Mary Bellamy

Please pardon my delay in writing this post. While we did get home a day early, there was much to do upon our return - airing out the tent, washing our stank clothes, cleaning for the housewarming party, etc. From what, you may ask, did we get home a day early? Why from putting 1,600 miles on my car in order to hike 33 miles over 5 days. Trust me, it was worth it.

Tom enjoys the scenic views at the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge. You may not know this about Tom, but he is an informational plaque-aholic. I cackled with glee as I drove past many, many plaques at high speed. Unfortunately, they reprint a lot of them in the Milepost.

We spent our first night on the road at Kluane Base Camp. Fittingly enough, it was right near Kluane Lake. We opted to use the tent instead of renting a hostel room. It dipped below freezing, which isn't so good with my 40-degree sleeping bag. We bought a small fleece blanket the next day at the Canadian Superstore.

We traveled through many varied terrains, including desert. I'm not certain if Carcross is, in fact, the world's smallest desert. The sign ambiguously says that it is "affectionately known as the smallest desert." Hey, I'm affectionately known as "the most awesomest person ever," but that doesn't necessarily make it true or make awesomest a word.

We spent the night before we started at the Dyea campground, and naturally decided to get a jump on things with a visit to the old Dyea city ruins. At one point we were gazing across an empty meadow when my keen eye caught two moving black shapes in the distance. Bears! It was only the next morning that it occurred to us that we had driven around to the ruins.

It occurred to us right around the time that we heard something very big run past our tent very fast. Tom later confided that he was grateful that I didn't freak out when another camper asked if we had seen that big bear by our tent that morning.

As you can see, the Chilkoot Trail starts with going up. This will be a prevalent theme.

Part of the allure of hiking the Chilkoot Trail is that it is like walking through a museum. When the stampeders went through, they dropped empty cans, extra shoes and anything they found too heavy to carry over the pass. These relics still lay by the side of the trail, kind of like a monument to the efforts of the gold rush of 1898. By leaving everything exactly as you found it, you can help ensure that future hikers can appreciate the living bit of history they are walking through.

And right before this picture was taken, I managed to knock down a bunch of rusty shit with my pack. Take that, history!

We stopped for our first lunch break, and the river looked so cool and inviting that I decided to dip my feet in. After shrieking like a little girl, I pulled them out to let them dry. That's a glacier-fed river, me thinks.

The trail goes through a few different ecosystems, staring with temperate rainforest. Hence, we crossed lots of bridges.

The rainforest is home to lots and lots of mushrooms. This was one of the freakiest ones. OK, the one that seemed to be dripping with blood was a little freakier, but I didn't get a picture. This will have to suffice.

Tom says "Hi" to the blogosphere.

After the first night camping at Canyon City, we set off. More bridges, this time of the suspension variety. Here you see Happy Mary, posing for a picture. After the flash went off, Apprehensive Mary returned, and I crossed the bridge clinging to the wires, all the while mumbling about drunk college kids building rickety bridges on their summer vacation.


More rainforest, more climbing. But our second camp, Sheep Camp was not too far ahead. Once we got settled in there, Tom and I decided to go back on the trail and look for rusty shit. Not finding any, we decided to head off the trail and into the woods. This was easy to do, since we'd left our packs (with all that unnecessary stuff like bear bells and bear spray) back at camp. This led to the very first ever...

heard on the trail

If you look closely in the center of the picture, you can see the bear that was in the woods with us. It seemed to be trying to make sweet, sweet love to a tree and looked a little unhappy to be interrupted in the middle of wooing. Is it too hard to see? Should I zoom in and crop?

Why bother when the bear followed us back to camp? We found out later that this bear was becoming a nuisance in the area. Just to be on the safe side, I kept Tom between me and the bear as it wandered around camp and poked its nose in other people's tents. I've heard that you're supposed to make lots of noise to let the bear know you're human, so I occasionally leaned out from behind Tom to yell things like "I applaud your choice of a vegetarian lifestyle." (Note to Bethany: That is what it's like to see a bear in the wild.)

The next day was the long day. It can't be avoided, as the next camp was 8 miles away. 8 miles up and over the pass. It was time to stop and smell the little purple flowers.

