How to scare 80 pigeons

Have you ever tried to scare a herd of wild pigeons? Technically, I realize that a group of pigeons is not a herd, but the word herd associated with this bird, helps me to toss to the wind the stereotype of pigeon as dumb, boring and just plain odd. Saying, “a herd of wild pigeons” carries a toughness that they probably don’t deserve, since the herd I recently tried this with are fed by a human everyday. Though while I was in the middle of the interview, a goshawk did swoop down in the middle of the street and fly away with one of the poor birds, so they do face their fair share of wild predators.

If you’ve never tried to make a pigeon fly, be forewarned that when these birds are nervous they tend to relieve themselves from their hind ends. And if you are standing below them, doing your best Freddy Kruger imitation, this tends to make them nervous, so be prepared to dodge a few stray pigeon bullets.

Last week I interviewed a man named Dick about a place in Fairbanks where a flock of nearly 80 pigeons spend their days. The birds sit atop several electric wires, everyday, waiting, waiting, waiting, for food, courtesy of Dick. To complete the story, I wanted to include a few sound bites of flying and cooing. So I asked my friend Brad, a former college roommate turned professional improvisation specialist (see the On Your Feet website) who was in town leading a workshop, to help me make these pigeons fly on command. While he was doing his best to motivate them to move on up, the plan was that I would record the sound of them flying away, while also photographing the spectacle. Above is what they looked like after the take-off and here is what the whole thing sounded like: default.aspx?fldr=2008052509&fl=ScaringPigeons.mp3&vfl=ScaringPigeons.mp3&disposition=inline Stay tuned for the Soundslides interview with Dick, the pigeon feeder. It should post in the next few days.

Commodore Orpington (a.k.a. Sir Elton Hercules John) coming to Squarebanks

Yes, it’s May, so don’t let the sun go down on me. That yellow brick road has faded away like a candle in the wind. So much for the crocodile rock that I used to visit with Bennie and the Jets. Yes, Rocket Man is on the way.

Why fly all the way to Atlantic City to see Elton John in concert, when it’s so very hot there in July. All you need to do is mosey over to the Carlson Center on May 29th. Yes, it really is true. He’s making three stops in the U.S. this summer and one just happens to be in fabulous Fairbanks, “Destination Superstar,” Alaska.

Of course, anyone who’s experienced the Pump House for Wednesday night karaoke knows that Fairbanks does have a certain mega-star appeal, so it makes complete sense that Elton would count our lovely town as a must-stop.

So, don’t go breaking my heart. Buy a ticket tomorrow. They go on sale at 10 a.m. via ticketmaster.com.

Elton, see you soon!

Boogie through break up

This weekend, courtesy of the UAF Good Time Swing Dance Club, learn to hustle, two-step, and swing from Alaska’s top dance instructors. Cost is $10/class or $8/class for those who take four or more classes. Saunter over to the UAF Wood Center Ballroom on Saturday for lessons taught during the day followed by the Fairbanks Swing Cats in the evening during the Spring Swing Thing Dance. The Artisans Courtyard hosts Sunday’s lessons. For more information download this flyer.

Remod Pod features laboring lovebirds

There is a couple I know who have been working diligently all winter to finish the lower level of their house. Often they work through their weekends and sometimes on weekday evenings, wiring pathways of electrical, framing walls of two by four studs, or sealing in the vapor barrier with something called “black death.” They have earned many bruises from wood gone awry or a hammer to the hip. There are days that their work requires they be covered with dust and have to wear masks to protect their lungs. Sometimes the tools they use are so loud that headphones are needed to save their hearing. They continue to plod away, nail by nail, piece by piece, with diligence, focus and always humor, thriving in the simple fact that their hard work is slowly creating a place to call their own.

Here is my first attempt at podcasting. This week The Remod Pod tells the story of a couple who are nearing the end of an addition project that has spanned the length of their relationship.

Gather ye human birds, enjoy the spring

Enjoy the Spring of Love and Youth,
to some good angel leave the rest;
For Time will teach thee soon the truth,
there are no birds in last year’s nest!

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As I stood this weekend amidst a motley flock of human bird impersonators—consisting of an upright oystercatcher, horned grebe, penguin, blue jay, flamingo, greater yellowlegs, common loon, arctic tern, violet-green swallow, and other wannabe wings—I realized this was more than just a costume party. This birthday gathering of feathered fake fowl was a call out, a sentry of sorts. Though we were mostly just mimics, standing amidst a group of bird personae made me think of times past and the possibilities of what’s to come.

