How did this happen to you Molly?

I get asked this question almost daily because (almost daily) things just seem to happen to me. I trip over air, I drop 90% of the things that I try to hold in my hands and somehow any unstable ground within a mile manages to find it's way under my feet. Now don't ask me how these things always happen to me. I certainly do not plan any of them. I'm just an accident magnet. Take, for example, the events last Saturday night. We had just finished dinner and I was preparing to go kayaking with my fellow crew member Nicky. In my preparation I strongly debated whether or not to bring my cell phone because, being as accident prone as I am, I knew the likelyhood of me dropping it in the ocean was high, but it was a pretty night and I knew I would want to take a picture or two. So, despite my better judgement, I zipped my phone in my pocket and got in the kayak. About five minutes into my kayak ride I realized my jacket, and with it my phone, had been completely submerged in the water for the entire beginning of the trip. Swiftly, we returned to the lodge and I enclosed the waterlogged phone in a bag of rice. At this point I decided to continue the kayak ride anyways. Had I known then what would occur the rest of the night I would've just called it a night and gone to bed. But I didn't know, so we got back in the kayak and rode out to the logs marking entrance to the lodge.  Once on the logs we fished, to no avail, for roughly ten minutes before the log I was standing on decided to secede from its union with the other logs and break off on its own, Confederate stylez. Because of this secession I was dumped into the water. Nicky was in utter hysterics laughing at the situation I'd gotten myself into (To be fair I was laughing just as hard). Finally, I managed to get myself back up onto the log. The universe was clearly trying to send me a fairly obvious message to get my butt back to the lodge. So I listened. My boots; however, did not. Maybe ten feet further down the log my boots betrayed me and I slipped. Into the ocean. Again. In full view of the lodge house deck where about nine guests where being treated to drinks and a show. I received an obscene, albeit deserved, amount of mockery from this incident.

I don't know how I always manage to get myself into these situations, actually wait, I don't think that's a fair statement. I don't know how these situations always manage to find me. Eight other crew members at this lodge, but somehow everything always seems to happen to me.

The first thing I learned in Alaska...

I'm sitting on the front porch of the lodge house, remnants of this morning's pancake toss still floating lazily on the surface of the water, it's peaceful and calm and almost everyone is asleep because we wake up at such an ungodly hour every day. But naps hate me, so I'm awake and staring at the ocean, which is something I find myself doing quite often. Spokane has its views but nothing can beat the ocean. It catches me off guard every time. Seriously, the ocean. If you're curious how I feel about the ocean just find the cheesiest, sappiest love story and just replace the names with Molly and ocean and you've just about got it. I sit at breakfast in the morning and stare out the bay window and see whales jumping in the distance and clouds resting in the mountains in the (further) distance. (man this post started out really literate but it's deteriorated rather quickly hasn't it?)
Anyways, back to the subject at hand. I'm sitting on the front porch, pancakes on water, you remember all this... the ocean is pretty. Pretty ocean = inspiration for blog post. So, after a heart stopping moment of nearly dropping my phone into the water (I heard that sigh mom) I started writing. And then it took me another week to finish writing because I work seven days a week and there isn't a ton of quiet time other than when everyone is asleep like they are right now. ANYWAYS. What I am thinking about as I sit by the ocean is all the people that I've met in my short time here. From the crew to the guests, it's been a constant surprise. So (to connect back to the title) the first thing I've learned in Alaska is this: never judge a book by it's cover. It's the first thing they teach you in school, it's also one of the biggest cliches out there, but cliches are highly underrated. When you step off a boat at a fishing lodge in Alaska and everyone you meet is wearing at least one article of Carhartt clothing you form a pretty specific idea about them, especially when you come into the situation expecting to have a specific opinion of all these people. But (almost) every single one of these people has surprised me. Coming from city life (Laclede, ID is considered city life up here) I was very wary of spending my summer with fishermen and crew members I assumed I would have nothing in common with, but as it turns out you really only need one thing in common as a base and friendship will grow from there. And, for me, that base is Sea Otter Sound Lodge. It's crazy how much you learn about people when you spend twenty four hours a day with them seven days a week. Now I've always considered myself a pretty accepting person, but after getting to know all these people I'm realizing that I do judge people. Everyone does. We group ourselves into categories to try and make sense of the world around us and we stick to our category. Well I can definitely say I've stepped outside my category, and I would encourage every person to step outside of their category as well, because not only will you learn a lot about another category, but also about yourself. And the more people I meet the more I realize that maybe these categories aren't all their made out to be. So far I have met several BP executives, the man who inspired the Deadliest Catch, a South African molecular biologist, a man attempting to cure Leukemia, and more Northern Californians than I can count. These are people who study and wear suits for a living, but they come up to Off The Grid, Alaska and spend five days in a boat wearing suits of plastic and fish guts. So don't judge a book by its cover, because categories are meaningless.

Well there. I seem to have gotten my point across. To sum it up, I'm learning so much about fishing, working hard, and about the world.