All I'm Saying there's a joke in here somewhere

My girlfriend is going in for her double mastectomy tomorrow. Please send good thoughts.

Thanks to all of you for your playlist suggestions: I bought the iPod Nano and have put quite a bit of music on it. To give you a sample of what was in my head:

"Copacabana," Barry Manilow
"Fine," Mary J. Blige
"Survivor," Destiny's Child
"Tamacun," Rodrigo y Gabriela (if you like Spanish guitar at all you have to hear it)
"All She Wants to Do is Dance," Don Henley
"A.M. Radio," Everclear
"Chain of Fools," Aretha Franklin
"Debbie," B-52s (her name is Debbie)
"Free to Go," Folk Implosion
"Here Comes the Sun," Beatles
"Love is Free," Sheryl Crow
"The Remedy," Jason Mraz
"She's Always a Woman," Billy Joel
"Three Little Birds," Bob Marley

I know Deb will like it a lot. For me, I'm stressed and nervous and scared. I can't imagine what she and her family must be feeling. I'm sick at heart because my terribly pessimistic, dour Norwegian heritage tells me to expect the worst and hope for the best. I'm one of those people who feels like it's just easier to figure the worst will happen, and if it doesn't at least I'll be pleasantly surprised. Not that I let that show on the outside--I'm a rock, as far as she knows.

Stay tuned; I'll update when I can. In the meantime, send thoughts and prayers, please.

Just in case you wear Keen shoes or sandals, and just in case you've noticed a CRAZY STANKY aroma wafting out of them (not saying you are, not saying I did either), I have a tip for you. There's actually no reason it shouldn't work on any other stinky shoes, but I've noticed that Keens seem to be extra rank sometimes.

Here's what you do: take about a tablespoon of baking soda and put it in each shoe. (Might be smart to do this outside or over the sink if you've got sandals to treat.) Shake it around in the shoe until you're pretty sure each of the footbeds is totally covered. Then leave them overnight. In the morning, shake out any excess, then wipe them down with a paper towel. Wear with impugnity.

Seriously. It works like a dream.

I just read that Round Table Pizza just closed all its restaurants in Boise. From the article:

Round Table Pizza employees showed up to work Thursday morning to find doors locked and signs saying their employment had been terminated. Instructions told the employees how to pick up their final paychecks.

“Round Table regrets having to exit the Boise market; however, the restaurants were no longer economically viable,” the Concord, Calif. company said in a statement. “This is a result of the combination of low consumer confidence, driven by high fuel prices and the subprime mortgage crisis, coupled with record high commodities prices in items such as cheese and wheat.”

Coupled with the fact that YOUR PIZZA TASTES LIKE ASS.

I truly cannot imagine what it must have been like for the folks working there who depended on that paycheck--showing up and the doors are locked. To me, this is just as heinous to the organizations' employees as what...jeez, I can't believe I'm blanking on it now...that big Texas corporation that was engaged in all the fraud and spent its employees' retirement money. With that Ken guy? And the shredders? I'm blank. Anyway, there's no excuse for that kind of thing. Blaming the economy is a crock of crap. Why not tell people two weeks ago that they were closing today, and giving folks half a chance to look for a job, to make some plans financially?

I don't think the employees have much recourse, since Idaho is a "right to work" state, which means no unions and that the employee and the employer can legally sever their relationship with no notice at all. But I think the corporation should be made to pay these folks for at least the next two weeks at their regular salary so they can at least have a chance to look for work and put off the wolf at the door for the short-term.

In my world, anyway.

I don't know why I'm flashing on this tonight, though I just read a post Dee has up on her site about her own dad and his own issues. But I think you'll all be sufficiently shocked by this. So ask me...what's the weirdest thing my dad has ever said to me?

Go on, ask me.

Well, since you asked. We were sitting at lunch in a restaurant one day probably seven or eight years ago, when totally apropos of NOTHING, he said, "Do you know that I slept with over fifty different women while your mother and I were married?"

*blink* *blink*

I replied, "Um, well, I guess I know now. I wonder how much that's going to cost me in therapy at some point in the future."

In point of fact, I get free counseling sessions from my employer (we all do--it isn't just that someone recognized a marked need in me or anything). So I brought that up a few sessions ago and got the same *blink* *blink* response from the counselor. And then he said, "Your dad has some real issues with knowing what appropriate boundaries are."

Ya think?