While the party attire requested dressing as one’s favorite migratory bird, of course there were some avian fringe in attendance, including a human birdwatcher, a snowbird live from Tucson, and a man with a cardboard cutout around his face in the shape of a hand flipping “the bird”. Their rebel spirits only added to the mix. Even if the mammal blue jay was garbed simply—no beak and just blue clothes, except for the letter J duct-taped to his sweatshirt—the vague likeness of each of these bird portraits still elicited a few vivid memories.

Like the time when I was three, my family and I ate in Denali Park after picking blueberries, and a hoard of stealth camp robbing jays persisted and insisted on stealing anything to do with lunch. And a war-like walk on the tundra once, with my spastic pup Jack and a deranged parasitic jaeger, who dive bombed at us, in fierce protection of her young. Finally, a fishing trip into Pegati Lake where we were greeted in the early morning by a loon couple, obvious mates for life, yodeling and dancing as if they were in their own private bedroom.

More than anything, this group of human fliers unknowingly carried on their imaginary wings a clear sense of hope. They reminded me that the Creamer’s Field bird B&B will soon open its doors for another season of winged visitors. And I think I can hear sandhill cranes and Canadian geese now, the faint graceful swish of their wings freely flapping, as they make their final approach towards summer.

What brought you here?

This weekend at the Pioneer Park Civic Auditorium I attended a thoughtful and thought-provoking event called In a Time of Change. A creative conglomeration of scientists and artists gathered to express what it means to live in Alaska at this moment, during a time of such a tremendous global shift. The auditorium was packed and included many notable performances. I especially enjoyed the interpretive dancers, the play in two acts, and the Boreal Band, an enthusiastic group of mostly-kid rappers who charmed the crowd with their rendition of Mary Shield’s What’s a Shrew to You? The evening’s success was a true community effort, and the honesty and energy that went into the production made me proud to call Fairbanks my home.

Towards the end of the evening writer Carolyn Kremers read from her essay called Creating the Story. In the piece she talks about how she arrived in Fairbanks from Colorado and asks us each to think about the story of what brought us to this interior city. She included that, even if we were born in Fairbanks, there is always a deeper story of why we were born here. Here’s one layer of my story:

Her essay encouraged us each, for the sake of our planetary future, to ask ourselves what brought us to the place we live? Why do we stay? And what are we leaving behind for those who come after us? This series of questions was hard hitting, especially after seeing through the eyes of the evening’s performers, such insight about the United States’ place in terms of environmental laws, energy consumption, and global warming. It seems that in these tumultuous times the questions are appropriate for every American to ask themselves, whether living in Alaska, New York City or any place in between.

A fever for ice cream

Since I’m not in the Bahamas right now, I am thinking about eating ice cream, a delectable sensory experience at any temperature. Yesterday, driving by Hot Licks, I thought of their blueberry ice cream and began to salivate, realizing that spring is just a wink away. Until they open in April, here are ten ice cream-related activities to fend off a fever or inspire a feast.

1. Consider having ice cream as your main dish for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Eat it with a regular spoon, straight out of the container.
2. Visit the Ben and Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard. Pay tribute to rain forest crunch, while listening for an eerie, extremely unappetizing audio accompaniment. Then visit their Top Ten Flavors List. Luckily, chunky monkey and chocolate fudge brownie are currently number three and four on the list, surely spared from the cemetery.
3. Take a few minutes to learn more about ice cream and its consumption. Did you know that in 2006 the United States exported nearly $24 million worth of frozen desserts to Mexico?
4. Be a sweetheart when you make an ice cream cupcake for a friend, or an easy banana milkshake for your sweetie.
5. Hit reverse and consider ice cream fixes from your past. From my List of Favorite Parlors from Each Town I’ve Ever Lived Longer than Three Months, here are my three most memorable:
   Fairbanks, Alaska – Diary Queen, circa 1982 This was located where currently the Oasis sits on University Avenue. I used to ride my bike there after softball practice and order a peanut buster parfait for less than a dollar.
   Honolulu, Hawaii – Bubbie’s Homeade Ice Cream & Desserts I worked here during high school and the main perk was that I could eat as much ice cream as I wanted, as long as it was with a sample spoon, only from a small Dixie cup, and completely hidden from the view of any customers. This was definitely better than any matching 401(k) plan. The coconut macadamia nut and strawberry cheesecake were amazing.
   Portland, Oregon – Coffee People During the nineties known around the Rose City primarily for their coffee, the top secret was that they also sold excellent ice cream (purchased from Prince Puckler’s in Eugene and also on my Past List) and made THE BEST banana milkshakes ever.
6. Buy a flavor that you’ve never tried, and then another just because you like the name.
7. Wake up, after trying this luscious ice cream beverage, originally created by Zefiro and found today in The New Alaska Cookbook.

