Somehow it’s the middle of November. Apparently the mechanics of it all continues whether I observe them or not. I suppose a lot of my lack of time consideration has been actually working 40 hour weeks for the last month and some. This office is much more serene than where I worked in Anchorage. I get maybe one customer in a week. Maybe 5 calls a day. some days more, others none. I actually have to leave the office to run errands or go to properties. Some are all the way in Seattle, others south to Horse Country where there are really no highways to get to them. The days generally go pretty fast as it’s pretty much all ‘but first’ type jobs and lots of follow ups. I assume that this is why I seemed to have skipped October.
Nah, it’s the 6 months of fall here. I’m still used to Anchorage. On Monday September 23rd at 8:22 Fall begins and promptly ends 26 minutes later. Half the leaves fall with a giant WHUMP! the other half cling in defiance just to mess with Bev Doolittle. In 1981, Ansel Adams remarked “Fuck Anchorage”. He tried for years to get a serenely creepy B&W of Anchorage and the Chugach Range, but the shots always came out like the landscape had mange.
Then it’s the long winter, just when you can’t take it anymore it will do a massive thaw and you think your done. But really what it’s doing is recycling, and leveling for observation. Winter likes being able to see the enjoyment many people have with their snow machines and sleds, children playing…But Winter really gets off on the slipping and sliding, the frostbite, the havoc. Winter know that there are many villages with lots of idiots. So what Winter does isn’t so much thaw, as melt. Feet of snow level out and for inches of ice. This is usually a new layer on top of the micro glacier sidewalks and roads. I will fully admit I miss driving on it. It’s fun if the other idiots or off the road.
In the 28th month you finally resign yourself to perpetual winter, and Spring comes in with a propane bbq cylinder torch and begins melting everything. Winter fights back of course, but by that time it’s usually too late. Still, the last few years winter has gotten smart, conserved it’s strength, and attacked when spring was going into Summer metamorphosis. Not so much sure if it’s been a last ditch effort, or if Winter is just a prick. I think the latter.
This is why it’s easier to keep track of time when the sun us on or off for 6 months at a time.