annietupek.com blog

I got my contributor copies of the Pacific NorthWest Reader today.  The UPS truck pulled up to the driveway just as Dinah and I were setting off on our walk.  We were outside and I was zipping up my sweatshirt.  Dinah didn’t want anything to do with the UPS man and was able to wriggle her head out of her collar as I was holding on to it to make sure she didn’t run off, or at him.  Collarless, she retreated about five feet and sat down next to my car and gave him a single bark.  Silly girl.

We should be getting our copies in at the store soon.  It looks great.  And guess what-there’s a quote from my essay on the back.  How neat is that?  Carl Lennertz, the editor, send along some bright red stickers that read ‘Contains an essay by someone in this store.’  I can’t wait to put them on the store copies and display the books up front and force everyone to buy at least one.

Gigi at Powell’s Books in Portland has been blogging about the Pacific Northwest Reader and yesterday she highlighted A Walk with Dinah, my essay about walking Dinah at Creamer’s Field.  Check it out. We should be getting our copies in the store soon.  I can’t wait to see it.

Dinah and I took an early morning walk at Creamer’s today.  The geese have arrived and were oblivious to Dinah’s attentions.  She’d love to run into the field and scatter them, send them flying, but there’s no way that’s going to happen.  (The fields are closed now that the birds are here and I’m certain if anyone saw her running through them we’d be banned for life.)  The ground was still a little frozen so we didn’t get as muddy as we did the last time we went.

The woods were quiet, peaceful, except for the occasional squawk of geese and the far-off beep-beep of a truck reversing.  (Somewhere, someone was doing construction work.  Don’t they know that the world is supposed to be quiet at eight thirty in the morning?)  I let Dinah choose the trail and she took us down the one we had taken on Wednesday when we went for a walk with my friend Toni and Ace, her little Jack Russell Terrier.

The snow is almost gone and there’s a whole winter’s worth of doggie poop along the side of the trail.  Can’t people clean up after their dogs?  I always bring a baggie and there’s a stash of them at the trailhead.  Sure, it’s all going to get mixed into the soil eventually, but I think it’s disrespectful of the place to not scoop your puppy’s poop.

It’s a great place to go, filled with all sorts of interesting scents for Dinah (not just the poop of her fellow canines).  To find out more about Creamer’s Field, check out their website. And to read more about Dinah’s adventures at Creamer’s Field, buy The Pacific Northwest Reader.  It’s only available through Indie bookstores, $10.95 for some great reads about the PacNW and your dollars go to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.  It’s charitable.

It’s spring!  The sky is starting to get bright at five o’clock in the morning and staying that way until well after ten at night.  The snow is melting and a temporary river flows through my backyard and the moose are roaming the neighborhood.  They’re funny, gangly creatures.This one was eating snow in my front yard (which was probably filled with a winter’s worth of Dinah-excrement) for several minutes, after it satisfied its curiosity about what Nick was doing to my car.Its mom was nearby, she crossed the street and started munching.They’re stripping the branches bare before the buds have a chance to bloom.  Temperatures are nice and warm, forties (and fifties if we’re lucky) in the middle of the day, cooling down to about freezing at night.  I don’t wear a jacket to work anymore.  There was a sprinkling of fresh snow on the ground this morning, but it was gone in the afternoon.  I can’t wait for the explosion of green; it’s just a few short weeks away.

Nick and I finally made it to the ice park this year.  It’s our fifth winter in Fairbanks and it passed us by each previous year.  This year we were determined to go.  The weather was a little chilly.  Nick wasn’t dressed for the outdoors, but he was a good sport and walked around the entire park without complaint.  (No hat, no gloves, what was he thinking?  Probably wishful thoughts of spring.)  Here are some of my favorite sculptures from this year (and we definitely won’t miss it next year!):& me at the entrance.  BP was one of the major sponsors.  Maybe Big Oil isn’t all evil?

