appropos of nothing, except that we're always trying to convince our friends to come visit us here in the great north, there's been an odd little controversy brewing here in anchor-town lately. the city of anchorage hired a consulting firm to do some branding research and come up with a new promotional campaign. because it wasn't free, all sorts of alaskans are all upset about it.
personally, i think what they came up with is pretty great. go check it out, especially the video ... and then go buy your plane ticket!
i forgot to mention one exciting piece of alaskana news this week. last saturday was the day T & I fondly celebrate as our real anniversary -- the day we met at the san gregorio general store six years ago.
to celebrate, i let him get a new pair of cross-country skis, since "the tour" is coming up and the kids he's coaching in "junior nordic" have pretty much trashed his through heavy-contact games of ski tag.
he, in turn, surprised me with an outdoorsy gift of his own -- a fancy pair of MSR's denali snowshoes! i'm not allowed to do anything that could possibly cause me to fall on the ice for the first few months after my surgery, but hopefully by next winter, terry, truman and i can go on exciting snow-shoeing adventures!
Ah, another year gone by without getting to go to Stitches. Such are the perils of moving a billion miles from anywhere.
It's been another slow week in the world of post-surgical recovery. a lot of ups and downs -- days I feel like it's never going to feel better, and days (like today) when it actually doesn't feel so bad. over all i'd say i feel better today than I did a week ago, and I was able to work more this week than last week, so that all suggests a promising trend.
In other news .... it's cold cold cold here in anchor-town. lows tonight in the 20-below range. brrrr. This weekend is "Fur Rondy," which means sled dog races through downtown and other exciting events. But somewhere around 15-degrees I lose my interest in watching sled dog races.
Speaking of races, next weekend is Terry's first foray into ski racing. it's the 20th annual "Tour of Anchorage", which offers four different races between 25K and 50K. Of course, because he's a nut, he's beginning with the 50K. Stay posted for all the details of this glorious premiere!
Oh, and speaking of crazy stuff we're doing now that we're Alaskans, several friends and I have all registered for a weekend seminar offered by the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game on "Becoming an Outdoorswoman". I'm registered for classes in fly fishing, spin fishing, fly-tying and "dutch oven cookery."
There are also all kinds of hunting/gun-related classes, and outdoor activity classes (skiing, snowshoeing, etc), all of which are pretty much out of the question for me until next year when my shoulder heals. In the meantime, I'll be learning to fish, and cooking up a dutch oven storm.....
As advertised in today's Anchorage Daily News:
"CRAFTERS SMACKDOWN, 2-6 p.m. Sunday, Congregation Beth Sholom, 7525 E. Northern Lights. Teams compete with limited time and materials. Cost, $50 teams of two-four, register at the door. Craft sale starts at 1 p.m. Admission, $5, seniors/military $3, children free. Sponsored by ReCreation Afterschool Art Program. (337-1672)"
That sounds like SO much fun. Wish I'd had more notice, a second good arm, and three crafty friends. Maybe next year.
a friend of ours teaches third grade at a local motessori charter school. a few months ago, she mentioned to me that they were going to do a unit on wool -- a sort of school-days sheep-to-something. she wanted to know if i knew where to get raw wool. i suggested she look in my garage, since there are about 10 fleeces pining away in there waiting for my stupid shoulder to heal.
so on sunday, maria came over to pick up some supplies and get started on a crash course in wool. i lent her a fleece (she wanted an extra messy one for the kids to clean, so i wasn't sorry to part with it), two combs, and my spinning library, such as it is. (we decided the drum carder was a little too dangerous to have around little kids, but we did play with it for awhile....)
then we looked at some great websites about cleaning wool, carding, building a drop spindle, and spinning on a drop spindle.
it was a lot of fun and a great reminder of how much i love (and miss) spinning. i even got suzie out and practiced a little to give maria an idea of the basic mechanics. it wasn't pretty, since i haven't spun in about a year, but it was fun and i did eventually get something going that looked like real yarn. at least, my two friends who've never seen a spinning wheel in their lives were impressed.
at the end of week one, maria reports that the kids are having a blast -- and all they've really done is pick dirt out of the fleece. apparently today they were going to make their own drop spindles. this means maria and i have to act fast to learn how to spin! (i've only ever used a wheel).
depending on my workload next week, suzie and i may pay the class a little visit to talk about spinning and show off some hand-made yarn. and in the spring, apparently i'm going to be invited to join them on a field trip to the musk ox farm -- now we're talking!
I wound up working more than I'd planned to this week, and definitely more than I felt up to. So Truman and i stayed home today and took it easy, which mostly consisted of watching the rest of Veronica Mars, Season One, and staying in my PJs until well into the afternoon.
As an added bonus, Terry's parents had sent us some goodies for Valentine's Day, so I opened the box of Trader Joe's chocolates and then literally ate a bon bon while lying on the couch and watching TV.
If you could take away all the searing pain, it would have been a pretty dreamy day.
So what is the entertainment of choice for a wounded girl and her trusty canine companion?
While in Phoenix, my dad and I managed to watch two full seasons of HBO's The Wire on DVD in about 6 days. Incidentally, this is not really a good show to watch with your dad, as there is an uncomfortable amount of swearing and nudity, which makes for awkward tv-watching all around. Other than that, it's an amaing show.
But now that i'm back in AK and we've exhausted our supply of The Wire, Truman and I have been enjoying a steady stream of tivoed Without a Trace, Law & Order SVU, Mythbusters, Friday Night Lights and (the guiltiest of guilty pleasures) Veronica Mars. I've also been watching Grey's Anatomy and ER, but you need to be careful watching that stuff after spending time in the hospital. It takes on a much creepier tone....
this post is long-overdue. my post-surgical internet access was spotty at best. i returned to alaska on friday morning, and am thus far having a tough time readjusting to the relative cold and darkness (as it was 85 and sunny when i left phoenix). but here is the bare-bones version of what happened:
the surgery apparently went pretty well. they were able to do a "resurfacing" as opposed to something more drastic. there were some preliminary concerns due to the softness of the bone, but they managed to get the prosthesis firmly attached to the head of the humerous, and then sewed me back up, complete with ginormous scar.
afer the surgery, i spent two and a half drowsy, achy and mildly unpleasant days in the hospital, followed by one glorious night at the omni in san antonio before my mom and i flew back to phoenix. then i spent a week recuperating at my parents' place in goodyear, az. the first few days were pretty rough, but i slowly regained enough energy to be able to actually act like a human being for hours at a time. a big improvement.
then thursday night i flew back to AK where, thus far, i've been a little overwhelmed by the cold and ice and darkness. go figure. as it turns out, it's easier to feel positive about your recovery while standing in a swimming pool under the hot phoenix sun.
thus far, this has been a far more difficult recovery than any of my prior surgeries. the joint is moving pretty well -- already much better than before. but all the muscles and tendons in my arm are feeling and acting pretty well abused. so it's been really painful.
i'm doing PT exercises twice a day, although am having some problems with them due to soreness and pain. i'm supposed to use my arm in "gentle activities of everyday living", but avoid most active motion for 6-8 weeks. i'll start back to work part-time this week, and probably be full-time as of next week. otherwise, truman and i plan to spend most of this week catching up on tivoed episodes of our favorite TV shows. good times.