Yesterday, just as I walked out the front door for an urban hike, a woman in a blue shirt came walking down the street from the west end. She was sobbing into her phone,  “I’ve been trying to make it work for two years . . .  for two years . . . two years.”

From the same direction, a blue truck approached slowly. I think, “Uh oh. Domestic violence.” I think about how I will intervene. No brainer: I will call the Homer Police Department because they pay attention to calls, and they get some doozies. They even dispatched officers when my next-door neighbor called to report the mid-day intrusion of a young man whose remote control plane was stuck in her spruce tree. I like to think it was to protect him more than it was the tree.

The truck stopped. The driver looked out the window—at me—and said, “I have two flat tires. Can I park in your driveway until I get a pump at O’Reilly’s?” I figured that he wasn’t the cause of the woman’s woes—he had his own—so I said sure and offered him a ride down the hill. The woman moved on.

The man told me his name, said he had hitchhiked from Seward, where he’d been fishing all summer. He must have bought the truck sight unseen. “It was a real good deal,” he said, “but I hate that kind of tires.” They were the ones on rims that you can see through, like a chariot.

He said, “You have an accent.” . I said, “I don’t. Other people do.” I refrained from carrying on about that, the whole hillbilly thing, because just a few minutes before I was in suspicious mode, which does not come naturally to me.

He said, “I’ll be gone out of your driveway by the time you get home unless you want to give me a ride back.” I said no and drove to Bishops Beach. Blue water, blue mountains, brilliant blue sky (that color again and again). Augustine, that cute little volcano, was a pale blue hump barely visible way out in Cook Inlet. The truck was gone when I got home.

Who knows what boils red inside a volcano, or in a neighbor’s life?

About every other year–this was one of those–I am seized by a desire to move back down South.  I got the fever real bad this past January, and by the time I got to Georgia at the end of February, I was delirious. I spent a month there, and a week at a beach on the Florida Gulf, and I knew the cure.

As soon as I got back to Homer, I got estimates from moving companies and connected with a realtor in northeast Georgia, out of metro Atlanta’s traffic and smog. I decided Dahlonega was the right place. It’s a small city in the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of my beloved Appalachia, and only an hour from where a bunch of my family lives.

The University of North Georgia is in Dahlonega (the singer Zac Brown, who recently moved to Homer and is building a house that has everyone all gaga, went to school there probably when it was North Georgia Military College). I started following the Lumpkin County Democrats Facebook page and discovered all over again brilliant Mike Lukovich’s cartoons in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. I looked at cars online and decided a snappy little Fiat would be affordable and a lot of fun.

This would be my twenty-fifth move including the four I made with my parents—first when I was six months old; next when I was two; and the next two times I was still a minor dependent, and we moved just to another part of town.  I didn’t even have to change schools. No big deal.

It gets harder the older you get. Some psychologists say it’s as traumatic as divorce or the death of a partner. Listen, I have experienced the former, and nearly the latter. I can tell you, for sure, that moving is not nearly as bad. Sure, you move and wake up the next day, and your bed is on the wrong side of the room. Your side of the bed is not the same as it was the night before; or now there’s no one in the bed with you. The cat won’t come out from under the bed. You’re confused. The cat’s confused and jets out the door heading back to its familiar territory.

Hershey, a chocolate point Siamese, who lived to be nearly 18 years old and bridged two marriages, made his way across town back to the house my then husband and I had moved from. This is the guy who nearly died several times. Two days in a row he did this, I mean the cat ran away, until he finally got it—that he had a new territory and everything was going to be okay.

How to move is a big question, and as far as I’m concerned there are two options: (1) professional movers and (2) do-it-yourself with a rented truck. When I moved to Alaska six years ago, I used professional movers and packers for the first time, and even though I got rid of stuff beyond what I’d already done to facilitate previous transitions, it was obscenely expensive—more than double the average cost of an interstate move (according to MyMovingReviews.com that’s $4,300). One estimator who gave me a quote suggested, “Well, ma’am, if it was me, I’d sell everything and start over.” Obviously, he didn’t give a rip about art and collectibles, and he certainly wasn’t aware of the limited selection and higher cost of everything in the Last Frontier. Plus, I hated it when he called me “ma’am.” He was at least my age. His company did not get the contract.

