Lurking Squirrel

2006-11-19T21:21:00.000-08:00

Yowza.
I actually forgot I had a blog until I saw myself as an associate of the Evil Cat of Hell. I think I stopped blogging because I got in trouble for mentioning people's actual names. Being naive, I assumed, "Oh, Jim won't care if everyone knows that he drank so much whiskey that he told the waitress he had a daughter when he didn't actually have one! He will think my witty recounting of the incident is hilarious!"
Well, now I live in Oakland. I got a Real Job with people who I've admired for ages. And the job is fantastic- uses my mind, uses my skills, feel comfortable with the people...everything one might desire. With a real salary and perks, like the ability to buy glasses with 2 earpieces rather than the single earpiece I've gotten rather used to over the years (like a monocle...but different). I also had lyme disease and recovered. My free time is spent getting my "place" in order. I try and fancy myself a hip urbanite living in 200 square feet, which generally means I spend my evenings reading modern design blogs and wishing I could have a place that cool. Actually this weekend was big, as I adopted an ungodly number of cacti and repotted them into white pots. I've always thought it somewhat evolutionary unsound to grow cacti, but perhaps Mt. Kilimanjaro was correct when she identified a latent longing for Southern California. Anyhow, they should be hard to kill.
Other than that, I maintain a long distance relationship and read about artists.

2006-10-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

New Jersey's Unheralded Skill
Being the urbane, educated, culturally up-to-date couple that we are, we have spent the bulk of our weekends on the east coast in New Jersey. Once you pass the factories, the beaches are both relatively empty and beautiful, and the surf is better that expected, not to mention that you have an entirely justifiable excuse to listen to Bruce Springsteen for hours on end. Sure, conformists may go to New York City, with it's alleged museums and nightlife. But there is one phenomena that New Jersey boasts skills at that New York will never, ever beat- clever word use on commerical signage. In one short weekend I observed the following cleverness:
The local fishing supply store, Down and Trout
A candle shop, Wick-it Good Candles
The barber, New Hairizons
The mexican restaurant, Nacho Ordinary Eatery
and the breakfast menu, which offered Br'egg'fast and some off-the-wall 'Egg'speriments
I mean, what does "The Four Seasons" have on that?

2006-09-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

If you're still reading this, you must love me enough to know what is actually going on in my life. Not that witty remarks lack content, but when you are simultanously stuck in a studio apartment in an army town and trying to figure out which side of the country to start your life on....well, witty remarks provide much needed solace.
I have been back to the Big City, and I have a multimillion dollar idea. Both pedestrians and cars push the limits of their legal rights when crossing streets or turning corners, and the drivers certainly don't let their car horns gather dust. So that's why I want to start sellings horns to pedestrians. They have as much of a right to express their semi-founded frustruation. And I can't imagine the city getting all that much louder.

2006-09-04T10:43:00.000-07:00

Well, the squirrel has lurked back. This is mainly because I have spent the last few weeks in the companionship of the elite handful of people that read this this. However given the recent departure to yet another new and interesting locale, I have been asked (yes, by a blood relative) to give some updates while I get settled here.
I guess I should begin with the requsite weather report. Hurricaine Ernesto has been relatively mild, although the name "Ernesto" makes me think of a large Mexican man with a handlebar mustache that sneaks around corners. Besides occasional rain showers, it has been gloriously sunny and the stereotypical east coast mugginess has subsided. The weekend has consisted largely of getting settled, doing unglamourous things like grocery shopping. But yesterday we boarded the Metro North Railcar in for my first trip to the big city (this diatribe reminds me faintly of Jean Teasdale of "The Onion" fame- is anyone else getting that?). And despite the tourist/college kid-saturdated portions of the city I saw, I absolutely, completely, loved it. We had a plentiful Italian meal in (surprise!) light-bedecked Little Italy, where every restaurant had a big line full of jubilant people pouring out into the street (which I admit might eventually loose its luster). In the Village (which refers to Greenwich Village and not East Village, which I figured out after only minor haggles with the cab driver) we pulled middle-school pranks: K was salivating over hot wings, so I dared her to ask a guy for one off his plate (he acquiested, not surprisingly), and then told the guy playing live music that it was her birthday. Her eyes twinkled while said she proclaimed her hate for me loudly enough to be heard over the sound of 100 people drunkenly singing "Happy birthday dear K!". We bar hopped, agressively and largely unsucessfully pursuing music to dance to. We eventually made due with Whitesnake and Bon Jovi being played in a Western-themed establishment populated largely by people with what must have been fake I.D.'s or maybe I'm just old. We made our own fun, dragging other fun-desiring people into our loud and unselfconscious dance circle. As we whizzed back to K's hotel at 3am in a surprisingly cheap cab, people outside continued to party, languished over dinner, walked bikes, shopped, just like this city is supposed to. This morning, after spending an uncomfortable night on a hotel sofa bed, we navigated the subway back to Grand Central Station and found our train back north. We ate a breakfast of espresso, peaches, yoghurt, and muffins as the Hudson whizzed by, thus completing my first official evening in New York City. And I figure that if three bumbling tourists with a good attitude can make a night that enjoyable, I can only imagine actually knowing what to do and where to go.

