Busy Bees

I knew it had been awhile since my last post, but didn't realize it was that long until I logged in today!  My days are so much fuller now that TH is retired and living with me.  Years of basically living alone, first the years of him working the night shift where I only saw him 3 hours a day at the most, and then the years here alone in Arizona, where I could arrange my time as I wished are long gone.  Now, I'm having trouble finding time to knit more than a row or two at a time, or to read much, or play computer games.  My days are filled with cooking, and doing up the dishes, and being with TH.  We haven't spent this much time together with him healthy since our honeymoon 8 years after we were married.

The planning for the trip has stalled due to me needing to do some intensive thinking about scheduling for the other 2 months.  How long do we need in Tokyo?  Do we want to trek into the mountains to see the snow monkeys soaking in the hot springs (onsen)?  There aren't any trains to Okinawa, so will have to fly there, and then take the few buses that traverse that island.  Unless TH gets mega brave and decides to DRIVE!!!!

 So. Many. Variables. And. Decisions!

We will be doing our travel on trains, buses and a very few taxis, so we need to keep the luggage to a minimum.  What is causing me to trip however is the wet/damp chilly temps, especially if we explore the snowy areas of Japan.  Winter gear is bulky, even the newer stuff.  Factor in the long johns, flannel jammies and sweaters and the suitcases are full to bursting.  Since the Tsunami of 2011 the price of electricity has climbed to the point of many homes and business turning the heat to a low level.  People are now buying hot water bottles to heat their futons again, which is where the flannel jammies come into play.  

Last weekend TH and I traveled to Benson, Arizona and Deming New Mexico to visit two long time friends.  Southern Arizona and New Mexico are rife with amazing geography.  The extreme southern part of both states are fairly economically depressed, with many  business and houses standing empty.

In Deming we saw a machine in Pepper's Grocery that makes tortillas.  TH said they were the best ever, silky and nothing at all like the national brands found in the grocery stores.  The town is also  the proud owners to an amazing museum considering the tiny size of the town, just under 15,000.  In 1977 the town banded together to buy the old Armory building, and have been working to improve it ever since. 

Here are a few of the pictures we took, is it just me, or can you see Clint Eastwood on a horse riding hell for leather across the scrubby landscape?

Shit just got real

Today I paid for our first months rental in Japan. 

"There is no turning back now!", said with both exhilaration and trepidation as Biki worriedly chewed his bottom lip. 

And so the first steps into our grand adventure have been taken.

Would you like to see where we will be?

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/589768?checkin=10%2F03%2F2016&checkout=10%2F31%2F2016&guests=2&s=gL6Y4AUg#reviews

This is outside of Kyoto, only a 15 minute $3.08 bus ride away.  This should be good for TH to ease him into a triple month experience of living completely immersed into a different culture.  Before we had our son and daughter in law to help us with the language barrier, now we are on our own.

Cheeze Gromit!

I never understood the love affair most folks have with cheese.  Cheese was a food item that had very narrow confines in my diet.  I would eat it on pizza, but wasnt a fan of lasagna, as it was to cheesy for me.  Grill cheese sandwiches were acceptable, but putting cheese on meat sandwiches was a big NO!  I ate cheese, onion, lettuce and tomato sandwiches when tomatoes were in season.  Mac n' cheese was ok, as long as there were more noodles to cheese ratio.

About a month ago I began craving a soup I only ate once and wasn't all that big of a fan of, cheese broccoli soup.  I have no idea why this soup became my reason for living.  One day while standing with the fridge door open, hoping lunch inspiration would occur, I remembered the left over broccoli from two nights ago dinner.  I had some Daiya cheddar cheeze* in the fridge for an attempt making a copycat gluten free-dairy free "cheez-its".  But the crackers were put on hold as I decided to make the cheese broccoli soup.

The soup was super delicious!  I made several batches until I ran out of cheeze and broccoli.  And then one day I sauteed mushrooms in v-butter* and melted some cheeze and poured it over a baked potato.  Then I made about one zillion servings of nachos. 

