never married and no there isn't anything wrong with me...

 at least nothing more than the average person.  it's always so funny to me that when people discover i'm single and have never married they immediately begin to try and uncover what is wrong with me.  surely something must be wrong with me....apparently everyone who has ever married is perfect, they have no flaws...i mean they got married didn't theyn so they must have been flawless.

 this hunt for my failings began in my late 20's-early 30's and has continued.  patients often ask me if i'm married, do i have kids...the usual small talk.  this hunt for my failings is across the board though.  i recall having a bit of a heated discussion with a sibling years ago.  he began speaking of a woman at his church...she was nearly 40, pretty, smart...yadda yadda, but she had never married...what was wrong with her.  of course, when i dared to point out that perhaps she didn't have a fatal flaw i was deemed to be overly sensitive...of course there was something wrong with her...she had never married.

 often people will begin to ask you questions, probing at times..eventually they seem to settle on something that they decide is a flaw enough to justify the fact that nobody wanted to marry you.

 may i just point out that there are plenty of people who are certifiably insane who are married, drug addicts and alcoholics are married, people in jail are married, serial killers are married.  putting a ring on a persons finger and getting legally bound to another  human does not in any way make a person more normal than the next.

 it never seems to occur to people that perhaps people who are single and never married, just never found an appropriate match.  divorce just never appealed to me and i had seen enough marriages go bust and bust bad that that didn't appeal to me.  ultimately for myself i found that either you find someone that you really feel is an excellent match for you and you for them or you don't.  it wasn't worth marrying half ass just to say i had gotten married.

 these pictures, by the way, are from past the Matanuska Glacier to the Tangle Lakes campground on the Denali Highway.

 for an independent woman..and man i suppose...being single isn't some death sentence.  i have dated many men but none of them seemed a match worth giving up my freedom for.  they weren't men i'd want to raise kids with.  just seemed to me it was better to stay single and hope for a better match than to see it all go to hell down the road.  i figure i should be applauded for not marrying the wrong guy or becoming impregnated by the wrong guy.  instead...i am analyzed and found to be flawed.

 i am flawed.  we all are flawed.  i don't think i'm any more flawed than the next person.  what are my flaws.  i can be sensitive.  i am outspoken.  i can be lazy and often procrastinate.  i probably swear more than the average.  my homemaking and cooking skills are not stellar, my house can be a bit cluttered at times.  i'm not afraid of a few dust bunnies or dishes in the sink. i sometimes spend money on silly things...i have too much stuff...thus the clutter.  i'm sure my friends could chime in on a few more of my flaws.  i've met plenty of people who have more flaws and plenty who no doubt have less...

 i am who i am.  love happens when someone sees your flaws and your quirks and accepts you as you are and you see their flaws and quirks and accept those as well.  a person who loves you can see past the silly flaws and knows the person you are beyond the silly flaws of day to day life.  mostly, i think i can be a pretty complicated person and it can take time to get to know me.  most people don't bother to take the time to really get to know people.  socially, i can't say i'm very good at the small talk and the games that seem to go along with this process called dating.

 it would be great to have a kindred spirit to chill with and to have fun with and to talk and laugh with...but perhaps there was some great lessons i was meant to learn in this life and perhaps those lessons were best learned by me standing alone.  i try to take life as it comes, adapt to it, embrace it.

 i took the road less traveled and that has made all the difference.  the things i have done in life i may not have done if i had followed the path that was laid out for me as a child.  it's just the way my life has gone.  some people can find happy no matter what and some people are never happy, even if they have been given every gift.  some sabotage their happiness and some just live in fear of change so they settle or stay in unhappy situations.

 i've seen some bad marriages that came from people just wanting desperately to be "married"...i've seen some sad marriages of people who chose wrong but stayed.  heard and seen people stay with partners who are really horrible to them and bad people...but apparently normal because they managed to get married.

 sometimes patients have asked me out or even this week offered to marry me....usually they are pretty drunk when they do. i guess i can say i have been proposed to on many occasions...it's gonna take more than a drunk proposal to catch this girl though  i remember one patient who had shit all over himself and was throwing up blood asking me out.  he had pee and poop all over him...i'm always impressed at the confidence of some men.  amazing...of course, i do recall looking at him and saying something like, "i'm not sure what makes you think you are attractive at this moment, no thank you".

