Currently: October

Currently living/working: We bust our butts all summer so don’t have to work “much” in the winter (a privilege, I know, but also a combo of major summer hustle, frugality & budgeting). However, I’ve been working 10-15 hours/week at the library, and Justin is working about the same at his Discover Denali tourism job. So it’s been more of a light winter grind versus the cozy cave of hibernation I was craving!

Current mood: Working a lot is a suitable distraction to how solemn Denali is until the sparkly white winter landscape really gets underway. Alaska could use a publicist for this time of year; we lost 2.5 hours of daylight in October, and will lose another 3 in November! We leave for a trip soon, so will purposely miss the worst of the sinking sun angle. 

Currently amazed by: Justin and I celebrated our 19th anniversary this month! Yeesh. There’s a lot of life that happens in that time, and marriage is a serious commitment to navigate life’s plot twists with your person. I also have thoughts about how perimenopause/menopause impacts partnerships … but I don’t have the words yet. Someday maybe. 

Currently excited for: Vamos a Panama for our fall getaway!!! We—along with 2 dear friends from New Hampshire—are spending a few days in Panama City, then heading up north to an all-inclusive eco lodge. 

This is way more of a bougie vacation than we normally take, but it has a backstory. Justin & I were at a charity event last year with a silent auction. We knew we wanted to make a donation, so when I spotted a trip to Panama as one of the auction items, I took it as a sign from the universe to bid on that. I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Panama to see the locks in action through the canal.

I’ve always wondered if those silent auction trips are actually a good deal. My take so far? You gotta work for it. I’ve already told Justin and our friends I won’t be shocked if we show up and the place is a total sham, but we all agree it will make for a good story! Either way, I’m stoked to hang with our faraway besties, soak up vitamin D, experience a place with an unbelievable density of flashy plant/bird life, and flex my Spanish-speaking vocals! 

Current guilty pleasure: Justin’s 49th birthday! I splurged by hiring Batter & Crumb bakery (in Fairbanks) to make a gluten-free, dairy-free cake IN THE SHAPE OF ALASKA. Because … 49th birthday in the 49th state. Alaska is Justin’s happy place. We had a small gathering of friends, and Justin was enamored by his cake. 

Later in the week, Justin flew to Colorado for what is becoming his annual “Family & Concerts” pilgrimage. This time, it was to see Paul McCarthy with his 2 nephews, as well as Carbon Leaf solo. Then his sister won tickets to the Great American Beer Festival, so an additional bonus of fun!

Currently proud of: Last spring, Alaska Magazine contacted me & asked if I wanted to take over a monthly interview column! Basically, there are themes for each issue, but I get to choose the interviewee, then obviously come up with the questions, and edit the interview into a Q&A format for the print publication. I feel so honored that this project fell into my lap, as my writing has been admittedly sporadic these last two years as my mom’s health & estate management, as well as menopausal brain shift, has consumed me. I’ve had a scoop of creative work here and there, but haven’t had the bandwidth to chase many stories. This paying AK Mag project not only fosters my endless curiosity to ask all the questions, but it also holds me accountable to force creativity. I’ve already worked through 5 of the articles, and my first November interview with Denali’s Bear Biologist hit the stands! Many more interesting subjects to come!  

Currently not excited for: I hit a moose with my Subaru last week, and before anyone panics, I’m okay, as is my Subaru. Usually, moose accidents are fatal. Shoutout to my guardian angels & Subaru’s indestructible engineering, I guess? Here’s what happened: I was driving with a friend on the Parks Highway through the “business district” of Healy, going about 40mph. I saw a cow (female) moose in the opposite lane, so I started to slow down. Then a calf I didn’t see darted across my lane. I slammed on my brakes, but there was no avoiding hitting the young moose. It kind of tumbled onto my hood and rolled off the other side. The poor moose hobbled away with an injured, or possibly broken, leg. 

I called the police, but they told me I didn’t have to dispatch it (aka shoot it—this is typically the course of action, then someone picks up the moose to process and benefit from the meat). In this case, the police said to just let nature take its course. I feel TERRIBLE. Moose already struggle to survive through the fall/winter, and now I just made this moose’s odds much lower. I’ve been scanning the woods & roads hoping I see the moose frolicking unscathed, but haven’t spotted him/her yet. 

Side note though, there was an older gentleman driving behind me who thankfully did not rear-end me. He rolled down his window to check on me and my car, and commented, “you reacted very well and that was a very good moose collision.” He seemed to have lived here long enough to know there is such a thing.

