Alaska - misc.

and here's to all the stuff that didn't fit into a neat little category. We saw tons of wildlife out there. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch photos of most of it, including the porpoises swimming playfully along at the bow of the boat, two whales - blow-holes, tails and all, and the salmon-carcass eating Sea Lion that just barely eluded my camera. the bastard.

We did see a ton of bald eagles (noted in photos) a beautiful, giant brown bear that ended up being just an artistic stump on the shore, and a number of other little creatures along the way.

Overall, a fantastic adventure. Thanks again to Pat and Carolyn for making it all happen.

Alaska - shrimp and crabbing

We did a little crabbing and shrimpfffing when we were there. We kinda got overtaken by the commercial fisherman, as they had their crab and shrimp pots lined along the entire shorline of the Bay and we could only squeeze in next to them. As you can see from the photos, we used yesterday's fish heads for crab bait. Luckily, that was the day I decided to retire from Soux Hand and so I didn't have to touch those disgusting things. We weren't super successful, but we did get enough food to provide us with a splendid seafood feast that night for din-din. Crabbing and shrimping is a LOT OF WORK! I caught glimpses of it in between naps and I nearly broke a sweat.

The cleaning of the shrimp involved standing around in a circle ripping the heads off of the shrimp and throwing them back into the Bay. Yummy!

There's something that is referred to as "the butter" that certain crazy people like to drink right out of the crab shell once it's ripped off the body. I think it must involve guts. Guts to drink it, and guts you're drinkin'. Thank you, Ma'am, may I have another???

Truly fresh crab and shrimpfff is a culinary dream! This food was seriously awesome and my bff, Carolyn, was kind enough to crack it all out of the shell for me and deliver it ready to eat on my plate. Of course, she did squirt crab juice all over my face at one point, but I figure that makes up for the time I spit rootbeer backwash threw a straw right into her face at our local pizza joint back when we were in 9th grade. and I didn't do it to be helpful. So all's good.

I screwed up and did half these photos on "small" setting so just double-click to enlarge to actual size.

Alaska - doin' a little fishin'

The fishing was hot! Nothing can compare to Alaskan salmon fishing. and needless to say, I had NO IDEA what was in store for me. The first fish I reeled up left me spring-loaded and trembling. I should admit to screaming like a girl too, but that is unneccesary.

Overall, we caught 8 King Salmon, 1 Coho Salmon, 2 rock rish, 3 keepable crabs (we had to thow many of them back because we're not alowed to keep the females) and about 5 Ibs. of shrimp.

The King salmon we caught ranged from about 18 Ibs on up to a whoppin' 36 pounder that happened to catch the line at the same time we were reeling in another fish. I was given the title "Sea Hag" on Day 1 of fishing. The official responsibilities of the "Sea Hag" were to make ugly faces at the bait, get the hell out of the way when the Deck Hand was on a mission, gasp at the knocking out and murder by knife of the fish, squeal a lot and generally just stand around and look pretty. On day 2, I figured I had mastered "Sea Hag" so well that I promoted myself to "Soux Hand" which is essentially the assistant Deck Hand. My promotion was accepted, I was rapidly moving up that corporate fishing ladder, feeling pretty good and ready to take on the task of clubbing the fish myself. This involved a lot jumping about and screaming while shouting simultaneous profanities and words of encouragement to my poor fishy victims. By day 3, I figured I had climbed so far so fast, that I decided to retire into the cabin to take cat naps and munch on smoked salmon while the others worked their assess off. Thus went my short, but extremely influentual career as a Corp. Fishin' Bitch.

The top photo is the sad reality of these poor fishy-folk. Yes, that's a pool of it's own blood that it's lying in. Carolyn, that savage beast of a deck hand, would slit their throats and bleed them out after they were caught. Each time, I promptly beat the crap out of her and threw her overboard but she kept coming back to club and murder more fish. What could a Sea Hag do, what with such limited corporate power and all?

Photo 2 is the filet and cleaning stations. Pat was the filet man, Carolyn transfered the fish from filet station to cleaning station, Dad was the rinse guy, and my job was to place the fish filets neatly in baggies and make sure the zip-lock was done right. Clearly, my job was the most important. None can argue that.

