A Man Sleeps Here Alone

I started with a slow comfortable day (made myself a delightful fried egg sandwich with ingredients painstakingly packed from Anchorage) and spent the morning reading a book. Although it was decently fair the day I arrived at Port Alsworth, each day since then has been grey skies with the looming threat of rain. There has been not so much actual rain aside from the occasional downpour. Now, having spent five nights in Port Alsworth, I’ve noticed that it likes to rain in the Park at night, when everyone is done with their business – a kind of nice studio fade of the day's activities.

The weather improved very slightly as the morning went on, and I decided today was as good as any for a hike in the Park. Since my arrival in Port Alsworth, most of my activities have only been marginally recreational. I’ve done more maintenance than I apply to my own house, and certainly J and I have been occupied with subsistences winter-squirrel-chores up until the moment he left. So today was my first solitary day in Lake Clark.

I stopped at the visitor’s center to pick up a trail map. While there, the Park Historian invited me to go on a walk with him. I hesitated only a little; I had full intentions of going on a hike, but I had already heard of this sixty-year-old Historian's legendary hiking skills. Still, it was not an offer to be refused.

When we met up later as agreed, he was wearing rubber boots, three reflective plastic triangles stuck onto the small of his back with Velcro (if not the sign of a hard-core pedestrian, I don’t know what is), and with his hoodie and sunglasses, looked a bit like a retired Unabomber. It turns out that the legends are true. The Historian turned sixty this year, but believe me, you wouldn’t know it from his hiking. The Historian is a true billy goat. We came up on steep path fairly early in the hike, and as he launched upward, I followed dragging behind, heaving. At some point all you could hear was the sound of my heavy breathing. The Historian was not making a similar noise.

We eventually made our way to the Tanalian Falls and then further to the lake. I had a few breaks during the hike, once to tie my shoelaces, and then a few more times to take photos. While scrambling up rock from the falls to the lake, I noted that not only do the Historian’s speed and stamina outclass me, he also is the most sure-footed person I’ve ever seen. His rubber boots seemed magical as he quickly scampered up crumbling rock. I wondered if this was some kind of divine agility or if he had climbed these rocks so many times so that he knew them like the back of his hand. Regardless, I was ashamed how miserably this 31-year-old body matched to his.

After the falls and the lake, I think fatigue started to take on a tinge of delirium, and I found myself being more relaxed around him. As his detachable hazard signals imply, the Historian walks everywhere. He does not have a truck or an ATV like most people here. Most days, I see him walking home with his backpack. His house has a few rooms, but the main one when you open the door has a bunk bed (in which he sleeps in the bottom bunk), a wood stove, and a plasma TV. The wood stove looks as if it was ordered out of a Sears Roebuck catalog from 1910. The plasma looks like it was purchased from Costco. The bed looks like a man sleeps there alone.

We talked of many things. This Historian said I was idealistic because I am young and had yet to admit that human beings are far from perfect. He has the view that human existence is a difficult time, punctuated with only moments of euphoria. My father, seven years senior to the Historian, regularly refers to life as “misery” with a few moments of happiness.

My standard response to this kind of talk is that the “pursuit of happiness” is written into the Declaration of Independence, but in talking to the Historian, I started to wonder if “pursuit of happiness” (as opposed to plain “happiness”) is actually a euphemism for my father’s frequently cited “misery.” The Historian said that as human beings, we were probably happiest as hunter-gatherers. This statement was particularly interesting to me because many of my happiest moments here in Alaska have been when I’ve been engaged in hunter-gatherer activities. He said hunter-gatherers did not have to worry about destroying the world the way we are in the modern age. (This is where I suggested that we were discussing modern man’s idea of unhappiness.) I told him the hunter-gatherers had their own relative miseries to contend with – starvation, freezing through winter, warfare, dying in childbirth….

It was at this point that I asked him if he were a solitary man because instinctively I knew him to be so, but it was interesting to me that the solitary man appeared to have the angst of the world on his shoulders. I find it interesting that this hermit sits in his cabin eating dinner he cooked on his woodstove, watching baseball on his plasma, thinking about the angst of the world thanks to CNN brought to him by satellite TV.

We hiked up past the Tanalian falls to Kontrashibuna Lake. The weather from town appeared to be foul but up by the lake, the grey mist took on another feeling of quiet soft gentleness. The lake glistened not in the way it would on a sunny day but in a manner far less showy -- a silvery shyness affording us a glimpse intended for us and no one else to see. Mother Nature had manage to turn our full color skies into black and white.

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Do Not Eat This Sh** Under Any Circumstances

Today was my last day hanging out with J before he returns to Anchorage and then on to Sitka for a week. We started our last day in separate corners as Saturday is a work day for J but not for me. When I finally made it to the shop to check on him, we decided to regroup at my house for a breakfast of pancakes.

Since I was going to be in Lake Clark for less than two weeks, I did not think to pack ingredients for pancakes. J had a bag of amaranth flour that had a pancake recipe on the back, but we were missing several ingredients. I made an executive decision that anything missing that had a granular texture would be substituted with multipurpose flour, which J had in his tent cabin. Since we did not have maple syrup, I added a few tablespoons from one of my instant maple-flavored cream-of-wheat packets into the dry ingredients, then chopped up a white peach I had brought from Anchorage, sautéed the fruit in a precious pat of butter, and dumped half a can of mango juice to reduce into a syrup (having not brought sugar). What resulted was a satisfying stack of Lake Clark pancakes.

As I was making this breakfast, it occurred to me how scarcity deeply affects the value of things in our lives. In Anchorage, I frequently buy eggs eighteen at a time at Costco for a couple of dollars, and I think nothing of them. But for my short stay at Lake Clark, I brought only a precious three eggs. J gave me two more, but after today’s breakfast, I am down to only two. These last two eggs will likely be The Most Important Eggs of My Life. Not having what I needed to make pancakes also forced me to be a little bit resourceful. At home, I would have absentmindedly reached for the good Vermont maple syrup I keep on hand and hence would have never wandered into the white peach mango fruit chutney we ultimately had for breakfast.

Scarcity gives every resource here a multifaceted life. Everything used here has to be burned or taken back to a landfill in Anchorage. Everything eaten here has to be hunted, grown locally, or more likely (because the soil is so poor), flown in from Anchorage. In my few days living out of small boxes of food, it has become clear that waste is a luxury and curse of big city life. Port Alsworth, on the other hand, is a place built and constantly fixed with broken parts – odds and ends given second, third lives through the efforts of hardworking people. In this sense, I understand Port Alsworth.

It has also become apparent to me that the people of Port Alsworth have come here to be left alone. While everyone is very friendly and is genuinely happy to see you trudging up the path, there are few invitations into someone’s home or plans to get together. Despite this strange strain of indifference, I feel an overwhelming desire to feed this entire community, to say something in food to replace the silence of words.

J and I ended the day with yet another resourceful dinner in the form of old MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) found stored somewhere in a shop cabinet. As part of reorganizing the shop from floor to ceiling, the MREs had been alphabetized and placed next to the microwave for anyone to eat. J and I had sampled the Fudge Brownie and Pound Cake as fuel while bottling homebrew. I recommend both highly. J is of the opinion that the Pound Cake may be the best MRE ever. For our dinner snack tonight, however, he wanted to try something different. We had Cheese and Crackers, but I didn't have much appetite for dry stale crackers and cheese out of a plastic bag. The really scary MRE we sampled, however, was Omelet With Ham. It should have been more properly labeled as "DO NOT EAT THIS SH__ UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES." The Omelet With Ham tasted something like soggy cardboard. I've never eaten soggy cardboard before, but I think the taste is unmistakable. While I took no more than my initial bite, J polished it off. Boys are funny that way.

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Rare Oompa Loompa Spotted in Lake Clark National Park

This morning, it looked like another drizzly day was ahead, and so I decided to show up for work not wearing the torn-up jeans I had specifically packed for dirty work but rather, probably the “nicest” outfit I’ve worn all week, having gone through most of my older work clothes. Details of today’s attire are relevant only in that wearing my clean jeans got me to where I found myself shortly after our 8am meeting: sitting in the maintenance shop wearing a bright yellow plastic full-body suit (complete with yellow elastic hoodie) which had been described to me as “coveralls.” When someone offered these coveralls, I thought I would be donning on a pair of grimy dark green Park Services coveralls, like the pair the shop mechanic wears. His coveralls make him look like he really knows that he’s doing.


