Laundry Surprises

Here's a helpful laundry hint: when putting the contents of your child's hamper in the washer, check carefully for hidden bonus items. VERY carefully. Sure, you THINK he's only put five (unused) diapers in there, but you may well find that one has snuck through your sorting process, soaked up twenty gallons of wash water, and then exploded little gel pieces all over the washer.

Stupid: little gel pellets all over the washer and the floor.
Cool: My goodness, those things are absorbent.

Stupid Cool

For this entry, I will steal the Stupid Cool concept from my friend Mika, who for many years now has told tales of her travels largely by separating things into two categories: things that are stupid, and things that are cool. So here is my Stupid Cool of the moment.

Stupid: Everyone in the state freaking out because there were eight inches of snow on Wednesday. Traffic on the interstate was backed up for hours and hours and hours (not that I had to go anywhere, so ha), and some schoolchildren were stuck on buses until after 10 PM. Yes, I realize that RI is not AK, and drivers here don't have studded tires (or even snow tires, in many cases), but it's hard to see the system completely break down over 8 inches of snow when Alaskans would be saying, "OK... where's the rest?"
Cool: The temperature goes above 32 degrees occasionally, and the sun comes up well before 8 AM.

Stupid: The boiler breaking down sometime yesterday. It was fixed this afternoon in exchange for lots of money, and in the meantime, it was VERY COLD in here. Luckily, we didn't give away our space heater like we'd planned to last week.
Cool: Our house. Especially when the boiler is broken. HAR HAR

Stupid: We were supposed to have friends over on Sunday, and I was going to get to meet baby Margot Louise Andersen-Smith for the first time, but then there was a gross sleet storm and no one could drive anywhere.
Cool: Said friends no longer live 4,000 miles away, so I will probably get to see them at some point in the near future, and without an expensive plane ticket.

Stupid: Not having moose walking around the neighborhood.
Cool: Sorry, nothing's cooler than having moose walking around your neighborhood.

Stupid: I miss getting together with my Alaskan friends for knitting and coffee and dinner and lots of great spur-of-the-moment hanging out.
Cool: Blogging, email, Flickr, Skype, and all those other wonderful internet doohickeys.


Finally, what would a blog post be without a photo of Soren?

We're back!

Well, the Anchorage Adventure Extravaganza will have to be renamed, because we aren't in Anchorage any more. We got back to RI late on Monday after spending a night in Seattle (on purpose) and almost spending a night in Chicago (not on purpose). 

We definitely miss Alaska -- especially the friends we made there! -- but it's great to be settling in to our new house and getting ready for the holidays. I'm sneaking in a blog post when I should be cleaning the bathroom, and Chris is about to catch me, so I'm going to sign off -- I just wanted to say hi to all my loyal fans. I'll write more soon!

All Aboard the Holiday Train

Soren had his first train ride last Saturday! We joined our friends Jim, Dana and Ned on the Alaska Railroad's Holiday Train down to Seward.



It was a fun trip, but I did wish that a) it had been light outside for more than 2 hours of the 9 hour round trip; b) the train could have gone a little faster, so that a round trip of 240 miles wouldn't take 9 hours, since I can't see the pretty view anyway; c) it had left sometime after 7 am (WHAT DO YOU MEAN Soren and I have to get up before 9:30?); d) the music hadn't been quite so loud for the majority of the trip, especially the part that was before 8:30 am; and e) Soren hadn't spilled my $7.00 cup of Bailey's on the return trip. Wow, that's a lot of complaining, but honestly, we did have a good time. I mean, who can resist this much shiny festive stuff?



So, to start with, the train left at 7 am, and sunrise is at 9:45, so we didn't get to see anything out the windows until 9:15. It was slightly unfortunate, since the view along the route is gorgeous. It wasn't that bad, though -- we were treated to a lovely sunrise. And we even got to see some wolf tracks in the snow at one point.



There were a couple craft projects for the kiddies along the way (make a paper chain, a paper snowman, etc.), and the elves (college students dressed in green felt dresses and red-and-white striped tights) passed out little presents. Soren got a Rudolph stuffed animal, which he now calls "Ashew" or something. I'm not sure what that means. Santa came around and had pictures taken with all the kids -- Soren started waving his arms around like a madman just as his picture was taken, but surprisingly, the picture is great -- it just looks like he's waving at the camera. I'll post the pic when I have access to a scanner.

We got into Seward at 11:30, whereupon Chris and I launched Mission Get Soren to Take a Long Nap Because He Woke Up Three Hours Earlier than Usual and Didn't Sleep on the Train. We had lunch and ignored him, which almost worked but not quite, and then went to a coffeeshop and ignored him some more, and he finally dropped off for an hour or so. Chris and I even got to play an entire game of Scrabble while Soren was napping.

We then had about an hour to actually walk around Seward, which was part of the point of the entire trip, and we got some nice shots of the view from the SeaLife Center:



And then some sunset pics from the train depot:



Upon our 5:00 departure, it was time to explore the train. Intriguingly, there was a Tiki Bar listed on our train map, but it was closed for some reason, so we had to content ourselves with walking up to the gift shop (Soren got a little model Alaska RR engine as a souvenir). Chris and Jim happened upon the "adults only" car in their wanderings; I'd assumed it would be full of 25-year-olds dancing to techno and drinking spiked egg nog, but apparently the car was devoid of decorations, silent, and full of old people sleeping. What a festive way to spend a full day and $120. Hey, at least they didn't have to look at or listen to any rotten little kids.

And then came the most exciting part of the trip: the winnings! Soren did some lovely scribbling, which we entered into the five-and-under category of the coloring contest, and he won! Third place! His prize was a little M&M figurine filled with M&Ms, and he gets to play with the figurine while I take care of the candy! And then there was an interminably long raffle, wherein 20 train trips to places none of us had heard of (as well 5 trips to Denali) were given away very loudly over the train PA system. Chris and I did not win any of them, and I figured that was OK because we wouldn't be able to take the trips anyway, and then they announced the final prize, which was a $45 gift certificate to a local bookstore, and I said, "Hey, I want that one!" It turns out that if you say you want a raffle prize, your number gets called! Sweet.

Thus ends the tale of the Holiday Train. Now excuse me while I deal with all the stuff we have to take care of before we move on Sunday. I'll leave you with a picture that shows just how tired Soren was on the train trip... he was SO good, though!

Moose: Tasty

We have eaten the moose! And it was good!



