not all) of my coworkers and I gather in the library and eat our lunch together.  Given that you have to be a special kind of person to take this job in the first place, that's quite the cast of characters.  The conversations do not disappoint. 

Most recently we discussed: is ignorance really bliss?  When we say "ignorance is bliss," one coworker pointed out, "we're not talking about ignorance of who has the right of way at a four-way stop."  We're talking about the big stuff.  Infidelity.  Incurable illness.  Those sorts of things. 

To help keep the conversation under control we settled on: if the world were ending in one week, would you want to know?  We all said yes.  We then quickly realized that if everyone knew the world were ending in a week, travel would be impossible, so we'd never be able to make it back to the lower 48 . . . so what would we do if we had seven days in Anchorage prior to the world's end?

Some highlights:
1.  Not one of us would spend any time watching TV.
2.  One of us would, however, watch this video "probably three times."
3.  We all agreed that crashing a car into a house would be awesome.
4.  We also wanted to see how fast our cars could go, drive a car off a cliff, and "execute a perfect J-turn."

So . . . is ignorance bliss?  And what would you do if you had seven days left but couldn't spend it huddled up with your significant other or parents?

So Many Updates

Mercy-me, am I behind on my blog!  Let's take it chronologically:
 

1.  Many weekends ago a group of ladies (and one of my roommates, who is a guy -- don't ask) drove to Talkeetna for the legendary Talkeetna Bachelor Society Wilderness Woman Contest and Bachelor Auction and Ball.  I know it sounds like I'm making this up, but I'm not.  Check the links.  I participated in the first round of the contest (racing with extremely heavy buckets of water), where I was mightily defeated.  Which was actually a blessing, as the second and third rounds included tasks like "saw wood," "race a snow mobile," and "make a sandwich for a bachelor" (oh the horror!).  After a delicious fried dinner, we all trouped over to the auction where we saw hours upon hours of bachelor-auctioning.  The highlight: the bachelor who was wearing only a wolf-fur thong (don't tell the Companion).
 

2.  I officiated three weddings.  Yes, that's legal.  It was weird and therefore noteworthy.  Buuut I'm over it, so let's move on.

  

3.  I started working for this blog as an official contributor.  I post whenever I can on topics that concern religion and the law.  I love it!  I get to think and write about something that is very interesting to me, and it feels like I'm honing my skills as an accessible legal writer.  Here's my most recent post.
  

4.  I took a week off for Christmas break, spent the time in Washington, D.C. with the Companion, and had a great time.  I arrived on Christmas Eve, and the Companion and I stayed with his parents in Virginia until Monday.  Aside from Tuesday, when Companion unexpectedly had to work and I FLIPPED OUT, we spent the entire week together.  It was lovely.  We had Thai food, baked goods, ice cream, Companion-cooked food, and the Companion took me to dinner at Obelisk and tea time at the Ritz.  In return, I took him to Ray's Hell Burger and 2 Amys.  Needless to say, I got the better end of that deal.
  

5.  Then, tragically, the break was over and I had to go back to Alaska.  To distract myself from heartbreak, and to get a chance to use all of my swanky new winter-weather gear (Christmas gifts and random gifts from the cmpnn), I signed up for some downhill ski lessons.  Keep in mind I have never downhill skied, and I've only cross-country skied once (I just wasn't that into it).  But it was super-fun!  Seriously!  I fell down, for sure, but it doesn't really hurt, and the fun of it so far outweighs the unpleasantness of falling.  Worst experience: my instructor put me on a blue square (the middle level of difficulty) on my first day and I was barrelling down the mountain towards a sign that read "SLOW" and I could most certainly not slow down so I instead threw myself to the ground.  My confidence was shaken, but I returned for my lesson the next day, stuck with the easy green circles, and had a great time.
   

Is that it?  I think that's it!  I need to post more so that I can fill each post with "hilarious" minutiae.

Listening to the Radio in Anchorage

This blog is getting kind of lame, so I'm going to talk about something cool today: namely, what it is like to be me and listen to the radio in my car while driving around Anchorage.

First of all, Anchorage LOVES the 90's.  I have heard Gangsta's Paradise so many times that I'm almost singing the real lyrics instead of the Weird Al lyrics when I hear it.  Also: Salt 'N Pepa.  OK that's the late 80's, but whatever.

So about Salt N' Pepa: they're awesome.  BUT, just as an fyi . . . if you have to roll down your window to scan into your work parking lot, and you park near your boss, I would HIGHLY recommend turning down the volume if you're listening to Push It on the way to work.  Just a suggestion.  To myself.

Back in my U of C days, one of my BFFs and I would cruise Hyde Park, scamming for dudes, eating french fries, and listening to tunes.  On one such occasion, the smash hit by Lipps, Inc., Funktown, came on the radio.  We spent the next four minutes realizing that we lived in the funkiest town of all: Hyde Park!  Look at all those haggard students and bewildered nerds in puffy coats (it was winter).  Gotta make a move to a town that's right for meeeee.

Fast forward to winter in Anchorage.  Anchorage loves this new song I'm Sexy and I Know It (I'm not 100% sure this song is new.  It might be from the mid-90s).  Listening to this song while driving around town reminds me so much of the Lipps, Inc. incident.  I love cruising the snowy streets, imagining that everybody's stopping "and staring at me," just like they're all staring at the guy in the song.  No one can deny it: I'm rockin' my sleeping bag coat, Uggs, and mittens.  If Anchorage winter-wear isn't sexy, then what is?

So keep up the good work, Anchorage radio.  Although maybe stop playing so much Phil Collins.  He kind of freaks me out.

The Holidays Are Here

I spent the day after Thanksgiving in true holiday style: drinking, watching a tree-lighting ceremony, and seeing the Nutcracker. It was delightful!