Just walking the dog

....Why did the moose cross the road????

Today was an early day. I was going to get my smoke detector fixed, and I wanted to make sure I was up early so that I heard the repairman knock. I rolled out of bed at 7:45am and took the first shower of the day. I don’t think I have been up this early in over a month. It was as bad as having to go to work. I dressed quickly and took my spot on the new couch. I started watching TV. At first I was watching leave it to beaver, then I switched to a channel that was explaining how to skin a whale. They were speaking in there native tongue, so I have no idea of what they were saying. All I know is that if you have a sharp enough blade, you can probably skin a whale in less than 4 channel changes. That would be about a half an hour to the rest of us. I finally settled on a shopping channel that was selling whale baculums. If you have no idea of what they are, just do a Google search on it and I think you will figure it out…. It is really amazing some of the things that they will sell here in Alaska. In any case, I waited, and waited, and waited some more. I had gotten up at 8:00am and I don’t even have a job. I was starting to feel like I was the red headed step child of this apartment complex. Not even the maintenance worker wanted to help me.

Feeling sad and dejected, I decided that if I had to suffer, so did Dianne. Always remembering what I was taught as a child (misery loves company) I raced into the bedroom. There she was, fast asleep, in her little million dollar nest. I pondered for a while on how best to rouse her without getting hit or verbally abused. After much thought, I decided that there was only one way. It was an ancient method that I use only on special occasions. Using it always causes the wife to wake cheerfully and without argument – But it has always cost me dearly. The method is this: I walk into the sleeping chamber, slowly rouse the sleeping wife, gently pull the covers down, and in the most energetic voice I can muster, say: “Honey, are you hungry – I am starving. I think we should go out for breakfast”. It never fails, or at least not yet. She will usually be ready in 5-10 minutes. That is pretty impressive coming from a person that swears that it is impossible to get ready in under a half hour.

So off we go to Gwennies for the best eggs and reindeer sausage this side of the Yukon. Actually I had the soup and sandwich (so did Dianne). I know it was not very creative, but I was not feeling that adventurous and I knew that I would not be able to finish the entire plate of sausage. Breakfast/Lunch was amazing and we had a great discussion about what I was going to let Dianne purchase today.

I knew that getting Dianne up early today could cause problems. It seems that she is getting very anxious to replace our current couch with a newer, less plastic version. She keeps whining about wanting more space, cushions, and comfort. I usually just smile and point out that it was only $12 at home depot. She does not seem impressed. So today we went to Baileys. No this is not a gym, or casino, it is a furniture store. The kind that serves coffee and tea in the lobby. They were also filming a commercial. I silently wondered who paid for all this coffee, tea, and commercials. It couldn’t be me – could it??? Our sales rep was quite polite and knowledgeable about all thing couch. He showed us big ones, he showed us small ones. He showed us fluffy ones, he showed us flat ones. We saw ones that were made of leather, ones that were made of cloth. We sat on couches that were made near, and ones that were made far. After sitting on every couch the store had, we decided that we should keep our options open and search some more somewhere else. Happy to leave, I eagerly agreed and headed to the door.

After getting in the car, we decided that we were tired and needed to go home to take a rest. We had been going now for at least 2 hours and were totally exhausted from all the strenuous shopping that we had been doing. While heading back home we decided to get gas. Nothing unusual happened, just the normal total of $938.88 for a tank of gas.

This is the entrance to our appartment complex. It seems that we now have a moose with babies that is going to call this home. I wonder if she is paying as much in rent as I am????

Going home we talked about our day and how we should go to the zoo tomorrow. As we turned the corner onto the road to our complex, I asked Dianne to let me out right before the gate so that I could walk the dog. Just as I said that she slammed on the bakes and stopped the car. I looked at her and told her that I wanted to be dropped off at the gate, not this far back. She just stared ahead and said, “look”. I thought she was mad at me for not wanting to take the dog for a longer walk, so I tried to explain to her how I was tired and did not feel like going for a long walk. She just stared ahead and said, “look”. Getting somewhat peeved I asked her what she was talking about. She just said, “look”. I had no idea what she was talking about. I glanced ahead of us where she should have dropped me off. What I saw was amazing. There in the trees was a fully grown mother moose eating leaves. Several feet ahead of her were her two Calves. The calves were “small”. They probably were only 300lbs each. The mother was probably closer to 1,000+. We just sat and stared while they went on eating as though nothing was wrong. A neighbor walked out of there house and right up to the moose. She was probably within 12 feet and taking pictures. I thought for sure we were going to be witnesses to a moose murder, but the moose just kept on eating. The lady went back to her house, and the moose went on to greener pastures. The very spot where the moose were eating is where I walk the dog on a nightly basis. I decided that taking the dog for a walk would never be the same. There are moose in Anchorage – Some closer than others…