“Mama, when I grow up, I can’t decide between a hair cutter and a hunter.”
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Unalakleet
I just realized that I never actually blogged about our trip to Unalakleet, which we took in August.
Unalakleet is an Eskimo village located on the Western coast of Alaska, squeezed between the ocean and the Unalakleet River. There are no roads to that part of the country, so the only way in or out is via plane. The population is less than 800.
It’s the village where Jens spent the first 12 years of his life.
He has been back a few times but this was my first trip to UNK to see the place where he grew up and meet the people and environment that had such a profound impact on him.
I knew I was in for a bit of culture shock when we were picked up and driven home from the airport on an ATV. UNK has one (dirt) road and no stoplights. Transportation is mainly on ATVs (four-wheelers) in the summer or snowmobiles in the winter. Even the 80 year old women truck around on these. And they’re totally fun.
You'd be surprised how many people you can actually fit on one of these.
Because the only way to get supplies or anything else delivered in UNK is via plane or the (very) occasional barge, recycling is a big part of the culture. Need a place to wipe the snow off your boots before entering your house? Just lay down some old snowmobile treads! Need a fence for your garden? Bury one edge of an old ladder in the dirt, and voila! Also…
Need a table? Find an old cable spool.
Need seating in your boat? A couple of old school chairs should do it.
UNK is a subsistence culture, which means that a good portion of their food comes from living off the land. For a few weeks out of every year, everyone takes advantage of the long summer hours to gather and store as much food as possible so they can get through the long winter months. The main sources of their food storage are salmon from the river that borders the town, and blueberries from the hills that surround it.
Our first evening there, we took the opportunity to go upriver and try a little blueberry picking on the tundra.
Blueberry Picking
The mosquitoes were beyond insane. Despite hoods, coats, and GENEROUS use of bug dope, I still came away with about 20 mosquito bites from the couple of hours we were out in the field. Fortunately, I seem to be less allergic to Alaskan mosquitoes than Texan mosquitoes, so while they were a nuisance, at least they didn’t swell up as big or itch as unbearably as usual.
The biggest problem was that they kept flying into my eyes, probably because it was the only part of my body not coated in bug dope. But it’s a little difficult to pick berries when you can’t SEE.
Jens with the town of Unalakleet in the background. Behind the town is the ocean.
2 hours of picking netted us about 2.5 quarts.
Blueberry picking is surprisingly demanding, physically. Walking through tundra is actually quite difficult because the ground is full of little invisible pits so you’re constantly having to balance yourself on little tufts of moss and falling into little knee-deep holes that you can’t see because of the way the plants cover them. In addition, you’re constantly bending over, which can do a number on your back after a few hours.
The women of the village go blueberry picking for weeks in the summer, for hours at a time. Another day, we went out with some of them to pick up in the hills.
Our berry-picking Caravan. Olga (in front) had nearly reached her goal of 20 gallons of berries for the season.
We rode the ATVs about 45 minutes up into the hills to find a spot that hadn’t already been picked through. They picked for 5 hours. We gave up after 2.
Also, the berries are very soft, so if you set your bucket on the ATV for the ride back, you’ll just end up with a bunch of juice. For the record, holding a gallon of berries suspended on your arm for 45 minutes on an ATV ride back to town is … challenging.
(to be continued…)
October 14, 2010
The Day Begins
It was 27° when I dropped the kids off for school this morning. And dark. The sun rises at about 8:45am these days.
The forest is never quiet anymore. I keep thinking I’m surrounded by rabbits or some other animal as I fumble my way through the dark to the frozen car, but really I think it’s just the constant noise of the dried leaves rustling and falling to the ground. I do believe there was a moose or something wandering about two mornings ago, because as I made my usual noise on the way to the car, the rustling seemed to get further away.
It smells good outside. It’s the smell of Fall, the smell that – in Texas, anyway, signals the approach of Christmas. Here, we haven’t even made it to Halloween yet.
The weather has been cold, but lovely. Lots of sun and clear skies. The moment August turned into September, the weather went from “suck” to “it’s actually really beautiful here,” and has stayed nice ever since.
We have gotten used to the morning routine. After 2+ years of fighting it, I have finally resigned myself to the fact that my son is a crappy sleeper and my day is just GOING to start at 6am for the foreseeable future.
He wakes up fitfully at odd hours in the night, and will cry and call for me until I come in to reassure him and pull his covers back on and help him find his boppy (paci). I have no idea what wakes him up, but he is rendered completely unable to think, reason, or function when he wakes up like that. He can’t be trained to find his boppy or to pull up his own blankets or even lay himself back to sleep. He has to be told what to do. It’s as if his brain won’t start up when his body wakes up. Sometimes it’s enough just to hear my voice. “Koren, lay back down and go to sleep, baby.”
But not usually. Most of the time he needs my touch as well.
Fortunately, there are a lot of nights where he does his waking up before I actually fall asleep, and then we both get several uninterrupted hours of sleep. Makes the whole 6:08 am “MAMA CAN I GET UP YET” wake-up call a little easier. Also, I must admit that I prefer the toddler alarm better than that heinous clock beeping noise.