I can't get enough cheeze.  I'm looking at recipes that have cheeze as a major part of their ingredient list and before I'd make a "bah" sound and flip the page, now I stop and linger and decide if this would work well with my cheeze. 

What the hellz is going on?  Hubby thinks that my body knew that cheese was bad for it, not sure if I believe that.  All I know is that a whole new food vista has opened up, and I'm excited to try every tasty bite!

*cheeze is vegan cheese
*v-butter is dairy free Earth Balance butter

Open Sesame!

These past few weeks have been crazy.  Emotionally, physically and time management wise.

I arrived on the 18th of December back in Alaska, Youngest picked me up at the airport.  We some nice hugs and a small chat and then he went back home to bed.  TH worked that night, so it wasn't until 7am I got to see him.  That night we attended the company party.

From then on out our time was divided between going through our belongings and packing packing, packing and dealing with Sisters estate.

To add to things that need to be dealt with, TH retired!  Yup Yup! 

We no longer have a home in Alaska.

TH no longer has a job.

Tomorrow TH arrives from Alaska!

And then starts our new life, which is totally uncharted territory.

Just think, we get to shape our lives as we see fit!  Not to anyone elses standards, but our own. 

This just got interesting!

Do I Sound Gay?

Have you watched "Do I Sound Gay?"  David Thorpe did a fantastic job dissecting when he started to sound gay, and how it bothered him to sound gay, and steps he took to sound less so.  I won't tell you how it ends, this documentary is well worth watching, and offers many moments of clarity, at least for me.

Towards the end, I had an Ah-Ha! moment.

Never, as long as I've been self aware have I liked the way I sound.  To me, my voice is to high, and in my opinion sound like Minnie Mouse.


The last several months I've been asking people if my voice is extremely high, and if they think I sound like Minnie, and they always tell me, "no".

So, either everyone is lying to me, or I have no idea what I actually sound like to others.  And I refuse to believe that my friends would lie to my face, so the onus was on me to sort this out.  Which is why I watched "Do I Sound Gay?"

And then BOOM!  out of the ether came the answer, one so obvious that it appalls me that it took me so long to winkle out.

I'm male, and males are supposed to have deeper voices than women.  Thats why my voice has always bothered me, I sound like a woman.

Yeah, see?  Could I be any more dense?  Sigh.....

Howdy there strangers!

On the day of sister's Celebration of Life, his dad passed.  It was a blessing for him, he as so ill with Parkinson's.  To tell you what his son's thought of him, neither of them shed a tear for him.  Sad isn't it?  To die and not have anyone sad you're gone?  Makes me want to make sure to live my life in a much more positive way.

The Celebration of Life went off very well.  Hubby managed to stand and tell some sweet tales of his sister.  But the one that really got to folks was this.

Way back when eldest was small around 4-5, we were outside in our snow outfits watching the Northern Lights (Aurora).  We had build snow chairs into the deep snow and were watching the lights flash and zoom across the sky.  That summer was the first time eldest had seen and heard thunder and lightening, and it frightened him.  Alaska doesn't get many thunderstorms, I suppose due to the topography.  Anyway, to comfort him, I tried what my grandmother had told me, it was god bowling and when you hear the thunder, he knocked all the pins down.  It worked and he was fine with it, until a few years later when we wanted the truth of the matter.

So, where was I?  Oh!  Ok, so there we were laying in the snow watching the lights when suddenly he piped up, "Mommy?  Those must be angels dancing!"  And that stuck with us forever.  Of course we told sister, and she loved it.

TH ended his talk by telling about eldest and the angels and then said, "And now there is another angel dancing in the winter night skies."  That made several people tear up.

Me?  Yes I told a story about Sister, but a funny one.

A million years ago Harvey Wallbanger drinks were all the rage, and Sister had gone to a party and they served a Harvey Wallbanger cake!  She wrangled the recipe out of the hostess, and bought all the ingredients.  I came in to spend the day with her while hubby had his truck worked on and she was going to a party and wanted to bring this cake.  Now for some odd reason the cake recipe was exact, down to the last drop, but the frosting recipe was very loosey goosey and had a bracket next to the alcohol ingredients with the words - to taste.

