So summer, or what passes for summer, has arrived up here in the great last frontier. The sun is doing its sunny thing of not really ever setting. As of today sunrise was about 5 in the morning and sunset is about eleven pm. So there is ample daylight to get things done during the daylight.
Now my house backs up to a wooded park and in the middle of that park in a basketball court. Don't get me wrong here I have nothing against basketball. I have a thing against basketball being played at two am in the morning when most respectable people are asleep. See even when the sun sets it never really gets totally dark around here. Sort of like a twilight for those few hours before the sun comes back up over the horizon. So its really light enough to do things. And it appears that playing basketball at two am is the highlight of someones life.
Now there is a sign that hangs directly under the hoop that says that the parks hours are from six am till 11 pm, after that people is quiet hours. Anchorage does have a supposed curfew for the under eighteen crowd but are not to gung ho on enforcement. So there we are trying to sleep and what do we hear; the sound of a ball being dribbled and then shot at a metal backboard and the resounding sound it makes when it hits the board instead of just getting net. It will wake you out of a dead sleep and make you crankier then anything. Just ask the person I let sleep next to me.
Personally I would love to have some way that I could target just that ball and make it deflate and then the said insomniac would go home and watch tv. i am sure that this person has insomnia as they are there almost every night during the summer.
Ordinarily I would not mind musicians playing in the park but the two new ones are trying my patience and my ear drums. One musician is learning the bagpipes; which when first being played sounds like cats being strangled in a bag full of water. The other is learning to play middle eastern drums. So why they are practicing together I don't know, but let me tell you at seven in the morning that is not what you want to hear. It was discordant at best and the perfect instrument for torture at its worse. I thought my ears were going to bleed this morning from the sound. I closed the windows and doors but alas to no avail that dreaded sound permeated through the walls.
The two players were sitting together just doing their thing while dogs all over the place were howling in pain. They sat there for four hours playing. I kept waiting for them to get better, they didn't.
In two more weeks the hellions that live in Anchorage will be released from the schools for their summer break and that means that we will be besieged by yelling and screeching teenagers in the park at all hours. Trust me we have called the cops on particularly bad groups but my questions is; parents why don't you know that your teen isn't at home? I am not talking about eighteen year olds running rampant they generally have much cooler things to do then yell and play tag at one in the morning. Theses are the thirteen to seventeen range. And man are they loud, and obnoxious and freaking huge litterbugs. Parents please teach them better manners, though I am sure that when they are home they have the manners. Maybe its the midnight sun that drives them insane cause I hate having to go on trash patrol behind my fence, because I am pretty sure its not the moose that are drinking Monster energy drinks or bears eating Pringles ( well actually the bear would but he wouldn't leave the can behind, he would eat everything).
The only thing that makes it more bearable is the fact that the mosquitoes are thick and heavy in that park and all those bodies are just the smorgasbord of food that they have been waiting for. And of course there are bears that live in the area. I am sure that the first time they meet the bear they won't be coming back to the park for awhile. I am not terribly excited when he wanders in my front yard.
While it is the land of the midnight sun, just remember some of us do attempt to sleep, you can tell these houses from either the heavy drapes or the tinfoil on the windows. When you happen upon them be polite and let them sleep. They probably need it.
Atypical life in AK.
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