Charlie showed up wearing this t-shirt. This is the front view.
This is the rear view. Charlie suggested that we all go to Anchorage and stroll through the Fifth Avenue Mall together, drinking coffee from cat mugs, but none of the rest of us wanted to join him there.
It seems that I have lost the ability to sleep - except for those blessed moments when I just crash. I find myself typically going to bed between midnight and 2:00 AM. It takes me too long to go to sleep and after I do, I might sleep for close to an hour and then I wake up and just keep waking up, multiple times each hour until finally I just give up and get up.
So far this week, I have not felt like cooking and besides, the steel-cut oatmeal was gone and so were the frozen berries that I put in it.
Family Restaurant opens at 6:00 AM, so for the last two days in a row I have headed over there at that time.
Both days, I have found the restaurant eerily empty.
Just me and the ketchup.
And a waitress or two.
Cooks in the back, cooking just for me, waiting for the crowd to start coming in.
I get in the car and leave to drive home. The fringe edge of the crowd has finally begun to arrive.
Corner of Seldon and Church Roads, on my way home from breakfast.
Despite the fact that I am peripatetic by nature, I have not had much energy for walking lately. Still, I must walk - especially since I have begun to lay the plans for a big Brooks Range hike this summer.
So I go walk, and this dog comes barking. Back in the trees, I hear a man shouting at the dog. He orders the dog to come back. The dog does not. The dog keeps following me, barking and barking.
The man keeps shouting orders, all of which the dog ignores.
In time, the man's voice fades into the trees.
The dog is still following, but barking less now.
The dog seems unsure of itself, now.
Maybe this is the farthest the dog has ever been away from home on its own.
The dog is probably wondering what it got itself into.
Soon, I will be home in my office with the cats, Jimmy and Pistol-Yero.
They do not bark and they do not chase people down the road.
They just hang out in my office, knock things off my desk, counters and work table, spill my coffee, break my cups, prance across my keyboard when I am typing, interrupt my work and sit down on my lap every time I get on a roll. Sometimes, they even delete pictures!
So far (I think) I have always discovered each deletion in time to undo it.
They drink water from my fish tanks and throw up on the rug.
I sure do love these damn cats.
I see the tail of one them right now. It hangs down from the window sill beneath the cat, who is covered up the drape. He is looking outside at some creature that he would like to hunt - a raven, maybe. A moose, perhaps.
If so, that creature is damn lucky there is a pane of glass between it and the cat.
This is about as bad as a mid-winter warm-up can get. Well, not quite as bad. It hasn't rained all that much. The problem is, even through all the cold weather, we have had a dearth of snow and much of that had already been scoured away by the wind, even when the temperature was still cold, where it ought to be.
I read the part in the Anchorage Daily News that said this warmup was the result of Chinook winds. The Daily News is wrong. These winds have blown in off the Pacific. Chinook winds are caused when air flows down off mountains, warms up and spreads across a valley or plain.
My dad was a meteorologist, so I know these kind of things.
The Daily News is wrong.
This blog is right.
Here I am, on my 4:00 PM coffee break, which I got started on just a bit late. I have been to Metro. where Shoshana served me my Americano and cinnamon roll and told me that she and her boyfriend greatly enjoyed their New Year's jaunt to Chena Hot Springs, even if the temperature was 40 above instead of 40 below, where one would want it to be.
And here is one from India: Ramz my niece and Facebook friend
Recently, Ramz invited me to become one of her friends on Facebook. Ramz Iyer is Soundarya's cousin, but sisters is also a word they use.
I accepted the invitation, of course, and was very touched when I looked at all her profile pictures and saw one where she was hugging a small goat close to her chin and was smiling big. I have pictures like that of Soundarya, too.
Another of her Facebook friends, one closer to her own age, responded with this comment:
"dont u feel eeew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Ramz retorted:
"i feel more eew wen ppl eat it ! rader dan carrying it ! i luve animals ! nd nyways .....it was neat nd tidy !"
The friend eventually replied:
"i was just kidding,"
Ramz stood her ground:
"but I was not !"
I was pleased and proud.
I just went and took another look at her page. Her new profile pic depicts her as a platinum blond with blue green tint in her hair, dark blue eyes and a tattoo on her pale face!
I remain: pleased and proud!