Crazy Cat Lady

     Summer is already over here in Alaska. Our midnight sun has stopped shining, our high temperatures in the 70s are no more, and the state fair has started. Fall will be here before I know it, or, "Extremely short 2 weeks period before Alaska becomes a snow globe." as I am calling it.
     I spent my summer entertaining a friend of mine from back home that I have known since 5th grade. She got here in the middle of July and stayed until the end of August. We did so much crap while she was here that I felt like a tourist. We took her on a couple of hikes, one of which has a pretty steep climb to get to the top, but if you managed to make it without dying it was worth the view. We took her to Fairbanks, which I don't recommend. The only thing that was worth going there for was the sketchtastic Santa's House in North Pole, Alaska. I bought a bunch of awesome ornaments and then we decided to go to one of the hot springs. The hot springs in Alaska are well talked about in the Fairbanks area, "Only 50 minutes from Fairbanks!" boasted the visitors information. Well it was more like an hour down the shittiest road in Alaska, at the end of this shitty road was a monumentally shitty hot spring. The "resort" that we went to was disgusting, as was the "hot spring" which was at one point a hot spring but then filtered through about 47 times before being dumped into a man made hot spring. We didn't even get to see Mt. McKinley on the drive since the weather was also shitty.
     We spent 2 weekends fishing for salmon. I am not a fishing person. I don't like fish, I don't touch fish, and I certainly do not eat fish. I only did this for my friend who mentioned "fishies!" eleventy billion times. I didn't catch anything the first weekend, surprised, aren't you? The husband and friend both caught a good amount though which seemed to have fueled her fish frenzy even more. The following weekend I finally caught my first fish EVER. A nice sized red salmon.

You know what I did with that fish after washing my hands so much they were raw because touching fish is disgusting? I sent it home with my friend BECAUSE I DON'T EAT FISH! I was to the point where if I had to hear the word "fish" one more time, I was going to pistol whip someone...I also made her watch Super Troopers.
     We went to the Alaska Zoo and it ended up surprising all of us. The zoo was really quite nice and they didn't charge you an arm and a leg for the concessions. We took inappropriate pictures with the prop animals, and convinced a family of Japanese tourists that the one thousand pound Grizzly bear on display, "was just a baby." They had some really awesome animals there and there weren't many visitors, probably because of the rain. It rained here for most of her visit. So much rain. I still prefer the rain over the fish though.
     One of the other things I made her do was run around with me while I was preparing for my first semester as a full time college student. I am so ready for school! After a ton of studying, I aced all of my placement exams and registered for 5 classes. I know, weak, but 6 just seemed to be a bit much for just starting. I spent almost a thousand dollars on text books! Out of my own pocket! Because processing a GI Bill claim takes the gestation period of an elephant, obviously! I probably won't be getting any money until the rapture, but at least my school of matriculation is understanding and is still allowing me take classes, which I start on Monday. My biggest fear? All the little children in class realizing how much older I am than them and asking me to buy them booze, or worse, go out with them for booze. I'm not a social person, I'd rather stay at home with my cats and husband and do homework. So I'm going to dress like a crazy cat lady my first day of class in hopes of frightening them all off.