05-31-2011

I have finished my first year teaching in the Alaska bush and will be returning to Nunam Iqua for a second year in August.   I’ve been back in Washington for almost two weeks and have eaten enough for the entire summer already.  I doubt that I will slow down my eating, since I like to stay ahead in that department.  People like me can stay in cold water longer without succumbing to hypothermia.  We’re also more buoyant. But on the down side, we may look more delicious to sharks and other people-eating animals in the ocean and swimming pools.

The last few days of school went by without any incidents.  The kids were ready for the break.  As I’ve mentioned before, it is staying light outside past midnight, so the kids are already into their summer mode of staying out past midnight.  The last two days of school consisted of watching a few movies and having a day of games in the gym.  The high school had probably a thousand balloons left over from the prom, so we had games that incorporated balloons.  The last game had the kids popping all of the balloons as fast as they could.  I know that sounds fun, but listening to all of that popping for about 3 minutes can be a bit annoying. 

I’m already adjusting to being back to the lower 48.  It hasn’t been as warm as I would want, but I’m surviving.  The first weekend back, Monica and I headed up to the North Cascades to our cabin on the Twisp River.  As seen on TV, the rapture was supposed to commence on that Saturday evening.  Monica thought it might be funny to slip away and hide at the predicted time, pretending to be ‘taken’.  I failed to notice she was absent since I was not paying attention to her in the least bit.  I was busy with beer, a fire, and a podcast from the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe and did not have the ability to keep track of one more thing.  One might think that I would be more curious about people suddenly disappearing, leaving us heathens behind.  But no, I was concentrating on my tasks at hand, totally ignoring my wife’s disappearance.  When she ‘returned’, she asked if I wondered what had happened to her.  I had no idea what she was talking about so I just smiled and said, “I knew you’d be back”.  Not the best answer, considering my moral compass isn’t always aligned correctly.  True to herself, Monica forgave me once again for something I had no idea that I had just done. 

Our summer is pretty much planned out already.  We have a couple of Mariner’s games on our agenda and a household move to Oklahoma.  We plan on moving all of the stuff we cannot give away in mid-July.  Monica’s family lives down there so we’ll be doing a lot of visiting before we head out.  We’ll fly out of Tulsa in Aug for another year in Alaska.

I am going to continue with this blog through next year, but I won’t be writing every week during the summer.  Once we’re back in Nunam Iqua, there will be plenty of new situations that will occur and I can write about.   I’m sure Monica will point out things I miss.  Now, if I can just find her.  I thought she was in the bathroom…