Snow and Shorts

The forecast of clear skies was dead wrong. I woke up to snow and it remained that way all morning. Since there was already snow on the ground, when I looked out the window, all I could see was white. White on white.

The window I’m looking out of is not that of the Polar Bear Theater bunkhouse; it is out of 7077 Uula Street, which is on the corner of Uula and North Star. It is the home of David Ongley, the librarian at the Tuzzy Library, and I will be housesitting it for the duration of my stay in Barrow. David is in and out of town constantly so he likes to have someone checking in on it or, in my case, living in it. I have my own room, wireless, laundry, and all the amenities of a real, lived in home. It’s amazing and a hundred times better (as well as cheaper) than the bunkhouse.

I took my first trip to the AC, the grocery store in town. Things seemed to generally be $5 more than what I’m used to. A block of cheese is $15 instead of $10, although I never buy blocks of cheese. Today I bought four cans of soup for $10; ordinarily it would’ve cost over $6 for one. Not everything is outrageously more. The carton of eggs I bought was $4.50. Anyway, enough about grocery prices. Even though things were more expensive, it was still great to see what I could buy, what’s available, which is more than what’s available in Wrangell.

Also, at the grocery store as well as on my walk home, I got to see some of Barrow’s youth. They were buying pizza and sandwiches and walking home and, not surprisingly, some of them looked like me. I even saw, as I had heard about prior to coming, two kids wearing shorts.