Observation No. 10: Town Square

If you want to find Anchorage of a Tuesday afternoon, look no further than the mid-town Wal-Mart. I read an interview with Billie Letts who wrote the book Where the Heart Is (which later became the movie) and she said that she chose Wal-Mart as the setting because she was looking for the modern day of equivalent of a town square in United States. In the book, the main character finds herself homeless and living at Wal-Mart until the birth of her daughter. Letts was looking for a place in America where people still meet and mingle and live their lives.

I remembered this today as I stopped by Wal-Mart after work to pick up face soap and grass fertilizer. The place was packed with tiny vignettes of color.

There were the three girls in the clothing department exclaiming over the cuteness of impossibly tiny, shorts the color of candy that were labeled $4.99. In the face cream aisle, a twenty-something women complained to her mother about her blackheads as her the older woman advised her to see a dermatologist. There was the boy who was working in the garden department who was surprised when I held the door open so he could angle a heavy cart through. There was the patience as 20 people waited for three tellers to slowly check us out, edging forward under the florescent lights. The man in front of me offered to let me move in front of him in soft, hesitant English. I told him to go ahead but he stepped beyond me anyways.

We all watched as a little girl with curly hair, wearing white leather sandals a size too small, begged her older brother for a sucker from a Ziploc bag that he carried and her teenaged siblings urged her to be quiet. We waited as an older couplecarefully counted out exact change for their purchases. We watched as a teller frantically tried to fix his register and then flicked his sign to flashing, alerting the manager.

Letts might have seen aspects of town square at Wal-Mart and I see some of that. But I also see the bus station--dreary, dodgy with some long lines. It’s a place where you come because you need to be there—a place with thousands of lives rushing through, on their way to somewhere else.

Observation 9: Coffee shop jungle

Is it just me, or as we get older do we become less self aware? For me, this has led to two tragic developments—I’m becoming a worse driver and an illogical dresser. Case in point, my ability to walk into the coffee shop where I’m sitting at this moment with the tags from my new jeans still blatantly attached, similar to the way boys wore tags on their hats when I was in high school. But I think they did that on purpose.

I’d like to tell you that this is the only time it’s happened. In fact, I’m constantly turning up places with hems unraveling, sweaters inside out, the stitching that you’re supposed to take out of skirt slits still in place. And I think, "It wasn’t always this way. I think I used to show up places looking relatively polished. I would lay outfits out; I would iron."

Here’s an even more disturbing trend—I can’t figure out if things match anymore. This is girldom at its most basic, something you learn along with tying your shoes—what colors, textures, styles, and shoes go with what. Some mornings I’m dashing through the kitchen to grab coffee when my husband gives me a funny look that says, “ummm, there’s something wrong there.”

Up until now, I’ve been one to ungenerously look at an older woman in line at the grocery store or at a town meeting, and wonder what she could have been thinking when she pulled on fuchsia stirrup pants and a disheveled polka dot sweater. Now, I realize that there was no thought process at all. All she was thinking was that the internet is down, she’s supposed to have weeded the front garden today, there’s nothing for dinner and she’ll just pop out for 20 minutes to post something to the web before she zips home. She arrives at her internet cafe and a nice guy with several studs in his face whispers out the side of his mouth rather purposefully, “Look at your left leg. The tag, the tag!”

It's not so much that I'm a fashion victim, rather the New Girl can see fashion leaving her behind, like a bus slowly pulling away from the stop. Really, people should just be thankful that we show up with clothes on and with four wheels on the ground. What more do they want?

New Girl Observation No. 8: Lions, Tigers and Bears?

Around noon today, my husband stood in the middle of our living room with the slightly doomed look he gets when he has to pack. Around him were scattered items a person needs for a week in the Alaskan wilderness—or what we think he needs because we don’t actually know anything about it. We both have this vague picture of a lot of marshland, populated by moose, the occasional grizzly and a lot of mosquitoes.

Rubber boots? Check.
Bug spray? Check.
Bear spray? Got it.

Before I moved to Alaska, I contacted a Facebook friend of a friend who is living here in Anchorage. Judging from his photos, he was a hiker so I shot him a quick email for some summer hiking ideas. He replied with a few suggestions on Alaskan hiking safety—chief amongst them a hand-gun to purchase for backcountry protection.

Now let me just say that I’m not totally against guns, if it’s truly a matter of personal protection. I don’t want to get my head torn off by a raging animal the size of a Volkswagen. And I’d really prefer it if my golden retriever doesn’t get eaten either.

So we consulted with a few friends here in Anchorage about bear safety—principally another Colorado couple that moved a few years ago and have now settled into Alaskan life. I judge this solely by the fact that they have a great house within walking distance to downtown bars and they know how to go clamming (dig fast, they really move!) Anyways, these friends said we could get by with the bear spray for now and we’d inevitably get the gun later.

