Winter Sunshine -- and nearly all is forgiven!

A rant, of sorts, about the weather

The sun is shining! This may not be news-worthy where you live, but to me, this is BIG. You see, since mid-November I've not seen very much of the sun at my house or my workplace. This is a beautiful valley, but valleys have mountains, and they do have an annoying tendency to block out the sun.

I've often thought about getting a petition getting going where either the month of January or February is abolished -- I'm not asking too much, am I?

This weekend I taught an outdoor class at the Nature Center, and the sun ACTUALLY shone on us during the whole walk. Even though it was barely above zero Fahrenheit (-17 Celsius) when I went to work, the sun managed to warm the air up to the teens! One month ago there was NO sunshine in the low-lying areas, and daytime temperatures did not vary much from the night.

I saw a coyote crossing the road on my way in, a bald eagle was perched on a tall cottonwood when I took my group outside, and the snow just sparkled in the sun! It felt great!
Later I'm sitting on the couch in the living room, and sunshine is streaming in and illuminating all the dust bunnies. Dust - Schmust! Right now I'd rather have sun than a clean house!

This winter has been cold (duh, it's Alaska!) But really, here on the coast there are some years where we get rather mild temperatures, AND, our bane, warm winds and rain!
We did get some of those warm rains briefly in mid-January, right when we returned from out vacation to sunny California. We had left right after New Year's Day and it was something like minus 20 degrees F, but when we returned to Anchorage in the upper 40's with wind and rain. As you can imagine, all that rain over snow and the road were TERRIBLE. Like most Alaskans, we have 4-wheel drive and studded tires on our cars, but we still could not get up our driveway when we got home. I took a picture of youngest pulling a sled of groceries up the driveway a few days after we got back. Not to complain, but it was impossible to walk on that driveway without some sort of grippers or crampons!
But then, thankfully, cold temperatures returned, and we got some snow to cover the nasty ice, and now I can walk and drive up and down without risk of injury. Sooo, as much as I can complain about the lack of warmth in Alaska during the winter, when we get unseasonably warm weather in the middle of winter, then I complain about that even louder!

Here's a children's book by Elsa Beskow, an author I remember fondly from my childhood. I was so tickled when I found a couple of her books at the local Waldorf School.
This one is called "Ollie's Ski Trip": after Ollie received a pair of skiis for Christmas, he wants to go out and use them. He meet King Winter, who's responsible for nice cold snowy weather. But along comes Old Mrs. Thaw, who threatens to melt all that snow away. King Winter manages to chase away Mrs. Thaw for now, and Ollie gets in some more skiing. But eventually, when Spring comes, Mrs. Thaw is welcome to chase away Winter.

Wolf has felt a bit like Ollie under house arrest. When he injured his lung in December, he was told not to exercise for at least 6 weeks, which included no skiing in Tahoe! Poor kid. By the time the doctor cleared him for skiing, we had had that visit from Mrs. Thaw... It did eventually snow again, but not enough to build up much base until this weekend. So my Ollie will finally be able to strap on his Cross-country skiis and get out there -- and hopefully it will still be a while before Mrs. Thaw shows up again in our part of Alaska.

And I guess we don't need to abolish February --it's a short month after all!

25 Random Things about Me

I've been tagged on Facebook to write 25 things about myself (the idea is that once you read these, then you too need to write 25 random things about yourself).
This is actually a fun exercise -- you can be glib or dig deep and self-disclose (I feel the latter coming on -- be warned!)

1. I have this thing about not being able to waste water. Perhaps it's because since my childhood I've lived in situations where water was scarce: Chile, Philippines, the Western US, and now right here in Alaska... Anyway, it drives me crazy to see a faucet running!

2. Hunger, poverty and injustice are right alongside #1. And I so often feel powerless when faced with these -- like there is so little I can do as an individual. But that's no reason to let that paralyze me into inaction. Still, I feel guilty I don't do more...

3. Guilt & worrying aside, I actually am a pretty cheerful person. That is, if I had my morning coffee!

4. I can be very organized in some areas of my life, yet completely messy in others.

5. Timeliness is important to me. I think it is a sign of disrespect to be late. This one causes me problems, because it is also such a cultural thing: the German in me has a difficult time with Americans' more casual relationship with punctuality.

