12th
January
2008
So…How *is* Alaska?
posted in Alaska, Arizona |Some commenters have noted that I seem to be "settling in" and feeling better. I think they’re right. The question, of course, is "is this a long-term thing?" See, the days are starting to get longer, and already we’re gaining almost 4 minutes of daylight per day. Naturally, with more daylight, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (har!), and rather than diving into depression, I am rising, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of winter.
Very poetic.
Time for a round-up of differences between Small Suburb, Alaska, and Hippy Dippy Enclave in the Woods, Arizona:
- Fruits and vegetables go south very quickly here, much more quickly than in Arizona. I don’t know if this is a function of how long it takes to get fruits and vegetables here in the first place, or a function of greater humidity. Either way, it’s disconcerting to have parsley and cilantro start rotting on the vine within a day of purchase, or apricots and pears turning mushy in two days. The only fruit we ever had a problem with in Arizona was strawberries.
- Speaking of fruits and vegetables, there is a sad lack of diversity in same here. It’s not like we were surrounded with yuppie-like abundance of diversity in veggies in Small Mountain University Town, but there was certainly a better assortment to choose from. Here we have basics, and more basics, and still more basics. BOR-ing.
- My nighttime hot flashes have turned to night sweats. This is definitely a function of higher humidity; in AZ, the sweat from the hot flashes would evaporate immediately, while here the sweat sits and pools and drips and is generally just gross. TMI, I know, but there it is–something I would never have expected.
- Snow is different here. We have yet to have a snow with the great big goobery flakes splatting against your windshield like we would have in mountainous Arizona. Here, the snow comes in small flakes. It also comes in small doses, unlike back in AZ. Small Mountain University Town would have three or four Big Snows per year–typically 18 inches to 30 inches within the span of two or three days. Here, we have lots of small snows that peak out around 4 inches. The end result: about the same amount of snow, total.
- One becomes accustomed to cold rather quickly. Nowadays, when it’s above zero, it feels fairly warm. Not short-sleeve warm, mind you, but "why bother zipping up your coat?" warm.
- I didn’t realize just how drafty our old house was. How cold. Our new house, though pretty much your basic box (no character, really), is nice and toasty warm. No drafts. None. Crawl spaces under houses apparently are heat sinks; it’s nice to have warm floors!
- Wood laminate floors need to be cleaned. A lot. Dust bunnies don’t hide out, discreetly staying in corners, stuck there for eternity. No, they go rampaging about whenever someone walks by; they leap out to grab you, shake you by your leg, and shout out, "Yoohoo! Here I am!" And then, when you reach down to grab it, the breeze caused by you reaching down has the dust bunnies scooting out of your reach, almost as if they’re sentient and daring you to grab them.
- Stairs = awesome calf muscles. Even if no other part of my body is getting exercise, I have awesome calf muscles, because we’re up and down the stairs many times each day.
- We have to drive to find trails or places to cross-country ski; back in HDEW the forest was two blocks away, and we could just step off our front porch into our skis and ski over to the open woods.
- The woods are much thicker here. I never realized just how open the piney woods were, though my life back in the midwest should have made it very obvious. When you find national forest land, you can’t just go plunging straight into the trees and head out into unknown territory; you need an honest-to-god trail, because otherwise you’ll be bushwhacking and wear yourself out in no time at all.
- I didn’t realize just how convenient having a fenced yard was. We need to fence part of our yard here, because otherwise our dawg, who is…um…not well-behaved, will go gallivanting off to pester other people. So we have to walk him three times per day. In addition, our yard is the crossroads for a wide variety of neighborhood dawgs. Humph.
- Cloudy days. We have lots of cloudy days here. November and December are apparently not only the darkest days in terms of amount of sunlight, but also in terms of days of sunshine. February through September are the sunny months (with the exception of August).
All in all, we are settling in and growing accustomed to it.
