1-22-2012

Some where between Nunam Iqua and Emmonak.

Well, the weather finally cooperated.  It warmed up last weekend to zero and we made our maiden voyage to Emmonak on the snowmobile.  We haven’t named the snow mobile yet, but I’m sure we’ll find one soon.  Monica and I left at the crack of dawn: 10:30 Sunday morning.  We were able to follow the trail that everyone uses to get up there and back.  It took us about 45 minutes to travel the 20 miles one way.  We were able to stay relatively warm despite the cold wind blowing in our faces.  We did learn that minor adjustments in clothing make a huge difference in our comfort.  And, knowing how to turn on the heated handlebars kept my hands fingers warm. 

The main reason we headed up to Emmonak was to become familiar with the trail.  A secondary reason was to get a few groceries. Emmonak has about 800 people living there.  They have services that we don’t, mainly a store.  Actually, they have two stores.  We ended up spending over $200 on the trip.  With gas at $6.70 a gallon, we spent over $60 on gas and a quart of oil.  The oil alone was $20.  Then we bought some groceries.  We didn’t need to buy much because we ordered most of our groceries at the beginning of the school year.  Without listing everything on the $157 order, I’ll give the highlights:  10lbs flour-$15.39, 2 Hillshire Farm sausage ropes- $16.30, and two 2lb bricks of Tillamook cheese- $33.90.  (I love cheese.)  We also bought six cans of Nalley’s chili at $3.59 a can.

Out the back door of the school, looking at the airstrip.

Back at school, I felt pleased enough to tell some of the staff, who are locals, that we made the trip.  I was told of trips where people have gotten lost because they were unfamiliar with the trails.  Even locals have become lost in a storm and have had to hunker down in sub-zero temps to wait out the storm.  My hunkering skills are not what they used to be.  Everyone had warned us not to go alone on our first trip.  But the weather was very cooperative so we felt confident we could make the trip.  But not everybody congratulated me on making the trip alone.

“Are you stupid!”  This was not a question; it was a statement by one of the classroom aides.  Hearing that phrase brought back countless memories of countless people shouting that at me.  I believe that if I ever write a book about my life, that might be the title.  Or, “Hey, Don’t Poop There!  And Other Pearls of Wisdom I Learned from People Shouting at Me.”  I don’t know why, but people seem to want to communicate to me by shouting.  And using profanity.  Anyways, back to my story.  When Gloria shouted that at me, it made me wonder if we made the right decision to ride by ourselves.  But, seeing how we made it back safe and sound, I feel confident we can make it again.  But I do know how easy it is to get lost out on the Tundra.  There are no landmarks to use as points of reference.  No hills, trees, or road signs.  Going in the wrong direction can make for a cold night of hunkering.  Or worse.

Maybe next weekend we’ll try it again.  The weather forecast doesn’t look too promising, but we’ll see.  It’s like they say, “If you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minute.  Over there.  Wait over there. And stop talking!!!!”  I don’t know why they say that, but they do.  

1-14-2012

Another quarter of school finished and another set of report cards to complete.  The kids are happy to be back at school even though they may complain when I hand them an assignment. Me: “Here, I’d like for you to complete this moderately complex set of tasks that you have been adequately prepared to accomplish by me.  Just follow the simple instructions and work quietly until you are finished.  Thank you for being compliant and courteous to other students.”   Students:“ WE WANT TO WATCH SHREK!!!!”  We seem to have different views some days on what we should be doing in the classroom.  But the students and I agree that the funniest part of Shrek is when he farts in his mud bath.  Classic Hollywood.  

The kids are happy for the most part to be back at school.  Since it has been so cold, they had been cooped up inside for the Christmas break.  Now they are able to have more room to play.  And yell.  Apparently they didn’t get their daily yelling needs met during break and are now making up for it.  They also are catching up on their need to run from point A to point B.  Even if it is only from their desk to the pencil sharpener.  Maybe they just want to hurry and get back to completing their assignment.  I doubt that part, but it is nice to hear and see them happy.

Hoar frost that formed on the net, rim, and backboard.

The other day, Monica looked out our window and pointed at the power line, which runs between our house and our neighbor’s, and said “Hoar frost.”  Since I had not heard of that term before, I was somewhat curious about what the power line had done to anger my wife.  I thought she was over reacting and considered it a bit inappropriate.  I remembered back to a similar comment I had made to an erratic driver and I was chastised for using such language.  It turns out hoar frost (notice the spelling) is a phenomenon that occurs when objects become cooler than the surrounding air.  Ice crystals form on the objects in abundance and make it look kind of cool.  It now makes sense when Monica points at an object and makes that declaration.  But, as it turns out, she doesn’t like when I say it.  Or how I say it.