We quickly whipped up the cake and shoved it into the oven and went to work on the frosting.  After we reached the grey "to taste" area we added a tablespoon or so of vodka and Galliano and orange juice.  And it was much to liquid to spread.  We added more sugar....and now it was to sweet.  We added and tasted and added and tasted until it was all gone!  Starting over again, wouldn't you know the same thing happened again?  By the time TH came to pick me up, us two non-drinkers were two sheets into the wind.  Two giggling beings who had ended up in our drunkenness ripping pieces of the hot cake and had dipped them into a mixture of Galliano and orange juice.  She did go to the party the next day, but took a chocolate cake.  Which she said was "much safer to make".

Sister will be missed, as she was so loved by everyone. 

Oh, the red in the Aurora is super rare.

hugs and thanks

I only have a moment here, but needed to thank all of your for your heartfelt messages.

Tomorrow is TH's sister's Celebration of Life.

I fucked up the obit and forgot to put the day of the celebration..............

And now, his dad is dying, and is down to moment to moment.  The dad TH hates.

How true, that when it rains it pours.

A new Angel

Tuesday night TH's sister passed away.

Divide and Conquer, Colorfully!

I have the guide books!

Scanned a few of them, but as to actually read them cover to cover, no.  And then it dawned on me.  We are planning a 3 month trip to a foreign country and this can't be done in a fly by night fashion.  So far the only large scale planning finished, is that we will be based out of Kyoto for a month.  There is so much to see and do just in Kyoto, and the surrounding areas that are perfect for day trips by train or bus. 

Ok, time to knuckle down and see what else there is to do.  Sigh....the last few times I've had a guide book, it quickly went from nice clean white pages to a sea of yellow highlighter, which really wasn't all that helpful.

And then TA-DA!  A brainwave of epic size hit!  Highlight all things important, but with different colors and corresponding page tabs.

green is used for general info, I don't have any tabs for this color, but anything super important will have an entry page in our notebook.

blue is used for temples and historic sites and its tab is at the top

yellow is for gardens and forests, its tabs are also at the top

pink is museums, its tabs are on the side

orange is entertainment, tours, notable eateries, its tabs are also on the side

Having this system in place, I've read more in 3 days than I have in a month.  It allows me to break the material into easily found categories later when we are in Japan.

By living in rental apartments, eating most meals at home, and packing me a bento (lunchbox) when we will be out for the day is going to save us a giant pile of money.  I've checked into prices at the grocery store and its not that much more than Hawaii.  By not eating much western food, and eating a rice based diet, will really help keep our food budget in the black.  The only thing TH will hate about it is how expensive beef is, but he does enjoy fish and pork both of which are cheaper.

We have a few food splurges planned.  I want him to eat at a good sushi restaurant and we both want to try Kobe beef.  Kyoto is renowned for their delicate tofu, and I can't wait to give it a try!  I've found a restaurant that is famous for their tofu.  So that night, hubby will go and eat sushi and I'll go and gorge on tofu.

I have to say, one of my biggest griefs about these stupid food allergies and sensitivities is my inability to eat out when we travel.  The best way to learn a culture is by eating it. 

And now, off to study!

Through the Wringer

Howdy!  Well, 'tis been a few days yeah?  What a muddled weeks these have been.  Here is a breakdown of past events.

14th  TH flew into town!  Yippeee!  We had a nice dinner and a movie out, it was so great to see him again!  We saw the movie Pan, I liked it, TH was meh about it.

15th  I arrive at the oral surgeon to have a tooth pulled, and an implant placed.  Two separate areas of my mouth.  Double the procedure, double the dose of meds to numb me up.  What is so funny about my very awesome dentist is that my child's dose of pain meds worries him, he is afraid of causing pain, and is always amazed at how little meds it takes.

