April | 2021 | Beneath the Borealis

After the most epic year of snow I’ve ever seen, Spring has finally sprung. While Spring in Alaska is more of a slog than a sprint, I’ll take it. Onto the next season we go! We’ve had 50 degree days, sunshine and the constant drip drop of melting snow. Every day, slowly but surely, that which slept in a snowy embrace awakens. Usually, everything that’s uncovered is welcome. Sure, there may be a stray tool that didn’t make it in the shop or an errant piece of cardboard that missed the fire. Sure, you have to wait as it melts, freezes, and melts again until you can finally get these items out but hey, playing lost and found is what Spring is all about.

That is, until Leto decided to up the ante.

A little over a week ago, I went outside to check on Leto before a meeting for work. There he was, under the house, soaking up the sun rays. He looked relaxed. A little too relaxed. Mid-double take I noticed that he was rocking ever so slightly. I slip-slid my way along the icy underbelly of the house (aka Leto’s Lair) and immediately knew something was off. His tongue was sticking out of his mouth and the rocking was constant. He could barely open his eyes in greeting. I offered him a treat to get his attention but…nothing. If you know Leto, you know he’s perhaps the most food motivated dog in the world. My Momtuition kicked into high gear. Finally, I got him to stand up and head indoors where I could better assess the situation. He stumbled to his feet and weeble-wobbled his way up the Ramp of Doom as I stood over him, guiding his way.

My mind was racing. I’d heard him and his friend yelp while playing earlier that day. Had he hurt himself? He didn’t seem to be in pain. I ran my hands over his body, checking for any signs of injury. I found none. As I took my hands away from him, he fell to the ground, unable to support his own weight. I looked at the clock. My meeting was about to start. I let them know I wouldn’t be coming to that or anything else until I knew what was going on. Something was wrong.

I called The Chief and asked him to come home. Tears welled up in my eyes as panic set in but then, something else took over. After so many years of so many emergencies, my brain went into autopilot. Make the calls, pack the bags, handle the situation.

1 pm is apparently the worst possible time to have a vet emergency in Alaska. Every vet I called was out on lunch or busy with a patient. Thankfully, there was a vet 5 hours away (our closest option nowadays. Dr. Kimi, come back!) with an emergency number. I called and she texted back. I explained Leto’s symptoms and she said “Sounds like he’s high. Give him lots of water and text me if anything changes.” The only problem was, I couldn’t get him to drink a drop and I couldn’t think of where he would have gotten it. I scoured the outside for anything that could have gotten him in such a “groovy” mood. Nothing. To add to the mystery, the compost was undisturbed, the mechanical fluids were intact…zero clues. Plus, he’d been with me all day, in the house, under the house on a line or out with me when we took a short walk.

I tried another vet and eventually got through. They recommended coming in. 7 hours away. After feeling pretty rebuffed by the first vet (she had asked next to zero questions and said it “should be fine”) and told to immediately come in by the second, things were vascillating in my heart between “I’m sure he’s fine” and “He’s about to die.” So, I texted a video of him to a friend who is also a vet. She called me right away and started running me through all the questions.

How are his pupils? Are they dilating?

No.

How are his gums? Pink? Responsive to pressure?

Pink. Responsive.

Is he eating or drinking?

No.

Can he walk?

No.

We talked through the possibilities and they ranged from mild to terrifying. Given our distance from the nearest medical care, if it did end up being something serious and we waited, chances were we wouldn’t make it in time. That made the choice for us (a choice I’d pretty much already made the second I saw him). We were headed in. Time to get the show on the road. I started packing us up as The Chief headed out to get the truck ready. One problem: we were out of fuel. So, he gathered our cans and sped off on the snowmachine to borrow some. I moved through the house in a calculated daze. I’d done this so many times that it was almost second nature. Hope for a night, pack for a week. By the time I had us all situated, The Chief was back and our neighbor was over wishing us good luck. 20 minutes and a change of clothes later (diesel isn’t the best smelling perfume) I watched as The Chief carried our fur baby down the Ramp of Doom.

I lost it.

I’d watched him do the same thing with our Lou the entire week before she passed and it broke my heart to see it again. I went into the freezer shed to grab last minute items and to pull myself together. I sent out a little prayer to the Universe, dried my eyes, took a deep breath and steadied myself. Time to go.

7 hours, dozens of glaciers (one that had turned into a foot-wide, foot-deep running river) and endless check-ins to make sure our little man was still breathing later, we arrived. The entire drive Leto had barely moved. He wouldn’t get out to pee or drink and his über expressive ears barely twitched when we said his name. Our vet friend had changed her plans that night in order to meet us and didn’t even flinch at the fact that we wouldn’t be getting in until 10 pm. The Chief gently picked up our babe from the back seat and slowly, steadily made his way across the skating rink-esque parking spot to the house.

Leto loves new places and upon being set on the examination mat, he started to come to and then…he started to pee. Everywhere. Quick lady she is, our friend grabbed a cup and gathered a sample as he stumbled outside. It was time to start the detective work. 5 minutes later, the truth came out: stoned. Our little Malamute was stoned out of his mind. He rang true for THC in his pee test. No government jobs for this kiddo.

Relief poured over all of us. For the first time in 10 hours, I could breathe easy. My babe would be OK, he was just totally and completely blitzed.

The epic pee time seemed to wake him up a little more and though he walked like a drunk, he was walking again, wagging his tail and drinking water. We spent the rest of the night catching up and learning a few vet tricks, like how to take his femoral pulse. In addition to seeing us at 10 pm, our friend continued her awesomeness and offered us to stay with her. As we made the bed, Leto came running into the room and jumped onto it. His first feat of near normal mobility. The boy loves a good sleepover. The next morning Leto crawled into bed with us, tail wagging, like nothing had even happened. As the Chief, Leto and I all cuddled in bed I felt myself relax into the reality that our babe was actually OK.