This is not the hard part.

This is not the hard part.


This is still not the hard part.
Now we're talking. Tom and I were starting to scramble up the Golden Stairs. The prospectors got to climb up in the winter, when stairs were hacked into the ice and snow. We chose to go in the summer, so we had to climb over a 45 degree slop of boulders. I'm glad that it was foggy that day. I was cold by the time we got to the ranger hut at the top of the pass for lunch, but at least I couldn't see up or down. Seeing up would mean seeing the false summits and realizing just how much more I had to go.

Seeing down would mean seeing down. I've got a little problem with heights.

Near the top of the pass we found more relics (or, as we put it, rusty shit).

Reaching the top of the pass doesn't mean the work is done yet. Rather, it was time to put on my pant legs and keep hiking through an alpine terrain for another 3 or so miles. We were now officially in Canada. There wasn't much security at the border, but I don't think most terrorists would choose the Chilkoot Trail for a secret border crossing.

Happy Camp. So happy to be here. Our 8-mile day took us just a smidge under 10 hours to complete, which is average. Another family on the trail had to be helped by the rangers. It took some of them 17 hours just to reach the ranger hut, which is about 4 miles of hiking.

The sun was out the next day, and we stopped for a snack and break at Deep Lake.

I'll never understand why those crazy Candians haven't dominated the world yet. They did, however, managed to rig up an ingenious outhouse-on-wheels contraption. When the hole gets too full, you pull up a few boards, roll the outhouse forward on the rails a few feet and resume use. Clever! But in America we give you toilet paper.


Frog!
Boat skeleton!

Tom and Mary at Lindeman City! We had lunch here and waited for a group of nurses from Anchorage to catch up with us. We hiked at about the same pace, and were planning on tagging along with them to avoid a nuisance bear that had been stalking small groups past Lindeman City.

I prepared, packaged and cooked all the food, so Tom did all the dishes. How domestic!

After a few days on the trail, I was getting a little nasty, so I tried dipping my head in Bare Loon Lake (which is not glacier-fed, but still not quite warm). The end result was wet hair that was still greasy.

Tom went for a full swim, only because I was there with the camera. He swam to three different islands, and ate berries on one (strictly against the rules of Parks Canada). The rest of the campers regarded him as crazy for doing this. For swimming, that is. Not for eating the berries. I think everyone was eating berries along the trail.

Last day of hiking. Last day. Pretty scenery, lots of rusty shit.

The old church at Bennett City. No, Mom, it's no longer used and we did not get married.

Victory! The old Chilkoot Trail sign at the end! Too hard to read?

Try reading it in Canadian, eh?

The only way back to Skagway from Bennett was on the railroad. To Tom's dismay, this led to many choruses of "Chaiyya chaiyya."

The trail may be done, but the fun has just started! Tom and I spent some time at the Canadian Superstore (motto: We're not WalMart, but we try!).

Foreign foods are funny! We did stock up on lots of good stuff, though, like Crunchies, Wunderbars and generic HobNobs.

A very short book, I'm sure.


Back in America, the traditional surly American attitude was on full display. I defy you, sign!

We're finishing packing and are about to hit the road, but before I go, I'll leave you with this:

I just spent precious minutes searching through my various e-mail accounts trying to remember that fabulous used outdoor gear Web site. Duh. It's Gear Trade. That's where I got my Montbell Super Stretch bag for less than half price. Deal! Just thought you should know.

We switched the toilets over to the well at the new house. Now we'll pay less for our delivered water ... but ... but .... the well water is really nasty. I mean, it's brown. And I could handle the brown, but the toilet bowl is slowly turning brown, too. And I'm scrubbing it about once a day. So now I have to question if the savings outweigh my fears that guests will think we're just nasty. It's only really a fear because we've got a housewarming party set for the end of the month.


Yes, it's true, I haven't posted for a while. Now that I'm down to 20 hours a week at the University, I've been playing with my schedule and I took a long weekend in Anchorage last week for the Carolena Nericcio and Megha Gavin workshops. This week Tom and I are heading down to hike the Chilkoot Trail.