With school back in full swing, it means that we are in the backside countdown to summer.  And with that, it means that a 10-minute walk outside will not require 10 minutes just to get dressed.  We have not seen the temperature above -10 in almost a month.  We are looking forward to spending some time outside worrying about sunburn, not frostbite.  It is suppose to get above zero soon, so we’ll spend time out on the snowmobile.  We planned on heading upriver to Emmonak to get groceries but I want to wait until it warms up more.  My fingers are still feeling the effects from my last trip. 

My focus now is to get the kids back into the swing of school.  We are gearing up for our annual science fair at our school, with the winners traveling to another school for the district science fair.  Some are excited while others couldn’t care less.  One of the problems of doing these experiments is that it is difficult to get even the simplest of materials needed.  Like eggs or candles or food coloring.  I’ll need to prepare now for next year’s science fair so we can do more and exciting experiments.  Maybe we can use the ‘air bubbles in the water’ experiment from Shrek as an experiment.  I know I would have several volunteers for that one.  

1-7-2012

Those who know me think I can be kind of whiney.  I’ve complained about it to them several times but it doesn’t seem to change their biased opinion.  I think the problem is that they are just unconcerned about my circumstances.  The harder I try to explain how miserable my situation is, the more they seem to become disinterested.  And sometimes irritated.  And a few have become violent. 

All of that leads to this:  it’s cold.  It is not the “I think I’ll need a jacket this morning” kind of cold.  More like “I think my liver is frostbitten, and not in a good way” kind of cold.   For the past three weeks we’ve been living in the underside of zero.  We have not been warmer than -20 for the past two weeks.  The coldest so far this year for us has been -40.  Luckily for us, most of this time has been during our winter break, so we have not been required to be outside.  But I did have to venture out to get our snowmobile.

Monica on her first drive.

We ordered our snowmobile last fall, but it had to be ordered from the factory so its journey took awhile.  In fact, it arrived just after Christmas.  They flew it in on a freight plane to Emmonak, which is about 20 miles away.  The only way for me to get to Emmonak was to walk (nope), fly (too expensive), or hitch a ride with someone else on another snowmobile.  I chose the latter because I am lazy and cheap. 

I rode on the back of Joe Strongheart’s snowmobile to Emmo.  The trail is mostly on top of the Yukon River, even but winding.   The temperature was -20, making the ride brutal.  I am lucky I invested in quality cold weather gear.  The only part of me that got really cold was my face.  I had a fleece balaclava that covered my face, but it didn’t really keep the wind out.  I had to keep my head down most of the way to keep from getting frostbite.  This was not going to work on the way back when I had to drive, so I bought a neoprene facemask for the trip back home.  I didn’t have any frostbite on my face after I got home so I know it worked.

My fingers and hands did get cold.  I was following Joe on the way back and was scared of losing him if I didn’t keep up.  Being out on the tundra, there are no landmarks to use for references.  Just follow the trail.  Or in my case, follow Joe’s taillight.  I didn’t want to fall behind for another reason.  Joe is Yu’pik and has lived here his entire life.  I did not want to look like a wuss by stopping because my fingers were cold, so I pushed on.  Well, we made it back and my fingers were not injured permanently.  The next day, I was complaining (I get it) to Joe’s wife about my sore fingers from the cold the day before.  She looked at my snow mobile and showed me where the switch for the hand-grip warmer was located.  So, we both learned something that day: I learned how to keep my hands warm while riding and she learned I was an idiot.  I think she was leaning toward that direction to begin with. 

Some people I know will think I’m complaining about the cold.  I think I am just stating the facts as they are, in an unemotional manner.  Sort of like a snowmobile operator’s manual.  It’s -38 and I don’t want to walk to the post office.  We have to walk because it is too cold for the snow mobile to start today.  Now that is whining.  But I don’t care because it’s cold.

Merry Christmas

Our Christmas tree.

Well, we’ve made it through our first week of Christmas break and Monica hasn’t smothered me with my pillow yet.  I believe this is because of her strong convictions that most murders are wrong.  It still makes me nervous each time she rolls over during the night. 

I’ve stated here before that we don’t have a store in our village.  This means that our ability to purchase fresh produce is limited.  There is an online outlet that will deliver produce out here called Full Circle.  It is expensive since it is delivered by airfreight, but worth it since this is the only way to get it here.  We get a box arriving weekly containing assorted vegetables and fruits.   The options are limited to what is available to them, but we’ve been getting hard fruit and a variety of vegetables each week.  I was a little worried about the amount of roughage we would suddenly be getting, but so far so good.

