Committing to the Crash

In the Peanuts comic strip, they have a Kite Eating Tree, in Kachemak Bay, we have a Plane Eating Runway. The FAA calls Nanwalek's airstrip at about 800 usable feet, but the pilots that operate there know to eek out extras from the ends. All flat-ish surface is stretched parallel to the beach in a curve, and a mountain of reckon-able size looms on one end. The strip is surrounded by water on three sides and a village at one end.  If the excellence in urban planning were not already apparent, a manhole cover sticks up about a foot above the gravel at one end, driving the obstacle course home. So, properly done, you have two options to get to Nanwalek: a steep turn on short final to avoid the mountain; or, from the other direction, landing on one wheel, in a turn, avoiding the manhole cover and stopping before the mountain.
Of course the prevailing wind is from a lagoon on the wrong side of the curve, constantly pushing aircraft towards a very cold ocean. In the winter, the gravel strip is covered with ice, snow, and slush. Any time of year there are dogs, children, and four-wheelers running across the strip.  Almost all supplies and passengers in and out of this small village go by small airplane.
On Thursday, three pilots were in Nanwalek in 206s, there was a lot of slush on the runway and a crosswind out of the lagoon. One of those 206s didn't make it out. Conditions were worse than "normal" and we could conjecture for hours on the how and why of the crash, but, the basics are: the airplane got off the ground, lost flying speed over the water, and went into the ocean with four souls on board.
The initial gossip was that the pilot "stalled into the water," but those of us who know what a stalling aircraft looks like can't reconcile that with how upright and gently that plane touched the cold ocean. All passengers were unscathed, and everyone climbed out of the aircraft and was able to swim safely to shore.
I had the privilege of talking to the pilot yesterday and I learned something: he said when he knew he was going to hit the water, he committed to the crash, pulled the power and flared. He landed that plane in the water. He didn't crash it. I was amazed. Why? Because I don't think I ever would have done that.
We all know I have a fear of commitment, and committing to crashing seems difficult indeed. But, it might have been what saved the passengers. My instinct would have been to keep trying to shove the power past the firewall, asking the airplane for just a little bit more than it had to give; to keep trying to save it beyond the point of hope; to ask the impossible from a piece of machinery. What beautiful grace: to accept that you are going to fall out of the sky, and be able to turn your attention to landing on your feet.

A Weekend in the "Wilderness"

The men of Talkeetna, AK (pop. 772) decided long ago that all an Alaskan male needs is "a woman and a truck, both that work." After slapping each other on the back, laughing uproariously, and ordering another round of beers, they hatched the idea for the 'Bachelor Auction & Wilderness Women Competition' to scour the Alaskan darkness for one of the two. 31 years later, the Talkeetna Bachelor's Society is still luring scores of single females to Talkeetna in the middle of winter to compete in a ridiculous obstacle course for their affections.
What a perfect venue for Homer Women's Nordic to see how tough they are. Four of us drove the 7 hours to Talkeetna and arrived just in time for the qualifying event: hauling water.  In a series of heats, women race 5-gallon buckets down the main street of town. For every inch of water spilled, 10 seconds is added to your time. The estimation of total contestants was around 45, but bachelors apparently aren't really big on numbers, so who can say for sure? The only qualifiers for the competition are that you be female and single. None of the events move you farther than whisper-distance from the bar, but all are designed to simulate something you would do as a homesteader in the Alaskan bush. Since most cabins in Talkeetna don't have running water, it's pretty normal to haul water from a creek nearby. The top five water haulers advanced, one of which was me.
The next two rounds were performed one at a time, and I had to go first, starting with making a sandwich and opening a beer and serving it to a bachelor as he lounges by the bonfire. Technically, 'serving' is defined as you have to 'get the sandwich TO the bachelor', so I chucked sandwich and beer at the lad as I ran past to throw a pile of firewood in the sled at the back of a snow machine. Then I had to pick up a handsaw and saw a board (surrounded by a group of bachelors all giving conflicting directions, increasing the authenticity of the event).
I jumped on the snow machine and hauled the load of wood around the park to drop it off at the appointed area. Timer stopped. I then got to stand by the bonfire in the building blizzard conditions to watch the other finalists perform the same tasks. One of them ran a handsaw like the proverbial hot knife through butter. I asked her later: "Any chance you built your own cabin?" Of course the answer was 'yes.' Alaskan chicks are tough. After Miss Saws-a-lot, I finished second on that round. The boys started setting up for round three.
The final round took a little more imagination to transport you from the center of town to a land of true 'survival skills.' The timer started when you were handed a casting rod and asked to catch a fish. Since you were still standing in front of the Fairview Inn, there was a velcro tennis ball at the end of the line, and strewn a ways down the snowy street were a handful of wooden 'fish' with velcro attached. The weight of casting a tennis ball is something to get used to, and the first girl managed to wrap the line around herself, one of the judges, and a parked vehicle all on the first cast. After a fish was caught, it needed to be put in a pack and the contestant had to don snowshoes to go to the next station. Next up in this hunting round was to kill a "Ptarmigan," a common Alaskan bird represented here by a balloon. After running on snowshoes with a pack, the girl was handed a BB gun and given as many rounds as needed to kill the bird. (I've been gun slinging lately, so it was a one-shot, clean kill).  Once fish and bird were 'dead,' the contestant continued on snowshoes to a tree at the top of which she needed to ring a bell. I couldn't get the snowshoes off fast enough, so I attempted to climb with them on, which is not very easy or graceful. Luckily, I am tall, and the bell wasn't really that high. I only had to get a few feet into the air to slap it and then fall to the snow below. One of the bachelors handed me a nerf handgun that I would then use to 'protect myself' from 'moose' on the trail. After shooting a bachelor in a moose costume at point blank range, I sprinted for the finish line and dove across, again only finishing second, impossibly behind the girl that, as far as we know, was still tangled in fishing line.

That's it. Then darkness sets in on town and everyone retires indoors for the bachelors to cloister themselves and do complicated math to determine which lady is the top Wilderness Woman in Alaska, or at least in Talkeetna, or at least at the bar that day.  The winner was announced at the Annual Bachelor Auction, at which dances and drinks with 36 single men were auctioned off to raise money for the local women and childrens' shelter. The girl that handsawed her own cabin won the prized fur hat of victory. I, normally completely biased for myself in competitions, would have voted for her as well. And then had her come to my house to do chores.
The boys raised tens of thousands of dollars. Everyone danced at the bar until morning. The next day, we woke up early and drove back south to start the season of ski racing, and I sleepily thought to myself: "Why would anyone wonder why people want to spend winters in Alaska? When left to our own devices, look what we get up to."

...And we did NOT die!

Sorry to leave you in suspense. Anna and I got in and out of Canada, no problem. The Canadian border guard on the way in told Anna: "You are REQUIRED to have a valid passport to enter Canada." Then he waved us on. This made me question whether Canadians have a different meaning for 'required' than we do in standard American English.
On the way home, the US Customs and Border Control didn't even notice Anna's expired passport, which made me wonder if all the people paying attention at our borders are too busy building walls in Arizona.
Anna polled all the employees at the rental car counters before we left Seattle and every one of them said we would never make it. Lesson: if you are looking advice for international travel regulations, Hertz and Enterprise night shift workers are not the answer.

Another typical Steph/Anna international travel debacle

Anna & I are going to Canada tomorrow. We've done this before. More than once. Last time, she forgot her passport at her apartment and missed her plane. This time, she packed her passport weeks ago. This morning, she sat up in bed and realized: My passport is expired. 

