Out at the Eagle Valley Center Lodge

It sure was a long plane ride..... PART 2!!!!

So, yes we did make it back to Alaska finally on Friday, January 9th. There was like 6 feet of snow on the ground and icicles hanging from the roof to the ground. I would have taken pictures, but I was so frickin mad at the weather that I just holed up in my room for the weekend with nothing but a bunch of movies and blankets. Since I have been back, things have been crazy busy. We had a huge event for Martin Luther King Junior Day. We had a "community needs drive" in which we were able to obtain over 80 boxes of donations for needy people around the community, including clothes, food, blankets, baby stuff, and kitchenware. It was quite successful. I had to organize a celebration over at the University and the speaker I got to come was actually a pallbearer at Martin Luther King's funeral. He was so interesting. So, that took a lot of time (especially since I was gone for an extra week), but it ended up being pretty successful. I also organized an All Corps Day with Perseverence Theatre in which we shoveled their snow in exchange for theatre tickets. So, we got to go see the play "Wittenberg," which was pretty cool. However, the smoke in the special effects kind of got into my contacts, so I couldn't see for the last half hour. Last weekend Daniel and I went to this "beer tastint" at the Alaskan Brewery, which was pretty cool. I mean, it was free beer. Also, AnnMarie's last day was on Friday, so we had a SAGA celebration for that out at the lodge as well as a huge beerfest at our house, so this past weekend was one of many parties. I just switched offices yesterday and spent the whole day reorganizing everything, so now I am finally back into the swing of things. I organized an ice-skating outing for our AmeriCorps members tomorrow, so that should be fun. it has started snowing again though, so that makes me nervous. It isn't all that fun walking home in 4 feet of snow. I love and miss you all and thanks again for your help during my troubled travels.

