The (ex)Expatriate: Here Comes the Sun

My mood has improved with the return of light and relative warmth. The raven is gone; either he was bothered by my sudden interest in his presence (I did end up leaving out a few chunks of sausage and cheese for him, which John accidentally snowplowed under a berm, so it looks like I will have some cleaning up to do come spring), or he was just using the carport during the most frigid nights. His scat is still there as a fond remembrance. I really liked going to sleep at night thinking about the raven also sleeping just a few feet away from me. I hope he returns.

To make up for his absence, the jays, chickadees and redpoles are out in full force. Probably because I have laid out about two pounds of cheese and seeds for them in the past week. That is not an exaggeration. So, basically, for want of a busy social life, I have started to make friends with (by bribing with food) the local birds. This should turn out well. With all the cheddar that the jays have been hiding in their caches in the trees, I am already anticipating the property smelling like a sweaty cheese monger come spring.

I've actually had a couple of great weekends and hung out with real, non-avian, friends. Last week, my friend Michelle had a birthday party at her adorable house in Lemeta. As I stood in her entryway under a beam of incandescent light, zipping my boots on and off, I felt completely welcome and happy to be in Fairbanks. Maybe it was the two glasses of wine consumed at her party. Or the tasty barbeque moose meatballs. Or maybe what I need to do is get rid of the fluorescent light in my own entryway. Or just get out of the house more often.

I've joined a book club and hosted it at my place this past Saturday. Only two people showed up, and we spent more time talking about our kids than the book in question (Jonathan Safran Foer's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"), and I nearly burned the black bean soup (though I imparted a lovely smoky essence to it, thanks to my lack of attention), but it was a super fun night. And today, Scott, Selena and Grier were up visiting family so we got to hang out with them and the whole Hopkins/Guttenberg clan. Selena made a delicious egg scramble with broccoli (heretofore a verboten vegetable at the Johnson/Perreault household as per John's preference, but I'm going to start bringing home again that delicious cruciferous candy).

Despite the fact that Theo is under the weather (new parenting challenge: vomit!), we took him for a little walk this afternoon up to the Solstice Trail on Keystone. Some photos below.