Spoiled Rotten

Why settle for just a birthday? This year, I decided to celebrate a full birthweek. It started at Sunny's dinner party the weekend before my birthday, when my friends presented me with a tiara and a surprise cherry cobbler with way too many candles. The tiara brought back memories from childhood birthday crowns at Burger King! (Boy, have I come a long way since then.) Good thing I have learned to share—everyone wanted a turn with the tiara:A couple days later, my friends took me out to dinner before I left for New Mexico. Another Happy Birthday song, another dessert, and another candle—wow, I am spoiled.

Finally, I had a wonderful time spending last weekend and my actual birthday day in New Mexico with Aimee. We did a yoga workshop, visited several hot springs, shared many delicious meals, and enjoyed the warm sun and desert... I will post a photo album of all our pictures soon, but here's a preview:

Sunset near Taos upon arrival: View from our front door the first morning:Another view from our house that morning—hot air balloons in the Taos Mountain Balloon Rally: Aimee and I on October 27, best day of the year:And here's one of many promising signs of the strong blue streak in this swing state!

After an amazing weekend, I returned home to Anchorage (at a chilly 12 degrees, I might add) and found birthday greetings flooding my mailbox, emailbox, and even my doorstep. Wow! And to think I sometimes feel out of sight, out of mind all the way up here in Alaska... Thank you all so much—I'm so grateful to have such wonderful people in my life. My birthweek truly could not have been any better.

New Neighbor

So I'm home sick on the couch watching TV, and out of the corner of my eye, I notice a big shadow pass by the front windows, and my first thought is, "Geez, what are my sketchy neighbors up to this time?" (More stories about them later.) But then the shadow passes the window with the open blinds and I see it's a huge moose! I leaped up so fast (amazed that I have speed in me today—I was a little worried I might throw up, but so far so good), grabbed my camera and ran outside all in about 3 seconds—but the moose had vanished.

I thought I may have hallucinated and felt pretty foolish as I realized my neighbors might have seen me running around in the snow in my socks for no apparent reason. I cautiously looked around the side of the house hoping to find evidence of my sanity, and sure enough the moose was clomping around on his way back to the creek in our backyard! He paused and looked at me, yawned (not really, but he did look bored), and then turned back around and walked through the creek and up the other bank!

These pictures aren't so great, but that's how it goes...it all happened so fast and my camera just couldn't keep up.

Here he is looking at me, quite bored:

And I swear there's a moose in this picture...though it may be the worst wildlife picture ever. (I'm just sharing it to help tell part of the story—the part about me being so excited there's a moose walking through the creek in my backyard that I'm thrilled to be taking these terrible pictures.)
Actually, this one is probably the worst. (Or, perhaps the best picture of a moose's rear end?)

Anyway, that just made my day. Wild animals wandering through my yard—definitely one of my favorite things about living in Anchorage!

Red State Rebel?

Well, what do you know! Within hours of starting this blog, I got pegged by the authors of Red State Rebels as "The anti-Sarah Palin," with a link to my blog. Gosh darn it, what an honor!

But if they only knew...

Check out this picture from early October at the Obama Rally in downtown Anchorage. Our posters are in response to the "Go Sarah, Go!" bumper stickers plastered all over Alaska. (I may pick up a few of these stickers to use for myself after Palin loses the election!)

Also, I got my first pledged vote over Palin last month, and since then the votes have been pouring in. My qualifications include more foreign relations experience than Palin, since I've seen Russia from Alaska myself several times AND have actually traveled to countries outside the US (beyond Canada and Mexico). Thanks for all the support, everyone! I won't let you down.

First Snow

Already? I’m used to early October being autumn, not winter...

Last Sunday afternoon, I was at a friend’s house on the outskirts of Anchorage, where it started snowing pretty hard all of a sudden—the first time I’d seen snow this season. I told myself that since we were all the way in the foothills of the Chugach mountains, it’d definitely be at least a few more days before snow hits the rest of Anchorage, where I live. But back in town later that day, it began snowing...and it snowed all night and into the next morning. Winter is officially here.

All this worrying lately about how to prepare for the big scary Alaska winter—might I need super boots, gaiters, electric blankets, full spectrum light bulbs, studded tires, insulating curtains? (Yes, apparently, even our windows need special winter gear!) But now that winter has begun, there's nothing really to worry about. Just put on that extra layer in the morning before I walk up the hill to work. Easy.

Then again...ask me how I feel about winter in about 2 months, when the sun will come up around 11am and sink back down around 3pm. But I won't think about that now. Now, it's snowing hard again, a quiet, pleasant, drifting snowfall, and I'm going out for a walk (time to get some gaiters). I didn't realize how much I missed the snow after all those years in Portland...