Don’t pick up hitchhikers!  Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?  Its one of the worst ideas in the world.  You could get kidnapped, murdered, worse!  Much, much worse, but the opposite can be true, as well.  The hitchhiker may be the one in danger, in fact there is no simple way of identifying the dangerous party.  So, please, do not act on the impulse to pick up strangers.  It could go very wrong or it could go like this…………………

It was a dark and stormy night!  No, no it wasn’t. But that was a good stage to set for a hitchhiking incident.  It was actually a gorgeous sunny afternoon in early September.  The air was crisp and smelled of smoking fish and ripe berries and I stood outside of our garage that looked like a barn as our neighbor took a picture of Birdie and I in our costumes.  I gathered up our Halloween bags and jumped in the car.   I was excited for Trick or Treat in the Heat, which is an early Halloween celebration, staged in designated neighborhoods, to raise money for children’s charities.  It started in 2005, with a terminally ill five year old who wanted to experience one last Halloween before he passed.  It is a highly anticipated event that spans several towns, and gives kids an opportunity to showcase their costumes in relative comfort, instead of the snow and freezing dark that is October 31 here in Alaska.

So off I drove, me and my nine month old, to participate in this event.   Passing the trail head we loved to hike on, I saw a hitchhiker, a young man with backpack obviously coming down from one of the peaks on a day hike.   It was not uncommon for people unfamiliar with the area to mistakenly take the wrong trail down the mountain, stranding themselves on the road I was on, instead of the parking lot where a  pick up was probably waiting.   It was 5 p.m., and I was just certain that was this dudes fate.   I was about to make his day and pulled over to pick up my first hitchhiker ever!  EVER!

Why now you ask?  With the kid in the car?  After all those years?  Well, the time of day, location and circumstantial evidence of the trail head, gave me a pretty good clue as to his story and why his thumb was currently employed.  All summer long I dodged people on the highway lugging unforgivingly large backpacks, looking for rides north, south and everywhere in between.  It is still very much an acceptable way of travel up here.  My husband would pick up anyone that needed a ride, as long as he had room, and even if he didn’t and the party was willing, his truck bed was always available, complete with a canine for travel companionship.

Warning signs are going off in your head, I know, a woman, a baby, this stranger getting in the car. Crazy!  It was, true, and yet, in that moment,  it was the thing to do.  I opened the passenger window and said, “Hey, you need a ride?”  He barely looked in,  yelled  “Yes, please, thanks a lot,” and went to retrieve his pack on the roadside.

My new passenger jumped in, placed his backpack on the floor and secured his seatbelt, while I put the pitchfork in the backseat.  Placing the car in gear, I asked him what peak he had climbed and where he needed to go.   There was no answer and I peered over at a clean cut young man with a gaping mouth.  I repeated, “Where are you headed?”  He looked at me hard for a moment, the back seat even harder and asked how long the road was that we were on.  I said just another two miles, and he quickly replied that he needed to get out there.  I didn’t get it?  What?   I maintain that I can get him down the hill but he said, “No, the end of the road is fine,” and placed his backpack on his lap, staring straight ahead.

I drove the two miles to the end of the road and started pulling over, when I suddenly remembered I was in my costume.  In the few seconds before the car came to a stop, I hastily relayed that I could get him farther down the hill since I was, after all, just going Trick or Treating with my kid.  In September!  In my husbands big old boots, and his filthy work overalls, stained red from berries I had been picking, and dirty old leather gloves, and a pitchfork and shovel, me the farmer and my kid dressed as a chicken.   The hitchhiker exited the car and walked briskly away, two miles from where he started, back up the same road we just came down.  I watched him retreat and started laughing hysterically.  Im sure he was not amused at his poor fortune to be picked up by a pitchfork wielding, crazy lady and her chicken, going to beg for candy, door to door in summer.  I may have exited the car quickly too, if it were me.