So, you can expect another blog absence, but you can also expect some great pictures when we come back.

Fairbanks has a few reasons to celebrate every summer. One is the solstice, and the other is Golden Days. What, you ask, is Golden Days? Well, to paraphrase the less-than-educated person standing behind me at Pioneer Park yesterday, Golden Days is when we celebrate Felix Pedro getting left on the banks of the Chena River and then finding gold about 113 years ago. Except Pedro wasn't the one left on the river. And it wasn't 113 years ago. But then, who really thought we'd find the brain trust at a festival, right?

But you know what we did find? Free hot dogs!
Here's Tom, who took a break while eating his four hot dogs. He started musing about entering a hot dog eating contest, but he let me down in a pie-eating contest four years ago. It's hard to respect a man who comes in second.
I only had one hot dog. Marvelous restraint. Plus, they were lukewarm.

But I digress. I really only talked about Golden Days so that I wouldn't blog twice in a row about the transfer station. I stopped in after work again today, because I'm on the hunt for some dining room chairs. First stop: Farmers Loop/Taku. No chairs, but the Transfer Station Angels were there. I heard one of them mutter that he should go into his dressing room before changing his mind and dropping his pants right there to try on some clothes. I can't complain about him too much, though, as he was the one responsible for this:
It's always nice when someone puts some effort into displaying the recycle deck goodies. The rest of the deck was in similarly pristine condition, but I had to get a photo of the refrigerator display case.

The Chena Pump transfer station did not have any chairs either, but it marked a first for me. I pulled in behind a guy in a pick up truck and quickly accosted him with a "Does that work?" question. The short answer was yes.
And so we are now proud owners of a 27" TV. It doesn't have a remote or a power button, but I'm not above sticking a pen in the hole every time I need to turn the TV on. Plus, we can buy a universal remote.

My visit to the Chena Pump transfer station was marred by odd noises from one of the dumpsters. At first I thought some guy was smashing glass bottles inside the dumpster. That would be weird, but I could accept it. However, he was actually leaning into a dumpster and smashing a window. With a hammer. I would have gotten a picture of it, but the dude frankly scared me, so I left him to smash and brought my new TV home.

Transfer station, how I love thee! You take away my garbage and give me other people's garbage in return. Seriously, people, I have of late become a transfer station junkie. It just so happens that I go past not one but TWO transfer stations on my way home. There's the Farmer's Loop/Taku Lot transfer station, which is where all the hippies and college students go, and I also pass the Chena Pump Road transfer station, which is where all the rich people go. Needless to say, outfitting our new house has been a snap. What, you need photographic evidence?

Today's big find: An outdoor table for our massive, massive deck.
Also on our deck: Flowers. I paid for those, but all the planters were free!
Soon to be retired: A grocery basket found at the Farmers Loop/Steese Highway transfer station. I always stop in when I'm on that side of town. It served us well for bringing food up to the main cabin, but is kind of useless now that we don't live in the commune anymore.
Tom wanted a soap dish. Tom got a soap dish. Or rather, I got a soap dish for Tom.
I wish I'd found this chair before I bought a recliner at Salvation Army. Well, now we have two living room chairs.
And an ottoman, which technically is not a transfer station find. This one I found out with someone's garbage in the Aurora subdivision about 4 years ago.
Small nightstand for our office? Transfer station!
Filing cabinet? Again, not a transfer station find. A friend found it on her new property when the snow melted. It comes complete with a UAF sticker.
Three-foot tall wooden tiki fork? Transfer station!
Dresser? Transfer station!
Mirrored bathroom cabinet? Transfer station!
Computer desk? Say it with me now....transfer station!

You may be asking yourself why I am posting all these pictures of my dump finds. Well, my friend, it's because I can. I can sit in the comfort of my own home at my own computer and do this. You know why?
High speed Internet! (Not from the transfer station)

Anonymous, you were right. How can I expect hordes of screaming fans at the burlesque show if I don't give you a few, key details?

Drum roll, please....

