Alaska, you know I love you, but sometimes you're just weird - posted at 02:29

Hopefully by now it is painfully apparent that I am in love with living in Alaska. From my sidebar-bio in which I proudly proclaim myself an 'ecstatic Alaskan' to lens which is rapidly filling with Alaska shots to a few of the many new opportunities that living here has offered me that I have written about here, the evidence none-too-quietly shows that I am the pea and Alaska the pod.

Sure, there are certain quirks about living here, like no longer being able to navigate by the sun (in winter it rises in the south, skims across the horizon, and sets four hours later in, well, the south, and in the summer it rises in the north, makes a wide arc around the sky and twenty hours later sets in, well, the north) or sixty-degree high temperatures in July and August (a great selling point when your relatives in Texas are cooking in the midst of a streak of thirty consecutive days of 100+-degree temperatures), but by and large these are easy to forgive. However, the latest quirk has just about broken my brain.

Ok. It's August Late August, mind you, but two weeks ago it was mid-August, and two weeks ago is when this, this aberration, this abomination decided to do something like divide by zero and all other such unnatural things. I have not the words to accurately express the sight that so discombobulated me, so I'll let a photo do the talking:

As seen from my front porch: this snow showed up in mid-August. That's weird (click for an expanded field of view).

That's right -- snow. In August on what was previously a naked rock mountain mere days ago. Ok, sure, it's not called snow per se -- it's given the poetic honorific termination dust. This must be short for "Harbinger-of-Summer's-Termination dust" because really, it serves to remind you that the summer is on its way out. It's being let go, downsized, it's obsolete, no longer the hot new thing in town. It causes a sense of frenetic panic to set in because you know that summer's days are numbered and you worry that you've haven't fully enjoyed the beautiful, I mean truly breathtaking, Alaska summer days, and you remember and regret every single day that you didn't take full advantage of what you were given by this awesome state.

I think that Catholic parents who have formidable guilt-tripping skills must have learned them from this particular type of precipitation.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go sleep so that I can wake up early enough to go for one of the season's lasts runs on what I hope will be a beautiful, classic Alaska summer day.

Wild encounters with Alaska wildlife - posted at 01:54

As of two days ago I've been in Alaska for nine months. I'd always heard that Anchorage is such a new city that a lot of wildlife still lives in the city, so here I thought I would talk about some of my (very!) close encounters with Anchorage's moose population. You may remember my first "holy crap moose are all up in these neighborhoods" moment, but it goes waaay beyond that. I take great pleasure in presenting to you

Act One

The Scene: a crisp winter's day in April. Sienna and I are frolicking about in Far North Bicentennial Park as is our wont before the bears start waking up.

The Action: We're making our way along a narrow trail when all of a sudden I see my tiny puppy put her front paws on a rock and utterly silently point the way that most retrievers know how to do:

This is what Sienna did

This kind of surprises me but it sure doesn't surprise me more than what I saw when I walked another two steps -- a moose chowing down on whatever moose on their starvation diets chow down on in the winter. Oh shit. The last thing I want to do is startle a starving moose who has finally found a food supply. In about 2.3 total microseconds I scoop up my pup and do a total 180^o turn and head straight out of moose-land. I was impressed by my two-month old dog because she alerted me to the situation without barking or chasing the moose (ie pissing it off). Sweet, I thought. I've got a useful dog! Ha. Famous last words. Read on....

Act Two

The Scene: Again, Far North Bicentennial Park in April.

The Action: Sienna and I are passing a beautiful open meadow (a thawed version of which was depicted in this site's Spring 2006 masthead) that I have often seen moose grazing in from afar. We're walking down the trail when all of a sudden of the corner of my eye I see something large and brown emerge from the treeline about fifty or sixty yards away. This moose was on a mission and meant business -- he (she? it was before their antlers started growing back in) made a direct beeline for Sienna and I. I look ahead to Sienna who has no clue about the 800 pounds of Riverdancing death headed straight for us, so I quicken my pace, scoop up the oblivious puppy and walk (not run!) as fast as I can down the trail. Even with as quickly as I'm moving I see the moose cross the trail not ten feet behind us and (luckily) decide to let us go on our way.

Act Three

The Scene: May. Enjoying one of our last walks in Far North Bicentennial before the bears start stirring.

The Action: Sienna and I are walking down a narrow trail in a heavily wooded part of the park. As usual I have my moose radar on -- since Act One I've been wary about coming upon moose unawares. All of a sudden I hear a huge CRASH! to my immediate right and in addition to my entire life flashing before my eyes I am thinking ohshithere'sabearandhe'sgonnaeatme OH GOD I AM GOING TO DIE. My heart has accelerated from 60 to 18,000 bpm in the span of about one nanosecond and all of a sudden I realize that it's a fucking grouse. I've never been one to want to walk around in the woods in camo holding a gun and killing things to take home to eat, but let me tell you, any bird that waits huddled up in the ground until someone is right there to take off and fly into a tree is a bird that deserves to die. Can I get an amen from the hunters in the audience?

This bird shall FEEL MY WRATH

Meanwhile, Sienna is oblivious (starting to see a pattern here?). Aside from that first point, she's shown no aptitude whatsoever for being a bird dog! Jeez, she's supposed to flush those things out for me!

Intermission

I suggest you take a gander at definite evidence of my occasional stupidity: too-close-for-comfort moose shots

Act Four

The Scene: University Lake dog park. June.

