In about one hour, I must leave for an overnight trip to Nikiski, where I will spend the day tomorrow, so I am just plain out of time to put together the Cross Island post that I had planned to do today. The fact is, while I had hoped to have done a complete initial edit of my entire Cross Island/Nuiqsut take by now, so far I have gone through less than one percent of that take.
Once I do go through it, there are huge sections of it that I will not post at all, but will save exclusively for Uiñiq magazine. As for Nannie's birthday, I plan to put it in both the blog and Uiñiq, but in Uiñiq I will probably have to limit it to one or two pictures, whereas here I can post a few.
Here, at least, is a preview of what I plan to post Monday, when I will return this blog to Cross Island/Nuiqsut for two or three more posts:
It is Nannie Rae Kaigelak, with a few of those who gathered in the Cross Island cabin of successful whaling captain Billy Oyagak to celebrate her 22nd birthday.
So I will dedicate my Monday post to a spread that will focus not only on Nannie's birthday, but on a particular Eskimo drum that happened to play a role in that birthday.
If you love Cross Island and you love Nannie Rae - and a great many people do - or even if you have never met Nannie Rae and all that you know of Cross Island is the tiny bit that you have so far seen on this blog, be sure to come back Monday.
In the meantime, come Sunday, I will let Barrow Whaler fans know how the team fared in Nikiski.
So I finally got to see my grandsons and their mom again, yesterday afternoon, when I drove into Anchorage to pick Margie up from this week's babysitting stint.
Here they are, in their driveway.
Little Jobe ALWAYS has a big smile for his grandpa, everytime I see him.
Martigny was there, too. She never smiles, but she does purr.
As I Margie and I prepared to drive away, Lavina brought Kalib to the window to wave goodbye to us. He did not want us to go. He wanted us to stay. He cried to see us go.
And now, once again, I must go.
That's how my life is. I seldom have time to ever settle down, except for when I was hurt, or Margie was hurt. I am always going.
Go... go... go...
Always.
One day I will be dead and then I will go no more.
I wonder how much I can get done between now and then?