   Einstein’s Espresso
   2 scoops high quality vanilla or chocolate ice cream
   2 shots freshly brewed espresso
   2 tablespoons whipped cream
   1 chocolate-covered espresso bean

   Place ice cream in a tall ice cream soda glass. Pour the espresso over the ice cream. Top with whipped cream and bean. Serve with long spoon and straw.

8. Read a few ice cream blogs including Scoopalicious, A Daily Scoop, A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise, Japanese Ice Cream, or A Blog of Ice Cream.
9. Grab some friends, some ice cream and sing a few songs while feasting on your favorite flavor. Consider Ice Cream, Ice Cream You Scream or Ice Cream and Cake.
10. Take note this season, courtesy of Thornton Wilder: “My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy the ice cream while it’s on your plate.”

Saying goodbye to the spinster

Are there any words in the English language that you choose not to use and if you had a magic wand would remove from the dictionary? If so, the key to deleting portions of one’s vocabulary is that trashed words need to be immediately replaced with fresh words. In case you were wondering, I recently made this up for good luck. And auspicious word swapping is easy, thanks to Word Spy, a site devoted to the sleuthing of new words and phrases.

The moment I heard the other single person in my Supreme Goddess Knitting Group refer to us as spinsters, I’m certain my 30-something brain shot out a hefty dose of cortisol and I grew at least ten new chin hairs in flight or fight response to that dinosaur of a word. I couldn’t possibly be one of those, and neither was my friend. After all, everyone knows that spinsters are usually found in the old maid card deck, gray-haired bun-sporting non-grandmothers wearing little librarian glasses at the tips of their noses, pursing their lips, holding knitting needles, and exuding a pungent aura of “I haven’t had sex in 500 years.” Egad, that word just had to go.

Outwardly defensive, yet inwardly feeling as if I’d temporarily switched brains with column-writing Carrie from Sex and the City, I thought to myself, “What is a spinster, really? Why is there not an equally demeaning and ridiculous term for men? And could spinster really be more a state of mind than state of being?”

A quick visit to dictionary.com and there I found solitary spinster defined in three ways:

1. a woman still unmarried beyond the usual age of marrying
2. Chiefly Law as a woman who has never married
3. as a woman whose occupation is spinning

That definition was the tipping point that caused spinster to fly into my personal garbage pail of profanity. After all, just what is the “usual age of marrying”? Is that the age that most people in our society are tying the knot? Or is it an age that some people in our society have decided is the normal age for getting married? And since I didn’t spin wool, I was sharing fine company with every other single woman who’s not married. Certainly, we were not all spinsters.

So, after typing the term single woman into the Word Spy search box, I was soon introduced to my replacement word. Bye-bye spinster… hello quirkyalone!

According to Word Spy, a quirkyalone is a person who enjoys being single and so prefers to wait for the right person to come along, rather than dating indiscriminately. The site states that quirkyalones are quick to paint themselves as passionate romantics, always alert for the transcendent love experience. Very encouraging!

Breathing a sigh of relief, I could now focus on becoming a geekerati or blogebrity, so thankful I could still decipher the manly sock puppets from the retrosexual leadites. And maybe someday soon, long before I’m of elderwed years, I’ll take to intellidating and find a hot technosexual or fiver, leaving the testosteronic batmobiling toxic bachelors in my tart noir dust.

If this winter you would like to redefine some preconceived notions to the world, visit Word Spy and try some new words on for size. This could just be your lucky day.

Facelift or feng shui?

Take a breath of relief. February, along with this unending series of feng shui posts, is assuredly coming to an end! Turn off your happy light and grab a jade plant. Here’s where one’s innate desires are finally represented in the physical realm.

Step 3: Enhancements and Augmentation
No, this is not where we recover from a long winter by having some plastic surgery. Instead, step three focuses on enhancing spaces in our lives that may need a little lift. To explain what happens in step three, here is an example.

Imagine that after taking a few moments to reflect on the notion of wealth in your life (see yesterday’s post), you decide that your income, while enough, is inconsistent. Ideally, you would like a more regular income. You soon take a look at where the wealth corner of the bagua is located in your house and notice that in this space a fluorescent light flickers away and two plants are near death.

