Santa came to the gift store. Unfortunately he was a bit early this year (he had scheduling conflicts), so he wasn’t the big hit he’d been last year. Anyway we still had a fairly decent sales day. Christmas season is in full swing. What life choices did I make such that at age 59 I run a gift store in Alaska that plays Christmas music all day long? I look like a mentally unstable elf.
An autumnal ritual, we got the boat out of the water.
I work on cleaning it a bit, tomorrow, but the bottom is remarkably free of nefarious barnacles – probably a consequence of how late we put it in the water this year. I’m grateful for the neighbors’ help on pulling it out this morning – Arthur’s situational awareness is so minimal, these days, that he was in fact seemingly unaware of what we were doing. Some of that is his deafness, but he also just really tuned out of reality most of the time.
Despite his unawareness during the proceedings, Arthur nevertheless managed to find the gumption to go down after we’d “parked” the boat to inspect our work, and offer a few pointless criticisms. This is why it can be so draining caring for and interacting with him – the few times he exits his solipsistic bubble, it’s as often to criticize or complain as it is anything else.
With my “other uncle” Alan (Arthur’s brother) and my cousin Dawn visiting, we went on some excursions over this weekend.
Yesterday we went to Kasaan – my favorite “cultural” attraction to take visitors to on the island.
We hiked the half-mile trail to the totems and longhouse, had a picnic lunch (the restaurant was closed).
Alan and I posed with an orca.
We drove around, saw Thorne Bay. It rained on and off.
We saw a large and well-aged excavator in the forest.
This morning, the sun put in a half-day appearance, and the sea was remarkably calm. We took out the boat for a little 2 hour jaunt. Much to our shock, Art was not interested in going (this is a weird, sad milestone for Art, for whom the boat and outings in the boat have been utterly central to his life and identity here – his whole house is about the boat!).
We saw some whales. A bit hard to see, but the whale-tail is there, right of center.
We did a drive-by of the city of Craig on the way back, as seen from the water.
Last year on this day, I wrote the check that made my purchase of the gift store a fact. It also happened to be my birthday. So today, one year on, on my 59th birthday, I take a moment to reflect on this decision to buy the gift store.
Overall, I have a lot of “buyer’s remorse.” I think it was unwise for me to take on this challenge. I won’t say that I’m failing – I think that actually, I’m doing pretty well. I’m keeping the business above water financially, and running a going concern. I’ve even think that I’ve been successful at restoring some of the community trust in the store as longstanding local institution, that had been a bit eroded by the previous owner’s efforts to gentrify the store – gentrification really isn’t something Craig, Alaska, is ready for.
No, I’m not failing at running the store. But I derive almost zero sense of personal accomplishment or satisfaction. It’s only a source of constant stress and neverending miniature crises that each has to be resolved. Being the manager means I’m the person who ultimately always has to say “no” and “I’m sorry” to each and every unhappy stakeholder (customer, employee, vendor, service provider). This is not a role I enjoy in the least. And unlike with teaching, I don’t feel a sufficient sense of reward in the occasional positive feedback to counterbalance that burden. This is difficult for me to parse – I think I am simply more capable of accepting negativity from children, and also somehow more capable of enjoying limited positive responses. With adults (and especially, elderly adults) I have less patience for shortcomings, frankly. I expect old people (which is at least half the gift store’s customer base) to be more considerate, or something. But it doesn’t really work that way, does it? Perhaps it has to do with my own stage of life, as caretaker for a cantankerous elderly adult. I don’t know.
All I know is that I’m mostly miserable with the day-to-day burden of the store, and I resent that it’s become a more-than-full-time job that robs me of my formerly enjoyable time at my various hobbies – my writing, my geofiction, my eccentric “follies” (e.g. the treehouse).
So happy birthday to me. Buying the store currently ranks in the “Top 5” of “Mistakes I’ve Made In My Life.” Disentangling myself, however… I accept it’s a long-term commitment, and even if buying the store was a mistake, I would be compounding the mistake to try to bail ungracefully. So. I’ll cope.
I had a horrible day.
Probably partly it was the result of not really feeling like I got any rest or “alone time” over the weekend, what with having a guest here and various stressful small “crises,” like the failed kitchen sink drain and the mold-infested barbecue. I have no moment of refuge, no place of retreat.
