Shiba Inu Puppy Cam

This isn't new news, but if you haven't seen it already, you should check out the most popular thing on the web. Yes, a puppy cam. It is Shiba Inu puppies, and having had one I understand the cuteness factor.

Let me know how much time you wasted watching them :-)

Giving Thanks

I read somewhere that we feel happier about the things we have if we imagine what it would have been like to never have had them. If Jeremy and I look back at the first day we met, we feel happy. But if we think back and wonder what life would have been like if we had never met, we feel even happier that we have one another. I guess it is the feeling of near loss that makes us feel more fortunate for what we have.

The past month or so, probably with all this financial crisis talk, I have been feeling almost guilty for my good fortune, to have the family I have, a steady rewarding job, education, health, and on and on. I feel like any of these things could be taken at any time and that both makes me worried and grateful. But fearing you somehow do not deserve what you have is no way to live. It is probably as bad as always worrying about what you do not have. So the message here is, don't worry. Be happy.

My Twilight Date

I guess I am going to have to recant a bit of my former post about the Twilight movie. I assumed Jeremy wouldn't be interested in seeing it and I would probably be going alone. Well, I couldn't be happier to say I was wrong. Jeremy and Emmy accompanied me today to see the movie, which was about as good as I expected. Nothing mind blowing, but not a total waste of money or time. Emmy was a doll, pretty quiet overall, especially since she got to eat twizzlers. Jeremy actually enjoyed it, especially Edward's car, the baseball game, and Edward's rage over anyone who would think of hurting Bella. Now isn't that romantic?

And now, instead of leftovers for dinner and a trip to the laundrymat, we are going to go out to Gambradella's Pasta Bella. The turkey can wait another day...

Quyawim Ernera - Thanksgiving

Palatkaasinalillriakut akgua'aq. - We made a big tent yesterday.
Ilanim pingakii! - Emmy liked it!
Nerwakarllriakut cali. And we also ate a lot.

Melody Update

Melissa sent me this picture of Melody, taken this morning. What a doll baby!

Emmy's new outfit

When in SF I went to Chinatown and picked up this little outfit for Emmy. I had her wear it to daycare and Judy thought she was SOOOO cute. Well, Judy says she is cute every day, which is one of the reasons we are so satisfied with her as a daycare provider. We just don't know what we will do when we move back, because Judy just can't be beat. I should get a picture of Judy this week and give her her own post, since this post is really about Emmy's new outfit.In this picture Emmy is using the new sweeper that her great grandma Alberta got for us for an early Christmas present. She loves it! Maybe she should try cleaning under the couch.

Book Review: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I read this book on the plane on the way back from San Francisco. I am a fan of the post-apocalyptic genre so I was pretty excited to find one that I hadn't heard of before. This was the most graphically heartbreaking vision of life after after the ___ that I have read. I won't give away the ending - I can't say everything ended badly - it was more that the whole book was an extended period of suffering. The main characters are a father and his young son, both of whom go unnamed throughout the book. I was on the verge of tears the whole time I read it. This is probably because now that I am a parent, I automatically imagine myself in the role of the parent in this book, and the thought of my child slowly starving is painful. Having said that, the writing was well done, and I couldn't put it down from start to finish. I must have read the whole thing in 2 hours, which means I should probably reread it again some time. And the truly brutal portrayal of post-apocalyptic life gives me much to think about in regards to my own future masterpiece (and no, I don't mean the dissertation!). Verdict: well worth reading, but not if you are already having a bad day.

Jeremy and Emmy BFF

So, It looks like Jeremy and Emmy had a lot of fun while I was gone. He made a bonfire even though it was nearly 20 below, and they had daddy-Emmy time. Here are a few photos to illustrate how things went.

He did say that she missed me though. She even slept with ne of my shirts. Awwwwww....

Back to Winterland

Well I am back from my conference, the American Anthropological Association annual meeting. there were somethign like 5 thousand anthropologists there. Ay'aa! Our (that is, me, and my advisor Patrick) presentation on community action research went well, and I saw a great number of other presentations, including a panel of Indigenous Anthropologists that included my boss, Sven Haakanson. I also got a bit ill with food poisoning or something and am slowly getting back to normal. I will do another post later with some information on Jeremy and Emmy's exploits when I was gone.

I am in San Francisco

Winter at Chena Hotsprings

Yesterday Jeremy, Brent and Emmy went to Chena Hot Springs and I stayed home. I had homework, and was going to show the house to a possible renter, but they canceled, so I guess I could have gone. Looks like they had a lot of fun, though I hear Emmy got a little chilled after she got out of the water...

Photos by Brent Watkins

Things Emmy has Used as a Phone

Emmy likes to pretend to talk on the phone, but she doesn't let the lack of her own phone stop her from creatively using other things as a "phone." Here is a list of things she has held up to her ear and said "Hello!"

