A lesson in communication

Why didn't you tell me I was signed up for Day Care?

Uhhh... (Oh, shit. I didn't tell her that, explicitly. I told her she was going to day camp. I told her I'd pick her up at 5 PM. But camp ends at 3:30 PM, and there was extended care for which I'd signed her up. And I hadn't told her.)

I'm sorry. I should have told you that. You were probably very confused.

Yes. I waited a long time for you to come pick me up. Even though they told me I was on the list. I thought they must be wrong because you didn't tell me I had day care.

Man. If she were an adult, I'd probably be thinking about the many things I did that *hinted* that she had day care. The reasons she should have figured it out because, you know, I have a job during work hours, and she was on the list, and I said I'd pick her up at 5 PM, and, I'm sure I'd come up with more.

But she's a child. And my first response was to accept my errors, apologize for anything and everything I could explain, and to empathize.

I would like to have this response to adults as well. I think it would greatly increase my quality of life.

Interestingly enough, this response is exactly what I should be trying to do in all areas of my life according to the content of the cheesiest book title ever (Nonviolent Communication? Yeah, there's cheesy poetry in it, too. I read it in Alaska, and at times, I couldn't help but think the author was deliberately trying to incite a force-yourself-to-learn-from-your-ridiculousness response from the types of people who need this book (like me)).

Anyways. Today was instructive. I'd like to be able to listen through people's questioning of my performance and be able to hear the confusion, hurt, and sadness that was so obvious in my niece's voice today. Hearing it made me respond in such a positive manner. Clearly, I need to *listen*.

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Psuedo-Parent Week

We've got my niece all of this week. She is a bouncing 7 1/2 year-old ball of energy.

Quick.

Opinionated.

Exhausting.

But so adorable.

Today's Lessons:

1. 30 minutes in the grocery store with a 7 1/2 year-old is about 3-times as expensive and 5-times more tiring than the same 30 minutes on my own.

2. It takes about 2 hours to finish all of the tasks related to "going to bed."

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It's Dark Here!

I got up this morning when my alarm went off at 6:30 anticipating a lovely morning run.

Instead, I looked outside and it appeared to be more of dusk than morning.

Grumpy, I woke E, pointed to the window and said, "It's dark here." He grunted and rolled over.

I stumbled into the kitchen and stood there contemplating making coffee, which I don't ordinarily need to do before my short runs.

But, this was my first AM run since the AM runs in Alaska. So, I guess it would make sense that I'd recognize the decrease in light.

And then I looked at the clock on the oven.

5:30 AM.

My foggy morning brain slowly processed the implications, ahhh... that's why it's so dark. Looks like I managed to set my clock ahead by one hour while setting my alarm last night.

So, I went back to sleep and enjoyed another 3 hours before waking up to the bright blue sky.

No AM run today. But at least I know it'll be less dark when I do find the motivation to head out in the morning next time.

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(Travel) Lessons from Alaska

For the Alaska trip, I did all of my usual maneuvering to whittle the final price-tag down. I watched flight fares and waited 'til I saw what I thought was a good deal, confirmed with Arvay and we jumped. Also, I learned long ago that the true value in travel miles comes via the combination of AAA + hotel reward programs (in the form of infinitely cancelable room bookings and reward stays). On this trip, Hilton Honors treated us exceptionally well, as I initially booked in April but completely re-booked all Hilton-affiliated hotel reservations (they control about 5 brands) when prices went down and bonus miles went up in June.

At more remote locations, we booked the cheapest rooms we could find at independent hotels (Pike's Waterfront Lodge and economy cabins at the Salmon Bake -- both highly recommended). I assumed we'd wait 'til arrival to see if we could (or wanted to) do any better. This is a great travel trick -- the gamble is that you may end up with the cheapest parking-lot-view room and a shared bathroom or something else along those lines. But hey, if you are willing to take the cheapest offering and pocket the savings if the upgrades aren't at a price you like, then it works just fine. In this case, we hit the jackpot at our first hotel -- the only upgrade available was the nicest cabin suite on the property. It was ours for less than half of the rack rate and we spent many hours enjoying the views of the Chena from our rocking chairs on the porch.