Chris made yummy mooseburgers last night (more pictures of the process, including exciting shots of raw ground moose patties, here), and now I can finally put a check mark next to the name of yet another of our earth's beautiful creatures, thus indicating that it was tasty.

Moose is a lean meat, so you have to add some fat to it to make a decent burger -- Chris added pancetta, so there were undertones of high-class bacon in the burger, but I could also taste the moosiness. It was pretty mild, actually (and not that different from beef, to tell the truth, but who cares).

I also saw another (live) moose across the street yesterday while I was out walking with Soren. It looked like Baby Shark. I couldn't see Mama Shark anywhere, which made me uneasy, so we didn't stick around too long.

Another Thing that Came in the Mail

The latest copy of Parents magazine arrived today, and inside were some exciting super bonus stickers:



The first and second rows make sense, but what exactly does the third row mean?

Mediocre job!
I'm slightly worried about you!
Mommy loves you, but you're a little scary sometimes!
You're adorable but also slightly pathetic, like a puppy with three legs!

Best. Names. Ever.

Some of you know that I have a running list of the Best Names Ever. There are plenty of names that are funny or stupid (a lawyer named John Lawyer; an L.A. Kings fan's daughter named Silver Ann Black; any of the names on the Best Utah Baby Names list; &c), but only a select few truly awesome names make it on my list. I am very discriminating. I don't know if I can remember all of them right now (they're written on some Post-It Notes back in Rhode Island), but here are some of them:

Eddie Fightmaster
Dick Stretch (Chris's 7th grade gym teacher)
Rich Person
Vance Studley
Manchu Poon
Lockhart Steele

Today, dear friends, was a very special day; another name was added to the list. I just opened up the mailbox, and there it was:



It's a thing of beauty.

Insights into the Toddler Mind

Soren's vocabulary is growing every day, and I think it's just the coolest thing. I love knowing what he's thinking about.

The funniest thing he does at the moment: he throws his arm into the air and announces "DONE!" when he feels it's time to move on to a different activity. It started as a way to tell me when he was finished eating, but now he's expanded its use to try to put an end to diaper changes, shopping trips, naps, and visits to friends' houses (sorry, AlaskanMama! Nothing personal, I'm sure!). He says "DONE!" as soon as his butt hits the changing table. Nice try.

He's in his crib right now, saying "Done. Mama. Done. Mama." However, I haven't heard any actual napping going on yet, so I'm going to ignore him. If I ignore him for five minutes or so and he still wants to get up, he'll get truly desperate and start asking for Daddy.

He's been a total wuss about going outside lately, which is bugging me because I would like to see the sun occasionally during my six-hour window of opportunity, and I can't really go for a walk without him. I bring him out anyway, trying to play up the fun and excitement of tromping around in the snow, but he's not buying it. He puts up with it for about 8.5 minutes before starting up with "House. House. Book. Lap. Book. Lap." Which, okay, is really freaking cute. My little boy is telling me that he'd rather be in the house, sitting on my lap and reading a book. I love that. It almost makes up for his bizarre distaste for sledding.

In other news, we went to a craft bazaar gift extravaganza thing last weekend and got two excellent Alaskan souvenirs: a cribbage board made out of a caribou antler, and a hammered iron fire poker with a little Dall sheep head on the top (not a real sheep head... it's also made of iron... just wanted to make that clear).

OH OH OH AND we have some real actual moose meat in the freezer! Chris managed to pick some up on his trip to Fairbanks! Plz send moose recipes kthx.

Along for the Ride

Here's how Soren generally looks while he's riding in the sled:



And experiencing the joys of eating snow (he didn't feel like wearing his gloves... big surprise):

Sledding: Not So Bad

I've taken Soren out sledding a couple times, and he seems to be OK with it -- it's not laugh-out-loud excitement yet, but he at least seems enthusiastic about climbing the hill for another run. It doesn't take too long before he starts saying "house," though, indicating that he'd like to go home.

I'll have to get a picture of him riding home in the sled (I tie my scarf to a handle and pull him home). He just lies flat on his back, arms out, staring at the sky.

Snow Big Deal

It's like some fundamental law of the universe that a blog post title must be witty. Or, you know, be an attempt at wittiness. I'm not sure I'm always successful.

Anyway, it's snowing! For real this time! It's snowed a few times before this, but yesterday was the first day that there was any meaningful amount of snow left on the ground after it stopped falling from the sky, and it started snowing again last night. It looks like it's pretty much done for the day, but there are a few inches on the ground! Yay! Now I can try and force Soren to sled again.

While I'm here, I'm going to have to change my attitude about snowy days. In Rhode Island, everyone makes a fairly big deal about snow (cleaning all the grocery stores out of bread and milk is something Rhode Islanders like to do in preparation for two inches of snow). So on a snowy day in RI, chances are good that you'll get out of work early, and no one will really expect you to go anywhere after that, so it's a great excuse to sit around and watch TV or maybe take a walk around the neighborhood. In sum, snowy day = slothfulness.

In Anchorage, though, people spend good money on studded tires, because it's a given that there will be snow on the roads pretty much constantly between November and May. So a snowy day is... just another day to go out and live your life. Go to work, go to school, go to the grocery store, all that fun stuff. So much for my slothfulness. I guess I'll have to start practicing driving in the snow.

Come to think of it, I don't even know if they have snow days in Anchorage schools. I'll have to look that up.

Wheeeee/Waaaah

We drove up to Glen Alps on Saturday to see if there was any sledding to be done -- boy, was there! They must have had eight inches of snow. There were a ton of people up there with skis and snowboards.



We bundled Mr. Baby up in his brand-new snowsuit, busted out the brand-new toboggan, and got ready for the hilarity and excitement to begin!



Unfortunately, I think there were too many brand-new things going on, because Soren's attitude toward sledding was... lukewarm. And by lukewarm, I mean tearful.



Oh well. I'm sure he'll love sledding eventually. He'd better! I love sledding, and I need a cohort!

When You're a Moose You're a Moose All the Way

The moose excitement just hasn't let up! Yesterday evening, Soren and I were witness to a full-on moose turf war on our street. It was totally SWEET. The family of three (I will call them the Sharks) were chasing a lone male (I will call him Mr. Jet) through the neighborhood. Mr. Shark actually knocked Mr. Jet down at one point, and then Mr. and Mrs. Shark took off down the road after him. Baby Shark was trailing behind, looking a little confused. Maybe someday he will broker a peace between the two moose gangs. I believe that calves are our future.