Do-it-yourself with rented truck has been the modus operandi for most of the local, intrastate, and interstate moves I’ve made in the last half century. While I don’t enjoy packing, loading, and unloading, I’ve been the truck driver in the years since I’ve been single, and I get a big kick out of this part of the experience. This is how I made the move from the apartment I lived in when I first came to Homer, and it worked out great because my sister Joy was here on vacation and helped me pack, load, and unload after she got over the flu. Two super skinny guys who worked for an expediter outfit here in town loaded and unloaded the heavy stuff which included my paternal grandfather’s oak roll-top desk that weighs a ton even when you take out all the drawers and remove the top with the tambour. It’s massive, and no one wants it. For reasons that I’ll get to in a second, this is not the way I will be moving back to the South.

For me, the worst part of moving is packing. As the out-of-here date approaches, I experience several days, typically three, of mental paralysis as I look around at my worldly possessions wondering where it all came from and why on earth I have most of it. I mean, why a bakelite comb shaped like a whale? A copy of The Diary of Samuel Pepys edited in 1949? A metal sign that advertises, in Spanish, a liquid to rid animals of worms and lice. Considering the bull who served as the model, I thought it served another purpose until I googled a translation of the text.

For the move back down South, a rental truck is the way to go were it not for my absolute, total, and complete revulsion toward the cross-continent drive. Many people consider this the mother of all road trips, and I know some great people who have done it—some multiple times. Maybe it’s something every patriotic American citizen should experience at least once in a lifetime, but I’m not ever doing it. You’ll just have to take my word that I still love the U.S.A.  Besides, by the time you pay for motel rooms and meals, it costs as much as going with the pros.

People move for lots of reasons. Citing results of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015-2016 questionnaire, the American Moving and Storage Association reports that people in the this country move for 19 reasons. “Wanting new or better home/apartment” ranks at the top with 17.4 percent, followed by “To establish own household” at 12.2 percent. Except for “Health reasons” (1.8 percent), “Foreclosure/eviction” (0.9 percent), and “Natural disaster” (0.1 percent), I can identify with most of them.

For me now, moving back to the South, to Georgia, means being close to most of my family and friends who are like family. It’s within reasonable range of all the rest of them who aren’t in the South so that frequent visits wouldn’t be unaffordable. So I’ve decided not to move.

I confess—and this is hard to do, seriously—that I’m too attached to “things.” I can easily get rid of the whale comb, but I like having a copy of The Diary of Samuel Pepys. I read it—parts of it fairly often. I am not kidding. Well, occasionally. Like last week when I read Christopher Buckley’s The Judge Hunter. Or when I watched the films Stage Beauty and Restoration. I love the paintings, drawings, and pottery I’ve collected. I really like my sofa and the leather chair I gave my departed husband for his sixtieth birthday. And, for most of the time, I love living in Homer, Alaska. I love it when my older son and I pass each other on Pioneer Avenue. I love having my grandson come and, without rolling his eyes, carefully mow the labyrinth in the backyard. I love the clean air. I could go on and on.

And I know this: Moving fever never strikes in the summer, so I can only attribute it to a sub-clinical  case of SADD. I figure that for what I would spend to move again, I can make a bunch of trips Outside for the cure. Watch out, because you may become a destination.

Genie Hambrick ©2018

I love nearly everything about summer in the South . . . magnolia blossoms . . . meaty red tomatoes and fuzzy peaches that drip with juice . . . one-course al fresco suppers of salted water melon. . .  screened porches and rocking chairs . . . lightning bugs signaling their profiles to potential matches . . . the racket of cicadas who’re also on the make. . . a glimpse of a coyote on a golf course. . . snapping turtles lazing on logs.

It’s only the South’s heat that I don’t miss, which makes summer in Homer just about perfect. It’s always cool (recent highs in the low 70s). And for everything I love about a southern summer, Alaska offers a parallel . . . fragrant peonies . . . vegetables in your mouth only a few hours after they’re picked . . . camp chairs around a fire ring (mine’s a truck tire rim that would make any Appalachian hillbilly proud) . . . moose grazing across the yard in slow motion . . . the possibility that a bear might come by . . . sand hill cranes squawking as they fly overhead.

