Today marks four years in Alaska.
I can't honestly say that I don't know where the four years have gone. Much has happened.
For example, this time has included a long list of firsts:
- camping (yes, I'd never ever been camping even once!)
- getting nearly run over by a train (nearly tragic)
- ice climbing
- kayaking
- fishing
- gutting and cleaning 70 fish in 3 hours (first and hopefully, last time)
- nearly drowning in a river (these things happen when one goes fishing)
- operating a lawnmower
- clamming
- driving my own car (long story)
- owning my own house
- owning and operating my own powerdrill
- having moose in my yard
- picking wild berries
- picking wild mushrooms
- surviving eating said wild berries and mushrooms
- biking 20 miles
- flying in a float plane
- seeing beluga whales
- eating and cooking wild alaskan salmon
- eating elk
- eating and cooking moose
- eating musk ox
- eating and cooking rabbit
- making bread from an Alaskan sourdough starter
- firing a shotgun (first and hopefully last)
- taiko drumming
- playing the banjo
- teaching cooking classes
- barbecuing on my own
- puffing cigars
- drinking whiskey
Like a long Oscar speech, this list can't possibly include everything because I don't remember everything. It's a hefty set of experiences, for which I am entirely grateful (with the exception of near-death experiences, although those were definitely moments for pause, too). But I am going to be honest.
Sometimes this state kicks my ass. For this reason, I've recently started referring to my favorite place as "this-sometimes-god-forsaken-state."
Well, it's true.
Life here is unparalleled, for better or for worse. The mountains in Alaska make me think I had never seen mountains before moving here. Every day, I stare out into the [currently] icy blue Cook Inlet, and it looks like the edge of both nowhere and forever, all at once. On clear days, I can see McKinley from my office. I have eaten the world's finest salmon and stood in awe in some of the most amazing national parks this country has to offer. I live in what I sometimes think is God's Best-Kept-Secret.
In short, this place has given me multiple Once-In-A-Lifetime-Experiences, one after the other.
At the same time, I am mindful of what I've lost - essentially a past life fostered in the lower 48. Childhood, college, law school - friends from yesteryear whose weddings have become too far to attend. Career choices. And family - the only daughter of a traditional Chinese family, the one who should still be living under her parents' roof, somehow found her way to the farthest reaches of the North - to the Last Frontier.
It is in this manner than sometimes Alaska kicks my ass. Nature here is as severe as it is breathtaking. I haven't, of course, even mentioned the long dark days of winter, the multiple-month stretch that is winter, or the nose-hair-freezing cold temperatures. The emotional cost is something deeper that strikes more at one's fundamental core. I suppose this depth also measures its worth.
For whatever reason, I have been unable to leave this place. I renew my residency like many people here - year by year, seeing how things go. Through these little increments, I've seen others build a lifetime, an eternity.
Perhaps another four more years will tell me if I will join them in eternity.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Through the Eyes of Love
Doesn't everybody want a come-hither head shot of a favorite canine?
Canine Portraiture by the Madwoman! Again, email me for a quote.
But seriously, this month's portrait is of Loki, my secretary's beloved Samoyed who recently went blind in both eyes. The furry buddy is adjusting, as is his family. I am reminded of the lesson of the movie Ice Castles: love doesn't need sight, just a pair of figure skates. At the risk of severe cheese and copyright infringement:
Please don't let this feeling end
It's ev'rything I am
Ev'rything I want to be
I can see what's mine now
Finding out what's true
Since I found you
Looking through the eyes of love
And now I can take the time
I can see my life
As it comes up shining now
Reaching out to touch you
I can feel so much
Since I found you
Looking through the eyes of love
And now I do believe
That even in the storm we'll find some light
Knowing you're beside me I'm allright
Please don't let this feeling end
It might not come again
And I want to remember
How it feels to know you
How I feel so much
Since I found you
Looking through the eyes of love
Please don't let this feelings end
It's ev'rything I am
Ev'rything I want to be
I can see what's mine now
Finding out what's true
Since I found you
Looking through the eyes of love
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Mrs. Chao Captured!
Well, at least for the moment. Just before the holidays, I was at the local hockey rink bar engaged in a conversation when it was revealed that my Beloved Silver Meat Platter had been hanging out with one of the guys after we used it as a base for his birthday pirate cake. Of course, the pirate cake.
Mrs. Chao, however, was gracious enough to pose for the camera.
And yes, she is a little shy.
Mrs. Chao, however, was gracious enough to pose for the camera.
And yes, she is a little shy.
Song of the Madwoman
"I.C. Lee. Madwoman. A woman barely alive."
"Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have that technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic Madwoman. I.C. Lee will be that Madwoman. Better than she was before. Better... stronger.. faster... MADDER."
Civilians, Perpetuators of Evil, Excessively Tall Bullies, beware....
"Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have that technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic Madwoman. I.C. Lee will be that Madwoman. Better than she was before. Better... stronger.. faster... MADDER."
Civilians, Perpetuators of Evil, Excessively Tall Bullies, beware....
Monday, February 25, 2008
Still Life In Brown Pellets
Two months and not a peep from the blog. The holidays are a chaotic time and challenging is the push to get through SABS (Silent Angry Bear Syndrome) brought on by long stretches of darkness and nose-hair-freezing temps in Alaska. But it's now February, safely on the Other Side of Winter Solstice -- that time of the year when I will insist, with finger wagging in the air,
Summer is right around the corner!
It's not altogether untrue. A recent spell of warming temperatures has brought on a frustrating period of false break-up, but with these warm sunny days, it is hard not to think of spring, the Harbinger of Summer.
The most recent personal development amidst all of this chaos is that it has happened again.
I've found myself in yet another bout of Vegetarianism.
The old rules apply (seafood ok, broth and juices ok, little bits ok, wild game ok), and although others might insist that this is Unprincipled Vegetarianism, frankly, it feels principled this time around. The news of my renewed vegetarianism struck fear in the eyes of friends who stood by me the first time and watch me mutate rather quickly into a cranky, raving mad bitch.
I'm pleased to report that it is an easier go this time. I suppose practice makes perfect.
The realization that I was going vegetarian again came unexpectedly and hence, I was forced to halt a lot of meat-related projects midstream. One was the excavation of my meat-filled freezer which now remains just as meat-filled as it was a week ago. I had also purchased a Costco rotisserie chicken just days before vegetarianism began. Fortunately, I was able to enlist the services of BB, who doubles as our house's 72-Hour-Eater. (I know of no one who would have responded to my email regarding partially eaten chicken with more zeal and excitement. Thank you, BB.)
So if I haven't been eating 72-hour chicken, you might ask, just what have I been eating?
Fake veggie sausage patties from Costco.
It all happened harmlessly enough. I was taking a weekend stroll through Costco, sampling a veggie sausage patty, and the next thing I know, I have become addicted to these little brown discs made of only-God-knows-what. In consuming these discs, I also made another unexpected discovery - a sure-fire diet plan.
In my 32 years, I've tried various dieting ideas. One was the Every-Other-Day Diet during which I dieted every other day. It never really yielded any results. Another was the Poor Law Student Diet during which I decided I simply couldn't afford that much food on my hourly wages as a summer research assistant. (This is the summer I lost my ability to digest lactose because milk was too expensive.) I've also always wanted to try the Eat-Your-Favorite-Food-Until-Oblivion Diet. My theory is that if you just let go and eat to your heart's desire, your heart will be sated (really disgusted) thereafter. For example, in the last three years, I've seen a drop-off in my own Doritos consumption that I think stems from previous over-consumption. My suspicion is that this would work well for donuts, too.
But the most recent dieting lesson has been in the form of undesirable food. Here's a quick way to eat less: Make Your Food Taste Bad. You can start by buying a fake sausage patty, bound to be limited in pleasure anyway. Then you can give it the least generous kind of cooking treatment by nuking the patty. Go one step further by over-nuking it. What you are left with is a space-age rubbery disc that will take you at least 20 minutes to consume.
As I chewed thoughtfully on my new toy, I wondered if this was why dogs enjoy rawhide and pig ears.
My motivation in becoming a vegetarian again was not to understand the world of dog food, however. It was to reorder my universe - apply a series of finely tuned but seemingly arbitrary rules to entropy so as to make some sense of it. Unlike my most recent attempts at vegetarianism, which brought anger and resentment but no bodhisattva-like insights, I can tell already this round is going to be different.
It is interesting exercise to effectively eliminate desire in one's life, to snip it out of the daily experience like a coupon in the Sunday paper. I see evidence of past obsessions in my refrigerator, and it seems like an eternity ago. I mean, the other day I wasn't even able to finish a whole slice of Kraft cheese.
Could this be nirvana?
Unlikely, but nevertheless, it is a new experience for me to leave a slice of cheese on the counter uneaten. The other day, I had biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and dutifully left the "bigger than permissible small bits" of sausage on my plate. I really had no desire to cheat, to sweep in the larger, prohibited chunks onto my fork.
In each of my recent confrontations with meat, as I watched BB devour my partially eaten Costco chicken, or as I quietly slurped wontonless wonton soup while Jaja ate her normal version, I felt something. It was not hunger, pang, or envy.
