Alappa: Inupiaq for "It's cold!"

We continue to freeze here in Alaska. The temperatures remain well below zero. They've had to cancel the Cross-Country Ski Championships because they don't race if it's below -4 degrees on any part of the course. I think they got to do one round a couple days ago when the temps crept up to about 1 degree above zero. It's amazing what a difference a few degrees can make to your comfort level. You'd think that negative anything would just feel downright cold. But after several days of -20 or lower, a -1 degree days feels almost like a heat wave... honestly.

I snapped a few photos of the speed skating oval they built outside my current office. My old office was in downtown Anchorage in a 19-story building, surrounded by lots of other buildings. My new workplace has a lot of open space nearby as it sits next to a city park. The city generally smoothes the ice on the oval with a Zamboni, but I took these photos on January 2nd, and they must have taken the holidays off... As you can see, there aren't many folks out skating that day either. It was about -13, if I recall correctly.

I went out there on my lunch hour to take the pics. The sky was so blue and the mountains of Chugach State Park in the background looked so lovely. You can see the sun is not very high in the sky, even though it's midday. This time of year, it just creeps up over the horizon and then drops back down without ever rising to directly overhead.

I got news the other day that I'm on my way to a couple of Native villages the weekend of Feb. 6-8. I've volunteered to help out a program sponsored by the Alaska Business Development Center which sends college accounting students into rural Alaska to help villagers with their tax returns. Groups of students are escorted by a supervisor (who needs only minimal tax knowledge) to handle logistics, emergencies, etc... That's the role I'll be playing. My weekend will be spent in both Holy Cross and Grayling. Both are Athabascan villages on the banks of the lower Yukon River in western Alaska. We'll fly from Anchorage to Bethel on a big plane and then hop into a ski plane for the flight to Holy Cross. Another little plane will take us to Grayling the following day. Grayling is one of the checkpoints of the Iditarod on odd number years (such as this one!). So about a month after I'm there, the mushers will pass through on their way to Nome.

Alicia's been awful cranky lately. She'll fly off into a tantrum at the slightest provocation. Her behavior is the same at school and at home.

I figured out that because it's been so cold lately, the daycare hasn't brought the kids outside to play for the past 2 weeks. That means she's been without any direct sunlight since Christmas!

I've started sitting her in front of my S.A.D. lamp (seasonal affective disorder) for about 15 minutes per day. Hopefully, it will settle her down a little.