Tuesday, September 7, 2010

A whole lotta oops.

Oops!  That is the only reason I could think of....oops!  I guess it has been like months since I posted?!  Actually, from personal observance of the tests and trials of another, Blogger shuts you down after 3 months of no activity!  Anyways, for anyone still out there...sorry.

Let me tell you about my stint in hell.  I went on a secret mission....to 'metaphoric' hell...several weeks back.  Actually, it was to my folks' house....no, wait, that came out wrong.... my folks' house is not the hell to which I refer, rather the location where they live, which is just about that hot in mid August.  And I know this.  It is common fact that that area of California is classic 105 degrees in August.  However, it slipped my mind when I had set the dates to go there.  Senility, maybe!  OOPS!  However it was nice to see my folks.  In between the hours of....'secret work'....we had some nice visit time.  They don't realize it but I do miss them, being so far away.  But our life, our little family unit here has become so much more seasoned and we are so much better off  and all very happy being here.  Still, after so many years after the move of our lives, we have absolutely "no regrets" of what we did, and have no plans anytime soon of ever leaving this awesome place.  But this visit was not a vacation.  No.  It was a working trip.  A 'secret' working trip......

 Let me tell you about sweat.  I think, not positive but suspect, that I had to have lost about 35% - 45 % of my body weight from sweating in the miserable heat.  The skeptics will tell you that it was only in the high 80's most of the week, a fact to which I will concur.  But when you haven't lived in anything over 65 degrees for the past 4 years, the high 80's or especially those days that it got up to 93, 94 degrees, can be wretchedly intense.  I am pretty sure my internal thermostat broke that week.  Because, when I returned home, I was still sweating.  It was raining and 55 degrees when I landed in Anchorage the night I returned, and as I was standing outside the terminal waiting for my puddle jumper back to Kenai, I was pouring of sweat.  In fact a week later I was still sweating out in 45 degree weather!  I have noticed in the past few days that my sweat glands are either finally closing, or have depleted themselves of any drop of sweat I have left in me.  Oye!

Summer here has been both busy and a bit depressing.  This was by far the busiest summer for my business since we arrived.  There was very little time to relax, and nary time to fish.  I did manage to squeeze in time back in July to fish during the heavy sockeye salmon run.  I also went out a couple of weeks ago on a 12 hour multi-species trip out of Seward, catching 2 nice sized halibut, a really nice sized ling cod, and 3 sea bass.  Yummy, yummy!  Our full deep freezer bears testimony these successful fishing gigs.  But for the most part work has been very abundant and demanding of much of my time.  Not many projects got done this summer here at home.  Partly to the fact that free time to do so was little.  And, partly in fact to the simple fact that since our friends Ted and Patty left here the end of May, it has done nothing but rain.  And rain.  And rain.  And rain.   Oh, there has been a few days of partial sunlight and less than that of nice sunny, spectacular days.  But Rain has been the theme of the weather this year.

Firewood.  Yes, firewood.  The life blood of comfort and cold survival in the winter.  Oh, did I mention that we hauled, bucked up and split an estimated 11 cords?  We did, Maryann and I.  But it hasn't had much chance to dry.  That requires sunshine and heat....we aint had that luxury here!  We have been doing the 'tarps on, tarps off' drill most of the summer.  Sun comes out for an hour, we are out uncovering wood to let the sun shine on it.  Check Doppler or see clouds coming in we are back out covering it all again!  Yup, this has been the program all summer long.  Now, evened though most of the wood has been slowly drying and seasoning, we still have a concern over how effectively it will burn.  The only thing we can do at this point in the game is keep a large quantity stacked in the house as fires are going in the wood stove, allowing it to dry as we go.  A pain in the ass, but worth the effort....well worth it!  With the days getting so much shorted and the weather not getting any warmer, it will be the only shot we have this winter.

