Thursday, December 6, 2012

Wait, did I dream I lived in a gingerbread house?


Home, sweet gingerbread home. The blue roof, the orca cutout on the front, moose in the yard, and yes, there is usually some wood to be split right about where she put it off to the left.

Another view with
the artist's cousin on his
snowmachine.
The front of the house with the
Orca cutout on the door.
My niece is halfway through her second year in a school for chefs.  

Slowly as I was coming awake this morning and checking facebook this note showed up and then the ensuing conversation.  Her project is a gingerbread house which I recognized almost immediately.

She and her significant other had visited there a couple of years ago.  She built this scenario mostly from memory (but admitted to a few peeks at the Internet) and the detail is pretty amazing.  I am putting explanations in the photo captions, so bear with us.

Here is a portion of the conversation as it went on facebook:

Niece: go look at pics i just put up
11:26am
The north side of the house.  The wood stacked under the house is
right where i put it. The design in the large window is
supposed to be the reflection of Mount McKinley.
Me: Love it.
do you mind if i share?
11:26am
Niece: go for it
11:27am
Me with a wiseass comment or two about my influence on your tender young mind
11:27am
Niece: well of course!
11:27am
Me the blue roof is the giveaway
11:27am
Niece: not the orca?
11:27am
Me  OMG i hadn't noticed that
11:27am
Niece: the blue roof almost didn't happen...  I had to look at the pics you have up on the web last night to make sure the colors were clos-ish
11:28am
This is the view of Mount McKinley from that window.
Me closish enough
wow that is just amazing.
11:28am
Niece: eh, there was some artistic license in there
11:28am
Me I am going to have to look for a picture with the orca on the door to compare
11:29am
Niece: everyone else was doing more traditional gingerbread houses...  I wanted one that told a story
11:29am
Me of course there always is......  but the story of a reclusive uncle?
11:29am
Niece:  or the Uncle who lives far away and has neato adventures
I almost hid a bear in the outhouse but decided against it
The back of the house. I love the candy cane pilings
supporting it.
Then there was this exchange about the quality of the work.

Niece:  i am way too critical
judging is tomorrow morning
11:32am
Me: ok let me know
11:32am
Niece:  mine is the most lively, but not the most clean

 11:32am
One of those chores that has to be done when we have
a heavy snow winter, shoveling the roof.  One winter
there was seven feet on it. Isn't the smoke 

coming out of the chimney cool?
Me: ok here is how to express that.   this is a rustic scene.   when building in the bush nothing is ever square and level lol (especially if it has stood there for almost 30 years and endured several earthquakes)

It is to be judged for her class work and then if she wins there, it will go to a city-wide competition, a cheffy thing as the artist says

And last, the raven in the spruce with a snowmachine
standing by.
To be honest I was knocked over.  How neat is all I can think of to say.

  
Thank you, Celeste, you just put a smile in Christmas.


AN UPDATE: This from the artist a few days later:  "End of the story I did not win.  Not sure of how the judging went down but a friend of mine did win so that was a happy thing.  Our Chef instructor said we all got A's and it was the best group of houses they have had in years to choose from."

However, she won with an A+ with a tougher bunch of judges, the Jones Family.

3 comments:

  1. Blue ribbon for your frosty cabin, Celeste!!
    Love it!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kitty Delorey FleischmanDecember 7, 2012 at 6:07 AM

    Not surprising, but what a cool niece you have! I'm voting for her to win the competition, but it may depend on whether the judges have any experience with Alaska. What a great tribute to her reclusive uncle.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Couldn't be more perfect!

    ReplyDelete

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Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

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My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

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If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

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If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

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If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

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Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

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Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

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As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

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I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

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Sports malaprops

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A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

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Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

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Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

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