The Sharks must have found some nicer grazing grounds this morning, because I got a video of Mr. Jet (I think) chilling on our neighbor's lawn. There was a moose sleeping on their lawn last night, too. I guess their place is the moose community center.

Note to Self

Do not go on walks without camera.

Soren and I took a little stroll on the coastal trail and found ourselves about 20 feet away from a family of three moose (maybe the same ones that were in our neighborhood the other night). They were downhill and on the other side of a high railing, so we weren't in any danger, and they were completely blasé about our presence anyway! Dang it, I really wish I'd been able to take a picture. Maybe we'll see them again tomorrow.

Happy Halloween from Big Oil

I hope everyone had a fun Halloween yesterday! It pays to have connections in this town -- Soren got to show off his bluebird costume at the ConocoPhillips Halloween party. A friend of a friend was willing to invite some people she didn't even know (i.e. us), so we got to see how the corporate types and their kids like to party down. It turns out that a multi-billion dollar company knows how to throw a party. Well, it wasn't super-swanky -- there was just a lot going on, and lots of free food. The party was spread over four floors of the building (we only made it to two floors because Soren was getting tired), and there were all kinds of games, balloon animals, a juggler, face painting, two real owls, and really good cookies. Soren was impressed, and so he wouldn't stand still for me to take his picture.




By the time it was dark enough to trick-or-treat (after Soren's afternoon nap), he was pretty much all done with the costume-wearing, so we stayed in.

Does anyone want some candy? We only had two parties of trick-or-treaters come by last night, so I'm left staring at a bowl full of Butterfingers, almond Snickers and Nestle Crunch. Stupid candy. Almost as tempting as the internet.

Country Moose, City Moose

I've seen a few country moose since we got here, but no city moose -- until Tuesday night! A friend came over and announced on her arrival that there was a family of three moose in the neighbor's yard. I said a quick goodbye to my darling husband (he's in Rhode Island right now, and we miss him and all, but come on! THREE MOOSE!), and ran out with my camera to try and get a picture. By most standards, I failed, but here's the evidence anyway:



The moose in question were munching peacefully on the neighbors' landscaping. Hopefully they'll come back during the daylight hours so I can get a better picture.

Speaking of daylight, I'm almost looking forward to the end of daylight savings, because sunrise is currently at NINE-THIRTY. Yeah. On the other hand, we only get a little bit of a break when the clocks are turned back, because sunrise will creep back up to 9:30 by November 24th.

LOL

Since I don't have any hilarious tales to tell at the moment, I'll pass along a couple things that have made me laugh. A blog post consisting solely of links to funny things on the internet!?!?!? Has such a thing ever been attempted before?

First of all, best of craigslist is a reliable source of really funny (and usually X-rated) stuff. Here is a nice G-rated selection: Survival of the Fittest

Have you ever found a site or a blog or something and gotten so engrossed in it that you decide you need to read all the pages/posts/whatever, only there turn out to be about 400 pages/posts/whatever, and it takes you a few hours to get through it all, and then you have kind of an internet hangover? And you swear you're never going to do that again, because there about a billion other things you could have done with those few hours, like interact with your family? But then the internet calls to you again with its siren song of craziness and hilarity, and you end up wasting a perfectly good naptime reading best of craigslist?

Damn you, internet.

Anyway, this site will give you an internet hangover, and it will be totally worth it: Passive-Aggressive Notes Warning to people who don't like swear words: the site features lots of swear words.

What's White and Flaky and Falls on my Shoulders all Day?

Snow, of course. It's snowing again! Snow is so nice when it's the very beginning of the season and it hasn't gotten all dirty and gross. At least it won't get slushy here -- apparently, once it gets below freezing, it pretty much stays there until spring (or, as we hard-core Alaskans call it, "breakup"), so the snow never melts into those astonishingly deep slush puddles that like to hide at the edges of the road in Rhode Island. Instead, it just gets packed down into solid sheets of ice, which I guess is somehow better.

I'm looking forward to getting some snow on the ground so that I can take Soren out sledding -- given how much he likes scooching down hills on his butt, I can only imagine how ecstatic he'd be about actually picking up some speed on the way down.

Chris and I got a night away while Grammy and Grampy were here last week, which was very nice. We went down to Seward and enjoyed the SeaLife Center at a pace much more leisurely than a toddler's, played cribbage in a coffeeshop, and got to see the first decent snowfall of the season.



The above picture was taken in front of the (unfortunately underexposed) signpost marking the historic start of the Iditarod race (the official starting point was moved north to Wasilla, with a preceding ceremonial start in Anchorage).

So, anyway, yay for snow!

Everyone I Know Shares the Same Birthday

OK, not really, but it would be handy if they did.

A hearty happy birthday to my OLD, OLD friends Jennifer and Emily! And a special shout-out to my nephew Brady, who turns one year old today!



Isn't he cute? I wish I could have been at his birthday party, and not just because I love cake.

We're Real Alaskans Now!

Well, we've eaten a lot of halibut, yet some still falls out of the freezer every time I open it. Favorites have included:

Grilled Halibut with lemon/parsley butter
Baked Halibut with lemon/parsley butter
Halibut baked in parchment with peppers, onions and shiitake mushrooms
Halibut tacos
Halibut enchiladas
Panko-crusted Halibut
Halibut-centric Cioppino (kudos to Kirsten)
Halibut-bruised toe (I had that, but didn't eat it)

But last night we did something new, and quintessentially Alaskan, with our halibut: we traded some to our neighbor for some Copper River Red he caught.

We were talking the other day and I was like, "Oy! I have so much halibut!" and he was like, "Oy! I have so much salmon!" Then we realized that since we both have strictly convex utility functions, there was a gain to be had from trading. Then we both said, at the same time, "Hey, let's trade salmon for halibut and enjoy the Pareto improvement!" It was weird....

As an economist, engaging in barter economy is an interesting thing. Specifically, what is the price--the ratio of halibut to salmon--that is appropriate/agreed upon? Do we trade for equal weight, or does the ratio somehow reflect the market prices? And if so, which prices? Right now, halibut can be had at the store for $7/lb (it is Alaska...), but Copper River Reds are out of season and can't be had. At peak season, CRRs are about $5/lb, but most of the time they are available they are substantially more. So here's the question: my neighbor walks in and hands me two CRR fillets, weighing about 5 pounds total. How much halibut do I give him?

Bbbbbbbbbbbr

No, it's not another post about the temperature. This one is about trucks ("Bbbbbbbbbbbr" is Soren's truck noise).