My “coveralls,” however, make me look like the ill-fated love child of Big Bird and a large grocery bag. I had to suffer the further indignity of being an extremely bunched-up, extra-poofy yellow grocery bag because the shop had only one size available: MEN’S 2X LARGE. (I may be a lot of things, but Men’s 2x Large I am not even close.) Furthermore, it was hard not to suspect that my coveralls were actually some form of hazing by the maintenance crew. After all they were suspiciously pulled out of a cabinet labeled “SPILL RESPONSE."

Clad in a color that seemed to scream, TOXIC CLEANUP GOING ON HERE, as the relatively new kid on the block, I was not really able to blend in anywhere today. No tree or shrub provided sufficient cover; you could see me coming miles away. As I passed people, most of them tried to suppress smiles. What could I do? I’m only a Park volunteer.

The bright yellow color was only the beginning of my problems. My coveralls also made a hell of a lot of noise – whenever I walked with anyone and that person tried to talk to me, the rather obnoxious rustling of my voluminous plastic folds made it all but impossible to hear what the other person was saying. (One of the crew said in no uncertain terms that I sounded like a giant diaper.) My sunny garb also gained me a truly unfortunate nickname – Oompa Loompa. (I’d have to re-watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to determine whether this name has any legitimate basis, but my fear is that it does.) When yet another member of the crew called me Oompa Loompa later in the day, I realized that there was a real danger that my moniker could become permanent. This nickname has the benefit of being easier to pronounce than my real name, but if the crew starts singing Oompa-Loompa-Doompa-Dee-Do , I swear I am getting on the first plane back to Anchorage.

Putting on the coveralls was only the first step in a seemingly endless series of steps related to our painting today. First, I had to wait for the other painter to return from bailing boats. Then we had to set up the sprayer. The windows had to be taped. Buckets of paint had to be lugged to various places. After we had sprayed a very small remaining patch of all leftover from yesterday's work, there was much monkey business with moving the scaffolding to reach our next second story wall. We rolled the scaffolding right over a large shrub, and it was then decided that this large shrub should be killed anyway. So then there was further monkey business involving an effort to tear the shrub out with bare hands, despite a request that someone find some clippers. After the scaffolding had been pushed as close as possible to our desired spot, it became apparent it was not going to position us as we needed. Then there was much consulting, chin-stroking, head-scratching, all of which led to us deciding that this area could not be painted without a man-lift. The man-lift, however, was out of the question because the backhoe needed a new hose that had not yet arrived from Anchorage.

The irony of all of this is that although I had donned on my ridiculous yellow coveralls shortly after 8am, and already had some paint smears on me, by lunch break I myself had done no actual painting whatsoever.

Real painting commenced after lunch break, and at some point in the day, I realized that there was moisture building up in my suit. To my alarm, I also realized that the moisture was coming from me. I was sweating up a storm, and the rather impermeable aspect of my suit was keeping it all in there. I worried that by the end of the day, that I, like many things in the maintenance shop, would smell like sweaty man sock.

“Sweaty Man Sock” is a smell I first encountered yesterday while moving some chairs. Someone had put a bucket on a chair that had a seemingly harmless-looking rag in it. The harmless-looking rag, however, was emitting an odor that was truly awful, something that can be only described vaguely as Sweaty Man Sock. Since then, I’ve smelled Sweaty Man Sock in many maintenance-related places. And my greatest fear is that soon, it will happen while I’m sniffing myself.

In addition to smelling Sweaty Man Sock in various places, I’m starting to see some other repeated themes around the maintenance shop, even though today was only the second full day of serving with the general maintenance crew. For example, this week there has been much talk of the broken hose in the backhoe. The backhoe is apparently essential to most of the Port Alsworth construction/maintenance-related projects; it apparently is some kind of Magical Mover Of All Things. Of course, the Park only has one backhoe. Many a task floated up as a possible activity for the day, only to sink back to the bottom as soon as someone remembered, “Oh but we need the backhoe to do that.”

Man-lift for painting?
Backhoe.

Pour concrete forms?
Backhoe first.

We spent a good amount of time today lamenting the defunct backhoe and its very important replacement hose which, although promptly ordered, has yet to arrive. The backhoe has become our Holy Grail, our Achilles’ heel, our fatal Shakespearean flaw. I think if our backhoe hose arrives before I leave Port Alsworth, I may just have to pee my pants which would be a real problem in a yellow plastic suit.

The backhoe is typical of the kinds of challenges we have here. While painting in the shop today, I looked out the garage door to see three members of the crew pushing an old Chevy truck with Government license plates on the gravelly runway. Fifteen minutes later, I spotted the shop mechanic on a four-wheeler facing the front of the truck trying to nudge the truck away.

Today was a Friday, and aside from my Oompa Loompa costume, I did feel as if I was starting to get the hang of things. For one thing, at our 3pm break, to my surprise, I discovered that I, too, wanted to do nothing during our 15-20 minutes off but sit in my chair, say little, and stare blankly out through our open garage door. Today’s silence was broken only by relatives of one member of our crew who had trudged up from the runway into the garage, apparently looking for a bathroom for the little kids. A younger woman lingered at the doorway. The guy on our crew waved at her and in the direction of the older woman chaperoning the children and said, “This is my daughter, and that’s Martha.”


He then waved at all of us in the maintenance crew and said, “This is this and that and that and that.” I’m not sure if I was a “this” or “that,” but decided that as long as it was not Oompa Loompa, I’m OK with either.

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"Making of the Sausages"

I woke up this morning to windy rain in Port Alsworth, which had the ultimate effect of stranding our Chief of Maintenance across the bay. The weather, coupled with the Chief’s absence, meant that many of the usual maintenance activities, such as exterior painting, had to be suspended. The sixty-something-year-old woman who is part of the barebone year-round crew, decided that it was high time that we scrubbed the shop.


This is how I came to mop garage floors for most of the day. From my layperson point of view, I might say that a garage is meant to be a dirty place, an area in which grease and grime are expected and even invited. Garage floors should not be judged for their dirt. But the EMT garage was destined for an important Park Services meeting later this month, so it had to be spic and span. In addition to disinfecting all of the counters and cabinets, I was also asked to mop the floor using a heavy duty degreaser and hot water that we had to shuttle in from headquarters (since the maintenance shop ironically has no hot water).

Mopping the floor sounds simple enough but let’s be honest – very few of us mop our dirty garage floors. I found that my loose ropey mop mostly smeared muddy water on the floor but did little to remove dirt, even where I had sprayed degreaser on the worst spots. But there's an interesting learning curve to every process, as well as a perfect soundtrack (in this case, for maniacally mopping floors, I recommend Willie Nelson singing Rainbow Connection).

Not far into my task, I decided I had two choices: (1) get down on my hands and knees and scrub like Cinderella or some scullery maid or (2) turn my maintenance task into a Karate Kid workout. I chose the latter. Mr. Miyagi would have been proud. I put a scouring pad under my foot and worked it in every so direction to simultaneously (1) remove ground-in dirt and (2) perfect deadly leg sweeps that could topple any opponent in a karate tournament. (I’ll note here that aside from perching on a dock like a bird, Mr. Miyagi’s workout offered little in the area of lower-body defense and offense.)

There is no doubt in my mind that after Mop Left Foot, Mop Right Foot, I could have kicked Daniel LaRusso’s ass today. With my eyes closed.

Let it be said that a Type A Personality should never be asked to mop a dirty garage floor. I found myself chasing down every errant spot, realizing that it could disappear if enough effort was applied. But such a pursuit is futile; there is no use in making a garage floor so clean that someone could eat off it. It’s a garage. Nobody eats of a garage floor, nobody you want to know, that is. The other problem with obliterating one spot is that all of the sudden, other not-so-dirty-looking places start to look more grimy than when you started. I soon found myself in an endless feedback loop of fervent foot mopping.

Somewhere in all the dirt and grime, and looking for Willie's rainbows, I hit a strange emotional spot. If there is such a thing as a Runner's High, perhaps this might be described as a Mopper's Low. I thought about how I got here, in the EMT garage room in a national park in Alaska, scrubbing floors with a scouring pad under my feet. I thought about what I really wanted to do when I grow up. I thought of long lost loves. I thought of many things wholly unrelated to grease, grime, and garages. Something about a grown man singing a song first made famous by Kermit the Frog had me in a vise, squeezing both sweat and tears out of me. I held it together enough so that the rest of the crew wouldn’t notice that the strange new kid on the block who was doing odd isometric ninja exercises in the garage was also on the verge of inexplicable bawling.

