Back on Monday, I played ultimate. I'm on a team in Anchorage's summer league, and this was our third game of the season. We had too many subs and a few playing-time-hogs, and there were too many interruptions of the game to discuss- I mean, argue- about the rules. I left when we were tied at thirteens.
Compared to the others in this league, our team has more people at the ends of the age/experience spectrum. Several older/experiences players, several younger/inexperienced players, and then me, in the middle. Which oversimplifies things, but not so very much. Anyway, the younger ones (guys, mostly) have wheels but no sense of the game (or the rules, which they'll argue anyway), and no idea that they should take a sub if they get burned or scored on (not to end a sentence with a preposition). That we had so many people show up on Monday made things worse. While we couldn't get our heads together, we played a team who had just enough of its people to play, and they were playing better than we were. We should have been able to exhaust them, but we would not.
Anyway, when I got back up to my couchspace in Palmer, I tried to get a fire going. After working at it for a bit, as I turned again to the woodpile for kindling, well, there was a moose just about twenty feet away. That's too close for a moose to be to me. He wasn't moving much, but he saw me, or maybe he'd been watching, I don't know. I grabbed some gravel and landed one on his backside, and there was a light popping noise. Made him jump a little and move a few feet to the side, and he looked at me like what was my problem?
I threw again, too far, and when it landed behind him he came at me, so I got one in front of him Real Quick, and he changed course, once again away from me. Long story short: he moved a little deeper into the woods between couchspace and the road, and I heard him munching around out there until I went inside for sleep.
So, I thought then all the moose would have got the message, and keep well away from the dangerous biped with the Lethally Accurate Gravel Delivery Apparatus ("LAGDA").
Tuesday, yesterday, was a bigger deal for being solstice than anywhere I've been. Summer's a big deal up here, and that the days will just get shorter from here on out is a crying shame, or too bad. But it's great for now. Sunset at 11:45, sunrise at 4:12, without getting very dark in between.
Yesterday after work, I went and got taught how to walk and feed the four dogs I'll take care of at the next couchspace. All nice dogs, they get fed twice a day, and walked daily for about a half hour, but I might miss a day of the walking here and there. That couch-owner will be around like half the time, there's back-up dog-sitting, and the house is nice.
Then I went with the other two interns to the current couch-owner's new residence. Other intern #1 is from AK and was a commercial fisherman for years up here, so he finished cutting the fish, and he took care of the cooking. Suffice to say that that fish Was. Real. Good.
However: before going to cook the salmon, I arrived at the current couchspace to find another damn moose. This one was a little further off, and I didn't hit her (no horns, so I guess that's how you tell) with anything with the LAGDA (now improved by a new centrally-located pile of dedicated moose-deterrent). Near misses, or something, maybe senility, got her to move off a little. She went behind the couchspace and didn't appear on the other side. So I threw some gravel over the house, but no reaction, except she made some sort of moose's yawn or cough.
Eventually I went inside, crept around close to the back window, and saw moose butt, really big, really close. From that angle, seemed like she was sleeping. Spent some time on the phone, waiting on interns to arrive so I could show them how to get to the couch-owner's new spot. Once interns got there (accompanied by #1's approx. 12 yr. old daughter), I showed them to the back window. Moose had not changed position. Then we got everything together and everyone ready for a quick getaway. I crept around the side of the house to where I could see one of her eyes, reached around with my camera, pushed the button, and got away clean. So, that was fun and Need Not Be Repeated.
