christmas in july

so, we havent actually celebrated christmas in july yet, but the weather sure feels like december. the temps have been averaging in the 40/50s with windchills bringing it down to the 30s. i mean, that's what i think of when i think of july. never fear, i will return to the east coast heat waves in 3 short weeks. i cannot believe that it has been a year- until i hear peter twitchell on radio saying that "fall is coming"

in the meantime, nancy and ken came to visit. fresh from the vegas strip, where they did not gamble a single cent- but did go to the liberace museum. and on their way to san francisco and napa valley. bethel was definitely the dirtiest (as noted by ken), coldest (as noted by nancy) and most culturally rich (as noted by myself). we did the bethel museum circuit- including the catholic church, the library, and the staircases of the hospital administrative building. yup. that's right. where do we keep all of our art? in the staircases- right next to the dental clinic. duh. if that wasnt enough excitement for them- they took part in the bethel 4th of july parade- hopping on the "peace train" float- which, unfortunately, did not win any awards- but, i think, was a crowd favorite. we spent the rest of the day at the town carnival featuring lots of food, music, softball, and grease poll- basically a telephone pole covered in crisco- people pay for a chance to climb up it and reach the $100 on top of the pole. nancy won! .....nope. just a hop, skip, and bird watching tour later- they were off to anchorage and then on to the city by the bay (not the chesapeake). proof that they visited can be found in the background of these photos.




good to have them visit and feels good to be going home in a short while. recently life has been a series of goodbyes, before a round of hellos, with many of our friends leaving town- graduate school, new jobs, or end/beginning of jesuit volunteer years. bridget just left on thursday- but she is moving to dc- so i will make an east coaster out of her yet. packing and throwing a lot of stuff away- and getting ready to head east. philadelphia here i come (back).

the moose, the myth, the legend

common misconceptions or things that i have in fact, not done while living in alaska- not to say that they will not occur in the remaining month and a half:

-live in an igloo: we do not in fact live in a igloo. however, we have stayed in one while housesitting. our neighbors, dorothy and james, have an igloo shaped house- excellent for effective heating- but it's made of wood & insulation- not ice & snow
-have a polar bear or moose for a pet: while both are great, we are not far enough north to enjoy the newest endangered species and moose are far more prolific in anchorage (where we have actually seen moose)
-been to russia: even though bethel is closer to russia than it is to anchorage, it is shockingly difficult to get there- well, it's hard to get there when you have no money, and no boat. and no, you do not need a passport to get into alaska. it's a state. and not even the most recent one. what's up with you, hawaii?
-eaten alaskan king crab: in the land of the deadliest catch, i have actually never seen alaskan crab while in alaska. shocking. refer to early post about complete inability to have my favorite crustacean, even on maryland day. blasphemy.

in contrast, we have been able to do some great things- some of which i have been able to blog about on these hallowed (web)pages. we just finished up with our last retreat with jvc on the kenai peninsula outside the town of seward. 4 days of camping by a lake, good food, and good friends. below a picture with all of the alaska jvs from 07-08 and our area director, sarah, with houses in bethel, anchorage, juneau & sitka.



and another performance of the band with no name in our qaspeqs (traditional yup'ik wear). our admin assistant, lucy, gave me mine that she made in secret during our cultural week.

local flavor

during my last meal in philadelphia (breakfast at delancy street), lauren said to me- why are you eating salmon (referring to my lox) that's all you're going to be eating for the next year! no way, i said, there will be lots of food. well, i was partially wrong- we eat A LOT of salmon- but we're spoiled because it is literally the freshest food ive ever ate- taking it out of the river and having it for dinner that night. oh the joys of subsistence living. after attending russian orthodox service this weekend bridget, chelsea, jesse & i were invited to a feast for first catch. first catch is when a child shoots their first wild animal-traditionally, they have a feast to give all of it away- the family has a feast to celebrate- this feast celebrated two of their kids- one that got a moose in the fall and their younger son that shot his first ptarmigan. as we were eating a spread of entirely native foods (with the exception of jello)i was thinking about all of the "interesting" foods that we've had a chance to enjoy this year...including but not limited to (in alphabetical order):

-akutaq aka eskimo ice cream (crisco, sugar, berries- mix 'em up)
-akutaq II (made with pike eggs instead of crisco)
-ayuq (tundra tea- made with incense like plants from the tundra)
-beaver
-berries picked right from the tundra
-caribou
-dried pike dipped in seal oil
-duck
-fish skins
-fish eggs
-moose
-ptarmigan
-salmon (cooked about a million different ways)
-salmon strips (like, salmon beef jerky)
-seal fat- that hangs out in the seal oil- eaten like you take a tequila shot- lick salt on your hand and down the hatch- but make sure you have a chaser...)
-seal oil
-seal soup
-smelts (small fish- they come before the kings start running)
-stink heads (take a salmon head, bury it in the ground for a few weeks, dig it up, chew & swallow)
-walrus
-whale
-wild goose eggs

going to the grocery store will probably be more of a shock to my system than any of these foods...nancy says that she's going to eat before she comes to visit. where is her sense of adventure??

