Tell you all my secrets

So. We live on the second floor of our building. I opened the front door to start my day yesterday morning and I noticed the little tree near the base of the chairs was flapping around like it was caught in a high wind, but all the other trees were still. There was also a loud "crunching" sound. So I leave the door ajar and walk over to look down the stairs.

Guess who came to breakfast....


This is another plus-sized moose, like the one who wanted to make George his bitch a few months ago, and he is standing with his giant ass right across the path to the carport.

So I start by asking him to leave, especially since the tree he is so avidly munching is the memorial tree for Jay's dog Raven. He doesn't even look at me. I jingle my keys. That gets me a very baleful "I don't come to your dinner table and do that" look. So I take his picture and then call LonelyDumptruck, partly for advice and partly so I can talk loudly in hopes of disturbing the moose without actually talking to the moose. Appearances, you know.

When LonelyDumptruck found out it was Raven's tree being savaged, he recommended calling Jay (who lives downstairs). Luckily Jay was home so he came out and we yelled at the moose together for a moment, which actually made him pause mid-bite, and when Jay announced he knew just what to do the moose finally took the hint and wandered off....through the gate and into the alley behind George.

Keep in mind, I'm still planning on leaving the house. I start to leave the yard, walking towards the moose, and he turns around and gives me a look that says "Don't even try it, pixiestyx." so clearly that I back right back into the yard and stand there with my hand on the gate in case he tries something. After a few minutes I got up the courage to walk to George, with the moose scrutinizing my every move, and pull out. Of course, the moose is standing right behind where I usually drive, so I pull the other way and go around the block.

In front of the house there is a baby moose standing in Jay's driveway and looking in his living room window.

Seriously, best ever.

Friday we went to meet Mommie and Eddie for dinner. They were late, so we had a cocktail and waited until the came - followed by lonelydumptruck sister Lori-O who said "Surprise!!"

lonelydumptruck's play could not have gone better. It was the last of 4 so everyone left talking about it. He got major compliments, especially during the cruise afterward.

This was also the best cruise year ever. We were on the drinking boat instead of the singing boat, which ruled. Our boat also had a hose so the crew was able to threaten to soak the other boat. We saw a shit-ton of otters out near the glacier. The best part was (drum roll please) we saw a whale. It came really close to the boat, we could see the blowhole, and it show us its tail several times. lonelydumptruck got video which will make him the toast of Facebook.

Saturday we slept in and did some gift shopping. About 1 Rodney called to tell us an old friend was working for a charter fishing place, the friend who directed The Haunting of Hill House and the first production of Christmas Story. He took us out on the Sound in a little 4-person speed boat. we pretty much followed the same route the cruise ships had the night before and we saw even more otters and at least one seal. People kept asking us if we were disappointed we didn't see the whale again. I was MORE than fine with not seeing the whale while we were in a 4-person speed boat!

The Gala was beautiful. It was so great to see Ron honored in that way. The President of PWSCC was there and went around after the gala to tell everyone to meet in the Lounge of the hotel which hosted the Fringe. You have to love a school where the president organizes the pub crawl. He rang the bell twice too.

We hung at the bar for a while, until a Ghost of Anchorage Theatre Past, in all of his crazy-strange glory, thought the last glass of beer in our pitcher was his leftover pitcher and poured out Alaska White into his Hefewiesen. After that we went over to hang out with our old friend at the fish shop and drink wine. When he headed to bed, we went over to one of the other bars in town to do more celebrating with friends.

The drive home was great. The roads were not being constructed or very busy. We got home in time to take Dad to the ballgame. One of the players was named Caleb Bushyhead and Jay immediately became so enamored of it I have been teasing him that Bushyhead is his new nickname. Feel free to use it when you see him.

After the game we tried 2 different places for dinner (3 if you count the fact we went to a different Greek restaurant than they did) and finally ended up at Cattle Company. It was really great to hang out with family.

That's about what I have for right now.

The roof right next to ours is flat. When it begins to collect pools of standing water that my father-in-law once looked over and exclaimed "I didn't know you could see Lake Spenard from here!", it's a sure sign fall is here.

The birch leaves in our neighbors yard are steadily depositing brown leaves on our porch which are steadily getting tracked into the house.

The heating situation in our apartment is odd. We are on the second floor and it should stand to reason that heat rises. During the summer it is almost never below 73 degrees in our living room. In the winter, it is seldom above 45 when get up in the morning even with the heat on. Mark had to turn the heat on Friday night because our living room had dipped to 64 degrees.

It was 67 in here when I work up this morning and there is a fine layer of ice on Lake Spenard this morning.

It's too soon!!!

We did have a fine weekend, though. I was at work all day Saturday with our first drama classes of the season. I'm teaching improv again and I'm really happy with my group. One of the girls is telling everyone else what to do and how to do it already, so we will have to work on that, and one of the boys is a little disgruntled because he was in my classes during Summer Conservatory so he already knew all of the games we worked on.

Saturday night we went to a friend's 40th birthday/Talk Like a Pirate party and got to hang out with such truly excellent people as kahteeyah, scooterpbakes, geolinguist, jdawgspi and the newly-wedded sionainn and name_omitted .

We continued beating on the joke that jdawgspi and geolinguist should get married, just because the party would be epic, until jdawgspi's date started to take offense. Good times.

Yesterday was actually sunny and a little warm. We ate dinner out on the porch to celebrate. I had rehearsal all afternoon and I went in, all low-energy and grumpy, trying to think of a way that we could work outside for a while. We were supposed to have all of the little Brownies there to work on their bits, but the majority of them did not come. Everyone was pretty grumpy and low-energy so instead, we worked extra hard on teaching them the scout oath in sign language for their first scene and teaching them how to march. That was when inspiration struck - they should go outside to march around! I'm the smartest director in the world!

In spite of our best efforts to go see a movie, Mark and I ended up bunkering and finishing season 1 of Eureka. We're poised to start season 3 of Slings and Arrows next. I can't wait. We took a break from series to watch Superman Returns last night. Mark liked it a lot. I like it much better this time, but I did fall asleep right before the exciting climatic battle. Damn meds.

Mark had the most exciting moment of all this weekend. He and scooterpbakes went hiking while I was at work Saturday. I got a call about 4. "Hi honey! We saw bears! A mama and a baby bear. We were almost killed and eaten by bears!!"

Thanks, dear.

One of the highlights came after the memorial. We stepped outside to look for some friends. We walked around the far edge of the arts building but couldn't find them. What we found was a large moose at the very edge of the parking lot snacking on bushes.