Sitka or Bust: Commute The World

“I’m concussed.” These words have always stuck with me. At least since the spring of 2005 when I stumbled across an amazing young adult novel titled, “Looking for Alaska.” John Green, the first time writer, knocked my socks off with his touching portrayal of youthful romance and emotional development. I read it at a cabin in northern New Hampshire, playing my antisocial card and avoiding most human contact to finish it in one night. I cried openly about three quarters of the way through and it also taught me the phrase, “patriarchal paradigms.” I still think about that novel a few times a year and would reread it as often as I could.

I wasn’t really sure I was still looking for my own Alaska until last night, when I found it. I went out with the Texans again, to the same mud hole where I wound up across the truck cab wedged under the dash. The Punisher was rip-roaring last night. Now, first of all, you have to understand the lingo of these Texans. They asked if I was delta. Judging from their other weird slang, I’ve learned to decode a few things. Delta apparently means anything that starts with a D. In this case, delta was driving. We decided to go “brody,” now this spelling is as close as I can guess for the weird terminology that I can only imagine is a mashup of “busting rodeos.” Basically, we were gonna do donuts and burnouts before jumping the mud ditch of death. I’d always heard it as “whipping shitties.”

They were gracious enough to let me drive, though I had forgotten how, ahem, rustic their vehicle was. Some kind of metal pliers acted as the inner door handle and they were so awkward to handle I made Nick latch it for me. There was also a little bit of plastic that had to be shoved behind the headlight pull stick or it would just pop right back in and we’d be driving blind. They are very creative with their fixes, I’ll tell you that.

Now, the formula for whipping the proper shittie is as follows: Crank the steering wheel all the way to one direction, then send it back a quarter turn. Slam on the gas, wait for the spin and straighten out before you run off the road or into a fence. I whipped a few then they determined I had enough experience to try a classic figure eight. Basically the same directions as the shittie, but once the vehicle straightens out a bit you crank the wheel all the way in the opposite direction. Gravel was flying behind the Punisher that night.

The Texans upgraded my badass status from a buckaroo to a cowgirl that night. I’m just hauling ass up that hierarchy, let me tell you. I passed the wheel over and everyone else took a turn at the wheel. My palms were on the ceiling again, no one can tell me I’m not learning a thing or two here. On the final pass, one of the Texans decided to ram the Punisher into reverse. Apparently he thought we were farther on the trail because where we were was not the best place for reversing, especially not at full throttle. I had a brief oh shit moment as he hit reverse and the next thing I knew my head snapped back against something and the Punisher was tail end in a ditch.

The force of impact was enough to blow their cowboy hats off, and even my own was behind the seat. I consider that pretty impressive because a baseball hat is normally pretty stationary, but with a pony tail through it, its damn near impossible to remove. That shit was gone. I blinked my eyes and immediately said, “I think I’m concussed.” Texan number one crinkled his hat while Texan number two looked like he’d gotten into a bar brawl. His eyelid was a complete blood blister from bashing it against, what I can only assume was, the steering wheel.

The rear bumper of the truck looks like a tin can peeled with a can opener, the drivers side door will no longer stay closed, the exhaust is completely gone, and halfway home the windshield wipers decided to halt their slow progress in mid wipe, completely obscuring what little visibility was provided. The Punisher crawled from the ditch and she seemed to be a tad beaten as we made our way to the lodge. Upon arrival I noticed a decent sized fight bite on my right hand. I imagine it was created during that brief oh shit moment in which I tried to save my life, but honestly have no recollection of moving that hand at all. Concussed, maybe not, but whiplash might not be too far-fetched.

Today I worked for longer than I’d normally want to be awake. I like this job and hate it at the same time. I love that I get to do advertising and write blogs and come up with schnazzy slogans, but I hate not knowing what tomorrow is going to bring. I asked my boss tonight what I’d be tasked with tomorrow and she shrugged, laughed, and blew me off. She has no idea either. I am the type of person to need mental preparation. At this point, I don’t care if I’m scrubbing toilets anymore, it just doesn’t surprise me when I’m assigned to housekeeping, but it does seem off when I have an assigned task half completed and am then reassigned to something completely new. Whatever, it adds character.

I just spent the better part of five hours rearranging log books for the fishing vessels to be chartered out. Luckily Ed, my partner in crime, was with me or I might have gone insane. I need to work on my fluidity as a person. I can see that in how I react to being thrust into these unscheduled and impromptu tasks. If order is how I live my life chaos is how it will end.