So I started the day stressed and annoyed, and it just got worse. Before I bought the store, working at the store was a sort of refuge – because mostly I could just concentrate on my specific responsibilities, and the “big picture” was up to someone else – the store’s owners. Now that I’m the store’s owner, all the really big problems rise up to me, and I have to deal with them. There’s no sense of refuge in the store. I face bills, annoying or dissatisfied customers, the competing preferences and requests of employees… it’s all on me to sort out, and delay doesn’t solve anything, so each of these demands my attention NOW.
But actually still, I wasn’t truly miserable till I got home. I guess I’m just burned out on cleaning up after other people. It’s true that Wayne had prepared dinner, which was nice. But I spent the hour and a half after dinner cleaning up: cleaning dishes, cleaning Wayne’s mess in the boat (which returned to our dock yesterday), dealing with a water shortage in our cistern (caused by someone leaving the hose at the dock on for a day straight). It just never stops. And no sense of personal space or refuge to retreat to for bed, since I yielded my bedroom to our guest.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I went down to look at the boat, and found some fish guts and bait in loose, non-waterproof bags in the transom storage area. It was stinky already, the boat having been in the sun all day. I came up to let Wayne know that this mess was there, and his response was: “You can throw it in the water.” Implicit in this was that he just assumed I was happy to clean up after him and Jeff. Now to be clear, I’m not really into fishing even under the best of conditions, but if there’s one aspect of fishing I like least, it’s dealing with fish guts. And here he just assumed I’d be happy to deal with it. So… I dealt with it. But I was quite angry. I even let him know – though I suspect he unable to understand why I was angry. But it made me feel like some kind of servant, rather than someone hosting a friend at my home.
In the end I was so grumpy I just ran away and have gone to bed my treehouse. I’m tired of responsibility. A lot.
It’s kind of primitive out here, and a bit chilly, but at least I have some solitude.
ㅁ The boat ramp winch thing is demanding some repairs. I must MacGyver...
– a pseudo-haiku.
Today was in fact a rather historic one, here on this remote Southeast Alaskan island. We were visited by our first cruise ship, ever. Although Jan alleges that in the 40’s or 50’s a cruise ship attempted to visit the island and ran into a rock trying to get into one of the harbors, and because of that the cruise companies became afraid to come back. That story has the feel of urban (rural?) myth, but it’s amusing.
The cruise ship that visited was actually surprisingly quirky. It was not one of your standard 3000-passenger behemoths, such as visit Ketchikan or Juneau each summer. Instead it was a “long-distance” cruise. I met passengers who had been on the boat for 3 months, having boarded in Sydney, Australia.
This unusual long-term aspect of the passenger list was very good for our little island – because unlike the coddled and generally pretty lazy passengers of the mass cruises, these passengers were curious and quite adventurous. During their 8 hour stop at Klawock, many boarded the small circulator buses that the tribal groups were running, and so despite the boat being parked in Klawock, our gift shop in Craig (7 miles away) saw over 50 tourists who we’d never have otherwise seen. So it was good for our business, and the passengers we met were all quite interesting to talk to.
It was an international group, too – as could be expected. I met more British, Australians, Germans and even a few Chinese, than Americans. I even met a posh couple from Mexico City, and impressed them with my Mexico-City-accented Spanish, which, though rusty, still serves me quite well, nearly 40 years after my having lived there. ¡El gringo achilangado habla de nuevo!
Driving north to Klawock after work (I went to pick someone up at the Hollis Ferry), I just happened to be driving by the Klawock harbor channel in the moment when the boat was departing. So I pulled over and took a picture.
If this business of hosting cruise ships is successful, it could transform the island. I’m a bit skeptical that the powers-that-be (the businesses undertaking the enterprise is a consortium of tribal corporations) can pull this off. Our island is a bit too chaotically libertarian, in cultural terms, for such projects. But we shall see.
This tree stood around as some small progress with the little shed on lot 73 was made.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree (the one photobombing from the top) was on the north side of the bay.
I’ve never managed this view before. There’s a wide spot in the road, where you can stop, and a little trail down to the rocky beach, and you can look across the water at the City of Rockpit, which is my home. Currently the City hosts 4 residents – double its population only a few years ago (which is to say, our neighbors Brandt and Kim moved in next door, about a year ago).
Humorous quote found online:
To all the people that always said I’d never amount to anything because of my procrastination: / Just you wait.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree has a fashionable address on C Street in suburban Klawock, Alaska.