6. Expressing my creativity is important to me: being able to create, design & make things with my own hands. And so I knit, sew, write -- it's not necessary that these be pieces of art, but rather that they nourish my soul.

7. I rarely follow assembly instructions. I'll open the box and lay out all the parts and figure out the puzzle for myself. I guess I just like that challenge. I won't hesitate to consult the instruction booklet when I'm stuck, however.

8. My appearance is not all that important to me -- don't worry, I do shower and comb my hair, but I don't wear make-up, dye my graying hair, or wear trendy clothes. It just does not mean much to me, and I appreciate that my family is ok with that.

9. I can be very impatient in certain situations -- if I have to wait around somewhere, I NEED to have a book or some knitting to keep me sane. It is VERY difficult for me to just sit still with nothing to do. It does help to listen to music or National Public Radio, however.

10. Spectator sports baffle me -- I just don't "get" it (especially American Football). Even when my own children are on the sport field, I watch, but I can never "get" how upset or involved the other parents get in the game or race. I mean, it's only a game, after all -- and the outcome, winning or losing, seems irrelevant to me (I know this seems very un-American, and they could deport me for this: psssst!)

11. Politics, however, I do take seriously. As opposed to sports, politics do have the potential for truly affecting the world around me...

12. I don't watch TV. Again, that goes with not having the patience to sit through endless junk and ads. We're raising our children without TV, and they too seem to feel that they're better off without it.

13. I love a good movie or book, be it heavy or light, tragic or funny, it just has to be well-written.

14. I really miss old friends who live far away. All this moving business takes its toll, and it is difficult to keep friendships going over long distances. It want to stay in touch, of course, and I do appreciate the effort that goes into that. I am thankful to friends who have not given up on me for being such a "spotty" letter writer.

15. Although I am not much of a party-goer, I do enjoy socializing, preferably in a small intimate setting. I don't do well if there's loud music, partly because I just don't hear that well.

16. I do enjoy a glass of wine or beer, but I don't have much of a tolerance for alcohol (in myself or others). Not that I'm a teetotaler, but rather, I can't drink much before getting silly and tired, and I don't think it's fun being around loud noisy drunks. My husband once jokingly described me as a "cheap date" -- it does not take much champagne or tequila before I get tipsy!

17. I do have a problem with being too serious much of the time, and maybe I don't loosen up enough (see #16).

18. I can be awfully "brisk" or "short" on the telephone. I probably inherited that from my German father who seems to think that telephones are only for the conveyance of critical information. I never have gotten good at "smalltalk" -- when I call somebody up, I usually get right to business, without first chatting.

19. My English is pretty good, for the most part. There's a definite accent still, but I'm told that I'm perfectly understandable. But if I get flustered or tired, then my language skills diminish. And after a visit to my family in Germany, it takes me a while to get back in the groove... And I still count in German!

20. I'm still fairly new to yoga, but I love it! Regular exercise is important to keeping me healthy both physically and mentally, and I'd much rather go on a long hike or do yoga than participate in a competitive sport (see #10). Perhaps I'm not disciplined enough to push myself that hard -- I admire those that do, but it's just not my cup to tea.

21. I love ethnic food, and enjoy eating and cooking it. I'm a good cook, and will happily invent, substitute, or add to a recipe. The results are occasionally disastrous, although luckily not too often.

22. I'm fairly hard-working, too much so at times! I end up tackling too much and getting exhausted before finishing the many projects I've started. I wish I'd learn to scale back. But somehow it seems important to me to challenge myself -- even if it's unrealistic to be able to get it all done. I wonder what that says about me?

23. Children, to me, are the future. I think it's terribly important to leave them a good world, an intact planet. I love children,and I don't mean just my own children, but all the children of the world. I have a soft spot for children and childrens' causes, like other people have for lost puppies and kittens.

24. Having and raising my own children has by far been the best thing in my life -- my life is so much richer than it ever would have been without them.

25. I love my husband, my family and friends. It's humbling and exhilarating to be loved. I don't care if it sounds trite, but love is the greatest, and to me, any religion or philosophy that has love at it's core is worthy in my opinion.

Phew -- didn't think I could come up with 25!
By the way, I have to add that I am tolerant of people who are not exactly like me. I can be friends with someone who does wear make-up and watches football on TV. I'm just not good company on Superbowl Sunday if you don't at least let me knit during the game...