I certainly hope someone picked that nice young man up that day.  I will never know for sure but I am fairly certain no one was in danger.  Strangers thumbing on the side of roads can be sketchy yes, but appearances are deceiving no matter what side of the vehicle you are on.  The normal appearing ones could be truly nuts and the crazy looking ones with visible weapons just might try to give you a lift.  My hitchhiking, chauffer, straw farm hat was initiated and officially retired on the same day with one short, two mile trip.

You need a ride?  Find my husband, I am going Trick or Treating.

The resilience of animals never ceases to amaze me.  Our beloved, neurotic, devoted, almost 10 year old German Shepherd, had her tail amputated yesterday.  It was a glorious tail, long and supple, and tipped with bristly black hairs that brushed your legs with love when she walked by.  I think that what a good head of hair is to a human, a gorgeous tail is to a dog.   I know she loved that tail.  So did we.  When faced with the decision to manage an infected, inoperable cyst at its base,  or remove the issue in full, the choice was obvious.   Pricey, as all veterinary surgery is, but worth it for her health.  I found out that tail amputation  is more common that I thought.  The day of her surgery, a cat was also having her tail liberated, and several more were booked for the day after.

If all goes as I plan, we will have at least three to four more senior years with our furry best friend.  Canines enter our lives for such a short time, its truly unfair for them to exit on average 10-13 years down the line, but that is the usual for large breeds.  And we know it, and we raise them, rescue and adopt them anyway.  Love, unconditional love, gets you every time.

We loved Goose from the get go.  Her name was Lucy Lou when we recued her and we changed it immediately to Lucy Goose.  She fit in to our household right away, antagonizing our current Shepherd, Vera, and sticking to us like glue.  She went on an 11 mile cross-country ski with Keith, just a few days after we acquired her, with no worries.  When Vera passed away, Goose took over as the Shepherd of the house.  She was always there, always alert.   When my daughter was born, she immediately knew she was on duty.  She maintains that job exceptionally well to this day but in the early years, it was overbearing, and Birdie would get knocked over quite frequently.  (Yes, Birdie is my daughter’s nickname and our dog is Goose.  Serendipity!)

As the years passed, our canine companion adjusted well to our rescued cat, Cleo, and our baby bunny Half-Pint.  The bunny eventually grew up to be a fully integrated potty trained, house-rabbit, hopping around the house with bouncy bunny joy.   Goose and Half-Pint lounge on the dog bed together and sometimes I catch the bunny scratching and gnawing on her tail playfully.  Goose was a good sport with the tail antics and took it all in stride.  Now, I wonder if the rabbit will search for her tail in vain or will she just move on to attack another appendage?

So, back to the tail itself.  When I accepted the fact that the dog was loosing her tail, the most natural and instant thought I had was that I wanted it.   Yes, I wanted that tail!   How often do you have a piece of your dog long after she is gone.   She isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, the amputation is hopefully securing that notion, and I really have no plans to acquire a piece of her after she passes away.   Here I was faced with my golden opportunity.  A surgically amputated piece of my dog, her waging glory, available for me to have as a memento of our life together.  The vet had to say yes.

When I brought her in and relinquished Goose to the vet tech, I asked a ton of questions but I left the oddest one till last.  “Can I have the tail,” was met with a stink eye and a short silence.   “Uh, well, I think I heard someone did this once, let me ask the doctor.  We will call you and let you know.”  The whole ride home I delved into the recesses of my brain to retrieve the basic tanning knowledge I had hopefully stored from survival classes taken years ago.  Keith and I do own a leather business, but we purchase the hides from retail, and although I had witnessed tanning done before, never had I attempted it myself.  Realizing I had no idea how to specifically tan a tail, I hit the internet.  By the time the call came in with the happy news that the amputation was successful and they had saved me the tail, I had a really good idea of how I was going to preserve it.

