Don't Fly At Midnight...

... 'cause that's when the weirdos like to take their trips!

I took a midnight flight to Seattle and from there to Sacramento. The midnight flights were cheaper, so I thought hey, it's cheaper and maybe it'll be nice and quiet and not too packed.

Huh.

It was packed to the gills. On my left side sat a decent enough young gentleman, a little on the chatty side.

On my right flopped a scruffy-looking man in his forties. The first thing I noticed was that I couldn't breathe. A cloud of alcohol hit my face so hard I swore I could get drunk off it myself. The nice guy on my left said, "No, oh, no."

The drunk guy kept alternating between staring at me and reaching across me to poke the other guy and bother him with phrases that made me think they were having trouble before they even got on this flight. Inwardly, I groaned. Three hours of choking alcohol stench and two guys who won't let me sleep. I knew before the flight was through I'd be standing up and chewing this drunk guy out for something. He'd probably have to be stuffed in the airline restroom for lack of space. Or maybe they could've chucked him in cargo or something.

Anyway, at one point the drunk guy starts bothering me. "So what do you do?"

With deadpan expression, I replied, "Martial arts."

Didn't phase him. "Oh yeah? For how long?"

"Mmm, about 12 years."

"Oh." Long pause. "Is that all?"

"Yup."

"Ever break any boards with your head?"

"No, but my husband has."

"Ever break any boards at all?"

"Oh, yeah, several with my fists."

Apparently, all my hints of "I can tear you to tiny pieces if you try anything" are slipping right through one ear and out the other. This man was lost to cognitive abilities of any kind.

And then my angel appeared: One of the older flight attendants swooped down like the wrath of the great Warrior Goddess and demanded to see the drunk guy's tickets. She asked if he had any stuff in the overhead racks. When he said no, she said, "Well, grab all your stuff. You're getting off this plane right now." She hustled him out of there without a single peep of argument from him.

The moment he was gone, the other guy and I looked at each other and breathed twin sighs of relief. He then told me of the trouble he'd been having with this guy in the airport. He didn't know him, but the drunk guy took exception to him for some reason and had been trying to cajole him into a fight. He had warned the flight attendants as soon as he got on the plane. It was just plain bad luck that the guy ended up sitting in the same row.

So not only did that creepy drunk get kicked off, but I got to move over to the aisle seat and we both got as much room to stretch out as we could want.

Besides that uncomfortable experience, I learned even midnight flights have their share of babies and noisy talkers. There is no advantage to taking a midnight flight except for the price. Those seats aren't good for sleeping in, either. I kept cutting off the circulation to my hands.

Ah, well. Live and learn. Tonight we karaoke in California! I can't wait!

Happy Birthday, Mumsy!

I'm an idiot. I didn't call my mom on her birthday. I am seven kinds of idiot. More than that. I'm an amoeba on fleas on rats. (Name that musical!)

A sign you've been working too much: When you can't even find the time to call your mother on her birthday. Maybe it's time to reevaluate my life. Of course, being an hour behind doesn't help, either.

Well, I have several birthdays that I'll be making up for when I'm back in California next week, so it's not like it's out of my way. I hope Dad took her out for Chinese food or something. I sure do miss Chinese food. There isn't any real good Chinese food here in the Mat-Su Valley. You have to go to Anchorage for that, and I'm not driving an hour just to go out for Chinese.

Maybe I could smuggle some in checked baggage on my way back to Alaska for Logan to have. I'm sure Dad would approve, especially if I had it under my pillow.

No, I'm not explaining that one. There is no explanation.

The Downside to Taking Your Dog to Work...

...is that he gets bored at home.

I took today off. Logan took the car to work, so it was just me and Bruno all day.

I was trying to accomplish all the stuff that goes undone during the week. I spent most of the day chasing him out of the trash, prying his jaws apart to remove various soggy rubbish, and cleaning up his accidents on the floor. He's housebroken when he's not at home apparently.

At work, even though he's in a kennel, he gets visited by all kinds of people and gets to walk through the store greeting customers on his leash. People love him because he's so cute.

But there are things he does that aren't so cute anymore. Like chewing on everything (which is actually biting when he does it on humans) and jumping on people.

It got WARM today! The parking lots are back to their normal duties instead of moonlighting as ice skating rinks.

(Yes, this is related to the topic above and not a complete Monty Python change of subject.)

Now when he goes outside to potty, Bruno gets muddy paws. Hence the reason why jumping is not cute anymore.

He's getting bigger and still loves to get in the face of munchkins. But he can knock them clean off their feet with his breath alone.

I wanted to take him with me on my trip to California, but it costs $200. And Logan won't have time to watch him here. So we're considering a doggy school.