hanging smelts to dry with our neighbor, martha:

break up to make up

spring has arrived on the kuskokwim- after a particularly long and brutal winter- the river finally broke several weeks ago. the much anticipated event is cause for a pool- and a celebration. the ice classic refers to pool created- everyone in town is eligible to buy tickets to bet on the date and exact time that the river will break. to determine the actual break- a large tripod with a string attached to a clock is put in the middle of the frozen river. when the ice breaks and shifts enough- the string pulls and stops the clock- spring arrives, ceremoniously- with the "break up bash." the ice chunks and flows out to the sea- makes for some awesome sounds and views.



enter the jvs, a flat bed truck, and hundreds of hot dogs. when not slinging dogs & defrosting frozen hot dog buns- we jvs take the stage for our first ever performance- outside of our living room. with the cheerleading of glacial erratics alum martha scott-stey, our adoring fans aka friends, we performed a short set of wagon wheel, boil them cabbage down, and yukon women. well received.



a close up:



our neighbors, josie & martha arrived too late to the bash to get their free hot dog- so we had them over to our house for break up bash part deux- with free hot dogs and i had a chance to hang out with my 3 year old boyfriend, christian.

masquerading

yesterday, my boss said "i need a picture of you." i said "ok, no problem." she countered "i need a picture of you in normal clothes- no costumes." i said "ok, we need to take one then." recently krissy commented that "all you need to do to get sarah to dance is put her in a costume and give her a blow up parrot" (that comment will make sense shortly) also, when talking to adrienne about people thinking that i "dress up a lot" she said- "they probably mean because you love to wear costumes" wow, three statements like that in a short period of time made me think- do i love costumes too much? i blame theme parties & alpha gamma delta for my dedication to costuming. nevertheless, i do masquerade quite often in a variety of attires. the proof is in the pudding- or at least in my iphoto library. i should mention that i have never purchased a part of any of these costumes, i credit my success to an eclectic wardrobe and an excellent rummage inventory at my disposal.
nerd day @ BABS...


as the devil, give me a break, it was halloween...


as tundra women, complete with honey bucket at our fall jvc retreat in anchorage:


gilligan & the skipper during our "3-hour tour" tri-birthday celebration


no explanation, except, it was our friend oz's birthday, and no one felt like wearing real clothes to his birthday party. it inspired krissy's above quote...


wearing our winter coats & wigs was a favorite past time- until it actually got cold...


as a snowboarder during sports day...


red, white & blue day, nothing new...

manly deeds, womanly words

march 25th is a big day. well, it's a big day if you live in maryland. well, it's a big day if you live in maryland and your mom teaches state history to 9 year olds and impresses upon you the importance of maryland day. obviously, i fit in the above category, thanks to nancy. so, when my day to cook fell on the blessed day of maryland heritage, i knew just what to do. celebrate the calverts, the ripkens, frederick douglass and thurgood marshall.



i made crab soup- recipe & old bay care of ken jones. a small snag in the plan however, when i went to buy crab at the grocery store. i mean, living in alaska- the land of king crabs & the deadliest catch- you would assume that crab meat is always readily available. not so as i came to find out- so we had to settle for imitation crab. so it wasnt perfect- but anything other than md blue crab is just not going to be the same anyways.



so, i decorated the house- well, the kitchen- in full maryland regalia....



without maryland day, how would my midwestern roommates know that maryland is the wealthiest state per capita? just eclipsing new jersey in august of '07. or that the old line state is the size of belgium. thank goodness for google...


bridget was dressed in maryland colors and she didnt even know it

luck of the irish

ive been waiting for inspiration to strike- a great idea about the next exciting edition of the hype....nothing has come...except for a holiday.


i finally got kaela to go in the boat with me

if you, like we do, pay attention attention to hard hitting news from ireland or vatican city- you would know that ireland petitioned the vatican to move the feast day of st. patrick to saturday, march 15th so the holiday would not occur during holy week. chelsea, who lived in ireland for a year told us that they also petitioned one year so st. patty's wouldnt be on good friday- because everyone wanted to eat corned beef.