Within 24 hours, we had driven into Anchorage three times, (a total of about 300 miles.)  We were travel weary with a drugged dog and a severed tail wrapped in a towel.  Upon arriving home,  I got the dog settled, kid in her pajamas, then we immediately lined the kitchen table with plastic bags, donned blue surgical gloves and set to work.   Birdie was getting a hands on, crash course in canine anatomy and tanning and preserving hides.  Drying the tail was the first step.  I removed and examined the bone and tendons, scraped as much fat off as I could from the skin, tacked it open on a small board and covered it in non-iodized salt.  There are several methods to do this initial step but I chose the one that was most convenient and on hand, such as the salt.   The observation, dissection, and initial step of preserving our pets tail out of the way,  I placed it up on the driest, warmest place in the house, on top of the cabinetry above the refrigerator, where it will stay for a few weeks.

Perhaps I was predisposed in gravitating towards tanning my dogs tail from the get go.   I remember going up into the giant old attic in my childhood home in New Jersey and rummaging about.  It was a wonderland of vintage oddities,  giant old dolls my Mom had collected, drying peppermint hanging from the rafters and one tan and black preserved dog pelt.  The breed of canine has escaped me over the years, but being that my father had a love of the German Shepherd it was not far to assume the fur was Shepherd or at least a Shepherd mix.  All that I remember about the story is that when he worked on farms in New York State in his early years, he had a favorite dog.  He loved it so much that when it died, he skinned and tanned the hide.  It was the ultimate homage to a beloved pet.  In HIS eyes!  He had been reprimanded by his boss for the incident because “we don’t do things like that in America.”  Dad came over to the United States on a work visa from Switzerland, and if skinning and preserving your pet is common there, its news to me.  It was, however, natural to him and as it turns out, pretty easy for me to accept, albeit on the slightly smaller scale of a tail.

This morning, after eating, drinking, and tracking muddy paw prints all over the floor, Goose is currently resting comfortably with the aid of some good narcotics.  As are we after a long three days, minus the narcotics, of course.  There is a big pot of stew bones boiling on the stove to make a good broth and speed up her recovery.  In a few weeks there should be an update on our beloved furry friend along with news of progress on the tail.  Its all new to me, and this scenario may never happen again, so I am going with it and we shall see what happens.  Stay tuned!

The End

I love Winter.  I love snow.  Mountains are in my blood.  Moving to Alaska was a no brainer.   Making the move in the middle of winter was a bit of a challenge but not for the reasons you might think.  Big snow, no bother, frigid cold, no sweat, or so I thought.  There are many compelling reasons to be savvy and prepared in Alaska, and I was on the fast track to get acquainted with them all.

Knowing I needed a good vehicle for the Alaskan winter,  I smartly purchased a used Subaru.  The AWD and handling in the snow was fantastic.  I drove everywhere in any weather that Mother Nature threw down.   But then again, if you can drive in the poorly plowed hills of New Jersey,  dodging multitudes of parked cars with every ice patch, you can basically drive anywhere.

My Subbie came with an installed block heater.  I wasn’t sure what that was at first.  At least not until the thermometer took a dive and my new vehicle sounded sick after sitting all night in the frigid cold.  There were several nervous mornings where it barely turned over.  Then I remembered that thing with the plug coming out of the grille area.  Hey, maybe that would help.  Bingo, plug the car in overnight and in the morning it doesn’t sound like a kid with croup.   For those of you unfamiliar with this nifty accessory, a block heater connects an electric heating element to the cylinder block.  It increase the chances the engine will start, and I am all for my engine starting in the cold, dark hours of the morning.   Sounds great, right?  Until you realize that the odds of driving away with your car plugged in are also great.  I was told to put the cord over my side mirrors which would help me remember to unplug, which did work for a while.  Then the snow came, covered the cord and I didn’t quite see it.  Out of sight, out of  mind.  You see where this went.  The horror of realizing you just backed out of your parking spot with your car plugged in is probably a right of driver’s passage for teens here in AK.  For me, I was just the new kid around the block heater.  Off to the mechanic to get it reattached!

