Ginnie shooting...

Okay, so guns scare me, but here is my first time shooting a gun!!!

I love guns!?!?

Here we go - another flattering picture of Kristie! This time, it's Kristie with a gun, protecting us from our neighbors. Below that is me, relaxing after shooting things in a gravel pit. Ruben decided that what was missing in our lives as Alaskans was time spent pulling triggers. So, while Kristie slept off the previous night's river party, Ruben and I drove off to the middle of nowhere with a bunch of ammo and a... .45? Is that what they call it? You all should have seen me! Taking out the clip, clumsily putting bullets in, loading the gun... I think I've found my calling in life. But none of that compares to my love of actually shooting things. Apparently, I have good aim! Shooting is such a stress reliever, which is odd when you consider how deadly the sport can be.

In other news, I sure hope Ben (one of the attorneys, and our friend at fairbanksorbust.blogspot.com ) likes these photos. Because I have realized, as of late, that I mostly write this blog to keep him from yelling at me at work. (Stop beating me, Ben!! I won't let your coffee get cold next time!) See Ben, this blog isn't just about making me look good at the expense of my friends! It's about guns, too!

P.S. I am "that friend."

Kristie has recently accused me of being "that friend," the girl who is always posting cute pictures of herself, and ugly ones of her friends. The girl who tells her friends to wear sweats to the party, and shows up wearing something tight and cute. The girl who is always doing "friendly" things that are secretly self-serving. I have three defenses to this:
1) See the picture of me in the trunk? I think that's a pretty strong affirmative defense.
2) See the picture in this post? This is wear Ruben has just told Kristie about his encounter at the gas station that morning. Apparently, Ruben walked in and saw a girl he knows working at the gas station. "Wow," the girl said, "I saw you and that girl in the red dress dancing last weekend. You're amazing! Did you take lessons? Is that your wife?" Now, neither Kristie nor I are Ruben's wife (who is a very lucky lady that Ruben is very fond of) but I should still let everyone know that we have confirmation that Kristie is a very good (and attractive!) dancer.
3) For crying out loud, I was the one wearing the men's t-shirt, and Kristie was wearing my sundress. She looks fantastic, okay?

We've gotten in touch with our inner hicks!

Celebrating, Kenai style! It was Coda's birthday, and I just had to go "four by'en," because it's my favorite thing to do in Alaska. Everything was going well, until we (Ruben) tried to go over a mound which turned out much softer than he expected. We were "high-centered." (I love my new lingo!) There we were with lots of time to kill while Coda went to get his truck to rescue us, and Kristie and I decided that this was the time to begin our modeling careers. And you, dear blog readers, are the first viewers of the resulting photos.
In between the truck photos is a photo of me, Ruben, Kristie, and Coda at a bar, celebrating Coda's birthday the way all birthdays should be celebrated:
with shots!
If you're into getting dirty, drinking, and being around dead animials in bars, Alaska is the place for you! If you think last call should be around 4:30 am, and that coffee should flow from anywhere it physically can... again, Alaska might be a place to consider.
Dead animals are the centerpiece of any decorating scheme here. The airport in Kenai: filled with dead animals. The gift shops: displaying large dead animals (if the shops are classy). And the bars: the proud homes of many a dead moose.
Kristie and I are both enjoying our job. One of the exciting parts about criminal law is the truly gory photographs that you come across. At my job last summer, I used to thumb through crime scene photos in my spare time. At my current job, I've taken a real liking to autopsy photos. Nothing says fun like photographs documenting the internal organs of the deceased. We also have come across naked photographs of over-weight, middle-aged men. One of the attorneys in our office suggested using the photos as the basis for a motivational poster promoting abstinence. Personally, I'm considering compiling a poetry collection from homocide reports. Any takers?

If I never see another moose again...

First, before I start complaining about my newfound indifference to Moose, or whining about the time the Emards stuck me in their trunk, I should point out how unbelievably beautiful Alaska can be. Mike took this photo of the view from the Emard's lodge, and while I'm sure I wasn't up at 3am or whatever time that photo was taken, I can attest to how beautiful that view is. I certainly have landed myself in a kind of paradise.
Kenai is on the Kenai Peninsula, which means that along the entire coastline of the peninsula, whenever we drive down the highway, we look at the mountains across the inlet. The views are remarkable along the entire roadway.