My coworkers have regarded me with some suspect, for which I don’t blame them. I arrived somewhat unexplained, with a strange difficult-to-pronounce name, and for the first day, appeared to do little except serve as the personal assistant to the outsider on-site engineer (my friend J). The maintenance crew gathers at various times in the day: 8am for our initial meeting, 10am for break, 12pm to leave for lunch, 3pm for break, and 5pm to leave for the day. We have a hodge-podge of chairs seemingly randomly arranged around a long table for meeting. I’ve noticed that these chairs, while appearing to be arbitrary and nondescript, are invisibly designated. Each member of the gang seems to base some of his identity on where his butt comfortably sits during break. Since I am new, I have yet to figure out where is best to park my butt.

I also made a huge faux pas today by arriving at our 10am break late. My first union break, and I was already acting like a scab! Break is something the crew takes very seriously. At first, I thought I would get to know everyone better during these fifteen minute periods, but for whatever reason, very little is actually said during break. People sip coffee, twirl around in the chairs, pick out dirt from under their fingernails with pocket-knives. But few words are exchanged.


After dinner, J and I embarked in yet another series of common Port Alsworth activities: preparing salmon for canning and transformation into jerky. The Park Services historian had agreed to lend us his heavy duty pressure cooker for canning, and we got tips and equipment for the jerky from the maintenance and safety officer. J and I spent much of the evening washing fish, cutting fish, stuffing fish, grinding fish, mixing fish. I have to admit, however, his stash of sockeye reds was truly amazing. J had frozen much of it in solid ice, having run out of vacuum bags, and the soft bright red salmon flesh seemed to be as beautiful as it must have been on the very first day.


To make salmon jerky, you must remove the skin from the filets, thoroughly debone the fish with needlenose pliers, and put it through a grinder. For grinding, we borrowed an old-time contraption stored in an original box happily labeled "Making of the sausages" in four different languages.

At the end of our rainbow, we had a beautiful pot of ground up salmon. Patting the salmon jello was a strangely satisfying thing to do, but our work was not done. After adding jerky seasoning, the mass had to marinate overnight before being stuffed into a tube that looks like a caulk gun and then piped out onto a grate for drying in the oven. Luckily those steps had to be saved for tomorrow.

After being dropped off on my side of the bay, I went home to do a late-night prep of salmon for dinner tomorrow, during which we hoped to woo the Park historian with the massive pressure cooker for canning. I had brought along miso paste, scallions, grapefruit to marinate the fish overnight. It turns out the perfect soundtrack for late-night marinating of salmon is Shania Twain.

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More of a Threat Than Her Beret Suggests

It is hard to believe that it is already the first day of August or as I can’t help but think, the first day of the last month of summer! To ring in the last hurrah, the Pink Octopus decided to leave Anchorage to volunteer at Lake Clark National Park. It is now half an hour before the end of my first full day here at the Park.

My journey began yesterday when I got on a tiny prop plane with Leon Alsworth, one of two pilots who make runs between Anchorage and Port Alsworth (yes, he is one of the Alsworths). Leon is a man of few words. I know not too much about him except that he loves the taste of butter (this came up when I shared some cookies) and that his tiny self fits perfectly into the Cessna 206 that he often flies from Port Alsworth (the gateway town to the Lake Clark region) to Anchorage.


Just before we took off, we had pull the plane over to load up some supplies from a Port Alsworth family visiting Anchorage. In Port Alsworth, there is simply no place to buy anything. It is a town where the physical dollar bill seems to have little place or meaning. Hence, a trip to Anchorage often means an opportunity to bring back essential and more affordable supplies from the “big city.” After carefully putting my belongings under the cargo net, Leon repacked the plane in a manner that seemed to be guided only by one principle: let us not crush the eggs, pizza, and strawberries.

Once the plane was scientifically packed, we were off to the skies. Anyone who has been in a prop plane in Alaska knows that the aerial views are nothing short of spectacular. During this time of year, Mother Nature paints one-of-a-kind landscapes with silty muds, trees of all kinds of green, and splashes of bright fireweed. During the 90-minute flight, the view was constantly changing. Leon pointed out a waterfall which is literally a spout coming out of the middle of a mountain, gushing with such pressure that the spray was visible even from our plane, so forceful that it looked like the water was moving in slow motion.

The first thing you see when you arrive in Port Alsworth is obviously the runway, a long stretch of gravel running from the bay. Port Alsworth was more or less built around the runway, as would be natural for a town founded by a pilot (Babe "Leon" Alsworth, Leon's grandfather). The town now actually boasts two independently operated runways running parallel, less than a mile apart. Legend has it that two Alsworth brothers fell into a rivalry after one insisted on charging the other for the use of the first runway. The second brother solved the problem by building one of his very own.

For my stay in Lake Clark, the deal is that I am to volunteer with the Maintenance Crew in exchange for transportation to the Park and free housing. My only clear pre-designated responsibility was to pack all the food I intend to eat during my volunteer period, a difficult task for a perpetually hungry person.

For my first day with the crew, I was assigned to my friend J, who is the on-site engineer helping the Park finish its construction of new housing. J was in the process of doing surveys of the various existing buildings for purposes of appraising the property and evaluating whether any repairs are needed. And so, I spent most of the day measuring the windows of Park buildings.

As with any task, there is a learning curve. By the end of the day, however, I still had not mastered the art of wielding a tape measure without having it flop impotently off a window ledge. But I did learn that there is a soundtrack for every task, and for measuring windows, folks, nothing beats Dwight Yoakam.

Measuring windows was a funny way of getting to know a new town and its inhabitants before actually meeting anyone. In the process of determining the size of their windows, I learned much about the lives of the residents of Port Alsworth. Art on the walls and photos of family members gave obvious clues. But there were other details, more subtle. Potting soil in the bedroom, house plants cluttered in a living room -- gardener. A fiddle left on a kitchen table, jars and jars of recently salmon in the dining room, lingering yummy smells -- good cook and musician. A loft area that smelled like dog -- dog-lover. It was strange to see these lives inside out. It is often said that eyes are the windows to the soul. By the end of the day, I would have been ready to argue that windows are also the eyes to the soul.


My favorite building during my "survey" was the weight room used by the park rangers because it had only three small windows, all of identical size, very easy to measure. It is also a great building because of its rather unique decor: a motivational poster for target practice which depicts (presumably) a potential perpetrator of crime. Why this strange woman in a blazer and matching beret would be found in a National Park, much less cause trouble in it, is a mystery to me. But she apparently is what gets the Park Rangers to pump more iron and run faster. Upon closer inspection, her strangely large man hands and squarish jaw betray that she may pose more of a threat than her beret suggests.

Standing outside, measuring windows made me inordinately hungry. I now understand why many construction works have pot bellies. It’s probably not all just beer. In order to remain sufficiently fueled for outside work, one must nourish the insides. I blew through a number of my snacks in my first day. Luckily, my stay here is limited.


Summertime is an important period to store up goods for the winter. Among the local pastimes is the art of home brewing. J was ready to bottle his first batch of his first homembrew, and we spent the evening making it happen. Our task for the night was to sanitize the bottles, pump the brew into them, and cap them for storage and additional fermentation. We filled bottles halfway with sanitizing liquid, stuck our thumbs in them to fully agitate the bottle. I held up the bottles to the dim yellow light in the laundry room in order to inspect their cleanliness. For a few of the bottles, I had to pick a few horsetail plants to use as a scrubbing brush.


The rest of the evening was spent trying to find the sweet spot of the cheap-ass bottlecapper we were using. By the end of the night, though, J had two cases of Smoking Rock Porty Ale ready to be sampled in two weeks. And I was ready for bed after my first full day at Lake Clark.

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Pink Octopus Seeks Turquoise Pants

Today is Day Five of Banjo Playing and what better way to commemorate than with a new octopus!

Today is also Exactly Two Weeks from the Big Change. Some have asked me what I've been up to during this time off, and aside from banjo playing, the activities are a blur. In fact, when asked this question yesterday, I realized that I could not recall what happened between the hours of noon and 4pm. The thought of having four unaccounted-for hours was quite alarming; after all, at 31 I am too young to be having blackouts.