Soren loooooooves trucks. Airplanes? Deserve no more than a passing glance. Trains? Meh. But even the humblest of trucks rates widened eyes, a pointed finger, and some kind of exclamation (ranging from a curious "Das!?" to an awed "Woooooooooow!") (yes, he usually says "Das?" instead of "What's that?" It must be the German in him).

As you might imagine, we have a few toy trucks around the house. Soren likes pushing them around and saying bbbbbbbbr, of course, but lately, he's been spending some quality relaxation time with his trucks. He parks them all neatly on the couch and then climbs up to sit with them.



He also likes to park them on a shelf on my computer desk. The other day, I found them all neatly parallel-parked along the bottom of the bathroom door. He's a funny boy.

Brrrrrrrrr++

Aaaaaand it's snowing.

Brrrrrrrrr

Autumn is over, man. The leaves are pretty much off the trees, the snow line on the mountains moves farther down every day, and the temperature was in the TEENS this morning. It's crazy. On the other hand, it's fun to dress Mr. Baby up in his furry coat and mittens and enjoy the sunshine.





The middle picture shows how long the shadows are already at 2:30 PM. We lose about 5 minutes of light per day at this point.

I've learned that Anchorageites (or whatever they're called) have no idea how to properly celebrate autumn. We went looking for something festive and pumpkin-laden last weekend, got a recommendation from a local to go to a nearby nursery, and found a small pile of pumpkins in a glorified gift shop that smelled like potpourri. We were the only people there.

They've got it all wrong. I can understand being lame about fall in parts of the country where there isn't crisp air and golden foliage (read: L.A.), but they have those things here! And they must be celebrated with hay rides and pick-your-own pumpkin patches and pies and hot cider and corn mazes and hot dogs with curly fries that you eat outside even though it's windy and cold and your napkin keeps blowing away!

But they did none of those things, and now the Autumn Gods are displeased and have sent Winter down upon us. On the other hand, everyone here is pretty sure that's a good thing. The weatherperson on the news the other night said this: "Well, winter's here, and we've got cold temperatures, but we're still waiting for the snow!"

You would never hear that in a weather report in New England. Everyone there is still pretty sure that stuff falling from the sky is worth whining about. But at least they don't take it as a sign of the apocalypse, like the weather people in L.A.

I'll leave you with a shot that combines serene snow-capped mountain scenery with heart-pounding rock-throwing action:

I Know What I Did This Summer

I'm not sure why, but I'm going to tell you all about the slacker goof-off things I've been doing this summer/fall while Soren's been napping. Sure, I'll occasionally work or clean up or do something productive while he's sleeping, but my true joy lies in doing things that have no practical value. Just fun value.

I'll start with reading, just so that I can impress people with my crazy literacy skillz before I start talking about video games. Why is reading better than video games, by the way? A complex game with an intricate plot can be much more intellectually stimulating than a bad book. Even games without interesting plots can exercise the brain, or at least induce a zen-like state; meditation doesn't work for me, but Tetris does. Hey, I love reading and always have, but I think video games get a bad rap. Even when I'm playing Final Fantasy and going around killing monsters, it's not so much a thirst for virtual blood that drives me as a motivation to see which cool treasures the monsters will drop and which new abilities my characters will learn as they level up. Wow, that's really girly, isn't it? I'm not doing it for the fighting and killing; I just like to nurture my characters and gather shiny objects. Math is hard! Let's make cookies for the boys!

Like I said, I'm going to list the books I've read before I talk about video games. Starting now. Earlier in the summer, Soren and I were always bugging visiting Kelsey at the lagoon, and I ended up borrowing a fair number of books from her:

- The Abhorsen trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen) by Garth Nix
- Shade's Children by Garth Nix
- The Wind Singer (book 1 of the Wind on Fire series) by William Nicholson
- Elvenbane (book 1 of the Halfblood Chronicles) by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey
- The Firebringer trilogy (Birth of the Firebringer, Dark Moon, The Son of Summer Stars) by Meredith Ann Pierce

I really enjoyed the Abhorsen books, and would definitely recommend them to anyone who liked His Dark Materials or The Dark is Rising. Shade's Children was all right, as was The Wind Singer, but Elvenbane was pretty bad (sorry, Kelsey) :^) The Firebringer series is A Number One in my book, because it is about kick-ass unicorns who come in pretty colors like blue and go around fighting wyverns and stuff. If you are male, you will not like the series, but that's just due to your unreasonable prejudice against unicorns.

I also read a couple books I didn't borrow from Kelsey: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Sophie's Choice. I was very satisfied with HP, and I'm not sure what I thought about Sophie's Choice. One can't really claim to enjoy it, exactly, but it was an interesting read. I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know how it compares.

As you may have already figured out, I also spent some time playing video games while Soren was napping. Games are my motivation to exercise; I fire up the Playstation and start doing step exercises, and before I know it, 40 minutes have passed. It's a great system. I just recently finished Final Fantasy XII after logging about 150 hours (I've had the game for a long time, although I'm not going to say how long because I don't want anyone to do the math). It was a really fun game, with tons of sidequests (things to do in the game that don't advance the plot), but it wasn't my favorite FF. The story was really boring, which is a real shame, because several of the previous FFs had fairly intricate plots, with all kinds of shocking twists and surprises (they usually didn't make a ton of sense, but they were still interesting). I was also disappointed to find that there was no character development, and all the characters were pretty much the same in battle. With previous FFs, you really had to choose the members of your party carefully based on their strengths and weaknesses, but all the FFXII characters have the same stats and the same abilities, so it doesn't matter what you do. In all, though, the game clearly had some merit, because I've never spent quite that much time on one game before. And I didn't even finish all the sidequests (I've learned not to care about the optional ubermonster that has 7 million hit points and takes 5 hours to beat).

I also took a little time and finished up Katamari Damacy (I bought it when I was pregnant, and playing it made me feel ill, so I've had a slight aversion to it ever since). It was fun, but it has zero replay value.

Now that Final Fantasy is over, I've moved on to Kingdom Hearts II. Despite being full of Disney characters, it's a pretty fun game, and the plot is (so far) pretty interesting. The battle system is lame (mainly involves mashing the X button 1000000 times) and I hate the effing Gummi Ship, but the plot makes up for it. Man, a game that combined the gameplay of FFXII with the story quality of Kingdom Hearts would pretty much rule the entire world. Maybe such a game will exist by the time I retire, and then I can spend my golden years doing something I really love. Meanwhile, Chris can feel free to play as much golf as he wants and cook gourmet dinners for me. Sounds like a pretty good retirement to me.