Anna is a champion of internet research. She was able to tell me how much of what kinds of frozen Alaskan fish and game I could bring through customs, and she never missed a beat on Facebook. But even Anna doesn't need the Internet to know that she can't renew her passport in 18 hours. But she did find a place on the Canadian government website that states they will accept an expired passport with another form of ID. Anna's driver's license is valid, but for good measure, she's bringing her library card, her lease agreement, her electric bill, and a bank statement. She also printed out the Canadian website and underlined and circled and starred the word 'expired.'

Problem is, Anna's not certain she can return to the United States on an expired passport. In fact, she sounds fairly sure it will be a problem. But we talked ourselves through it:

Anna: "It doesn't explicitly say on the US State Department website that expired passports are NOT accepted."
Steph: "It just says you need a 'passport'? So really it could be from a crackerjack box?"
Anna: "It could be homemade."
Steph: "I guess the wording is in your favor. Did you print that out too?"
Anna: "Of course. My dad is a lawyer, and your dad is a lawyer, so between us, we are basically one whole lawyer. I don't think we will have a problem arguing this."
Steph: "Actually, my mom is a lawyer too, so between us, we are really ONE AND A HALF lawyers."
Anna: "That's right. We're well-represented. No problem."

That solved, we're meeting in Seattle tomorrow, and driving to Vancouver. Sunday, Anna's dad may get a call from a Canadian customs detention center... but, my dad's gotten a call from me in jail, so I can tell you first hand, lawyers can handle these things.

Ode to Homer Women's Nordic

I went skiing for the first time this year and it felt so normal.  I guess that comfortable feeling compares to flailing around at hockey as opposed to going back to something I've been at since I was three. Because, in reality, strapping boards to your feet and holding sticks in your hands and waddling through the snow is not really "natural" behavior for humans.
But that's what I do, six days a week if I can, with a training team here in Homer. They have become my closest friends and the highlight of my winter. The team is 5 years old and led by an Amazon named Megan who organizes training for the group like we're olympic athletes instead of a group of varying skill levels, ages 24 to 65.
If the hockey team is "cool," the nordic team is tough. (Not that I'm saying the hockey team is not tough. I would not say things like that and still have as many teeth as I do.)  These ski women show up in 15F (-10C) degree weather when it's blowing 30 knots. They circuit train in the rain. Megan tells them to ski interval sprints uphill and they do. None of this behavior is "normal."
If the hockey team are the girls I want to hang out and party with, the nordic team are the women I want to be when I grow up. Who can ski everyday from 11-1? These women own businesses, run fishing operations, direct non-profits, teach, practice medicine, make art, host exchange students, donate kidneys, have great fashion sense, and can probably even check in to a flight online and get an aisle seat in an exit row without paying an extra fee. And, in their free time, they ski. It's an individual sport: their competing only with themselves, and they couldn't ask for tougher competition. This group lives up to the bumper sticker: "Alaskan women become the men they thought they wanted to marry."

Some things DO get better with age

The first time I bought a mattress, it made me a little sick to my stomach. Why?  In general: people with wanderlust do not own furniture.  My mattress only held me in place for about 7 months, and I managed to keep crossing borders and oceans for years, despite owning my own bed (this must have been before TSA got really restrictive). I bought that mattress 7 years and 11 months ago (but who's counting?). Last I checked, it was growing mold in my brother's garage.
Sans moldy mattress, I just hosted another Chili Cookoff at a house I own in Homer, AK: at a property that houses 6 mattresses (7 if you count the futon). Knowing my squeamishness at giving my life any kind of anchor, imagine the mental turmoil of planning a fifth annual something. I never really imagined being here this long. I never really imagined being anywhere this long-- because I really like new places: New places, new people, new events, new jobs, new adventures.
But, there is something really fun about being able to collect this many friends in your garage on a Sunday night.
My ex-boyfriend and I started this chili cook-off tradition together, and the terms of our break up were that we would keep co-hosting it. Homer has a lot more interesting "ex" transactions than this one, but we still managed to butt heads once or twice getting things together. I resorted to my Midwest passive aggressive roots, which he was mature enough to completely ignore, and we managed to pull off the biggest chili feed yet without a hitch. 


There were 24 chilis and around 120 people in total, and if you don't believe me, come smell the garage. All sorts of meats were represented and a few veggie chilis were presented as well. The guys that won the Golden Crockpot (our judges' award) were complete strangers to both of us and to most of the people in the garage. They were a pair of Coast Guard guys ("Coasties" as they're locally known) named Tim and Colt, who heard about the event through a friend of a friend. The Golden Ladle (the prize awarded by vote of the masses) went to Zach Brown for his "'Cause Beans are for Poor People Chili", which was a meat-only event that I would have given a prize for name alone.



Kelly Snow won best presentation for use of PBR logos: we really promote infringement of trademark laws. And, Randy Pine won spiciest for a rabbit chili that sent me running outside to refill my beer. He and his roommates just went into their yard, killed some wild rabbits with a .22, and made chili out of them.

Bill & Judy Steyer won the Golden Peeler for best veggie chili with an Indian kick. Megan & Jan Spurkland made Ginger Moose Chili and won the Golden Nut, which, as it sounds, is a totally made up award for a chili that was very interesting and that we didn't have a prize for, specifically.
The best chili, in my personal opinion, was called Chuck Norris, and was made from slow-roasted pork ribs and cherry tomatoes.
Greece, and Africa, and the Maldives had to wait, but I've definitely bookmarked a spot in this little community, if only by one annual event.  Hospitality is hard to practice as a rolling stone: its just really difficult to pack an adequate number of mattresses or crockpots.

Advertising Christmas? Already?

I know it's early, but I went to the post office yesterday and the clerk tried to sell me yuletide stamps. On Halloween! I mean, I know Halloween was on a Monday so we were all done celebrating it anyway, but that doesn't mean October is over and I am ready to talk Santa Claus.
...but, what do you want for Christmas? I want a new vacuum cleaner. One that actually vacuums. The service mine performs is to take dirt off the floor in front of it, and shoot it out the back. After running this piece of machinery around the room, not only are the floors still dirty, but so are my feet and ankles.
I want one of those vacuums that they advertise building a hovercraft out of in the back of Boys' Life magazine.  There is no way my vacuum could be turned into a hovercraft.
Of course, we shouldn't get everything we want. If I could turn my vacuum into a hovercraft, I would. Then I would have a hovercraft AND the same old dirt-spraying vacuum. And, I don't really need a hovercraft.  So, bad idea. Good thing it's too early for Christmas wishes. 