The Action: Sienna and I around out for a jog. I'm especially alert tonight -- the last couple of days I have seen a mama moose and a ridiculously gangly baby on the trail. I'm getting close to the place where I typically see them on the trail and start trying to scan ahead to see around the curves when all of a sudden I hear a snort and a snap to my immediate right. I snap my head over and I am looking eye to eye at mama moose from the wet-your-pants-scary distance of eight inches. I am eternally grateful for three things at that precise moment: 1) that baby is at her shoulder and not on the other side of the trail, else I would have looked like hamburger helper by the time mama was done with me, 2) that I am already running, and 3) that my dog is, again, oblivious.

Act Five

The Scene: South Anchorage Sports Park, a most excellent locale for throwing tennis balls. August.

The Action: While Sienna is going nuts doing her fetch thing, we are approached by a man and his Great Dane. We chat pleasantly for a few minutes before he continues on his way. One minute later, what do I see? A mama moose and two disappointingly un-gangly babies (*sniff* they grow up so fast!) have paraded onto the soccer field and are headed for the woods where my fellow dog owner is walking. "MOOSE!" I yell at him. He turns around and shouts back "WHERE?" I'm so flustered by the appearance of what is by all accounts a dangerous mama since she has two babies with her and has undoubtedly just crossed one of Anchorage's most busy roads at six PM to get to the park that all I can do is lamely point and again yell "MOOSE!" Even though this tells him precious little, it's not like it's hard to find three big moose barreling your way, so he turns tail and comes back my way. Guess he and his dog won't be getting his romp in the woods that night.

I'll give you a gold star if you can predict what Sienna was like during all of this, even though I was putting her leash on her as fast as I could. If you guessed "She was oblivious," congratulations -- YOU WIN! See me in person to collect your prize.

Epilogue
I wouldn't be blaming you if at this point you were thinking "Holy shit -- dem's moose are ballsy!" The scary thing is that they're only going to get worse -- rut is coming up which means the males are going to start getting crazily territorial whilst competing for mates.

Maybe Sienna and I will be staying indoors this fall.

Fin.

Dooming my dog to a sexless life - posted at 22:30

On Friday I'm taking a step that cannot be undone:

Sienna is getting spayed.

This is something that I'm having a lot of emotional turbulence over. See, it's like this. I'm totally smitten by my dog (if that wasn't already painfully obvious). This smittenness dictates directly into my brain, saying that she is Special Among Labs, a Prize Specimen, a True Asset To The Breed. Since she is the Wonder Hound, it is natural that I should want to perpetuate that Wonder Hound-ness by breeding her and making the cuuuuuutest puppies ever (except for, of course, Sienna herself). It's pretty difficult to resist very young Lab puppies (exhibit A / exhibit B), so there is definitely a part of my brain that is all over the idea of making more.

However, it should be noted that emotional turmoil is different than logical or intellectual turmoil. I've known since before I ever got a dog that it would be spayed or neutered because the survival of the breed, much less the species, is not hingeing on Sienna's successful propagation. But hey, I'm an INTJ. Ration/logic/intellect will win out every time. Unless chocolate is involved. Or maybe puppies.

Shit. Maybe this isn't going to be as cut-and-dry as I thought it was.

And so the battle waged until one day I very unexpectedly literally talked myself out of breeding Sienna once and for all.

We were frolicking at the dog park as we often do when a woman with a handsome black Lab approaches me. How old is your puppy? Four months. Are you going to breed her? No, I really don't have the time needed to devote to having a litter of puppies. Oh, I'll take care of them! You can get about $800 a pup!

Hearing that definitely turned me off -- good god, that woman wasn't interested in the life that was being created and making sure that it found a good and loving home -- she was just interested in the money! (Never mind that you can't get that much for Lab pups that are the spawn of two random Labs -- you need totally pedigreed-out-the-yin-yang show dogs to get that much.) I made a mental note that this woman was Bad News and moved on.

A couple of weeks later I ran into her again. She started up another conversation, exact same questions, me giving the exact same answers. When she said her "$800 a pup" line again I told her bluntly that I simply wasn't interested in getting that sort of money for a puppy when there were already so many dogs that needed good homes. This seemed to shut her up and though I've seen her several more times at the park since then she hasn't approached me again (which is good, because I'm totally on to her -- I have several friends at the park who also have young female Labs. They have all been approached by this woman. She's a crazy wannabe puppy mill who clearly doesn't mind using other people's female dogs even when she knows that they are too young to have healthy pregnancies -- you gotta wait two years).

What surprised me is how that so-many-unloved-dogs reasoning that I gave her just popped out of my mouth. The thought hadn't been getting conscious airtime in my head but I knew that it was true and it was how I really felt. More than that, I knew that keeping Sienna from breeding is the right thing to do, even though the result would be super cute. There are so many other dogs that can bring just as much joy, love, and companionship to a person. Does this mean that I regret my choice to adopt a seven week old purebred Lab? Not at all. I wanted to do the puppy thing once and now I have and my subsequent dogs will be rescues.

So when Sienna turned six months old this month I called and made the appointment for her. So, sorry little doggie -- you'll never know the joy of sex. And there will never be little Siennalets scampering about on uncoordinated legs and then collapsing exhausted in puppy piles. But the world will be better for it.