Bottom 2 photos - Dad and Daughter with the "Big One".

Alaska - primitive living

On day two, we took about an hour long boat ride north of Sitka to an area called "Allan Point" on the Nakwasina Sound which was to be our destination for the next couple of days. The inventory at Allan Point includes: 1 cabin, 2 rope swings that would make Tarzan envious, 1 outhouse with bullet holes in the doors and the lock mechanism mangled and knawed off most likely by a bear, and about 4 billion-gazillion trees. Here, I lived like Laura Ingalls Wilder, only slightly more drunk and definitely more tired.

We had to anchor the boat a ways out from shore to accommodate the tidal changes, so Carolyn and I got the pleasure of rowing sleeping bags, coleman stoves, pots and pans and bags of food back and forth in the rain. This was not, however, unpleasant, as I enjoy anything that involves me being as close to water as possible, and when circumstances did become unpleasant (which wasn't that often), I simply pretended like I was a contestant on "Survivor" and that brought me right quick to a happy place.

In the cabin, I browsed through a guest log of previous adventure-seekers of Allen Point cabin to learn that our predecesors from the weekend before were a lovely father/son duo out for some classic male bonding. The journal entry went like this: "shot up some more beer cans this afternoon. dad was takin' a crap in the outhouse and i think i scared the turd right outta him. ha ha. no dad, this is NOT A DRILL!" Retyping this doesn't do it nearly as much justice as the dramatic reading I performed for Carolyn, but you get the gist.

From the bottom up, we have a photo of the cabin, POV of boat. Photo 2, C-MAC and E-RAE rowing along in the rain. The two middle shots are of the cabin dining/kitchen area and the upstairs sleeping quarters. Note the posh luxury bed accommodations designed special for your spine-numbing pleasure. And the top photo is well... essentially, a path to the outhouse. We were surrounded by thick forest.

Alaska - scenery

Alaska was magnificent! The only bummer was that I came back with a tremendous cold that I can't seem to kick, and we mostly froze our assess off the whole time, but everything else was splendid; beautiful scenery, wildlife like you wouldn't believe, an abundance of fish, and a cool small town vibe. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the experience. I just got through organizing all my photos and have *way* too many that I want to blog on, so I'm going to likely split this AK. blog into 4 or 5 separate posts to support all the photos.

To start with, the scenery was breathtaking, despite the low ceilings and menacing storm clouds. The last photo is Sitka from the sea - just as we were mooring out of the harbor.

We went on a short hike on the last day up to one of the many look-out points. Just as we got there, the bottom dropped out of the sky, so the views were a little compromised, but nonetheless, awesome. They built a boardwalk, of sort, on the trail for those who can't figure out where to step - I guess. I'm sure it has saved many a jack-ass from tumbling down a cliff or two.

Alaska bound

gone fishin'.

The Animal Kingdom

I just had to put this down in writing...

In the short 1.5 minutes it takes to navigate my way through the office park today on my way out of work, I managed to just narrowly miss hitting and killing the following: 1) a family of ducks (mamma duck and two baby ducks, 2) a wild bunny rabbit, and 3) a plus size girl in - get this - LEOPARD SKIN SPANDEX bicycle shorts. That's right. Leopard skin, camel-toed, squeeze that toothpaste back into the tube, spandex shorts!!! Piteous hemorrhaging Jesus, who would do that? What was she thinking? Was she inspired by the abundance of wild life in our office park? Did she go over-kill on her daily dosage of Prozac? But more importantly, did I have a moral obligation to stop her and let her know that what she was wearing was not only horrendously f_cking CRAZY but was probably considered a crime on humanity in some states?

visitation rights - preferrably revoked

Our fearless leader, Georgy "DubYa" is in town today. Like… as in Seattle – my town. He’s probably within a 7-10 mile radius of me as I write this. This makes me sneeze and itch, and… is that a hive there on my thigh? I didn't get enough notice to make arrangments to flee the state, as this info was sprung on me just this morning, much to my horror. I should probably keep up with the news better.