His sitting in his kennel right now and I feel like such a horrible, unworthy parent.

Of course, his kennel contains a big, fluffy pillow, his favorite towel, and several chew toys. I'm such a sucker.

The one that got away...

Well, maybe, maybe not. I thought we'd found the ONE. The home we wanted to buy and live in and everything. Nice new construction on a bit more than half an acre, but surrounded with trees so that you can hardly see any neighbors, out in the "sticks" but still close to work (of course, most areas out here are the sticks.)

But there were issues between our real estate agent and the builder. To make a long story short (no, it's not too late!) we've been hearing a lot of stuff that we want to learn more about that could help us buy a home. Stuff like grants for first time home buyers, for buying a home in Alaska, and classes to help first time home buyers knock some numbers off the price of a home. Turns out our coworker's mom is a real estate agent, but one who actually has a vested interest in finding her son a good place to live for as little money as possible. She turned us on to a lot of this stuff while our agent and the builder were "exchanging pleasantries".

Yeah, maybe we'll lose out on this home. But he's building others. And maybe we'll find something else along the way. But if we can work all this stuff we've been hearing about, that could add up to a sweet deal. Worth waiting for, doncha think?

But I am disappointed. Very disappointed. I really liked that house and how it was situated on the property. And the neighborhood. And Logan did, too.

Sigh.

The snow is mostly gone, but the wind is back in full force. We had about a week of gorgeous weather were you could actually feel the warmth of the sun! Most of the time the wind just freezes your flesh until you feel encased in a glacier, effectively blocking the sun's rays.

Logan is very busy with work and very stressed out. But at least he got his raise and his promotion to Hunting Manager here in Wasilla. It's official; we're not going to Victorville.

I've been working, too. But I don't have to put in as much time as Logan has had to. I'm trying to be understanding, but I'm bored. And a little depressed, too.

I'll be back in California on March 19th (bright and early in the morning because I'm taking a midnight flight. It's cheaper.) I'll be in town for about a week, returning on the 26th. My best friend's wedding is smack in the middle of it.

Can you feel it Myndi? Those wedding bells vibrating the air near your ears... Wah ha ha... Mine is an evil laugh!

Searching for signs...

It's interesting what can happen to a person when they're searching for a home. Sure, you do all the usual stuff, like picking the things that are important for you in a house. Acreage, garage, three bedrooms or two, a bath and a half, a fenced yard, whatever.

I'm searching for signs.

We've looked at a bunch of houses and I've liked a few. But none that have made me jump up and down and yell "This is it!"

Yeah, Myn, just like when I was searching for the perfect tattoo. You helped me with that one. Wanna come out here and help me with this one?

One thing I have been paying avid attention to: the street signs that the house is on.

For some reason this holds great significance to me. I can't figure out why. The name of the street is like a symbol, something familiar or something pointing the way to the perfect house.

I almost thought I had one. It was on Little John Dr.

My bestest buddy and I used to dress up as Robin Hood and Little John and go to Fairytale Town. Guess which one I was.

The house was beautiful. But it was in a really crappy neighborhood. Someone had bought the house just to fix it up and they did a great job. But now it is really the nicest house in that neighborhood and Logan is convinced if we buy it, we'll get robbed.

At any rate, why would the name of the street be so important to me? Am I really looking for something that will tell me which house to buy rather than making the decision myself? Yeah, that sounds like me.

We saw another house today, but the street sign didn't mean anything to me (West Fork or something like that.) It was a cute two story log house with three bedrooms downstairs and a kitchen and living room upstairs. It had a huge garage with a little apartment over it. Sitting on about an acre with one neighbor really close next door and another more hidden behind trees on the other side.

What cracked me up was that the last owners must not have been able to decide what kind of wallpaper they liked best. So they used all of them. Each room had two kinds of wallpaper. And none of them matched. Stripes, hearts, flowers, upstairs was mostly green PLAID. Ew. Still a cute place, though. Logan didn't seem to care for it all that much.

One of the reasons I liked it was because the problems I could see with it all looked like problems I could handle. And the house wasn't filled with someone else's stuff so I could see every nook and cranny.

Ah, well.

We'll look at some more in a slightly higher price range soon. I'll just have to keep praying that I have the same moment like when Myndi pointed out my new tattoo when I turned 30. "How about that dragon, Heather? Blowing a smoke pentacle?"

And me jumping up and down yelling, "That's it!"

Happy Birthday tomorrow, Daddy!

Many happy returns of the day tomorrow, Daddy! I love you and I miss you!

And now for this quick commercial break:

We're not moving to California after all!