No worries, I am back on track and still in love with my new life. The early morning is dark and deep with stars, endless and crisp, the milky way is more visible than it has ever been and the green aurora whispers on the horizon just above the Chugach foothills.  Its minus ten and I am headed to work.  I get in the car and put the key in the ignition.  A horrible sounding click-click,  and I realize I am not going anywhere fast.  Ok, rolling with the minor morning glitch, I go to pop the hood anticipating that I can get a jump start from one of the neighbors.  I keep anticipating the hood opening with each failed attempt, but I soon resign to the fact that the latch is frozen shut.  Wonderful!   I stumble into the garage for some spray de-icer while keeping a vigil out for a friendly neighborhood assist.  One eventually comes along and after few frigid minutes of bare hands fiddling with bare metal, the hood is opened, battery jumped and I am on the road with a seasoned warning.  “Leave your car running as long as possible, get a better or newer battery.”   Being a used car, I had no clue on its age.  Advice noted, but workdays end at five as do most mechanics.  Also at five o’clock, the temp is negative eleven, and the battery is once again not happy.  A co-worker comes to my aide.   Yes, leave the car running, got it.   I have errands to run and along with many seasoned Alaskans, I leave the car idling while I am shopping.  I heard that for those living in Fairbanks, leaving the car running while at work all day is a normal occurrence, and shopping with the car running is a no brainer when the usual winter temps are minus twenty to minus 40.  Alright, out of necessity I am on board, but not happy at this contribution to the environment or the possibility of car theft.  Easy target here.  I’m going to walk into that building over there for a half an hour.  Oh, by the way, car is already warmed up, here you go.   No takers?  Ok, its still there, toasty warm and I jump in to head home.  But all the idling has sucked down more gas than usual and I am on alert that I just might make it home but not down the mountain again.  So off I go to the gas station.   Nope, I am not shutting the car off to pump, despite the warning sign.  Not happening!   The other thing that is not happening is gas filling up my tank.  The lid cover was not opening no matter how many times I tried to pop it.  A scavenged screw driver from under my seat would not jimmy it open either.  Another piece of my vehicle is frozen shut.  I panic a bit, but realize if I make it home, I should have some gas in a spare can to get back down the mountain tomorrow.  I decide to hit the road sans fuel.   I arrive home and get to work in the frigid dark to get the lid off.  My brilliant, desperate and usually unadvisable idea of using a turkey baster to inject hot water around the cover and hinges worked like a charm.

The next day is again in the arctic digits,  with a slight aurora dancing, and the man in the moon winking a knowing warning.  My neighbor is on call for the jump I am certain will be necessary, and I attempt to enter my car.   Nope.  Not today.  Battery and fuel issues are nothing when you cant GET IN!   De-icer is IN the car.  Fantastic!  I contemplate calling in to work “Cheechako”!  (Alaskan Greenhorn), because the compilation of winter car issues does not seem to happen to my coworkers.  Just me. The new kid on the block.