It sure was a long plane ride..... PART 1

So, my holiday vacation this year trumped even the Mexico City incident..... It started off with a simple delay in Seatac.... which turned into a two hour wait on the plane which turned into a 6 hour wait at the airport which turned into Anut Shen and Uncle Rog picking me up at about 11pm. The weather was crazy, I don't remember that much snow in Seattle since the silver thaw in '92 when Grandma and Grandpa were staying with us while the parents were in Hawaii (why do they always seem to be in a sunny, warm place during those blizzards?) and we made french toast on the wood stove. I also wrote a nice book about dogs with Grandma that winter. Anywho, thank the stars for the Engbergs because they rescued me from that hell that they call Seatac and brought me home. It seems as though every time I stay with them, I have neither toothbrush nor underwear..... You think I would learn to always put those in my purse, but that would just be too easy, now wouldn't it? So, back to my story. The people at Seatac the night before had announced that everyone should just go home and call Alaska Airlines to reschedule via the phone or do it over the Internet, so that is what I did. However, they neglected to tell anyone that the phone lines would be down or that the only way to do it online was to buy another ticket for the following week at an exorbitant price. I must have called both the 1-800#s as well as the customer service # at Seatac at least 1,000 times. I even woke up at various points in the night and tried to call, but the I never once got through. So, the only thing I could do was go back to the damn airport. The lines wrapped in a snake-like queue all the way back to the security entrance. I got there at 11am and literally didn't get to speak with someone until 7pm. I was in line for 8 hours and I am not kidding. Luckily the lady behind me was super nice and gave me a few chips at one point. The only thing that kept my sanity intact was the fact that I had Twilight (book 4) which was a few thousand pages and just long enough to last 8 hours. I had my vampires, but that book was so damn heavy that I had arm cramps for days.... So then the blessed Engbergs retrieved me once again and we headed back to their house. We spent the next few days circle knitting and learning the Benny Lava dance, which I must say we got pretty good at. Things worked out nicely because I got to go to Grandma's house for Christmas. It was really nice to see all the Fords because who knows when I would have been able to otherwise. The one thing that was missing on Christmas was my immediate family. It's not that I wished that I was in Arizona, I just wished that they could have been at Grandma' s house with the rest of us. I only had one break down, but it was poorly timed. I accidentally burst into tears right when Eric stole my present in the white elephant gift exchange..... (sorry about that Eric, I still feel bad.) Luckily it only took about a day and a half to become funny. The only downfall to that Christmas celebration is that I was unable to get out to Aunt Pat's to see the Novak family. Unfortunately, I was snowed into Grandma's house with no chance of getting out of town safely. But, it has been quite obvious that the weather was not on my side this winter. I finally made it down to AZ on the 28th. My time there was a whirlwind as every single day was filled with excitement, so time really flew. I only got to see Cath for one day, which sucked. But then the Engbergs came down and we all had a great time. New Year's Eve was fun. I went to hang out with my old friends at the Tempe block party, and silly stringed many things. The next day I drove up to Sedona to hang with mom, dad, Engbergs, and company. We went on a really cool hike and in Uncle Rog's words, "How often do you get such a nice day?" (For those of you that are a little slow- every single day in AZ looks like that.... he will never hear the end of that one....) On the way back to AZ we got a flat tire and dad had to drive home slower than Cath would have. I got a little panicky my last day in AZ because time went by way too fast and I didn't even really feel like I got to be home. So, my mom and I had to watch a full season of Project Runway on DVD; it was the only remedy. So, Jan 4 I made my way back to the airport. I made it to Seatac, and then of course we were delayed. Not surprising, mind you, but annoying nonetheless. So, we went up north, hovered over Juneau at abut 2pm (an hour later than we were supposed to) and couldn't land so continued on to Sitka. We refueled there, and then tried to land in Juneau once more. They told us that if we couldn't land we would go either back to Sitka or on to Ketchikan. However, after we passed up Juneau, we were told that the crew had to return to Seattle, so I was to be reunited with my new favorite airport once again. However, of course the weather in Seattle was not "ideal for landing purposes" so we ended up going to Bellingham. Were we just going to fly out of there in the morning? No, that would be too easy, so they stuck us on a bus and drove us down to Seatac. Seriously. We ended up back in Seatac at about 2am and I had to stand in the 8 hour line again. Luckily this time the line didn't really take 8 hours, but it was somewhere up that neighborhood. And in all this time they had only given us 2 granola bars. In 24 hours that is all I had to eat. So, seeing as how once Alex proclaimed me as being the mintiest in the family, I considered eating my own arm. Luckily, I managed to hold off a little while longer. By this point I was going slightly crazy. I was wandering the airport at about 6am dragging my suitcases that weighed 50 pounds each (of course the wheels had broken by now- that shouldn't surprise you) until a super nice person asked me if I needed help and pointed me in the direction of the airporter. You see, I didn't think it would be fair to ask someone to come pick me up at 3am, especially on a Monday morning, so I waited until the airporter started to run again and headed off to Grandmas. Of course although they told me that they would take a credit card, the machine wasn't working. And even though I had no money in my bank account, I tried to get some out, but luckily the ATM was broken, and they wouldn't give me cash back, so the guy just said Merry Christmas and sent me on my way. So, at least I got a free airporter ride out of the deal. Then Uncle Joe picked me up and I arrived at Grandmas house at about 8 something, ate some pizza, and crashed on the couch. Since I hadn't seen Cath much during this holiday, we decided that I should make my way up to Port Townsend and hang out with her, especially since it was her brithday that week. So, thanks to Grams and Aunt Gin, I borrowed Grandma's car and made my way up to see Cath. We had a good time there- we watched Sex in the City, went to the local pub (very happening on a Monday night), hung out with small Elliot, ate some Thai food, and even had a little birthday celebration. It worked out nicely that I got to see her. Then, I made my way back to Grandmas house and later that night went to my favorite place in the world for the 983492347329874th time in three weeks. But of course there was flooding on the freeway and poor Uncle Joe took hours to get home. But, no my story doesn't end there. My new boyfriend was at the airport because coincidentally we were on the same flight back to Juneau. We made it to Ketchikan, and then they canceled our flight. They wouldn't let us stay in the airport, so we had to take a ferry into town and then a taxi to a hotel. (NO, the airlines did not pay for anything.) They told us that if we had no money we could find a church to sleep in. Seriously. And, mind you, there was an arctic blizzard blowing all the while and we had about 78 suitcases, half with broken wheels. Thank the stars for Daniel because if he wasn't there to carry the broken suitcases and make accommodation arrangements, I would have fallen into a ball right there in the snow and started to cry. I mean, a person can only take so much. So, we stayed in Ketchikan for a night and couldn't get a flight out until 8:45pm the next night. We explored the town a bit during the day, which was pretty darn cute. But, the weather really sucked, so we didn't make it very far. Of course our snow boots were at home. To be continued.....

I'm back............

