Roly Poly

I'm convinced! The army is trying to fatten me up so they can eat me! With 3 huge meals a day and lots of time on my hands in between, I feel like I'm growing heavier, despite the strict exercise regime I've put myself on. I'm doing 50 sit-ups and 30 push-ups each day along with 30 minutes of gentler yoga in the morning and 45 minutes to an hour of kick-your-ass yoga each night. Is it a metabolic reaction to the extreme cold (keep the fat, don't burn it off)? Probably it's just the fact that usually I don't have time in normal life for 3 large meals a day. But what else can you do when stuck in a metal cage all day long? And speaking of eating.... I will now share the pictures of the lasagna bake-off from my last night in Fairbanks a week ago.

As I mentioned before, Meghan and Steve had a running bet as to who could make the better lasagna. I threw in the towel with a no-meat cheesy version of my own, but both meat lasagnas were preferred to mine, as I suspected. At least I had plenty of leftover lasagna to bring to Kaktovik.


This slightly blurry picture was taken while laughing at Steve's quite formal introduction to the contest and his insistence on the rules.
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Breaths are held as the final count emerges. This one show of hands decides everything...
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Meghan stands victorious! Her sausage-something lasagna takes the evening! Must not giggle so much while trying to take pictures...
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And one of me looking pleased at the turnout of the bake-off, thus satisfying the request for "more pictures of myself"



I also just finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha, which had me teary-eyed by the ending. But that means I've read 3 of the 5 fiction books I brought. Not a good sign, considering our launch window just opens tonight. I'm probably stuck here for at least another week. And all I have left is a short novel by William Gibson and a book of short stories. I may have to raid the base library which is little more than loads of Nora Roberts and Dean Koontz. Blah. Of course, they do have a pretty sweet Calvin & Hobbes anthology... Wish me luck!