I love it when a plan comes together.

I'd say Thursday was a good day. Perhaps the best day we've had in Alaska yet.

As I neared the courthouse this morning, I saw the dumpster out front. It's bright pink. The clerk I'm replacing, Ruby, is painting it. It used to be blue, then it was primer white, and now it's pink. She's going to use a darker pink to make a giraffe pattern. Apparently there's some program in rural Alaska where they paint dumpsters in various artistic ways. Most of the dumpsters around town are painted in some way. Anyway, I like the pink dumpster.

She says that people have asked her if it's for breast cancer. (It's not.) She thought about putting a breast cancer message on it in Yu'pik, or at least partially in Yu'pik. The word for breast in Yu'pik is "mok." So she thought about having it say, "Hey, ladies. Get your moks checked." Anyway...

I got to work, and everything was swell. I did the daily stuff in the morning and got it cleared off my desk pretty quickly. I dealt with the few things that went into my inbox in the clerk's office as they came in. I even had a chance to watch a sentencing hearing and an evidentiary hearing in the courtroom. I read through the file in a case that I'll probably have to brief for the judge. It was actually a pretty sad case.

Then Samara called me to ask if I had secured us a ride to Ruby's going-away get-together. She's leaving Dillingham on Monday, so the judge was having people over to his house after work. He lives way out on Wood River Road (also known to local graffiti vandals as Weed River Road). I hadn't asked anyone yet, so I told her I'd do that.

Then she mentioned in passing that she was starting work on Monday. Yep, that's right! She got a job! She'll be a teacher's aide in the special education department. It doesn't pay great, but it pays, which is awesome! And the best part is that the school is next door to the courthouse, so we can both still walk to work. (Not that we'll need to--read on!)

So I talked to the judge, and he said that we could ride with him. We finished up work at 4:30, and the judge and I picked up Samara as she was walking over towards the courthouse. Then he gave us a tour of Wood River Road. It's a nice area. You can actually see the houses from the courthouse, because of the way that the road curves around. The judge's house is nice--it reminded me of my parents house, in that it was a normal family's home. His wife and son are in Anchorage for a special school program, so he's been living the bachelor life for a few weeks.

Lots of folks came by for Ruby's party. There was the judge, us, the magistrate, the probation officer, the public defender, a couple of local attorneys, Ruby, the judicial assistant, the clerk of court and her husband and kids, a USDA federal employee, and some other folks I didn't really know. Everyone was really nice, and we had a good time. There was salmon, turkey sandwiches, and nachos. Fred also had a bowl of strawberries from his yard. They were wild berries, so they looked small and I figured they wouldn't taste too good. I was wrong. They were very tasty.

The best part, though, about going to the party was that the clerk of court offered to loan us a Jeep until our Canyonero arrives. Apparently it's just sitting around their yard. A friend of theirs uses it during the summer, but otherwise this older Cherokee just sits around. So we definitely took them up on their offer. Apparently it has insurance, but the registration has lapsed. She's gonna get the registration up to date soon, but she's going to bring it over to us on Saturday before that gets done. That doesn't really matter, though. See, the city cops are the ones that give tickets for that. And so the city sends the ticket to the courthouse, and you have to go in and either plead guilty and pay or plead not guilty. But here's a secret: the cops NEVER show up if you plead not guilty. If you plead not guilty, the magistrate always dismisses the ticket. Most folks don't know that the city cops never bother to show up, though, so they just pay the ticket.

After the party, Ruby brought us home in her truck. She's a character--she has an old telephone in her truck and she says that when people drive by, she sometimes pretends to talk on it. Lots of weird looks. I mentioned at some point that I wanted a set of binoculars to look out into the bay. She handed me the pair on her dash--she's trying to get rid of lots of stuff, since she's leaving. So now I have some binoculars. She's also supposed to give us a moose brisket. (Mmm...moose)

Anyway, all in all, that's a good day. Samara got a job, I got some binoculars and we'll have a Jeep to drive until our Canyonero arrives, and we are going to get a moose brisket.