But what’s best about summer in Homer, Alaska—for me anyway—it that doesn’t matter that I don’t look good in a bathing suit. Seriously, this is something that matters to Southern folks (and not just the women). Here’s the thing: If you’re pale, you’ve got to be buff; and if you’re bronze, you can get by with cellulite, even quite a bit. But I’m neither bronze nor buff, so it’s best not to be seen in public in a bathing suit.

Come to think of it, in the six summers I’ve lived in Homer, I haven’t seen a single soul in a bathing suit at Bishops Beach. It’s rocky and not conducive to soaking up rays on a big towel or in a folding chaise lounge. Anyone in the water is wearing a wet suit to prevent hypothermia, and they’re not swimming. People who are in the water of Kachemak Bay are mostly on it—kayaking or paddle boarding amongst humpback whales and sea otters. Or they are engaging in some vertiginous sport like kite boarding, and I’m not about to do any of that stuff because recreational terror is, for me, not the least bit fun.

You know, the wet suit has its merits aside from life preservation. A wet suit would not only keep me from freezing to death, but would also protect against sunburn while hiding my beluga skin tone (if you’ve visited the Georgia Aquarium, you know the shade from, unfortunately, direct observation). Plus, speaking of whales, a form-fitting wet suit would work like a full-body Spanx to compress the cumulative effect of five winters’ worth of hearty meals. Maybe I’ll get one in case my sister and I visit a Southern beach this winter.

I celebrated Independence Day this week with a hot dog decked out in the style of the Blue Bus Diner in Anchor Point. More about that later.

For the dog itself, I went with Oscar Mayer’s all beef natural frank, which three New York Times food writers ranked “middle of the pack” in a field of ten that made the finals. “Best in Show” went to Wellshire Farms brand, available only at Whole Foods, which, as you probably know, doesn’t have a store in Homer, or anywhere else in Alaska for that matter. Hebrew National was a close runner-up.

Where I used to live in Southwest Virginia, the chunky, bronze-tan Oscar Mayer was top dog. I much preferred it to the cheaper, skinny pink variety. It’s still my favorite, so I picked up a pack on the fourth of July at 7:30 A.M., thus avoiding hordes of tourists, fishermen, and seniors who, like me, shop on Tuesday to get Safeway’s 10 percent discount.

I grilled the holiday hot dog, actually two of them, in my nearly vintage George Foreman that refuses to quit so I can get another one that’s easier to clean. Then I covered them with about a third of a can of Amy’s medium spicy vegetarian chili, and topped that with chopped black olives, diced onion, and grated, sharp cheddar cheese. Except for the chili being vegetarian, that’s pretty much the way they do it at the Blue Bus Diner. I went without buns, because I would’ve had to buy a whole bag, and the leftovers would be freezer-burned by Labor Day, when I’ll have another hot dog or two to tide me over until Memorial Day.

After dinner, I wadded up a few months’ accumulation of sensitive documents, which a more civilized person would shred, and used them to start a fire in the tire rim out front. Sitting by my make-shift fire ring in one of a pair of green plastic Adirondack chairs I bought at Ulmer’s Everything-But-Pets-Produce-and-Meat store, I got to thinking about what life would be like if, in this part of North America, the events that made the fourth day of July significant hadn’t happened.

What if we were still subjects of The Crown that rests now on the dignified, silver head of Elizabeth II? What if, instead of a POTUS, we had a PM. What if that were Justin Trudeau, who wears funky socks and forgot to mention Alberta on Canada Day, but seems like a decent guy. A publicly-funded healthcare system seems like a good idea, too, but since I mostly love the USA and know that history is complicated, I let those thoughts swirl away with the wood smoke.

Then I thought about how much I enjoyed those Oscar Mayer hot dogs. What a great way to celebrate Independence Day. And I remembered the song:

 “Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener.
That is what I’d truly like to be.
’Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener,
Everyone would be in love with me.”

I don’t know why, but that made me think about Donald Trump. Maybe, instead of being President of the United States, all he truly wants to be is an Oscar Mayer Wiener.

Copyright 2017. Genie Hambrick. 

I LIVE YEAR ROUND in an internationally popular vacation destination, but I still have to do everything that people like me do when they’re not on vacation.