So a friend suggested that I log down my activities during the day:

7:42am: Wake up. Do isometric exercises while brushing teeth. Sweep bathroom floor.
8:00am: Do a load of laundry. Water garden.
8:25am: Arrive at gym, discover iPod is out of batteries.
9:00am: Return home. Add gravel to garden bed. Load dishwasher. Play Boil Down Them Cabbage ten times.
10:25am: Go to gym second time.
11:30am: Spray paint branches for wall art.
11:52am: Weedwack, finish mowing front lawn.
12:15pm: Eat lunch. Listen to This American Life.
12:40pm: Mop kitchen and bathroom floors.
1:00pm: Eat peach. Check email.
1:20pm: Finish hanging wall art.
2:00pm: Finish shower. Leave house to visit art galleries.
2:20pm: Pick mushrooms.
2:50pm: Go to Elderberry Park to look at mountains.
3:25pm: Photograph contents of purse.
3:38pm: Finish making marinated cucumber salad.
5:15pm: Upload photos. Finish banjo practice. Call friend on phone.
6:00pm: Eat dinner with friends.
8:20pm: Buy used lawnmower.
8:45pm: Mow half of backyard.
9:30pm: Stop mowing.
10:15pm: Practice banjo.
11:00pm: Read a few pages of Cold Mountain.
11:15pm: Sleep.

The varied directions of the day were consistent with the contents of my purse. If you've ever wondered what lies in a madwoman's purse:
That's right. Yesterday I was carrying around:
- 2 bolete mushrooms of questionable edibility
- 1 mosquito net
- 1 highlighter
- 1 black pen
- 1 mechanical pencil
- 1 tin labeled "MISC MEDS"
- 2 sets of Costco coupons
- 1 ear plug
- 1 unexplained dried kernel of corn
- 2 binder clips
- loose change
- 1 loose dollar bill
- 1 wallet
- 1 set of keys
- a handful of wildflowers
- 1 lens cloth
- mango lip balm
- gardeners' salve

The best thing since embarking in the New Direction is that my mind has been unfolding in unexpected ways. A person with a 9 to 5 job wouldn't be caught dead photographing the contents of her purse! I've decided that there is no better moment than now for a Period of Experimentation during which I will dutifully crawl into any nook or cranny to where my mind wants to wander.

In this State is how I arrived at Today's Experiment which was to peer at Life slowly through The Bottom of a Wine Bottle. I am five-two-and-three-quarters and admittedly of a certain ethnic descent that struggles with the metabolism of alcohol. Alcohol has made various appearances in my life, some planned, some unwanted, but never before had I decided to settle down in the day with a bottle of wine. I chose 12:19pm (when I took lunch) to open the gates.

Six hours later, I had neared the bottom of the bottle thanks to slow, deliberate sips taken over the course of the day. I stayed indoors and did artwork, avoid operating motor vehicles such as my lawnmower, and quite honestly, had a splendid time with myself.

During this Moment of Experimentation, I also decided to try wearing only monochromatic outfits. I chose pumpkin, also known as rust, or in cruder circles as "orange." What normal people who wear multicolor outfits don't know is that confining yourself to one color family is a way of giving immediate, comprehensible purpose to an otherwise insignificant activity: choosing what to wear. Although some women invest much efforts in this task, I am not one of them. Sometimes I look nice but much of the time I look frumpy.

Today, I was simply Orange.

So onward and upward through the colors of the rainbow! The Octopus needs some turquoise pants....

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Return To Civilized Life

It all ended, predictably, with a flash in the pan ... namely, with little bits of bratwurst frying in their own grease.

The truth is that Unprincipled Vegetarianism ended earlier in the week, on Day 17, after trying to make separate noodles for a vegetarian dinner guest. I suddenly remembered that I've spent 31 years believing that eating only vegetables is kind of crazy, and my vegetarianism, however unprincipled, might be giving people the wrong idea - namely that I believe in giving up meat. As my friends have pointed out, normally vegetarians are people who want to give up meat and hence vegetarianism makes them happy.

And so I ate shredded Chicken of Convenience on Night 17. Although I did not turn into Mr. Spock or any kind of bodhisattva, certain discoveries were nonetheless revealed during my brief bout of vegetarianism:
- I probably love meat.
- But I don't need meat.
- There is a special time and place for meat.

In fact, aside from eating out of convenience, even as I threw in the vegetarian towel, I felt no great urge to consume meat, except of course in the middle of a camping trip to Denali when we fried up that AMAZING bratwurst on a picnic bench near the Riley Creek Mercantile. Many a visitor smelled our bear bait dinner and looked wistfully upon our fare. I had a sudden flash of enterprising genius - we could make a tidy profit by selling off our bratwurst to tourists with an outrageous tourist mark-up. This must be how MA got started with his reindeer dogs.

But we did not sell the bratwurst, which was fine with me because on a rainy camping day, very few things taste as good as bits of greasy bratwurst. As I was frying the luscious bits, I observed that bratwurst, being made thoroughly of ground meat, would technically fall under the Small Bits Exception. A friend remarked that the next time I become an unprincipled vegetarian again, I could save everyone a lot of trouble just by eating hamburger. Duly noted.

The bratwurst was a fitting accent to a great weekend beginning in Talkeetna. Talkeetna apparently is the town on which Northern Exposure's Cicely, Alaska was based. I've learned this fact only recently even though for years, when people have asked me if life in Alaska is like Northern Exposure, I've always said, "I bet in Talkeetna it is." "Downtown Talkeetna" is actually a Main Street of a handful of blocks. In fact, if you are nodding off in the car, you might just miss all of Talkeetna. It's a cute little town situated by the Talkeetna River. At the "end" of town, you can get to the riverbank easily and when not overrun with ATVs and snowmachines, it is a great place to just be.

Unlike Anchorage, Talkeetna offers a very decent breakfast at The Roadhouse, which also boasts affordable modest rooms in addition to solid baked goods. For breakfast, I gobbled up some very satisfying biscuits and gravy in addition to the day's special, banana pecan sourdough pancakes. Unless you're a burly lumberjack, however (and often I think I eat like one), order the half-plate. Breakfast also comes with fresh juice and coffee included! You've got a love a policy like that.


Between Talkeetna and Denali is a long stretch of highway on which you can't get a decent cup of coffee regardless of how many times you try or how much you are willing to pay for it. During this time of year, however, the highway is lined with patches of brilliant fireweed, all reminding us that summer is in full swing and will be over before we know it. As is true with any highway in Alaska, during the ride you may also encounter some interesting characters.

And despite the bad coffee, of course the Park itself did not disappoint. You can while away an easy lifetime exploring the Park. As I drove along the road, I thought about the land teeming with all of those animals, the miles over which tourists from all over the world travel to see the Mountain and the creatures. Even at the height of tourist season, with people clogging the gift store and campgrounds, there is so much park out there that you can feel like you're alone, which is of course the nature of this state. Standing on the tundra, it is hard to figure out why anyone would possibly live anywhere else but Alaska. Before the day was over, I did finally manage to spot some wildlife. I think this little fellow may have been thinking the same thoughts.

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What Would the Europeans Say?

Italy: The Italians do not mix seafood with cheese. Although fond of their parmesan, no self-respecting Italian would add it, for example, to a seafood risotto. If you think about it, this prohibition makes a lot of sense. The cow and the fish are not natural neighbors. I had to have this point proven to me the hard way today when I ordered the Asiago Sole (probably an oxymoron) at lunch at Simon and Seafort in downtown. The dish had come recommended, but what I received what basically a chicken-fried sole, covered in crispy cheese, over a bed of mashed potatoes with roasted veggies on the side - standard accoutrements for roast chicken or steak but odd bedfellows for fish. The cheesy fish left me feeling heavy and tired, and I spent the rest of the day recovering from lunch. Yes, fried cheese tastes good, but it doesn't make a dish, and it doesn't go with fish. Those Italians know what they're talking about.

Greece: Summertime in Anchorage has made a real appearance in the last two days with temperatures above 70 degrees (positively scorching by local standards). Last night, we had a desire to dine with Summer, but I wanted to avoid turning on the stove. The solution: a fresh pasta salad with Greek elements: tomatoes, herbs, roasted red bell peppers, cucumbers, red onion, feta and halloumi, lemon juice, olive oil, salt/pepper, and of course, kalamata olives. The kalamata olive turned out to be the necessary accent to each bite and hence, midway through the meal, I decided to add them chopped rather than whole. The result: a summery shower of fresh tastes and flavors.

France: Today's experiment was a Marjolaine, a birthday request from a lover of hazelnuts and described by my cookbook as a "French pastry shop favorite." The Marjolaine is a torte, meaning mostly made of ground nuts (in this case, hazelnuts) folded into egg whites. I think only the French would pick nuts, pulverize them, take the white of the egg, whip it up, fold the everything together, and sell it at a pastry shop.