Fighting another round outside my comfort zone

Even with my penchant for trying anything once, I knew that there must be a reason that people don't start playing hockey at age 32. I was wrong, there's lots of reasons.
I already play two winter sports: nordic skiing and broomball. But in Homer, the cool girls play hockey. I would like to say that my adult choices have different influences than the junior high lunchroom, but they don't. I want to sit at the table with the cool kids.  God put 24 hours in a day, and there must be time to squeeze in hockey.
It's actually pretty impressive that I grew up in Minnesota, where every neighborhood has a rink, and I have never ever played hockey. I tried to start in high school, and my parents said it was too expensive. Eighteen years later, in Alaska, it's still expensive, so they were right about that. There's a lot of gear involved, ice fees, etc, etc. But the cool girls give it a hard sell: half-price ice fees, free loaner gear, and a complimentary PBR. Sounds good, right?
Well, I love Homer Women's Nordic, and I'm not going to give that up, so I'll just have to make them jive. Of course, the nordic practice before my first hockey practice is running 8.5 miles and biking 8.5 miles. I hadn't caught my breath from that before I gathered my broomball helmet (my only piece of overlapping gear) and headed to the hockey rink.
First thing I realized is that I will need to hire a valet to haul my gear and help dress me. There is even a specific order to put the gear on in. My valet could remember this for me as well. If you put your skates on before your shin guards, you'll fall down trying to start over. Trust me. You also have to tape a bunch of stuff on. The loaner socks I had on over my shin guards were bright pink. My jersey that I only got half way on over my shoulder pads before I had to enlist outside help (where is my valet?), was bright green. The girl next to me passed me a roll of pink tape to strap the bright pink socks onto my thighs with. The hole-y red and blue gloves I used are like wearing lobster claws. I could neither open or close my fingers, so I threaded the bright pink stick I was given carefully through the holes in the claws and headed onto the ice.
Very quickly, you see who is a good skater. Ironically, they are the ones who move like they are not even wearing skates. They casually turn and stop and go and can even turn their heads a different way than they are moving. Somehow, these super-mortals start from a complete stop and you never even see them do it. As I understand the laws of physics, they must push off at some point to start motion, but I dare you to catch them. They just float away in any direction at will.  The one skill I gleaned was that if you keep your stick on the ice, it's a third point for you to lean on.
You're getting the picture: I'm padded up as a big bright pink and green blob using a pink hockey stick as a cane as I limp around the ice. The thread on the toe of my borrowed right skate is unraveling and a wad of string drags along the ice like a black ball of snot coming off the nose of the skate to complete the outfit.
Practice starts with skating drills. The coach yells out each new drill when it starts, but it echos off every surface of the arena like we are in a cave and the only sounds that reach me are like those from the teacher's desk in a Peanuts cartoon: "Wah wah wah, wah wah, wah wah wah." All the women on the ice instinctually know what he says and switch back and forth between impressive puck juggling and line jumping routines. I just try to maintain forward motion and stay upright.
We moved into keep-away drills and I was paired with a tall girl from Maine. I never got the puck from her. When it was my turn, I didn't even finish starting the whole skating thing before I realized I no longer had the little black disc. After a few rounds of this, I subconsciously stopped trying. The junior high lunchroom took over again: We both know you are going to get my milk money, so why fight again? I'll just give it to you. I spent the rest of the practice avoiding anyone from a state that begins with an 'M', or anywhere in Canada, for good measure.
Once, during scrimmage, I fell and realized my valet's absence had failed me again and my shinguard had not been properly pink-taped to cover my knee. When I limped back to the bench, I slumped down and noticed the girl next to me used skull and crossbones tape to affix her socks. Nothing she wore was pink. The next girl I talked to introduced herself as 'Jim'.
Back in the locker room, I could barely hold up my PBR, even after removing the lobster-claw gloves. The cool girls all said I did really well, which is probably part of the hazing lingo that I don't understand. I promptly spilled half my beer on the girl next to me.
I'm as good at quitting as I am at saying 'no' to something in the first place, so an adult-sport disaster is in the making. Hopefully, hockey can be approached like any other challenge: one thing at a time. So, I'd better get on Craigslist to advertise for a valet.

"Come on in. There's room enough in here for one more sinner."

I believe in God, but I don't believe in illegal immigration. One is just much more plausible than the other. 
I can back up and tell you that my book club started this line of thought. That I'm in a book club is also hard to believe. My family doesn't have a very good book club record, as my mom has been kicked out of the same book club at least twice, and I'm not really known for my capacity for reasonable, open-minded discussion. But, I weaseled my way into a book club, and once a month, I read a book chosen by other people, whether I want to or not, and then tell that group of people what I thought of it. I try to listen to what they thought as well. 

Last time around, the club read Little Bee, which is a novel about a girl who escapes violence in Nigeria for a time, but ends up getting deported from the UK (yes, I just spoiled the end, sorry). The conversation evolved from our opinions on the book, to our opinions on immigration. Most of my friends were appalled by the treatment the women in the book received at a fictional detention center in the UK, and were horrified by the thought that such places may actually exist outside of novels. 
None of this was surprising, but when things got cloudy was when I found out that these same people thought that these "illegal immigrants" needed to be stopped from invading the western world. This seemed a contradicting opinion to me: Should they just not have to endure detention centers on their way back to the living hell they came from?
I've been 'round and 'round this issue. I've traveled all over, met all sorts of people, and I've even worked 'illegally' in two foreign countries (I don't think their governments read this blog though). I can debate ad nauseam about how the process should be changed, but after a bit a reflection and some critical analysis of the book club conversation, it was obvious that the base of my opinions on the subject is that I don't believe in "illegal" immigration. In fact, I'm even more laissez faire about people than about economics.
Who are we to say that people have to stay within the arbitrary borders they were born in? My ancestors did not. I haven't. If we're all God's children, my brothers and sisters from Bolivia have as much right to work and live in Alaska as I do.
My book club told me that this violates the social contract that we have with our governments to abide by certain laws. Just because social contracts exist, doesn't make them correct or even operable. Humans get government wrong all the time: you don't have to read many books to know that. So, I believe in something more constant: a loving God, that would like to see us eventually create a world where I can get a really good taco at a dogsled race. Amen.

The One That Got Away

We're back from hunting. I'll save you the suspense and tell you that we didn't shoot a moose. But, while I've got your attention, I'll go ahead and tell you how all that not shooting happened. 

Jedd was the mastermind of the operation, and his version of Microsfot Excel is a small yellow notepad. He had a comprehensive list of everything we needed and made Cody and I make similar lists. I followed mine religiously. Cody lost his immediately, but zeroed in on the important items on our group shopping trip to Save-U-More, Homer's knock-off Costco. 

We left Steller Air on a sunny Friday afternoon and headed an hour west. In Alaska, you cannot fly and shoot on the same day, so we took everything we could from our flying day and spotted some moose and a camping spot from the air. Our spot on the lake was on a rocky beach by the outlet, the sun set over the mountains, Jedd caught a couple of lake trout, and, most importantly, none of my three cell phones were anywhere in sight. The start was so good, I knew immediately that it didn't matter much if we got a moose or not.  

Saturday morning, we started trekking through the brush to the area we had seen moose the day before. The going was rough, a lot of thick Alder and a lot of uphill, and some very tricky creek crossings, one of them dubbed "the raging river of death." After more than an hour's hard hiking, we got to a meadow, settled in to be quiet and watch, and Jedd did some calling.  After two hours of nothing but sunshine and light breeze, a cow moose stepped into the meadow, followed by another, followed by a bull moose. Regulations for my hunting permit say I can shoot any size bull moose (many areas require kill-able moose to be over a certain size), but this moose blew any size restrictions of any area out of the water. As with any good fishing story, he gets bigger every time we talk about him, and now his rack was 80 inches if it was 5. I laid in the prone position and tried to line him up in my scope. 

Jedd and Cody are both experienced hunters and great shots, but Jedd was adamant that I kill the moose. He really wanted me to have the full experience. He made his brother agree that no one would fire until I did. I protested, but like I said, Jedd was the mastermind.

