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December 29, 2003
a balmy 19 degrees
so yesterday awoke around 8:30, sat and read some of nickle and dimed: on (not) getting by in america, by Barbara Ehrenreich, an excellent book that i found enlightening, inspiring, and depressing. the author spent several months living in various cities around america working the best low wage job should could get while not using her college degrees and experience, to examine how difficult it is to survive in america making slightly above the minimum wage. not that anyone listens to advice on what books to read when looking at blogs, but it's damn good and anyone living near me can borrow my copy. online there's even a .net with links and resources to issues related to the book. i personally envisioned myself doing a similar project living homeless in reno or checking out all the people living in motels in my city. we'll see what happens with that.
anyways, georgie, shannen's brother, arrived around 10, with his cousin eric in tow. they threw on their snowboard apparel and we drove the 2 minutes up the road to alyeska, one of the most popular resorts in this part of alaska. it was a sunday, and i vainly had hopes of hidden powder stashes, but that was not to be. the snow was drier then it is in the sierras, and the mountain very steep, so we had fun cruising from jump to jump, though i did a lot more butt-checking then landing. i blame it on the 5 times i've been snowboarding in the past 3 years. it'll come back soon enough though.
shannen picked me up and we drove out to wasilla to have dinner with her father and stepmom. they lived in a nice neighborhood, including a snow mobile (snow machine as they say up here), which we didn't get to ride, actually we chickened out cause it was freezing cold.
we had a nice dinner at an italian restaurant and chatted, then shannen and i drove back down to girdwood. i was impressed that folks still drove 70 mph on the highways what with ice and everything, and shannen even said she didn't hink i could have handled the last 30 minute stretch, driving over avalanched snow, but i think i would have made it.
today i relaxed and read all morning and played with the dog, now we're headed out to go climb at the rock gym and maybe eat at this chinese/thai restaurant that aaron and i ate at 2 summers ago. i remember thinking it was the best thing ever, maybe i was just starved for tofu.
Posted by bendan at December 29, 2003 04:32 PM
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