The cold spell has finally broken, and temperatures have come above 0F. The sun rises higher and higher each day, illuminating my cabin and turning from pink to yellow, a color we do not see in deep Winter. The girls and I spent yesterday morning skiing the Tanana, and this morning skiing the trails near our former home. I was more tired today and still had wood to split, so we only went as far as the Beaver Pond, and then I stood still while the girls ran laps. Then I put on their harnesses and skijored home.
Last night I had a funny experience while driving home from dinner at some friends'. I got pulled over by a highway patrolman for evidently not coming to a full and complete stop at the bottom of my other friend's road after dropping him off. The cop informed me of this, and I did not argue. Who consistently comes to full and complete stops on icy roads, eh? I was compliant and planned to accept my ticket, not argue it, and pay it in full when I got home. But then the patrolman asked if he could perform a sobriety check. I told him sure, no problem. I was perfectly sober. He then told me I had to step outside and to close the window so my dogs wouldn't get cold. I was like, eh? Huskies get cold? But what a nice cop! Anyway, so I stepped outside into the glare of the cop car's crazy beams, and he told me he'd have to pat me down for weapons, so could I please put my hands behind my back. And I dutifully stood there with my hands clasped behind my back while he patted my pockets. I had never been patted down by a cop before, certainly not on the side of the highway in the glare of a cop car's beams. I wondered what it would look like if someone I knew drove by... Maybe I'd get a badass reputation! But no-one did. The cop then shone a flashlight into my eyes and told me to look right, look left, look right, look left, and finally proclaimed me sober and sent me on my way, without giving me a ticket for rolling past the stop sign.
I like this style of police enforcement! So you see something suspicious, you find a harmless Chinese girl, you let her go. In San Jose, I would surely have gotten the ticket. Although I as surely would NOT have been checked for weapons!
2 comments:
Pls read your email asap and see all links.
This story reminds me of the female cab driver E and I had in Anchorage. While venting about the overpaid cops who let people speed by us, she said something like, and it's not like we need the cops to protect us, since most Anchorage cab drivers have a gun somewhere in the car.
I'm guessing it's more common for women to be bearing arms in AK than in San Jose -- and hence, you're gonna look like a badass while your pockets get checked if you get pulled over and have to step out of the car.
Too bad no one saw you -- that would have been a great photo.
-bt
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