About Last Night . . .

The last few weeks have been quite hectic for me and my family with so many things being prepared for events that have been in the works, some for months now.

One was the wedding ceremony for my youngest daughter. I had the unique pleasure of performing the wedding ceremony and vows which is one of the many great things about living in Alaska. I guess it started when Alaska was still a territory and there were not many judges or preachers to complete the ceremonies so they allow residents to fill out the paperwork and perform the task. It is pretty neat to be able to give your daughter’s hand in marriage and also perform the vows with them.

The family has also been in the process of preparing for family members who are in the process of relocating from Utah to arrive. There are the usual things like making sure there is enough sleeping space for everyone and the possible temporary storage of the items brought north. There are so many things going on with many things happening during this period.

As you can see from my blog posts the Iditarod has captured my imagination and provided many wonderful things to write about. I haven posted yet but leading up to the Iditarod was our annual winter festival called “Fur Rondy” or the formal name of Fur Rendezvous celebrating our past when the fur trappers would meet to sell their wares and socialize for a brief time before heading back into the wilderness of rural Alaska. It is a time for merriment and laughter during the long dark cold nights of winter. It is a perfect time for our nightly fireworks displays as the summer’s full light does not leave it dark enough for a great showing. We have a limited display on the forth of July but even at one o’clock in the morning it is too bright outside to really see anything.

Last night was one of laughter and fun as my wife and I went out to dinner and a movie with our friends, Scott and Kim. I’ll quickly do a quick review so you can save your money or wait until it is out on video.

The movie was called “Premonition” a Sandra Bullock ditty with one of television’s ‘Nip/Tuck’ doctors, Julian McMahon. Save yourself the money as it was a hard to follow two hours that you will never get back. I think the concept was good but lacked the ability to pull it off. There were flashbacks, flash forwards, and some out of ‘order’ scenes that I never quite figured out where they were supposed to carry the story. I might have been distracted somewhat as Sandra wore mostly tight t-shirts or pajamas with little ‘bumps’ sticking out in almost every scene. The other distraction had several scenes with her ‘smoking’ either holding a cigarette just off camera or with an ashtray close by with the smoke rising everywhere. I guess I am somewhat amazed that people put into their contracts to smoke since they cannot be away from it for very long periods to shoot a scene. I won’t start a rant now but it added nothing to those scenes.

The laughter started quickly as we arrived at the restaurant. We decided it being St. Patrick’s Day and Kim’s birthday that a Japanese “All You Can Eat” Sushi and King Crab buffet was in order.

It had an ‘Irish’ feel to it as many of the oriental’s working there had green on their clothing along with some green in the decor. It was crowded inside with many people into the wonderful food and company at the various tables or rooms. It seems that quite a few of us had decided on a little diversion from our Irish pubs in town.

The four of us were taken to a room off to one side that could be divided into three separate smaller rooms. The bamboo curtain could be let down so that there ‘seemed’ to be some privacy between them. Over the course of several hours we were there the curtain was drawn to our room keeping us in our own little world.

I have to give you a little back history to take this towards the proper perspective. At this time of year we are usually either on a cruise ship enjoying the warm weather, great foods, and the abundant sunlight that is sometimes sorely missed during the long Alaskan winter. There was a cruise that was wrapping up with several of our friends this weekend that went with a vendor who I work with. Sadly, we were not aboard so we decided to have a night like we would aboard ship. Great food, fun, and laughter were what everyone needed so this was a perfect place to accomplish that end.

The sushi bar was loaded with the typical sushi fare. There were many varieties of Maki and Temaki with many Nigiri items to choose from. It was all great and at the end of the buffet line was another line going across the floor with two large vessels holding really nice large king crab legs and claws. On each end was a container holding Dungeness crabs for the taking.

Everyone loaded their plates with various items. My wife went straight to the king crab as she is not a sushi enthusiast while the three of us picked over the sushi items to start off while also grabbing several large crab legs. We started eating and laughing pretty much like we would have been aboard ship when the tiny lady came in and closed the bamboo curtain in our eating area.

We were having a great time slowly eating and telling jokes and talking about past great times. Everyone went back for more and as the king crab legs were eaten and several ran out of melted butter it was time to go off on a hilarious run of jokes, puns, and one liner about “Lobster Sex” and butter. There was reference to an old Saturday Night Live skit but I will not go into the details but everyone in the place that could hear us was enjoying the floor show as we continued laughing and thinking up all kinds of funny things about butter, crabs and seafood in general.

Everyone’s side was hurting from the laughter from over two hours of funny stories and happy times. We decided to head to the movies after some of the great deserts that were prepared. The cake was (not birthday) really tasty with frosting in excess on the plates.

Happy Birthday Kim as it was another great night.

Ice

* Lobster sex was not what you expected now was it? You had to be there to fully appreciate the fun.