So there we are, 150 yards from the biggest bull moose any of us have ever seen, and I can't get a bead on him before he walks behind the next tree. The thought flit through my mind that if I just pulled the trigger and missed, the boys would have the go ahead to kill him anyway. But that didn't seem sporting, so, I didn't shoot and proved that cliche about how many shots you miss that you don't take. One of the cows crossed our trail on the other side of the meadow, caught our scent, spooked and the trio took off. I apologized to the boys, but Jedd shrugged: "No biggie. It's only the first day."

Now let's talk about my preconceived moose hunting notions that probably could have been cleared up by a few questions that I never asked. In Alaska, hunting and fishing are really common. People subsist by them. And, by tales and experience, they are fairly easy. If you go halibut fishing, you catch halibut. Salmon fishing, same. People go hunting and come back with bears and moose and goats and caribou like some people go to the supermarket. 

Moose hunting is so common that the state is broken up into a billion different areas all with their own complex regulations regarding the size of moose you can hunt, based on the size of the antlers, or the number of something called 'brow tines', whether you can hunt males or females or calves, how many you can shoot in a year, etc. It is a standard road trip pastime to take a copy of the hunting regs and try to figure out what is legal on the roadside as you cross hunting area boundaries. In the drugstore in Homer there is a big display of 'legal' and 'illegal' antlers. With all this hair-splitting and nit-picking, I figured that moose hunting was pretty much like an episode of MTV's "Singled Out" and all sorts of animals paraded by and you just had to be skilled enough to pick out one that was legal. Turns out, moose apparently don't even watch MTV, and that gi-normous bull was the only moose we saw all week.

Another thing I know now that I only sort of knew then: Jedd is so mellow that even if he was absolutely certain that that bull was our one chance at surviving the winter, and we were facing freezing and slow starvation, he would've said, "No Biggie."

We hunted the entire week in wind and rain on the remote lakes of the Alaska Peninsula. We saw porcupines, owls, eagles, and lots of bugs. We moved location once, and spent a lot of time hiking and sitting in silence in the rain. All the time to think was a good bout of detox after a fast paced summer. We had cards and dice, but we all preferred to play "The Time Game." Jedd was the only one with a watch, and we never tired of seeing who could get closest to guessing the correct time. With simple finger signals, this game can be played under tactical field silence as well.
On our second to last day, the rain really started falling and gale force winds blew for hours. Jedd's tent flipped over, everything was soaked and the lake rose over a foot in 8 hours. We hunted on. The fall foliage was beautiful and to witness the change one storm could have on the landscape was humbling and spectacular. After eeking out our last minutes of the hunting season in Area 9B, completely eluded by moose, we flew back to Homer.  I would've stayed and enjoyed the wilderness, the peace, and the company... even if we didn't have a chance at a moose.
Among a slough of thoughts and ideas I had while being quiet and watching, I learned an important lesson about partnerships: I had an experienced hunter with a great attitude, willing to teach me; and he had a float plane pilot, willing to take him to any new hunting venue. Both of us thought we had the best end of the deal, and were each ridiculously thankful. This new appreciation of a 'good trade' might be more valuable than a freezer full of meat.

Proving Cartoons Wrong

I learned from Animaniacs that "It's a great big world, and we're all really puny." Animaniacs was a very intelligent show. So, imagine my surprise when I'm sitting at the Salty Dawg Saloon the other night with a friend, and I vaguely recognize someone at the end of the bar. Vaguely.
Can't really place him, so I ask my friend if he's local. She says she doesn't know, but, at that moment, he looks down the bar, meets my eye, walks over, and says: "I'm Eli. We met in Bolivia." I immediately remembered hanging out with him at Sustainable Bolivia and saying goodbye to him in Oruro after Carnaval... he was headed off on a year-long South American adventure or something.
But apparently not. Apparently he got a job guiding for a bike tour company in Alaska and has been around the state all summer. It was his last night in Alaska, and he stopped in the Salty Dawg to buy a souvenir. He asked me what I was doing there and I said, "I live here!" and he confessed to remembering that I was a bush pilot somewhere in Alaska, but he never knew where.
Weird, right? But wait, don't buy it yet. I found and "friended" him on Facebook so I could share this photo of our weird coincidence. Facebook, which knows way more about us than we know about ourselves, informed us that we have a mutual friend, in the Netherlands, who he met in Boston and I most recently traveled with in Argentina.
Next time I run into Yakko, Wakko and Dot in a bar, I'm going to tell them that the world is itsy bitsy, and if you can walk down the street without running into a friend, you're doing something wrong.

Guns and Gifts

Last weekend, I went to my fifth Alaskan wedding. Correction: Not MY fifth wedding, but the fifth wedding I've attended as a guest.  Of the five, one of the weddings was in Anchorage, which is more of a suburb of Seattle than part of Alaska, and another one of the weddings was on a difficult-to-reach glacier, but the other three have all featured guns and dogs.  Two of them I arrived at by floatplane. These are the glaring differences between Alaskan and other American weddings.
As we got ready, my friend questioned my choice of wearing boots with a sundress as a little too casual. Turns out, most of the guests were in Xtra Tuffs and raingear.  The dogs usually wear flower leis, which make them fit in stylishly. Many of the guys wore guns. This is strange mainly because none of those guys wear guns at any other times. Nor do they even use guns as far as I know. But, for a dress-up event, when most men are finding that suit at the back of their closet and ironing (or just using the tumble cycle on the dryer), Alaskan men are dusting off their gun belts. Also worth noting is that everyone in Alaska can officiate a wedding once, so rarely are people married by preachers or judges when a friend will do. Traditional wedding vows must have been lost on the way through Canada, because everyone here writes their own vows, most of them have some poetic allusion to nature. No one mentions the guns.

Outside of wedding circles, I have been talking guns lately. A few weeks ago, I decided that I would like to learn how to hunt. I work in remote areas where I could see this becoming a useful skill. I also am an omnivore who thinks that if you are going to eat meat, you should be able to kill it. Beef and other commercially produced meats are very expensive and fairly poor quality in Alaska, not to mention the 'carbon footprint' of getting it here and the chemicals used in mass meat production and distribution. Add to that that a hunting trip would be a good wilderness experience, and I just needed to find a willing teacher. Luckily, I hold the trump card to convince an outdoors man to ruin his fall hunting trip with an inexperienced girl: a float plane.
My coerced guide and tolerant friend Jedd made sure that I was outfitted with the right rifles (a .30-06 and a .338, we'll see which one works best) and hearing protection for target practice. He recommends I use a .338, but I'm Annie Oakley with the .30-06... not so much with the bigger weapon. Two weeks to go...we'll see.
This isn't my first rodeo as far as guns are concerned. My dad insisted that we take a gun safety course as kids. I don't remember much from that besides that the girl who sat next to me wanted to change her name to "Crystal Blue Persuasion" and the instructor only had stubs for fingers... but could still pull a trigger. Luckily, the Army brushed me up on the M16 in college, but that was the last time I shot a rifle: more than 10 years ago, and just using the post sights on the barrel. Turns out, hunting rifles have a lot more kick, but really fancy scopes. If you can hold marginally still while looking through the scope and pulling the trigger, you will hit what you're aiming at. 
I'm not thrilled about attempting to murder an animal, but I am excited for the experience of this hunt and have been talking about it to anyone who cares to hear. Surprisingly, hunting talk is not always well-received, even in Alaska. The other day, at a remote lodge, I announced I was going on my first moose hunt, expecting to be as lauded as a toddler's first trundling steps. Wrong. Another Alaskan pilot and two German lodge patrons read me the riot act and accused me of being a trophy hunter: something that would be funny to anyone who knows about my deep seeded fear of taxidermy.  My list of reasons for wanting to learn to hunt certainly sounds a lot more "eco-friendly" than buying all-organic foods shipped in from Denmark... what's more organic than hunting and gathering? None of my critics claimed to be vegetarians, but one of them justified himself by saying that he doesn't eat animals with fur. Apparently my willingness to shoot Bullwinkle is morally abhorrent, but God condones carving up Big Bird or Nemo. So, I need to re-sight my scope, and my moral compass, but then, what do you expect from a girl who wears boots to a summer wedding?