Although the Marjolaine was well-received, an afternoon of dealing with meringues, buttercream, and ganaches has led me to believe that the point of going to France is to indulge yourself with pastries you cannot make. Why mess with the Order of the Universe? If God intended me to make French pastries, he would have made me French and thin. He did neither.

But it is true that I've always had a personal weakness for French pastries. My most recurring "nightmare" is one in which I come upon a buffet of delicate, exquisite French pastries, but there is never enough time to eat them all. This dream dates back to my childhood. As a little girl, I was rather fond of the Napoleon and frankly knew the pastry before I knew the dictator. I suppose it is this recurring dream that initially drove me to become a baker (that and a gift of baking pans for my sixteenth birthday, courtesy of my mom and a major clearance at J.C. Penney). I wanted to achieve in my real life what I could not have in my dream life - lovely French pastries at the tip of my fingers.

Over the years, however, the only permanent part of my repertoire that is solidly in the French pastry category is the pate a choux, or as we Americans know it, the lovely cream puff. I like this pastry because for all of its delicateness and deliciousness, it is actually very straightforward and simple - the essence of a fine dessert.

In contrast, following the multi-step process of making a Marjolaine made it a little hard to fully appreciate the resulting torte. Sometimes too much knowledge of the background context can muddy the experience of the Exact Moment. In this sense, the guests get the best seat in the house - they sample a thin sliver of cake without closely experiencing the disaster of the kitchen or knowing intimately the calorie count that comes with French proportions of heavy cream and butter. In the end, the Marjolaine is the kind of cake where for the baker, the experience is perhaps the process, not consuming the final dessert. Still, it was lovely to pretend to be French, even if just for a moment in the afternoon.

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Still Ticking....

It has been four days since I nuked the lawn to no avail, ten days since I gave notice at work, eleven days since I became an Unprincipled Vegetarian, and over two weeks since a series of other emotionally trying events. Did I also mention I am also looking for a partridge in a pear tree?

This bundle of ridiculous milestones and efforts is really the kind of stuff that gives the Madwoman her name. But I am still ticking... more or less. Maybe I'm a time bomb?

After eleven days of Unprincipled Vegetarianism, I have learned that I will become extremely FAT if I continue down this path. No longer able to seek comfort in the arms of Meat, I have sought out the loving embrace of Butter, Ice Cream, and Pasta. Even worse, sometimes I find myself forced to fraternize with the likes of All Kinds Of Fried Food.

Take this weekend, for example, Day 8. An ill-planned drive through the butt-hole of Palmer (the Butte area) succeeded mostly in creating a carful of hungry passengers. We tried very hard to find edible food, but the Lonely Planet in my glove compartment had only two suggestions for "dining," and one of them was the neighborhood Carrs. Not encouraged by the prospect of lunching at the grocery store, we decided to take our chances and to look for a local German bar on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway - an octagonal log cabin atop a hill called Schawbenhof.

At the foot of the driveway up to the Schawbenhof bar is a sign boasting a counterfeit St. Pauli's girl. The costume is the same, but if you look closely beyond her steins, you'll notice that she looks more like an elderly version of the famous Frauline - maybe what Fr. St. Pauli might like after twenty-five years of bar fights and serving drinks to mouthy frontiersmen.

After the Old Miss St. Pauli welcomes you, you drive up a steep road that leads to the log-cabin bar. The bar itself has a great vibe. Although mostly empty on a random Sunday at 2pm, it nevertheless had all the marks of a place that has seen some good times. There is a wide open deck with a virtually 360 degree view of the Palmer/Wasilla/Butt area, which my friend from Nebraska said looked a lot like Nebraska (not exactly a direct compliment). But with 16 oz of beer in your hand, even the unobstructed view of Nebraska is spectacular.

Scwabenhof boasts a long list of beers and friends of beers. For a mere six dollars, you can sample four, each served in a cute little mini-stein. It also has the typical German fare for food. Bratwurst. Sauerkraut. And you might have guessed, not so much for the Vegetarian, Unprincipled or not. My friend on the left ordered the "1/2 Bratwurst" which was later explained to be a typo that should have read "1/2 pound Bratwurst." (Her brat was literally twice as long as her bun.) My friend on the left ordered a Pork Tenderloin sandwich. I sat in the middle with a cup of water (I was driving) and an order of "nachos" - i.e., tortilla chips smothered in Velveeta. I knew there was some danger in ordering nachos at a German bar, but this was the only vegetarian option aside from beer and sauerkraut.

I can't say much about how good the food is at Scwabenhof except that the meat options appeared to my hungry eyes to be truly delicious, and both my friends left feeling very satisfied.

Driving away from the German bar having escaped the arms of Meat, I must say I was surprised I survived. A test of will is a funny thing. Some people are impressed with the length of time a person is able to abstain from something desirable. But as time passes, new habits form, and dramatic pledges and vows actually become a matter of status quo. The spirit becomes stubborn even if the flesh is weak. Perhaps the most trying challenge is that initial moment one decides to choose change over The Way Things Are, for better or worse.

Certainly being a Schawbenhof survivor steeled my resolve to continue with the Unprincipled Vegetarianism. Later that day, we headed to Kincaid Park for a summer festival - Natsumatsuri - sponsored by the local Japanese society in Anchorage. The ambient smells of yakitori - skewers of grilled meat - filled the park, and for a while, I sat on the picnic bench tortured and unhappy. I had purchased a meal ticket which my friend exchanged for three skewers. My well-meaning friends tried coaxing me into giving into the yakitori (no doubt they are absolutely sick of my unprincipled vegetarianism), but I did not fold.

At the end of the day, the lure of yakitori was a false challenge. The smell of meat over an open flame is admittedly a call of the wild - an ancestral beacon that glows within us, tying us to our more primitive times and urges. It is true that the smell of grilled meat drives me crazy, much like the smell of fresh fried donuts (no ancestral explanation available here). But I am certain had I thrown it all in for a skewer of mediocre yakitori, I would have deeply regretted it. I did end up eating the meat-juice soaked grilled scallions (which fall under the meat juice exception) and made a joke about licking up the remaining yakitori meat juice, but really it was only a joke.

In the meantime, tick, tick, tick....

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Vote Yes On Nasturtiums.

As we approach mid-July in Anchorage, one might say we are at the peak of the growing season. My dandelion patch is thriving, and my late-planted seedlings are starting to look like at least a bit like adolescents. Weeds lining the sides of my yards are climbing over the chain link fence, forcing me to take to the weedwacker.

It is also the time of year when Mother Nature teaches me some humbling lessons. The Weedwacker is an excellent example of a Foolish Human Tool we use to fight against the Inevitable. I was happily wielding said Weedwacker this weekend to clean up Mother Nature's work when I accidentally nicked one of my precious fava bean adolescents.

The injury was as painful to me as if I cut my own flesh. I fought back tears and like any good Alaskan, got the duct tape out to make it all better.

Some might question this effort, but sometimes it feels better to put a bandaid on a hopeless boo-boo. I had so gently nicked the plant that it was still standing (barely), albeit critically wounded. I guess I was hoping that the duct-tape would encourage my fava bean friend to magically regenerate its xylem, make itself whole, and dutifully resume the transport of water!

I might as well have planted some magic fava beans, climbed up the stalk, and started laying golden eggs.

Mother Nature also threw me a curveball last night when I finally decided that it was time to nuke the lawn. The weed 'n' feed variety I use requires (1) 24 hours of dry weather, and (2) warm temperatures. Sunday demonstrated both, and Yahoo Weather promised no rain for the following day. As Mother Nature would have it, it is pouring today, and the rain is washing away my hard work before it had a chance to take effect. Even worse, the rain will have the effect of not killing the weeds but nevertheless feeding the fertilizer to their roots!

I may have unwittingly just created a Bionic Dandelion Patch.

Under these circumstances, it's hard not to throw in the trowel and just give up. It's as if someone sent Mother Nature a memo letting her know that I'll be gainfully unemployed in a matter of days, and of course, I would enjoy nothing more than spending all of my new free time mowing my dandelions-on-steroids yard! Had I tried not to interfere at all with the natural state of the world, maybe the memo would have slipped past Her desk unnoticed.

