Baby Bird

Holy crap, guys, so much penguin action!  Adelies hunkering down on rocks, toddling around the middle of town, trying to catch a ride in a van:

Why walk when you can flap?

And now we do all the goodbyes and last-minute partying and deer-in-the-headlights realization that we're all headed back to the world.  We even have a Goodbye Gauntlet, with people lining up in tunnel formation, to hug and smile and wave as people leave for each flight.  It has been such a fun season.  Like always, I'm not particularly itching to leave, but I'm looking forward to New Zealand, and then Alaska, and then back again.

Seasonal work forces you to exercise the letting-go muscle.  Things ramp up, wind down, and then are lost in the rearview mirror before you know where you are.  But I still hold by a certain sentiment, with apologies to Lord Tennyson: It is better to have eaten too much cake and barfed than never to have eaten cake at all.  I think.  I'm a little confused, and nauseas, so I might have misquoted.

See you in Michigan, Alaska, Antarctica, or wherever you let me sleep on your couch in exchange for cooking dinner!

It does eventually set.  Also, penguins on the bottom right.

fwends

Land of Milk and Honey

If you're not an early explorer that suffered frostbite and unimaginable deprivation, Antarctica is a sort of promised land, a land of endless sensual delights.  Ok, I tend focus a lot on the food-related ones, but also: alternating snowflakes and warm sunshine on your face; the smell of fresh cedar in the sauna; color-spectrum-expanding electric blue ice; hypnotically soothing wave action washing over the stony coast.

It's getting to be that time of year all the good free stuff shows up in Skua.

Anyway, back to food (and drink).  We have been enjoying apples and broccoli every day now.  Other people get really into the return of salad; give me three apples a day.  I brought some wine and a variety of candy to share at dinner one night, but the real key to spreading joy and increasing your popularity is doling out a giant box of ice cream.  Despite Frosty Boy, our beloved non-dairy frozen dessert, there is no actual ice cream.  There is some at the South Pole, though sources tell me it is stored in close proximity to gasoline and you have to dig out the center to minimize the off-taste. A lucky few folks out in the field get a half-gallon to, say, celebrate an otherwise culinarily lackluster holiday in a tent in the middle of nowhere.  Scott Base down the hill, however, knows what they're doing, and built an entire room just for ice cream.  That is where the invaluable giant box came from, ten sacred pounds of Hokey Pokey, delicate vanilla studded with golden nuggets of toffee.

Just to be clear, the contents of this shipping container will

defoliate trees and suck fish out of the water upside-down.

And brunch is back.  The resupply boat finally pulled out of harbor in the early morning hours, unfreezing alcohol sales, bringing a reprieve from gangbusters work scheduling, and making way for the enormous platters of cheese and donuts that assuage the tumult of another week.  I am quite a happy lady with creamy and sharp wedges, maybe a gherkin or two.

In fact, the only way improve upon brunch might be a select second seating, with a picnic blanket, on top of a hill, the better to watch for whales in the open waters before you.

Prevailing Winds

Hey February, 'sup.  You brought a good couple blankets of snow, and then blew it all around like crazy.  I feel bad for the people working to offload the resupply boat, but in addition to being pretty and wild, the weather is also swiftly removing the sea ice -- to the tune of scores of square miles a day.  There is open water in front of town.    I saw the telltale spurt of water from a whale blowing his nose.  Aaaaaaand an adorable camouflaged penguin.

Balletic coordination of vessel ops from above

Can you see him?

This molting fellow was a little bonus following a triumphant dodgeball battle.  To be clear, my inferior ball handling wasn't what put us on top, but I did run sufficiently swiftly to grab a ball at the start a couple times, and I had a rather intimidating mark on my belly that we flashed at the opposing team.  I was (and still am, thanks Sharpee) the sixth character spelling out "CARGO!?"* 
*I was playing with some Cargo guys.

Because of the resupply vessel, we had to forego brunch this weekend.  Luckily, in my moment of need, months-overdue package mail arrived, so I supplemented the day-old bread and month-old fridge-tasting butter in my room with fancy chocolate, dried figs and apricots, almond butter, and my roommate's divine coffee.  But next week, the stars should align and there will be baked brie AND maple syrup on my pancakes, and they will have to hunt me down to get me to leave this wonderful place.