Royce update, Through the Window Metro Study #6,899,043; the long way home

Royce did not smell nearly so foul this morning as he has for the past two days. So I figured that maybe the leaking had stopped and that he had cleaned himself up in the way that cats do. This was not pleasant to think about, seeing as how just the odor had made me sick to my stomach.

I kept the appointment anyway. To be on the safe side, Dr. Nance drained his anal glands (although I know that smell, too, and what was coming out of Royce was different than what I am familiar with). Royce was put on a scale, where he weighed in at nine ounces less than the first visit.

And when you are only a few pounds, nine ounces is a tremendous loss.

Dr. Nance suggested that I try some expensive, very moist, high-caloric, prescription food that is not available in pet stores and that I add a quarter teaspoon of Metamucil to it, as the old orange boy was packing some hard turds.

Royce has to come back in another week for some more blood work. Depending on what that shows, and whether or not he is still losing weight, the dosage of the thyroid medicine that he is taking might be increased.

There is another treatment, "the gold standard treatment" that actually destroys the thyroid and then its function is replaced with medicine.

But that treatment is not available in Alaska.

We would have to put Royce on a plane and send him to Seattle, or some other southern city, where he would have to be quarantined from our contact for a full week.

I don't think we are going to do this.

Plus, he could still be suffering from kidney or other problems that have not yet been detected.

The yellow thing beside him is the carrier that I brought him in. He doesn't like it.

All the way to the vet's office he made a fuss in that carrier. On the way home, he got out of it and I let him be. As I neared home, I looked in my rearview mirror and this is what I saw.

No - I am not a person who drives with a cat or any kind of animal on my lap. That is simply too dangerous, to both the cat and me and the occupants of other cars. But, as I turned onto our street, he crawled over the seat and onto me. There was only about 300 yards to go and no traffic at all, so I let him stay.

At the usual time, I headed to Metro Cafe, where I found these kids, who were very happy to become the subjects of Through the Window Metro Study #6,899,043. Or something like that. Their names are, left to right, Justin, Jake and Ashley.

This was their first time ever in Metro Cafe, and Carmen was very impressed with them. "They're nice kids, good kids," she said. "Really good kids. I hope Baranson grows up to be good like that. When they came in, they said, 'thank you for welcoming us into your establishment.'"

As I took the long way home, I saw these three in my rear view mirror.

This rider was traveling with two others, all of whom appeared to be having fun.

Super Bowl madness - two two-year olds, Kalib and his cousin, Gracie, visiting from the Navajo Nation, tear up the home turf

A couple of two-year olds were coming out to the house to take in the Super Bowl, so Margie and I headed to Carr's, to buy some Super Bowl food. Here's Margie, passing by some of our locally-grown Alaska pineapples as she takes the Super Bowl food to the counter.

Here's one of the two year-old's right here: Gracie, with her mother, Laverne, who is Lavina's sister. They traveled all the way up from Shonto, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation so that Laverne can help Lavina out with the new baby, which we hope will be born very soon.

Jacob and Kalib dropped these two and Lavina off and then headed back to Piccolino's to pick up pizza.

The game has already started and the Colts have taken an early lead.

Jacob enters, with pizza and Kalib in hand. Kalib holds a football, but quickly hurls it.

Gracie comes up with the football. Yet, she soon spots something of far greater interest to her...

...a black cat! Jim, to be precise. She goes chasing after him.

Gracie catches Jim by the back door window. Before she can put her hands on him, he will leap over to some magazines atop a nearby end-table. If I had been shooting with my DSLR's, I could have got that leap, but the pocket camera is just too slow to recycle quick enough.

Still, I love the pocket camera. It is not only small and light, but much less disruptive.

There, Gracie reaches out and touches him.

Gracie is very pleased. Jim licks his chops.

Readers who have been here long enough will remember that we did not get around to putting up Christmas decorations until almost the last minute. We still have not taken down the lights by the front room window. Most of the time, we leave them off, but we turned them on for Gracie.

And on the screen, the Colts and the Saints battled on.

Kalib did some showing off for his cousin. He pretended to know all about this bicycle tire pump and how it is used. He showed her how to push down the handle, and then he pulled it up to push it down again. This time, Gracie helped out.

Gracie takes in the game. For the moment, Margie and Jacob occupy the living room couch. Originally, Laverne and Gracie did, and then I was there, too, but Gracie forced me to leave when she went off to the places pictured above and did cute things with Kalib.