16th-23rd.  The first 4 days were mostly pain free, due to a long lag time of my body breaking down the numbing meds.  It hurts but isnt all that bad.  Day 5 the pain in my jaw from the implant wakes me up.  While I used an ice pack as directed to keep the swelling down, I'm now wedded to an ice pack, the only pain reliever available to me.  I also spend this entire time wanting to hurl.  Thank god for ginger!

25th  TH's long time friend comes into town on business and we have dinner together.  My dinner has been cross contacted with shellfish, and its nearly an epi pen evening, which mucks up our plans to go to Sedona the next day as I my eyes are mostly swollen shut.

28th  Boo Hooo!!  TH flies home! 

30th  Halloween Eve dinner with friends.  I make all the of food to help the Mrs. out as she is heavily pregnant.  Best day since TH flew in!

1st  I have dinner with a friend and get glutened.  I did my work, I asked all the right questions, but the waiter was a care nothing drooling fool.  He was surprised by the fact we needed silverware?  This should have been a tip off.  The fake chicken meat "hot wings" came with a coating that was so tasty I knew not to take another bite.  And then the food that I ordered to replace the evil "wings" had cashew cream, a nut that doesn't like me at all.

Today is the first day I feel halfway normalish.  Hopefully it will all be smooth sailing from here on.

Imagine A World Where Being "Gay" The Norm & Being "Straight" Would Be The Minority! [Short Film]

Get your hankies ready, this is a tear jerker

A No Good, Terrible Day!

A week ago, I walked up to George and noticed he had a neon orange sticker on his window, claiming he was ILLEGALLY PARKED!  As per usual, I had cut my allotted driving time to the bone, but went in and asked what the story was.  I was assured it was no biggie, and went on to the library.

Three days later, again with the sticker, with the same reason, and now I am ANGRY!!!!  

I am not a violent person, usually, but this one woman who works in the office brings out the worst in me on a good day.  She sat there with her supercilious, better than everyone look on her face and asked, "Do you have this on your window?"  No, I did not.  When I asked why she didn't ask me that 3 days ago, she tittered and made some stupid assed remark that left me wanting to pull her over her desk and beat the shit out of her.  I'm telling ya, she brings out the very worst in me.  I took her damned sticker, stuck it in the window and went to work.  

Two days later as I'm coming out of the bathroom from my shower, I hear George's alarm go off, I run to the window to see him be pulled out of the apartment complex.  

Luckily there was another woman in the office besides supercilious bitch and I talked yelled at her about George being towed.  This is where the whole thing gets ugly.

Those other two times I went into the office and supercilious bitch acted innocent about why George was tagged was a fucking lie.

The maintenance fella was behind SB, looked down at the book she had opened and mentioned that maybe my tags were expired?  Turns out he was giving me a hint!  But I was to focused on the whole documentation of my parking permits to listen to him.

There was a spot on the tag of doom for expired tags, but they didn't check that one, but the illegally parked box.

They told me where George had been abducted to and I called a cab to rush me to George's side.  While Mr. Taxi was driving me to the impound lot, he told me something very interesting, that when you contract with a towing company you get a kick back on every car towed!  I checked at work with a few folks and yup Mr. Taxi was 1000% correct.
 

I paid the towing fee of $136.00 and got into George.  Knowing that I needed to get new tags ASAP, I opened the glove compartment to grab my registration and there, sitting on top of the manual was the new tags..........giant sigh.

When I was talking this over with TH, we both had a vivid memory of the tags coming in the mail, but this is when he was going thru all those surgeries and doctor appointments and rehab classes.  And like fools, I just dropped them into the glove box to put on tomorrow.  A tomorrow that cost me $136.00, a taxi ride and a months worth of anger.  This was 3 days ago, and I'm just now calming down about it enough to write it down.

The thing that angers me the most is that Supercilious Bitch knew the first day I went in why my car was tagged.  That's what burns me the most, that they have no problem fucking over their tenants.  I wish the old company hadn't sold to out to these vultures.  When my lease is up, even if we were planning on keeping an apartment here, I would still move out, I am that angry with them.

Ketchup, umm-no! Catsup, no that's not right! CATCH UP!