Currently worried about: The whole point of hospice is to make the end of someone’s life merciful. I’m quite certain my mom would be in pain if not for the unbelievably high amounts of morphine she is on, and we are amazed she has minimal cognitive decline. With that being said, I often worry that my mom is living her best life under my sister’s roof, but at the expense of some major sacrifices my sister has to make as this goes on and on and on (unbelievably approaching 2 years on hospice). My sister deserves a medal!

Currently thankful for: Have I ever talked about how we get our mail in Denali Borough? I’m thinking no, so here’s a recap of mail delivery, rural Alaska style. There are 2 post offices in our borough, and if you want to get mail through the USPS, you pay for a PO Box (we just got street names and house numbers in 2023, but no home delivery—probably ever). The post office doubles as the unofficial winter social club, and that hasn’t changed in our 6 years living here. When we first moved here, there was no UPS or FedEx service, however, there were creative attempts at such services. There have been courier services. The grocery store, the chamber of commerce, the gas station—they’ve all been makeshift UPS/FedEx package hubs. We got used to addressing packages with everything to identify ourselves—PO Box number, cell number, street name—with hopes of miraculous delivery somewhere nearby. Sometimes a package sent via FedEx would take MONTHS to get in our hands (or returned to sender). People would post on our local Facebook network: “Looking for a package addressed to …” OR “If you are missing a portable shower that arrived via FedEx, contact me.” It’s comical, and also, not. More recently, C&D Delivery out of Fairbanks has become a very reliable delivery service for BOTH FedEx & UPS, and we couldn’t be more grateful!!!

Currently regretting: This time last year, Justin & I were on our 15-day transatlantic cruise. The first night on the cruise was Halloween, and Justin & I were pumped to have the opportunity to dress up in costumes. We were in a tiny cabin, so after the festivities, we found a crevice under the bed to stash our Halloween costumes away in our packing cube for the next 15 days. No surprise, but when we were packing 15 days later, we forgot about them. I did file a lost item report with extensive details about the location of the bag and pictures of the costumes, but womp womp, a year later, I think we can say RIP to our wonderful 1980s costumes.

Current confession: I have actually worked under 3 different library directors since I started subbing in 2022. This is the first time I feel like I’m actually learning something. You have to imagine that our library does not get a lot of traffic, so I would shelve books for like 45 minutes of my library shift, then just be present for any patrons. The current library director is training me on library tasks, like adding books to the system, and I love learning these new skills. 

Currently reading: 3 books this month! 2 fiction, 1 nonfiction. 

Justin found this book, Arctic Homestead: The True Story of One Family’s Survival and Courage in the Alaskan Wilds by Norma Cobb (and Charles W. Sasser), in a free pile, and it was on my TBR list, so score! I give a lot of credit to pioneer life in Alaska (this one around the 1970s), but honestly, I had very little respect for the Cobbs in this book. I’m very surprised they didn’t get themselves killed through their ignorance. I get that there wasn’t a lot of info about how to survive in Alaska (still really isn’t), but it was a tad disturbing. And of course the writing was mostly just journaling, and not any deep reflections or epiphanies from the experiences. 

Our local winter book club kicked off this month, so Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was the “spooky” fiction pick. Here’s my summary: Set in Mexico in the 1950s, an upper class lady gets sucked into life in a rotting Gothic mansion filled with a creepy old man, his unsettling family and her cousin who seems to somehow fallen in love with one of the characters. But wait! The mansion also grows trippy mushrooms! So weird is an understatement.  It’s not a book I would have picked up otherwise, but I liked it! 

When I am shelving books at the library, I always come across a huge collection of the fiction author C.J. Box. They fall into the crime mystery fiction category, and that’s not my go-to genre. Nonetheless, in keeping with the suspense month of October, I gave Badlands a try. I actually did not realize it was part of a series, but it’s the type you don’t have to read in order or all of them, thankfully. This was the 3rd book in this series. I chose it because it because it sounded a bit like Alaska life—oil pipelines, more men than women, cold climate. It was good & held my attention, but I think I am one and done with CJ Box books. 

Currently watching on Netflix/Peacock: “Yellowstone” has been a bucking bronco since it came out, but we finally watched the last 6 episodes of it! Great show if you like that genre that peaks behind the scenes to reveal brutal deception and corruption. 

Speaking of which, we also watched “Black Rabbit,” which uncovers the cutthroat restaurant business with a side dish of gambling/drug addiction. Also, I love Jason Bateman, even when he plays a deadbeat. 

We’re now trying “The Midnight Club” on Netflix, which is equal parts sad and spooky as it is about a haunted hospice facility for kids. Believe me, I know how awful that sounds!! We’re only 4 episodes in, so we’ll see. 

We love good horror flicks, and watched a few good ones recently! You Should Have Left, Heretic, and A House of Dynamite.