Musk Ox Farm

One of the places we visited in Alaska was the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer.  My parents and sister and I had previously visited in 2002, and it was fun to go back.  I highly recommend it to anyone visiting that area of Alaska!

I always love seeing a furry animal, but we learned a lot, too.  Native Alaskans had traditionally used mux ox hide, but only relatively recently had started using yarn made from the musk ox undercoat (aka qiviut).  At the farm, they comb out the undercoat (so they can get a clean collection, and it doesn't get mixed with dirt, twigs, and poop on the ground if it falls out on its own).  They send it to Peru to be made into yarn, which I thought was interesting.  It made me wonder if there were similarities between qiviut and alpaca fiber.  

Musk ox are also pretty tough customers.  The guide showed us places where they had headbutted the fence.  We were also instructed not to crouch down to take any photos.  

We were lucky in that the critters were obligingly hanging out near their fences when we toured.

Alaska 2024!

 We just got back from the longest trip we've been on in years, visiting Alaska and Washington state with my parents and sister!  For anyone reading who does not know, my mom was born and raised in Alaska.  We were all last there in 2002; she really wanted to go back, and the rest of us were definitely enthusiastic.  This was Scott's first time visiting Alaska, and he was very impressed with the beautiful scenery.

We used Anchorage as a base of operations and made some side trips, including to Talkeetna (with hopes of getting views of Mt. Denali) and Seward (to take a cruise in Resurrection Bay).  Some advice for my future self and for anyone else wanting to travel to Alaska:  The bulk of Alaska's tourism is concentrated in the summer months.  I have no statistics to back this up, but my impression is that most tourists to Alaska take cruises.  These cruises overwhelm small towns (and honestly, even cities like Anchorage) when they come to port.  Cruise-goers also take trains in order to travel into the interior, particularly to go to Denali National Park.  All of this is to say, plan very early if you don't plan on taking a cruise with a predetermined itinerary.  My mom had a terrible time getting lodging in Talkeetna, and she had to change the day that we traveled by train to Seward because the train was booked up.  You may need to make reservations well in advance if you feel strongly about eating in certain restaurants. You also may be eating a lot of early bird dinners to try to beat the crowds.  One thing that fascinated me wherever I went, is that Alaska seemed awash in tourism infrastructure (sometimes there seemed to be more of that than things like supermarkets or pharmacies that might benefit the locals), but yet it doesn't seem to be sufficient for current demand.  

So, here are some impressions (and photos!) from Anchorage.  You can see lovely scenery in pretty much any direction.  There are some good food options downtown, where we stayed (shout out to Fire Island Bakery, particularly their peanut butter cream cookies!).  One thing that I found very sad was the amount of homelessness I saw, particularly among Alaska natives.  Clearly, not everyone is benefitting equally from tourism dollars.  I highly recommend the Alaska Native Heritage Center, where you can learn about traditional culture of Alaska natives from around the state.  I particularly liked the outdoor exhibition of traditional homes.

Our hotel warned us of a very Alaskan hazard.

Wildflowers, including my mom's favorite, fireweed

Large flock of seagulls!

Replica of traditional dwelling at Alaska Native Heritage Center

Totem pole at Alaska Native Heritage Center

Losing Stella

 A few weeks ago, our beloved cat Stella had to be put to sleep.  She had had some months of ups and downs.  It was startling how quickly the final decline took hold, though.  One day  I was telling Scott that we needed to bring the cat sitter over to show her where Stella's food was ahead of a trip we were planning.  The next day, she stopped eating and didn't start eating again, no matter what we offered her.

I think euthanasia is one of the odder duties of pet ownership.  Nobody wants to have to make the decision about when an animal will die.  Yet, very little of it was truly in our hands.  Stella stopped eating when she stopped eating.  Ironically, it was a couple weeks before both Scott and I would be free for the summer, and not a great time for either of us to miss work.  But since death was inevitable, we wanted it to be quick and humane.  The vet who ultimately came to the house to euthanize her cautioned us against waiting too long.

The bright spot in the sad situation is that we both got to spend time with her at the end.  Due to a primary election in the district where I work, I had the day off the day before Stella died.  I had the opportunity to check in on her and see that she truly wasn't eating.  The day she died, Scott and I both made the call to just stay home.  We spent time with her until the vet arrived, and stayed with her, talking to her and petting her, throughout the process.