If you've got the money, I've got the time

The federal government classifies what I do as an "on-demand air taxi." In practice, this means that someone can walk in the door, say, "I want to go here, now." and, we take their money and take them there. Usually, people don't want to go very far, as we charge $450/hr to carry them around by small aircraft. However, we are clear that our "on demand" service will go 'anywhere in the state of Alaska.' Because of this flexible policy, last week, Steller Air was the chariot for the world's most ridiculous beer run.
A guy came into the office, dressed all in motorcycle leathers, and introduced himself as "Radar." He claimed his brother was a seismologist working remotely in Alaska and he pulled up a map on his iPhone to ask how much it would cost to bring his little brother beer. Mark and I debated whether the islands he pointed at, way out near the end of the Alaska Peninsula, were a three-, or four- hour flight away. We quoted him the price to charter the aircraft. He didn't flinch. We said we would have to leave early. He said, "I'm not afraid of getting up."
So, with the main fuel tanks and the tip tanks loaded, along with additional gasoline in jerry jugs in the floats, Radar and I met on the dock at 7am and launched southwest. We stopped in Kodiak because even 134 gallons of fuel would not be enough for me to make the round trip, and because Radar needed to pick up 2 cases of Rolling Rock, as the liquor stores in Homer had not been open early.

The only thing stranger than someone from a California biker gang wanting to charter a small float plane for a distance of almost 400 miles, was the weather being good enough to go that far. We cruised along over miles of cold water and along the dramatic desolate coastline alternating between conversation and napping (well, I wasn't napping... ). Radar taught me what different patches mean on motorcycle jackets (or "cuts") and which ones people get killed over. He also regaled me with tales of all the bar fights he's won.

When we arrived at Simeonof Island, the weather was sunny and warm. The winds were fairly calm. We found a group of five tents, the only sign of human life for hundreds of miles. After judging the bay was deep enough and obstacle-free, I touched down and taxied as close to shore as possible. Due to a shallow beach and fast moving tides, I couldn't get the plane all the way in, and we would have to wade. Radar had refused our first offer of rubber boots at the Steller dock, as he had his biker boots, but we insisted. So, he was able to wade to shore with his beer while I anchored the plane to float in the bay.
Once she was secured at anchor, I opened up the floats and started hoisting fuel jugs up onto the wings and funneling fuel into the tanks.  I saw heads popping up in the water around me, and every time I looked down at the fuel tank and then back up, a ring of fur seals moved creepily closer. Seals are sneaky and curious, and these ones probably don't see many humans, let alone float planes. By the time I emptied the last jug in the wing, they were close enough that I could look into their eyes. When I jumped down and started to wade back to shore, they spooked and disappeared.
Radar was standing at the tents when I caught up with him. No one else was around. Apparently the brother was out in the field. Agreeing that they must have heard us come in, we decided to wait for them to come to the tents. Meanwhile, I waded back out to check the anchor. Halfway to the plane, I noticed a bill floating by. I reached into the water and pulled out a fifty dollar bill. Wow. Much more exciting than finding the twenty bucks you left in the pocket of your winter coat. A few steps later, another bill: another fifty.  I figured they must be Radar's, we are miles away from any form of civilization, and the seismologists don't have any kind of boat. I re-tied the plane and waded back to shore. Radar said the money wasn't his, and I offered to split the treasure with him, after all, he was the reason I was there.
We watched salmon struggling up a spawning stream, ate lunch on the beach, and waited for scientists that never appeared. Radar drank a Rolling Rock. I waded back out to the plane, and as soon as I stepped in the water, saw another bill. Picked it up. Another fifty! I found two more fifties, and then, when I saw another bill float by, I was actually annoyed that it was a twenty. Imagine my dismay when the next bill out of this remote stretch of ocean was only a ten! I tried to split the whole $280 haul with Radar, but he said the rest was mine because of my good karma for sharing the first fifty.
I was two-hundred-thirty dollars richer, no brother was showing to accept his beer, and the tide was going out. Radar tucked the beer under a rock in the creek for it to cool, and we waded back out to the plane. As we climbed away from this seal-and-money-infested island, we took a few more turns, but caught no sight of the seismology crew. Radar seemed only mildly disappointed. He slept most of the way back, and I made the straight shot to Homer in less than four hours.
Back at Steller Air, Radar paid his bill for an eight hour aircraft charter, changed back into his biker boots, and walked out the door. I made a note in my logbook. This was the most expensive beer I've ever delivered, the first sunken treasure I've ever found, and the only time I've ever tipped a customer.

Do you know about 'Planking'?

How do you answer a question like that? When you understand all the individual words, but they don't make any sense? I went with 'no'.  This didn't stop my last customer this afternoon from asking me: "Can I plank on your plane?" She rambled on to describe a trend that apparently began in Australia and just involves lying face down and taking pictures of yourself. What will those Aussies come up with next? She finished her request with the phrase "planking for peace," which made as much sense as the original question.

Wikipedia describes this trend as "the lying down game."  They claim it was "invented" in 1997, but took 12 years to really catch on. So people have been lying face down and being ignored since I was in high school, but it's finally making news in Homer, Alaska.

It was a long day at Steller Air and I can't think of a way a routine scenic flight could have ridiculously been more entertaining. It takes hipsters from LA coming on vacation to Alaska to keep us informed about what the kids Outside are up to these days.

Cloudly with a chance of...

People everywhere talk about the weather. It's lazy, and fairly uninteresting conversation, but it's a guaranteed go-to. I might not know you well enough to tell if you want to talk about airplanes or ice cream, or if you hate the Yankees, or if you think Mark Twain is the greatest writer of all time, but all these topics aside, I can assume that you, in your short or long life, have experienced weather. Weather: the great leveler.

In Alaskan air taxi business, people lie about the weather. Specifically: clients lie about the weather. Oftentimes, flying in Alaska is prohibited or delayed by the weather.  If people really want to get somewhere, or, more often, really want to be picked up from the wilderness where you left them, the weather miraculously becomes beautiful, by the mere power of their words.

This was the case this last week. We had dropped off a guy to camp for four days. He had 350 pounds of gear.  I just rode along as the copilot, in order to check out the logistics of the area and the drop off, and to be an extra set of hands, in the rare case they were needed. I was so into my spectator role, I didn't even wear hip waders. I was in Chucks and Carharrts, not even wearing aviator shades. This wardrobe guaranteed that I would get wet. I ended up jumping off the plane and standing in waist-deep, freezing cold water to hold the plane upright in the swell rolling into the beach.

When it was time to return for the pickup, the client would call with a weather report on his satellite phone. I told him that if the water was not calmer than on the drop off, he would have to hike his gear to the nearby lake and get picked up there.  Of course, his report the morning of was calm seas and beautiful outlook. On the other line, the local surfers were requesting a charter to the same beach because of rumored swell. But we decided to believe the guy on the ground with eyes on the beach. The one that wanted to get out of the wilderness. Amateur call on our part.

