Mary Bellamy

Joanna is confused as to why I haven't been posting. Me? I'm just shocked.
Are you as shocked as I am that I've been so darn lazy in posting? To be fair, I was trying to hold off on writing about the Solstice Belly Bash until I got the pictures, but there has been a slight technical hitch, so the blog must go on!

On the weekend before Solstice, I packed up the car with food, clothes, a sleeping bag and Heather, and headed down to Healy for the first Solstice Belly Bash. This was the first tribal fusion dance event in Alaska, featuring talented instructors such as yours truly. Classes included Bollywood Combinations, Tribal Hip-Hop, Oriental Fan Dancing and Fire Dancing, featuring guest instructor Riz, who traveled all the way from Florida.


I had the immense pleasure of finally meeting Danielle, the host of the event, seen here teaching the Tribal Hip-Hop class. She went all out for the event, offering us free rafting, free lodging at the Boat Camp (AKA Testosterone Central) and providing the inspiration for future events. Moreover, I had the chance to bond with the tribal fusion girls from Anchorage. I do love me some tribal fusion girls! Joanna may be my soul mate (she appreciates AP style and font selection! Too bad she's married), Amanda is a driving force in the Anchorage dance scene, Kathryn is a quiet ball of fire, and Danielle is an inspiration to us all.


See? Joanna+Danielle=Yummy!

After that fun weekend, I returned to Fairbanks to prepare for the next weekend and the Amaya workshop in Eagle River. Amaya is an amazing dancer who just doesn't give up. She has a unique Spanish gypsy fusion style that I've never seen before, and an amazing stage presence.

Susan, Nicole, Teresa and I spent the weekend in Eagle River dancing, eating, relaxing, eating and eating. Well worth the trip. Amanda did not attend the workshop but met up with me in Anchorage on Monday for some quality time together.


Even more importantly, Maya brought a pair of Melodias to the Saturday night performance for me to try on. All hail the Melos! I think $70 is a bit high for a pair of pants, but when they make the entire room fall quiet and comment on your, um, assets, they might be worth it.

So there you go - a quick list of my recent activities. In reference to my recent post, Tom has chimed in against the idea of another cat. Apparently Nibbles is more than enough for him. SO now I'm thinking of a new tattoo. Is this some kind of midlife crisis?

So, I should probably address this in an e-mail to Tom first, but I've been thinking about starting a family lately. Not actually gestating one, and definitely not the human kind.

I started mulling the idea of getting a dog a while ago, probably because many of my friends started reproducing. But then Nancy mentioned that getting used to twin daughters was like getting used to anything, and that she had gotten used to scooping the dog yard. That reminded me that a dog will require an outside house, straw, a new form of food, daily exercise, self-control not to eat Nibbles, regular shit patrols, etc. That may be a little more commitment than I'm ready for.

However, Nibbles was raised with lots of other living things around her. She didn't get quite as bad as Pudge did, but she's still kind of needy. With Tom gone, there's no one but me to pay attention to her, and frankly it's getting kind of draining. She's all up in my face whenever I'm home, violating my 2-foot bubble of personal space while I sleep and licking me frantically. I'm starting to form a theory that if I got another cat, she would have company throughout the day (once she got over hissing, hiding, plotting and attacking, that is) and would be more manageable.



Am I completely wrong in this theory?

As I skimmed the Anchorage Daily News at work, I noticed an article on Alaska auditions for the next season of ABC's The Bachelor. It turns out that their new bachelor is Lorenzo Borghese, who I went to high school with back in Connecticut. Sadly, I'm wikkid happy with Tom and not keen to appear on reality television, so I will not be receiving my 15 minutes of fame by auditioning for a touching reunion.

Since I keep in touch with just one person from high school (who tracked me down on the Internet), I've really got no one else to tell this to except my hordes, nay legions, of readers.

Remember back when I started this blog? It was all cabin this and cabin that as I struggled to convince people that they should build me a new cabin, rather than kick me out for the QIRs. And even when they agreed to do it, I was still leery of the QIRs. Then they had the gall to show up early - early, mind you - and I was forced to move into a room in the main cabin and leave my cat behind. Keep in mind they're also vegans.