So I was musing today, as I walked across the parking lot at work.* You know me, I muse a lot. And I got to thinking, "What if farts were visible? Would there be more or less of a social stigmata to them?"

Because sometimes when it is really cold outside, I wonder if people could see from steam if you tooted.

How about it, Internet? What are your thoughts? Is it possible that if a puff of green vapor wafted from your tushie when you pooted, that people would be less disgusted? Or would it be worse?

*I don't want anyone reading this to think my thought was spurred by any passing of gas on my part. I don't do that. I am a clean-burning machine and I simply don't need to vent extra air through any of my orifices. But I don't hold it against you lesser folks.

I drive a 2003 Toyota Matrix, which I just paid off in May. Woo! Happy!

It has really low miles on it, I guess because I didn't drive it that much when we lived in Cascade. So it has around 10000 miles per year on it, 2000 less than most automakers (or whoever) figure you're going to drive as an average.

I took it in for an oil change today, and I got a Phone Call from the mechanic's shop. Mind you, I go to a shop known far and wide for its honesty and straight-dealing, and they've never tried to jack me in the 3 years I've been going there. It's been go in, change the oil, pay, drive it home. Very simple. So this afternoon's call took me by surprise: it turns out the fluid in my transmission, my antifreeze, and some other fluid that I cannot remember right now but wasn't oil was incredibly low. They don't know why that is, but their best guess is that the fluids that were supposed to be flushed and replaced at 60000 miles (about now, if you drive it the average 12k a year) needed replacement a lot sooner mileage-wise, though roughly average year-wise.

So that sort of sucks. Especially because it is going to cost $500 to get it all done. I've got the money in my Italy savings account, but that's like five months' delay in getting to Italia. Dammit.

I just read this article about how Larry Birkhead just bought some lingere worn by Anna Nicole Smith in a Playboy photo shoot...for their daughter Danilynn to remember her mother by.

Birkhead said he hoped the items would help his daughter learn her mother's life story - when she's old enough.

"You know, it's not something I can show today, but something down the road," Birkhead said. "It's not going to be in any bedtime stories anytime soon."

I really do think Larry Birkhead (from what little I've seen in the media) is trying to be a good dad. I don't think he's a bad guy. I just don't think there's a lot of wattage powering that brain of his. If, FSM forbid, something terrible ever happened to me, I'm not sure that Matt would be out trying to track down the tools of my trade for Freya to remember me by. You know, like my computer keyboard, or my Post-It note dispenser, or my ID card...

Hey, gang. I'm having a hard time coming up with much to talk about--my thoughts lately have been very much absorbed by my friend's cancer diagnosis. I can only imagine how much more so her family and she are feeling that way.

She's doing mostly okay in these pre-surgery days. Lots of folks are rallying around her, and I know that means a lot. Whether it helps or not, I can't say.

A girlfriend and I are planning on getting her an iPod Nano or something like that and loading it with a playlist full of upbeat, motivational, feel-good songs. I'd definitely welcome your suggestions--I would love to have a really diverse mix of things. Some ideas so far:

"You've Got a Friend in Me" by Randy Newman
"Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey
"Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley
"Heart and Soul" by Huey Lewis and the News
"I Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

She likes rock and pop, and she's 41 so I'm trying to put a lot of stuff in there that reminds her of happy days in her past. So go ahead and post your ideas in the comments, pretty please!

I found out last week that one of my closest friends has breast cancer. She found out today that the type of cancer is going to mean she needs a double mastectomy. At the same time they do that surgery, they'll be going in to remove lymph nodes to see if the cancer has spread. She also has to go to a geneticist, who will be trying to figure out if the cancer is in her reproductive system.

My friend is 41 and the mother of three kids. She lost her own mother to a sudden heart disease (I think) when she was 11 years old. Since becoming a mother herself, she's spent a lot of energy being terrified that something would happen to take her away from her own kids.

I hardly know what to do or say. I'm avoiding all the cliches, and suggesting that this is her chance to get The Full Dolly--big blonde wig and huge boobs. She says she'll need my sense of humor.

I just hope I can keep it.

Please send good thoughts for her, and if you belong to a prayer group (what the hell are you doing reading this site?), please put her into your prayers--her name is Debbie.

Thanks.

I feel faintly ashamed for even admitting this, but Freya is getting to the point where she likes watching television. I knew it was a matter of time, considering her YouTube addiction--the girl can sit and watch four to eight-minute videos for an hour at a time. It was just a matter of development until she was capable of sitting and watching an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants SuperWhy! for a half-hour stretch.