I was riding co-pilot again, this time in fly-fishing chest waders, and we took off over the icefield. The swell was visible from the air, and we landed anyway to explore a way through the waves to the beach. The client had his mound of gear stacked where the breaking waves were smallest, but they were still breaking... not something to which a Cessna 206 takes kindly. We taxied as close as we could and just pointed towards the lake... over a mile away.

We landed on calm waters in front of a glacier and decided to start hiking through the woods looking for this guy and helping him pack his gear. We pulled the GPS out of the plane to use for land navigation to the spot where we had seen him in the surf.  Miraculously, in the spiderweb of trails, we had both picked the same one and met up within a half hour. Even more miraculously, he found an old timer with a cabin and a four wheeler who would shuttle his stuff to the plane (Alaskan Bush motto: "If your neighbor needs help, help him. If he doesn't, leave him alone.")

The client was dripping sweat and a little exhausted from hauling his gear all day-- first to his "calm" spot on the beach, and then to the lake. I believe that you don't learn to pack light until you carry your own gear far enough, and I sincerely hope the angelic four-wheeler didn't stunt that lesson. We loaded the plane without incident and had a perfect take off and beautiful flight home from a pristine, safe lake.

My question is this: is it not obvious that weather minimums exist for small planes for safety reasons? We are not just worried about breaking the plane, we are worried about breaking the plane with you in it.  This should be something most people are adverse to, but surprisingly, they are not.

Don't Ever Let a Straight Man Cut Your Hair

Right now, the status of my haircut is, as quoted by my house guests: "Don't worry about the back. The front looks good, so people will just assume the back does too." It took 4 haircuts  and $38 to get this way. I'd say I miss living in a big, salon-filled city, but then wherein would lie the comedy?
The first haircut was by actual appointment, shortly after I had changed into dry clothes after jumping in the 40 degree ocean to push my plane off a remote beach where it was being pummeled by waves. After the adrenaline, and then the cold, subsided, the next thing on my mind was grooming. Natural, right?
The guy asked how I wanted it cut, and I answered "long layers." Forty-five minutes later, after he advised me that I would look great with a spiral perm (the 1980s called, they want their style advice back), I emerged with a blow-dried version of a Darth Vader helmet: tragically un-layered in a distinct A-shape around my head. I paid him.
Blessed with an 18- and a 20-year-old cousin staying with me for the summer, I came home to two hip college girls who told me that my hair looked horrible. Thanks, I know.
After contemplating this problem for a day, the older one, Taylor, announced that she thought she could fix it. And, truthfully, Homer doesn't have a lot of options for emergency stylist services. Given a half hour on my lunch break, Taylor cut my hair into two distinct layers: kind of Darth Vader gets a wedding cake, which, we can all agree, is better than a grumpy, single Darth Vader.
Hats can work wonders, and I had other things to worry about, mainly that I had just found out from his housesitter that the guy I work for left town for the summer. Back at work, trying to finish up the pilot training we started before the boss left, we jumped in a plane and headed west. An hour later, after talking the ears off remote park staff, we realized the plane was stuck. The tide had gone out while we jabbered.
In the water, well over my hipwaders, I shoved the plane into deeper water. The other pilot started the plane while I held onto the float in the propwash, and hoisted myself in the cargo door. En route back to Homer, we congratulated ourselves on another ridiculous adventure where no one got hurt, no metal got bent, and we didn't have to use my new satellite phone. I also wrung the water out of my socks.
Finally back in dry clothes, I settled in for a quiet night of reading at home when my cousins blasted in the door. Taylor announced that she had thought about it all day, and could 'definitely' fix my haircut. She took a full hour and produced many many many more layers than the two she had left me with this afternoon. In fact, now the number of layers was insane. I've seen children give sheepdogs better haircuts.
I was forced to take matters into my own hands. Floatplanes and air taxis are simple, compared to attempting to cut your own hair. But, armed with desperation at how long I would have to wear a hat, and emboldened by the fact that just last week I cut my own lawn (how much harder can hair be?), I stood in front of a mirror in my living room and started snipping. The results are short, but acceptable-- in the front. I can't see the back, and when I asked my cousins how it looked, they said, "people will assume the back looks as good as the front."It's 11:30 at night, too light to see a lunar eclipse, and there's a good chance I'll end up in the ocean again tomorrow-- people's assumptions will have to do.

Justin Bieber and the Ogre of the Fairview Inn

A friend photo-texted me an invite to a "Tropical Hotdog Party" in Talkeetna, Alaska. Talkeetna is a two-hour flight from Homer, but Justin Bieber was on the invitation.
Three ladies flew to Talkeetna to see what the Bieb was up to and what this hippy summer town was all about. The party was great with bands and games, and even beach volleyball. There were hotdogs and chicken and white bread. I ended up thinking that the BBQ sauce on the chicken was so good that I just spread it on the whitebread like peanut butter and ate BBQ sauce sandwiches. Even at a Tropical Hotdog Party in interior Alaska, people notice that white bread/BBQ sauce sandwiches are pretty white trash-y. I wonder what The Bieb would think.
With a full belly, I retired with my friends to the Fairview Inn, a typical Alaskan bar with lots of old stuff and dead animals on the walls.  We learned that at the Fairview, you can behave as badly as possible, but they won't ask you to leave. They will just stop serving ill-behaved parties alcohol. This makes for a very volatile bar environment. A poor girl from Nashville was on stage trying to croon country tunes while everyone screamed around her. Just when the scene couldn't get more comical, a boy known only as "Coniferous" asked me to dance.

We camped for the night with our sleeping bags laid out in a 3-walled cabin, waiting for an ogre or a bear to walk in the open wall. It would have been scary, except we couldn't stop laughing about combined scene of Tropical Hotdogs and ill-behaved locals at the Fairview.
On the flight home the next day, Mt. McKinley was clearly visible. Our heads full of jokes, the last night full of new friends, and the Susitna Valley stretched out before us... lesson learned: If a teenage popstar that you don't know a single song by invites you to something, get in a small plane and go.

America! Land of the free and the customer coming first...

Blogging is so much easier when you have something else you should be doing. Right now, I should be working on running my own business, so I choose to blog about how someone else runs theirs.
In Homer, there are almost as many coffee shops as there are bars and churches, but I have a couple favorites. One of them is on that short list because of their tasty and quickly-served sandwiches. However, the owner of said shop can throw down quite an obstacle course for you to put money in his pocket. From just the last week, here are my examples:

Monday, at 7am, I stopped in to fill my travel mug with brew on my way to work. At around 1pm on the same day, I walked into the same coffee shop to order a sandwich. The owner took one look at me and growled: "There are other businesses in this town you could give your support to." In a rare moment of thinking on my feet, I replied: "I come here for the friendly customer service."

On Friday, at about 7:15am, I walked in and ordered a breakfast sandwich. The owner, who was manning the counter, growled, "No food orders! I'm working alone. Coffee only!" If you have ever had your heart and mind set on a delicious breakfast sandwich in the wee hours of the groggy morn, you will understand why this nearly brought me to tears. I was the only customer in the shop. I just stared pathetically across the counter and said nothing until the bell jingled on the opening door behind me. A friendly, chipper, non-breakfast sandwich-needing voice said, "Hey Steph! How are you this morning?"
"He won't make me a breakfast sandwich!" I wailed to my friend.
The grey-haired ponytail on the other side of the counter softened. "Well, I'll make you a sandwich, but you'll have to wait." Gleeful, I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down.
While he assembled my sandwich, he growled for all to hear: "You can make these at home. You just get some toast, put some eggs in the microwave, add cheese.... this is something you could do yourself."
When the next customer clanged the bell on the door as she walked in, I was halfway through my sandwich. She stepped up to the counter and said, "I'll have a coffee and a breakfast sandwich on a jalapeño bagel."
"No food orders! Only coffee!" he shouted, louder than necessary to communicate with someone 3 feet away.  She pointed across the room at me. "Steph has a sandwich." Grumbling, he walked over to the kitchen and got out the bagels, proving, once again, that if you cajole enough, you can get people to take your money.
Now, if only someone would walk into my work and start whining for floatplane service, maybe I could get something done.