I took the car to the mechanic today, while Jan watched the store. That went okay – the car needed a seal replaced on the transfer case, and I wanted to check the front wheel bearings and ball joints and such (weird noises sometimes on cornering, and it’s been a problem before). Plus oil change, and switch out winter to summer rims.
But overall it was a horrible day, with the trip to the mechanic being the only pleasant part. The store is stressing me out – ambushed by invoices, bookkeeping problems and overwhelmed by what feels like an impossible “more money out than in” scenario. I’m experiencing “buyer’s remorse” over this project to run the store.
[daily log: walking, 6km; retailing, 7hr]
This tree was towering over my cowering, ill-used Jeep.
Elmer comes in the store. We are talking about who is native, who is not, among locals on the island, here. You can’t always tell who is “native” – there’s been a lot of mixing over the generations, so it mostly has to do with enrollment in a tribal group, appearance doesn’t always tell you a lot about a person’s status as a native. Anyway, somewhat out of the blue, Elmer says, “You know, Richard Nixon was Tlingit.” I said, “Oh really, how’s that?” Elmer, not missing a beat, says, holds his two hands up in the “double peace sign” and says, “I am NOT a crook.” This, somehow, proves that Nixon was a Tlingit.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree off beyond the treehouse’s balcony.
A joke: “You’ll never know what kind of impact you’ll have on this earth until you fall down.”
[daily log: walking, 2km;]
This tree noted the lack of progress on the little house thingy (I call it the “pre-house”) on Lot 73. I’m not bothered by this – the neighbor who’s doing this project for me has had other jobs that are much higher priority, involving improvements to his own lot. The pre-house will wait.
The reason I call it the pre-house is because the future actual house will be attached to it – at which point, this structure becomes a kind of previously-existing small appendage to the future house.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree noted that my much-neglected treehouse continues to fail to fall down.
Joke read online (made me laugh): “My π tattoo is taking longer than expected.”
[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 1hr]
ㅁ down the steps snow-laden to the hollow with fallen branches where the treehouse stairway provides access to the space damp with the rain and melting snow suspended there among greenery
– a reverse nonnet.
This tree noticed the beginnings of a roof.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 2hr]
This tree stood aside as the north wall was added.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree bore silent testimony to the completion of framing for the south wall of the little house thingy on Lot 73.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree bore witness to the raising of the eastern wall to the shed project. This was all Brandt’s work.
I was pretty lazy today. There was some work on the map servers that I tried to do, but even that didn’t really progress as hoped.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km;]
This tree got to watch as neighbor Brandt and I (mostly Brandt) installed the framing for west wall of my shed project over on Lot 73.
After working in the morning, Brandt needed some help lifting that assembled frame of 2 x 6’s – it was quite heavy. We ended up using a come-along.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 4hr]
This tree was frosty, just like all the others.
A woman came into the gift store this morning, looking for a Valantine’s Day card. Unfortunately, we had some issues with our card supplier, and we don’t have any Valentine’s Day cards this year. She was disappointed, of course. She moped about the store looking at some of the other stuff we have. But then she brightened. “I suppose I could use a sympathy card, instead,” she announced.
She did not, in fact, buy a sympathy card for her Valentine. I think it was a joke. But it was well executed and I was laughing about it all day.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree is a guest tree from my past. I like this tree. I took this picture in April, 2014, walking near my place of work in Goyang City, South Korea. I was only 6 months out from the end of my radiation treatment after my previous cancer surgery. I remember feeling quite terrible, but slogging along with job and life.
Today was a long, unprofitable day at the gift store. I had to go buy a new tank of helium at Tyler, for our balloon operation. As a side note, a tank of helium is a very heavy thing – not what you’d expect from helium, to be frank.
I learned that our local competitor in helium retailing, the monopoly grocery store, sells their helium at less than half what we do. If they pay the same for a tank of helium that we do (and I’m confident they do – they’re an obvious customer at Tyler, the only place that sells helium on the island), they’re selling at a steep loss. I pondered the economics of being a monopoly grocery store in a small, remote Alaskan town. Maybe there’s some weird philanthropic helium subsidy from some “Keep Rural Alaska Balloony” foundation. Or maybe they’re just incompetent and forgot to raise their prices over the last decade.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 9hr; helium-tank-loading-unloading, 10min]
This tree was beside the treehouse stairs at just after dawn this morning. The rain has returned, after a 2-day break.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree is a guest tree from my past. I do these guest tree pictures when I’m too busy to have taken a picture in a given day.
