They're Watching

Apparently, all those "paranoid" "delusions" I've been having -- you know, the ones where I'm being secretly photographed while going about my daily activities -- aren't completely unfounded! I knew it!

Alaskanmama sent me a message last night entitled "You're a Google STAR!" And inside were these three screenshots:






Soren and I have been immortalized (in internet terms) on Google Maps Street View!!!!!!!! Freaking sweet! Apparently I was zoning out on that particular walk, and missed the car driving by with the big 360-degree camera mounted on top. I was probably looking at a really fascinating pile of moose poop at the time.

It's so exciting to be in Street View! Even if it is some random corner of Anchorage that no one will ever look at (except Alaskanmama, apparently). You can see the pictures by going to maps.google.com and typing in "1786 Scenic Way, Anchorage, AK", then clicking on the Street View link, and then rotating the view counterclockwise a couple times. And then, assuming I know you as well as I think I do, you will type in your own address and look for yourself.

Santa Picture 2007

Here, at long last, is Soren's Santa picture (taken on the Holiday Train)!

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.