Alaska: Land of the insane

Ah.. spring is in the air. tulips are blooming, birds are singing, the sun is shining, and you are probably putting your kids shorts on and trying to button your own from last year. yesterday I woke up and looked out my window as I do every morning to check the melting progress and was not very shocked to see 2 feet of freshly fallen snow !!! It is May 1st. We put on our boots and went to school and work ( in Alaska NOTHING is canceled due to snow ... ever). It was a grim day. Kids cried. We adults sighed in our bathroom mirrors at the pale, bloated faces with gaunt eyes, staring back at us. If you ever bumped into a traveling Alaskan in the winter you know what I'm talking about, and you can probably spot us in a crowd. We are the the night of the living dead basically... with like 30 extra pounds of insulation.

Alaska is an interesting place with an interesting climate. If you have never experienced a full year in Alaska here's the low down.

Spring: What month is spring? Here it is May ... 30.... ish. People become insane, toppling over each other in a mad rush to buy plants and quickly plant gardens before the two week planting time frame expires. If you fail, your growth season will be too short and your carrots that you harvest in September will be the size of fingernails.

Summer: June and July maybe... if your lucky. The insanity continues as spirits soar and people try to make the best of the short window of warmth. The sum stays out until around 2 am at which time lawnmowers can be heard as well as children playing out in the streets.Every one is so happy and pleasant,with their unrested smiles pasted on and their forced laughter. Have you ever seen Stepford wives? Like that.

Fall: In every way. You would think someone had died. It is the saddest thing when summer ends and we feel it deeply. have you ever seen the scene in Mary Poppins when Mary Poppins and the children have to leave Uncle Albert's floating tea party ? Like that.Fall begins anytime between August first and August 31st. The leaves fall and then the snow follows promptly.. like the next day.

Winter: We almost always have snow by Halloween ( which is a joke) "cute costume sweetie! are you a skier"?. The season begins sometime in October and continues on until mid May ( happy Easter !)Sunlight becomes sparse and in December you can expect sunrise at 11 and sunset at 3 pm. In other words, if you blink you could miss it. Moods begin to dive and all over Alaska, pharmacies experience shortages of Prozak. People become desperate for anything to make them feel like they did in the summer( I choose food)and by February people start snapping like frozen twigs.

We Alaskans have great pride in our state and many here would rather die than leave. I myself am a fourth generation Alaskan and am bound by some unseen force to this strange and hostile place... that and my grandmother repeatedly tells me that all people who move down to the lower 48 die soon after. So the question is do I want to die warm?