Fleurs du Mal Burlesque is back! This outstanding, locally produced classic burlesque show will have an exclusive run at the Palace Theatre in Pioneer Park during the month of July. The ladies will take the stage at 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights starting July 13. On Thursday, July 12, don't miss your chance for a special pay-what-you-can "Boston" show. It's your only chance to see the show without necessarily seeing it all (wink wink).

You know what? I'm pretty damn sure that I've used that as a post title before. But my point is that my blog may look a little odd for a few months. I'm taking a few classes over the summer, and one of them requires that I set up a blog at Blogger. Now, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, dear readers, but I happen to have a blog at Blogger - and you're reading it right now. Actually, I have four: this one, one for my restaurant reviews (woefully behind in updates), one for my recipes (no, NOT the brownies, Jill!) and one for Tom's bike trip (although he got back in September). And so, I've petitioned my instructor to let me use this blog. Don't be alarmed if I started talking about processors or whatnot.

On the bright side, maybe this means I'll get on top of updating my blog. I was reprimanded for being lazy at a swanky lil' soiree for Jill this weekend. Di anyone else know that Jill is a lean, mean, digits-getting machine? It's kind of fun to set challenges for her, because she always overcomes!

And since you're still reading, let me just remind you that the Fleurs du Mal burlesque show starts THIS WEEK. Free preview show Tuesday night and a Boston (i.e. "clean") show on Thursday, with the show officially starting on Friday. Friday and Saturday nights at 10 for the rest of the month. Be there or be a figure with four sides of equal length and four 90-degree angles.

UPDATE: I lied. Or rather, I changed my mind. Putting my assignment posts on this blog would quickly become quite messy, so I created a new blog. If you're really interested, you can check it out. And don't forget to come to the show this month!

Fairbanks may the be second-largest city in the largest state in the nation, but that doesn't stop everyone from knowing everyone else. Cases in point:

• I went to a Canada day/surprise birthday party for a friend. The host had once co-chaired a gubernatorial debate with my boyfriend. Though I didn't know most of the other guests, we were all somehow connected through either the Fairbanks journalism world or through the blogosphere,

• Because we are looking for furniture for the new house, a coworker put me in touch with her son, who is selling furniture for a move. We chatted over the phone about a bed he had for sale, and I went to his house yesterday to look at it. He looked somewhat familiar, but I knew we had some friends in common. When he showed me the bed, I realized that I recognized him because I had sold him the same bed four years ago.

I'd love to regale you with more stories or photos, but none of the other bloggers have put up photos for me to 'borrow,' and I've got to go to an interview.

If you haven't heard, we are moving! We found a great house about 8 miles from the university, situated on the oh-so-lovely Chena Ridge. For those of you who actually know us (as opposed to those of you who just cyberstalk us. You know who you are!), our phone number will remain the same. For those of you who send us bills, keep sending them to the old address. For those of you who send us gifts, we'll get you the new address.

We're not fully moved in, and we won't be having our housewarming for a while, so for now I leave you with some shaky video.



The cat has made the move and is suitably both freaked out by the new place and overcome by the desire to roll in all the spots that apparently still smell like dog.

Summer in Alaska produces a lot of pests. Everyone's heard about our mosquitoes. Last year we had a bad yellow jacket year. And I've currently got a couple of wasp nests around the property that I'm keeping an eye on. But my big annoyance this year is the ever-persistent spruce bud worm.


They don't sting. They don't bite. They just hang in midair from a bit of webbing like a perverted, squirming Christmas ornament. Walking through the trees to get to our cabin has become a delicate art of dodging and weaving through the dangling pests.

I was only mildly annoyed by them until I walked into one full on the other day people. I'm usually not a girl about crawly things on me, but this one made eyeball contact. Eyeball, people. The only thing going in my eye should be my contacts.

Do you hear that sound? No, it's not me screaming about turning the big 3-0. It's me shrieking with joy as I download the Adobe Creative Suite 3. Yes indeed, as I type this my computer is currently installing Photoshop CS3, InDesign CS3 and Illustrator CS3. Oh, and why not add Dreamweaver CS3 to the mix to boot?

I tell you, sometimes it's great being a UAF employee. And it's cool if you don't understand why I'm so amped about this. I'm totally understanding that not everyone cares about design programs and nifty new features and the like. Just like some people are happy with Times New Roman. Luddites.