1. French fry
2. Package of salmon jerky
3. Cracker
4. Guitar tuner
5. Remote control
6. Cheese
7. Hairbrush
8. Sleeve of her coat
9. Stuffed monkey
10. Gate-check tag
11. Spoon
12. Forehead thermometer

Twilight the movie

Only a week until Twilight opens in theaters, and I don't have anyone to see it with! First of all I will be at the AAA conference in San Fransisco, but even when I get back I don't think Jeremy would like it. He is convinced that for me, the boundary between my entertainment and my reality is blurred, and that I must want to live in the past. But you don't have to hate your life to enjoy a good escape every now and then! I am going to encourage Emmy to have just as much imagination as I have and just as much enjoyment out of reading....And actually I like futuristic, fantasy, and apocalyptic fiction just as much as historical fiction, and I guess the Twilight series would fall under teen fantasy. A few weeks ago I picked up a movie for us to watch, and when he asked what I got I said "Old-Fashioned Dresses, The Documentary." The long silence on the phone told me he belived me completely.

Future Masters Project

Who is getting it?

Somebody in our family is getting a custom made portrait mug for Christmas. Will it be you? Do you wish it were you? Only time will tell if you are the lucky recipient of an unforgettable treasure this holiday season!

Only 6 months until summer.

Burnout

With my semester rapidly becoming more intense and stressful I am foreseeing some reduction in the number of my blog postings. Some days I feel absolutely overwhelmed (normal!, according to my advisors) and some days I am sure this will all come together. I am preparing with my advisor Patric for a presentation at the AAA (American Anthropological Association) conference next week in San Fransisco. A few weeks later I head to Kodiak for New Words Council and Language Committee meetings, and then return to Fairbanks to immediately launch into my qualifying exams, which will be two 20 page papers spread over 2 weeks. In January I write my third exam paper, which needs to be of publishable quality, and then do an oral exam. My papers will be on 1) Language Policy and Planning, 2) how Indigenous epistemology and Indigenous theory inform an action research methodology, and 3) working with Elders in emic research. When I have passed my exams I will advance to candidacy, and then all I have to do is write the dissertation...

Temperature report: Goldstream Valley

This morning it it is 9 degrees F above zero.

Long Day

Today I was very busy with work school and Emmy simultaneously. I can feel it in my shoulders and back. Every since I was pregnant with Emmy I have had lower and mid back trouble. My sister in law Julie did some work on me when we were both in the same town, but I am out of luck now that she moved back to Juneau. All of this sitting here at the computer does nothing to help. Maybe I'll take an advil and lose myself in a movie.

Emmy got three shots today. She cried a lot but her mood improved greatly with the teddy grahams I had the forethought to put in my purse. By the time we got home she was in a great mood. She is loving our friend Brent who is staying with us. What a flirt. Emmy I mean, not Brent.

Teddy Bear Picnic

I got this image from the Saltonstall's blog, taken by some unnamed geologists who were visiting the island. They are feeding on a washed up whale carcass. It is pretty amazing - click on it to enlarge.

Portrait experience

Today we went to get Emmy's winter portrait taken. I won't say where, but it rhymes with "beers." It was not very fun. Emmy was not in the mood, and our photographer, a young man with apparently no experience working with children, despite working at the portrait studio actually seemed to make her more uncomfortable. He just kept saying ineffectual things like "Don't cry. You can't cry." I must say though, based on the only other time we ever got Emmy's picture taken, that photography with kids and babies is not so easy. They were also a bit shady about the sales, not telling me how much anything would cost, or giving me vague wildly incorrect estimates of how much it would be, so we ended up not ordering that much once the true costs came to light. Now that it is over though, I am glad we at least did it. We also got our first ever family portrait done.

....Isn't she CUUUUUUUUTE!

Temperature report: Goldstream Valley

This morning is is back down to -20 F. I was saying last night, "you know, this isn't too bad. It doesn't seem to be getting much worse after the initial cold snap. it may hover around -15 or -20, but it will probably only get down to -50 or -60 one or two times before we move back to Kodiak."
Jeremy said, "Are you listening to yourself?"

The other day I was thinking, what are the things I am going to miss most when we leave Fairbanks? Here are a few of them:

1. The choice of restaurants. Our favorites: Silvergulch Brewery, Pike's Riverfront Lodge, Two Rivers Lodge. Also, On's Egroll house, which just burned down a few days ago, and I feel very sad, because that means I may not get to eat there when I come back to visit like I can with all the forementioned places.
2. The dog teams. Here in the Goldstream Valley, we are surrounded by dog teams, and I frequently see teams practicing on or along the road. In the summer evenings when they all start howling it is erie and beautiful.
3. The farmer's market. Especially the fresh veggies and falafel. But that won't open again until May anyway.
4. The option to go to Fred Meyers, as well as a really nice new Safeway. And both have health food sections.
5. My friends at UAF, who have made this crazy year more bearable.
6. The toasty summer temperatures, even though this summer wasn't that warm by Fairbanks standards.
7. The Alaska Coffee Roasting Company. They make a great eggnog latte, and their breakfast pockets and scones will be greatly missed.
8. Emmy's Daycare lady Judy. Emmy LOVES her, she loves Emmy, and we are all happy.