Honestly?

The cliché sitcoms and dramas are accurate, because being a single girl in small town Alaska is pretty much like severing your femoral artery and then paddling your surfboard out into a shark-filled break.
It's not that attention isn't nice, but one of my friends explained the operations principle: "As a guy in Alaska, you have to hit on every new single girl immediately. She's not gonna be single for long, and the pickings are slim." 
Apparently, this rule is followed by the majority of the male population: single, married, old, young, eligible, and ridiculously ineligible alike. Add that it's just not that flattering to be one of "slim pickings," and you create myriad awkward social situations.
My softball team has made it their mission to find me a boyfriend. A whole team of matchmakers is pretty hard to defend against, and I keep thinking that if I'm polite about it, maybe I'll get more playtime. That's a pretty pathetic confession of how much I like softball.
These days, a social calendar has to be managed in all sorts of medium. I didn't even know people outside of TV actually went on "dates," but apparently they do, and they plan them via Facebook and text message.  When I got a text from an unknown number asking me out, I wasn't sure if I should ask who it was, say 'my dance card is full', or tell my softball teammates to stop leaving my number on windshields in bar parking lots.

My life's not romantic enough to make it on a Discovery Channel show about Alaska

 I don't quite know how to explain this, or even if it warrants telling, but, I guess I'll start at the beginning, and when I get to the end, I'll stop. Read it like a time-lapse, or like Faulker-esque stream-of-consciousness. I don't care, I'll just blog the words out.... it's a bit of self-centric writing therapy, but honestly, what do you think blogs are anyway?

When we last spoke, my house was spewing bubbles out the roof. That was Monday of last week.

Tuesday-Thursday: Uncle Ole actually talks me into "waiting it out"... there's just ice in the pipe, and it will thaw as it gets warmer... temperatures through the week hold at around 40 degrees and sunny in the daytime.Things don't really improve, besides that we get fairly good at speaking positively about the no-sewer situation.

Thursday: In between wrenching on the airplane, I start calling around. The city. The septic pumper. The plumber. Some guy with a camera that can look inside pipes. I talk to all these people more than once, and the camera guy agrees to come take a look. I can't leave the hangar, so Ole handles communications at the house. They have to call me once. I am upside down under the airplane when camera guy asks me where my septic tank is. I don't know. Isn't he the one with the magic underground camera? He says he didn't bring his camera, something I immediately recognize as a flaw in someone whom I have never met in person, but have been referring to as "the CAMERA guy." He'll be back in the morning with the appropriate tools.

Friday morning at dawn: Ole and I go skiing. He says: "Steph, this problem is probably going to take a bit to get through. You really need to ski every morning so that you have one bit of time where you aren't thinking about it." I haven't met the plumbers, and, as is my wont, I am underestimating the situation, and don't remember him saying this until days later.
Friday mid-morning: "Camera Guy" shows up at the house. He's short and fat with sporty sunglasses and a huge plug of tobacco spilling out of his lip. In every other way, he reminds me of the 'inconceivable' Sicilian guy from The Princess Bride. His assistant is tall and lanky, and from Minnesota, and I am comforted by the presence of someone from my home country. However, they both admit that they can't do anything until their dirt worker crew gets here to start digging. They leave.
Friday 12:30pm: The dirt crew shows up with a Bobcat and a Caterpillar backhoe. The start tearing into the yard. The guy running the excavator mentions that they may need to get a crane in to lift the deck so they can dig under it. They can't be serious. That sounds like something from an episode of Ducktales... and it sounds really expensive.
Friday 2pm: The Camera/Sicilian guy shows back up and starts telling me that this is the worst possible situation. The pipe was moved by a frost heave and is disconnected. When he tries to get his camera in the pipe, he only sees dirt.  He also casually tells a story about a client he had whose sewer woes cost her $70,000. I go inside. Did he say "$70K"? Sicilian leaves.
Friday 3pm: Richard and Matt, the dirt crew, have successfully dug ten-foot deep holes at the top and the bottom of the yard and claim they have found the problem.
Friday 3:30pm: They reconnect the pipes and start filling the holes back in while they wait for the Sicilian to come back and test the line. I suggest that they should wait to fill in the holes. They ignore me.
Friday 4pm: Ole and I stand on the deck in the sunshine watching Matt and Richard fill holes. Ole likes Matt the best, because he is running the shovel inside the hole. I like Richard, because he has the air of knowing what he is doing. We talk about how impressive it is that they'll be done today. We take bets on how much it will cost (Price is Right rules).
Friday 5pm: The Sicilian and Minnesotan return, and run a water blaster (not the technical name) through the pipe. It stops halfway.
5:03pm:Ole goes into his bathroom, walks back outside and says, "Steph, I want to double my price guess." His shower is full of brown water.
5:04pm: I walk inside and open a beer.
5:05pm: The Sicilian: "You're gonna need more than a beer. You should get the hard stuff." Something very comforting to hear from someone you're paying to fix your problems.
5:06pm: All four workers are standing on the lawn over where they think the problem is. No one is incredibly certain where the sewer pipe runs through the yard. The Sicilian makes the brilliant observation: "We'll just have to find it where it's at." I finish my beer. 
5:07pm: The Sicilian explains that he has some kind of "locator tool" that he can run underground to find the line. But he doesn't have it with him. Of course not.
5:10-6:00: We all wait for the Minnesotan to go retrieve the Sicilian's appropriate tools.  Matt, Ole's golden boy and the hardest worker, gets sent home.
6:30, Friday evening: Richard starts digging into the problem spot.The line is at least 15 feet below ground. The Sicilian looks up to tell me that "This could definitely be worse."  He has already told me that I was dealing with "the worst possible scenario", and I am aware that the situation has gotten worse since then.
6:45pm: Richard and the Sicilian tell me that they can't repair the old line. Most things in Alaska are "owner-designed and built", completely ignoring any existing building codes. My sewer line is no exception. None of the pipe or joints were insulated at all.The recommended downhill grade was ignored, and none of the joints were glued together.  So, when the line broke, it failed in some way at every joint. They will have to re-dig the whole yard and run an entirely new sewer line.
7pm: I cancel my Saturday trip to Anchorage for a float plane conference.
7:20pm: Richard and the Minnesotan are knee-deep in a hole of raw sewage trying to decide how to connect the new line.  The Sicilian says: "Now you know why plumbers don't bite their fingernails."
7:30pm: My friends show up with a bottle of Crown Royal whiskey. I have the best friends in the world.
8:30pm: leaving an open pit sewer in the middle of my yard, the workers leave for the night, promising to return.