In fact, it may be true that the plants that are the most worthwhile in the garden are those which actually persist despite my efforts. It gives me no pride nor comfort to know that I may actually be the Anti-Gardener, but I can't help going back into the garden again and again. Unfortunately, there is no amount of duct-tape that will fix my dandelion lawn, physically or emotionally. Perhaps it would be best if I duct-taped my hands together so that they'll stay out of the garden or maybe I should duct-tape over my eyes so I can't see any dandelions.

I suppose it's some kind of human instinct to strive to feel something more than Inconsequential. I live in Alaska where nature is unparalleled; logic should counsel me to leave natural beauty to professionals like Mother Nature, but my mundane sense of identity as a homeowner motivates me to mimic her finest works (and fail miserably) in hopes of capturing some "beauty" in my own backyard.

But for every ten poor decisions made in the yard, Mother Nature occasionally lets me win one. This week: my first (and so far only) nasturtium bloom. What can I say? It's lovely.

And I'll admit it: well worth the wait.

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Save The Date

So it appears the time has come for me to make the Break With Reality that I've smelled in the air for so long now. I can think of no better way to mark the new era than with an umbrella, a fruit hat, a bowling ball, and a little music.

And let's not forget the importance of a proper disguise. No Big Life Change can be successfully executed without the aid of a good rubber nose and a fake mustache.

After I gave notice to my law firm of the last six years, many have asked me, So What Are You Going To Do Now? I think the hot pink octopus explains things pretty well. I may have to print some hot pink octopus business cards for this purpose.

Some, including myself, have pointed out that I am Too Young For A Mid-Life Crisis. I assure my friends and family that I am not trading in the Prius for a Miata - not yet. (Let's hope that if I do, I at least choose an interesting color.) Among the sophisticated "next steps" contemplated include:

• become a momentary vegetarian (see previous blog entries on the "success" of this idea),
• get the turquoise highlights I've wanted since I was sixteen,
• assert control over dandelion chaos in the garden,
• finally learn Spanish so that I can lift my prohibition on travel to Spanish-speaking countries,
• "work on my music and art" (e.g., be penniless while picking up a new instrument, working on my cartoon strip),
• see more of the Last Frontier.

In the meantime, I am also looking for odd experiences to add to my collection -- nothing is too odd. Try me.

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Kaghplut!!!

It's now Day Five of Unprincipled Vegetarianism, and results are inconclusive. My previous experience in giving up meat - namely, when I gave up my beloved pork in 2005 - provided all sorts of insight into who I am as a person, what I value, and my motivations for doing what I do.

This current abstention from complex muscle protein, however, has yielded no such deep revelations.

In fact, far from the wise and serene little bodhisattva I had hoped to become, I've turned a bit of a rabid dog. Chained like to my Unprincipled Vegetarianism (which because it is unprincipled, has no clear mechanism for coming to an end), I snap and snarl whenever I remember, oh yes, I've turned into an Unprincipled Vegetarian. The thought is quite annoying and has brought me no Eureka! whatsoever except to realize that deep down inside, apparently I am a raging carnivore who enjoys silently brandishing her canines.

Although I thought that eating meat had a causal relationship to being a feral beast, it appears that not eating meat has the same effect, if not worse. I've turned into a caged animal (albeit a vegetarian animal) rattling the bars of my confinement. In fact, more than being an Unprincipled Vegetarian, I do believe I'm transforming into the Most Annoying Vegetarian Ever. My friends are practically begging me to give up giving up meat.

Apparently, Miss Unprincipled Vegetarian is no Miss Congeniality.

There are many possible explanations for this.

1. I am feeling physically weak, even somewhat starved, because I have not been consuming muscle protein, and people who are starved lash out. (However, I am still eating eggs and some seafood and certainly my portions don't suggest that I am yet in need of United Nations relief.)


2. When robbed of my carnivorous cloak, I am exposed to the light of day as the true Raving Bitch that I am. (Disturbing, but can't be ruled out.)


3. There are natural sedatives in animal muscle protein.


4. I hate being a vegetarian.

Of these explanations, probably the last is the most likely. When I gave up pork, I did not hate myself because I was still a meat-eater who happened to be giving up her favorite meat for a while for personal reasons. But now, I am not a meat-eater (unless you count sauces, broths, seafood, etc., but clearly I don't). I don't suppose I much enjoy being this person; I feel neither virtuous or righteous, nothing like Mr. Spock my favorite Vulcan vegetarian -- just angry and bitter like a Klingon deprived of his blood wine!

Kaghplut!!*

(*Kaghplut is not actually a Klingonese word, but it adequately describes what I'm feeling inside.)

As many will agree, I make a Lousy Vegetarian.

Still, time flies. Day Five of Vegetarianism makes for almost a full work week. And had it not been for two slices of most deeeelicious Prime Rib last Saturday, it would already be Day Seven. Didn't even God rest on Day Seven?

In the meantime, I must continue to perservere... for absolutely no reason whatsoever....

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The Spirit Was Somewhat Willing....

Last week, I consumed a thick, giant hamburger which probably tipped the scales at over a pound of ground meat. It was luscious to behold and was certainly consumed with a great deal of gusto, but the feat of eating the entire thing left me empty inside (emotionally, obviously not physically). Every once in a while, I go through some kind of phase during which I simply feel not emotionally equipped to digest complex animal protein.

Logically, I decided the next step should be to have a brief period of vegetarianism. However, because I have been an avid meat lover since the day my tiny canines popped out of my pink baby gums, I knew that I should set realistic limits.

So I developed the following rubric:

• meat flavorings and juices OK (no point in cutting out harmless stuff like chicken broth and sauces)
• fish and other seafood OK (they have simple nervous systems)
• "Wild Game" exception (never know what kind of once-in-a-lifetime exotic meat might walk in the door).
  
  

This scheme is admittedly unprincipled in a moral sense, but in a technical sense, very principled in that it is at least quite rule-oriented. It boils down to a basic prohibition against bite-sized (or larger) chunks of commercial meat. My "vegetarianism" is also rather amorphous in that it lacks definite duration.

Personally I predict it will be a momentary flash-in-the-pan.

Some have asked why I don't just eat less meat.

That's not the point, I answer.

The decision to dabble in vegetarianism was an organic one, borne first out of a natural reluctance to digest meat in the near future and second out of a desire to clean up my life a bit. I once gave up the meat of my people - pork - for a short period of time and found that experience quite interesting. I discovered being a carnivore definitely makes me a feral being, more prone to barbaric tendencies and moods. For this bout of civilized vegetarianism, I declared no clear start date, but last Friday, found myself making veggie quesadillas and a green bean tomato salad for dinner. Saturday morning, in unprecedented fashion, I abstained from our traditional morning mcmuffins, which normally require two slices of Canadian bacon to achieve the necessary meat-to-rest-of-food ratio. The rest of Saturday would have passed without incident if not for a certain Prime Rib at an out-of-town wedding. I was able to resist the other temptations (admittedly, aside from the permissible salmon, the other option was prohibited chicken), but the Prime Rib loomed under the lights, glowing like an object of divine intervention, testing my resolve.

Unfortunately, my "resolve" (which had not been formally instituted) proved to be weak. I noted to my roommate with despair, "Prime rib! But I am supposed to become a vegetarian!"

She had an expedient solution, having earlier decided that my Unprincipled Vegetarianism was pretty much totally lame: "Start tomorrow. You can start tomorrow."

Having already secured two vegetarian meals under my belt, I felt this would be a major setback as well as being intellectually dishonest. "I can't start tomorrow!"

Luckily for me, the waiter shaving the luscious pieces of Prime Rib gave me unsolicited reassurance: "Believe me, you can start tomorrow."

I caved.

"OK!"

So I started "tomorrow." Sunday, the official Day One, passed without incident. At lunch on Day Two (today), I realized that this vegetarianism was not going to result in any health benefits. For one thing, not eating meat makes me psychologically ravenous and I end up grazing on any nearby snack. For lunch, I had:

1. half a veggie quesadilla,
2. a couple servings of vegetarian pad thai,
3. a brownie,
4. some baked potato snacks, and
5. a cheese puff.

It seemed that something deep inside in me was determined to nullify my vegetarian efforts by any means necessary. I could have eaten pure bacon for lunch and probably consumed fewer calories.

Tonight's meal, however, proved to be a real challenge. My friends and I had decided to go out, and I was envisioning a plate of hearty pasta with pesto sauce, but our Italian restaurant was closed, forcing us to choose Mexican. The thought of going Mexican without getting some beloved carnitas was more tearfully traumatic than I expected. In fact, I grumbled the whole time I stood in line, upset that this might be the first time ever I was going to get the dreaded "veggie burrito."