Very long story. I waited to post about it until I had told a few important individuals. I thought perhaps they'd rather hear it from me first than read about it on my blog. What really cracked me up was that most of the people I told responded with, "Aw, rats. Now we don't have someone to visit in Alaska!"

I'm glad I make a good vacation spot for the family.

At any rate, Logan and I have decided that we don't really want to leave. We haven't even been here a year. We've seen nothing but wintertime. (And I love the snow here!) I want to see summer. I want to see warmth. I want to witness what everyone who lives here raves about.

They've got someone else in mind for the SoCal store, anyway. Corporate still hasn't made an offer to Logan. I'm now starting to wonder if they're even going to bother.

The Hunting Manager here managed to get himself fired and Logan is acting Hunting Manager. So he'll still be getting a promotion and a raise. And we'll stay in Alaska. I think it's working out well.

Tomorrow we're going house hunting. I can't wait. We're going to buy a house!!!!! A house with a backyard that I can toss the dog into when he needs to go potty, instead of dragging me around on the end of his leash. He's getting bigger and I can feel it!

I posted a chapter of my first novel on Critique Circle. If you like to write and want someone other than friends and family to read chapters of your work, this is a fantastic website to go to: http://critiquecircle.com/default.asp

Of course, you have to be willing to do critiques of others before you can have one done for yourself. I find writing critiques helps me view my own work with a fresher eye.

Besides, there's nothing like posting your work in public to make you notice all your mistakes. Like the fact that I seem obsessed with what the characters do with their hands in the first chapter. Oh, well.

Hopefully I'll develop a thicker skin and a more critical eye for my own work. I truly intend to become a published novelist at some point in my life. I'd love for some of my blog readers to check it out. It should come up in the critique queue by February 20th. It'll be under the Newbies section since this is my first one. Time to get my feet wet in the public pool.

I think that sums everything that's been going on lately. I feel pretty scatterbrained right now. Hope I'm making sense. But then, have I ever really made sense?!

The Winds of Change...

... and all that corny cliche jazz.

The winds here are royally fierce! When they're calm, you can almost feel warm when standing in the sun, but they've been howling for several days now and you have to bundle up to make sure not a breeze gets through your clothes. Instant body rocking shivers. And I don't mean body rocking in a good way.

Logan is in Montana now getting trained up for his new position. I think they're also checking him out to make sure they're not putting a pyscho in charge of a multimillion dollar store. No official offer yet, but we did hear one thing for certain: I will not be office manager for the new store at all.

This sucks on so many levels. For one thing, I can understand the potential for HR issues. But if they're going to make a rule, they need to make it a rule for all. This "rule" is being broken all over the place throughout the company, mostly on the corporate level. But hey, who am I to judge, right?

At least they admitted that they would not be able to find someone better than me.

That pretty much solidified what we'll take as far as salary for Logan. I'll be without a job going to a new area that's more expensive than here in Alaska.

Once again my talents are being thrown in my face as worthless. It's starting to bring me down. First, I'm told my masters degree and 2nd degree black belt mean nothing since I'm not a "certified" instructor. Now I'm being told it doesn't matter that I'm a good office manager and that my presence at store set would make a lot of things go a lot smoother because I've done it before and have some idea of what needs to be done.

And my puppy is driving me insane because he has very good days and very bad days. Yesterday he woke me up three times during the night, pooped on the floor in the apartment, pooped in the office at work, and generally made a pest of himself. He has recurring diarrhea, as in his poop is fine one day and really bad the next and there doesn't seem to be any reason for it.

Today he's ripping open trash bags, chewing on everything in sight, and harrassing the cats. I can't concnetrate on anything because when he's not in sight, he's doing something he's not supposed to.

But I still love him, of course. Anyone who looks at that adorable face couldn't help themselves.

He's getting big now, too. He's stretching out, legs getting longer, body getting longer. More crazy dog energy. We need to get a house in California, I think. A place with a yard for him to run around in without a leash. And maybe another canine friend.

I'm taking today off, but it's wierd having a day off without Logan. I'm just hanging around the apartment, chasing the puppy out of the garbage. I'm really frustrated, so I guess I'm venting. right now.

Thank you to those who suggested I continue on with the blog even after moving back to California. I may close this blog and start a new one. The whole point to this blog was living in Alaska.

Logan asked me if I would regret leaving Alaska. I told him we would have regretted never coming here, but I don't think we'll regret leaving. It's opened up the world for us in a way no other state would have. I'm now a seasoned flyer, which I never would have been without living here. Who knows? So much has happened to us in the last couple of years, what could a decade bring? Or even half a decade?

Ah, well. There went my attention span. Time to go walk the puppy. And take the trash out while it's still in the bag.