Perhaps inevitably, losing Stella made me think of when we lost our old cat Laila.  She was also euthanized after a series of ups and downs.  With Laila, I was less aware of signs of decline in cats.  I also didn't think to arrange at-home euthanasia, so one of her last actions in life was taking a car ride, which no cats really like.  I was also in the midst of my dreadful grad school 2.0 program, so I went to campus, and even dealt with a bunch of tiresome drama, before heading home to spend time with her before we took her to the vet.  This is a regret of mine.  I'm grateful that things were different this time for Stella and that I am no longer under such pressure to minimize actual life events (the principal at my school, who only rarely responds to emails I send when I need to take time off, responded about how sorry she was about my cat and encouraged me to stay home with her).

Right now, it just seems way too quiet at home.  We even miss the things that drove us nuts, like Stella consistently waking me up ten minutes before my alarm and yowling during our phone conversations.  She and Laila both added a lot to our lives--two very different kitties with very different quirks.  I think the best tribute to both of them is to give a home to another kitty, and I know in time we'll be ready to do that.

A First Time For Everything

 Being liberal has been an important part of my identity since I was a teenager.  I have always voted for Democrats.  To be honest, I'm pretty unenthusiastic about most Democratic politicians, but I generally like the party's platform.

Virginia, where I currently live, is one of the Super Tuesday states.  It is also a state that allows you to choose which party's ballot you request during the primaries.  I decided to vote early on Saturday, since our early voting location is close to the farmers market I usually visit.  I will confess that I don't always vote in the primaries.  When I've lived in other states, the primaries have often been all but decided before I even get a chance to vote.  Really, one could make a very strong case that this is true in this election as well.

And this is where it comes down to my first time voting for a Republican.  I didn't feel that there was any point in voting in the Democratic primaries because we don't have a real choice (and no, I don't count Dean Phillips as an actual choice).  There doesn't appear to really be a choice for the Republicans, either, but the idea of another Trump presidency so horrifies me that I felt compelled to try.  I voted for Nikki Haley, a politician with whom I have little to no common ground, but who I don't think is actively trying to destroy our democracy.

The funny part for me was having to actually request the Republican ballot from the election workers.  Apparently, I was very afraid of what people I don't know, and whose political leanings I don't know, thought of me.  When they asked which ballot I wanted, I said "I'll take the Republican ballot this time," hoping they would read between the lines and realize my true party affiliation.

And that's my story of expanding my horizons in a way that I never thought I would.  

A Modern--And Decidedly First World--Problem

 Anyone else hear of our modern day, swashbuckling porch pirates?  I first saw the term on Nextdoor, a social media site I joined mostly to learn about local fireworks displays and see if anyone was giving away any good free stuff.  Suffice to say, I'm engaging pretty minimally with it, although it's occasionally good for a laugh or even some useful information.

As everyone knows, times have changed when it comes to packages.  Many of us (and I'm as guilty as anyone else) are ordering things, usually online, that we might have purchased from brick and mortar stores 20 or 30 years ago.  This means a constant stream of packages going pretty much everywhere and posing a potentially tempting target.  The flipside of this bonanza is that the packages are at least as likely to be, say, underwear or cat food as they are the newest iPhone.  In fact, in one of the times when Nextdoor entertained me, someone found an abandoned opened box of CPAP supplies on a street corner.  She kindly decided to drive it to the address on the box

We've had a series of package thefts in our condo building.  We don't have porches, but I guess you could still call the perpetrators porch pirates, since mailroom pirates doesn't quite have the same ring.  Since our building was built in the late 80's, it dates from a time when people were receiving fewer packages.  We have a little alcove with our locked mailboxes and shelves for the packages.  The going theory is that our porch pirate has been coming in behind residents who are not properly conscious of security (we've received a number of accusing emails to this effect) and then helping himself.  Someone isolated a security footage photo of this person and posted it on the outside door.  Whether this is to warn him or to shame him, I'm not sure.  We're being led to believe that this is a top priority for our city's police....

Since none of our packages have gone missing, I have the luxury of being mildly fascinated by the porch piracy phenomenon.  I've been wondering how any of these porch pirates make money off this endeavor.  How do they even decide which packages to take?  If there are too many to take them all, they have to choose a few, probably quickly.  Otherwise, they risk being stuck with the dreaded box of CPAP supplies with no resale value.  Even if they were to get something potentially resellable, how do they find a buyer?  I have limited experience selling things, but enough experience to know that it's not always easy to find any buyer at all, or in particular to get someone to pay what you think an item is worth.  All in all, it seems like a lot of risk for not very much reward.

In the case of our building, I don't think pretending that the residents are willing to get into it with someone trying to follow them into the building is going to solve the problem.  I think the problem might cost money, either collectively by paying for some sort of additional security for the packages (e.g. creating a locked package room or paying a doorman) or individually (e.g., people who are worried pay for P.O. boxes and pick their packages up).  