Hello one and all!! I am so sorry- I have really been slacking on my blogging!! It is just that I have been pretty busy and I only get Internet access at the office and much of my work is done outside of the office. So, let's see, where did I leave off?? Well, Thanksgiving was nice- we had a Little Orphan Annie Thanksgiving and all of the AmeriCorps kids that had no place to go came over and we all ate waaaaay tooooo much food. It was quite delicious, although I was craving Grandma's yams as these ones had pineapple in them..... weird.... Earlier that week, I orgnaized a service day where all the AmeriCorps kids went to the Glory Hole- a homeless shelter- to help pack up dinners for needy families around the community (don't ask me about the name, I have no answers). Anywho, let's see, what else. I went on another retreat with NCADD- National Council for Alcohol and Drug Dependency. This one was a "Transitions" retreat for Juniors in high school. It was pretty fun- we made duct tape wallets. Uncle Matt- this is something you would have really enjoyed and I fully intend on bringing red duct tape to Ecuador next September. Last week we went to the old folks home and made ornaments and decorated cookies. It was lots of fun, and we even got to listen to Johnny Mathis Christmas music!! I have been working on all sorts of things at work- we are planning a huge event for MLK Day. We will collect stuff around the community for needy families and then hold a huge celebration in January. I have also been helping a lot with recruiting new members- everyone is scrounging to get everything done before XMas break, so I am kind of all over the place. Oh well, that is exactly where I like to be. Life has also been quite hectic the past few weeks because the crews from the bush have been in town and so many of them have been staying at our house, so you can only imagine that I have upped my wine intake recently. We also have 2 more dogs living with us- a fat old beagle named Lucy that I prefer to call Sausage and a scroungy dog that looks exactly like the dog that caught on fire in "There's Something About Mary." And of course there is Sparky- the worlds most neurotic pipsqueak of a dog. I have woken up every morning at 5am this month to someone screaming, "SPARKY- SHUT THE F*#% UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" One day I will look back on this and laugh. Another thing that one day I may look back on and laugh about is the fact that I got a prom dress to go to the Winter Ball on Saturday and spent 4 hours getting ready for it and then threw up in the car on the way there and had to go home. I am still pissed about it, but I learned never to use cheese logs when you run out of cheddar and want some nachos. BAD IDEA. Last Friday was the graduation for the crews, so that was fun. We had a brunch out at the lodge and then stopped by the glacier because the weather was so perfect we wanted to take some pictures. We did some sledding, but I bailed at the last second because I was headed straight for glaciel water, which is not something that I wanted to land in since it was only 10 degrees outside. After that we went indoor rock climbing, which I have never done before, and it was loads of fun! I felt like Spiderwoman!! Oh, I saw a porcupine in my yard yesterday- they get cuter every time. So, the weather has been nice recently- clear skies and the mountains all look absolutely gorgeous, but it is frickin cold outside!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am ready to head down to Phoenix on Saturday for some warmness!! (Relative warmness- last year I would have called 65 cold, but now it seems rather inticing.) And since our family is nosy and loves to gossip-the tall, dark, and handsome (and of course intelligent) guy in the picture is Daniel- don't you just love my new boyfriend? Oh, and P.S. I AM OFFICIALLY OBSESSED WITH TWILIGHT.

Things are looking up for the polar bears!!

As only Catho and old British men say, today is going swimmingly!! It is a beautiful day!! The sun is out and the snowy mountains are absolutley breathtaking!! I was kind of freaked out when I walked outside this morning, but hey I'm not complaining- bring on the sunshine baby!!!!!! Ok, so first of all, cheers (kapcow, salud, saude, nas dravi, ageshagedra, prost.....) to the polar bears!!!!! Although we all know that they have seen better times, at least they won't be ousted off of the endangered species list by some evil Tina Faye wannabe. So, yay for them!! What else is new!? Well, Halloween was tons of fun!! I was kind of a red lobster the whole time because apparently red hair spray doesn't really have any rules about staying only on your hair, but at least everyone knew that I was supposed to be Poison Ivy. Aside from the kid dressed up as Joker that tried to tell me he was actually dressed up as Paul Revere on acid, there were no scary-spooky incidents. We had a blast though- it was Docwaters last night open, so a party we did have!! I have spent much of this past week preparing for next Tuesday, as I will be putting on an Avalanche Safety Training Course for the AmeriCorps members out at the Eagle Valley Center lodge. It will be lots of fun I think, the avalanche guy from SEADOGS seems awesome and we are also going to make bread and soup, so we will have a fall harvest feast. It looks like we are going to have a rather large turnout, far more than we had for the salmon smoking extravaganza, so that is pretty cool. I am supposed to take my SAGA driving test today so that I will be allowed to drive a 15 passenger van. Let's hope that I fare better than La Phoeb hahahahaha :) (Sorry Phoeb, I really couldn't resist..) I think that I will be checking out the Alaska State Museum tomorrow, so I am looking forward to that. I also may go take a tour of the brewery this weekend, which of course sounds fun. Oh, AnnMarie and I have decided to have a Little Orphan Annie Thanksgiving at our house for all of the AmeriCorps kids that have no place to go. I think that it will be tons of fun as our landlord will be out of town so we will just have a big party all weekend long. And I will have all of the marshmallow yams to myself as Eric will be not be in the Juneau vicinity. I miss all of you guys very much, but I promise to walk to the end of the street on Thanksgiving until I get reception so that I can call you!! Love and peace!! :)