To augment this space, you change the light bulb so that it no longer flickers. The two dying plants are replaced with a flowering hibiscus that blooms throughout the year, symbolic of continuity and abundance. Additionally, you put a small painting of a flowing river, also symbolic of regular flow of income, on the wall above the plant. Now, whenever you walk into your kitchen and see the hibiscus along with the image of the river, you are subconsciously reminded of a consistent income that flowers and flows. You carry this reminder with you as you go about your day, taking actions and making decisions that affect your daily life and your income.

As you go through each area of your life and decide how you want to rearrange and enhance the physical space that is affiliated with each section of the bagua, below are a few feng shui tips to keep in mind:

• Clearing clutter is essential to enhancing any section of the bagua. Clutter is said to inhibit the flow of ch’i. Keep in mind that decluttering includes removing dead, broken or stagnant items from any space.
• A jade plant, with its curved leaves, is said to encourage the flow of ch’i. It is also a symbol of wealth and abundance, and said to be helpful for moving ch’i into any area of the bagua that needs revitalization. Plants with pointy leaves (i.e. a mother-in-law’s tongue) are said to inhibit the flow of ch’i, bringing the opposite of flow to a space.
• Mirrors are said to increase ch’i flow. This can either be good or bad, depending on where the mirror is placed. A mirror in a cramped confined space can reflect more ch’i into the space. A mirror in a place that is meant to be calm, can bring chaos.
• A piece of red cloth placed under one’s mattress is said to enliven one’s relationship in the bedroom.
• Is your toilet lid up or down? Toilets are said to be real ch’i suckers. If the wealth corner is in the bathroom, leaving the toilet seat up could create a sensation in one’s life that is similar to “throwing money down the toilet”.
• Placing a bed between a window and an open door is said to cause sleepless nights due to fact that ch’i flows more easily between open doors and clear glass windows.
• Facing a chair in a direction that places one’s back to the door when sitting, may make the inhabitant feel like they are being attacked or being backstabbed. A chair facing the door is said to alleviate such feelings of distrust.

For more ideas on feng shui there are many books on the subject, along with a plethora of web references.

Map for the feng shui traveler

So it’s still winter, you’re stuck inside and now you’ve discovered a bunch of ch’i flying inside and all around you. While you may now have a serious case of the willies, before you jump off this seemingly magical bus, in this next step feng shui provides you with a map to guide you down the road of life.

Step 2: The Bagua A key to any feng shui fix is the proper placement of the bagua (pronounced bah gwah) on the space to be cured. The bagua, basically a map for any feng shui traveler, is a diagram that evolved from the Chinese I Ching. Each of the nine sections of the bagua represent a particular area of one’s life, and together represent the overall ch’i health of a person.

Placing the bagua map is a key to incorporating feng shui principles within the space to be cured. For instance, to figure out where your “relationship” ch’i resides, imagine putting the bagua atop a floor plan of your house. Align the wall that holds the intended front entrance door of your house with the wall that makes up the “career” segment of the bagua. The opposite wall of your floor plan should line up with the “fame” line of the bagua. Now with the bagua placed atop the floor plan, it easy to envision where each of the sections of the bagua are located on the floor plan of the space.

According to Chinese philosophy each section of the bagua is meant to represent a certain aspect of one’s overall life. Additionally, you can see on the bagua above that specific colors are also affiliated with each section, along with certain characteristics described below:

1. Relationships/Marriage In addition to sacred love, any relationships including partners in business
2. Creativity/Children All children in one’s life, the inner child, all forms of creativity
3. Helpful People/Travel/Gratitude
This includes friends, employees, bosses, guides
4. Career In addition to a job, the ease or difficulty of one’s life path
5. Knowledge/Spirituality In addition to wisdom and spirituality, one’s self-esteem
6. Family Ancestors, dead and alive, also health
7. Wealth In addition to money, overall abundance.
8. Fame Aspects of one’s life that they are most passionate about
9. Center of the Bagua Acts as the central point where each of the eight other aspects meet, can also be a focal point for any of the other aspects that one wants to more fully emphasize

Those dabbling in feng shui usually take some time at this point to reflect on how each of the areas are represented in their own life. Whether they are completely satisfied with their life overall and would like to maintain their current state of bliss, or they have specific desires within the bagua template they would like to manifest for themselves, the next step attempts to make a connection between those metaphysical aspects and the physical realm. Stay tuned!