And I feel faintly dirty for confessing that it has come as something of a GIGANTIC RELIEF to me that I can get a half hour of time to cook dinner or, like this morning, get some work done on the computer without having ten interruptions where I have to help her find her sock, lay down on a pile of blankets and stuffed animals and pretend to sleep, get her a yogurt, get
her some chocolate milk, get her some string cheese, get her an apple, etc. every three minutes.

The part of me that feels guilty about her watching TV feels especially guilty about the SpongeBob stuff. Should a two-year old really be exposed to SpongeBob whacking Squidward in the face with a metal door thirty or forty times? It doesn't seem like a good idea. But then I stop and think, "How many times did I see Wile E. Coyote fall off a cliff only to land in
front of a speeding truck? How many times did I see Jerry the mouse get Tom the cat with a mousetrap to the nose? And was I scarred for life?" I don't think so...I think my parents did plenty of other things that take a great deal of precedence damage-wise before the cartoons. But on the other hand, my little brother whacked me across the face with a wooden kids'
chair when he was four years old after watching "The Incredible Hulk," which was a Friday night tradition for us. I remember that one pretty vividly.

What are your thoughts on little kids and TV? It's okay--you don't have to spare my feelings.

Happy Father's Day to those of you dads who are reading. (Delmer is the only one who really comes to mind, at least as a regular commenter--he's man enough to endure my tales of feminine tragedy. Happy Father's Day, Delmer.)

I think/hope Matt had a great day as the father in our nuclear family. I made him a quiche for breakfast--he's a real man, too. We gave him his presents, the wonderful lithograph of a Tlingit salmon that I picked for him in Alaska, and a Sibley's Bird Guide that he'd asked for. Then we loaded up and went mushroom hunting. If you've been reading me since I was in Cascade, you'll know we love to hunt and eat morel mushrooms. Well, we struck out today, probably in the main because we didn't go somewhere we know there are 'shrooms. But we had a great hike around in the woods. Freya found some buttercup-like flowers and tossed the blooms into a little creek, and Grover the Dog dove on them and sent her into gales of laughter. She also took her first tumble in the woods--she didn't realize she couldn't just take off running down a hill covered in fallen branches, and we couldn't catch her in time. Thankfully, she came to no grievous damage.

We stopped at Pizzalchik, a really great roasted chicken and pizza place on the other end of Boise, when we came back in to town and we got a chicken with roasted garlic cooked underneath its skin. It's one of Matt's favorites, but they're usually too far away for us to drive.

Then I put him to work. We went to Lowe's and picked up some mulch and a new tree--a weeping cherry, which he just planted off of one corner of our patio. It looks great, and balances out the flower bed Freya and I planted yesterday. The back yard is coming along nicely.

And now he's sacked out on the couch watching baseball. That's a good Father's Day, right?

So you remember how I didn't get abducted as a Wilderness Bride the day I went out to the village of Galena along the Mighty Yukon River? And that it didn't happen? And that I'm still possibly a little insulted? I still can't figure it out.

You can't tell me the Galena personal ads are any better than that. But still: MWF wishes not to be abducted, but because you almost certainly can't fight the temptation, here are my stats--blonde, statuesque, sparkling conversationalist and cogent writer, comes with own mosquito netting and gum boots. Must also be willing to abduct toddler daughter--package deal abductions only, please.

You have got to read this New York Times article about a very upper crust apartment in New York City designed for a family...who ended up getting an extra surprise when a friend of their son's cracked a secret cipher embedded on the radiator cover in the son's bedroom. They found that their architect had created a family-friendly da Vinci Code-style mystery for them.

Can you imagine? The part that stunned me was that the family seemed kind of "enh" about it. And then there's the fact that people have the money to live in dwellings like that in the first place...

Dear Peanut,

I'm sorry this letter is coming a little late, but I was out of town on your month-iversary or whatever we shall call it. But you're now two and a quarter years old, and that's a milestone. At least, quarter years are a milestone for another little while. Might not be such a big deal when you're four. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I digress...