I settled upon the enchilada platter which looked like it had more going on, but out of the "beef, chicken, pork, or cheese" selection, I had to choose cheese option. Seeing my Unprincipled Vegetarianism wavering, my friends encouraged me to scrap the whole idea. However, I did experience some regret at the wedding after my second slice of Prime Rib (the first slice was admittedly deliciously perfect), so I stayed the course. I ordered cheese enchiladas.

What I discovered is that cheese is not a replacement for meat. I looked at my friend's chicken enchiladas, all fat and plump with shredded meat - and then my own deflated, impotent enchiladas, lacking the structural integrity inherent in a nice satisfying pile of meat. I shoveled on as much pico de gallo that my entree could handle and made do. All in all, the veggie dish was flavorful but left my heart empty and truth be told, left me rather bitchy.

With the July 4th holiday coming up, otherwise known as National Barbecued Meat Day, I wonder how the bitch is going to make it through the week with Unprincipled Vegetarianism. Stay tuned for Day Three ... if I get that far....

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Ode to the Little Brother

Often when I refer to "my little brother," people think I'm talking about a kid brother in grade school. My little brother, however, is twenty-six-years-old and thankfully finally out of grade school. At various times, I am his stern older sister, a disapproving surrogate parent, and on rare occasion, reluctantly a humbled peer.

My little brother, you see, is a little bit of a genius, but as his older sister, I have to keep that genius stomped down, much like the way I used to sit on him when we were kids. When my mother became pregnant with him at thirty-eight, I thought not much of the whole affair; it was entirely abstract until a rather tactless neighbor asked me, "So how do you feel about no longer being the littlest one?" I realized then, in a sudden moment of terror, that I would have to cede my title of Most Adorable One and Family Brat. There was a little bundle of joy on the way who, despite his complete lack of any sophisticated cognitive skills, was going to seize all of that glory from me.

His arrival was uneventful except that I remember that for whatever unrelated reason, my father's false tooth was missing the morning my little brother was born. There's nothing weirder than being told by your father while he's missing a tooth that you now have a new baby brother! I remember dragging a photo of my little brother's rather swollen newborn self to kindergarten, where I had never in the past participated in Show-And-Tell before. I sat shyly on Mrs. Schneider's lap, holding my puffy-eyed little brother's picture in front of my chest, letting the class put two-and-two together their own, offering only occasional affirmative nods to such probing questions as, "Is that your little brother?!"

After his initial arrival, I recall only other a few other memorable snippets. He was a pee fountain the first time he took a bath (pretty typical). If you put him in the swing and practiced your kindergarten reading skills on him, he would magically fall asleep. He preferred Pampers over Huggies. His favorite baby food was Gerber's Turkey And Rice. My little brother was undeniably cute. Even I could see this plain truth. I did also think that our baby pictures looked awfully alike, so perhaps I was only complimenting myself. To this day, I think my parents could have made millions if they had only exploited him in the media.

As the years went on, however, my little brother became more complex. He developed a penchant for biting - me - as well as his fingernails. I once caught him spooning a tub of margarine that he thought was ice cream. He had this strange habit of making a lot of noise when he breathed, a habit that I proudly forced him to break so that he would someday be a socially acceptable human being. (He still disputes whether I should be "thanked" for this.) I also began to notice that he was not exactly like me. For example, I once found him jumping on my parents' king-sized bed while playing his Fischer-Price recorder to an episode of Star Trek - entirely by ear! He also could draw like nobody's business - rendering pencil drawings of Michelangelo's sculptures at seven and a half. I had some modest talents, but nothing like this.

By the time he reached young adulthood, we were quite different, despite my diligent efforts at early brainwashing. He showed a fondness for snoring (so advanced for his young age!) and for sleeping long uninterrupted hours. He enjoyed laziness and lacked attention to detail. He broke my heart once when I was in college by running away from home. I later learned that he "ran away" in my mom's purple minivan with the family TV in the backseat. He is also the kind of guy who doesn't notice he's wearing two left shoes.

Despite all of this, in recent years, I've come to very much respect my little brother. I tortured him through his youth, forcing him to pretend to be my imaginary dog to whom I fed imaginary doggie kibble. I once reduced him to tears by accusing him of being a Democrat in a family of Republicans when he was too young to realize it was a good thing. But nowadays, I see how much we have in common, beyond our adorable baby pictures.

I think my little brother and I share a similar emotional universe, only mine is diluted, for better or worse. I find it ridiculous that we ever understand each other at all. His mind wraps around the world in a similarly odd fashion. In the end, perhaps I am just relieved that he is around to make me look just a little bit normal. And for this, thank you, Little Brother!

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Annuals Are For Pansies.

Last year, understandably, the only annuals permitted to exist in my garden were the ones I could eat. As it was my first summer with a yard of my own, frankly there was no time to waste my heart and soul on annuals. If they could be eaten, they were acceptable because they paid their way. But otherwise, I suppose I've always regarded annuals with some suspect as perhaps being a little too carpe diem for me.

They say that you can't achieve the same kinds of colors with perennials, and this is slightly true. Annuals are bright, at times brilliant. But, on the other side of the coin, certain annuals can also be rather showy and flamboyant, somewhat too liberace for my tastes. I've seen my mother wear dresses with patterns exploiting the color of annuals. That alone should be enough reason to keep them out of my garden.

This year, however, I was given a couple of packages of nasturtium seeds as a birthday gift and hence, already had them by early spring. I do like the gorgeous blooms of the nasturtium, so I dutifully wrestled with peaty pellets and pots and started them indoors, rather early if judged by my own schedule. I then painstakingly hardened off these seedlings.

And for what: not a single bloom.

It says on the package that nasturtiums are edible flowers, and indeed, they would look spectacular on any buttercreamed cake. However, if there are no flowers, there is nothing to eat.

So next year, vote no on nasturtiums.

In fact, for the most part, most of my started-indoor efforts fell flat on their face. There was the lettuce I planted too early - now sickly yellow and probably permanently stunted. The basil that for whatever reason decided just to die (maybe I should have kept up with watering). Various other flower seeds that also did not flourish. And above all, many of my peaty pellets got moldy after someone dropped almonds from a cake onto my miniature farm.

Next year, vote no on starting indoors.

Of course a real gardener and lover of land has to start something from seed, so I hear. But in our short growing season in Alaska, it is the antithesis of natural growth to mess with seeds in the darkness of April, setting up grow lights in your basement for confused seedlings, hardening off, covering your kitchen table with dirt, etc., etc.

Most of all, it's all way too much trouble for a lazy gardener prone to disaster.

In fact there are plenty of things to plant into the ground as soon as you can work the soil - things that will even survive a mild spring frost. For example, lots of varieties of peas seem to thrive in the colder climate. I grew them last year, which means even a pony could grow them. And although the gardening gurus say start planting gladiolus bulbs in March, the truth is when I plant 70 bulbs, I can't be bothered with finding coffee cups for each of them and transplanting them into the garden.

After all, gardening, for better or worse, is an exercise in realism. It is about working with, against, and within Nature, gently negotiating what we can achieve with human hands. Of course, if left entirely to her own devices, it seems Mother Nature would prefer a yard of chaotic dandelions. I'm still negotiating with her on that one.

In addition to my non-blooming nasturtiums, I have a few annuals this year due to a sudden rash, live-in-the-moment-loss-of-pragmatic-sense morning I spent at the lovely local nursery. While delicate and beautifully colored, I look upon these annuals with some sadness knowing that they have limited lives and will die out with no long-term future better than feeding the worms in the compost pile.

In contrast, my perennial bed is truly flourishing this year. Sure, there were some Home Depot perennials that didn't make it, but a surprising number of sorry specimens have managed to regain strength now that we are solidly in the growing season. A burning bush that had been painfully pruned by moose has re-leafed itself with enough foliage to provide an exciting vibrant display come fall. Daylilies, columbine, irises, wild geraniums, meadow sage ... they've all been putting on a good show. Strawberries that I tore out my first year thinking maybe they were weeds (that's how little I knew) are back with fierceness and have stretched out their runners to claim more of the garden. Even raspberries planted late summer, on one of the hottest days most hostile to transplanting, will probably bear fruit this year and spread next year.