We have finished our first week of break, or as Monica calls it, “Cooped up with Clay”.  The temps have dropped below zero with the forecast calling for us not to see positive temperatures for a week or so.  With it that cold, we are not persuaded to go outside for any length of time, so Monica is cooped up with me.  I see this as the perfect time to spend with me, hearing about ideas I’ve come up with.  What she deems as bizarre, I see as brilliant.   One of my ideas is a TV show about an Amish astronaut.  Because of his religious convictions, he’s unable to use any of the buttons, levers, or dials that are used in his astronaut duties.   But he has the most brilliant astronaut mind ever.  So NASA sends up a monkey with him to be his hands while in the spaceship.  Well, we can all imagine what hilarity would ensue.  But Monica pooh-poohed the idea by consulting Professor Google and reading to me the tragic history of monkeys in space.  I reminded her that millions of people find Two and a Half Men to be entertaining so this should be a shoe in.  I’ll work out the title of the show later.  And not to worry, there will be a poop-throwing episode. 

This is about as high as the sun gets this time of the year.

Monica is working hard on her college courses.  She is working towards her teaching degree through Western Governors University, an online college.  She had a few troubles with taking tests because of our isolation and lack of reliable Internet service.  But that was fixed when our counselor was able to proctor her tests.  This got me to wondering if online colleges have online sports teams.  Do they have a team of students who are on scholarships that sit in basements and play Madden Football with other online colleges?  And if so, I wonder if I have any eligibility left.

Well, we’re down to -19 at sunrise this morning at 11:28.  The days will be getting longer now, so I can’t wait until sunrise is before lunch.  We are still lucky in that we still have running water and sewer.  Most houses around us have no water or sewer right now, so we’re just hoping not to be one of those.  The city workers are trying to resolve the problem.  But I’m not eating any of the fresh fruits or vegetables just in case.  Merry Christmas.

12-18-2011

Our winter break started on Friday and I am ready for this.  I strongly believe that having nothing to do is very underrated.  People like to talk big about how much work they do.  But you never hear people boast about how they loaf around all day and have nothing to do.  Until now.  I truly have no activities that require a large amount of effort during the Christmas break.  Eating may be the most physically demanding activity I do today.  Maybe I’ll put it in a small plate so I have to get up twice for a refill.  Or maybe I’ll just bring the skillet to my chair and eat it there.   By eating straight from the pan, I will increase my physical activity by have to dodge dirty looks from my wife.  So I’m not sure if the trade-off is worth the extra effort. 

Fishing on the Yukon.

Monica is learning things about me she probably didn’t want to know.  Monica and I have spent more time together up here than we have in any other time in our marriage.  Monica worked the night shift as a 911 dispatcher before heading up here, so our schedules were not in sync.  She’s beginning to observe first hand my slothful ways.  One of the things she hates is how I have everything I need at arms length (except the toilet) when I’m at my chair.  Luckily I don’t need very much, but I know I can get to it in short notice and without the extra effort of leaving my chair.  I know there are many other things that she finds exasperating about me, but I fear if I share them, everyone will know how big of a toad I really am. 

Something that I have discovered about Monica is that she can cook.  And cook very well.  Who knew?  I didn’t.  And I am a bit miffed that she never shared that information with me before.  We’ve been married almost 9 years and I’m just finding this out.  So, for all of this time, I’ve been doing the majority of the cooking (and eating) out of fear and love.  Now, I find out she can cook.  She’s been keeping this from me so she didn’t have to do her share of the cooking.  Not telling me this is akin to me having the ability to fly and keeping it a secret from her because I knew she’d pester me to run more errands.  I think that would be an abuse of my power, flying to Starbucks for a cup of joe.  But, it sure would come in handy for a beer run.  Or to show off at class reunions.

We had our school Christmas program last week.  After hearing ‘It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas’ constantly for the past two weeks, I’d love to punch Michael Bublé in the face.  So we sang that and we read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’.  The kids did a great job in spite of fact that their teacher does not have the proper skills or knowledge on how to choreograph our part of the program.  Guess I’ll start watching Glee. 

I have over two weeks to rest up for the second half of the school year.  Next week we can begin to count the hours of daylight as they increase.  Most of the teachers have headed south for the break, so it will be very quiet here.  Our school counselor is staying so we’ll have Christmas dinner with her.  Our snowmobile is scheduled to get here next week, so maybe we’ll have that to help entertain us.  Monica will be busy with her college work, so I’ll be able to play Tiger Woods on the Xbox.  The sad part is that I won’t be able to spend my break watching Oprah.

12-11-2011

The early winter has produced some pretty strong storms up here.  Usually, the strong storms appear in February-March.  We’ve had a couple already, including this weekend.  Our house is built on four-foot stilts so when the wind blows, our house rocks back and forth.  And not in a baby-in-a-cradle kind of way, more like a house rolling down a hill with lots of big rocks on it.  The house shakes violently when the big gusts hit, and shudders unevenly with the regular wind.