So Cam and I tromped down to the Sportsmen’s Warehouse a couple weeks ago. There we are amidst fly-rods, riles, ammunition and giant coolers and we sheepishly ask a guy to lead us to the bear spray. The salesman looks at us like we have two heads-they don’t have any bear spray. He suggests we try Wal-mart. So we drive over and another man behind a counter sells us what turns out to be an industrial sized can of what you would spray at a mugger if you could get it out of your purse in time. Apparently, hikers run into this same situation in the woods because you can buy a separate holster for quick access, like some people tragically wear cell phones. You can also write into the company (which is in Anchorage) and they’ll send you an empty can to practice with before you're staring into the face of a charging sow. I’m trying to imagine your thought process as you unleash a giant can of pepper-spray and hope for the best. I need that practice can.

I’m also trying to imagine a circumstance where a bear might get really angry. I saw three grizzlies last week in Talkeetna, lolling on the train tracks and soaking up afternoon rays. They didn't seem interested in the 50 tourists spilling out of busses and vans to photograph them.

Maybe it’s just hunger pangs that get them going—I talked to a state wildlife manager last week that told me about a demonstration at bear sanctuary in Sitka where two rescued bear cubs tore into a tent to find a hidden hot dog in about a minute flat. I’ve been warned.

As an aside, it appears that science is on my husband's side. Here's an article that shows that bear spray is more effective as a deterrent than a firearm in almost all cases.

New Girl Observation No. 7: What earthquake?

I’ll tell you this much—life does not stop in Anchorage for a mere 5.4 earthquake , as was felt this morning at 11:30 a.m.

In fact, it barely ranks top-of-the-fold news on the front of the Anchorage Daily News, as evidenced by its placement under three stories describing a dad’s ordeal adrift in the Pacific Ocean for 52 hours, swine flu in Alaska and the closure of a popular creek to protect a King salmon run.

The New Girl was at a staff meeting at work where discussions continued while the building swayed gently and the ground rumbled like a freight train was rolling by. “This building is on rollers,” a work friend whispered, as the gyrations continued and someone else commented that they felt a bit seasick. The quaking kept going for few minutes and was quickly forgotten as we got back into our talks. By the time my mom left a message on my voicemail a couple hours later, I had already forgotten about the earthquake.

This casual attitude about the earth shifting beneath our feet isn’t surprising in Alaska, which experienced one of the largest earthquakes in modern times on March 27, 1964. Here’s a quick video about the 110 died in the tsunamis—the largest of which was recorded in Valdez Inlet with a height of 67 meters. Many Alaskan coastal communities like Seward and Valdez were devastated by the tsunamis and have not forgotten it. I recently visited the Seward Library, which just secured grant funding to produce an updated movie about the impact of big earthquake on that seaside town.

Since coming to Alaska, I’ve meet many people who remember March 27, 1964 in great detail, just as they remember the day President Kennedy was killed and where they were on September 11. In Alaska, the earthquake left its mark on a generation and they vividly tell stories of cleaning up debris and rebuilding entire communities for months and years afterward.

Thankfully, there is no debris to clean up today in Anchorage. At the New Girl’s house, not a single vase was knocked over. But it’s a healthy reminder of what’s happened before and what can happen again in my new hometown.

New Girl Observation No. 6: The new 'hood

Riding a townie makes me feel like I live somewhere. That’s what I decided today as I biked around my new neighborhood in central Anchorage. Just south of downtown, Spenard appears at first to be collection of low-rent and middle income homes and busy four lane streets lined with omni-present strip malls.

Spenard got its slightly seedy start early in life. In the early 1900s, Spenard was a lumber camp outside Anchorage that eventually became a destination for rail workers hoping for a good evening on the town. The workers would follow a 3-mile wagon road out of town (now Spenard Road) and end up at Joe Spenard’s night club on the shores of Lake Spenard. Pretty soon, Spenard got the reputation that lingers today. It officially became part of Anchorage in 1975 during oil boom days when its proximity to the Anchorage International Airport and a clean-up effort downtown caused a proliferation of bars and brothels to sprout up. Ever since, Anchorage has been trying to “clean up” Spenard . (Here’s a column by Julia O’Malley about the latest attempts to fix Spenard Road.)

I haven’t lived here long enough to figure out if Spenard deserves it’s reputation. I met a nice cop the other day who sucked air through his teeth when I told him where I was living. “Yeah, we get a fair number of calls in there,” he said. “But mostly just petty stuff.” He was pretty delighted when I said Cam and I had used the Anchorage crime map before deciding we were willing to move on in. The map confirmed what he said--lots of thefts and vehicle break-ins but no violent crime. Now that I'm hardened against purse thefts, I've got tons of confidence. Another friend advised that we keep the house locked but said we'd be okay. My neighbor across the street has an American flag waving in front of his picket fence and flower baskets rotating in the breeze by the front door. It doesn’t feel too sleazy in Spenard today.