2006-09-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

2006-08-11T16:32:00.000-07:00

There were 3 stunning back-to-back minutes of KBRW this morning.
Minute 1- Classifieds. Someone is avaliable to babysit, 9-5, 7 days a week.
Minute 2- Classifieds. Someone needs a babysitter, next Monday, from 9-11 am.
Minute 3- The macarena.

2006-08-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm an office weenie, I have taken to listening to KBRW out of Barrow. It is a strange hodgepodge of NPR, local news, eclectic music, and the famed 'birthday show', where every evening the inhabitants of Barrow call in to wish one another Happy Birthday, congratulations, Happy Anniversary, etc. This morning the community bulletin consisted of how to register your child for pre-school, a the time and location of the meeting about hospital zoning, and when everyone would get together to butcher bearded seals to cover the whale-bone "skin boats" in preparation for the upcoming whaling season. You know, normal stuff.

There's an old story the Inupiak tell about a group of scientists studying bowhead whale migration at a camp near Barrow. Like all scientists working out in the field in the arctic, they hired Inupiaks to help them navigate, procure food, assess the ice conditions, etc. Every morning, one of the Inupiak men would take a 15-20 minute walk along the ice, come back, and tell the men in camp what the weather would be for the day. He was consistently accurate in his predictions. The scientists were amazed at his ability. One day one of the scientists asked the Inupiak man if he could accompany him on his walk to see how we managed to predict the weather so accurately. "Oh," said the man, "I'm just walking down the road to listen to the weather report on KBRW."

2006-08-09T16:16:00.000-07:00

hello friends and family (okay, friend and family),
I guess I'm going to be a cautious blogger and start disguising people's identities. I've always thought that no one would care about my life enough to trace my geographical comings and goings, but I will entertain a delusion of grandeur and use initials. Be prepared to be totally mystified by the actual identities of my cohorts.

2006-08-09T15:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my last day in the field for the season. After copious helicopter confusion, the boss and I finally got flying around noon. The weather was wicked- while not freezing, the rain was uncharacteristically persistent, the temperature chilly, and the wind blew aggressively. Our goal was to transect and fish two lakes. While transecting is relatively straightforward (buzz the zodiac along the lake and collect depth findings), fishing is a bit more energy intensive. To find out whether there are "real" fish in the lake (i.e. not stickleback, which could survive a nuclear explosion), we throw out gill nets, a 60 foot net made of different sized mesh with a leadline on the bottom and floats on either end. The fish swim through one direction, and get caught in the (surprise!) gills, after which we pull the nets and count and measure them. Because the likelihood of survival is low, we try to fish the nets just long enough to catch the minimal number of fish. This, however, is sometimes difficult due to the fact that we are casting the nets precisely because we don't know the fish presence. I have been told other methods would be less effective and immensely more time consuming, and as "James Audubon" as it might be, it is what my company does.
It was wicked out there, and we were quickly had numb toes and semi-functional fingers. While the first net caught 2 Least Ciscos, the second net was a tragedy. Large fish after large fish flopped in the boat, blood pouring from its gills, as it thrashed to survive. My boss untangled the fish as deftly as possible, but it was of little use. The measuring board was covered in slime, blood, and scales. Fish floated away from the boat, mouths gaping, bodies still, with little hope of survival. I rationalized the death like I rationalize being an environmental consultant- it's not a matter of saving all beings. It's a matter of screwing them up as little as possible. These fishes habitat will be changed regardless, and the fish we counted unknowingly gave their lives for their species as a whole. When I came in, I felt like I had worked 24 hours on end, and it took me hours before I had fully warmed up.
In the comfort of the office today, I heard a story about Tibetan refugees learning to use the internet. "Being ignorant of technology was one of the reasons we lost our country," said a Tibetan spokesperson for the project. Their situation reminded me of yesterday's ghost fish. How much sacrifice does a group accept for the larger goal of survival? And how does one group end deciding upon the standard, while the other group is left choosing how to adapt?