Betting on Break-up, Alaska-style

It's that time of year in Alaska that we dare to start thinking about SPRING -- or at least about BREAK-UP.
And that has nothing to do with relationsships, such as boyfriend/girlfriend or marriage -- it's the river ICE breaking up, dummy!

Nenana Ice Classic tickets have just gone on sale! The Nenana Ice Classic was started in 1917 by some bored Railroad employees, who just couldn't wait for the river to break up, and therefore winter to be over! The town of Nenana is located where the Nenana River flows into the Tanana River, which is in interior Alaska not far from Fairbanks. My first spring living inFairbanks I remember taking my little boy (then 3, now 14!) down to the Tanana River to look at BREAK-UP. It's impressive: HUGE chunks of ice floating down the river, where only yesterday there was still ice from shore to shore!

So for over 90 years, Alaskans have been betting: for $2.50 you can buy a ticket with your guess as to the exact time of break-up. When the black&white tripod finally falls, it triggers the official clock, and that clock time matches your bet, you can win the whole pot (or share it if others guessed the same time). Last year's winner made over $300, 000 as the single winner, but a few years ago, 48 winners shared the pot, only making a few thousand bucks each. Alas, the luck of the draw!
So, what's your guess for this year? Break-up dates have varied from late April to late May. I'm not the betting type (to me, a lottery is just a "tax on the mathematically challenged"), but if I were the betting type, I'd bet on the first week of May. But now it's only February!!! They haven't even put the tripod on the river yet --that's done the first week of March. For your information, the thickness of the ice is typically somewhere around 4 feet. So we've still got a long way to go, baby... But you can dream, and bet...

Here's an interesting article for anybody who wonders if/how Climate Change is affecting Alaska. Scientists from the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks looked at the climate record of Nenana Ice Classic Break-up dates since 1917, and there is a real warming trend in when interior Alaska rivers break up.

As the old saying goes, "Breaking up is hard to do", but here it is a welcome sign of spring!

German ANGST: or why I worry about worrying

I worry a lot. It comes with the territory of being German. I used to worry even more, believe it or not, I've actually mellowed out somewhat!

Do I worry too much? I recently asked my husband. Am I too serious? It's a little bit like Rosanna Arquette's character in a movie asking her date "Do I have too many scars?"

Maybe worrying comes with the territory. Since the Holocaust, Germany has lived with tremendous guilt. It seems nearly inappropriate for us to crack jokes -- instead, we take ourselves and everything else extremely seriously. We're ever-vigilant, lest such a lapse in judgment happen again!

I used to think that worrying would help prevent making mistakes. For example, a parent worrying about their children getting hurt will be watchful enough not to let anything bad happen. But then somewhere along the line, I learned gradually that I can't control everything. Bad things can happen, and a parent can drive oneself crazy worrying. Sooo, I like to think that I've become more relaxed, altough some might argue that "relaxed" and "German" do not belong in the same sentence together.

Here's an excerpt from the book The German Way : Aspects of Behavior, Attitudes, and Customs in the German-Speaking World, by Hyde Flippo:

The German word Angst, fear, came into the English language in the early 1940s. In its English, psychiatric sense, "angst" signifies a feeling of insecurity, anxiety, or apprehension. So it is only appropriate that the word comes to us from German, a language spoken by people who are constantly wracked by angst, and who almost seem to enjoy it.

Germans like to worry. They worry about politics. They worry about the environment. They worry about their national identity and their image abroad. They worry about the economy. They worry about worrying. It's not that Germans don't like to have a good time. It's just that they seem to be able to have a good time worrying. They enjoy discussing their worries. Criticism is a national pastime. Journalists do this on the editorial pages of newspapers and magazines. The average German does so in letters to the editor or over a beer at the local Gastwirtschaft. This Germanic trait is also carried on, to a lesser degree, by the Austrians and the German-speaking Swiss.

Opinion polls conducted in the German-speaking world tend to show a more pessimistic view of things than might generally be the case in many other countries. But, if challenged, the Germans, Austrians, and Swiss would tend to respond that they are merely being more realistic than the overly optimistic Pollyannas in other countries.

