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Imagine our surprise when we came home from the store today and found this guy (gal, actually– no antlers) not 5 feet from the living room window. The moose tend to come into the city for food and warmth as the temperature drops, and at -40 today it was certainly cold.

The cats sat on the back of the couch and watched, both terrified and fascinated. The moose ate most of the apples on our crab apple tree, but left the bird feeder alone. Sometimes it is just so weird living here, I can't even tell you.

It did get down to -50 yesterday, a nice milestone as it gave all of us the chance to say "It's -50 out!" We wore Hawaiian shirts to work and played hula music in the halls. The Fairbanks weather forecast telephone number has been saying the temperature in Honolulu as well as the unfathomably low numbers from around the state of Alaska. I think Fort Yukon is our winner so far– they reached -60. If it's still cold tomorrow I'll throw a glass of boiling water outside and watch if instantly become a cloud of steam. I'll let you know how that goes.

With nearly 2 weeks of frigid cold and only one day with temps above -20 (our cutoff for outside recess) the children are becoming a little stir crazy. Today it's -47 according to my sidebar weather icon (lower right). That's enjoyable. My car, thankfully, has braved the weather like a champ. This morning the tires were flat on one side and the shocks were frozen, so the ride was a bit bumpy, but reasonably warm inside the car. And it started and ran. For that I am immensely grateful. I want to go home and gorge myself on things like stew and dumplings. This kind of weather really brings out the carb cravings.

The view from my window right now is of a picnic table with 10 inches of snow on it, and basketball hoops covered with 2 inches of spiky frost. Those are the only landmarks, and everything else is white. The ice fog is very thick, and I can't even begin to see our sledding hill or the road beyond it. The drive was a bit hairy this morning, trying to see through the ice and the darkness and the huge clouds of exhast from the other cars. Everyone was driving slowly, though, since it's impossible to go much faster than 35 or 40 mph in this cold.

It's warm inside, though, and the kids are doing as well as you could hope. It's supposed to warm up to -26 on Monday, so maybe we'll see some relief then. Is it Friday yet?

Today is my half-birthday, and I am half-crazy and half-sane. I dropped the car off for winterization this morning. Now that it is a Fairbanks car it needs a block heater, oil pan heater, and two transmission heaters. (I already have my own battery heater.) All of these various heaters are electric and merge into a single plug which dangles from the front grille. In most parking lots there are outlets, and you dredge out an electric cord and plug your car in every morning. The copper inside of the cord will freeze, and when you go to unplug your car it will be like a giant, stiff wire.

We like to tell people from Outside (Alaska slang for the lower 48 and Hawaii) that all of our cars are electric and that's why we have plugs. In reality nobody in Fairbanks would ever have an electric or hybrid car because batteries can freeze easily in low temperatures. I've had my cell phone, CD player and digital camera die from being left in the cold car. I only stay here, in the great frozen northland, because I get to tell you such great stories about it.

Things that have frozen since I've lived in Alaska:
-my pipes (twice)
-countless water bottles and cans of pop I've left in the car
-laundry detergent and bleach– I had to thaw them under hot water at the laundromat
-the poor old van (battery, engine, door locks, hinges, tires, seats, floormats…)
-lotion and soap
-damp towels I left in the car
-my fingers, when touching metal colder than -20

On the plus side, when the freezer gets full I just leave food on the porch.

The picture has nothing to do with this entry– I just thought it was pretty. I took it near Denali on our drive south to Anchorage. It's about 10:30 am here.

Saturday night in Fairbanks and it's -24 degrees out, with expected lows near -35 tonight. It's hard to complain about that, though, seeing as it was -50 a year ago.

I'm working my way through a pot of decaf coffee and trying not to eat my way through the pantry. I've been trying to be frugal this year, but the new car/insurance/travel costs coupled with the fact that I didn't work for two weeks are leading to a lack of funds. I like my job a lot, but I hope that the new year will bring with it a full time job with some benefits. Ah, adulthood. Why were we in such a hurry to grow up?

Let's go make a snow fort and some snow angels, and forget about this adult stuff. Or maybe let's plan to do that just as soon as it warms up.

Happy long weekend!

We had a fun trip to Anchorage, if you discount the time spent purusing used car lots and dealing with incredibly sleazy used car salesmen. I don't know how those guys sell anything at all– they were so cheesy and pushy and smarmy that we just wanted to go home and shower afterward. Amidst all of this I did find a car, though. Hooray! Finally! I am now the owner (well, the bank is, but anyway) of a 1999 Subaru Legacy Wagon. It looks like this one only pretty teal green and much nicer. It has beaucoup miles, which is why I could afford it, but Subarus run forever and are great in cold and ice. (Which is why 1 in 5 people in Fairbanks drive one, and I don't think 1 in 5 is even an exaggeration.)

My car has power windows and locks, a radio that works without my having to kick it, a sunroof, antilock brakes, all wheel drive, and a heater that actually works. I like it. It needs a block heater installed soon. It's -17 out right now, so I went out and ran it for a few minutes on my lunch. I think it will be okay, though. Yay, new car!

Boo, back to work this week!