The Marine Scene

So, as I mentioned before, Brian and Edith and I went on a cruise last week, and most of it was not tragic and depressing! So let's talk about the good parts.

It was my second attempt at a Kenai Fjords tour, and the weather was much more cooperative this time around. It was rainy and hideous in Anchorage, but sunny and clear in Seward and out in the gulf, so we got lucky. We saw quite a bit of wildlife -- orcas, various sea birds (no puffins this time, sadly), bald eagles, Dall's porpoises, Steller sea lions, mountain goats, a sea otter, and some awesome jellyfish. I really only managed to get decent shots of the orcas and sea lions:






We stopped at a glacier out in Aialik Bay (can't remember the name of the glacier), and it was really hard to appreciate just how big the ice frontage was -- the captain said it was a half-mile across, and we were a quarter-mile away, but it really seemed like those distances were a few hundred yards. You know, a big slab of snow, sure, but not THAT big. Then a chunk of ice would fall from the glacier, and even though it just looked like a couple chips falling into the water, there would be a pretty impressive rumble and rather large splash, so the chunks were clearly bigger than they seemed. It was impossible to get a good sense of scale, for some reason.



In sum, a good time was had by all! Except when I got hot chocolate and burned the holy hell out of my tongue.

Spaghetti

I was impressed the other day when Soren started saying "ball" -- but he seems to have moved on fairly quickly to more complicated words.

Untitled

A couple days ago, I joined Brian and Edith on a Kenai Fjords cruise. I was just now writing a post about that, and was going to tell an interesting story about something that happened on the trip, but I just did some quick research, and I'm afraid the story isn't so much interesting as really sad and unfortunate. While we were on our way out of the bay, we suddenly slowed down and turned back for no apparent reason. As we came to a stop near a little sand bar by Fox Island, the captain announced that the crew had been told by the Coast Guard to search the area for a diver who had been missing for 20 minutes. We slowly moved around the sand bar, and a couple other boats in the area joined us in the search. The passengers on our boat were subdued, scanning the water and shore. I very much hoped to find the diver safe and sound, and I dreaded the idea of finding his body. Honestly, I didn't know what I would do -- I didn't really believe it could happen. That's one of those things that only happens on TV.

In the end, none of us found anything. After about half an hour, the Coast Guard showed up and released our ship. When we passed by on our way back (about four or five hours later), there was no sign of any boats or activity. We hoped it was because the diver had been rescued, but sadly, as I just learned, that was not the case. Matthew Myers, of Anchorage, had been on a research dive for the SeaLife Center, when he ran out of oxygen; his dive partner lost hold of him while trying to pull him to shore. They found his body a little while after our boat left the area.

Sorry about the depressing post, but it doesn't feel right not to tell the story. My heartfelt condolences to Matthew's family.

Tales from the Bike Trail

Preamble
While I haven't written much about it, I have been biking to school most days. The rides are uneventful. I have not yet worked myself into a heart attack. On the contrary, I've continued to get stronger, and I'm doing most of my rides in a higher gear than when I started. The condition of my bike is not great, but I've managed to put off the getting a tune up. More workout for me, right? The ride in is still work, but I really enjoy the slightly more downhill ride home.

I. Moose!
I have had four moose spottings from the path; probably three different moose, including a mother and calf, the mother I've seen three times. For three sightings, the moose was 8-12 yards off the path munching away on grass or scrub. Once, I came upon two groups of people stopped on the trail about 30 yards apart, facing each other, as if there were going to be a rumble. In fact, the moose and her calf had just walked across the trail, and people were giving them space. We passed with the moose's rump just three feet off the trail. It was big. Sir Mix-a-Lot would be impressed.

While you might think that 8-12 yards would be a good opportunity to view a moose, and get a good picture, I have not done so. The reason is that moose are not that bright, but the moose near the trail have come to expect that there will be riders on the trail, and that they'll just keep going. And given that the moose aren't terribly bright, and that they defend themselves by charging and doing a 2000 pound hard-hooved dance on the head of the threatening entity, I've decided to do exactly what the moose expects: keep going.

II. Wipeout!
No, I didn't ride my bide down to surf the Turnagain Arm bore tide. I wrecked, hard. Left a lot of my left forearm on the pavement, and parts of my knee, hip side, and the plam of my right riding glove (it certainly paid for itself) as well. No hospital need, but it hurt a lot and required quite dramatic looking bandages.

I wish I had a great story, about dodging a moose (and then talking my way out of a trampling with my newly-honed moose whispering skills), or jumping over a dog, or helping to keep a kid safe, but I do not. I came into an intersection in the bike path, thought about going one way, saw some broken glass on the path, changed my mind, turned, got the handlebars cranked and went down.

The one lucky aspect was that this was the one trip I've made home without my laptop in my backpack.

Signs of Winter

On Friday, there was a dusting of snow on top of the mountains until noon. Yesterday, the snow stuck around through the day. This morning, the fields around our house--at sea level--were blanketed with frost, and the bike trail dotted with golden aspen leaves. Man, are my fingers cold. Time to upgrade from the half-finger bike gloves.

Halibut: Episode I

Tonight was the first of what will prove to be many, many, many halibut dinners. It turns out that we went over to the Murphys' place for dinner -- Jim was on the same fishing charter as Chris, so he has 60 pounds of fish in HIS freezer, too -- so we didn't even get to make a dent in our own fish supply. Anyway, I think it'll be funny to have a comprehensive list of every halibut dish we end up eating until our stash is used up, so I'll post them as they happen and tag them "just for the halibut". You can thank Chris for that gut-buster. I love you, dear!

So, tonight's dinner: Baked halibut on mashed avocado with papaya slaw, served with brown rice. Very fresh and tasty.

Feelin' Fined in Kodiak

We just got back from a four-day trip to Kodiak. Sadly(?), we didn't see any enormous, froth-mouthéd bears, but we did see lots of salmon, and lots of people catching the salmon. It turns out that the bears tend to stay away from town, which is generally a good thing, so you have to hop on a plane and fly to the other side of the island to see any.

Let's play a game! Which of these figures has been exaggerated?

A) Kodiak's bear population has a density of .7 bears per square mile.

B) Kodiak's commercial fisheries brought in a total of 337.3 million pounds of fish in 2005.