chelsea & jesse preparing some of the food

i mean, who doesnt love corned beef? even our house of "selective meat eaters" and vegetarians aren't immune to the lure of a good piece of cured meat. and cured it was. about two weeks ago, kaela and jesse decided that wanted to make corned beef, from scratch, for st. patrick's day. they looked up a recipe- and wow- it takes 2 weeks to make corned beef. with a strict timeline they set out for two weeks of brine making, meat massaging, and crock pot preparing.



kaela under our house in one of our summer "adirondak" chairs made from pallets


robin geshcke, mary & matt gulling, and nanc and ken supplied us with some great green decorations and celtic jams and we were all set for a great celebration of our heritage- well 4 out of 6 of us were ready to celebrate our heritage. krissy maintained staunch support of her polish pride by reading the paper as we prepared rye bread, shepard's pie, and corned beef & cabbage.



my friend arrow, in the holiday spirit

when the day was done- it was declared a success. so much so, that i forgot to wear green on the actual st. patrick's day on monday and was pinched by teenagers all day.


chelsea had the best costume

dog tired

this is one of those great posts where you pretend it is a month ago and love it all. so think back to mid-january. the "premier mid-distance dog-sled race" the kuskokwim (or k) - 300 hit bethel january 18-20th (or about the 24th- when the last musher finally hit the finish line). it's tradition that the jvs help out at this 300 mile "race to aniak and back." if you dont believe how "traditional" is it- pick up jodi piccoult's book- "the 10th circle" and read about her mention of bethel jvs & the k300. so, here we are, all geared up to be checkers in some of the villages for the race- bridget and i head up the the turn around point in aniak, chelsea and kaela, along with our friends jesse and kristy, to tuluksak, and krissy and courtney were headed to man the station at kalskag. we took probably the smallest plane every created- i think it was a cessna 170 for those aviation buffs- for everyone else- it was a damn small plane with 3 seats besides the pilot. we stayed up all night waiting for mushers to come in and out of the checkpoint, recording their times, counting how many dogs they came in with, if they were going to drop or leave a dog or two at the checkpoint with the vet, and be their wake up service if they decided to nap.

dog racing is probably one of the most dramatic and intense yet anticlimatic sport ever. it is the epitome of hurry up and wait. you sit outside for 3 hours for 3 minutes of high intensity work when a musher comes in- but hey, it's all for the story. below is the photographic timeline of the weekend.

we found a peace taxi in aniak:



braving the perils of the aniak AC for $8 pretzels and expired juice:


...waiting....


entertaining ourselves with some good tunes while we wait:


oh, look, a musher. i look so official. duh.


flying back to bethel:


now that's what i call tundra:

just another manic monday

nothing big to report, yesterday it finally warmed up enough to get some snow. so it was nice to get a dusting of powder on top of the rock solid ice that has been a pain to drive on in the recent weeks. so, after school, im tying up ends, checking my email and my boss comes up to me with a helmet covered in stickers of skulls- "i'm snow machining you home today" and walks away.

a snow machine- snow-go- snow mobile- is the main mode of transportation in the winter around here. they costs about 1,000 bucks for a simple machine, and they can take you anywhere and everywhere-particularly where you can go with cars- between villages on the ice road, hunting for caribou, or to check your ice fishing nets & hooks. or to take your jv home from work. it was a quick ride across the tundra to my front door. hey, i had to get my kicks somehow because all of my roommates had off to celebrate the presidents. i, on the other hand, chose to honor them by teaching political science.

spirit fridays are still going strong, 2 weeks ago was "red, white and blue" day. because i would be on retreat- i had to electronically submit my costume- so i dressed up before we went and took pictures- all of these items, if not personally owned came from our house which has been pretty great when it comes to costume manufacturing...

smaller personal item

in an effort to increase my carbon footprint, i have been doing more flying during my "year of simplicity" than ever before. we've all learned that frequent flyer miles are just a perk of the necessary evil that is living in a state with a practically non-existent highway system. i'm 17,000 miles in to my goal of 20,000 to get a free trip on alaska air. i do it all for the free beverage service and snack.

4 of our merry crew just got back from a long weekend in juneau on monday night- chelsea stayed in anchorage to have a week-long vaca capped off with a wailing jennies concert on saturday. our sixth man, courtney, is headed home to springfield, ill by way of st.louis to spend some QT with the Adams clan. during our 4 hour layover in the ted stevens international airport, we proved just how inept we have become at interacting with modern technologies when we made the waitress at "chili's too" reconsider her career choice and took over brookstone to sit in the massage chairs- for about an hour. after a while, i pretended to look around like i might buy something, just to make the employees feel a little better. i'm sure it helped...