2006-08-05T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I made it back safely, and my home camp looked like Club Med compared to my last few days. Somewhat ironically, dinner was a cheery Hawaiian-themed Luau party, or a cheery as a alcohol free oil refinery camp could be. The last segment of my Barrow saga in below.

BARROW: Part 2

But being a professional traveler, I kept my spirits up throughout the numerous days it was too foggy to fly. My low-fat low-carb diet degenerated rapidly as John and I killed time by eating homemade cookies, drinking coffee, and digging deeper and deeper into the magazine pile. We were pawing through a snowmobile catalogue (despite the fact that neither of us were remotely interested in purchasing a snowmobile) when word came via the pilot that the fog had cleared and I could get my flight back to Barrow, after which I would return to the oil camp that served as my home base. I charged the pad.

When I arrived in Barrow it was sunny, and the formerly somber streets now seemed warm and inviting. My hotel endearingly tried to mimic its cousins in the lower 48 but did not do so very convincingly. Along with clean towels was a hair in the sink. There was an ice bucket but no ice machine. There were individually wrapped soaps, but holes in the shower where the removable showerhead once was. But despite my newly rediscovered Princess sensibilities, the little idiosyncrasies felt warm, like someone was there to greet me. This hotel room was not in Anytown, USA. Despite the tourist demand for packaged sterile lodging, Barrow remained messy, willing to let objects have their histories.

I couldn’t change into my running clothes fast enough, not caring that my light blue running shorts, white shoes, orange polypropylene top, and iPod would make me stick out even more than I already did. In one of the more surreal runs of my life, Kenny Chesney sang about his wild life on the road as old Inupiaq women hobbled across down the street, heads nearly invisible under their fur-lined jackets. Dwight Yoakam sang about Bakersfield as I watched the rotten pack ice shift and a cool breeze blew in off the sea. The Dixie Chicks sang about maybe one day settling down as I found my rhythm, steadily making the long unpaved road next to the ocean disappear as dirt-caked work trucks rumbled past. I giggled when I passed the Barrow Towing Service tow truck, tireless and hoodless, looking like it hadn’t run for years. Near the end of the road was a haphazard cemetery, white crosses flanked with picket fences in the fashion one might employ in their suburban yard. I had read that the Inupiaq embraced Christianity in part because it made some sense of life and death while their native religion did not. The fences marked the line between the world and the afterworld, erected with the same sensibility as fencing in livestock. Feeling like a caged animal, I couldn’t seem to find enough road to run on. I found a piling to sit on once I had sufficiently worn myself out, and gazed out at the Beaufort Sea, watching the Jaegers dive and the icebergs move. Robert Earle sang I’m coming home to you, and in my narcissistic state the song was not about Ian, who I missed desperately, but about coming home to me. Maybe this experience had taught me something. In Barrow, everyone had both garbage and new trucks in their yard, everyone was needed during whaling season, and if they wanted tiny white espresso cups they would have gotten them.

2006-08-04T17:07:00.000-07:00

Hello friends who I am convinced don't exist because of the the complete lack of comments except for some spammer,
Below is the beginning of a story about Barrow and my time in Cape S. Since I have not gotten back to Barrow yet (current fog delay, which sholdn't be a surprise to those of you I have kept in touch with) it isn't done. Tune in next time for the further adventures of this tired whatever-the-heck-I-am.

BARROW: Part 1

The Barrow Visitors center was so humorous that you didn’t need to be a hardened cynic like me to appreciate it. At the northwest corner of the closest “intersection” to the airport (in quotes, because the intersection did not typical intersection bells and whistles like, oh, pavement or stoplights) was a large handmade “Welcome to Barrow!” sign in front a small building whose door and windows were boarded up with sheets of plywood. Adding to the warm welcome of the barricade was an American flag mounted next to an ancient outhouse whose door swung open with the breeze. Off to the side, another large sign offered “Free Coffee to Barrow Tourists”, but the closest thing I found was an old Folgers can full of cigarette butts on the porch.