The big recent change in your life has been weaning you. Since I was away for eight days, and because my breasts had gone past the time of any possible engorgement issues, and because I am honestly ready to be done nursing, I decided the time had come. When we were on our way home from the airport, you asked if we could have "milk-some" when we got home. I replied that because I had been away, my milk had gone away and I was all out of it. You thought about it, and the moment passed. That led me to believe the process might be fairly easy. Well...I guess it has been and it hasn't. You were used to milk first thing in the morning, and then when we got home from work/school. So now those are the times you ask for milk, and we have a similar discussion. I've noticed that you act up and out more during these times of the day. And you've been especially tantrum-ish right before bedtime the last couple of nights. I'm not exactly sure what all I can chalk up to weaning, but I do sense some distress in you. The best I can do is clearly communicate with you, and that's what I am trying to do. I'm not always sure what I should say, but I've told you that little kids start to grow up and their bodies don't need milk anymore, and eventually Mommy's milk goes away. (I realize that isn't strictly true, but it seems like the most understandable, gentle thing to say.) I'm hoping the angst passes in a week or so.

You're currently obsessed with having your hair in ponytails. You like to have one on each side of your head, and because you have cowlicks a-plenty, they're pretty strategically placed to take advantage of your hair patterns. While I was gone, your daddy made a few attempts to fix your hair, but we have to forgive daddies for not having practiced certain skills, and just settle for combed and presentable sometimes. Your obsession with wearing dresses continues.

Your language skills are still way ahead of the pack. We've sat together on the bed the last few nights after the books are read, and we have actual conversations. They're still pretty simple, but we talk about your school friends and things you like to do, and it is really neat to be able to get inside your head a little bit. Oh, and you're also discovering all the cool things your body can do. For example, you like to walk around with your legs spread really wide apart; you have figured out how to brace your hands and lift your weight off your feet; and you have learned to hold my hands while climbing up my legs, and then lean backwards into a flip while I continue to hold your hands. You also really like to jump off the couch. We haven't had any head trauma lately either, knock wood.

It is so great to watch you exploring the world around you. You're almost always happy and laughing or singing, except when you're not, and then look out world. Thanks for being my daughter--you're a miracle.
Love,
Mommy

Well, I am returned home. I am honestly pretty glad (in retrospect) that I "had to" go to Anchorage, rather than flying home a day early. Anchorage is a really beautiful city. You fly in over the Cook Inlet, and you can see gorgeous, jagged mountains on the inland side of the airport. Anchorage itself seemed like a pretty, well-planned, clean city. I'll admit I was mainly just in the touristy section downtown, so I didn't see the nitty gritty, but it was a whole lot more...less...I dunno how to explain it...but it was not as ramshackle as Fairbanks. I thought Fairbanks was pretty good, but Anchorage just brought a higher standard or something.

Because my poor, pregnant, terribly morning sick friend Amie had asked me to, I dined on Alaskan king crab legs that night. They were scrumptious, but holy shit, that hit the old expense account pretty hard (though still perfectly within legal limits). So Amie, this crab's for you, I figured.

One of my very favorite touristy schticks around are those wooden cutouts where you stick your head through a hole and suddenly you appear to be wearing a painted on accordian and liederhosen, or whatever, and then you get your picture taken. Anchorage had several of those, so when I get the photos uploaded, you'll see me as a bear holding a fish, and as a prospector leading a moose, upon which is mounted one of my coworkers. I love those things! I did some good shopping, and at a place called Alaska Ivory Exchange, I bought an awesome hair stick/ornament made out of shed caribou (or maybe moose) antler. It's sort of a French twist skewer kind of a thing, and it has the head of an eagle carved into one end of it. It is gorgeous! I was quite happy with my find*.

So we went and hit a brew pub after walking around a while, then I headed back to the hotel for a snooze. Woke up early the next morning, dined on eggs and reindeer sausage** in the hotel restaurant, and headed for the airport.

It was so great to see my little Freya bug back in Boise. She and Matt came up the escalator and she spotted me, but she sort of went still and didn't smile. I reached out my arms to her and she wrapped her little self around me like a tentacle and kept her head down against my chest for the next 5 minutes, just clinging. Finally, by the time we got to the baggage claim, she accepted that I really was the real Mommy, and she lifted up her face and gave me an enormous smile. It was wonderful.

*I bought Matt a really nice print of a salmon, kind of a lithograph thing, for Father's Day and I hope to heck it gets here in time, so he scored a nice souvenier too. Freya got an Eskimo doll (she says "Eksimo"), a t-shirt and some socks--she doesn't ask for anything expensive.

**Did you know there is no strict difference between a reindeer and a caribou? They're the same species, rangifer tarandus. Does that sound Scandinavian, or what? Anyway, I think domesticated animals are referred to as reindeer, and the wild ones are caribou or something like that.