There was a great deal of musical chairs going on. For the moment, Kalib and his parents occupy the living room couch.

Then, the two year old cousins disappear and I watch a couple of minutes of football. The Saints battle from behind to take the lead, but the score is close and the game could go either way.

Next, I hear commotion in the back room - the one where Jacob, Kalib and Lavina used to sleep.

Pulled away from the game once again, I go back and this is what I find. The big person bouncing is Lisa.

Gracie watches in awe as Kalib demonstrates his well-honed bouncing technique.

Then the two cousins play a game where they repeatedly dash off down the hall, then come charging back, one at a time, past Kalib's grandma. Here comes Gracie...

...and here comes Kalib!

They collapse, laughing, upon the bed. Most of the time, these two cousins are separated by 2400 miles. I hope, though, that things work out that they can always know each other well, that they can be close cousins and good friends.

It is a joy to see them together. They get along well.

Next, they go into my office to feed the fish. Kalib considers himself to be the expert here, and lets Gracie know how its done.

One of these days, should I succeed at keeping this blog going and building it into what I want it to be, I will post the history behind the German Messerschmitt that hangs on my wall, alongside an American Mustang - but no British Spitfire.

It is a painful, tragic story, but one of great import to my life.

It is a story that I must tell. I had imagined making a book of it and maybe I still will, but maybe I will blog about it, first.

My working title:

Two Airplanes on The Wall

To be quite honest, I saw very little of the Super Bowl - although I did see that moment when the Saints beat back the Peyton Manning drive that almost kept the Colts in the game. Instead the Colts fell, 31-17, to the Saints. I'll bet no reader knew this before coming to this blog.

Shortly after, Gracie put on her hat and then she, Kalib, Laverne, Lavina and Jacob all left.

"It sure is quiet in here now," Margie said, afterward.

I know. I changed the tense again.

I don't care. This ain't no English class. 

This is my blog and if I want to change tense, then I damn well did.

He came walking through my town in the snow; Royce setback; an accident, a horse and a few teenagers

As I have written a few times, I keep experiencing odd coincidences. This has been going on for years now and it happened again today. When I took this picture, I had A Prairie Home Companion on the radio and a Utah Phillips song was being performed by Robin and Linda Williams:

I'm walking through your town in the snow,
I'm walking through your town in the snow,
I got no place to go, all the trains are running slow
And I'm walking through your town in the snow

I carry my home on my back,
I carry my home on my back,
But the police only frown, every time I lay it down,
And I'm walking through your town in the snow

The train track was just across the street and the Wasilla Police station just ahead. The man wasn't carrying a pack, though. He was pulling a piece of rolling luggage.

So we finally got a modest dropping of snow to coat the old stuff. Nothing to brag about - six inches, maybe. Still, I was glad.

I suspect that this fellow could have just as soon gone without it.

I wonder why he was walking through my town in the snow?

I'm afraid Royce has had a couple of bad days. Something is leaking out of him and it stinks terribly. It has almost made me barf a couple of times and has left me feeling sick to my stomach, but different than the usual way. I haven't yet figured out how to describe it. Yesterday, I gave him a bath, but it all came back and I fear it would be too hard on him to have another bath right now. I have made a warm place for him and try to keep him off the furniture, because whatever he comes in contact with stinks, too, but he managed to slip by and get onto the couch. Once he did, the damage had been done.

I did not have the heart to make him move until he was ready. 

I called the vet this morning, hoping to get him in. They could not get back to me until nearly closing time (they close early on Saturday's). I explained what was happening and they had a couple of theories, but did not see it as an emergency.

So he is scheduled to go back to the vet Monday morning at 11:00 AM.

We may have to postpone, because I think Lavina is likely to be giving birth at that time.

Two snowmachines coming down Wards.

Pickup truck on Seldon. The ISO control on my pocket camera had inadvertantly slipped to 2500. I don't care. It just gives the picture a different feel, that's all - more contrasty and grainy.

Ditto.

Minor traffic accident near the corner of the Palmer-Wasilla and Parks Highways.

Horses on Sunrise.

Through the Window Metro Study, #9701. These numbers are completely arbitrary, because I cannot remember them from one post to the next. The tall man is Nick and he used to work at Northern Air Cargo in Anchorage with Carmen. That's his son on the left, but they had already moved on when I got the ID's and his name had slipped out with him.