I have not had to set an alarm clock in 28 months.
Lately, MAMA CAN I GET UP YET has turned into MAMA CAN I COME SLEEP IN YOUR BED. Make no mistake, he has no intention of doing any actual sleeping, but he’ll come crawl in bed and cuddle with me while I wake up enough to pull my lazy butt out of bed for good. He usually crawls into the bed before I do, and is very intentional about leaving me a space as he curls up on my pillow.
“Here, Mama. Your spot is RIGHT HERE. There’s room for YOU.”
Then he realizes that he needs his water sippy from his bed. So he runs back to his room to retrieve it and brings it to place on Jens’ night table. Then, “Uh-oh, I almost forgot, have to shut the door. Very quietly.”
He closes the door without slamming it, then makes his way back to my side of the bed, crawls in, and lays down.
There are approximately 3-8 minutes of silence. Then the day begins.
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October 13, 2010
Don’t Be a Moron
Ok, can we just talk about something that is slowly but surely moving past the point of “pet peeve” and into the realm of “makes me stabby?”
Irresponsible dog owners.
I have spent the past 7 years living in two states where it seems like everybody, including myself, owns a dog. And during that time it has become all too clear that there is a prevalence of a certain breed, if you will, of dog owners that borders on reckless. Folks in this category are either too stupid to realize or too inconsiderate to care that their pets are a menace.
And I for one, am tired of encountering them and fending off their beasts.
I hope you’re not one of these people, but in case you’re worried about it, let’s go though a few litmus tests:
If you think the “All Dogs Must Be On a Leash” rule at the park doesn’t apply to your dog, you are a moron.
That’s great that your dog can walk by your side without a leash on. It doesn’t mean he will continue to walk by your side once he passes MY dog – who can’t escape because he IS on a leash. And if you’re on a bicycle, it’s going to take you entirely too long to assess the situation, turn around, get off your bike, and intervene. Meanwhile, your dog has already swallowed half my dog’s head.
Also, I don’t care how well trained you think your enormous brute is. If you let him roam freely around the park because he gets more exercise that way, don’t act surprised when he makes a beeline for my dog and clobbers him. And I don’t care if you’re 80 years old, I will scream at you for letting it happen. Especially the second time. I go the park to exercise, not to stand still, holding my dog in my arms until you get your ass over there to call off Bruno.
If you think your dog knows where your property line ends, you are a moron.
Look, if you want a ferocious guard dog to keep your property safe, that’s your deal. But if you think for a MINUTE that he’s going to keep his ferociousness within your unfenced boundary, you’re just kidding yourself and putting other people in danger. I know not to run from dogs, but when I’m jogging by your house – on the OTHER side of the street – with my headphones on, I’m not going to notice that your 100-lb German shepherd is trying to chase me down until he has a hold of my ankle.
If you think your large, aggressive/protective dog has any business being off-leash, you are a moron.
Kaelin and I were taking Hastings for a walk this week. Our driveway is long and passes a neighbor’s property. We could see the large dog on the porch 100 feet away (200 feet? I can’t judge distance to save my life), barking his head off like he was fully prepared to rip us to bits. “I hope he’s on a leash,” I muttered to Kaelin as we continued on our way. Suddenly, the dog quit barking and disappeared.
Guess who was waiting for us at the end of our driveway. Our walk was cut short as we turned around and headed back.
I have enough to worry about with keeping my dog and children safe from moose and bears. I don’t need to be trapped in my own driveway by your stupid dog.
If you think that just because your dog is generally benign, he should roam free and unsupervised, you are a moron.
Ok, aside from the obvious issue of him getting hit by a car or attacked by another dog or wild animal…
There’s a dog on our road that is old and probably half deaf and spends most of his day sitting by the road watching the cars go by. Nice dog, not aggressive. But curious. So when I passed this house with my dog, while walking the mile to the mailboxes, he came bounding toward us.
I have a shiba inu. He’s fast, and a bit on the hyper side when he gets excited. His quick, jerky movements are sometimes interpreted by other dogs as aggressive behavior or an invitation to body slam. Also, he tends to distrust other dogs and is quick to snap when he feels cornered because he’s on a leash. So even the nicest dogs can get the signals crossed and the next thing I know, I’m by myself trying to break up a row between two frustrated animals with sharp teeth.
People, please don’t be morons. Leash and fence your dogs. If not for others’ sake, do it to spare your dog from the pain of my pepper spray.
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October 12, 2010
Jackie’s Got Talent
I’m going to give Sarah Brightman the benefit of the doubt and assume she has a cold or something… because I know I’ve heard her sound better. But in this video…she totally got upstaged by an 11 year old.
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October 11, 2010
A Package of Pull-Ups
I have always looked upon the fraud prevention measures taken by bank and credit card companies with mild annoyance. A necessary evil, I suppose, but in the past they have only caused me undue frustration.