We had a blast building and decorating our gingerbread houses Friday night.  Mine was a failure, I built on permafrost and then an earthquake hit.  Total distruction.So it wasn’t a total loss this morning when Dinah pulled it off of the table and scarffed it down.  Kimberly’s house became a log home that suffered a similar fate, but hers remained standing, with a flat roof.Our other flat-roof home was created by Pattie, an out of town guest.Rose’s house was near perfection, and this was the first time she had ever done anything with gingerbread.Sara’s house had two moose that kept falling over.  It’ll be in the café at Gulliver’s if you want to check it out.Toni had more fun drinking than building, but her house still turned out well.And Maria’s house was a study in symmetry, I love the m&ms on her roof.Lisa’s gingerbread boasted a moose carcass in a yard full of moose droppings.Elisa’s house had a festive ‘Ho Ho Ho’ on one wall and she did me a huge favor by taking most of the leftover candy home with her at the end of the night.Thanks gals!  Everyone was a huge help with the clean-up, and let me tell you, it was a messy event.  Next year I’m going to put down a drop cloth, especially if Kimberly plans on coming I have some ideas on how to fix the structural problems some of us faced, now if I could only figure out what to do with all this leftover alcohol.  Your house New Year’s Eve, right Toni?

The holiday season, and the accompanying insanity, has arrived.  I spent all weekend baking cookies for a gingerbread house decorating party.  A batch of green sugar cookie dough for 50 small Christmas trees and 12 three-dimensional large trees. A batch of white sugar cookie dough for 39 polar bears and 12 snowmen.  A batch of brown sugar cookie dough for 59 brown bears and a herd of 50 moose.

Too many bears and not enough moose, which means that some of the 24 gingerbread people I made will get eaten by bears this year, or the bears will go hungry.  It’s a good thing the bears are small.  The gingerbread house pieces are also baked, but not yet constructed.

I still had a batch of gingerbread dough in the fridge, so today I made 40 more moose so the bears don’t starve and start going after humans.  ‘Course, it’s winter so they should be hibernating.  I also made some gingerbread snowflakes to bring in to the store tomorrow.

I’m in the holiday spirit now; I picked up some great Christmas music and listened to it while I was baking.  The Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Lost Christmas Eve is rockin’ and I got Christmas with the Rat Pack for the traditional songs.  I didn’t get the Chipmunks Christmas, there’s something disturbing about those high-pitched voices.

Really all this Christmas Cheer has been an excuse not to write.  November’s NaNoWriMo really burned me out.  Now I’ve got to get my submission together for the Norwescon Writers Workshop, that deadline is just two short weeks away.  Ah, end of year craziness.  I’m looking forward to the frozen, calm days of January.

Once upon a time there existed a website on which one could design a pair of shoes. It was called customatix and they had boots and running shoes and slip-ons. I chose blue suede and gave them a purple stripe down the front with an embroidered butterfly detail. The soles had great traction and a butterfly detail worked into them.

They were the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn, more comfortable than my Merrells. I wore them every day for more than seven years. People laughed, wondering if I had any other shoes (yes, several pairs that I never wear). And now the tread and butterflies are long gone from the bottom and the backs are shredded beyond repair.

I loved these blue suede shoes and I knew I would wear them until they fell apart. They were close to it, and while in Chicago I bought a replacement pair of slip-ons. They’re comfortable, nowhere near the uniqueness of my blue suede shoes, but nice nonetheless. It was time to say goodbye; if I didn’t toss them I wouldn’t wear my new shoes (or any of the other pairs in my closet).

I gave them one last day of shopping and walking, took some pictures, and then gave them a burial among dirty diapers and kitchen garbage. I will miss my blue suede shoes.

I got back to the office today from vacation and four different people made the same comment upon seeing my footwear: ‘You bought new shoes!’ Wow. I didn’t think anyone was paying attention.  By the way, does anyone know of a similar website that you can design a pair of uber comfy shoes?