Saturday, dawn: Ole and I go skiing with friends. The sun is out and the crust is beautiful and the mountains are awesome. We are skiing through the woods and I get a bit ahead of the group. I stop to look at the view, and breath the air, and my mind starts spinning the way it does sometimes when you are really stressed and lying in bed at night not able to sleep: ...There's a lot to do to get the plane ready...and there's a lot to do to get the business ready... and then there's the other business... and I have to finish my taxes... and there's an open-pit sewer in my yard... and I have no idea how much this is going to cost... Just before the tears slide out below my sunglasses, Ole skis up behind me and says: "Be. Here. Now."
Saturday 9:30am: Richard and Matt show up and start digging. They spend hours gutting the whole yard.
10:30am: The Sicilian shows up to watch them work, and tell me fishing stories.
3pm: I finish my taxes. 
4:30pm: Matt and Richard finish the new pipe, completely to code and start refilling the dirt. They have left a slalom course of clearing pipes through the yard that they will mark so I will always know where the line is and avoid future scavenger hunts. However, I am assured, you will never need to find it, because our line will not fail.
5:30pm: The Sicilian tests the line. It works. Matt and Richard leave, taking their backhoe, but leaving the bobcat. They will be back at some point to "smooth things out." Until then, I say, I will run the backhoe around the yard with impunity.
6pm: Ole and I go flying.

Sunday, dawn: Ole and I go skiing with friends. Most of the group is on a longer route, and three of us break off to go through the woods on our own. At some point, Ole is lecturing me on medieval impalement, misses a turn, and ends up wrapped around a tree. I ski back to help him, but when I see him stuck in the hole, I start laughing, and fall over myself. I'm just that kind of jerk, but that kind of laughter seemed to clear everything up.
Sunday all day: AT&T phone service is down. No one can call me and I can't call anyone. This inconvenience is actually really refreshing.

There's still a bobcat in my yard. I still haven't gotten the bill for the new sewer line (which, as far as we can tell, works great). We're still skiing every morning, and still trying to 'be here now' in spite of the rule declaring that if it isn't one thing, it's ten, and something else ridiculous must be right around the corner.

Good thing it's Monday, because my weekend was void of plumbing fun!

There are suds coming out of the roof of my house. I guess that's what I expected out of home ownership when I bought a house on Craigslist: some sort of Grimm's Fairy Tale gone askew.
If there are suds pouring from the roof of your house, you can probably assume that this isn't the only problem, and you'd be right. There I was, at 8:30 at night, talking on the phone, when I heard running water. I walked down the hall to see the toilet overflowing to flood the bathroom and sea monster its way into the hallway.
My reaction? Hang up on my friend, yell at my uncle (who was innocently watching a movie), and run up and down the hall with my hands in the air. Astonishingly, this behavior sequence did not create a sieve in my floor, or get any Disney dancing mops to the scene.
My uncle suggested that we check the vents on the roof to see if they were clogged with snow. I found the ladder, while I made a mental note that plumbing systems apparently have vents. With Ole holding the ladder, I climbed to the roof and declared one vent clear. On the other side of the house, the other vent was spewing and frothing suds.
Back inside, every towel was employed and my infomercial chamois were maxed out, despite their advertised ability to soak up a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi. The bathroom, hallway and kitchen had one inch of standing water and every sink on the ground floor was coughing suds or dirty water backwards through their drains. Ole suggested I try to flush the toilet, "just to see what happens." The philosophy that these types of ideas come from is: "It can't get much worse."  I think you can guess what happened... something for which I did not have sufficient chamois.
Ole went back to his movie, I shut off any appliance that could conceivably tax the plumbing system, and, over the course of an hour, the drainage monsters in the depths of the house relented to allow the fluid in the toilet to sink. The foam on the roof is being covered by the still-falling snow.
Ole says, "See? We fixed it." and adds, "There are recorded instances of problems being solved just by sitting and praying." My version of this solution involves another chamois purchase and a morning call to the plumber.

Dog Party

People in Homer LOVE dogs. Dog treats are handed out by businesses, dogs are considered invited everywhere, and leashes are considered cruel and unusual.
I guess it shouldn't surprise me that my friend hosts a birthday party for his dog. He invites all his friends with dogs, and the dogs usually outnumber the humans at the event. I don't have a dog, so my invitation had to include a waiver, excusing me for not bringing a dog, and letting me know I was a guest on probationary status.
My friend plans party games for the dogs (throwing handfuls of treats into the air and watching the dogs hunt for them), makes them wear party hats, and he even made a birthday cake. This year's cake was made of salmon and halibut. The dog needed help blowing out his candles.  Miraculously, there was not a dog fight. 

I don't know what else to say, besides that I can't make this stuff up.

Rubber Boots, Vocab, and lots of Parenthetical Explanations

It's "breakup" in Homer, Alaska. 'Breakup' is what the rest of the English-speaking world calls 'spring,' but Alaskans like to have code words for everything, presumably to tell who has been here a while, and who hasn't survived a winter yet. For example: Trucks are called "rigs," newcomers are called "cheechakos," and everywhere besides Alaska is called "outside." (That last one gets confusing if you are indoors and start talking about 'going outside'.)
But, back to breakup: The basic explanation behind this term refers to when the weather gets warm enough to thaw lakes and rivers and the ice "breaks up," something that in ye olde days (in Alaska, that's 50 years ago) was really a herald of spring for those living in the 'bush' (term Alaskans use for wilderness way far away from roads, supply stores, or a cineplex showing the latest Harry Potter film) who relied on waterways for their supplies, and the first boat of Spring was much anticipated. Now, a lot of bush communities rely on airplanes to get most of their stuff, and thus have all the Mountain Dew and Cheez-Its they want throughout the winter. But, we keep using the term 'breakup', and we even bet on when certain bodies of water will defrost, most notably, in Nenana, where the Annual Ice Classic has a tome of rules and pays out a big cash prize.
In my life, 'breakup' means a lot of things, but most emphatically, and without exception, it means that I should be wearing rubber boots (referred to as "breakup boots" in some parts of Alaska, but in brand-conscious Homer, only "Xtra Tufs" are acceptable), even when it seems like overkill.
I haven't been here very long, and sometimes I try to get around this rule in the name of fashion, comfort, or practicality. It only shows my cheechako-ness. There are occasions during breakup where I decide not to wear rubber boots, for example, during my morning jog: Then I slip on a patch of ice and go skidding off the bike path into the sludge filled ditch. Should have been wearing rubber boots.
Or, a trip to the gas station to fill your car with $4.17/gallon gas: My car is inevitably caked with springtime mud, and I will decide to use the window squeegee to try and get a free car wash while the pump runs. The water from the squeegee will collect all the mud in its path and then ooze off the car onto my leather fashion boots. Should have been wearing rubber boots.
Or, your friends throw a dress-up party, and invite you to play kickball (this dichotomy is already an advanced wardrobe quandary, without introducing a weather element): Kickball seems like a sneakers event. Their yard is half snow and half mud. Even though you are wearing a festive party dress, your only reasonable footwear choice should be rubber boots.

The trickiest footwear decision was for the annual Sea to Ski Triathlon. I did the ski portion of the event for my team, "Vitamin B3".  In most springtime triathlons around the country, the races go downhill. In Homer, we have more than our share of competitive athletes, and I think this is the reason that our whole race goes straight up the bluff. Breakup has been warm this year, and the snow on the ski trails is already fading away. Thus, the last 100 yards of the trail were down to bare road. Instead of ending the race 100 yards sooner, on the snowpack, the ultra-competitives in Homer decided racers would take off their skis and run for the finish. It makes sense that I was wearing my ski boots at the end of the 5 km ski, but sliding along the muddy road to the finish line, I realized that breakup got me again: I should have been wearing rubber boots.