I did a big cruise around the neighborhood on my bike today and found much of the same. A big group of teens liked my bike and said so as I passed. I thought about telling the youngest one that he shouldn’t smoke cigarettes but let it go. A couple of guys outside the pull-tab joint and mini-mart liked my bike too and an older guy helped me get the chain guard rearranged when it started making a racket.

I biked over to a work friend’s house and we’re all excited for the Indian food restaurant to open two blocks from my house. They’re going to come over and we’ll push the baby stroller down to enjoy a curry when they open up.

From my seat, Spenard today is sprinkled with the old and new—yoga studios and cigarette stores and they seem to happily co-exist in a way that I haven't seen in other towns. There’s new restaurants and ancient bars, bike stores and motels. I think there’s a music festival in Spenard today that we might go check out. I’ll let you know how it goes.

New Girl Observation No. 5: In Talkeetna

I'd heard it before but I didn't get a true feel for it until I sat for an hour today at the Mile High Pizza Pie restaurant for about an hour.

It's true; Talkeenta, Alaska and Crested Butte, Colorado--the new girl's most recent hometown--have much in common.

The pizza place bore a strange resemblence to the Brick Oven in Crested Butte--a great outdoor deck, local patrons flitting in and out and bemoaning the traffic on main street because of all the tourists. There was the mandatory group of pretty, twenty-something waitresses delivering slow but well-meaning service. A group of bearded twenty-something men in the kitchen, slinging out pie and yelling for waitresses to do the pick up.

It, of course, brought to mind my own waitressing days at the Brick when a slow summer afternoon would make you slow your steps and pretty soon you were chatting with the cooks about the weather. And that was okay.

Talkeetna and Crested Butte also share a tourism-based economy and, according to word from the pizza place, tourism is down a bit this year, perhaps 10 to 15 percent. Despite the traffic on main street, there are fewer foreign visitors, particularly from Japan, according to one local pizza eater.

One RV Park owner near Talkeenta reported to the AK Journal of Commerce that his pre-bookings were down 75 percent in the first three months of 2009, compared with the previous year. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that tourism companies in Alaska where battling a 30 percent drop in reservations with steep discounts.

Just like Crested Butte, this local said it didn't matter too much that bookings were slightly down. He liked a little bit of a slower pace.

New Girl Observation No. 4: How far apart can we be?

The traffic was slow and got slower yesterday afternoon as I approached the Loussac Library on 36th Street in Anchorage. Cars were diving out of the parking lot, which serves the city’s main library and largest post office, and onto the busy street.

Just as I was wondering if it was always this busy on a Tuesday , the protestors came into view. Close to the street, dozens of people stood by as the traffic marched past, waving signs in support of gay and lesbian rights. Further down, teens in red t-shirts from the large Baptist Temple waved yet more signs, these ones quoting bible verses and Christian beliefs.

As someone said to me today, Alaska is ten years behind when it comes to social issues. On a day when President Obama decided to offer some benefits to same sex partners, Anchorage is in the midst of a battle over basic protections for gay and lesbians. (Battle Lines Drawn was the large font headline on the front page of the Anchorage Daily News today.)

The battle that’s currently waging is an equal rights measure before the Anchorage City Council. Acting Mayor Matt Claman is sponsoring a measure on behalf of an equal rights group that would add sexual orientation to the list of characteristics including race and religion for protection from discrimination for public activities—buying and selling property, getting a hotel room, going to college, applying for a city job.

This feels pretty ordinary for most American cities. We're not talking major reforms--we're talking about not being able to be turned down for an apartment because you're gay.

However, the debate has stirred an uproar in Anchorage with hundreds of people providing public comment on the issue.

The television advertisements and information that is simply not true, according to the city’s attorney. There have been claims that the equal rights amendment would allow men to access women's restrooms and male teachers to come to school dressed as women.

Of course, I think the news coverage makes the issue seem more stringent than it is- the protests that I saw seemed relatively congenial with people laughing, hulahooping and dancing. I also liked a bit of news coverage that described the groups taking turns marching past the library's front doors, where the city council convenes. How far apart can we be when we're still willing to take turns?

What's interesting is the number of young people that are out there on the street, carrying the signs and chanting the slogans. I'm curious what the youth leaders are telling kids to inspire their participation in this debate. At that age, much of my decision making was guided by emotion and what my friends were doing. I hope they don't make decisions now that they're regret down the road.