I have found enjoyment this week in the discovery of a creature rarely seen spotted around Sitka. I was told about the mysterious and often thought of as mythical “Lion Dog” once I first arrived. This poor beast roams the streets and footpaths near the harbor, completely without a perfect mate, aimlessly wandering in the hopes of finding his significance in another. He swishes his tail back and forth and pads down to the waterfront, shaking his dark tufted mane against the wind. I find solace in this miserable, yet amusing creature. I’m sure many have wondered what kind of fool would shave their dog into the semblance of a lion, I know I have. Apparently, that fool lives in Sitka.

Now my main goal in life is to find out what drove this guy to torment his pet. Was he warned? You know, “Brutus, if you don’t start sitting when I tell you to I’m gonna shave you into a lion,” or “Sampson, why are you afraid of mice? If you don’t toughen up I’ll make it so not even mice are scared of you.” Seriously, did he pee on the carpet one too many times?  So many questions for the entity that is Alaska. I’m trying really hard to get a picture of this beast, but he is very elusive. Instead you will have to settle for a picture of my new best friend: Das Boot Dryer. When my sneaks aren’t even wet I throw em on this thing and that way they’ll be extra toasty for the morning. I feel very sneaky because my roommate probably wonders how my shoes get so damn wet every night.

For the past few days, and ever since I arrived at the Wild Strawberry Lodge, I’ve been tasked with random odd jobs before the fishing season officially begins. Few of these jobs really has anything to do with what I’ll actually be doing for most of the season, but hey, at least now I’ll have stories to tell. I’ve been a maid, a busboy, a grunt, fish vacuumer, photographer, and awkward lurker.

I wrote an advertising editorial today, well actually yesterday, but I actually sent it in today. I really think this is something I could be doing as a career. Blogging and advertising seem to really click with me. Maybe I’ll look into that a bit more. Anyways, I eventually ran out of stuff to do that actually made sense, and then had to move furniture and boxes around so it seemed like I was being productive.  I wish I had more duties. The remainder of today was spent outside hosing down the Lodge vans. This is possibly the worst idea ever: at least with the grime on them they only look dirty, when you clean them off they just look old. Somehow, I ended up drenched in frigid water for a few hours, my sweatshirt dragging at the seams. I blame it on my scrubbing buddy’s retaliation for me “accidentally” vacuuming her sweatshirt up. We are an odd pair, but somehow she actually seems to be as humorously twisted as I am. 

The Texans blew their truck up tonight while I was vacuum packing fish. I told them I’d go with, but they didn’t want to wait for me to finish. Sad. But at least I wasn’t there when The Punisher shit the bed. Oh well, they’ll be able to get her back and running in no time. She currently resides on top of a mountain with a tire blown off the rim and trapped in a muddy ditch. I hear word that they’re trying to put the wheel back on with some sort of Myth Busters-proven explosion method. Something about a can of ether and a lighter being able to blow the tire back on the rim. I just hope they don’t blow themselves up because the staff cabin would be desolate without their crackpot routine to fall back on.

I learned today that there are way too many weird regulations on the gutting of fish. Apparently some sort of rockfish are allowed to be gutted on the vessel with  their carcass thrown to the ocean, others are not. Some can be gutted and degilled, some have to be whole, some can be mutilated entirely, some must return with a one inch by one inch square patch of skin remaining. Gah. Just give me the fish on a plate and I’m happy. I met captain Mike today. Saw the guy on the website and thought to myself, man, I like that mustache. His mustache is even more awesome in real life. True story. Nice guy too, totally taught me way too much about the vacuum sealer. I can die happy now that I’m an expert on the proper sealing and freezing of processed fish carcasses.

I even tried to coax the eagles from the treetops with a tasty treat of halibut and salmon remnants, but they were being painfully shy so all I got from them was a treetop picture. Another weird Alaskan tidbit: Pterodactyls are totally still alive and kicking. They have these huge ravens here, about the size of the so called “extinct” dinosaurs, and they make obnoxious death rattle noises from their perches. I’m pretty sure I saw one attack an eagle the other day. The natives say that they are the spirits of the ancestors, which totally means it isn’t good juju to kill them. Even if they fly away with your baby. Parents be warned: dingos probably won’t get your kids, but the ravens might.