Glad to be home!
Casey

I realize this is a very minor thing to complain about on the whole list of things that are worth sniveling about (or worth listening to me snivel about). But today is kind of our last day of work up here, and it was looking this morning like we might wrap it up early and that I could go home tomorrow.

When I talked to Matt last night, he sounded like he was getting on to the end of his rope. That may have been because his folks have been causing him some added stress, and since they were headed home today, hopefully that stress was alleviated. But he sounded tired, and I know me getting home a day early would lift a load off his shoulders. And not the least important thing, I really am ready to see Freya. So I was more than willing to sacrifice a day in Alaska to get home sooner.

Looks like that's not going to happen. I just finished my first substantial edit, and there are more edits to come on our product. My team leader said he thought I probably wasn't going to be able to cut loose early, and now I'm sad.

On the bright side (I guess), looks like I'll now be going to Anchorage for an overnight tomorrow, so that's one more Alaska location I can say I've done.

I miss my baby...

I guess I just wasn't toothsome enough for the Galena-ites. No one abducted me to make me a wilderness bride; in fact, no one even made a feint in my direction. I think I am a little disappointed, actually.

You guys are really going to need to see the pictures to appreciate it, but holy crap. I thought I grew up in Buttfuck, Egypt. I didn't. And the scary thing is, I think Galena is pretty metropolitan compared to many of the surrounding villages. It used to be an Air Force base, and was very busy during the Cold War, as that was the attack & intercept strip that policed the international border with Russia. But now, everything is described as, "That used to be..." (the other grocery store, a repair shop, etc.). The only business activities seem to center around wildland firefighting and the school, which is part of the bush school program.

The Yukon River is a mile wide at Galena, and after our work was done we got to load up in a boat and go across the river. This is where pictures are pretty much critical to the story, as I took advantage of our host's offer of a "mosquito bonnet," which was a mesh hat and head shield that came all the way down to my collarbone. I also borrowed some Wellington boots, and happened to have my umbrella handy which was good, because it was pissing rain. So as we tromped around the bush, I am told I looked like a cross between Katherine Hepburn in "The African Queen" and Julie Andrews in "Mary Poppins." Could be worse, I suppose. But the thing that struck me, and what I told the other folks was, "I guarantee you I'm the only asshole who ever stood in this spot holding an umbrella." I have that to add to my claims to fame.

The plane ride there and back was fairly tame, thankyoubabyjesus, and I didn't throw up or scream in terror at any point. Another good thing. All in all, it was a total adventure and almost certainly nothing I'll ever get the chance or offer to do again. I'm very glad I did it...in spite of the fact that there are a few photos of me circulating around the internet already.

I'm headed into the wilderness tomorrow, off to Galena. Some of the guys I work with, who are old Alaska hands, suggest I don't want to "cross the runway" at Galena alone. I assumed that was some kind of deal that equated to the wrong side of the tracks. Turns out there's a bar there called Hobos, and that's where I meet a strong likelihood of becoming a Wilderness Bride.

I mentioned that to another coworker who is back in Boise, and brought up the fact that should I be abducted as a Wilderness Bride, it might be in everyone's best interests to arm up an expedition to come and get me. Otherwise, who will do their payroll? He agreed it was a good idea and pointed out he has access to about 120 young, virile, testosterone-unbalanced guys who consider themselves quite manly, and that he would dispatch them at once if it became necessary.

Thinking about that possibility, I decided it might actually be worth it. Then I got to thinking about the movie rights and who might play me on the big screen. He suggested Britney Spears, and I begged him to consider someone with some dignity, unless we were planning on throwing a few song and dance numbers into the film. I'm thinking maybe Scarlett Johanssen. She's got the lips for it...

Anyway, wish me well. I may not be able to update tomorrow, because it is entirely possible that we'll get weathered in at Galena and not be able to come out until Friday. And if you don't hear from me for longer than that, plan on seeing the whole story at your nearest movie theatre in 2010.

I got to go out into the (sorta) woods today. The folks I went with brought lots of bug spray, which I generally hate to use because I'm not convinced it isn't full of toxic chemicals that will kill me, but I realized springtime in Alaska is no place to be cavalier about bug dope. So I went ahead and sprayed away.