It was peace.
Somehow, in my plan to be vegetarian for two weeks, I've discovered a still life in brown pellets. My life now moves in controlled moments - punctuated by the ritual of eating one brown pellet. Nothing is free and chaotic. It's like I'm eating space food, carefully rationed out for my orbit around Earth. One pellet per meal.
I am becoming a rabbit. Almost like a bodhisattva.
Summer is right around the corner!
It's not altogether untrue. A recent spell of warming temperatures has brought on a frustrating period of false break-up, but with these warm sunny days, it is hard not to think of spring, the Harbinger of Summer.
The most recent personal development amidst all of this chaos is that it has happened again.
I've found myself in yet another bout of Vegetarianism.
The old rules apply (seafood ok, broth and juices ok, little bits ok, wild game ok), and although others might insist that this is Unprincipled Vegetarianism, frankly, it feels principled this time around. The news of my renewed vegetarianism struck fear in the eyes of friends who stood by me the first time and watch me mutate rather quickly into a cranky, raving mad bitch.
I'm pleased to report that it is an easier go this time. I suppose practice makes perfect.
The realization that I was going vegetarian again came unexpectedly and hence, I was forced to halt a lot of meat-related projects midstream. One was the excavation of my meat-filled freezer which now remains just as meat-filled as it was a week ago. I had also purchased a Costco rotisserie chicken just days before vegetarianism began. Fortunately, I was able to enlist the services of BB, who doubles as our house's 72-Hour-Eater. (I know of no one who would have responded to my email regarding partially eaten chicken with more zeal and excitement. Thank you, BB.)
So if I haven't been eating 72-hour chicken, you might ask, just what have I been eating?
Fake veggie sausage patties from Costco.
It all happened harmlessly enough. I was taking a weekend stroll through Costco, sampling a veggie sausage patty, and the next thing I know, I have become addicted to these little brown discs made of only-God-knows-what. In consuming these discs, I also made another unexpected discovery - a sure-fire diet plan.
In my 32 years, I've tried various dieting ideas. One was the Every-Other-Day Diet during which I dieted every other day. It never really yielded any results. Another was the Poor Law Student Diet during which I decided I simply couldn't afford that much food on my hourly wages as a summer research assistant. (This is the summer I lost my ability to digest lactose because milk was too expensive.) I've also always wanted to try the Eat-Your-Favorite-Food-Until-Oblivion Diet. My theory is that if you just let go and eat to your heart's desire, your heart will be sated (really disgusted) thereafter. For example, in the last three years, I've seen a drop-off in my own Doritos consumption that I think stems from previous over-consumption. My suspicion is that this would work well for donuts, too.
But the most recent dieting lesson has been in the form of undesirable food. Here's a quick way to eat less: Make Your Food Taste Bad. You can start by buying a fake sausage patty, bound to be limited in pleasure anyway. Then you can give it the least generous kind of cooking treatment by nuking the patty. Go one step further by over-nuking it. What you are left with is a space-age rubbery disc that will take you at least 20 minutes to consume.
As I chewed thoughtfully on my new toy, I wondered if this was why dogs enjoy rawhide and pig ears.
My motivation in becoming a vegetarian again was not to understand the world of dog food, however. It was to reorder my universe - apply a series of finely tuned but seemingly arbitrary rules to entropy so as to make some sense of it. Unlike my most recent attempts at vegetarianism, which brought anger and resentment but no bodhisattva-like insights, I can tell already this round is going to be different.
It is interesting exercise to effectively eliminate desire in one's life, to snip it out of the daily experience like a coupon in the Sunday paper. I see evidence of past obsessions in my refrigerator, and it seems like an eternity ago. I mean, the other day I wasn't even able to finish a whole slice of Kraft cheese.
Could this be nirvana?
Unlikely, but nevertheless, it is a new experience for me to leave a slice of cheese on the counter uneaten. The other day, I had biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and dutifully left the "bigger than permissible small bits" of sausage on my plate. I really had no desire to cheat, to sweep in the larger, prohibited chunks onto my fork.
In each of my recent confrontations with meat, as I watched BB devour my partially eaten Costco chicken, or as I quietly slurped wontonless wonton soup while Jaja ate her normal version, I felt something. It was not hunger, pang, or envy.
It was peace.
Somehow, in my plan to be vegetarian for two weeks, I've discovered a still life in brown pellets. My life now moves in controlled moments - punctuated by the ritual of eating one brown pellet. Nothing is free and chaotic. It's like I'm eating space food, carefully rationed out for my orbit around Earth. One pellet per meal.
I am becoming a rabbit. Almost like a bodhisattva.
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