Just as I'm as guilty as anyone else of receiving packages, I'm also as guilty as anyone else of sometimes forgetting my own good fortune and getting upset about things that are definitely not matters of life or death.  So I'm not trying to shame anyone for being upset about their packages going missing.  I know it would bother me, too.  But I do think it's mostly a problem that stems from good fortune, both in terms of having the money to buy stuff and having this modern convenience of not having to head to stores every time you want or need something.  To name just a few areas of tremendous misfortune in the world, I think many people in Gaza, Syria, or Ukraine would be very grateful if porch piracy were the most dire problem they were currently facing.

The US Healthcare System Strikes Again

 Recently, Scott and I attempted to be savvy consumers.  His employer (a local public school district) had replaced their previous PPO health plan with one that was somehow covering fewer healthcare expenses while not becoming any cheaper.  So when open enrollment season came around, we decided to investigate the health insurance plans that my employer (another local public school district) offered.  After comparing the two of them, we decided to give one of the PPOs my employer offers a try.  Scott cancelled his health insurance during open enrollment, and I enrolled in my health insurance.  So far, so good, right?

Not quite.  I had thought that it was fairly standard for health plans that people enroll in during open season to begin coverage on January 1.  For reasons I cannot fathom, coverage under our new plan does not begin until January 14.  Meanwhile, Scott's health insurance coverage ends on January 1, leaving us with a small--but potentially financially ruinous--gap in coverage should one of us, say, develop appendicitis or get into a car accident.

Fortunately, (a) because of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), we are able to qualify for private health insurance even though I have a preexisting health condition that probably would have disqualified me previously, and (b) I discovered this impending gap in coverage before December 15.  I can't speak for all the state insurance market places, but in at least both Maryland and Virginia, you have to enroll by the 15th of one month to be covered for the first of the next month.  I knew this because this is not our first experience with buying coverage.  We were briefly on Affordable Care Act insurance plans in 2017 when we both lost our jobs and in 2019 when I was in grad school 2.0 and Scott changed jobs, triggering a gap in coverage.  

Unfortunately, it's still very expensive.  We are sinking over $600 into what appears to be a pretty crummy plan just to avoid dire financial consequences if we happen to be unlucky in the first two weeks of January.  I'm feeling particularly annoyed because I remember (some years ago and in Maryland) paying a comparable amount and getting better coverage.  I don't know whether to blame the state of Virginia or just inflation for the shoddiness of the coverage.

This has made me wish--and definitely not for the first time--that the US could just come to grips with the fact that everyone needs healthcare at some point or another and view it as a basic human right.  This idea that people will be covered through their jobs has been disastrous, what with layoffs, employers that purposely give their workers less than full-time hours to avoid paying benefits, and these sorts of awkward transitional periods like what Scott and I are experiencing now.  What's scary is that he and I were pretty much ideally suited to not have a break in coverage, what with both of us being full-time employees in public sector jobs, but yet, here we are.  I shudder to think how precarious health insurance coverage is for other people who don't have as stable of jobs, particularly those people who don't have the money to purchase private health insurance during coverage gaps.

As for us, we are going to try very hard to stay healthy and uninjured during the first two weeks in January.  We've even gone so far as to reschedule medical appointments that were originally in early January.  Ironically enough, this is $600 that I hope will just be money down the drain and not be used, and I'm hoping that the insurance we get on January 14 is amazing enough to justify all this annoyance and expense.

The Holiday Equivalent Of The Lost Socks In The Dryer

 I'll admit I've been slow to get into the holiday spirit this year.  The pace at work has been unrelenting, and we keep having waves of sickness wash through our household.  In an attempt to get a little more with the program, I decided to start working on sending out holiday cards.  That's when I made an important discovery:

My holiday cards had gone missing.

Well, okay, there were about five left in a box that I opened last year.  But I distinctly remember buying a new box of cards after Christmas last year, in preparation for this year's card-sending.  I bought said box of cards because I had the exact same problem last year of looking for holiday cards to send and coming up short.

So, this year, some people will receive fairly traditional looking holiday cards.  Others will receive blank cards that I ordered from Shutterfly with a photo of Apamea that I took back in 2004.  I'm hoping the recipients of the Apamea cards will find them charming, or at worst, mildly idiosyncratic, rather than wondering if I've completely lost it.  People for whom I am just now getting an address may receive either an Apamea card or a yet-to-be-purchased holiday card from the supermarket.  Maybe next year will be the year when I put antlers on the cat, take a picture of her, and order a bunch of custom holiday cards from Shutterfly right before the card bonanza begins.