Tom is outside shoveling snow off the porch and steps. There's a lot of it. An awful lot. With the winds and blowing snow the past couple of days, I feel like I am part of one of those movies about folks lost in the Antarctic. There is a bit of light just ccoming over the horizon now at 10:34 am! Surprisingly the long dark days have not bothered us yet. I know we have a few more weeks of very short daylight - but I don't think it is going to be a problem - except getting up in the morning. Usually we wake up when the light comes in the window - but the light doesn't really come in the window here - till about 11 am. So at say 8 or 9 am it is pitch dark and we feel like it is the middle of the night.

Tom is caring for a total of seven dogs - counting Roxie. Libby, a black lab is staying in the house with us. Steve has three dogs and Tom walks and feed them. And then there are Kim's Great Danes. The male has been relegated to the top of the steps. Seems he was allowed to get down the steps last week and decided not to go back up. He was untethered and it took two poeple about two hours to get him back in the house. The second time he was actually tethered but just refused to go up the steps. One of the guys ended up with a bloody nose. Steve fixed the leash so that he could tether the dog inside the house before he opened the door and now the dog is limited to running - or rather loping around on the small porch. This dog does HUGE poops and pees so the porch is quite a mess. I hope Tom will shove it all over the side before Kim returns.

It is sort of like the Twilight Zone here - only three families are here in the teacher housing. We of course came back early - but the other two families have not left - they have four kids each and well airplane fare would be ridiculous for a family of six.

On Chrismas Day we had supper at the Superintendent's house. They are such great folks. She is from New Zealand and he of course has been in Alaska for years. I took deviled eggs and Diet Cokes. Steve also joined us since his family was traveling. Afterwards we went to the Community Center to see the Eskimo Dancing which lasted until 1 am. We left around 11 - I would like to have stayed all night but Tom was the transportation and he was ready to go. The dancing was really nice - started out with the little ones and then all the school kids, then the adults. I got some photos and a bit of video.

Saw a couple of great films this weekend. One was Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419294/) . I really like Tommy Lee Jone's movies and this one was special - there were so many touching scenes and I believe I could watch the whole thing again. The other film was Good Morning Night (Italy) about some terrorists kidnapping and killing a politician. It is told from the female kidnappers viewpoint - sooo good.

Well, Tom is back from feeding and walking dogs, shoveling snow, getting the mail, clearing the snow from the connex door, and some more stuff that he does outside. He will have to rest for a while now.