Sorry it's been a long time since an actual post of substance. I'm afraid it will all be quotes and light-hearted blather for a bit longer. Summer is finally here and I'm busy with about a billion things.

I'm sorry, Tom. I wasn't trying to sneeze on you. But I was trying to not sneeze on the cat. In retrospect, I guess the two actions were related.

Have I mentioned that my boyfriend is a Smarty McSmartPants? And an über-goober, but that's a story best saved for another time. When the Jeopardy! bus rolled into town this week, Tom was there. After kicking ass at the preliminaries, he went on to kick ass and take names at the second round.

Out of 800 people who showed up to try their luck, only 10 were selected for the contestant pool. And as you can obviously tell, Tom was one of them. He's now in their pool and has a 40% chance of being called to the show. Should he be selected, I plan to accompany him. And hopefully convince him to go to the Price is Right as well. I've got a way with the Plinko™.

Tis true, tis true....one of our beloved Hillbillies is moving on. Well, not moving too much, but he has purchased a house down the road. Last night was the official "I own it" party. Beer, champagne and an indoor toilet. He is moving up!

Now we have to begin the long process of looking for a new resident for the commune. There are already three possibilities, but we'll have to figure out if any current residents want to move to the empty cabin, then invite potential residents over to see the place and have dinner, then discuss the potential Hillbillies, then take our recommendation to the board.

Have I scared anyone off yet?

Fucking squirrels ate my hammock chair last year. But then Jay and Nancy gave us a slingshot. Tom has collected a small tub of rocks, and my aim is improving. The new hammock chair is on its way, and I am ready to defend it!

I was poking around Esty today and found myself perusing the hand-printed cards. One artist, Heatherjeany, does some lovely custom work, and as I was clicking through the items for sale, I came across one listing which was a save-the-date card for someone in my high school class. It feels weird to know something so personal about Pilar Vahey, who I haven't seen in more than 12 years.

This is the part where I should apologize for the pun. Please note the silence. And now for an explanation: After years of suffering the injustices of womanhood in silence, I have decided to rise up against the oppression and take matters into my own hand. Literally.

I am sick of Tom getting to use his favorite pee tree while I have to practically disrobe in our tiny outhouse in order to relieve myself. And so, after doing some research (thank you Internet, although you did steer me to some nasty stuff during my research), I have decided that I shouId order a female urination device. But I'm not quite sure which one is right for me, and so I turn to my gentle readers for votes.

Now, right off the bat I dismissed the Urinelle, LaFemme and P-Mate because they were all disposable. I don't want to add to the environmental stress on our planet simply to fulfill my desire to write my name in the snow. After further research, I narrowed the field to three contenders:


TravelMate
Pros: Narrow tip is ideal for perfecting my snow signature!
Cons: It's just so clinical looking.

PStyle
Pros: Please. Have you seen the color range?
Cons: Yeah, that's an open top, which just seems ripe for some accidents.

WhizPlus
Pros: Barbie-doll pink, with a fun name to boot! Flexible material.
Cons: More expensive, must order from Australia.

What? Don't most people blog about this stuff?

The weekend is over, and we survived. Cold Fusion has been working for months now on what just may be the penultimate level of geekdom. I speak, of course, of our now-infamous Borg bellydance. Yes, this was at the gaming convention. How did you know?

The Borg, for those of you who do not know (and you are officially no longer my friends), are a race of cyborgs known for assimilating other cultures and stealing their technology to further their borgifest destiny. In true geek style, we decided to perform a Star Trek bellydance in which I would get to don a bald cap and leather clothes and we could use a little stage combat. Unlike in Star Trek, this time the Borg won. Allow me a few observations:

1. I am way, way hot in a bald cap. In a sexy kind of way.
2. I am way, way hot in leather pants. In a temperature kind of way.
3. It is not easy to quickly remove a bald cap for a costume change.
4. If we wanted to, Cold Fusion could rule the dorks. Because, baby, they loved us! Who would have thought bellydancers would be so popular among the gaming crowd?
   

Did an Amazon reviewer really just compare the nonstick coating on a Calphalon hard-anodized pan to the one ring? Yes, I think he did....

