Dawson City

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Tuckered Out

It was a trying weekend seeing as I had the night phone 3 nights out of 4. I’m constantly amazed by the people who think that’s an easy job ‘because the phone just about never rings.’ To me, the very possibility that it could ring is enough to keep me from getting any sort of deep sleep.

Moreover, I learned yesterday that it’s not the bears we need to be worried about up here but rather creatures less than an inch long. I was stung on the arm by a wasp and chided myself for being such a woose, but then discovered just how powerful wasp venom is, even for those who are not allergic. My arm swelled up for a time, then went numb, then tingly. Now, it is insufferably itchy and I fill achy all over like my body is fighting something.

I will be ‘on vacation’ in a week and I hope the change of pace will recharge my batteries. I still don’t know where I’m going! If the Dempster has dried out, it’ll be plan A, Inuvik, of course. I don’t mind doing it sloooooooowly if the road is rutty, but I am not insane enough to do it in my car if it is muddy. Plan B will be Fairbanks if the Taylor highway is open. Plan C will entail having both the Dempster and Taylor highways closed and will probably take me to Anchorage, but the insane amount of driving that this detour would entail makes Plan C unappealing.

This summer has gone by so fast! I’ve been back in Dawson three months to the day and will be pulling out in exactly a month!

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A Cinematic Treat

The only thing missing to make Dawson a perfect homebase for me (falafel and injara notwithstanding) is a movie theatre. Well, a group decided to remedy that this year, to a point, and launched the Dawson City Museum Cinema. The venue, a conference room in the Dawson City Museum, is probably the best choice in this town. The image quality isn’t even remotely comparable to what you’d get at a theatre and the chairs aren’t that comfortable, but it’s still very much the cinematic experience of watching a picture with other people with the smell of popcorn in the air.

Of course, I work most evenings, so I haven’t been able to coordinate my schedule with that of the cinema. I decided to move heaven and earth to get to a showing tonight, though. Last year, I missed every single movie I wanted to see over the course of the summer, but this year there was only one on my list, Ironman 2,  and it was playing tonight in Dawson!

I decided to make an event of it by pretending to be an adult and taking our young worker out for the night. We had chicken burgers at Sourdough Joe’s, got ice cream next door, then took a brief stroll around town as we finished our cones since we were a tad early for the movie.

The movie wound up being even better than I would have expected, the kids who filled the room behaved, and the popcorn was delicious. Who cares that my legs are still numb from that seat; what a fun evening!!!

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A Scorcher!

After cruelly taunting us for months, summer has arrived in full force! It wasn’t even noon today that I raced back home to shut the windows and roof hatches and put the AC on auto. When I came back a few hours later my grateful cats were lying under the air vents.

It’s so hot that the thermostat is at its maximum and the AC is running continuously. It’s generating water that is being collected in the gutters and dripping to the ground, a most peculiar sight in such arid conditions!

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Yukon Bounty

Check out tonight’s dinner’s main event! It’s all Yukon-grown!

First, let me point out that beautiful tomato, which is my first of the season! I gobbled it up after taking the picture and it was succulent!

As for the big green thing, I got to the cash at the grocery store yesterday when a friend working the register told me to go check out all the local produce. Fresh produce up here tends to suck because it has shipped so far and it’s not always easy to distinguish between what’s local and what isn’t. She sold me on that green thing by telling me “It’s so delicious!” and I completely forgot to ask her what it is!

So, I Googled ‘mutant hybrid child of broccoli and cauliflower‘ that gave me a link with a description of something called ‘romanesco’ that fit the description of the veggie I had on hand. I Googled romanesco, and that’s exactly what I have. It’s considered a broccoli, but tastes a lot more like a cauliflower. I can’t believe I’ve never had, much less seen, it before! I grew up in a  household with a very progressive view of vegetables and in which we had all kinds of wonderful things none of my peers had ever seen.

Dinner ended up being chicken cooked in pesto over egg noodles boiled in the water I used for steaming, and the veggies which were the impossibly sweet carrots and the romanesco. With unadorned tomato and cucumber as an appetizer.

Simple, rather rustic, and oh-so-delicious.