Now I am getting a little sad. But there are quite a few things I am looking forward to in Kodiak, which I will save for another post.

In case you read this blog for Emmy, and not the politics...

Our Election Night Story

We decided to go to the Blue Loon to watch the results roll in last night, since we don't have TV at home. It was a good choice, a lot of like-minded people, good food, and beer. They had a number of large screen TVs and also had CNN projected on the large movie screen in the theater. By the time we were done with our food, it started to become obvious that Obama would win, but they weren't calling it yet. We watched the electoral vote number creep up and I realized that McCain just didn't have a chance. Since Emmy was getting tired around her bed time, we took off around seven and I tuned in to KUAC in my car on the way home.

And that's when I heard that Barack Obama would be our next President. They first announced his projected win, and then said that McCain had called him to concede. Emmy was crying in the back seat because she was so tired, and I was crying in the front seat because I was so happy. When we pulled up to the house I jumped out of the car and told Jeremy, because he had been listening to music on the way home in his truck. We tuned in to NPR on the web and listened to McCain give a moving nd well-written concession speech, and then waited to hear Obama's victory speech. He touched on everything we needed to hear. I heard quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Lincoln, and most of all I heard his message of unity for the country. I was especially overjoyed when he mentioned Native Americans. Has any President-elect ever mentioned Native Americans in a victory speech?

After his speech was over the commentary began, but I was just so exhausted from the worrying earlier that I went upstairs and read a book for a while to wind down after a very historic day.

Awe

"A change has come to America."

The Big Day

Well, the final day of what felt like the longest election in history has finlly come. Jeremy is already on his way to go vote on the way to work. Emmy and I will get bundled up to go vote after it gets light out. It is seven degrees right now, warm compared to recent morning temps, but cold enough to need to be prepared for a long line.

I am so excited to be voting in this election. I have voted in every presidential election since I turned 18, but this one is different, for reasons everyone has gone over too many times. When I was a little kid growing up in Larsen Bay, I wondered what it would be like to be living through a truly important time in history. In between my Laura Ingalls Wilder and post-apocolyptic books, I imagined myself, in the middle of history, in the middle of nothing that exciting. Now here we are, at the tipping point of climate change, massive world unrest, international distrust, and crippling distances between everyday Americans. But the bright light for me is that today I get to be part of tht history, and even though as an Alaskan, the electoral votes may go Republican, I will still vote proudly for my candidate, Barack Obama. It is time.

Fire and Ice

True Crime Report: Stolen Pumpkin

I was going to post this yesterday, but I had already done three posts and did not want to seem...obsessed. Yes, less than 24 hours after we put the pumpkin outside, we went for a trip to the store and returned to find it gone. Just vanished. I at first suspected Annabelle, the neighbor's free range husky, since she has a habit of stealing trash and shoes, but there were no telltale drag marks in the snow. I am not even sure if she could have dragged it through the snow like that, but if she had the stem in her teeth...well, like I said, we've already eliminated her as a suspect. Now, there are about three boys that live next door as well, and a few girls living across the street. But I just don't think we'll ever narrow it down.

Tang'rciqamken, Pumpkin.

Emmy Agnguartuq!

Too bad it came out sideways. The "Eee-Eee" she is saying is Lady, our dog.

She really loves that Matisyahu...

Visitors pass 1000 mark!

Well, this may not seem like big news to some other sites and blogs, but to me it is!

I happened to check the count and it is right now exactly at 1000. So I checked what info I could get on Sitemeter, and the 1000th viewer was in Anchorage AK, at 12:09 pm, and looked at my blog using Safari on a Mac. Sounds like Alberta!

Halloween Report

•Number of minutes it took Jeremy to carve the pumpkin: 15
•Number of degrees below zero it was last night: 20
•Number of pieces of candy given to Emmy after daycare: 1
•Number eaten by April: 5
•Number eaten by Jeremy: unreported
•Total number of Halloween costumes purchased for Emmy this year: 3
•Cost of last minute pumpkin at Safeway, in dollars: 0
•Number of combined hours Jeremy and April wore their costumes on Halloween: 0
•Number of combined hours Jeremy and April wore costumes before Halloween: 3
•Number of Trick or Treaters: 0