I was passing the time in the main cabin and chatting with Jennie when she noticed that I had received the alumni magazine from my high school. Yes, my high school. It's one of those fancy, full-color, glossy affairs that you'd expect from, say, a private and horrifically expensive college. Well, I went to a private and horrifically expensive high school (but I was a scholarship kid - ha!). When Jennie expressed her surprise, I began regaling her with tidbits from it.

• So-and-so is taking a year off from college and travelling the world. Here are pictures of him in the Galpagos Islands!
• Rich Kid X has started a business importing Ecuadorean woven rugs in Manhattan. Anyone in the area should drop by! It would be great to catch up with other alumnae!
  
• Spoiled Girl is proud to announce that she has given birth to yet another child with a yuppie name. She has left the law firm to stay at home with her children while her husband is continuing his career as a surgeon in Sweden.
• Pretty Boy was recently featured on ABC's The Bachelor, where the girls all obsessed over the fact that he's a prince. (Oh, wait, that one is actually true. Shoot me now.)
  

Do these people all lie? Or are they truly the glitterati? I should have totally married one of those rich bastards, but since I couldn't stand most of them, I'm left with only one recourse: Lies. In the past, I've sent the alumni magazine my version of the truth.

• Mary has left college to pursue a career in dance.
• Mary is finishing her degree and working at the Hartford Courant.
• Mary has moved to Alaska and lives in a dry cabin in a Quaker commune. She is happy to shit outdoors in the winter.

But the gloves are off, baby. No more semblance of the truth. If they can live exciting and wonderful lives, so can I! Thanks to Photoshop, I can travel anywhere! Thanks to my relative anonymity, I can have any job! Thanks to my loose moral compass, I can tell all these things to my former classmates.

So, if anyone asks, I was recently outed as a spy while working undercover in the former Yugoslavia. Fortunately, the United States was able to trade one of their political prisoners to gain my sweet, sweet freedom. I'm recovering from the experience at my ranch in Montana while I ponder new career options. This just might be the time to finish that PhD thesis on Native American female landscape architects working Paris from 1954-62.

But if that seems too outlandish, Jennie has agreed to pose for "commitment ceremony" pictures that I can send in!

Things have been getting a little hectic with the dance scene lately, which is my roundabout way of saying I haven't posted in a while.

Cold Fusion is getting busy. We had a photo shoot, I designed promotional postcards, and they were just shipped to me today. Whee!!


We've got an hour-long time slot for the Ester Library Lallapalooza on Sunday. Hopefully we've got enough material to fill it. Next Saturday is a big one: The Arcticon show. Yes, we will be performing at a gaming convention. What? We're nerds. We even came up with a very special choreography. Here's a hint: You will be assimilated. I also get to be the special guest judge at the convention's masquerade ball costume contest. I'll have a week or two after that to work on our new Web site (which I won't even link because there's literally nothing there yet). At the end of April we head down to Anchorage, where Nomadia is hosting an urban tribal workshop with Heather Stants. We may also be performing at the Dance Together Alaska Festival while we're down there, but our time is starting to get very crunched.

And rumor has it that the Fleurs du Mal burlesque troupe is planning on making a comeback this summer in a big way. The possibility of a 12-show run is out there.....

The group that has been holding a conference in our building all day just finished up and kindly offered the rest of their food to us. Or rather, all we could eat until catering got there to clean it out (at which point it gets thrown away).

I now have all the crackers, a plate full of cheese and a grocery bag with the rest of the crudites on my desk. Did I mention that it's my night to serve dinner at the commune?

After much discussion, I went ahead and purchased tickets for Tom and I today. Sure, it's months in advance, but I doubt we'll find a better deal than this: $1,200 each for round-trip from Los Angeles to Auckland. New Zealand, here we come!