Alright, now for stories and whining. See that photo on the right... that terrified looking 12-year-old? That's me, in the Emards trunk. Next time my parents have kids, I hope they do everything in their power to make the child a tall one. Being short used to be kind of fun: I got to be front and center in the school choir, could sneak into the McDonald's PlayPlace for years after my other friends were getting disapproving looks, and got sneakers at discount prices when I bought kids sizes. Now it's just getting absurd. Not only did a client recently tell me that I look 12, but now I'm getting stuck in people's trunks? This is nothing short of discrimination... no pun intended.












And see that lovely lady in the lower photo? That's Kristie, and her new friend the moose, taken from the back porch of our apartment. Remember the story about last weekend at Hooligans and Riverside? Well, after a few drinks, apparently Kristie thinks that getting close to a moose is a friendly thing to do in Alaska. I can't really blame her, because our moose friend certainly doesn't respect our property lines.

Happy as a clam... or the 220 clams we caught!

Another weekend, another adventure. We went clamming in Ninilchik and managed to dig up over 200 clams. I refuse to fish, because I just don't have the patience for it, but clamming - well, there's more reward for your efforts. After catching over 3 limits (among 5 fishing licenses) the gang retired home to clean them. Let me tell you, cleaning a razor clam is more commitment than I'm ready for. We spent about 3 and a half hours outside, rinsing off bits of clams in clod water, until my opposable thumbs were useless. But in the end, it was all worthwhile, because we ate the best chowder and fried clams I've ever had.
In other news, Kristie and I checked out the social scene in Soldotna Friday night. We went to Hooligans, the town's most happening bar, dressed to kill and ready for fun. And fun it was. Kristie took advantage of the generousity of the nice British man who liked my eyes - four drinks worth of generousity. Ah, the things I do for Kristie. I believe he grabbed my face and squeezed it. My eyes popped out in disbelief. Kristie later recalled that she was shocked that a man could be so intrigued by a woman made to look like a fish. But then again, we're in Alaska. A few more drinks later, and I (still sober) went with Kristie to pick up Mike and Melody at the Kenai Airport. Back to Soldotna we went, and after a brief visit to Houligans, we moved on to Riverside. It was all well and good, until we were kicked out of the bar...
It started with an innocent game of limbo. There we were, determining how low we could go, and I had already been eliminated. (Darn my cute new heels!) Kristie, limboing lower now, fell during her turn. It was crushing enough to have to take second place, but imagine her heartbreak when the bouncer not only asked her to leave, but wouldn't let her take her drink with her! Smiling, I asked the nice bouncer if I could have the piece of crepe paper as a souvenier - our former limbo stick. He obliged, and I have one very funny memory.

Mail, or so we thought

Kristie and I have been religiously checking the little box outside of our apartment door labeled "Mail." Making what we thought was a fairly conservative assumption, we decided that it was the mailbox. Days went by. When our library cards weren't showing up, I blamed the library. When we weren't getting any advertisements, I thanked the lack of local business. When my boy at home claimed to have sent two cards already, I chalked it up to a "the check's in the mail" kind of excuse. But when the electric company called me to tell me that our bills weren't getting through, I got worried. So, I showed up at the local post office.
Now, in the past few years, I've gotten used to not fitting in. I lived in Montreal, not speaking a word of French. I moved to DC, and still can't name my Congressional Representative. Heck, I lived in St. Thomas as a white person. Here in Alaska, I stand out pretty strongly, due to tendency to wear vaguely clean shirts, my even-toned hair, and my distinct lack of a Carhart suit. So, I went into the post office, armed with a big smile, and knowing that I stood out like a sore tourist.
"Hi!" I said. "I just moved here with my friend a couple weeks ago, and we have this box labeled 'mail' outside of my door, which we foolishly assumed was a 'mailbox.' Now, we haven't gotten a single piece of mail. Where do you think we went wrong?"
"Did you sign up for service?" the nice man asked.
"No, how do I do that?" I responded.
Three forms later, I was just a phone call and a day away from receiving mail.