American expat Christina G. has put together an impressive list of books and posts dealing with Germany on her blog An American Expat in Deutschland. One of her recent post deals with German and American Historical guilt in Germany after WWII, a personal perspective. I strongly recommend that you check out her post and comments -- very thoughtful!

The Trashy Romance Novel Challenge

This weekend I lay in bed with the flu, complete with drippy nose, sinus headache and a fever. Life went on around me, but I was not really part of it. There was plenty of Kleenex and tea by my bedside, but best of all, I had a novel to keep me company.

When we were on vacation in Lake Tahoe, my eldest daughter, my girlfriend and I were rummaging thru a bookshelf offering free books: they were all pulp fiction and trashy romance novels, and we challenged ourselves to find one to read. I had a tough time with that assignment, as I admit I'm usually a serious (cerebral), o.k. nerdy person, who just does not normally read these books.
But the challenge was made, and by gosh, I had to find a book! Besides, there was the LONG plane ride back to Alaska. So I did pick a murder mystery, and it sure made the flight go by faster than my knitting project alone could have.

Shortly after that, I picked up a novel at a used bookstore whose title and cover art intrigued me:




And it was a perfect book for when I was so miserable last weekend -- it was great to escape into my novel when I could not sleep but did not just want to lay there. It's about these 3 women who meet every week to knit, and their relationships with the men in their lives...

So, knitters & readers (esp. you other two of the 3 women searching the bookshelf in Tahoe): whichever one of you emails or comments on this post first, I will send you the book in the mail!

Roses, anyone?

In these hard economic times, people are always looking for ways to save money. Here's a helpful hint for a good deal (if you're in the market...)

We do some of our shopping at a big warehouse store (Costco), where you'll find multi-packs of many household items: double, triple, even sixtuple the normal amounts of ketch-up, coffee-filters, tampons, or whatever else you might be looking for -- often you get twice of what you need for half the price!

Today the Prof, my husband, saw an announcement that you can pre-order Roses for Valentine's Day. SPECIAL: 35 roses for $65
Who needs 35 roses? A cheating husband, of course! What a deal, we both chuckled and simultanously said that: "Perfect for the guy who has a wife AND a mistress or two!" Only at Costco...

How did a Kraut end up in the Taiga?

Why "Borealkraut"? And exactly how did the Kraut end up in the Taiga (Northern or Boreal Forest)? Here is my story, told amidst the landscapes that shaped me:

I was born in Germany, to German parents. My dad finished his PhD when I was a year old, and started to look for a job. Long story, but he ended up with a teaching job in Chile. By the time I was three, my mom, baby brother and I boarded a big Oceanliner and sailed across the Atlantic, joining my father and settling in South America.



We absolutely loved Chile -- it was a great place to grow up! The climate is very mediterranean, similar to California: coast, mountains, semi-arid deserts. My little sister was born in Chile. We spend tons of time in the outdoors, and I remember the people and surroundings as a wonderful and friendly world. Little did I understand about the political maelstrom that was brewing there in the 1960's, as I was just a kid! I remember vaguely that my dad's university was occupied by radical students and he didn't teach or work for months -- all I know is we just got to play more with him! In 1970, Salvador Allende was elected (to be overthrown after 3 years by Augusto Pinochet) -- well, my family still had German citizenship and enough ties to Germany to make a beeline back. Our departure felt very sudden: one day I came home from school and somebody had just bought our couch and was carting it out the door. It was a difficult goodbye to a beloved landscape that felt like home.


My father found a job in Saarbruecken, and we started over -- a little bit like refugees: I literally slept on the floor until we gradually furnished a new house. I was 10 years old, and it was a tough adjustment for me. Although I spoke German fluently, I did not fit in well, and perceived Germans as harsh and unfriendly. It didn't help that I did not know how to use the formal "Sie", and said "Du" to my first German teacher! Plus I wrote left-handed, and it was way too late to force me to switch to using the right hand, marring this teacher's record of not having a single "leftie" in her career until I showed up! Not a good start! This teacher did not think I would ever amount to anything, but when I finished 4th grade, my parents enrolled me in the Ludwigsgymnasium (a college preparatory school) over my teacher's strong objections.