John.  Well, there is a long story to John, and there is a short story.  The latter is the easier to tell.  The boy is in early retirement.  Yes, just seems like a few months ago he was going in with the Alaska Division Of Forestry after quitting his day job, and already, he is retiring.  Hmmm.....  Yeah, well, let me say that a wet summer makes for a lousy fire season.  Good for most, not so good for an aspiring young firefighter.  I have to be honest though, I think once again he was kind of expecting the to grab this one by the ba!!s as well, but as it always does, it grabbed him by his.  We have spent what seems like an eternity preaching and teaching the boy, you have to go out and get what you want, if in deed you are passionate about getting it.  This and only this is how we got to where we are, where we have been, and where we will go in life.  But, he is young.  And the fact that we just fell off the turnip truck doesn't help!  He did do commercial fishing again this year.  He did well, making some good coin in the few weeks they fished.  Other than that he has worked a bit with me and spent alot of time waiting for work to come to him.  Hmmm....  He did start school a couple of weeks back.  This is a good step in the right direction.  He is taking EMT training.  So all is not lost.  He is wanting to join the ranks of the nocturnal plowing crazies this winter.  I can see his desire for this kind of odd and twisted love, being amongst the ranks of  such myself.  But this too takes a certain amount of money, something that someone, retired like he is, is finding hard to come by.  Hmmm.....  Have you noticed I seem to be a little suspicious with all of the "Hmmm's"??  Hmmm....

Maryann.  Beautiful and a ray of sunshine that she is, she is hanging in there.  It has been a rough sector of the year for her.  With some family issues, alot of stress with the lodge, and a woop load of no sunshine for her greenhouse this year, she is stymied!  She has been plagued by some kind of bogus scam artist company trying to rake the payola out of the lodge this summer.  She has taken it lightly, and laughs at it as they are a bunch of buffoons, but nonetheless it is aggravating.  Business although much slower this year has been somewhat active and oddly full of drama and events.  As of this week she is officially working out of home again, and will be only going out to the office at the lodge once a week until they get hopping again in the spring.  Woo-hoo, she says!  At last, all of those phone calls at 4:00AM from people on the east coast wanting to inquire about the lodge and trips....done.  All those excited happy idiots calling at 2:00AM to announce that they finally arrived at the lodge after being stuck in midnight construction delays on Alaska's highways....done.  All the phone calls from guides at 5:00 and 6:00AM, waiting on their boats for the lodges guests who are late, the guides wanting sleeping Maryann to give them adequate answers....done.  Getting my angst!?  Even the dogs are happy now because they have company during the day!

Seska, being the newest and youngest attended 'Day Camp' all summer.  Her itinerary consisted of waking in the morning, pooping, eating breakfast, pooping again, and then getting to go "bye bye" in M's truck, bound for Day Camp at the lodge.  There she would be tethered to the office porch where she would greet guests, provide a teddy bear like atmosphere for those dog owner guests who were missing their own dogs, needing a warm and fuzzy muzzle to nuzzle.  Afternoon would bring what we would call, her snack of juice and crackers (usually a moose burger, or some kind of leftovers from the lodge kitchen) and of course, a day full of whoring love from anyone who would give it to her, which were many!  Arriving home at the end of an exciting day at camp would entail her jumping out of the truck, excitedly running towards the lawn as her brother and sister excitedly ran out the door to greet her....her totally blowing off the other two dogs as she ran past them and into the house to look for her dinner....!  You can tell she is a happy dog and loving life here at the compound!

So, this brings up to speed the events of the summer.  We are excited about the coming of Fall, which is close here as I write.  I suspect there will be more thoughts and writing to follow.  At least try not to take 8 months between posts.  Oh, dickster, the little trickster....seems he doesn't really like Vaseline much!  He has been a little low keyed as of late, not knowing who is, or when, the 'Petroleum Jelly Bandit' may strike again......  "Hmmm....."

Thanks to those of you who catch me on Stage Of Life!  I always appreciate your silent support, by clicking on the colorful link, to see what I think!
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1 comment:

"Jenks" said...

hey there stranger. Yes, it is I the ghost of Blogger past haha. How are you guys? Love reading up on the current events. Things have been so busy around here with the new baby and all and just trying to figure out what God has planned for us wherever that might be. Still in Dorrington with the house for sale :0( As you said this summer has been a cool one and so it would have been nice down the hill living (not the hell it usually is)I do love it up here though when those temps did increase. I hear ya about John. Seems like Cody is looking in the same "classified" section. That is he is a classified worker. He is hoping to go to Australia in October. He will be going to YWAM there and doing his discipleship school. A good direction for him and we'll see what the future holds for him. It is frustrating these days with teenagers. BUT, they do have to live and learn I guess. Just frustrating when he thinks he is "just that good" and jobs will come to him haha. Oh well. Wanted to say hi to you guys and let you know I still think of you and haven't forgotten ya!