The list of trial and errors in Alaskan driving piled up like the snow.   One weekend I went on my normal ritual of driving to my favorite coffee hut before starting errands.  By the way, if you don’t live here, these are huts of fresh ground coffee intervention for your morning commute or weekend pleasure, conveniently placed on every corner, sometimes four to five of them within visual range just in case you missed the first three.   I placed my debit card in the baristas hand as usual and in exchange received my morning fix.   Off  I went across town.   Arriving at my destination, I park and attempt to shut off the car.  It is not sub-zero, it warmed to a balmy ten degrees and I have a brand new battery,  I am fine.  No, no I am NOT!   Where are the KEYS?   The car is running with nothing in the ignition.  Total panic, palpitations, I down the coffee.  THE COFFEE!   This happened in the world before Smartphones to map and call the unnamed hut, so all I could do was drive back across town to the only place I had stopped and hope I did not stall.  Stall!?  The thought of it made me panic worse.  I have driven vehicles with a clutch since I was 17, why would I stall?  The 20 minute drive felt like an hour of impending doom thinking that I would dump the clutch for no good reason.  Then I would loose a digit or two to frostbite  waiting for help because, after all that frigid weather, ten degrees felt downright Floridian, why bother to bring a hat, gloves or any kind of substantial winter coat?    I did make it there without event.  Sure enough, they had my keys and were totally confused and amused, at me driving away.  So, three things I realized. One, I could slip my keys out of the ignition while running, (which I obviously did unconsciously) two, the new mini-version of my debit card that attached to my key ring was NOT a good idea at all, and three, its Alaska.  It is freezing almost eight months out of the year.  Get it together girl, and keep emergency supplies and warm clothes in the vehicle at all times.  Three more lessons learned without major trauma.

The scenario of the ghost key plays out to this day.  You would think Siri would be able to remedy the situation and locate my keys.  Most of the time they are in my pocket.  Aside from that glitch, my winter driving issues have dwindled.  I have survived five winters, no longer a Cheechako.  Yay me!  The usual is to leave the car running when restarting in sub-zero temps might be a concern.   Such as driving to Palmer in minus 18 degree weather and joining an entire parking lot of idling cars, their occupants merrily feeding reindeer and having photo shoots with Santa in his sleigh.  This is my new norm.  I now have a heated garage, a full stock of emergency supplies in my Thule cargo box, along with several shovels, jumper cables, an extra set of rims with studded tires on hand and of course, a functioning block heater.   I am comfortable driving onto frozen lakes to fish.  I have survived travel in blizzards, ice storms, and 100 MPH winds.  I am ready for my beloved Alaskan winter weather, which ironically this year, has moved East to New Jersey.

When I was young I remember my Dad having loads of fun with fake poop.  The life of this novelty in our house actually spanned decades.  In its better years,  it was a great gag with its semi-gloss ceramic shine, glistening on the floor in the peripheral vision of the next victim.   It was seemingly endless fun for him and us, but truly, mostly him.  The poo had good mileage on it, holding up well over the years, but eventually as all ceramic does, it started to chip and then got cracked into pieces after being tripped on and scattered across the floor so many times.   Dad would carefully piece it together with Crazy Glue, like he did everything else that broke, and placed it once again on the floor to torment another houseguest.  This chipping and breaking went on for another decade until at some point, it sadly just didn’t look like poo anymore and got retired to the junk drawer.  I wonder to this day who finally threw out the poo?

I grew up.  Poop was still mildly funny.  Fart definitely still equaled funny in my book.  Then I had a kid.  Poop happened all the time, and suddenly there was little humor involved.  Because it was real, daily and sometimes, in the early years, hourly!  The fun vanished.

Until 2016, my daughter’s fifth birthday.  When she opened box after gift box, first carefully smelling each one.  Upon smelling and then opening the last package she asks, “Wheres the poop?”  Uh, what?  We had joked for weeks about her wanting poo for her Birthday and that I might have a box hiding for her somewhere with a turd in it.   A stinky one!  But it was a joke, or so I thought. The long face and actual tears at the lack of Birthday Poo in a box told me I was dead wrong to assume this was all a game.  She wanted turds.  In a box! OMG, did I drop the ball on this one!  Of course, it HAS to be genetic.  Why would she NOT want a fake number two for pranks?  Suddenly the fun of my childhood ceramic stinky came to mind and I quickly formatted a plan to get the kid what she wanted.  While she was preoccupied with new toys,  I found a small white jewelry box with cotton padding, put a few very dry but pretty round rabbit pellets inside and placed a red bow on top.   The box was placed quietly in the cat door where all secret messages and obscure deliveries herald their entrance into the house.   I told her I heard a knock and she ran out to find the package in the entry way.  With the utmost certainty that the UPS guy delivered her last present, and that it was poo, she opened the box.  Hugs, laughter, joy, total exuberance at the magic of Poop.  In her mind, her Birthday was complete.