I was on my way to a place called Cape S for a few days to do some lake and fish surveys. To be permitted to use water necessary for maintenance, the oil camp up there has to prove to the feds that their activities are not adversely affecting fish populations. Enter the “fisheries heroes”, as my partner J had come to call us. We would be transported via helicopter to remote arctic lakes, mount a small zodiac boat with a 5hp motor and fish finder, deploy our nets, and gather data on lake depth, volume, and fish presence. At night we would stay in the non-frivolous lodging, which includes a small kitchen, dorm beds, and a TV room, all mounted on sleds so it could be removed via Caterpillar Train come the coldest days of winter. While it certainly wasn’t working at the Starbucks, the plan was relatively straightforward.

Having made it safety in Barrow around 1:30, J and I now awaited helicopter transport to camp. In what I soon found out was typical Barrow fashion, the arrival of the chopper had been estimated between 2:30 and 7:30 pm due to the need to refuel, pick up passengers from here and there, and gather supplies. If the helicopter could be delayed for those reasons it would wait for us as well, so we wandered Barrow in a semi-tour/supply search. I had grown accustomed to the appearance of native houses on the North Slope, and they had finally become comforting in their dingy simplicity. The activities of the owners were obvious by a quick glance at the yard, which almost always included functional and semi-functional snowmobiles, skeletons of skin-boats which would be covered in whale skin when the season grew nearer, palettes lined across puddles to provide a dry crossing from door to street, gutted fish drying on simple racks, the occasional whale vertebrae, and a muddy dog tied to a piece of rebar. A few weeks ago, my Marin-country-bred sensibilities found this style of decor...well, trashy. But I had come around. Because of the extreme isolation of North Slope communities, there is little room for the type of judgment and rejection that can happen further south, and the need for the entire communities participation in activities such as the whale hunt created an atmosphere of acceptance. Whether for survival or otherwise, I had come to see the yards as symbolic of having nothing to hide. And while money flowed because of oil development, the luxury items, from my outsiders view, appeared largely equally distributed. Big trucks and snowmobiles dotted the streets, but there were no beggars and no mansions.

J served as tour guide, as had done work up here for his Masters thesis, and knew the major establishments. Or should I say simply the establishments. As an outsider to Barrow, the first obvious feature is the lack of public gathering places. There are no bars, and I soon realized that the pizza restaurant I had heard so much about was notorious because of its mere existence rather than the Zagat quality of its food. This is because gatherings largely took place in private residences. Time spent with friends and family does not require an entrance fee.

Barrow is an interesting combination of money and tradition. To this day, the community is largely subsistence-based, a lifestyle which I too may have adopted given the grossly inflated prices at the town’s single supply shop. The whale hunt remains the pinnacle source for both community bonding and calories, and come winter the hunt would dominate discussion. Food remained gathered, family bonds remained tight, and moving to the next town was improbable because it would likely require a Russian visa. There was no forum for casual conversation with a local who might share with you his grandfather’s pearls of wisdom, and no cultural tour or local attraction would allow the random visitor to even begin to penetrate the culture’s formidable exterior. The scientists I knew had one word of advice for folks that want to get to know the Inupiaq- patience. The attitude of the residents mirrored the state of the Welcome kiosque; you are welcome to visit, but we will go on with our lives thank you very much.

I found two more incidences of entertaining signage (A “Closed” sign on the Arctic Hair tanning salon, and a “Launch at your own risk” sign at the boat ramp on the iceberg-studded Beaufort Sea) before we heard the rhythm of helicopter blades overhead. Scurrying back to the helipad, we were introduced to our pilot Smokey, who dealt extremely graciously with our request to load a 100lb boat, motor, and fish-scented nets into his helicopter. Soon we were flying towards Cape S, ocean stretching out to the North and the strange watery landscape of the North Slope to the south.

