Today mom and I went to the Midnight Sun Festival with mom's friend Sarah (it's the biggest one day event in Alaska!). The day was beautiful and cloudless (except from the smoke plume from that fire south of here) and quite hot. Vicki said she was going to get there around one and watch the silk dancers at two. We ate first (mmm Navajo tacos and a delicious milkshake) and tried calling/texting her, but I imagine it was too loud for her to hear the notifications. We went to the silk dancers (wow, that's cool! I'm definitely not that flexible haha) and I didn't see her, but I did see another coworker watching haha. I figured we'd run into each other eventually. We looked around, spent way too much money haha, saw other coworkers and people I recognized (it's been 16 years, but I'll never forget the first time I went to the festival and didn't know anyone and was sad I couldn't join in their fun, so I'll always appreciate seeing people I know). I went to get lemonade, and as I was walking back to where mom was Vicki was suddenly right there! Of course we saw each other by accident haha. After a fun few hours we left, hot and full haha (the evening crowds get too rowdy for us lol). Here are a couple pics!

A few months ago, Vicki and I saw in the paper a romance bookstore opened downtown..I saw curtains in one picture, and I was like "that's the only reason I'd go there" haha. Well, I wasn't lying!

I had actually forgotten about that place until I saw it at the festival. Yep, I am the weird one hugging/petting the vendors' curtains LOL (I also went to that coin store that has books and bought a rare book from the 1800s. That place is dangerous!! Haha)

After dropping Sarah off, mom and I went to the university to see the smoke from the fire to the south..when we got up there, I saw there was another smoke plume. I read later the fire started yesterday from lightning, and is only 15 miles from the bigger one. Interesting they're so near to each other. It's being monitored, but not being fought because there might be unexploded ordinance since it's on military land. D: Here's a pic from the bigger fire:

A little bit of pyrocumulus, but not epic like the other day..

( 22. Did You Ever Have a Summer Job? )

I recently discovered the comedian Drew Lynch..he was hit in the throat by a softball (ouch!!) when he was younger, and now has a stutter because of that. He was on America's Got Talent in 2015..he could barely say anything then without stuttering, but he turned that into a strength, and incorporated that into his comedy. I'm not a huge fan of stand-up comedy, but he is SO funny!! I especially loved this line: "I have the hardest time at the drive-thru, because you gotta say the order fast and you're talking into an intercom, I don't know why I work there!" OMG SO funny, I love how he can laugh at himself, like I do with autism ("man, I'm being so autistic today!!" Haha). It's definitely better to laugh at yourself than get depressed about it, and he does it so well! He was very brave, I want to die when I stutter haha (the other day I tried saying "mesmerized," but instead said "mem-mem-mem-mem"! Yikes! I hate when it comes out of nowhere lol). I love his laugh and how he laughs at himself, and just seems to have so much fun! He got all the way to the final round too, and got second place..so awesome!

I found this one pretty funny too:

This was 2019, you can see how much he's improved! I love people with disabilities being brave enough to get out there and do awesome things! He's very good at improv too, like someone from the audience will say something he'll find amusing, and go off of that and not miss a beat. I'm glad he decided to go on AGT, and show us his humor! Awesome and inspirational and such a cool guy :D

Yesterday was the Midnight Sun Festival, which was canceled last year because of covid. I went with mom, Ryan and Jo. They made it smaller, and crammed everything on one street, a parking lot and the plaza, which was super annoying, because it was very crowded..you think they would have spread things out more since there were less vendors, but that would have made too much sense LOL. I visited that coin/bookstore of course, which I hadn't been to in a long time, and found a super cool book from the 1800s about sledging on glaciers..definitely a treasure! They took a lot of Candy's books and postcards to sell after she died (she was a huge collector of vintage Alaska things and had a garage sale for years), and had to grab a couple postcards too (not that I don't have a ton of them already :P). We had milkshakes, but the lines for the regular foods were SO long and we didn't want to wait forever in that crazy crowded space, so we went to a restaurant and ordered pizza. OMG..that was probably the most disgusting pizza any of us had ever eaten. It was like they poured a vat of fake cheese over the pizza..it had a weird, rubbery texture that stuck to the roof of your mouth. SO gross!! (It tasted worse as it cooled off too.) We wished we had stood in line instead! We laughed about it afterwards, might as well find the humor in it lol. We won't get pizza there again though :P

( june 19-20 )

A couple bracelets I got at the Midnight Sun Festival

( the days )

Speaking of the festival, I saw at least three people I knew (not counting the regular shopkeepers lol). I will always remember going to the festival the year I moved here and not knowing anyone..I felt sad and left out! I usually do see people I know there, and I'll always appreciate it because of that..that first year was rough! We had lunch with someone mom used to work with that we bumped into, and I managed to only get two books at that dangerous store with all those polar books haha. The guy invited me down to the basement again, but it had to be after 3, when his relief was supposed to arrive. Mom didn't want to since she wanted to get home, and I'm definitely not going down there by myself..one of these days!! The festival is a great time to people watch too..like I saw one guy with a huge snake on his shoulders! I wonder what the snake thought of all the people :P

Today's trivia: The teeth of lobsters are in their stomachs. The stomach is located a very short distance from the mouth, and the food is actually chewed in the stomach between three grinding surfaces that look like molar surfaces, called the "gastric mill"

Today I went to the Midnight Sun Festival..I think it gets more crowded each year haha. Thankfully it stopped raining and has been a nice sunny day (it's supposed to rain again in a couple days though..ugh!). It's a great place to people watch haha and you hear interesting conversations..like "it's not murder if your parents are trying to f***ing kill you!" O_o Check out this awesome beautiful vintage book I found in one of the shops!:


It's from 1890! I couldn't resist getting it haha

( DAY 18: Favorite Mexican dish )

Went to the Midnight Sun Festival yesterday..there were sooo many people haha. As usual when I go to those things I spent too much money. :P One of the hardest things is to choose what to eat..there's so much food! Fairbanks in the summer is awesome haha

You know what I really hate? When someone says like "that happened before you were born!" or "I read this book as a kid, way before you were born!" or something like that. It REALLY irks me..I was born in 1989, it really isn't hard to find something before my time. It just makes me feel..inferior I guess? I dunno how to explain it haha. People are ALWAYS saying that to me and I'm just like asghjkl

( Day 49: A picture of your favorite youtube star )

Would you rather streak naked through your office or be known as the office farter? Ugh..I guess the second one

Today's trivia: Cupcakes got their name because the original recipe called for one cup of each ingredient

Yesterday mom and I went to the Midnight Sun Festival! The past two years I couldn't go cause I was on vacation so I was glad I was free to go this year. There were a LOT of booths..over 200! We probably didn't even see everything haha. I bought some books and a picture of Colony Glacier (near Anchorage). I think I need to be on spending restriction now haha :P

It's soo uncharacteristically humid here today (68%!). Bleh..it's so stifling and my hair is so annoying when it's humid haha

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and saw an AWESOME rainbow at 3:30 AM ;)

( Day 95 - A picture of you on a plane )

Would you rather pick a carpet clean with tweezers instead of vacuuming it or trim the lawn with nail clippers instead of mowing it? The carpet

Today's trivia: Sharks and rays are the only known animals that can't succumb to cancer