Adventures in the life of Biki

Howdy!  Welp, 'tis been quite a long while, yeah?

The fires are still burning, as the fire season is beginning its seasonal slow down, so far a total of 5 million acres have been blackened.  That is larger than the state of Connecticut!

The smoke for a few days had the air at hazardous levels, add in the moldy carpet, and I became quite ill.  To the point where getting off the sofa became an act of will.  I began to hate leaving the house.  Between the choking smoke, and the three flights of stairs, it wasn't worth it to me.  TH put his foot down, and basically packed my bags and forced me to head to Arizona for 2 weeks,  so my health began to recover in the heat and clean environment.


Before all the smoke invaded our town, TH talked me into seeing a doctor, and then the doctor left on vacation before the results came back.  Doctor man came back from vacation, gave me a jingle and it turns out that my thyroid is on permanent vacation.  I took the first pill, and ZIP!  BOOM!  POW!!!  Did it make me feel better!

The next day I took my pill and in the afternoon was talking to TH and he told me to stop yelling at him!  And thats when I realized every single thing had me on edge.  The next morning after awakening I was weak and had the headache from the Pluto.  TH called me early in the day and looked up my meds and it turns out I was being overdosed, sigh.  After a few days it began to wash out of my system, and began to feel better again.  No more thyroid pills for me until after a visit with the Doc.

Flew home on the 1st, weather was great again in Alaska, no smoke.  Headed for Seward for our annual b'day/anniversary fishing trip.  Had a great trip down, it was so nice to be with TH without him needing to run off to work.  That afternoon we went to our favorite attraction, the Alaska Sealife Center.   The sea bird enclosure is fantastic, they have room to fly, room to sit on a variety of surfaces, and room to dive to a depth of about 22 feet.  The water holds black rock fish and a few other species.  There are nesting holes, shelters and boxes, and many of them were occupied by babies!

We got up way to early to be bright and bushy tailed and headed for the docks.  I have zero pictures to show you this time, as the sea at the beginning of the trip was the long slow rolling swells and I spent the majority of my time attempting to not hurl.  Except for the sea sickness, we had a great time!  Caught 22 lbs of Coho (silver) salmon, and 12 lbs of black rockfish. 

My shoulder was killing me, that isn't a common motion, the jigging of a pole up and down and all the reeling.  So, by the time we got off the boat my shoulder was screaming at me.  The GREAT and fantastic news is that TH suffered no pain at ALL fishing.  Those two surgeries really fixed him up a treat!  After showers and dressed for dinner, my shoulder was really starting to be an issue, and I decided to have a glass of dry white wine with supper.  Now, after not finding a gluten free beer that I liked, I stopped drinking alcohol as it was my tipple of choice.  I'd been without food most of the day, slightly dehydrated due to fears of hurling, I got tipsy super quick.  Talk about a cheap date!  But, while I may be cheap, I'm also no fun.  After we got back to the hotel room, I was asleep within 5 minutes....  But I awoke to a happy shoulder the next morning! 

Last night, I mixed up the smoked salt, kosher salt and brown sugar for my first adventures into making Gravlax.  My hands were wet and I couldn't find the kitchen scissors, and used my ultra sharp kitchen knife.  Yes, you know where this is going.  Nothing to stitch, as you can see from the photo, so they just cleaned it well, bandaged me up and sent me home.