knitting in the lounge

Hi everybody-- hope everyone is doing well. Lucas has been writing in the blog and commenting about fruit flies while I've been learning how to "cast-on" Grandma Obringer's yarn onto knitting needles. As some of you know, this is my Antarctic dream--knitting in warm clothes and drinking warm drinks all of which is coming true today.
Tomorrow, Lucas and I will have been in Antarctica for two whole weeks.

Antarctica has it's own incredibly strange sense of both time and place. A few days ago, while walking home from skua ( a skua is a scavenger bird in the Antarctic region as well as a funky free "thrift store" where you can get anything from clothes to VHS movies about the turkey federation), the wind was blowing so hard that it created this cloud of snow crystals--when the sun hit the ice crystals they looked like phosphorescent light in the ocean at night, except it was in the atmosphere at ten p.m... In-between the buildings, the mountains glowed pink and gold in the distance with the wind picking up snow-- a sand storm/snow storm-- a frozen desert--I finally understood what that means. It was really cool to see and experience a remnant of the ice age-- and at the same time, there is a reason why homo-sapiens only have small colonies on this continent-- it's too harsh, not really for us, and we probably shouldn't be here. I don't think I've ever felt so unwanted by nature before-- and I've never felt my mammal-ness; my homosapien-ness so much.

Today we went for a hike (I did leave inside)--Gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous....and so so cold. Lucas had ice crystals in his beard and our water froze...the frozen ocean had these super cool ice waves...like miniature plate tectonics in action.

Being a lunch lady is getting better. I'm still decompressing from doing crisis work and have to remind myself still that messing something up is not the end of the world-- that I am in fact, a lunch lady. I'm not a great lunch lady, either, which has been a little hard on the ego... I've tried to bring lots of awareness into my day and notice my thoughts and how other people affect me and making sure I let it go. it's really not worth it. I had one of the lead lunch ladies try to tell me how to cut tin foil in a more efficient way to place on large cookie sheets. The long and the short of it is that I had found the fastest way, but he had to try his way (which I already tried)--I just sat back at watched him. Again, this is my biggest problem and I'm really enjoying it--

I really like my coworkers-- they're fun and crazy and sometimes, I laugh so hard at what we're doing and where we are and how ridiculous it all is that it makes it all worth while. When in my life am I ever going to be a lunch lady again in Antarctica???? never!

being married is way more fun and way more different than I ever thought. I love knowing that I can fall more and more in love with Lucas everyday and I don't ever have to think practically about my feelings...I can just feel them and be madly in love because it's okay--we're married!! it's nice to make plans for the future without having to have any hard "where is this going" talks--I just love it! All my love to everyone! Alex