I think my brand of feminism comes forth in my character, which I self-indulgently envision as a laid-back adventurous attitude combined with the ability to lift heavy things. I fear being the caricature of the complaining feminist, demanding and whiny, unable to adapt. But arriving at Cape S, I was instantly transported back to 1880, although I imagine that in 1880 there were women’s restrooms. This is not to say that the men at the camp weren’t polite; he was extremely polite when he told me, “This camp is not equipped for women.” The scurrying about that followed was rather amusing. I was provided with a handful of markers and paper to create a “Woman Using Restroom- Please Check Back Later” sign, which I was to post after I knocked on the bathroom door and cleared out everyone inside. I was first assigned to stay in the same room as J, which while neither of us minded sharing a room, we both minded explaining the situation to our significant others back home. Luckily around midnight the flustered manager had revisited the protocol, and an empty bunk miraculously opened down the hall. The men were all extremely polite, although once again in my career as a whatever-I-am I felt like I was in some reverse Fundamentalist Mormon community stranded on a deserted island where the possibility of survival looked dismal.

Perhaps it was because the camp was designed for men. Perhaps it was because I was just about as remote as one could be in North America. Normally I pride myself in my appreciation of “normal America”, having traveled on the cheap, lived in West Virginia, and eaten food cooked on my engine block, but this place enflamed my typically dormant yuppie sensibilities. The food was meaty, starchy, deep fried, and served in large quantities. The cook, having noticed my attraction to whatever wilted vegetables were available, once proudly showed me the greasy pile of cole slaw he had whipped up, making sure I knew it was made with fresh cabbage. Touched, I served myself a heaping spoonful, dreaming of the spinach, basil, and heirloom tomatoes I could procure at the Farmers Market back home in Santa Barbara. Since safety regulations forbid us to go outside without a safety vest, goggles, and a hardhat, I had long given up on the possibility of any physical activity that was actually enjoyable such as hiking or biking. At the last oil camp I stayed at I had resigned myself to running on a treadmill, lifting weights, and doing halfhearted yoga in the hallway. This workout room doubled as an office, which would have created a mildly uncomfortable situation were the two activities to occur simultaneously, and contained some ancient barbells and a machine that was a neck-breaking combination of a stair-climber and a treadmill. Working out (my typical therapy for frustrating situations) was out of the question. I felt fortunate I had come equipped with a slew of books endorsed by the likes of Steven Colbert and the New York Times, as reading material consisted almost exclusively of Maxim magazine and week-old newspapers. They did, thank God, have internet, and during the evening I window shopped for small white espresso cups and handcrafted European coffee tables for Ian and my soon-to-be-purchased cabin on the Hudson River. While getting into one of the trucks the first day, I nearly sat on a rifle. My inner yuppie stared me in the face, and I hated it.

Also, I was over being a field biologist. Over the past few years, I had become more and more honest with myself that I wasn’t a very good scientist. I could go through the motions, sure, but ultimately I was too easily distractible to devise an efficient method for counting tree leaves or pay close attention to the migration patterns of 5 species of artic fish. I knew I needed a profession that allowed for my bursting creativity, and was making connections in environmental media in anticipation of my move to New York. In the evenings I edited my travel writing and retouched my photographs in Photoshop. Looking over data sheets I was not. And unfortunately, it was quite easy to lay on the self-pity when one was in this type of situation. “Well,” one could say to themself, “At least I’m not in near-freezing temperatures getting left alone on the tundra at the start of Polar Bear season with no rifle! At least I don’t have to struggle with semi-functional heavy equipment all day for pathetic wages! At least I can come home to the people I love, crack open a cold beer, and enjoy a nice dinner of quinoa, tempeh, and other unpronounceable organic overpriced foodstuffs!” Nope, when you start to loose the myopic vision that a scientist must have to throw themselves into what are essentially ridiculous situations, you go downhill quick. Once after a long day in the field, I sat in the flourescent-lit hallway outside the mens room, “Woman in Restroom” sign in hand, waiting while the men finished shaving. I was sliding fast.

2006-08-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, first off if you're reading this please just register and comment on occasion. You don't have to have a blog, you just need to divulge a fake name and some random hotmail account address and you're on. Thank you, dad, for stepping up and veiling your identity so thinly.
I made it to Cape S, via Barrow, where surprisingly is wireless internet. I find this surprising because there are no roads, phones, or women's bathrooms (it was just a matter of time). Attached are a few pictures of Barrow. More later.

What says "welcome" more than a boarded up building, an American Flag, and an open outhouse? What says "free coffee for tourists" more than a coffee can full of cigarette butts?

Launch at your own risk into the glacier-studded Beaufort sea. Perhaps this one gets the obvious award.

Surprisingly, the Arctic Hare tanning salon was closed.

But it sure is pretty up here during the dog days of summer.