10ft snowdrift outside our front door.

Our village, Nunam Iqua, sits about one mile inland from the Bering Sea.  This allows us to enjoy the severe breezes the Arctic has to offer.  Earlier this week we had difficulties on the walk to work during a storm.  This storm brought about 5 inches of snow and 40 mph winds. The problem with the combination of wind and snow is that the snow does not spread evenly.  It piles in unfortunate places.  For example, right in the path I want to walk.  Some of the snowdrifts were taller than I am. The drifts we couldn’t conquer, we walked around.  Most times in ass-deep snow.  The land is flat, so we don’t have to worry about hills and the lake we walk on doesn’t collect drifts.  The lake we walk on is also frozen.    

After a storm, the path becomes much easier to walk on because people drive their snowmobiles on the path and pack the snow down.  The majority of the time, the walk to school is a pretty easy walk.  All of us have very good cold weather gear to wear, so the temperature really doesn’t affect us; it’s the wind that causes most problems.  But walking to school in a storm is pretty exhilarating.  And exhausting.

Now, I know that sounds like a lot of whining.  But it’s not whining.  The fact is I love the storms.  I love standing at the window, watching snow hurry past at 40 mph.  I also love the fact that I’m holding a hot cup of coffee, wearing warm slippers, and have a furnace that works harder than a one-legged man at a Riverdance audition.  I love that only inches away, the storm is raging. Yet where I stand I’m comfortable and untouched by Mother Nature.  When I was in the Navy, I felt the same way about being on the submarine: at 800 ft under the surface of the ocean, I was dry and breathing mostly clean air.  Well, filtered.  Actually it was nasty, but the fact that I was breathing was a huge comfort to me.  It’s also like standing two feet from the pit-bull who’s at the end of his chain, exhorting all of his energy to break free and eat my liver.  I’m not really sure why I enjoy endangering my life by trusting that things don’t break.  I do realize the fragility of what is involved because there is no way I could ever bungee jump. 

I’ll continue to watch the storm from the comfort of my living room.  I may have to transport a teacher to the airstrip tomorrow, but the worst the storm has to offer should have passed.  I will also rethink the logic of taunting a dog on a tether.   Which shouldn’t take very long since there is no logic in that activity.  

12-3-2011

The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a weird time.  Everybody knows how many days until winter break begins.  Kids are announcing the countdown when they enter the classroom in the mornings.  I try to remind them about the big picture; it’s the summer break they need to get excited about.  But it’s difficult for them to think about the summer when it is so far away.  It also doesn’t help when other teachers are so giddy about flying south for a couple of weeks.  I’m even thinking about telling the kids that there is no Santa.  I know it might break a few little hearts, but at least they won’t be so excited about the break and they could concentrate on their schoolwork.  It may seem a bit cruel, but in the long run it will be better for them. 

Sunrise out our front window- 11:15am

Getting groceries up here has been a challenge this winter.  We ordered the bulk of our food last summer.  These orders should last us for the entire school year.  We ordered a couple of hundred pounds of meat, cases of canned food, sugar, flour, etc… and most of that will last us.  The perishables are a different story.  We did an order in Oct for some items and it took over a month to arrive.  We also didn’t get everything we ordered and some items came frozen (eggs).  We order from a grocery store, Fred Meyers.  They take the order, send someone through the store with the list and a shopping cart, fill the order, and ship it.  Seems simple enough, but something broke down in their system. 

We received two shipments; one through the mail and one through a shipping company.  Their statement was that the perishables had to be shipped through the airfreight service.  This is expensive, but it does get here much faster and is kept in a controlled climate.  The problem with that was that the controlled climate was the freezer, as requested from Fred Meyer.  Nothing we ordered required freezing.  This included two dozen eggs.  Most of the order was shipped through the post office, cutting the cost of the shipping dramatically.

Our indoor porch this morning.

Most importantly, we got our toilet paper.  We were really counting on using that.  Unlike butter, I am unwilling to ration the use of toilet paper.  I don’t really want to consider how a person would ration toilet paper.  When rationing butter, you could just have butter every other day instead of every day.  Ok, butter is delicious and pretty important.  Let’s use broccoli as our example when it comes to rationing food.  But for rationing toilet paper, I don’t imagine it could work like that.   Also, I refuse to ration coffee.  I would rather go without than have only one cup a day. 

I may hold off on telling the kids about Christmas lies.  If I remember correctly, the Grinch was unfairly portrayed as someone malevolent and evil.  I’ve discussed this with Monica and she was pretty quiet on the subject.  Come to think of it, I don’t think she was even in the room when we discussed it.  Most of our conversations take place with me in the living room, talking and her not.  I find her more agreeing this way and she finds me less irritating.   Win-win.