When I received an e-mail from an unknown name with the innocuous subject line "Regarding Work" in my Inbox at work, I shrugged and opened it. Hey, we've got (crappy) spam filters and for all I knew one of our freelance employees was trying to contact me. Instead, I got this:

Hi, I hate to be the one to mention this, but people continue to talk about your weight issue and it just disgusts me. Whether you know it by now, people are always chattering about each other at work but you come up more than enough. I wasn't the happiest or best-fit up until a year ago or so but that did change. Thanks to my dam brother-in-law(of all people). Anyhow, it was for the best.
What I am saying is that you need to do something different and maybe you can make the same difference I did. Try this stuff I used. I took it on the idea it's just more junk but it worked great. I see more positive reviews on it nowadays and makes me feel even better. So, I am encouraging a change, not only in the chatter around here but in you personally.

-Anonymous for now
Using an anonymous email website to send this btw;)
When it helps/works just send a memo out with the name "Angel" in it. Then you can take me out to lunch to thank you. Talk to you sooner than later I hope;)
http://huricaneroou.com

Well I never! Insulted by my very e-mail?!?! Now, I appreciate the misspelling of a curse word that might otherwise draw alarm bells (though you'd never know it by the number of times I've e-mailed the word porn to a colleague recently). Really, I do. And sure, I'm not quite a supermodel. I'm pretty sure it's the height thing, frankly. But my e-mail calling me fat? That's just a low blow.

Joanna has begun to doubt the very existence of my achingly good brownies. Not even a picture can reassure her (because I'm a whiz with the Photoshop, yo!).
It's a shame she lives 350 miles away, or perhaps she would be more intimately acquainted with their unique crumbly, fudgy texture, their ooey-gooey layer of liquid caramel and their crunchy bits of pecan.

Perhaps if I'm feeling really, really generous, I will bring a batch down when I crash at her place for the Heather Stants workshop.

ps that little wreath of decoration around the plate? Well, let's just say that no one will ever ask me to make heart-shaped decorations for Valentine's Day again. Bonus points for using blue paper to depict the pulmonary artery and the superior vena cava!!

I know that yogurt most certainly can be part of a healthy breakfast, but what if it's Boston Cream Pie yogurt?

Research links vasectomy with higher dementia risk
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Men who have had a vasectomy may face an increased risk of developing a rare type of dementia marked by a steady loss of language skills, researchers said on Tuesday.
Researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois, writing in the journal Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, linked this male sterilization surgery to a neurological condition called primary progressive aphasia, or PPA.
They surveyed 47 men with the condition being treated at Northwestern's Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center, as well as 57 men who did not have PPA. Their ages ranged from 55 to 80.
Of those with primary progressive aphasia, 40 percent had undergone a vasectomy, compared to 16 percent of the others. Those with PPA also suffered the ailment an average of four years earlier than the others.
Preliminary data also linked vasectomies to another form of dementia involving behavioral changes. Among 30 men with frontotemporal dementia, more than a third had undergone a vasectomy, the researchers said.
Sandra Weintraub, who led the study, acknowledged that the research involved a small number of people and said she planned to conduct a larger national study to see if the findings hold up. In the mean time, she said her findings should not stop men from getting vasectomies.
"I was hoping not to, but unfortunately it's the kind of news that ends up scaring people even though they may not need to be scared," Weintraub said in an interview.
"This was just a clinical observation that started with one of my patients telling me that he first noticed the onset of his symptoms a couple of years after he had a vasectomy, and he wondered whether that might have something to do with it," Weintraub said. "In his mind, these things were connected."
Primary progressive aphasia, which affects people usually after age 50, can be mistaken for Alzheimer's disease since initial symptoms are similar. In this incurable disorder, nerve cells die in the brain region responsible for language skills.
It causes people's language capabilities to decline steadily, with symptoms such as faulty recollection of names of people and things, difficulties in speech, reading and writing, and poor comprehension.
A vasectomy is an operation in which the tubes through which sperm travels are cut, leaving sperm unable to reach the testes and making a man unable to impregnate a woman.
The study did not look at the mechanism behind any link between PPA and vasectomies, but Weintraub said it may be because the surgery allows sperm to leak into the blood. Antibodies produced by the immune system in response to the sperm might trigger damage that causes dementia, she said.

Just because one person pisses me off, it doesn't mean I should take it out on the next person who does so.* I've got to control my reactions to things, especially when living with so many people with so many personalities (though they usually just have one each).