now there are some unique features of alaskan air travel. when traveling in-state you can check three bags- i dont really know of any other state where travel is common between cities- or any that have their own airlines- but, the three bag rule is pretty fantastic, particularly considering what people check and carry on to the planes. most people that live in bethel, go in to "town" (read: Anchorage) to go shopping. all that is required for this venture is: a costco card, a huge rubbermaid tote, a sharpie, and some duct tape. repeat the following steps as many times as necessary: go to costco, enjoy free samples, buy in bulk. place foodstuffs in large rubbermaid tote with name and po box written on top of box in sharpie. proceed to duct tape rubbermaid tote and take to your nearest baggage handler. it is helpful however, to use a bathroom scale to ensure that your tote is not over the 50 lb limit. after our fall retreat in anchorage, the rest of the jv houses (anchorage, sitka, and juneau) watched in amazement, or amusement, as we sat on the anchorage house's porch and taped 2 30 packs of toilet paper together for someone's third checked item.

but, what if you have more things- and you have already checked 3 items? never fear, that is the beauty of the "smaller, personal item." in airports all across this great land, business men are traveling with laptop bags, young parents with their diaper necessity, and everyone and their mother has a fashionable purse- in addition to their carry-on- that is used as a smaller personal item. those, in fact, are specific examples of the spi as defined by tsa. however, in alaska, particularly in during bethel flights, i have seem some pretty creative smaller personal items including- kaela's carry-on of a 25 lb bag of kidney beans, a 20 lb bag of potatoes, 5 lb bag of pancake mix, cats, dogs, fishing poles, and pumpkins. traveler beware though- when i traveled back from baltimore/dc area- a layover in anchorage allowed for the ever necessary costco trip where i purchased trashbags and peanut butter. when our tote proved to be 5 lbs over the weight limit- i decided that i could just carry on the peanut butter. but, tsa had other plans- when they confiscated the jiff as a threat to air safety because it is "a paste". life lesson- always pick the trashbags.

green with envy

first- two disclaimers
1) my goal is to update my blog- so i will have many posts backdated...so, just pretend it is mid-january, etc. you'll love it. i promise.
2) you'll probably be really jealous of these pictures. it's ok. i expect no less.

now to the real stuff- we spent the weekend in juneau for our "winter retreat" below is a photographic depiction of the weekend...
from top to bottom:
some mountains flying in to anchorage
with kaela on mendenhall glacier
yeah, i licked a glacier, what did you do this weekend?
shrine of st. therese. gorgeous.
in search of sea lions

holy war

numerous emails have reminded me that the game to end all games is today- yesterday's super bowl was the penultimate to the sju vs. villanova game happening tonight in philadelphia.

just in case any one has forgotten...nova sucks.


LET'S GO SAINT JOE'S!

bethel: now hiring, apply within

i know i know, i havent updated. but i figured, since i would be seeing most of my "loyal" readers over the holidays- some in person story telling would buy me some time. and it did, it was so good to see everyone. but, the hype has returned. somewhat triumphantly, hopefully with some new tales to tell.

now, since we have been in bethel, the running joke has been that if you show up to work- you can basically get any job in town. when people would tell us that we would laugh it off- until recently when it started becoming pretty apparent that this the main hiring practice around these parts. in recent history, after one or two years at a job (one of those years serving as a jv) some fjvs (former jesuit volunteers) have risen to the ranks to be directors of several of the non-profits in town. my roommates and i have been offered positions in a wide variety of areas around town if we stick around next year- most of which we are not really qualified to have.

jv's aside, bethel is hiring almost everywhere for everyone. alaska airlines is always looking for a few good (wo)men to do baggage handling- apply for the cool reflector vest- stay for the free flights. in a similar strain, tsa is hiring- now- they may call you at 5 am for an interview- not taking into account the 4 hour time difference between here and dc (as happened with susan's, the church administrator, granddaughter) but hey, someone needs to regulate this 3 oz of liquid law. into safety but not necessarily of the airport variety? we've got the place for you- the bethel police department is now hiring. you can tell that because they have 20 ft now hiring sign strewn across police hq. now, this is not a violent city like i'm used to- there's no virtual murder map a la the city of brotherly love- but, the powers that be in bethel think that they might need more than 3 police officers. on the upside, if you are one of bethel's finest- the lack of coworkers significantly cuts down on competition for police officer of the year. finally, perhaps the creme de la creme of employment opportunities in bethel, the city is currently accepting applications for mayor. yup. that's right. the mayor. looking to hand out some keys to the city? enjoy public speaking? need to build your resume? well, then just fill out your application to become the next leader of this fine city.

now, even with all of these opportunities, 6 fine ladies still choose to live here for 80 dollars a month for a more than 40 hour work week. we must just enjoy the frozen eyelashes.