Ice cream is spilled, lips are kissed; a cop helps out; Jobe rests on the couch
Saturday, June 25, 2011 at 12:47PM 
Readers who were here yesterday will notice that I have slightly retreated from my summer retreat in which I have resolved to post only one, two, or three pictures per day and have instead posted four. It is because of these two. I did not expect them to appear in my life yesterday, but they did.
It is hard to limit my posts when they are here.
I could easily make this a 15-picture post, all pictures devoted exclusively to these two, but, given the fact that I am in summer retreat and worse yet that I am dealing with such a computer nightmare, I restrain and hold the total number of images to four.
Somewhere around 8:00 PM last night, Lavina called to say that, due to a mishap in the improvements they are putting into their house, they had lost their flow of water and could we take Kalib and Jobe for the weekend?
We agreed to meet her and the boys in Eagle River, a little more than half-way between Wasilla and Anchorage. I had too much work to do to go and was going to let Margie go by herself, but then I thought about ice cream. I thought about how, if I went, we could stop and get four ice-cream cones before we returned to Wasilla.
What great fun that would be! The boys, Margie and me, all eating ice cream as we drove home, taking in the scenery.
So I put my work aside and I went.
But when we found them, the boys were already eating ice cream. Lavina had bought it for them at McDonald's in Eagle River. Or at least one of the boys was eating ice cream. The other had been, but had apparently had his fill of it and so had discarded it.
We transferred them from their mother's car to our car. Then their mother kissed them goodbye. We drove off, then stopped at McDonald's where Margie and I bought two ice cream cones, one for her and one for me.
The life of a freelancer being what it is, that ice cream about flattened our bank account and we are now fending off angry calls from creditors. But I expect to receive a good check Monday and everything should be good for awhile after that - I think I have enough work lined up that we will be fine for the remainder of the summer.
Fall will be another question. By fall, I must have the foundation laid to begin to make a living from an online base, for I expect my old ways of making a living in paper publishing to be completely dead by then.
That's what this retreat is about - not about relaxing and getting rest. This retreat is a retreat to work hard, to do what needs to be done now and to figure out what needs to be done in the future and how to do it.
On the way home, we passed by this scene. Someone had experienced difficulties and by all appearances the cop was helping them out. The LCD dash screen is a little hard to read at this size (easy at slide show size) but it states that is 9:10 PM and the temperature is 72 degrees.
Yes - after my note yesterday that we had not seen anymore 70 + degree days following the memorial weekend, yesterday really heated up. The sun blazed down upon us. It was damned hot and we sweated like crazy. I don't know how hot it got, but by 9:10 it would have cooled off a bit so I think we might have made it to the upper 70's.
Today, it is raining. My iPhone says it is 62 degrees in Wasilla.
I feel bad for all the people of Minot, North Dakota. How unbelievable are the pictures coming out of Minot?
And here is Jobe, at the house.
Reader Comments (4)
Look at Jobe's "OH NO, Grandpa Bill" face when he lost his ice cream! Poor little guy. I'm always amazed at how you can catch these candid shots... priceless.
FROSTY...I see kids around...
I see life...
keep reporting from Wasilla...!!!
and sending good energy to Minot area...and to all of us around the Universe...
MR.BILL ...you are amazing...we LOVE YOU!!!
your civi from far away...greece
OOO
there is nothing like a good ice cream...the flooding this year is terrible
He dropped his ice cream cone by the sight of his grandpa...onto kalib's lap, surprisingly Kalib didn't mind, he probably thought, "Mmm more ice cream for me."