Please don’t tell me you’re moving onto beer now. Claiming his Uncle Dan’s booze.

Right?

A few days later, home again, I peeked at him under the house and what did I see? Rocking Leto, eyes closed, tongue out.

Dang it!

I went inside and told The Chief and his Uncle Dan that we had a repeat offender on our hands. I brought him inside and we all gave him love and pets, hoping to make his trip an easy one. Even though it still was hard to see him that way, we were able to make jokes this time. That is until he suddenly started drooling profusely, then dry heaving. My mind flashed to fear. What if it wasn’t a repeat offense. What if he’d actually eaten something poisonous this time and we’d just been sitting there watching him, wasting precious time?

Thankfully, the drooling and dry heaving stopped and it was clear that he had simply raided his stash again.

Over a week later and two days of StonerMute in the books, we still have no idea where he found the goodies. All we can hope is that he finished them off for good. Oh Spring, how you uncover the most wondrous of things. In the end, the nearer vet was right, he was stoned but I’d take a trip to Town any day of the year to know our little man was OK. Living this far out has its advantages but moments like these highlight the disadvantages. It’s a true life of living lock step with faith that everything will work out while simultaneously knowing that life is full of the unexpected. Thankfully, the unexpected left us unscathed this time and I can’t explain how grateful I am for that.
Thank you.

With love,

from Alaska

P.S. Any stoners on your watch? Share your story in the comments!

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I love the allure of DIY, don’t you? Do It Yourself. Hell yea! I’m going to…probably.

In my life in California, my DIY consisted sometimes of actually DIYing and most often of scrolling through countless projects on Pinterest until I felt like I had actually accomplished something. Similar to scrolling through to select an exercise video and then feeling so accomplished having just looked at others exercising that you head to the kitchen for a snack. What a workout! DIY was something novel to me. Something I would (occasionally) choose to do. I’d research my project of choice, head to the craft or hardware store, and come evening, I’d have something somewhat resembling the project I’d endeavored to complete.

Fast forward to Alaska and DIY has taken on a whole new meaning. I realized the shift immediately from the moment I wanted to camp out at a friend’s house and spent the day pick-axing through rocks to make a level area.

Nothing here is hand-delivered unless it’s delivered by your hands. For this little lady, who was used to small-scale projects being completed in one day, I didn’t quite understand bigger projects or why they took so damn long.

Proximity to supplies
Timing
Weather
Money
Supplies
Time
Resources
Did I say the weather?

All of this and more impact our lives out here far more than I ever could realize immediately. I looked at projects to be done, planned with The Chief and couldn’t understand why we were still in the gathering of materials stage months later. Still, even as I came to understand that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, that things would simply take more time, I didn’t want to click my heels to leave. So, I started with what we had and settled into where I was.

Hiking in Alaska — Deep down the wormhole…

I liked the hard life, I knew that for sure, but damned if it didn’t drive me crazy sometimes. Slow and steady is less my speed. I prefer one and done and move onto the next.

So, when we started our living room project LAST fall…

Building in Alaska — Phase I: Painted + New Flooring

I was impatient for it to be done. But guess what? It finally (almost) is!

Yes, we need to clean up the battery box and yes we need to re-hang our art and yes, we need to build the shelves we’ve been talking about for a year but I’d be a liar if I said I couldn’t see the finish line for the first time ever. It’s there.

The truth is, as I sat back and admired our hard work, I realized that this wasn’t just the end of a 6-month long project, it was the end of a 6-year project. We had started our living room project 6 years ago when I first arrived. We started here, with dueling couches, an OSB (read: similar to plywood) floor covered in a rug permanently covered in dog hair. Here, with single-pane windows that sometimes opened, a cloth ceiling, and more guns than I’d ever seen in my life (but at least now we were off the floor). We started here, with a place we both felt immediately at home in, with a person we both felt we’d found our soul in, with a ready canvas and slowly, the picture began to come to life.

Since then, we’ve made constant upgrades, changes, arrangements, and re-arrangements, trying to finally settle into our space.

Like this Christmas edition:

and this Summer edition:

and this Fall corner:

and this Winter coziness:

From here:

To here:

And you know what? We are finally there. Well, near there, but let’s call it good. The end is truly in sight.

Sure, there’s much more to do the moment you step out of the living room but for the first time ever, two-thirds of our house is complete. Our bedroom feels like a little sanctuary and our living room finally feels complete and it brings me a deep sense of satisfaction. Yes, it took forever. Yes, it meant individual trips over months on end to finally get all of the materials here. Yes, it meant working in the cold, working on the weekends and countless hours checking the fire in the shop to make sure the temp hadn’t dropped and our stain wouldn’t freeze on the boards. Yes, it meant arguments and resolutions and the constant moving of things in and out, back and forth, up and down the Ramp of Doom in the slick Spring days and cold Winter nights.

Yes, it was a long endeavor but despite all of it, looking at the boards, each of which I bought, hauled, cut, stained, and installed with my husband brings me an immense sense of joy.

This morning as I sit in our cozy home, there’s a deep feeling of contentment. Not from DIYing but from DITing. Doing It Together. I didn’t always feel motivated to do the work, sometimes The Chief didn’t either, yet together, we made it happen. I think more than anything, what I wanted most in life (even more than nailing a Pinterest-worthy creation) was a partner to do things with. I certainly didn’t anticipate finding this partnership in the Alaskan wilderness, off-the-grid and far away from everything I’d ever known but I am so glad to have stumbled upon it.

It’s not always easy, but it’s exactly what I needed.

With love,

from Alaska