Here are the six puppies. You can see the run on the very top.

My little long hair/ wire haired dachsund finally had her puppies! They were four days early, but most of them are doing really well. Unfortunately, it looks like the runt isn’t going to make it. It’s a little male that is about half the size of the other puppies, can hardly crawl and still hasn’t opened its mouth to feed. We have tried to bottle feed him, but he won’t take a nipple.

The other five puppies are doing well. They are rolly polly and feeding non-stop. Sophie has turned out to be a good momma so far and is very protective of the puppies. They were just born yesterday, so it’s too early to tell what their hair is going to look like, but most of them are dappled.

Well, I have been home for a couple days now and am wondering, “what I was thinking coming home for three weeks?” I left 60 degree weather to come visit a frozen landscape that has averaged 5 degrees farenheit since I arrived and only receives a few hours of light each day.

I haven’t been out of Alaska for more than a few months and my skin is already as thin as possible! It was funny trying to drive my mom’s Highlander around today. It doesn’t handle that great in the snow anyway, but then add the fact that I’ve been driving a compact car lately and haven’t driven on ice since last winter and it was an adrenaline rush everytime I went to stop at an intersection. I had a personal mantra going, “Please don’t slide! Please don’t slide! Please don’t slide!” It must have been effective because I managed not to crash my mom’s car.

The best part about driving in Anchorage in the winter is the fact that their snow removal system is awful. I can’t believe a city this size that gets this much snow each year hasn’t come up with a more efficient method of doing this. What ends up happening is that you can’t see the lines on the road and it turns into a bit of a game. We call it the Make Your Own Lane game where you just kind of guesstimate where you are supposed to be on the road. It’s quite interesting. Roads that were three lanes turn into two and half. Roads that were four lanes turn into two and half. Roads that were one lane turn into two and half. You get the picture.

Another fun game is counting all the cars in the ditch on the Glenn Highway. I was surprised today that there weren’t more trucks. In the past I have been commuting and it feels like I am always being passed by some huge fallac symbol who thinks that just because he has four-wheel-drive he can speed down the highway on black ice. I always feel a bit satisfied when I pass them two miles later and they are up to their tailgate in snow in the ditch.

I can’t wait until Jim gets up here and gets to experience Alaska in all her winter glory. Today I walked into Becca’s house and exclaimed, “It’s cold outside, it’s one degree!” For some reason she found this hilarious, but it boggles my mind that it is one degree! That poor degree, he is probably lonely on that thermometer all by himself. I think that Three Dog Night said it best, “One is the lonliest number.”

Well, I finally made it back to Alaska for Christmas! I made the mistake of flying US Airways. In a time of economic crisis they want to make people hate them more by charging for bags! It’s $15 for the first, $25 for the second and $100 for the 3rd-9th. I don’t know how many people need to check nine bags, Madonna perhaps? but US Airways is going to capitalize on it! Can you imagine spending almost $1000 just to check your bags on an airline?

It gets worse. US Airways doesn’t even serve water for free anymore! They offer Coca-Cola products, juice and some alcoholic beverages that are going to cost you. $2 just for a can of soda! On our flight from Phoenix to Anchorage the flight attendants were anxious to let us know that they did not have any food on board so if we wanted anything to eat during the six hour flight we had better buy it at the airport.

People at the Anchorage airport just don't get why there is a dotted line around the baggage claim.

All this was only mildly annoying until I got on my Phoenix to Anchorage flight, which was a red eye, and realized that my seat, 8A, was in the row in front of the emergency exit row. Imagine my distress when I realized that I couldn’t put my seat back! Six hours of flying during the middle of the night and I could not find a comfortable way to sleep. The poor older gentleman next to me looked like a contortionist as he changed from one uncomfortable position to another. 

Luckily I made it to Anchorage in one piece. There is quite a bit of snow on the ground which is good to see. In past years it has been too warm and actually rained on Christmas! It feels good to be back at my parents house. When I walked in the door I was greeted by the smell on my mom’s homemade pumpkin spice bread, delicious! I’m also excited to see my two favorite wiener dogs. Sophie is pregnant with puppies and is supposed to give birth a couple days before I leave. I hope that I am here when it happens!

I don’t have too many plans for while I’m home. Hopefully there will be a lot of skiing. Once Jim and Chris get here we are going to rally the troops and head north to try to get a glimpse of the Northern Lights. Whatever happens, I’m sure it will be an adventure.

After spending Thanksgiving driving around the country eating lots of fast food and then gorging ourselves over the weekend, I am ready to not eat for a while and get to feeling healthy. One of my roommates in Alaska told me about the Body Cleanse, a liquid diet that cleans out your whole system. Then one of my roommates in Berkeley was doing the body cleanse too. She only lasted four days (the minimum is supposed to be ten), but she said that she felt well and did feel a difference. I can’t judge her too harshly for not completing the regiment considering that she is the house cook and I can’t imagine being around food all day and unable to eat it.

The master cleanse is a diet that is supposed to cleanse your body of all the toxins and leave you feeling healthy and not craving overprocessed sugary and oily foods. Allegedly, a lot of people decide to be vegetarian after they complete the process. In order to experience the total effects of the diet a person should do it a minimum of ten days, but it can be done for up to 40 days. I don’t think I could do it for that long.

I went to Costco yesterday and bought two bags of lemons with the intent that I am going to make this lemon juice concoction and not eat food for ten days! Jackie helped me make a pitcher of the juice last night so that I would be ready first thing this morning to commense on this strange odyssey of not eating.

When I woke up this morning I came into the kitchen and grabbed a quart Gatorade bottle to make the quart of salt water I am supposed to drink first thing every morning. It only calls for two teaspoons of seasalt per quart, which didn’t seem so bad. That was until I sat down and started drinking it. After all the time I have spent in the ocean, it felt unnatural to actually want to swallow the salt water. It took me two hours of chugging a bit of salt water then chugging regular water before I couldn’t do it anymore. I only made it 2/3 of the way down the bottle, but that should be good enough for beginning, right?

Once I gave up on the quart of salt water I poured myself a tall glass of my lemonade concoction. The lemonade consists of 1 1/2 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice, 1 1/2 cups maple syrup and about three dashes of cayenne pepper.  It actually tasted pretty good and I liked drinking it. It made me feel full and content, for about an hour.

Now it is lunch time in our house and I get to smell all the lovely food that is being prepared in the kitchen. Jackie made greek sandwiches for everybody, except me. I don’t even want to know what she is going to make for dinner!

So here I am, four hours into my body cleanse. I’ve already quit twice and then been talked back into it by Laura who wants to do it as well. Originally I was planning on doing it for ten days, but now I’m realizing that it cuts way too close to Christmas and all my mom’s amazing holiday food. Plus my dad made his famous chocolate covered cherries, which I want to eat about a dozen of when I walk off the plane. So instead of ten days I am going to do it for five, well, that’s the plan for now. My stomach has that empty feeling that says, “feed me!”.

This attempt at the body cleanse is too humorous to keep to myself. I’m going to have to blog about it and see how long I can keep it up. It doesn’t help that Jim is teasing me as much as possible about the whole thing.