Adventures

I occasionally walk into the neighboring classroom and announce to Bob, "You will not believe this adventure I just had." And he sort of sighs and asks, "What happened this time?" So then I spew my craziness all over the room with my ranting and tearing up and wild hand gestures.

Today, to save Bob from this little slice of crazy, I'm going to share my Alaska adventure with you. Besides, isn't that the point of this blog? To let everyone down there feel better about not living up here. So here goes:

Because I like shopping for pretty things, and because I feel bad for my girls when they buy clothes online that are the wrong size and too long, I have started hitting thrift stores in the summer and buying prom dresses. Then I ship them up here, and sell them to the girls, pretty much at cost.

I have no real reason to keep these dresses in my house all year. Instead, they got boxed up and put in an external storage shed when we moved into the house, and they've sat there quietly for the last six months. Yesterday I decided it was time to dig them out. Prom is in 6 weeks, and if girls are going to try on dresses and buy one instead of ordering, it needs to happen soon.

When I went outside to open the door, I found a snow drift blocking my way, which, while anticipated, was less than thrilling. As I dug out the snow, some of which had frozen into chunks of ice, I realized that the job wasn't going to be as hard as I had first assumed. The actual door to the shed is built off the ground a bit. Under the snow there are actually two steps going up to the opening. This allowed me to get the door open without having to dig down to the ground, which saved a TON of time.

I got the first tup out just fine. Then I took a break, went to a birthday party, watched an episode of Bones, and waited for Amy to come home. She told me that while she showered, I should go get the rest. I told her I'd rather sit on my aekucq and play video games. (You can translate that one all on your own.) She reminded me that I'd have to do it sooner or later, so I gave in.

Tubs two, three, and four had no problems at all. However, when I went back to close the door, my foot hit a soft spot. I'd broken through the top layer of ice, and hit the powder below. I sunk in to at least my knee, and I was only wearing a skirt, so it was bare skin on snow.

I gave a pretty primitive howl, and the began to assess the situation. I was able to scoot my other foot back under me, get it on some solid ground, and pull myself out of the hole. My boot even came up with me. Not like the time my foot fell in a hole and my boot stayed behind and I had to have a kid run to my house and get my shovel and did my boot out because it WOULD. NOT. BUDGE. Nope, not this time, the boot came out too.

Unfortunately, I hadn't actually laced my boot up as tight as I could have. Mostly because I hate tying them, and this way I can slip them on and off like big comfy slippers. That big comfy slipper theory also means that when I sink my foot into three feet of snow, some of that snow is going to get in the boot. Also, some of the chunks of ice that I fell through.

I got my foot and boot out, locked the shed door, grabbed the tubs, and made a break for the house. (Okay, the front door was only like 15 feet away, but I had snow in my boot!) As soon as I got into the arctic entry, that boot came off. Once I got into my house proper the other boot came off, and I went to sit in my chair with my feet tucked under me.

Once I'd warmed up, I thought I was able to put the whole thing behind me. And I was, until this morning. I got up, got dressed, and was putting my first boot on when I remembered that I'd left my other boot out in the kunituq (arctic entry). When I went to get it, I was rather bluntly reminded that the temperatures in the arctic entry reflect the external temperature of the world, and not the internal temperature of the house, and to make a really long story short: There was snow in my boot when I tried to put it on this morning.

I scraped out all I could, but it was still a pretty wet, cold walk to school. As soon as I got into the building, I pulled that boot off, and walked to my classroom with a boot in my hand, and one on my foot. It's nice to know that I switch into my sandals every day while I'm at school. If I had to wear that wet boot all day, I'd be rather sad and grumpy.

Today's dose of crazy is brought to you by the Cabela's, snow, and Mountain Dew.