C) The maximum penalty for possession of a bald eagle feather is $100,000 and 1 year in prison.


Answer: B. They pulled in a measly 337.2 million pounds of fish.

Mainly, I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that one can be fined $100,000 for possessing an eagle feather. This had a lot of influence on my decision to leave a very lovely eagle feather in the bushes where I found it. Of course, when I first spotted the feather, I immediately DID NOT pick it up, and IN NO WAY had it in our room for four days while debating how hard it would be to hide it in our luggage. In the end, it was a fine example of a juvenile eagle's secondary flight feather, but it really wasn't worth a hundred grand. Plus, once you pay the fine, it's not like you get to keep the feather.

Incidentally, the fine for killing a bald eagle is only $15,000. Just don't take the feathers.

Anyway, we had a fine time in Kodiak -- the weather was great most of the time, and the scenery was beautiful, and we managed to bring 60 pounds of fish (caught by Chris) back to Anchorage. Soren and I didn't get to go fishing, but we went to Fossil Beach with our friends Dana and Ned.




Fossil Beach gets its name from the fossilized shells embedded in a sandstone cliff at one end of the beach; as the cliff erodes, chunks of stone containing said fossils tumble down to the beach. You can find individual shells, but there are also some larger rocks with multiple fossils inside:



Now that we're back, it's time to find some halibut recipes. I think we're going to have to eat halibut every day until we leave in December.

More Foraging

On Labor Day, we drove up to Arctic Valley (about 1/2 hour from Anchorage) and tried out the subsistence lifestyle once again by picking blueberries. Luckily, we also have grocery stores to depend on for food, because we only came away with a cup of berries. Soren helped, though!



There were quite a few other people there, taking the berry-picking with different degrees of seriousness -- some were just dabbling, like us, and some were coming away with several gallons of berries. Crazy. On the other hand, I think most of the folks with vast quantities of berries were actually picking crowberries, which are technically edible but need to have the seeds removed first (or something like that). There's a much lower demand for crowberries, so it's easy to get a ton of them. Not that I'm discounting their hard work.



We're going to Kodiak next week -- Chris is planning on coming back with at least 80 pounds of fresh-caught halibut. Now that's subsistence.

Creative Endeavors II

Repainting the kitchen cabinets in Ichabod House isn't the only art project I've done lately -- I've finished up a few slightly more creative things over the past month or so.

First, something I made for my pal Kelsey, who was a summer intern for Audubon at the lagoon. Soren and I spent many mornings chatting with Kelsey, and over time it was revealed that she and I have some important things in common, such as video game addiction, some degree of l33tness, and a love of unicorn books. When she told me her favorite animal is the cuttlefish, I knew she needed a squid hat.



And here's a nice picture of her not being eaten by a giant squid.



(A picture of Soren in the first incarnation of the squid hat is here)

Next, a few freaking adorable little felted animals (awesome patterns by Crafty Alien):




Finally, a drawing of Leland. Not my favorite, but I'd started it in July and really wanted to finish it after we learned he was gone.



Hopefully I'll have more to show soon, although it'll probably end up being a set of forty felted bunnies and raccoons. I just can't stop making 'em.

Home Sweeeeet Home

I got back from Rhode Island a couple days ago after paying my first visit to our new (old) house in East Greenwich. I had a great time, and got lots of visits from people I haven't gotten to see in a long time.

My mom came out from Santa Barbara to check out the place and help me paint the kitchen cupboards (before: dark purple; after: white). She also helped me do my very first electrical project, which made me feel like a complete girl (Are you SURE the power's off? These wires are scary! Eeeek!) and distracted me just enough to make me forget to take any pictures. My dad and stepmom, Kathy, also came over (even though Soren wasn't with me!) and treated Mom and me to a nice dinner at the nearby Post Office Café. Sunday was a veritable parade of friends -- Jay came by in the morning, followed by Brian, Edith and Sam in the afternoon and then Hannah that evening. It was so good to see everyone, and to finally see the house! I can't wait to come back in December.

The place is in really good shape, both structurally and aesthetically -- the dark purple cabinets had to go, but everything else is fine for now. I'll repaint other rooms eventually, but there aren't any wacky colors to drive me crazy in the meantime. I've even come to peace with the pink tiles in the upstairs bathroom. It's a good thing, since those 1930's tiles are about 3/4" thick and their removal requires a major commitment to swinging a sledgehammer.

The yard is looking pretty good, too; there might be some shrub removal in order, and the grass will need some TLC before it can serve as a proper croquet lawn, but the ancient elm (?) tree in the backyard is amazing, as are the ancient rhododendrons and the ancient burning bush and the ancient clumps of irises. We'll see about the ancient yew bushes. I'm known as Yewbane after the destruction I wreaked at our last house.

Ooh, and the flight back to Alaska was pretty amazing. The glaciers I've seen so far in Alaska have been cool, and I like the blue ice and all, but I'll admit I wasn't totally sure what the big deal was. Then, over the Yukon, I saw views like this at 38,000 feet (not my photos, though I wish I'd taken some):




Now THOSE are glaciers. Or at least those are great views of glaciers. Now I understand how they end up carving the landscape.

Hey, speaking of really old, slow-moving things, happy birthday, Dad! I kid because I love! Ha ha!

Fending for Ourselves

Part of the mentality of living in Alaska, even in Anchorage, is that you not only can but should depend on the land for part of your food. The most frequently seen manifestation of this is state residents who take advantage of their right to catch up to (depending on the stock) 20 salmon per member of the household using a dipnet. Think pulling goldfish outof the bait tank with an aquarium net, but big salmon from a river with a 42" net. People use this limit to catch enough salmon to eat all year round.

While some fishing has been done by members of this household (nonresident limits are stricter, licenses more expensive, and we have to use poles), we have been enjoying the gathering component of Alaska's fend-for-yourself culture. Kirsten and Soren have become avid berry pickers. Unlike in New England, where we wouldn't feel comfortable harvesting from public land, the expectation in Alaska is that you will harvest (for personal consumption) from public berry bushes. There's even a part of a trail at a local state park known as Blueberry Hill where you can see lots of folks with buckets.

A couple weeks ago, we took a local wild berry learning tour. We learned to identify raspberries, blueberries, highbush cranberries, red currants, and watermelon berries (watermelon-shaped red berries that taste like watermelon), as well as some berries you don't want want to pick.