Anyway… I’m laying low today. Don’t want to let my queerness or social consciousness or sense of equality and good and evil get in the way of his important business. But I’ll tell you one thing – if that heaping, steaming sack of shit causes traffic delays on my commute home today, I’m going to be livid.

Team Dingos Ate My Baby

We've signed up for the Furry 5 K. race this weekend at Seward Park. I heard about it on the radio this morning (thanks KMTT) and bolted into work to research it further and then promptly called Drake beaming with excitement to fill her in on our big weekend plans! I must have spent at least an hour reading through the site, picking out a Team name (I went with "TEAM DINGOS ATE MY BABY" because we're cool like that), registering both myself and Drake for the race + bonus tshirt, and bragging to my coworkers about the advanced lightning speeds that my puppies and I will be able to run this race in. Oh, and I also informed Drake that she needs to come up with a quick lesson plan on how to teach Huckleberry to jump through rings of fire so that we can win the "best dog trick" contest in the post-race festivities. It wasn't until it was all taken care of and my exhilaration wore down that I realized what an absolute total f*cking geek I am. That at 32, I have turned into that exact person I used to make vicious fun of. I'm going to race my dogs around a lake this weekend with probably 500 other geeks and dogs and it's like the most thrilling news of the day!

awesome.

I can't wait to get home and tell them the exciting news.

small wonders

astonishing...

courtesy of Photographer Brian Plonka and featured on the MSNBC "This Week in Pictures" site, I was blown away at the thought of this actually existing in the natural world. This was a circumhorizon arc that appeared in an Idaho sky last Saturday. According to MSNBC, it is a "rare meterological event that involves sunlight passing through ice crystals in high elevation clouds at just the right angle."

When I look outside my window, I just see gray, as far as the eye can see.

Chinese Grandma

Chinese Grandma is coming to Seattle for her annual visit next week. She comes every year for about 3 weeks, gets us good and fat, and pulls our lives together in the matter of domestics. This time her visit coincides with my trip to Alaska, which is good because she’ll be able to keep Drakey company while I’m off playing Dyke-Barbie-Gone-Fishin’-Bitch in the Last Frontier.

I’m pretty fond of Chinese Grandma. If I had to compile a list of the most interesting people I’ve known in my lifetime, she’d definitely rank in the top 5. Not to mention she’s like the Chinese Grandma that I never had – never having had a Chinese Grandma that is. My two Grandma’s were both 40 shades of white and really just a totally different genre of grandma all together. Chinese grandmas and white southern grandmas are apples and oranges, so there's no comparison and I'm lucky to have had one in both flavors. So, I should first mention that Chinese Grandma is about 150 years old, give or take a few years, but she could probably take me down in any ultimate fighting competition. In the 10 years she’s been coming around, I’ve witnessed Grandma doing the following things that you don’t often get the pleasure to see little old ladies do: 1) uproot a tree in our front yard with a shovel and some heavy duty chains, 2) weed the entire perimeter of our house (in the squatting position), 3) jump a hopscotch course at the local elementary school playground, 4) simultaneously do squats and military presses with 3-Ib. dumbbell weights in our living room, 5) build a fence around my garden, I which I was strictly forbidden to help, 6) turn our abandoned shit-hole garage into a highly organized thing of beauty, and dare I leave out the time when I sprained my ankle (badly) on the way to the airport to fetch her, and Grandma dragged/carried me like a potato sack haunched over her shoulder through the Intl. District while my rude and oblivious (yet perfectly able-bodied) wife skipped along 2 blocks ahead of us.