That is just one of the further adventures we've had in Kenai. In other news, Kristie was hired right away at Home Depot. The only real negative point of the interview was when the interviewer said, quite confidently, "I think you'll really fit in well here!" Kristie looked to her left, looked to her right, and saw mustaches... on the women. Her heart sank. What had 3 weeks in Alaska done to her!??!

Kristie's Big Interview

Sunday, 6 p.m. Kristie Emard will have the biggest interview of her summer. No, not the JAG, not a public defender or prosecutor's office... but the home depot. With "some graduate school" completed, we're fairly sure that Kristie is among The Home Depot's strongest candidates, in an academic sense. But in other ways, she has real weaknesses. She doesn't have a lot of experience with plumbing, but since many Kenai residents don't have running water in their homes, we're hoping that this absense is one The Home Depot will overlook. She has years of experience as a cashier and working in a stockroom, but only in a grocery store and Nike outlet. Will these skills transfer over to bigger challenges that she might face at The Home Depot? Stay tuned, and Sunday night at 6pm (Alaska time) we'll find out!

In sadder news, Kristie was recently rejected at "Three Bears," which is a bulk discount store. Management couldn't hire someone for the stockroom position whose schedule wasn't "wide open." It's your loss, Three Bears, your loss!!

Aside from the adventures in employment, Kristie and I have been having plenty of other adventures. We went out with co-intern Sean to a house party last night. When Sean said "house party," I foolishly assumed we'd be going to a house for the party. Wrong again! When I showed up in a sweater-dress over thin dress pants, I realized that I was not wearing the requisite jeans and jacket combination that the other girls were sporting. (And by "the other girls," I mean all 4 of the other girls. Alaska is mostly men. Heck - Kenai is about 4:1 men: women.) Anyways, Kristie and I had a good time and ended up planning the first annual Kenai pub crawl. We're carving about 45 minutes out of our busy schedule this week to hit up all of the bars in Kenai. Hopefully we won't bump into too many of our clients!

Work is going well. Kristie wrote a few more motions, and I got to appear in court 3 times between Thursday and Friday. I'm writing a motion on an interesting constitutional issue that's currently an unsettled point of law in Alaska. They certainly give us good work here at the Public Defender office. In other news, we're compiling a list of life lessons we've gotten from work. For instance, "If there's a warrant out for your arrest, try not to have 29 marijuana plants on your property," or "When driving around with your portable meth lab in your car, obey the speed limit." The title to our upcoming book: Chicken Soup for the Felonious Soul.

That's all for now! Back to drinking tea and bumming around!

Second week of work!

Well, we made it here, and so far, things are just as odd as ever. Kristie and I seem to have landed in a legal anomaly.
Our office is wild - full of interesting characters. Until I figure out
blog etiquette, I'll refrain from naming names, but let's just saw that
our co-workers range from the guy who used to light himself on fire
before diving off a 40-foot high board into a 10-foot deep pool, to the
attorney who drops more f-bombs in any given day than I believe I have
in my entire life.
Our work is interesting. We're writing motions
(okay, only Kristie has written complete motions so far) and I've been
able to appear in court twice already. Within the first 7 days of work
- that's pretty amazing.
Last weekend we took a boat tour of the Kenai Fjords. This is us on the boat. Obviously, because we were there, the world worked in our favor and a humpback whale breached - a fairly rare event. I didn't catch the breaching in a photo (look, I can only get so lucky in one day) but here's evidence of the whale's existence.


Seward is one amazing town. We walked around and enjoyed how beautiful it is for quite some time. Bear in mind, we currently live in Kenai - which is breaking new records for being the most inconvenient, unappealing town I have ever lived in. In the mid-60's, Seward was entirely destroyed by a tsunami. Kristie and I, being sensitive souls, stopped for a moment to admire the warning sign for tsunamis.

That's it for this posting - mostly because I'm tired and blogger took forever to let me post photos - but I promise another posting tomorrow, and some funnier stories about life in Alaska.