Alaska - Surviving and Thriving

Get in shape for summer with some yoga. (And get a $50 head start on gear.)

April 20, 2013 by Donna Freedman

Although the light is returning to Anchorage, summer is still quite some time off. That’s just as well, since I am sadly out of shape after far too many hours in front of the computer.

Maybe you’re as creakified as I am after a long winter. One possible answer: yoga. Yep, yoga, which provides gentle stretches of deskbound muscles and also de-stresses minds tied in knots about the tasks performed at those desks.

I took several yoga classes in Seattle and I really, really need to get back to it. Podcasts to start, maybe, and a class at the YMCA or some other Anchorage location.

Whoever wins this week’s giveaway can get a $50 head start on yoga gear, thanks to the Sports Authority.

Breaking up is hard to do.

April 11, 2018April 15, 2013 by Donna Freedman

The light is coming back. Sunrise today was at 6:37 a.m. and the sun will set at 9:23 p.m. Both times are deceptive, however: It’s bright before the sun comes up and after it goes down.

On Friday DF and I went to the Alaska Dance Theatre recital. Even though it was past 9:30 as we walked back to the car, there was daylight to spare. The better to see icy spots in the street and snow piles in parking lots.

A disenchanted April.

April 10, 2013 by Donna Freedman

Early this month it seemed that breakup — local parlance for “spring” — was marching right along. The days were warm (high 30s-low 40s) and the nights were chilly (teens and 20s). Between actual melt and sublimation, we’d gotten glimpses of roads and even bits of sidewalk here and there.

Several dumps of snow later, I remembered just how big a tease breakup can be. Sort of like a stripper who never shows you all the good stuff at once, and who covers up with both fans and the stage curtain just when you’re getting all worked up.

Caution: Hideous neologisms ahead.

March 26, 2013 by Donna Freedman

If you’re looking for misuse of the English language but don’t want to hang around with politicians, doctors or civil servants, consider reading press releases. My inbox is full of the things and they frequently cause rude, rude noises to come out of my mouth.

“Guestspert”? Are you (bleeping) kidding me?

Whaaat? When did “e-tailers” become a word?

“Turntabalist”? Your parents must be so proud.

Sometimes, though, neologisms have their revenge: They become so ubiquitous that I find myself using them, either in print or aloud.

When I say things like “repurposed,” I want to smack myself. On purpose.

Or how about “I know, right?” and “going forward”? How did these get to be such earwigs?

Let’s talk about dying.

March 24, 2013March 24, 2013 by Donna Freedman

I picked DF up at the airport last night. He’d spent nearly a week in the Lower 48 dealing with his father’s end-of-life issues. Hospice is now involved and his dad is being made comfortable. He feels extreme weakness but no pain and is receiving oxygen as needed.

DF spent most waking hours slogging through reams of paperwork and bushels of belongings. Bank, insurance and health records were every which way. The power of attorney (written some years back) turned out to be problematic so DF had to get it rewritten, re-signed and re-notarized.

One agency wanted to know the names of all doctors his father had seen in the past two years, and guess what? Nobody knew. Heck, there wasn’t even a record of the defibrillator he’d had implanted.

Giveaway: The large flat-rate box of Alaska.

March 15, 2013March 15, 2013 by Donna Freedman

Previous giveaways of odd conference swag or anti-“Blue Monday” boxes have always been popular. Maybe that’s because a bunch of little oddments are fun to open. Or maybe it’s because the readers, like me, can’t resist a freebie.

This week’s prize is a collection of this-and-that from the Last Frontier, as much as I could fit in a large flat-rate Priority Mail box. I didn’t get these things at a conference but they should certainly fight the blues. After all, how many chances do you get to win a kuspuk pattern?

10 personal finance lessons from the Iditarod.

October 5, 2015March 14, 2013 by Donna Freedman

Every year in early March the city of Anchorage puts snow on downtown streets, so the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race can have its ceremonial start. For the next nine or 10 days Alaskans talk about wheel dogs, snub lines, mandatory 24s and towns with names like Ophir, Shageluk, Shaktoolik, Unalakleet, Koyuk, Kaltag and – my personal favorite – Safety.

“Safety.” Just what I’d be thinking about if I were standing on sled runners in the middle of the night, on zero sleep, with wind chills well below zero.

This year’s race was won by 53-year-old Mitch Seavey in 9 days, 7 hours, 39 minutes and 56 seconds. He’s the oldest person ever to win – and this year, he beat his own son, Dallas, who finished in fourth place.

Like they say: Youth and vigor can often be overcome by age and treachery.

An anomaly worthy of praise.

February 28, 2024March 10, 2013 by Donna Freedman

I’m sitting near a blazing fire watching Chamber of Commerce snow fall. The flakes are fat and fluffy and seem to dance on their way down, the way the bits of white inside a snow globe frolic back and forth before settling.

The house is perfumed by the corned beef simmering in a Dutch oven and by a batch of kale and sausage soup (heavy on the potatoes, moderate on the garlic and with a judicious amount of Frank’s Red Hot pepper sauce). If I concentrated, I could probably scent the last of the homemade yogurt that I drained through a cloth-lined colander a little while ago.

But the dominant fragrance is of freshly washed laundry hung on racks set up between me and the fireplace insert, which is cranking out so much heat that the clothes and towels may be dry before I finish writing this.

Domestic contentment – made even more delightful by the fact that it is shared domesticity. When DF got home from church (he’s the cantor for 8 a.m. Mass) he dove right into chores: two loads of laundry, putting the corned beef on to cook, cleaning the tub, general tidying. I can track his progress by the whistling or occasional scraps of song he emits while moving from job to job.

Where was I? Cutting up soup ingredients, placing some vegetable scraps into the freezer for making stock later on and relegating others to the compost, putting the yogurt into a container and storing the whey in a jar. Oh, and smiling. Smiling.

I love a man who whistles while he works. And I especially love a man who doesn’t regard the domestic arena as expressly female.

Order up at Cafe Awesome.

March 9, 2013March 9, 2013 by Donna Freedman

Before I moved back to Anchorage I often took my niece and her two boys out to eat. I still do, sometimes, but lately have been focused on setting aside dollars for a trip the four of us hope to take this summer.

One recent Sunday when DF had business out of town I invited Alison and the boys over. I knew I’d need to feed them but our kitchen is stocked for frugal grownups. What did we have that would appeal to a couple of hollow-legged boys?

Then I flashed back on a game my daughter used to play: “Dinner and Movie.” She’d make up a menu based on what was in the fridge and we’d play restaurant, then watch something I’d videotaped (remember videotapes?) or just watch TV.

Thus was born “Café Awesome.”