Gymnasium was definitely better, and I did well in school. But 5 years after our family's return to Germany, my father was looking for teaching jobs abroad again (we wanted to go "home" to Chile), but we ended up in the Philippines instead.


Vietnam was falling in 1975, and our Lufthansa flight was making a big detour around Indochina. Our family arrived in the Philippines to a completely new life and culture. First I had to cram and learn English. Tagalog, the official Filipino language, was not used for school instruction other than the one subject. So even though at first I could not tell any of the languages apart around me (the people of our region spoke Ilocano, not Tagalog) -- but after a while I caught on. We were first enrolled in a local Filipino school, but after we kids came home with heads full of lice, my parents decided to consider the American-International School where most of the foreigners sent their kids (at first they'd been warned against it because of, you know, those Americans and DRUGS!) But actually, I managed to graduate from High School without ever smoking (or even smelling) a marihuana joint -- the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos were under a strict Martial Law! I witnessed some schoolmates getting caught with marihuana, carted off to jail and thrown out of the country -- that'll teach you never to touch the stuff!

So I managed to graduate with Honors etc., applied to US Colleges and managed to get a scholarship to Duke University in Durham, NC. That was my ticket to avoiding having to go back to German Gymnasium with its competitive Abitur system, so as a result I never returned to Germany!


I became a Southern Gal instead: I spent the next 5 years at Duke, earning my BS and Masters in Forestry. But it was still a ways before I found my way to Taiga...

My first job fresh out of Forestry School was based in Appomattox, Virginia (where the "War of Northern Agression" ended, as the locals are fond of pointing out). This was during the 80's with a bit of a recession going on, and I only had a temporary job and work visa. What to do with myself? I did not want to return to Germany, and had an interest in working in a Third World Country in a natural resources project, but without work experience, I could not find anything. Peace Corps would have been perfect for me, but alas, I wasn't an American citizen!


Around that time I somehow managed to hook back up with my old boyfriend, David, from Duke, who was headed to graduate school in New Mexico, and I thought that maybe I should try going back to school. So, I ended up at UNM in Albuquerque, but that lasted only for a year. The PhD advisor for both David and I had left, and we both decided to leave UNM. I realized that I did not really belong in a PhD program then and wanted to work, while David was accepted at a PhD program at our Alma Mater, Duke University. I thought it was all working out beautfully: we got married in Albuquerque by a Justice of the Peace -- for love I thought, but an added factor was that my student visa would run out... David told me years later that he had not felt ready to become a husband and later a father, but felt "rushed" into it, afraid that I would leave the US if we hadn't married...

So back across the US in a U-haul to settle in North Carolina, but first we flew to Germany for the wedding ceremony at my parents' home in Saarbruecken. That was a bit of a disaster too. Not immediately obvious, but my husband experienced enough culture shock (he'd never been outside the US) that he never really warmed up to my family or my German side -- he got to where he hated my accent, and thought I should work harder at getting rid of it.

Back at Duke University, meanwhile, life was good. I worked as a Research Associate for the same professor who was David's PhD advisor. We both got to fly to Interior Alaska for a research project in the summer of 1986. For his PhD thesis, David chose Alaska, and he returned for 2 more summers. But I was back at Duke with a brandnew baby. I was not to return to Alaska for another decade!

David's advisor, who was also my boss, accepted a job at Colorado State University, so we followed him across the country to the Rocky Mountains. The next few years were difficult ones: David left me; I was a single mom. I eventually decided to go back to school for my PhD, met my husband Peter, who was finishing his PhD in Atmospheric Science. We had a baby boy (Wolf), never did finish my PhD, and in 1996 ended up in Fairbanks, Alaska. Amazingly enough my ex, David, got a job in Fairbanks in the same year, and Eldest daughter was able to continue to grow up with both parents living in the same town.

Our youngest (Liesl) was born in Fairbanks, and then Peter accepted a job at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. We moved to Eagle River, a bedroom community North of Anchorage, where I found a wonderful job at a Nature Center. This is our 10th year of living here, and Alaska truly feels like home.

I've lived in the US for 30 years now, and it is my home. My family used to wonder why I never returned to Germany -- and I have to point out to them that I really have not spent much of my life in Germany (really only 5 years outside of infancy). As much as I was shaped by Germany culturally, I was also very much shaped by the people and landscapes of the other countries I have lived in.