*In other words: stop, breathe, and don't be a bitch next time

Sigh. Being sick is never fun, especially when you're traveling long distances for workshops that cost a lot of money. And yet on New Year's Day I faced the inevitable fact that I was getting sick. But Texas awaited me!

Before I could get to Texas, I had to spend a night enjoying all that Boise has to offer. Insert obligatory potato joke here. For some reason, I've always thought that Boise wouldn't be a bad place to live. Turns out I was quite right.


They get really excited about the library here. The public transportation system was pretty easy, AND it goes from the airport right past Motel 6. For a mere $2 I got a day pass which afforded me numerous trips around the city. I even managed to squeeze in a visit to the Idaho State Historical Museum.

I didn't necessarily have to paddle upstream to get there. And no, I'm not breaking the rules by climbing in the display.

Ouch!

Of course, the ultimate goal of my trip was Texas. For some reason, I've always thought that Texas would be a bad place to live. Turns out I was quite right. There were lots of pavement and Republicans.


There were lots of bellydancers, too. On the left is the one and only Sharon Kihara, my main reason for going to Texas. On the right is Zymirrah, one of the organizers of the event.

Hooray for Bollywood! And for Reetu, who taught a classical Indian dance class that quickly morphed into Bollywood and dandi raas.

In time, I learned to tamp down my giddy schoolgirl crush on Sharon and play it cool around her. This was not that time. You can almost see me thinking "OHMIGOD!!!!! Sharon totally has her arm around me!!!"

When the final workshops were over, we headed out to whoop it up in the Historic Ft. Worth Stockyards. The natives were not prepared.

From left Kyla of Phoenix, Mary of Alaska and Zuza of Minneapolis. We were strangers, until I put a posting on the Internet looking for people to share a hotel room. Now we're just strange.

After four days and 11 workshops, I was tired. I was, ironically, just starting to get healthier. Zuza and I stopped and got a classy alcoholic beverage to drink out of a paper bag at our motel room at DFW.

I arrived home to weather 100 degrees colder and a boyfriend who had kept himself busy cleaning, building stuff and playing with our Lite Brite coffee table.

When purchasing a new car, never pay it off quickly. Doing so will leave you somewhat financially strapped, and it's a well documented scientific fact that as soon as you actually own the car, something will break. Like my transmission.

File under: just my luck; cars suck; Mary had a bad day

I finally got around to getting a haircut today. I'm not one of those women who can schedule their next appointment when the leave the salon. Instead, I tend to ignore my hair for 2 or 3 months, realize suddenly that it badly needs to be cut and call the salon looking for their next available appointment. I don't want to ruin the surprise for Tom, but let's just say my new hairstyle can be summed up in three words, beginning with "Flock" and ending with "Seagulls."

Since I don't have any pictures handy to provide you with a visual reference, I will instead give you the wackiest thing I came across on the Internet today.



**UPDATE**
The little guy is actually a midget. And, he's kinda famous! Check it out! He's also on MySpace, where he cops a bit of an attitude.

"You Americans can be so unaccomodating what with never having learned the metric system and all. And bombing countries into oblivion. And starving millions of people around the world with your economic sanctions. And being so very arrogant and ignorant about other people's customs and traditions. And with your Britney Spears and Madonna's. And ice hockey! I don't understand you Americans some times."

Sorry for the great absence of posting. I assumed that the hotels in Texas would have business rooms, so I did not bring my laptop. Foolish me. I was without the Internet for about a week, which hurt me far more than it hurt you.

After waking up at 4 a.m. Texas time on Monday, I commenced travelling home. And by 2 a.m. Alaska time on Tuesday, I was home. It was 60 in Texas and -40 in Fairbanks, which is a full 100 degrees colder. Despite that, I was still glad to be out of Texas.

In due time I will post a little more about my trip. For now I am busy catching up on sleep and trying to locate all my warm clothes again. And up above? Well, that's me riding the mechanical cow in the Historic Stockyards at Fort Worth. Here's a helpful hint if you ever go there: When people ask you to take their pictures, don't agree to do so and then say "1-2-3-Democrat!!" They don't appreciate it.