Our best resource is a medium-sized patch of raspberries along a little-used access path to the heavily used Coastal Trail bike path that is only a block from our house. Kirsten has cruised down there many evenings and filled a yogurt container for use with dessert. Soren has learned to pick them, too, and cannot pass by the path without heading to the patch for some berries. He actually can identify the berries and pull them off the plant...it's funny to watch his clumsy fingers grasping the delicate berries. Unfortunately, he's less discriminating about finding the ones that are actually ripe (and, in other places, he goes for any red berry, including those he shouldn't eat).

We're up to half a fish, a cup of blueberries and about eight quarts of raspberries, all of which have been delicious.

Long Weekend with the Guys

Kirsten's flown back to Rhode Island to take care of some things at Ichabod House (Did we mention that all worked out and we closed a couple weeks ago? No? Well, we did.) I finally learned today, when Kirsten first saw the house this morning, that I will not be sleeping in the potting shed for the next 15 years because I totally blew the house purchase; she likes it.

A secondary consequence of Kirsten's trip is that I'm truly solo parenting for more than half a day for the first time. Soren's weaned, Kirsten wants a break from full-time mothering, and I can take a little while off work now. So, to ease into it, we figured we'd go for six and a half days. We're planning to spend from Friday Night Football through Sunday sitting on the couch watching sports, drinking milk and eating peas, but that still leaves three and a half other days.

Adding to my anxiety heading into this, Soren is in a phase where he's been very clingy to Kirsten for the last week. He wants her to hold him, or he tries to climb her legs, or he sits at her ankles and cries. I think he's a little conflicted about being a toddler, one moment eager to wander off in his own direction on his own feet, and another scared by giving up his total dependence on his parents (so he thinks). I had visions of whole days spent sitting in front of the door, wailing.

Yesterday was our first day together, and Soren's just a blast when you can give him full attention and do the things he wants when he wants. I hadno problems with clinginess. He woke up around 7:30, I gave him his breakfast (a banana and some baby cereal), and we took a walk to get me some coffee. When we returned, he was acting a little tired, so I asked him if he wanted a nap. He paused, stood up, walked into his room and pointed at his crib; I put him in, and didn't hear from him for 90 minutes.

In the afternoon, we went to the Anchorage Museum of Art and History. I had hoped that after some time in the children's gallery, he'd let me look around the "grown-up" galleries a little, but we spent two hours playing with interactive art exhibits, including a play kitchen, a table for using magnetic building blocks, and a reading bench made of encyclopedias. While there, we ran into some friends, and arranged for dinner with them.

On this trip, I also was reminded of Soren's peculiar magnetism. He attracts people all around. On this trip, he drew all three of the young women running the ticket desk at the museum to talk with him, and even pulled a grandmotherly woman from across the street to say hello. While he mostly draws women of all ages, he even regularly gets responses from teenage boys, who are shocked by his super-friendly, super-enthusiastic, "Hiii!" I certainly wasn't interested in interacting with babies as a teenager, or until about 15 months ago.

Rough Seas Ahead

It seems we have accumulated quite a backblog, having recently been so busy that we haven't found time write about the many things we have to write about.

For the last week, my sister Rachel and her husband Jeff have been visiting us from Indiana. I think this isn't a typical vacation for them (most of their vacations have involved the Gulf of Mexico), so I'm especially glad they came up for a taste of something different. And, they pushed us to try a few new things.

They were interested in trying some good Alaskan seafood, and weren't impressed by the frozen king crab clusters we'd served other guests (although they are delicious). But the first live dungeoness crabs were in, so we bought four and endeavoured to try to cook these beasts--two at a time--in our spaghetti pot. The first three went in OK, but the fourth one managed to wrap its legs around my wrist as it was being lowered into the steaming water. (Did I mention crabs aren't banded like lobsters? Yeah, the crusher could crush if, if given the opportunity.) I did manage to flick him off (ironically, into the melting butter), but I did take a minute to count my fingers, lest I be working in base 9 for the rest of my life.

The five of us went down to Seward last weekend, where we were going to switch off days taking a glacier cruise and watching Soren, Rachel and Jeff cruising Saturday, and Kirsten and me Sunday. My parents had earlier done one of these six-hour cruises, on perhaps the nicest day of the summer, and saw lots of orcas, birds, endangered Steller sea lions and seals on the way out of the mountain-surrounded Resurrection Bay and around a penninsula to the adjacent fjord to see a large tidewater glacier. With this experience, Rachel and Jeff set off on an overcast Saturday, and returned excited from seeing orcas leaping out of the ocean and breeching humpbacks, though cold from the drizzle falling in the wind blowing off the glacier.

Sunday morning, Kirsten and I turned Soren over to Rachel and Jeff and set off for our cruise. When we got there, we were told there was a weather advisory and we had three options:

1. Take a full refund now.
2. Rebook for another day.
3. Go on the boat and give it a try. If too many people got seasick, they'd turn around and turn it into a cruise of Resurrection Bay. If this happened, they'd give us a $40 refund (making the cost of the trip $89).

Since this was really our shot, we went for it. (Consider what it says about people's risk preferences that they (we) still pay a premium for the chance to see the glacier, even when it doesn't happen AND it doesn't happen because a significant number of people get seasick...they offer a Resurrection Bay tour for $69, so really they're just charging $20 for the opportunity to get seasick.)

Well, we had a cold, wet tour. But we got to the mouth of the bay, hit strong crosswinds and 12 foot seas, many people ran for the stern, and we turned around. Most people on the cruise would tell you they saw three sea otters. Kirsten and I saw a fair number of birds you can't usually see from shore. No whales or glacier for us.

Behold the Ice Worm

Ice worms are real! It's true!
They thrive at a cool thirty-two.
But at twenty they freeze
And at forty degrees
They turn to a puddle of goo.



We got to see real, live ice worms on a boat trip near Portage Glacier. They're teeny little things that live exclusively in ice and eat algae, and if they're exposed to temperatures above 40 degrees Fahrenheit, their natural antifreeze gets messed up and they explode. Sensitive little buggers, eh?

Enough about Denali...

... let's talk about Mt. McKinley.

No true Alaskan calls it Mt. McKinley -- out here, it's Denali ("The High One" in the Athabascan language). So why is it named after McKinley, anyway? Did he climb it? Drive a golf ball off the summit? Have his remains interred at its foot?

No, McKinley never even visited Alaska. It was named after him to piss some people off.