Although my usual approaches worked well in some cases, Alaska, like any foreign place, had a few surprises in store for me, including some on the travel front.

For one, Internet booking is not always the best way to go in Alaska. The Alaska Railroad site claimed they only had first class seats available for the dates we wanted. I called to confirm and was shocked to find that Alaska is still a location where a human on the phone can do much better (at least with securing coach rates -- the tickets were in the wrong names, but we figured it out at the terminal).

The one organized tour we did (Glaciers are cool, hee hee!), we booked on-line. I never received a confirmation so I called the night prior. Turns out, they had us down for September, a different tour, a different price, without the meal, and with no train transport included. The reservation could not have been more incorrect, but the pleasant surprise was that at 7 PM the night before, I got a human on the phone who happily fixed it for us (and didn't seem shocked that the Internet booking engine had failed in such a spectacular manner).

The last morning, I thought Alaska might be the most civilized place in the world when I called to ask for a late check-out from our final hotel room and got 3 PM. Ordinarily, I'm thankful to get a minute beyond 1 PM.

Basically, for the majority of my Alaskan travel experiences, I found folks to be extremely capable, flexible, and unflappable. After seeing how things work, I have to attribute some portion of this to the do-it-yourself mentality and unpredictability of power, water, wildlife and just life in general on the frontier.

Execute at the highest possible level when things are working, and when they aren't... do your best to find a way to fix it (ideally in a way that doesn't inconvenience others), and if you can't do that, apologize, explain, and then wait it out 'til it is fixed with a good attitude (if all else fails tell frontier stories about how difficult life can be and how this particular failure isn't actually so bad).

Even our Alaska Airlines pilot seemed to embrace this philosophy--on our flight up it was a gorgeous clear day -- so he slowed the plane, angled to allow us to view the glaciers and Denali park and narrated a historical tour of Mt. Foraker and Mt. McKinley for us as we flew by before speeding back up to get us to our destination on time.

The only exception to this general theme occurred on our last day. We planned to enjoy a leisurely morning before the 3 PM checkout, then early luggage check, subsequent viewing of some Anchorage sights and a long evening at the airport before our 1:45 AM flight.

But, when we tried to check in, we found there is a very strict window to check our bags, and anything before 4 hours prior to take-off does not cut it. This 3h20 minute window of availability is a strict absolute for Alaska Airlines. In fairness, this may have been a rule in the U.S. for quite some time now, and it may be a lesson I needed to learn. I'm not sure I've ever tried to check luggage at a U.S. airport for a domestic flight more than 3 hours prior to my flight.

But, in Alaska, the rules are often different. For example, there are no building codes in Fairbanks. People build and live in whatever they decide suits their needs. I used two outhouses and was fed a King Crab leg dinner from the kitchen of a log cabin built to resemble the inside of a ship (that had no running water).

We were in the state for less than 2 weeks and we were on one train that lost electricity, resulting in a trip that was 50% longer than it should have been due to running solely off the generator. At one point, we saw all traffic on Alaska highway 3 stop for a bear. And, of course there's the combined rail/auto one-lane tunnel in Whittier, where you have a 25% chance of hitting it when your traffic type and direction have the green. These experiences, combined with stories from locals, make me think you'd need to build a bigger cushion of time in Alaska than in other locations if you wanted to be sure you wouldn't miss your flight.

So, even if the 3h20 window makes sense in other regions, I think it probably doesn't make too much sense in Alaska. Especially in the Winter!

Of course, I should probably quit my whining -- it's Summer. And we didn't have any of the Alaskan excuses putting us at the airport before our flight. We were just ready to head home and we'd exhausted the sights we could see during the traditional work-day open-hours (the bush flight museum closed at 5 PM before we were able to visit...Drat!).