New Girl Observation No. 3: The search for good Thai

My friend Chris and I are on a search for great Thai food in Anchorage. We have that dream restaurant in mind--the one where every single dish on the menu is perfection-sweet, dangerously spicy with just enough crunch. So I ask almost everyone I meet in town.

I asked the Thai lady who did my manicure—she told me her house has an excellent reputation and I could come over some time. I love that but it also seems problematic for the 10 p.m. Friday night craving for a mean, spicy Pa Gra Pow.

So for that those times, I'm still looking for a good haunt.

Anchorage residents LOVE Thai Kitchen, located on Tudor Ave. They’ve got quick express lunch that reminds us of the fast food Asian you can get in New York City and Washington DC. (It’s also got the same cafeteria-type décor.) They change it the offerings a little each week. Off the menu, the green curry with chicken and eggplant is excellent.

Chiang Mai Thai Restaurant at Old Seward and 36th is another favorite. They’ve got this amazing fried tofu dish that defies reason. Here’s another

New Girl Observation No. 2: Rent

Why is it so hard to move to a new town and find any information on the Internet about where to live, where to eat and what neighborhood feels like a neighborhood? All we get on the Google Search is a mishmash of bad websites, which feature one or two sentences about what’s up. Back in Colorado, I spent a fair amount of time trying to divine with the Internet gods over this information. I found sites like this one

My thoughts on neighborhoods will come later.

We did okay and ended up house-sitting for the winter. We engaged in the full-blown house hunt for a decent rental in the last three months and here are the results.

The cost of renting a house is Anchorage is no joke. There’s plenty of information out there about how the cost of living in Anchorage is only slightly higher than the national norm. (About 18 percent, according to the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation) The cost of housing is 127 percent higher than the average American city. What this means is that it’s difficult to rent a single-family house in Anchorage without promising your first born and $2,000 a month.

Like in every other city in America when you're house hunting, www.craigslist.com is your new best friend. And, as always you’ve got to be quick. I discovered a couple apps that allow you to specify certain search terms (Airport Heights, Government Hill, Downtown) and it, in theory, sends you an email when ads appear with this term. Here's one. I’m only slightly convinced that every ad came my way. If anyone has a better site, I'm still using Craigslist to find some furniture for the new abode. Keyword "vanity".

Also, check out http://www.weloveak.com/ The person that invented this was a genius. It’s another Craigslist-related program that maps out rentals listed on Craigslist. One problem is that it doesn’t update that quickly so you end up calling on the perfect one bedroom downtown and it’s been rented for two weeks and the guy is so sick of getting phone calls that he hangs up on before you can say ‘thanks, do you know of anything else in the neighbo…” click. Talk fast, friends.

New Girl Observation No. 1:

I’d intended to start this blog sometime ago… We’ll blame the 18 hours of darkness a day in December, that weird Chinook (a mid-winter warming spell, ‘o southern readers), and a newfound love of box wine for the slow start.

Here’s the back story. I arrived in Anchorage, Alaska with husband and dog six months ago and spent my time trying to figure out how to get off and on the Seward Highway without killing myself and finding a grocery store with fresh vegetables in winter (Help, anyone?)

Happily, the New Girl has emerged from winter slumber, moved closer to downtown and is now ready to sally forth to discover her new village.

But first, a brief recap of winter’s highlights:

I was mugged! Everyone I have told here in Anchorage believes that I am the first and only person to be the victim of a purse snatcher in downtown Anchorage. This is a city of barely 300,000 where you run into the lady that sold you a dresser the next day at the grocery store! I believe the perpetrator saw the large neon sign over my head which read something like, “This person just moved here from a Colorado town of 1,500 and does not have firm hold of her purse.” I chased him through a back alley with a friend tottering behind in high heels and yelling for help. Alas, he got away with the precious iPhone and a lot of old receipts. I still haven’t seen him at the grocery store but the cops did spy him twiddling with said iPhone while attempting to make withdraws on the New Girl’s accounts at the Hilton.

I saw the winter sunset in Barrow, Alaska!

Great skiing! A friend asked me to join the volunteer team for Anchorage Nordic Ski Club’s Ski Train to Curry, Alaska. All I can say is that you haven’t done the Chicken Dance while speeding down a track at 70 MPH with 100 people crammed into a tiny, tiny space, you have not lived. And that’s all I’ll say on the subject.

I’ve met many people who didn’t vote for Sarah Palin! All I’ve found is Dems, Dems, Dems in this supposedly red, red state. Maybe it's because I'm hanging out at the yoga studio and REI. My summer goal will be to reach out the other side of the virtual aisle and see if we can find some red-blooded Republicans.

That’s all for now kids…I’ll be posting frequently for the next 2 months.