This brings me to today.  The kid got a Prank Star Playdough Poo kit from a pre-school classmate for Valentines Day.  That would be brown Playdough and a poop shaped mold with complementary yellow colored dough to create a corn effect.   The kid was thrilled, totally delighted, smelling it repeatedly to check if it was real or not.  She used the mold to shape her new gag and placed it around the house for unsuspecting guests.  As fate would have it, three neighbors happened to stop by and unwittingly became her first victims.   I can hear my Dad laughing with glee.  The apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.  Parenting equals poop.  Lots of it.  But the imitation turds are the best, and if you can join your kids in creating entertainment out of  excrement then I think you are doing it right.   It doesn’t hurt to have a genetic predisposition either.   Warped humor makes the world fun.

Monday February 8th will herald in the 4713th Chinese New Year.  The year of the Red Fire Monkey starts with a festival that 1/5 of the worlds population celebrates.  Billions of lucky red envelopes filled with money are exchanged and on the midnight hour, the worlds biggest annual fireworks usage commences.   If you are lucky enough to live near a big city with a large Asian population you should go and celebrate large, like I used to, and indulge in all the noise, food and festivity.  It is truly a carnival for the senses.

Back in New Jersey,  on occasion, I would join my Vietnamese friend at her family gathering, where I would eagerly consume interesting new foods, like colorful  fruit and grass flavored squares of jelly, exquisite tasting seemingly armored fruit that stunk like feet, sticky balls of who knows what and things with too many legs and eyeballs I could not name then or now.   Lucky red envelopes were passed out and Chuc Mung Nam Moi was wished for all.

I remember these times with great affection.  I think it is the essence and spice of life to experience that which is unfamiliar to you.   Dive into another way of life, through travel, foods, cultural events or simply by being lucky enough to have a friend of a different heritage.  That undiscovered world blossoms.

I have never been to Viet Nam.  I don’t know if I ever will.  I do, however, know how to cook a Vietnamese eggroll and to never, ever call it a spring roll.  I know that if you can crack into a Durian fruit and get past the horrific smell, there is an incredible taste waiting to be discovered.  I know that red beans prepared for dessert are amazing and that Lychees are one of my favorite foods of all time.  I know that you don’t need food coloring to color food you just need sugar, a pan, some water and a little finesse.  I know that your supposed to have five different fruits on your New Year altar, you should never sweep or throw anything outside the house on New Year and I know that children must give you a good wish before you pass them a red envelope.  I could go on and on.  Here is where the rich tapestry of life unfolds.  My kid knows how to make eggrolls.  She knows as much about cooking traditional Vietnamese New Year foods as I do.  Yesterday in the Asian market she reminded me that the egg roll wrappers with the pink Chinese characters on them were the ones we needed.   She remembered we had to go and find a Kohlrabi for the soup.   She is so excited to celebrate she drew a ton of red fire monkeys to display around the house and has actually been acting like a monkey for days now in preparation.

Everyone who wants to, can Google how to make a Vietnamese Egg Roll.  My friend, should I need Asian cooking assistance, is now a phone call away.  But I value learning the old school way.  Connecting with friends, trying new things, sharing experience and passing that on.  The richness of life exists from the people that we meet.  Sometimes, unknowingly, we are those people.  You don’t always see the threads of the tapestry until the larger picture emerges and one day in a small rural town in Alaska, one home is filled with silk cherry blossoms, mums and forsythias, kids run by trailing dragon masks with streamers, red envelopes filled with crisp new bills to be passed out and friends and family eagerly await to taste the spread of new foods.  Happy New Year.

Gong Hay Fat Choy/Chuc Mung Nam Moi