Ice
Last night I drove up to Seattle and then caught the ferry over to Bainbridge Island for a potluck dinner with some old family friends, Katherine and Kristan Hutchison. Well, wait, now they’re both married and go by different nicknames, so it’s Kate LaPlaunt and ‘Stan Sabattini, but whatever.

They were visiting from Juneau, Alaska, where Katherine (25) works as a 4th grade teacher and Kristin (30) writes for the newspaper. They’re my two oldest friends: Katherine and I met when we were 6 months old and our mothers decided to trade-off childcare, and she has the prestige of being the one to teach me the word “hump” in 1980. Kristin was my babysitter for much of my childhood (working for a whopping $1/hour), and a surrogate big sister.

It was wonderful to see them (and their mother, who still lives on Bainbridge) last night, and Kristin was filled with stories from Antarctica, where she’s been living and working for several months. Amazing! You can read all about it on her website: Tales from the Ice: Living and working in Antarctica.