Fiery Sunset

Last Days of Ancient Sunlight

In the near future, a visionary leader brings Ireland to the forefront of green technology while in Alaska, communities displaced by the rising seas struggle to rebuild without losing their sense of self. Disparate worlds collide when fracked-out gas fields in middle America collapse, finally destabilizing the last of the old-world power regime in The Last Days of Ancient Sunlight. Here begins a few weeks of probably-daily vote hounding, because I’ve applied for a grant which has a first step of reality-show-style popularity contest to it. Arthur Guinness Projects is…

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the essential kit

not dead

I’m making up for four posts on Monday by not making any more posts the rest of this week, I guess. We’re not yet fully unpacked. I have faint, tired hopes of finishing this weekend. We’ll see. We did get the clothesline up, so I’ve been taking advantage of the major solar spill we’re experiencing to dry clothes outside. And I did wash the mattress pad, which had been on my list of thinks to do a couple of weeks ago. So that’s something. I also–through the good graces of…

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Kitsnacks: French vanilla ice cream

French Vanilla Ice Cream 4 egg yolks 1/3 c sugar 1.5 c cream vanilla to taste pinch of salt Mix egg yolks and sugar at a high speed until they’ve thickened to a lovely light yellow and make ribbons when you draw the beaters out and across the surface of the mixture. Scald the cream. Remove from heat when a perfect scald is reached. Add salt and vanilla. (I judged the vanilla by the mixture’s smell, and would guess I used 2-3 tablespoons. But that’s a guess.) Drizzle the scalded…

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the essential kit

ice cream

When I was a kid, we used to go down to Homer for the 4th of July. Loads of us, extended theatre family types. Lots of kids, lots of adults, lots of mosquitoes. Fireworks you couldn’t see, because the sun doesn’t go down in Alaska in July. Wading in the slough and getting clay up to your knees and convincing each other that the mothers wouldn’t notice. Picking Alaska cotton and tickling each other with the fluff. Running up the solid mud road to the cousins who had running water,…

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Foggy Angel

oh no

There’s been a bad plane crash in Soldotna, the next town over from my home town of Kenai. Ten people were killed. They haven’t released names yet, except somebody I went to high school with just said the pilot was a family member. When I was fourteen there was a terrible, terrible small plane crash in Homer that killed about twenty people and injured several more. Among the dead were a junior high history teacher, which meant literally everyone at my high school had had him as a teacher, and…

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