When last we visited I was having issues dealing with the death of my friend.  I find myself thinking about sending him a comic or a bit of news or trivia and then reality washes in and I know he's gone forever.  The anger is slowly eroding, but that may take a bit longer to work thru.

I kissed TH as he left to work, had a taxi pick me up at midnight for the trip down to Arizona for the winter.  We boarded on time, had a cool seat mate, and then the captain leaves the plane?  He bounced right back, and with a stern look, and told us we all needed to deplane quickly and take everything with us, we had a fuel leak under such and so engine!  Needless to say, we vacated that plane quick time.  After hours of updates that wasn't all that helpful, Mr. Captain Man came back to the gate and told us the trouble was deeper into the engine and they had a call to the mechanics in Minneapolis, their repair headquarters.  At this point I knew the plane was grounded, and wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.  I called TH and told him to come pick me up on his way home.  Called the airline and had them book me out later that night, and went home and collapsed into bed.  That night the trip went flawlessly.

Am back at the library and having a great time.  So many people were so glad to see me I got a million hugs!  After years and years of being a social pariah in the tiny village in Alaska, its shocks me that anyone would like me well enough to miss.

TH is still on track to retire after the first of the year!  When he drives down we are going to have to hash out our plans, because at this moment in time, its all a muddled mess.....

Circular Thoughts

A "dear" friend of mine sent me an email saying he had killed himself.  Which should be a time for grieving and sadness.

 But his passing is tainted by the reason he killed himself.

Because the FBI showed up on his doorstep and took his computer and bags of evidence for child pornography.

Leaving me with a jumbled mind. 

How can I mourn someone that I actually didn't know?


Should I even mourn someone who obviously was guilty, or he wouldn't have pulled the life plug?

I know quite a few people who were molested as children, and know how hard it was for them to put their life and self back together.  I HATE molesters!!!

but he was a friend, yeah?


and round and round and round my thoughts go, with no way to solve this dilemma between friendship and disgust.   knowing he will never again leave me an email, and feeling grief at losing his friendship.  but hating who he truly was.

The Looniverse Teabaggistan Says WHAT?

Have y'all seen this?

No, you dumb fucks.  Its Athabaskan for "great one" or "tall one".

And to put frosting on this shit cake, there is no Kenyan language!  Swahili or English is spoken in Kenya.

Alaska has been fighting to have the mountain renamed since the 1970's.  But Ohio has been fighting the name change for 40 years!  Yes, McKinley was from Ohio, and he was president.  But who knows a single fact about him besides the two I've mentioned?  President McKinley,  a president so mediocre, no one remembers him.

hitRECord

Have you watched any of last season's tv show hitRECord, it can be found on Netflix?   Season 2 is currently airing on Verizon FIOS, AT&T U-verse, DirecTV, and Dish. The show is supported by TakePart. Its the brain child of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and what an amazing concept it is.  Nothing on the show is the work of one artist, its a collaboration of many artists.  Anything that is sold is split 50/50 between hitRECord and the artists who worked on that collaboration.

This movie was from Season one, Episode one, and blew TH and I away.




So, what did you think?

The case of the mysterious "graham" crackers

These are my favorite brand of gluten free "graham" crackers.  They are tasty, not the exact same taste like Nabisco graham crackers.  But that's ok, I have a cookie that tastes great and dips well into a cold glass of rice milk.  No, they don't come with marshmallows and chocolate, absolutely the weirdest packet photo ever!

Well, my favorite snacking one became hard to find and one day, while scouring the gluten free aisle at Whole Foods, I found this brand.

They met all the requirements, no egg or dairy and not a laundry list of non-food ingredients, and into the cart they went.  The next day wanting a little something, I ripped open the box, unwrapped one and took a bite.  Sigh, they were WEIRD!  Odd texture, and weirdly enough, little flavor.  Now one thing you might not know about gluten free products, but they are usually pricey, and I trend towards cheap.  But I just couldn't bring myself to eat these, nor could I bring myself to toss em into the trash.