Things were not looking good for Mary and the QIRs. Except ... well, except for the fact that Jacob and Gretta are wonderful people. They took on the challenge of living with Nibbles, and they grew to love her (although I'm still convinced that Gretta shaved my cat). They took on the challenge of living with the Hillbillies, and they grew to love us! They helped us pick and fight our battles when we needed to promote the best interests of the community. They worked with Tom and I when we hit a rough patch. They threw themselves into living and Hidden Hill, and they helped make it a better place.

Today they left Hidden Hill, headed for parts unknown, and the main cabin will feel somewhat empty when I go home. While I know the commune will continue to change and grow as new members move in, I'll miss Jacob's joke (he only had one) and Gretta’s patience (no, really, he only had one joke), and I'll miss having them at meals, and I'll miss their unique take on Quakerism. Whether they end up back in Doylestown or they start a new life in Ben Lomond, they'll be sorely missed at Hidden Hill. And I hope they don't complain too much if we all come to visit at once. I hear they've got indoor plumbing.

Two of the library regulars are back and making their usual fuss. They're of the "the local media is corrupted and only we know about it" sort, and they're looking at old copies of the News-Miner on microfilm, raising a stink that a political ad appeared on the Faith page. "It makes my skin crawl to see that," one guy said. "Only guys like Jerry Falwell do stuff like that," the other replied. One of the guys seems to be running for an office in local government, and is trying to figure out how much advertising his opponent did in the last election.

Unfortunately, the printer attached to the microfilm machine has once again broken, prompting a long tirade about how the repair work is contracted out to a company in Anchorage that won't bother to come up here until several machines are broken.

Sigh. Just go upstairs to another machine. Please. No, please don't start in on the need to mobilize WalMart workers to unionize. Oh God, don't talk about how the military encourages families to have as many kids as possible since Uncle Sam will pay for it all.

I need to get away from people like this.

If you leave me now, you'll take away the biggest part of me.
Oooooh, no, baby please don't go!

After a small gathering last night, Tom and I woke up early this morning to head to the airport. We refrained from getting teary eyed, though I may have choked up a little bit after I left the terminal. He's now on an airplane headed for Seattle, then bound for Maine by bike.

So now I'm awake and raring to go, but with relatively little to do. What's a girl to do? Well, start work on a practice journal, blog a bit, go pick up supplies for a craft project, get flowers, work on the planters for our cabin, maybe patch the holes in the ceiling and touch up the paint .... sheesh, I need to stretch out my projects!!

If you're more interested in Tom's trip than in me, check out the links to the right. He's got his very own section for his travel blog! He'll be updating it from the road, and I even sent him along with my digital camera to post pictures. Since he wanted a mascot, I gave him my Ganesh finger puppet. Who says I mock religion?

Tom is such a sweet guy, that he decided to get me a present before abandoning me for months. Well, not quite....

Earlier this week, we were running errands when he said he needed to swing by Barnes and Noble. I was happy to go browse at Lowe's while he did so, but then I discovered that he was buying me a present. I'd be thrilled, except he has no intention of giving me said present until he returns from his bike trip!! You just don't do that to a girl, especially not to me.

Since I've never been one to let sleeping presents lie (or however the old saying goes), I've managed to determine the following:

• it is a book
• it cost $12
• it was purchased on Wednesday at around 6:15 p.m.
• the cashier was a female with a tattoo on her arm
• Tom's debit card was declined at first
• Tom gave the cashier a lengthy explanation for this, since his bank recently sent out new debit cards because of a security breach (which also means I no longer know his PIN - damn!!)
• it is nonfiction (OK, I don't know this one for sure, but it's a pretty good guess)
• it is not a cookbook (again, a good guess)
• it is not erotica (trust me, he ain't that kind of guy!)
  

Blogger has been acting up, so I've been unable to post for the past few days.

Let me get right to the point:
It snowed on Sunday.
It. Snowed. On. Sunday.
It mother-f&#*ing snowed on Sunday!!!

Naturally, I didn't get a picture, and I'm too scared of The Mrs. to 'borrow' hers, so just take my word for it. However, it's finally getting back to normal summer weather here. By 'normal' I mean kind of warm with a heavy layer of smoke over everything. Looks like one of my fellow commies is not doing his job well. Oh, wait, he doesn't actually fight fires, he just cuts down trees and brush around historic cabins in the middle of nowhere to protect them from fires. Your tax dollars at work, folks.