Numerous times, my cards have been canceled without my knowledge, all because of charges I made myself. I once shopped at the same store three times in one day. Apparently that’s a no-no if you want to keep your card. The next thing I knew, my card was being declined at the gas station and when I called to inquire, I was told that it had been canceled and I should have a new one within two weeks… which of course, doesn’t help me when I’m standing at the pump wondering why I can’t put gas into my car.
Another time, I had made a purchase online that the card company didn’t approve of. I don’t remember what it was, but all of a sudden, my card was unusable.
If I’m lucky, I can call them before they go so far as to cancel the card, and then they’ll push the charges through and I get to keep the card. But that doesn’t seem to be the case most of the time.
So I rolled my eyes today when the cashier at Safeway told me my card had been declined. After checking with Jens for any obvious issues, I called Bank of America to ask why I was unable to purchase groceries.
The girl on the other end of the line asked me the routine security questions, and somehow I was able to answer most of them (“What’s your online ID?” “I don’t know, it’s stored in my browser”).
And then she rattled off a list of charges to my bank card that I didn’t recognize. At all.
They were from all over the country and all in small amounts – $0.96 here, $10 there, $2.61 to Robert H Cash in West Virginia.
So I spent 10 minutes on the phone in Safeway sorting through the mess of charges, and was told that my card would have to be canceled but that I could go to a branch to get a new temporary card to use until the new card gets here in the mail.
Except that this is Small Town, Alaska, so of course there are no Bank of America branches. Which means I’m card-less for the next 7-10 days.
Also, I was told that the bank would have to be on the phone with me when I went through the grocery line so the charge would go through. Unfortunately, I had not allowed an extra 20 minutes in my schedule to mess with fraud, so I was out of time and had to leave to pick up Kaelin from dance class before I could go back through the checkout lane.
I left my shopping cart in one of the empty registers and told the cashier I would be back in a few minutes to check out again.
I arrived at Kaelin’s dance class to find that they were running late, so I probably could have stayed to check out after all, but suddenly remembered that we had to hurry home because Jens needed the car to get to his physical therapy appointment.
On the way home, I tried calling Safeway to let somebody know that my shopping cart would be sitting there for longer than a few minutes, and as luck would have it, the number listed was wrong. So then I tried calling the floral department (only number I could find) but the woman on the other end of the line couldn’t hear me.
At this point, I was in awe over how much effort I was having to exert just to get a package of pull-ups to take to my son’s school. I wondered aloud in the car why everything had to be so difficult today.
Kaelin, who was in the back seat, didn’t miss a beat.
“Mama, nothing’s difficult today. Maybe it’s just difficult FOR YOU.”
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Facebook “Import Feed” Fail
Facebook Feed Import Fail
When I changed the feed address for this site, I needed to update the new feed with Facebook, which would automatically pull in my blog posts and list them as “notes” on my facebook profile.
However, after I deleted the old feed and tried to replace it with the new feed address, I kept getting this error message:
Import Failed
We couldn’t find a feed using the URL you provided.
After searching various corners of the internet, I discovered that there are a multitude of people with this exact same problem and NOBODY seems to have come up with an answer, or even a workaround.
So I’m posting this to show how my problem was solved on the off-chance that someone who needs it finds it.
Granted, this is solution will only work for WordPress blogs, but there seem to be a good number of those who are having this issue.
What worked for me:
- Download, install and activate the Feed Facebook, Leave Facebook plugin
- On the Plugins page, click “URL of your feed for Facebook”
- Tell Facebook to import that feed (instructions here)
Not a perfect solution, but it works until Facebook can figure out how to fix the bugs in their feed importing system.
UPDATED TO ADD:
Well, not so sure it was a solution after all. When I first saved the feed, it imported my latest blog posts. However, it hasn’t imported the two posts (including this one) that I have written since the original import. It looks as though I have replaced one problem with another.
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Note from Management
Well, I did it. Despite a few minor setbacks and an astonishingly slow internet connection (27 Kb/S YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME), the site has officially moved and is now a WordPress blog, once again. I’m still working on pieces like the blogroll and gallery, but for the most part it’s up and functional.
PLEASE NOTE: If you were subscribed to our RSS Feed, you will need to change the feed address to the one listed at the bottom of the page.
If you would like to receive email notifications each time a new blog entry is posted, I recommend a service such as Feed My Inbox, which allows you to quickly subscribe to blogs without worrying about setting up and maintaining yet another account with another website.
Speaking of accounts, to make commenting here easier, I highly recommend Registering as a Subscriber. That way your info can be stored so you don’t have to re-enter it each time you comment.
In other commenting news, we have a NEW! FEATURE! – If you’re logged into Facebook when visiting this site, you can quickly and easily comment here using your Facebook profile. No logging in, no re-typing your info, etc. You’re welcome.
Speaking of Facebook, it appears that the New! Facebook! has issues – specifically, importing (or not) blog posts in the Notes feed. Apparently that feature is nonfunctional so until I find a workaround, if you’re used to seeing my blog post notifications in your News Feed, that won’t happen anymore since the feed address has changed. I’m simply too lazy to manually link every post to Facebook each time I write them.
So that’s about it. Have a look around and let me know if you see anything that looks amiss. Thanks!
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