It's too early to tell by the itching if I was bitten at all yet. But it was unreal to watch "the skeets," as the locals call them, flocking around. I don't think they were biting me, but they'd land and check me out. I took some video and photos, which may or may not turn out at such close range. One of the guys sitting next to me hadn't sprayed his pant legs (a situation that lasted all of about three minutes before he realized it and rectified it), and I glanced over to see easily two hundred mosquitos gathering up on his jeans.

Seriously, it makes you wonder how the animals up here can handle it. You'd think they'd just drain out at some point and fall to the ground like deflated balloons.

It is Day 2 of the Great Alaska Adventure, and most of it has been spent locked up in a conference room. That's okay. That's probably why I have only killed one mosquito so far today. I probably had some other chances (and may have lost blood due to my inattention), but am not really in mosquito-awareness mode...yet.

It was bright and sunshiney outside when I went to bed last night. Sure, it was only 8:44 p.m. Alaska time, but that's a quarter to eleven in Idaho. And let's keep in mind that I'm usually lights out and sleeping by 9:30 when I am at home. Anyway, the light didn't bother me too much. I woke several times in the night, noted that it was dim outside, and went back to
sleep. So at this point, I'd say the bright nights aren't bugging me, and I hope that doesn't change.

What I do find a little strange is the effect the time change is having on my appetite. I woke up at 5:00 this morning (Alaska time, so technically I slept in by Idaho time) and worked out, showered and went down to breakfast. I ate a HUGE breakfast, knowing that lunch was a good ways off in the future. But then 10:00 rolled around (noon, Idaho time) and I was ravenous. I think my body recognized its circadian rhythms, rather than my metabolism. And unfortunately, the cafeteria didn't open for another two and a half hours. I managed, but then I put away a truly enormous lunch. I ate two pieces of turkey breast, a helping each of stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy, a side of cranberry sauce, a green salad, a big slab of homemade bread with butter, and topped it off with an embarassingly large strawberry ice cream cone. That's going to have to hold me for...checking clock and doing conversion math...another three hours, minimum. I'm not sure if it will. The mind is a powerful thing.

I'd better plan on getting up early to work out again tomorrow--consuming two thousand calories per meal is otherwise going to become a really big problem.

I'm writing to you all from the Great Green and Tan North--it isn't currently white, at least not in Fairbanks. We got in a couple hours ago, and I've been puttering around and getting settled. The flight was long, but I was really grateful when the pilot came on the loudspeaker and said that we'd entered into Alaska. We followed the coast up for quite a way, and I was on the shoreline-side of the plane. I could see islands and bays along the way, and the pilot spoke of Ketchikan and Juneau and Sitka. We entered into some clouds shortly afterwards, and then swung inland.

I wish I could explain what I saw from the window to you as we flew over the interior. Better, I wish I'd had the camera in the cabin with me so I could have take some snapshots. It is barren in the areas I was able to see. The land was simply a continuous chain of mountains with no discernable vegetation on them. They were mostly snowy, but the south-facing slopes were bare. At one point, I think I saw a glacier, but I'm not positive.

You fly over a million creeks and rivers, and they are the most silt-filled waterways I have ever seen. I think that must be because there's so little plant life to hold the dirt onto the mountains, and so as the snow melts, the mountains melt along with it and travel toward the sea. The Chena River, which you see as you fly into Fairbanks, has a thousand different channels, and you can see silt deposits all over, even where the river currently isn't running. It's no wonder they talk about the mosquitos and no-see-ums here; there is water everywhere. There are little sinks full all over the place, and of course the rivers.

Fairbanks is in a very big basin, and I'm not sure what mountains surround it. There are lots of trees, and so far I've only been able to identify aspen and spruce. My hotel is in downtown Fairbanks, and ohmygod, this town is so NOT urban at all. Each business is on a very large chunk of ground--not crammed in together like I am used to in the interest of maximizing valuable retail property. The homes are all on the hills outside of town, as near as I can tell. And I think we drove past the mall. It appears to consist of a store called Gottschalks, or something like that.

Anyway, we're off to dinner soon, but I wanted to give an update. Oh, and I was a brave girl at the airport again this morning. Freya was absolutely wonderful and gave me a hundred kisses and hugs, and she was happy as she was doing it. She was aware I was leaving on a trip, but she wasn't panicky and upset about it, and that made me feel so good. I talked to she and Matt on the phone right after we landed and he said she's had a couple of short bursts of crying and saying, "I want Mama," but the little storms have passed quickly. But oh God, how much I miss her! I wish they were here with me tonight.