I took this picture in February, 2010, at 금산사 [Geumsan-sa = Geumsan Temple], in Jeollabuk Province, South Korea. I was doing a “templestay” – where you live for a very short time (a long weekend) at a Buddhist monastery, doing the monk lifestyle thing.
We had a record sales day at the gift store – based on my and Jan’s memories of working with Wayne and Donna when they ran the store, combined with more accurate records over the last few years, our gross sales today were the highest ever. It’s actually typical that it’s December 23rd – that’s the “last minute shopping” day for Christmas. I think we combined that with doing well with stocking good inventory, and the fact that today was the day that Santa visited the store (a tradition at Alaska Gifts for a given Saturday before Christmas).
Here is a picture of Santa with some elves he met at the store (i.e. store staff: Kim, Jan, myself):
We also had one of those typical “gale force” rainstorms in Craig today. So as I went to head home from work, a tree (two trees) had blown down on Port Saint Nicholas Road, meaning that work crews had to get out there and clear the tree – so I was delayed getting home until almost 8. And I got home to darkness, because the power was out. That’s been a quite frequent occurrence this damp Fall.
I learned recently that today is called “Christmas Adam” (meaning, December 23rd). The reasoning: “Christmas Eve” is December 24th. We all know that Adam came before Eve, so… December 23rd is “Christmas Adam.” Call it Patriarchy Remembrance Day.
[daily log: walking, 6km; retailing, 11hr]
This tree was near a treehouse and a yard flamingo under steady rain.
I feel bad for my neglected treehouse. I basically did no work on it this year.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree was there while I decided it was the time of year when I needed to switch to the studded snow-tires – snow is in the forecast for the next few days (though that can be hit-or-miss, here). The lug-nuts were very tight, and I broke not one, but two lug-wrenches, before I got them all loosened.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 1 hr; breaker-bar-banging, 2hr]
This tree is an artificial Christmas tree installed at the gift shop.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree was by the little board-bridge across the stream between lots 74 and 73 (Art’s lot and my lot). The stream was swollen by the inch of rain we got overnight, and it was running over the top of my little bridge.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km;]
This tree is my small cherry tree that nearly died in the deerpocalypse last year. This year, safe in its little cage, it seems to have done fine, but it’s strange how the leaves seem uninterested in changing color in the Fall.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree was across the street from where I stood in front of the gift shop. A late October morning in Craig.
Some kids came by the store, trick-or-treating for Halloween. We were prepared, having candy on hand.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; retailing, 9km]
This tree is the tallest tree on lot 73. If the sun comes out in the next week or two (that’s asking something unreasonable, to be sure), I’ll get to watch the midday autumn sun’s illumination retreat up this tree over several days and then disappear off the top, as the sun undertakes to hide for the next four months behind the mountain – that is winter’s shadow.
My greenhouse produced this cherry-sized tomato, below – I’m not even sure why. I had a tomato plant. It struggled, as tomato plants do, here – even in greenhouses. This is the sole output of my tomato plant – a desultory nod toward tomatic destiny.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km;]
This tree is the pussy-willow tree I (trans-)planted last year. It seems to have figured out when Fall is.
A customer came in the store, with her child. The woman was speaking Haida with the child. This is what you do when you’re trying to help a child develop some bilingualism – it’s an attempt at some immersion. When she bought her products and was checking out, she said (I’m pretty sure) “Háw’aa” which means thank you. That was the first time I’ve had a customer speaking Haida in the store. The language is close to extinct, but there are strong community efforts being made to resurrect it. I told the woman I thought she was doing a wonderful thing.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 9hr]
This tree is a guest tree from my past. It is a tree that fell across the road between Coffman Cove and Thorne Bay, about 40 miles northeast of here. I photographed the tree in October, 2009. I wonder if I’ve posted this picture as a daily tree, before, but I can’t find it if I have.
I did a lot of work around the house today – it’s the first day I haven’t gone into work over two weeks – since the big transition to ownership (mentioned in last blog post). I did work on winterizing the plumbing repairs I did earlier this past summer on where the water comes into the house at the west side of the boat shed (basement). I helped neighbor Brandt with his sheetrocking efforts in his new laundry shed. I made a giant batch of spaghetti sauce to eat as leftovers for the coming week.
[daily log: walking, 5km; lifting sheetrock to the ceiling, 2hrs]