A prospector named William Dickey, a Republican, was exploring the area in 1896 with some Democratic traveling companions. A big issue at the time was the proposed abolition of the gold monetary standard (Republicans were pro-gold-standard, Democrats against), and Dickey apparently liked to discuss it at length with his Democratic pals. Poor Billy must have felt awfully lonely out there, the only true supporter of beautiful, beautiful gold, constantly forced to listen to a bunch of haters. I mean, they all obviously loved gold, since they were out in the middle of nowhere looking for it, but my man Dickey was the only one there who really understood gold and wanted to rub it all over his face and have his currency based on its worth and stuff.

So how to get back at the haters? Well, during his travels, Dickey "discovered" Denali, and upon his return to civilization, he published his "discovery" with the announcement that he'd decided to name it Mt. McKinley. After the Republican, gold-standard-lovin' presidential candidate of the day. Because he wanted to annoy the people he'd been traveling with. I guess that's one way to win an argument.

Plenty of people who have an opinion on the matter believe that the mountain's official name should be Denali -- so why don't we just change it?

Bureaucracy, of course!

If you want to change the name of a national park/monument/whatever, you have to take it up with the U.S. Geographic Names Board. But the Names Board won't consider a name change if the issue is already being considered in Congress. It turns out that a certain Ralph Regula, a representative from Ohio who happens to have McKinley's former seat in the House, is really attached to the current name; he introduces a bill every year that declares the mountain's official name to be Mt. McKinley. And so the mountain will be called Denali over Ralph Regula's dead body.

Long Time No See

I went outside at about 11:30 last night to see if I could spot any Perseid meteor shower action (I couldn't).

While I was out there, I realized it was the first time I'd seen stars since June 1.

Denali with a Long Lens II

This time with an actual picture of Denali.



And our two best wildlife shots -- a caribou and a willow ptarmigan.





(A heavily-pared-down set of our Denali trip pictures is here, and as always, our full photoset is here)

We saw a ton of wildlife -- it was amazing. We saw moose, caribou, Dall sheep, ptarmigans, snowshoe hares, twelve grizzly bears (some very close), a golden eagle, and a gyrfalcon. All from the bus (they do stop the busses for wildlife viewing, so it's not a drive-by or anything).

Of course, you can't please everyone. On the bus ride back, I could hear a woman b*tching to her husband about how dirty everything was, and how long the bus ride was, and how they could have seen more animals if they'd gone to the zoo. Yeah, Janey Complainy, and then you'd be at THE ZOO. But I guess you can at least get a Slurpee at the zoo, so that makes it way better than big ol' dirty Denali National Park.

Denali with a Long Lens

Chris and I got to go to Denali National Park a couple weeks ago, and I'm so glad we did -- it's one of those things we felt like we really had to do while we were here.

There's only one road into the park, and it's closed to private vehicles past mile 15. The rest of the road is accessible only by shuttle bus, so you just pay your $30, get on the bus, and see the sights. The drivers stop for wildlife-watching and photo opportunities, so you can pretty much stay on the bus the whole time and get a decent Denali experience on the 8- to 13-hour round trip (depending on how far you want to into the park, of course).

Or you can do what Chris and I did, and get off the bus to hike. The thing is, there aren't any trails in the park's interior (just near the entrance), so if you take off for a hike, you're pretty much just wandering off into the hills. It's a really odd experience, having to decide which way to go. We had some general route advice from our bus driver (pretty much, "Walk around the back of that mountain until you come to the road again"), but the specifics were up to us.

Find the right route was easy at first, because we'd gotten off at a fairly popular spot (although we were the only ones who got off our bus) and a path of sorts had been trampled in. Once we got to the point where we couldn't see the road any more, though, it was up to us to figure out how to proceed. It was an interesting process, which required a surprising amount of thought.

Should we go down the stream bed, or up to the ridgeline? It's not the easiest climb, but there might be bears in the willows by the stream. Do we plow straight up the hill to the top, or go the long way and ease around the side? How did those other people get way up there? Etc.

The views were amazing, but unfortunately, I'd only brought our long lens (it's better for taking pictures of wildlife), so I couldn't capture the sweeping panoramas as well as I wanted to. I had to get about 30 yards away to get this shot of Chris.



There were a few points when I thought we would have to turn around and go back the way we came -- the descent was pretty steep in places, and there was no obvious hiking route -- but we forged ahead, whistling pretty tunes as we went to let the bears know that lunch was on its way (we didn't actually see any bears while we were hiking, thankfully). It was threatening to rain as we got to the toughest part of the descent, and I was getting kind of freaked out thinking about how it would feel to slide on wet brush all the way down to the creek bed, and whether I could make it back to the bus with a broken head. But it didn't rain, and I didn't break my head, and it turned out to be a very enjoyable experience.

I feel like I'm not telling the story right. It's just hard to describe how huge the landscape felt all of a sudden, when we got off the bus and just... started walking. We could have walked wherever we wanted to. Hey, there's a mountain over there that looks nice -- let's go there. I mean, our little jaunt was really nothing compared to the crazy multi-day backcountry hikes that some people undertake (I wasn't really feeling up to that), but it was still very different from any hike I've done before. And we ended up feeling like we had way more cred than the 90% of visitors who never even get off the bus.

We are the Worst Parents in the World

Soren turned 1 on June 2nd, which happened to be the day we flew from Rhode Island to Anchorage. So there wasn't really time for a party or anything, although we did tell pretty much everyone we saw that it was his birthday. That counts, right? Probably not. We didn't have a party for our sweet, wonderful baby boy on the very first anniversary of his birth! Cf. this post's title.

Luckily, we were guided in the right direction by Grammy and Grampy (AKA Margie and Paul) Anderson, and we finally had a party for Soren last week. I like to think that we were just waiting until we had a quorum for a bona fide birthday party. Or maybe it's just that parents are stodgy fun-stiflers and grandparents are a non-stop Mardi Gras. But with less drinking. And I'm not just saying that to protect Grammy's and Grampy's reputations.



So, anyway, we picked out some fun presents, and a yummy chocolate cake, and lit one of those little candles in the shape of a 1, and we were all set for a cake-smearing, bath-necessitating good time!



I cut a piece big enough to make a photogenic mess, and presented it to the birthday boy.



He promptly picked it up and presented it to the floor.



I tried again, but he wasn't having it. If cake's so GREAT, Mom, why don't YOU eat it?????



So I did. Hey, more for me!

Rest assured that we're having him checked out by several famous specialists, and we hope to discover a cure for whatever horrible syndrome is causing him to NOT WANT CHOCOLATE CAKE. This is a serious problem.