 Shell has decided to stop oil exploration in the Arctic.  this is good news for walrus, whales, polar bears and all the other life in the arctic.  it's not that i'm totally against oil exploration but we do not have the means to protect the arctic and the plants and animals of the arctic in the event of a major oil spill and believe me, spills happen.  even a small spill can be disastrous in such a delicate environment.  the reports were that they wouldn't do anything for walrus or whales and would only be able to help a few polar bears if they could find them.  so this is good news in my opinion.

 getting a few WARIS calendars ready to ship out hopefully tomorrow.  i also ordered more calendars....can we sell them?  so far the few we have seem to be finding homes.  perhaps next year i will see if anyone who had been there has a favorite photo to add in to the calendar.

 it was a wet Monday walk but we got out there and let the rain fall on us.  once you are out in the rain it's not really that bad. it can be tough to get motivated.  i actually love the rain though.  so we had 3 for the walk and 5 for coffee.  i actually made some brownies.  now i'm eating some leftover milk duds from the movie last night.  also snacking on some honeycrisp apples.  :-)  love me some honeycrisp.

 watched a few ted talks this afternoon as i took a rest.  of course, i was dozing through some of the talks.  one was by a guy Samuel Cohen.  he's researching Alzheimers Disease.  he was saying that not much has happened in research since the first case was diagnosed over 100 years ago.  one MS Deter.  he was saying this is a curable disease not just a part of aging.  he was saying that many people in the audience would be battling Alzheimers themselves in the years to come or would be caring for someone with Alzheimers.  the numbers are getting worse.  the proteins in the brain clump. his group was working on treatments, some meds are showing positive results in worms and such.  he implored people to fight for increased funding for Alzheimers research.  it is a horrible and sad disease...would love to see cures and treatments found.

 there was a woman who writes poetry and she had written about having Parkinsons.  she seemed to be making light of all the struggles and changes her body was trying to adapt to.  how things that were so easy before were now things that she had to focus on intensely in order to get the task done.  writing, opening a door....it all takes added focus now.  i heard the first poem and then i think i must have dozed off.

 i should probably eat a salad instead of the milk duds...just another of my many flaws.  i like junk food sometimes...well often times.

 some flaws i've managed to turn into positives...oddly my stubborness and outspoken nature make me pretty good at advocacy work.  i don't back down.  it helped that i can write fairly easily and the pictures i've taken have really been a bonus.  couldn't have afforded to pay people for the use of their photo's.  i've been able to donate my time and photography and my writing skills to help the walrus.

 may never know what impact we have as a group..i hope that we have helped and continue to help.  it can be tough to know at times. tonight i did read over a handful of kind notes written to me by a variety of people who appreciate what we do...that is always great.

 we all can make a difference in the world.  it may be small, so small that it passes by unnoticed, but we should all still try...you just never know.

 i find that is true in all our interactions.  at my work especially, you just never know when a moment of kindness and compassion will have an impact on someone.  if you can treat someone with respect and dignity who rarely gets that treatment you may make a bigger impact than you know.

 it can be tough to not get jaded in our work.  it's easy to see the drug seeker or the chronic drunk and only see the drugs and the alcohol...but you have to push past the exterior of people and remember that they are all suffering and struggling.  we all have our flaws, we are all damaged in some way by the life we live.  if we work together we can all help to pull each other up and we can all make it.

 i like the current Pope and i also like the Dhali Lama.  with all the hoopla of the Pope coming to the US someone had asked...why do we care about the Pope.  leaders of these religions have a lot of power and always have. to hear leaders use this power to try and make things right and better can only be a good thing in my opinion.  many listen to these religious leaders...they can calm and they can redirect.  as in all power it can just as easily be abused...more often than not it seems like it is so when you see a world religious leader who seems to be able to use this platform in an attempt to calm and inspire and educate...i for one will embrace it.

 i always am a fan of reflections. these below are from walking around camp and the little trails in the campground

 Blossom was happy to be out of the car and exploring.

 it was a cold night...i didn't sleep much.  temps into the 30's.  frost on the ground in the morning.

 you can see some remnant blueberries in there as well.

 snow is falling up north and will possibly fall in town here this week.

 the campground below.

 my car needs to get it's big 100,000 mile check...we are almost there...oh the places we've gone.

 hopefully, i sleep well tonight.  haven't accomplished all i set out to for today....need to buy those plane tickets still, but every day i get something accomplished and that is good.

 another of the campground below....a morning walk with Blossom before we did the crossing of the Denali Highway.

 Blossom enjoys the day.

 loved that small patch of trees...the fall landscapes in Alaska are amazing.

 three more nights coming up....

thankful for:  A.  the rain.  we need it and it's relaxing and peaceful  B.  friends...so happy to have the Monday walks back  C.  opportunities. i have had many in my life.  haven't always done all i could with them, but so many do not have so few options or opportunities.