Treats and eats

When I was little, and we were poor (hahahaha; we were indeed poor, but I would never glamorize it, because we never suffered, thanks to my mom's ingenuity... thanks, mudder!), my mom often bought pork bones cheaply from Chinatown, and simmered them into the most phenomenally delicious soup you can imagine. Sometimes she'd prepare the resulting soup western style, with carrots, potatoes, and onions, but more often, she made it Chinese style, with seaweed, tomatoes, and daikon. Mmmm I am drooling right now. Wait... why am I writing about this? Ummm... Oh yes, my leftover pork from the Christmas roast... so of course I couldn't walk back home after Christmas dinner empty-handed. I was sent home with a chunk of roasted pork leg. A few days later, I cut up the meat into little Asian-sized bits and boiled them in chicken stock, with handfuls of lovely veggies--collards and carrots and onions--and tomatoes and herbs:


It was delicious, and the boiled-down pork tasted exactly like the bits I'd peel off those giant bones when I was a little girl!


The upside of the long nights in Alaskan winters are that you can almost always snootily inform people that you have been up before sunrise. When M, an ultra-early bird, and I ski together, she reminds me of the dogs, dancing and bouncing around the house until it's light enough to ski. I myself take it in *slightly* better stride, although the long mornings also make me antsy! I try to get into either my studies or my leisure reading, but long habit has removed my ability to sit still in the mornings without having run or skied first. So I clean if there is anything to clean. I comb and rebraid my hair from the night's sleep. Here is the light to the south about about 9:30:


Finally, the looooong sunrise begins, and we can leave.


About forty minutes later, we are at the top of the ridge, and sunrise is still proceeding:






From time to time, people ask how I can "tolerate" the short days, but I think I am well-compensated!

Here is one of my favorite landmarks:


I've come to realize that my fondness for this tree is shared by many others; several other neighbors have made references to it, including my ex, V, who knew what I was talking about the instant I even started to describe it. Last winter a lady moved into the neighborhood who was a musher of a team of elderly dogs who had retired from racing but who, like Autumn and Linden, still loved to go out and run. She posted on our neighborhood web site, "Does anyone have a map of our trail system?" I informed her that none existed, but that I'd be happy to sketch one for her, if she'd take it with caution, knowing that I had a poor sense for both direction and distances. My map, I informed her, would be more like a circuit diagram, with all of the nodes correct, but the distances not having much correlation with reality. She said that that was fine, and thanked me. I sketched in the lightning tree, which I'd so labeled for its obvious victimization. Months later, she posted on the web site, "I lost a glove out near the lightning tree. Please look out for it!" And everyone knew what she was talking about!