Loving Alaska as much as Cath Loves Quakers

So, I have officially decided that I love Alaska. Things just seem to be getting awesomer and awesomer! (Knock on wood please.) For example, last week I got to go on a retreat with NCADD, the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence. I went as a facilitator, aka camp counselor, and boy it really brought me back to the good ole' days on Whidbey Island. Except instead of making things out of macaroni and singing songs about bears, we held workshops on healthy relationships for at-risk youth. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun though, my group got the most points and earned a pizza party, so that was awesome!! There was only one event that nearly gave me a heart attack. I invited a lonesome kid to bunk next to me in the cabin, explaining to her that I was super cool and her exact reply was, "Why do adults always think they are so cool?" Whoa, I think I stopped breathing there for a second. Seriously? An adult? I am getting shivers just reliving that. Ok, moving on before I have another episode. On Friday, we all went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was so incredibly fun!! It started out as a discotec, which we all know are right up my alley, and people dressed up all crazy (there was even a Yetti) and threw rice and squirted beer out of squirt guns and whatnot. It snowed that night, which was beautiful, but ended up being an unfortunate walking situation, especially since Juneau is hilly, I was wearing ridiculous shoes, and I am a natural born clumsy. Anyways, this week we are holding AmeriCorps events to get everyone together for a little member development. We have been smoking salmon that were given to us by the fish hatchery. We started out yesterday (I was wearing my king salmon costume in honor of the event as well as Halloween week) and I have come to the conclusion that fileting salmon is actually a bit trickier than just saying "one fish two fish red fish blue fish." For some reason, I had the notion that I was supposed to cut off the fish's head (which is actually completely unecessary) and of course that almost made me pass out due to the breaking of bones that were involved in the process..... My first salmon ended up looking a tiny bit like a salmon hamburger. Let's just call it a Krabby Patty, which I am led to believe are absolutely scrumptious. I think that this salmon was a little far gone as she had already spawned before she met her demise and was basically a fish zombie. Anyways, after much slimy, stinky, and messy fish-crafting, we made a brine involving about 876 gallons of soy sauce...... I have never in my life seen so much soy sauce. I was at a loss for words. And it made me want sushi. And fried ice-cream. (They have really, really good fried ice-cream at the sushi restaurant in Tempe.) So anyways, today we proceeded to hang the filets/patties out to dry and now they are smoking away. I smell like a fishy campfire, but I think they will end up being rather tasty!! They should be done by tomorrow, so we will see how this debauchle concludes. On another note, everyone here in Juneau is so awesome and I am loving it!! Halloween will be so fun, I can hardly wait to wear my rain boots that I glittered glued with green puffy paint. I love glitter glue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Peace :)

Another Frigid Week

So, another week has gone by in the life of Margaret Alice Novakova, or as the southern hicks like to say- Margey Al (I cannot, for all the nerds in the world, bring myself to say Peggy Al). Wednesday was National Latino AIDS Awareness Day, so we spent Monday and Tuesday making a pinata and about 7,896 tissue paper flowers for our "awareness fiesta." We held it at a bar downtown and it was a fun time filled with margaritas and tequila poppers, but let's just say that Juneau is not up to par with Scottsdale when it comes to nightlife. Or when it comes to Latinos for that matter. I guess I will just have to get used to flannel, rubber boots, and a hoppin' crowd of ten fisherman for the next 11 months. I was, however, successful in collecting and hording all of the nerds (the candy kind) that burst out of our pinata!! (Well, I guess that you can seen from this picture that I didn't have much competition, but with my nerdly enthusiasm, I assure you that I would have been successful nonetheless....) Sour nerds are the one thing that Alaska still has that the rest of the world kind of gave up on. Sometimes it is beneficial to be behind the times as sour nerds are one of the greater things in life and it is quite a travesty that they don't still exist in the lower 48. Oh look at that, I am talking like and Alaskan now. Let's see, what else is new? Well, I painted my office green, and decorated it with "save the world" posters. I have also recently made a rather huge and important decision that I think you should all be privy to.... I am going to be Poison Ivy (one of Batman's arch nemesises) for Halloween so that I can spray paint my hair hot red, as that hair-spray paint went over so well last year at our Ecuadorian/gringo Halloween party, which by the way, I wish I was going to this year because that was one hell of a party in one hell of a town. Speaking of which, I got my Skype up and running, so if you want to give me a jingle, my name is: margomargoshesahellofawoman. Alex had no idea what kind of gift he was giving the world when he first created that song. Ok, well I suppose that I must now go back to the grind.....