“Like me” is still, barely, middle class. This means I do housework, which includes vacuuming, and, except for people employed in the housekeeping industry, I vacuum more than anyone anywhere who is on the electrical grid. This is because Rys, my hairy, younger cat, is the Esau of Maine coon cats, and I have only a Shark (not a Dyson).

And there’s the rest of a “to-do” list that comes with keeping a house and maintaining standards set by my slightly obsessive-compulsive self. Loading and unloading the dishwasher, dusting, changing sheets, cleaning bathrooms, doing laundry. There’s a long to-do list in my head, and I review it at night when I want to be asleep.

Lately I’ve allowed myself to be on vacation at home. This is not a “staycation” where I troop around, eat at restaurants in town, and take a water taxi across Kachemak Bay to Halibut Cove and Seldovia. This is being on vacation in my own house, which is infinitely more affordable.

Today I put on my summer clothes (I mean all my remaining summer clothes from Georgia —a Target tank top and a Michael Stars knit skirt I bought at Squash Blossom in Decatur, GA). I sat on my postage-stamp deck in a chair I bought at a yard sale up the street. I hiked up the skirt to get a little sun on my pale Scots-Irish legs. I took a deep breath.

It’s OK to be on vacation. Nothing bad will happen because, for a couple of hours, I read and looked up at the sky. It’s OK just to breathe.

Copyright 2017. Genie Hambrick. 

Depending on where you are—Northern or Southern Hemisphere—today is either the longest day of the year, or the shortest; the shortest or the longest night. And tomorrow is the first day of summer, or winter. Depends on where you are.

Right this minute, I’m at latitude 59°38’33″N, seated at The Wurlitzer Console about to write a confession, which is this: I’m not ready for the days to get shorter. Maybe that’s because it rained all day on this longest day, eve of summer 2017 CE, and I’m sitting here, with wool socks and felt slippers on my feet, sipping double-strength lemon ginger tea while I ponder the Yogi brand’s bromides that dangle over the side of the mug. One says, “Give love, get love.” The other needs a semicolon: “You don’t need love, you are the love.” For music to complement melancholy, I’ve queued up Virgil Fox to blast Bach fugues and preludes in minor keys through the Marshall speaker.

As I post this, rain has stopped in Homer, AK. Virgil Fox is into D major. And in Cape Horn, Chile, 55° 58′ 59.9999″S, it’s the beginning of winter for the lighthouse keeper and his family.

AFTER MANY YEARS OF MOWING AND WEEDING in obeisance to the doctrine of Southern Living, I no longer have the will to battle Nature. Horsetail and dandelion, hawk weed (a zesty paprika color here), buttercup, plantain, fireweed, stinging nettle, and pushki (Wonder Woman Queen Anne’s lace) are prolific in this area, and by area I mean the ditch in front of my house, the driveway and banks on both sides of it, and all across the power line easement at the back of the lot. Plus, across the street, there’s a stand of alders that reproduces by using wind power to launch ballistic seeds to the aforementioned area.

My dovish approach to gardening, to live and let live, has been a great disappointment to my next-door neighbor who told me last summer, during a slightly tense discussion of my landscaping style, that she had waged war on weeds for 35 years. She’s a real gardener, with a greenhouse and perennials and blooming trees in her back yard. It’s a nice view from my kitchen window, which allows me to see over her eight-foot privacy fence.  which separates her de-weeded zone from my refugee camp.

With this background information (oh, how I do go on), you may understand how delighted I was this afternoon, capturing dandelions going from bloom to seed as I crawled by them, when one half of a couple who walk their dogs in the ‘hood called out, “I admire your green thumb.”  I was crouched at the edge of the DWZ with a handful of Alaska-size dandelions. I stood up and said, “Oh, it’s not me, it’s Mother Nature.” I gestured expansively toward the refugee settlement, mostly horsetail.

“Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I meant the other yard.”

Copyright 2017. Genie Hambrick

I am not crazy about Alaska this time of year. Yeah, the sun is back where you think it’s supposed to be—still up at 5:00 in the afternoon—and the air has been a bit warmer the past few days. But Homer looks bedraggled with mounds of dirty snow pushed up along the streets and parking lots, and muddy potholes thaw and refreeze overnight.

I long for green leaves on the alders across the street, knowing that right now, this minute, I need to cherish things as they are. I can do that.
I think I can. I think I can.