One of my favorite things about Chinese Grandma is that she can’t (or won’t) speak a word of English and so not being versed in this particular mountain dialect of the Cantonese language myself, we are forced to communicate via hand-signals, frowns and smiles, petroglyphs, and sometimes a short interpretive dance. Negotiating this language barrier for 3 weeks straight is both challenging and triumphant. I guess it’s probably important to note that Drake, no disrepect intended, is a tremendously TERRIBLE translator (half the time only pretending to understand herself) and so I’m truly on my own in this regard. An example – many Chinese words are phonetically the same, but there is a subtle (well, at least subtle to the untrained ear) difference in inflection from raising the last syllable up or down with your voice that can result in two totally different words or meanings, and does not come with a handy and obvious contextual distinction. In Chinese, the word “Ma” means both Mother and Grandmother, but with different inflections. Actually, "Ma Mah" is specifically paternal grandmother and the inflection is on the second syllable as apposed to "Ma" as in Little House on the Prairie Ma. Anyway... as I started to feel more secure in my relationship with Chinese Grandma, I started calling her “Ma” like Drake did. I mean – Grandma’s are universal, right? Once they reach that glorified status of grandmother then it becomes a permanent identifier. Anyway… being the white girl that I am, I didn’t pick up on the inflection issue and it wasn’t until many many moons later when I inquired as to why Drake called her own mother “grandma” that I was informed that I’ve been calling Chinese Grandma “mom” for the past 3 years. yep.

Over the years, I've tried to learn some of the pertinent Chinese words and phrases like “thank you”, “please”, “this food is yummy”, and “what’s for dinner?”, but sometimes Drake doesn’t get them right. Drake taught me that “ho hat” meant “this food is absolutely delicious, thank you so so very much for slaving away in the kitchen for me all day long in order to present us with this undeserved but lovely meal”, of which we both used frequently and for many years until one day when I was bragging in English to my friend at the table about my versatility in the Chinese language, and mentioned “ho hat Ma Mah” while rubbing my tummy and beaming proudly at her, Chinese Grandma started cracking up laughing and making gestures via interpretive dance that meant “you are both wrong and ridiculous”. Drake and I were shocked. For all I know – we were saying “nice fish rocket, would you like to eat a bucket of yoyo’s?” every time we sat down to the dinner table.

These are things that I know:

I’ve witnessed Chinese Grandma speaking 3 different words in English. “Hi”, “No” and “Dirty” all of which are generally directed at my two adoring puppies who follow her around all day long begging for kitchen scraps, which I know she secretly feeds to them because I’m the one who picks up the Kung Pow Poo in the yard afterwards.

Each year I get an extra dollar in my lycee (red envelop) for Chinese New Year which I interpret to mean that I’m continuing to make good impressions on Grandma with each visit. Or at least my interpretive dances are amusing to her.

Last year Chinese Grandma took Drakey's favorite stuffed animal teddy dog and sewed the head back on completely sideways which leaves me in stitches every time I look at that ridiculous looking thing staring at us out the side of it’s head. And she made all three of us matching pajama bottoms out of left over pink and turquoise checkerboard pattern material which we wore for 3 weeks straight around the house at night looking like characters out of some sort of drug induced Sound of Music mocumentary on mixed race nuclear families. It didn’t help that I wasn’t blessed with a Chinese butt nor hips, so mine are a little tight in said areas.

Chinese Grandma knows that I really enjoy these Chinese Chicken Sausages called “Lop-churn” and so I get a whole plate of them – without fail – with every single meal she cooks, for 21 days straight year after year. I’m the type of person who doesn’t even like to eat leftovers because of the redundancy, but this always makes me smile. It’s clearly a thing; an important thing.

She makes soups. Crazy soups made from $100 roots and odd things that have magical healing powers on various organs in our bodies (whatever she decides is ailing) and we have to drink the entire bowl down in one setting. It used to be that only Drakey had to eat these soups, but now they are made with my internal organ functions in mind as well. Which is another important thing.

I’m incredibly thankful to have the experience of a having a “Chinese Grandma” because my own Grandmother’s are no longer with me, and Chinese Grandma introduces us to all sorts of great herbs and medicinal remedies that I find far more effective than g-d Western medicine. I’m not including the time when she attempted to separate my very injured and swallen foot from the rest of my leg by an unexpected and much unappreciated strong, sharp tug that sent electric currents of pain rippling through my entire body and nearly rendering me blind, but we won’t talk about that.

To my Drakey – Chinese Grandma is her “everything”. To be a part of somebody’s “everything” is one of the greatest gifts one could receive.

P.S. I’d post a picture here of Chinese Grandma but I’d want at least the equiv $4 mil price of Brangelina’s new baby (Shiloh Jolie-Pitt) for it, and so far I’ve had no buyers so I’m gonna hold off for now.