What I did on Winter Solstice in Alaska……
Monday, December 21st, 2009Slept. I would put in a picture of me sleeping, but I was sleeping so it was hard to take a picture. Well to be totally honest, I did not sleep the entire day. Being up in Alaska during the shortest day of the year, I have a rule – if the sun is up, so am I. I am also enforcing this rule on my two college children home on their winter break. Having once been in college myself, I understand the desire to sleep most of the time when you first show up back at home. Partly so no one considers you available to do chores, but mostly to recover, from well, college. Since I know the game, we have competitive napping going on here. But I figure, we can all sleep for the 19 hours of the day the sun is not up. I’m not sure if the sun is truly even “up” more than two hours because it only peaks over the mountains to the south for an hour or two – the rest of the time the area is washed in an eerie lightness.
To counter the winter blues, I have taken to making tropical drinks. My latest “adult” non-alcoholic beverage is a no-hito mo-hito. Upon my arrival in the land of perpetual o-dark-thirty, I stopped at the Juneau Costco and purchased a twenty pound bag of limes. And then at the only florist shop in Haines, I found a lovely little lime mint plant. With these two main ingredients, it was party time at the manor. After the pucker punch of the first round, I scoured the cabinets and found a stash of agave nectar that makes the no-hito mo-hito a delightful, eye opening beverage. We are now down to ten pounds of limes. And no one will suffer from scurvy at the house.
I also purchased a case of pomegranites – besides staining all my clothes in little red splotches that has me even more in the Christmas spirit, I’m still racking the creative synapses to figure out their mission this holiday season. Maybe I’ll have to go back and take a nap to let the subconscious work on this task.