So, we found ourselves stuck at Ted Stevens International at 8:45 PM, outside the secure area with all of our bags, with the choice of spending $6/bag to check them with baggage hold for the privilege of going through security once to enjoy the *amenities* and then again after we checked them. Or we could just wait in the baggage check area. I don't care that they had a big stuffed bear in the glass case while we sat there. This strict rule, to me, just didn't seem very Alaskan.

But other than that, we loved almost every minute and we can't wait to go back. The nature is too big and beautiful to accurately capture in words. The people are fascinatingly diverse -- the majority have chosen to move from somewhere else in the world (we met people from 4 continents and countless U.S. states, all living away from the people and family they left behind). This ecclectic mix of folks blends with those who grew up there to form a group of very different people sharing one thing that is bigger than anything else in each of their everyday lives -- the natural forces of Alaska. Many of the people I met had previously lived impressive urban-based lives, and then each for their own reason, they'd chosen to move to Alaska for a life filled with beauty and adventure but devoid of most of the creature comforts that I (and most of my contemporaries) take for granted.

Alaska is truly Amazing.

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A brush with fame

Through random life connections, I grew up sharing many of my childhood swim lessons, fishing trips, camping outings, and just general childhood shennanigans with Kate Levering.

She's ridiculously talented (how many people do you know who've been nominated for a Tony?) and back on the small screen again, this time in a lifetime series called Drop Dead Diva.

If you are looking for a new show to get hooked on, might I suggest that you give this one a try?

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A Sample of the North to the Future

(Yes, "North to the Future" is the Alaska State Motto. Weird.)

It's 1:25 AM and it's slightly grey out here, in Anchorage, E just turned on the lights by the bed. We're getting ready to wrap up our wonderful trip (Yay free wireless at our final hotel!) and I'm certain pictures will speak much more efficiently than I ever could. So here you go:

Mt. McKinley (aka Denali) from our plane:



The municipal airport in Fairbanks:



The cars we road upon while guests of the ridiculously civilized Alaska railroad:



One of many views from the Alaska railroad:



One of many views from various trails within Denali National Park:



The truly mammoth tomato operation at Ann's greenhouses:



The Alaska Pipeline:

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On Being You

For much of my life, I was weird. Really weird. Like, I didn't fit, and boy, did I know it.

People let me know it. And not just a little bit. Often, it was so clear to me that there was no point in trying to fit in. So I embraced who I was and defiantly approached the world with, "what the fuck?" Those times in my life were very liberating, and occasionally, I miss them.

Of course, for the most part, I went along to go along.

The thing is, recently, I've been spending quite a bit of time thinking about who I really want to be, and how to be that person.

Turns out, the person I truly want to be doesn't look that weird on any scale. She's not exceptional. But she also doesn't want to try to be normal, and she doesn't care if you think she's different. The person I want to be doesn't need to prove anything by trying to look smart, athletic, etc., and so she doesn't try to avoid looking normal, dumb, or uninteresting (this, in particular, if I am honest with myself is an area where I am too far from the person I want to be).

The person I want to be looks good to me. She is comfortable with the idea that she may be admirable or impressive to you ('cause she is to me) but she also realizes you may not value anything she values and you may find her completely and totally misguided, lost, or even unremarkably sub-par.

I've been spending quite a bit of time in the last year thinking about the person I want to be and how to get myself closer to being that person.

So I've been paying attention to the times when I find myself closest to the person I want to be and I've been taking notes. I'm shocked to find that for all of the careful thought I've put into this endeavor, the thing that's most important appears to be the element of chance.

If I am honest, sometimes, my flaws are my strengths and my strengths are my flaws -- and I need to learn the lessons these unexpected flip-flops teach me while still admitting that my strengths will probably always be my strengths.

Sometimes, my mistakes are the best things I do and the calculated well-thought-out actions are those I regret the most -- and I need to learn to let go where I hold tight and to hold a little tighter where I let go -- because that is how I bring more randomness into my life and if DNA can teach us anything it's that randomness breeds awesome.

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