Disapproving Skwerl

"Um.."


"You thought it was okay to leave the house looking like that?"

Cucumbers and Prayers

All day long
The earth shouts
“Gee, thanks.”

Such an exuberant gee,
It starts throwing
Things

As if God were passing by in a parade encouraging
Rowdy behavior
By looking so beautiful –
That a whole avalanche of mania swoops in!

I like the idea of throwing things at God,
And especially – His making us rowdy!

Thus, as soon as Hafiz is out of bed
I start stuffing large sacks
With old shoes, cucumbers,
And
Prayers

For the upcoming
Consecrated

Free-for-all –
And who knows
What else.

--Hafiz of Shiraz

Notes from Here and There

Sorry this will be a bit disjointed of a post, but all nine of my loyal readers are probably used to these by now as you've probably already figured out that I am pretty much an attention-deficit goldfish who is surprisingly gifted at abstract mathematics. And who can type. Nevertheless, here is my Thanksgiving report.

First of all, here are the girls is a photo of the girls on the couch.


And of my Thanksgiving contribution, roasted veggies and cornbread:


And of the dowgs sitting nicely for biscuits:


My entry for the annual pie contest:


It's apple with dried cherries:


I didn't win, but I always win first prize in the pie contest judged by my dogs!

The layout:

Note JB2's GIANT KOHLRABI!!

The auxiliary table, displayed by the lovely JB3:


All in all, it was a gorgeous weekend, with treasured friends, good food, and skiing every day!!



Up on Cripple Creek she sends me
If I spring a leak she mends me
I don't have to speak, she defends me...

Sunrise/set from the ridge top:


The sun at dusk this time of year is the exact color of a lotus blossom. It washes the trees in pinkish orange:


Autumn and Linden are very happy:

Sparkly stuff

On moist and cold-but-not-so-cold days, snow falls as dendritic flakes, the kind that people cut out of paper that is folded into sixths. It immediately begins metamorphosing into unpretty, but uniform, regular crystals that resemble sand. It happens quickly--within a few hours to a few days. This is the stuff I studied for four years.

Before it transforms, the dendritic flakes are positively magical, sparkling like pixie dust. They play with even the smallest glimmers of light, tossing them about and making them dance. They sit on top of the snow on the ground, and in the darkness, by my headlamp, they throw back light and sparkle like a second night sky, mirroring the real sky above.

In other news, here are photos I took of the moon while walking to our lab yesterday. It's not a bad "commute".





Also, also: An 83 mph wind gust was recorded during the wind storm that knocked out our power. When I reported average wind speeds of 55 mph to my colleagues in Tok, they gave me a blank look. 55 mph? Psh. That ain't nothing, for Tok.

Happy Thanksgiving to all nine of my loyal readers!

Niece Week

Now that I am more in control of my own schedule, I need to see my niece more often.

Cool new games I introduced to niece (though they didn't catch on so well):

1) The We Put Away Toys Before Taking Out More Toys Game (Catchy acronym: WPATBTOMT; Neither her mommy nor her daddy is particularly good at this, so I felt the need to stage an intervention.).

2) The StraightJacket Game--Aunty plays straightjacket while baby girl gets her teeth brushed, clothes changed, etc. Particularly unpopular. Response: "NNNOOOOOO! I don't LIIIIIIKE Straightjacket!!"

Here we are in a calmer moment. You don't get to see her face because under 18-year-olds get free privacy protection on this blog.


One day I informed her that she was a little beast. The following morning, she came capering into my room. "Good morning, Aunty Arvay! I'm a little beast!"

:~D

Dashing through the snow...

ker-FLUMP!


FACEPLANT!

Hey guess what?

I now live in a certified disaster area. How about that?

So power was finally restored to Casa Fuzzies last night at 11:30. I was sound asleep, then woke to a chorus of beeps and whirs as my cook stove, Toyo, alarm clock, refrigerator, et cetera came stirring back to life. I had been without power since Wednesday, living by candlelight and the wood stove. On Friday, most of my neighborhood got power back, and knowing that only five homes (including mine) remained in the dark, I worried that I'd fall to lower on the priority list. But, oh heck, why complain? At least I had a wood stove to keep warm, and no water pipes to worry about busting. DL, with whom I had planned weekend work travel, had plumbing to worry about, so we weren't sure until the last minute that he could go. His power came on at the last hour, so we high-tailed it out of town and were rewarded with a pleasant community meeting, a data dump from one of our biomass boilers in a different community, and a stupendously beautiful drive:





Here is the full moon setting in Gulkana:


When we got back, my unheated house was ccccccooooollllldddd. I called the Bs to let them know I had returned safely but was still in the dark. The conversation proceeded thusly:

"I'm ho-ome!"

DB: Do you have power back?

"No. It's really cold in here! I just lit a big ol' fire!"

DB: Well, come over! It's warm here! And we have dinner, and you can shower!

"But I can't leave this big roaring fire! I need to stay here, keep it going, and make sure it stays under control."

JB: I'll go over and tend your fire. Come over here.

"Ohh... awww... but I... couldn't... You don't have to do that! It's freaking cold in here!"

JB: Well, we've always thought of you as one of our kids, and we didn't get you until you were an adult, so we never got to spoil you. Let us spoil you now!"

Awwwwwwwww...

So, I went over for dinner and a shower and came home to a nice toasty house.

Later, a GVEA crew showed up on my street. It took four trucks and eight linemen. I called and reported back to DL:

"There are linemen in front of my house! I'll get power back soon! Yay!"

DL: Oh good. Go out there and offer them hot chocolate. Make sure they stay warm on the job.

I thought that was brilliant, and started to walk up to talk to them. Then I remembered something JB had told me the prior weekend. There had been some friends over helping me on a project, and I was offering to toast cheese on Pilot Bread for them, and they were all declining. JB said, "Just make it anyway. People will eat it then."

It was an excellent point. Most people will decline out of politeness if they think they will make more work for you, but if it's already there, they'll take it.

So I took a cardboard box lid and set ten styrofoam cups on it, and filled half with tea and the other half with hot chocolate and carried it out to the linemen. Sure enough, it disappeared right quick.

I just turned 36, and I'm still learning how to be a good person. I'm fortunate that I always have good people around me to show me the way!