And of course, there is the perennial, quintessential, Forget-Me-Not. Not only is it the state flower, but it is truly oh so lovely. Delicate, perfectly blue blooms with yellow center ... Forget-Me-Nots capture the true heart of a perennial. Without much care or attention, they beg us to remember them forever - which we do - because they come back every year.

I love perennials because they are seemingly loyal - despite winter's cruelest deliverances, they come back to say hello and make me happy. Beyond being beautiful in the moment, they are also something that I look forward to again and again, year after year.

How could I possibly keep myself from falling in love with that?

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Weeding Is Good For the Gluteus Maximus!

The problem (or blessing) when it comes to a private blog is that one is never accountable to the masses. I can blog with irregularity, about the most undesirable topics, the innermost grumblings of my belly.... I can, for example, have a blog entry touting the benefits of weeding for purposes of firming up the derriere!

Solstice has blown through this joint, "joint" being myself. After a rollercoastery two months of rain, intense sunshine, and so much daylight that I've taken to sleeping with my sports bra wrapped around my head, the pendulum now swings the other way as we are technically on our way to... is it winter??

Don't tell the garden about this turn of events. It is just getting warmed up, starting to share its blooms, and offering glimpses into the harvests to come in the upcoming weeks. This year, I've delayed nuclear warfare on the dandelions, mostly due to a sudden surge in yard traffic thanks to sundry friends and barbecuing folks. Last year, I engaged in a questionable scientific experiment in which I retained a control group (organic lawn) and nuked half my yard. Although it pained me to kill my microbes and threaten the livelihood of my worms, I have to admit that chemicals accomplished over the course of a few days what months and months of devoted, back-breaking hand-weeding could not deliver: some semblance of control over the Chaos that is called Dandelion.

Unfortunately, the organic control lawn has basically turned into a dandelion patch. As for the rest of the lawn, the unintended side benefit of not getting serious about war has been that the lawn has not grown exponentially on steroids as it did last year, thereby allowing me to escape with fewer mowings. In fact, I am so indifferent to the front yard lawn that I am rather pleased to put it through the throes of starvation - anything to avoid that "furry" look it had going on last year!

Weeding can be magical if you have the right temperament and set of circumstances. I find that it maintains my tenuous sanity, and truth be told, I am probably slightly addicted. Rare is the occasion when I'll enter the house NOT bearing a bouquet of puffy dandelion seeds freshly yanked from the lawn. For anyone who doesn't have a pair of idle hands, weeding is second nature. It is my very microcosmic way of trying to create order in a world that will otherwise choose chaos ... if only it were so easy to yank puffy dandelion balls from my psyche. In the meantime, this emotional exercise also yields physical benefits. Very few positions required for weeding can happen without engaging in a set of muscles that would otherwise lie unused.

So get weeding - it's good for the soul ... and the gluteus maximus.

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The Danger of Edible Accoutrements....

Sometimes it is lovely to dine alone. I find that it is an excellent opportunity to make your food your best friend. You can't be distracted by the commentary of a dining companion; the eating experience becomes a one-way conversation between you and your entree. And the food has only one thing to say -- Eat me.

I decided to dine in a manner uncharacteristic for me. The restaurant at the top of my hotel in Dallas this week, Chaparral, rated *four stars* by the esteemed AAA. It's no Zagat rating; my experience with Triple A recommendations has been confined to finding a hotel/motel when stranded with a van of crazy family members without housing in the open Southwest. Still, the advertisements in the hotel elevator and all over my room seemed to invite a visit. That and the fact dining in the hotel restaurant would spare me from the hot mugginess that is Dallas in June.

crudite
assorted bread
ice tea
roast sea bass
coffee
lemon chantilly mousse

CRUDITE
This was an unexpected house complimentary offering which although fetching to look at and good for passing the time while waiting for my entree, was unexciting. It came served in a giant martini glass with young veggies embedded in shaved ice. The garlic hummus spread that was to serve as a dipping sauce of some sort was confused, neither hummusy or garlicky. Just kind of brown with green herbs in it. Nevertheless, I enjoyed cleansing my palate with a few stalks of jicama. Left the celery untouched.

ASSORTED BREAD
I like it when a restaurant brings out an assortment of special breads rather than slapping some run-of-the-mill stuff on the table, as if to say, you look like you need to feel bloated today for no reason - try some bread. There was butter in one of my breads; I could smell it when it hit the table. Can't find fault in that.

ROAST SEA BASS WITH TOMATO COULIS SERVED WITH SPINACH AND LOBSTER RISOTTO
Most waiters don't know that if I've had the opportunity to do so, I've previewed the menu on the Internet. I find that in the quiet space away from the din of the restaurant, away from the foreign-accented descriptions by the waitstaff of tonight's dishes, I can shrewdly calculate what I want to eat. Tonight was such an occasion. I had pre-selected roast sea bass although I permitted my waiter to go through the motions of explaining the day's specials. He actually independently recommended the sea bass at the end, which I took as a green light.

My first bite of the sea bass was quite good. It was cooked just enough - still tender but flaking gently with the push of a fork. Had a nice little crust to it. Had the fish been served alone like this, I might have joined Triple AAA in its quadruple star rating.

The problem with the word LOBSTER before anything other than MARKET PRICE or WHOLE is that usually whatever it is, it doesn't have enough lobster soul in it. Tonight's "lobster risotto" was no exception. I don't think it is enough to treat "lobster" as a mere color of cream sauce for some otherwise unexciting rice. (Nothing arboriol about this risotto.) While the entree as whole had pleasing colors, I of course had to taste the colors as well. The tomato coulis over the fish was decent, but not exactly the right accompaniment. I thought that perhaps if served in another context, I might have enjoyed it more. And then there is the subject of other obligatory vegetables: in this case, a small bed of spinach, one carrot, and two shaved spears of asparagus. The asparagus was nondescript and the carrot, while young and full of carroty flavor, seemed misplaced with its perfume. Lying next to a big steak, it (and I) might have been happier. The only nonintrusive accompaniment was the lightly seasoned spinach.

In finishing the sea bass but leaving the various accoutrements, I decided that the Chinese (or more inclusively, Asian cuisine in general) have the right idea when it comes to fish. Don't dress up fish like it's poultry or steak. All of it robs the fish of its most exciting flavor, which is that of the fresh open sea. There is something to be said for serving a bowl of plain rice with fish - let the fish be on stage, not standing behind senseless vegetables and costumed in directionless cream sauce.

(Note: The sea bass also came with an interesting garnish/condiment - a half lemon wrapped in what appeared to be yellow muslin-like fabric, complete with green bow, ostensibly so that when you squeeze the lemon, the seeds do not fall onto your precious fish. At first, I wondered if a bouquet-garni had wandered onto my plate, but I am sure that many other restaurant goers have unwrapped this surprise not understanding its utility, despite its obvious aesthetic acknowledgement.)

Overall, however, the sea bass was decent enough that it was a pleasing meal. It did have the unfortunate experience of tasting less and less good as I continued to eat, but you can't have everything.

COFFEE
The menu offered an array of "specialty" coffees for $8.95 each, apparently made "special" by the addition of a splash of some type of alcohol. That is way too much for any coffee unless it comes with a bottle of booze attached to it. The fancy splash was not enough so I ordered plain coffee, which nicely turned out to be solidly good.

ICE TEA
Never-ending refills when you dine at the top of a hotel! I drank buckets.

LEMON CHANTILLY
After I interrogated the waiter regarding the chocolate used in the "Godiva Chocolate Bread Pudding," I decided I had enough of having my chocolate hopes and expectations dashed by inartful American sweetness. So I elected to get the lemon mousse chantilly. It had a decent pistachio cake crust to it, but the lemon mousse was about average. A little too greasy feeling. A little too much of store-bought lemon flavor. Also, there was a cookie-like curly garnish on the top of my mousse which of course I tried to eat. It tasted stale, like an after-thought. Word to the wise: don't put garnish on top of anything unless you're ready for someone curious like me to eat it. Still, at the end of the meal, I no longer needed chapstick, which I had earlier noted was being sold at the hotel gift shop at the highway-robbery prohibitive price of $3.00.

SERVICE
Only nerds eat early, which meant I was given a large table right by the window with a less than most flattering view of Dallas. Probably no fewer than six different staff members either greeted me, refilled my drink, brought my crudite, cleared my table, etc., etc. And given it was Dallas, it was like being served dinner by a kindly troupe of Hispanic grandfathers and uncles. Very pleasant.

THE BELLY'S RATING: 2.95 out of possible 4 cow bellies. I'm feeling generous tonight!

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