A few weeks later, I had come across a spread made my the same folks that makes the brand of vegan butter I eat, so into the cart it goes. 

With this product as soon as I got home I opened it up to taste it.  Oh my golly gee gosh!  This stuff is AMAZING.  Lightly sweet, with a delicate coconut flavor.  I toasted up a slice of bread, sha-zam!  That was great!  If my life was a movie, this would be a montage of me putting this spread on various items.  In my quest to try this on ever more items, I pulled out the evil hated box of "graham" crackers and spread on quite a bit...and about fell to my knees in bliss!

I'm sure all of you love these cookies.  They seem to only appear in Alaska around the winter holidays and then are gone, but they are hands down my favorite store bought cookie.  Those weird assed crackers, with the spread from heaven, somehow, in some way transformed that dull lifeless cracker into tasting like these cookies! 

Now TH was skeptical to say the least, and he considers himself a cookie aficionado extraordinaire.  But bring the super sweet man he is, he gamely took a plain one, took a bite and needless to say, was not impressed.  Then I spread my magic spread on the remaining piece and handed it back.  Heaving a giant "poor me" sigh, he took a bite, amazement and delight shone from him.

"How did that icky cracker turn into butter cookies?"
"Beats me to hell and back.  But aren't they good this way?"

I later sprinkled the top with some coarse sugar and that took the cookie/cracker to nearly twin status. 

Between looking for new things to put the magic spread on, FYI  potatoes are NOT a great vehicle for it.  I was looking for other things to put on those weird crackers.  After trying a few things, jelly-meh, orange marmalade- better than jelly, but still meh.  Next up was smooth peanut butter.  Again some weird magic occurred and they tasted like these cookies, at least to my best ability to recall fading food flavors from over 2 years ago.

After the success of the magic spread + cracker, TH was much more willing to try this combo, and after one bite, opened and ate about 10 crackers with PB on them!

The hunt continues for other combinations to magically turn these dull tedious crackers into something amazingly tasty and delicious.  But even if these are the only two substances that turn a meh cracker, into a face shoving food, its all good!

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. 

Love, love, love

Wow, what a day, yeah?  While I hoped fervently that SCOTUS would do the right thing, worries still hounded me.  All the what if's that has had us on tenterhooks for months now. 

But even in the very most 'rose colored glasses' moments I never EVER thought I'd see the White House support us to this degree.

To have a President and Vice President behind us so strongly is beyond amazing.  When President Obama says, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender my heart soars because we are no long an invisible people.  And today, we are full citizens of our country.  Is there still hard work ahead of us, well of course.  But with this win, we are all walking on air.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

I had planned an "What I've been doing on my summer vacation" sorta post, but scrapped it for more timely news.

Our entire (well most of it) state is on fire.  This is what the sky looks like from our deck last night, around 8.  Last night the smoke was so thick, the street lights came on.  Remember, during the summer we dont have any darkness at all, so they shouldn't be on.

 We can't open the windows, or we can't breathe.  And while we have a tiny air conditioner for the bedroom so TH can sleep when its hot, we can't run it as the area around the window vent lets in to much smoke.  Even with the windows tightly closed we can smell smoke in the house.  It hurts to breathe and everyone has constant headaches.

Rather than try to write what has already been written much better than I can, here are two screen shots and a few links.

The wee balloons are fires.  The dark blue ones are tiny <10 acres="" span=""> 
turquoise are moderately sized, 10 to 250 acres
the yellow are large fires coming in at 250 to 2500 acres
but the red ones are giant >2500 acres 

The vast majority of the fires shown will be allowed to burn, as they aren't impacting humans.

for fire updates, here is our newspaper link.

a map of the fires, if you click the wee colored balloon, a blurb will pop up describing the fire.

air quality

and a facebook page ran by the Alaska DNR  (department of natural resources

This surprised me a few days ago, and here is today's weather from my iphone.  I didn't even know they had smoke as a weather definition on the app.

And one last photo

There is a radio tower that should be visible but isnt as the visibility is down to 1.5 miles.