Our normally sedate lives have of late been interrupted by lots and lots of cool things. And not so cool things- like lame guests who called us 'uncivilized.'
But even that is alright, because those rude humans have inspired me to write a treatise on the American psyche, with special emphasis on how Americans behave when vacationing. This paper will include, but not be limited to, these themes: One, the utter disregard of manners and common courtesy, replaced with an inconsiderate and selfish attitude. Two, the unbelievable self-righteousness mentality, mixed with a healthy dose of bland middle-class morality. Three, whining as a natural course of conversation. This last point is the most fascinating, because as a culture we all whine almost constantly, even when we are a having a good time. It is as if whining and complaining have become a positive way to talk. Mine eyes have been opened, and I'm bewildered by our common behavior. Our grand President exemplifies this behavior: blame everyone else for everything, never take personal responsibility (especially when faced with the facts that you are to blame), whine constantly about things that cannot be changed, and fear anything and everything that is even a little bit different or more difficult (i.e., not having electricity, or running water- because as everyone knows, only uncivilized backwards losers live like that!). Ahh, but here I am complaining, proving my status as an American.
But really good and weird things have happened as well. I recently rode a fish in a local rodeo:
And the weather has been really lovely, so Taylor played Le Banjo for hours in the sun:
I got to go see this really cool, and really old, Russian Orthodox church. There is a huge Russian Orthodox population on the peninsula, left over from when the Russians ruled the roost:
We have a volcano up here called St. Augustine, and it is an island unto itself. It looks almost exactly like those paper maché volcanoes you made as a kid, and then you would add baking soda and vinegar in the middle and create an awesome explosion. This volcano makes real explosions, though. And it was steaming on the day I saw it:
And this is a little odd: two days ago we woke up and it was foggy out, which isn't weird at all, but then a lot of forest-fire-smoke mixed with it and we couldn't see anything at all when we drove our boat downriver. We almost got lost on the river. And then who knows what would've happened to us! Awful things!
Finally, last night we went with some friends to see the band Cake, a high school favorite. And it was so, so great. Alaska doesn't get very many really good bands, and so when anything resembling a decent show comes up here, it sells out immediately, and people come in from all over- we drove 120 miles to see it. And since we all loved the band so much, they loved us, and played three encores. Everyone was dancing and the drunks were having the time of their most likely short lives. This was the first concert we've seen in three years, and one of the guys we were with hadn't seen a show since the last Rage Against the Machine tour in 1999! So great, so great, so great:
So there is a week's worth of us, with an abnormal amount of activity in it. We feel so normal, and busy, and American.
But really good and weird things have happened as well. I recently rode a fish in a local rodeo:
And the weather has been really lovely, so Taylor played Le Banjo for hours in the sun:
I got to go see this really cool, and really old, Russian Orthodox church. There is a huge Russian Orthodox population on the peninsula, left over from when the Russians ruled the roost:
We have a volcano up here called St. Augustine, and it is an island unto itself. It looks almost exactly like those paper maché volcanoes you made as a kid, and then you would add baking soda and vinegar in the middle and create an awesome explosion. This volcano makes real explosions, though. And it was steaming on the day I saw it:
And this is a little odd: two days ago we woke up and it was foggy out, which isn't weird at all, but then a lot of forest-fire-smoke mixed with it and we couldn't see anything at all when we drove our boat downriver. We almost got lost on the river. And then who knows what would've happened to us! Awful things!
Finally, last night we went with some friends to see the band Cake, a high school favorite. And it was so, so great. Alaska doesn't get very many really good bands, and so when anything resembling a decent show comes up here, it sells out immediately, and people come in from all over- we drove 120 miles to see it. And since we all loved the band so much, they loved us, and played three encores. Everyone was dancing and the drunks were having the time of their most likely short lives. This was the first concert we've seen in three years, and one of the guys we were with hadn't seen a show since the last Rage Against the Machine tour in 1999! So great, so great, so great:
So there is a week's worth of us, with an abnormal amount of activity in it. We feel so normal, and busy, and American.
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