A group of teens caught in my rearview mirror.

Tracks in the new snow; mama moose blocks my path; a treasured seed winds up in the garbage

Finally, it snowed again. Regular readers have read my lament - about how it has basically not snowed here since early December (oddly enough, it has snowed in Anchorage a couple of times, but not here). Yes, you may look at this blog and see snow everywhere, but that is only because this is a place where the snow that falls in October is typically still here in April and sometimes even in patches as May begins.

(Contrast this to the Arctic Slope, where the snow that falls in September can linger in patches into July).

This year, of course, there was no snow in October here. It did not come until early November and then it never built up to much. And the weather has been so warm, for us, even as it has been cold to the south, for them.

Thank El Niño. Thank the Arctic Oscillation.

But, last night, I noticed a few flakes coming from the sky. Then, as I lay in bed, more flakes came. They kept coming, one on top of the other, piling up, piling and piling and piling up until finally this morning I stepped outside and disovered that they had piled up to a depth of...

1/8th of an inch, give or take 1/16th, depending on where you were standing.

Well, one-eighth was enough to allow feet to leave new tracks on the roads.

Here are the tracks left by a young moose and a raven.

And here are some tracks left by some ravens who got together to eat out. What did they eat? I don't know.

I walked on from the spot where the ravens dined and then stepped away from the road and into the marsh. I headed toward Dodd's trail, the one he has tried to keep open for walkers, but to close to machines. It's not that he is against machines, just selfish and immature drivers who tear things up with them and sometimes even wake homeowners from their sleep. I took this picture about 100 feet from the barricade with the "no trespassing" signs that he has placed at the entrance to his property.

When the wind blows, it tears through the marsh. I cannot eliminate the possibility that the wind ripped this sign free from his barricade and planted it here.

More likely, though, it is the work of someone on a snowmachine or fourwheeler who is undoubtedly very possessive of all that is his and wants everyone to respect his rights and propety, but has no respect for the property and rights of others.

Being a walker on good terms with Mr. Shay, I continued on, headed for my house. I soon happened upon some very fresh moose tracks.

And then I saw the moose, separated from me by a few bushes. There were two actually. This one that you are looking at here is the child, the nearly grown calf.

The child decided to step out into the open and the mother quickly followed, keeping her eye on it and on me.

And then, standing right in the middle of the path, they played. Regular readers all know that I love my pocket camera, but right now I was wishing that I had one of my DSLR's, and my 100 to 400 mm lens. But I didn't. When you set out to document your surroundings with only a pocket camera, you understand the limitations from the beginning.

You just have to live and work with them.

If you look through their legs, you can see the trail going on beyond. That is where I want to walk. Right here, I am no more than 300 yards from my back porch - if that far.

But this mama moose is not going to let me pass. I have to back up and find another way.

Two calves used to hang out with this mother. I wonder what has become of the second?

And when I do, I come upon Patty, who, according to the doctor who refused to treat her cancer and told her to go home and prepare to die, should have been dead for two, maybe three months now.

But she is strong and getting stronger. Her eyes match her hat and coat.

When I get home, I find Margie ready to drive to Anchorage, to try once again to help Lavina prepare a room for her sister, who will arrive from Arizona tomorrow so that she can help with the new baby.

I decide that I might as well walk two more miles so I have her drop me off at Metro Cafe so that I can still get my afternoon coffee even though I will have no car to listen to the news in.

Carmen's sister, Theresa, has come out from Anchorage to help out and has brought her son, Evan, with her. While a few pass through the drive-through, I am the only customer in the store right now. Everyone is pretty comfortable with me, so Carmen's son Baranson and Evan get away with staging a little wrestling match.

After the wrestling match, Baranson is feeling pretty bad. It seems his teacher gave him some kind of special seed at school, but Evan took it and threw it in the garbage. 

Somehow, I missed that part.

So Carmen and Baranson look for the seed.

Evan comes bearing a little gift, hoping to make up for having throw the seed away. Baranson is not interested. He wants the seed.

Carmen, Baranson, Evan and Theresa. 

Just before I left, as I was paying for my coffee, the seed was found and Baranson got it back.

Margie returned late in the evening.

"No baby, yet," she said, "but Lavina is feeling a lot of pain."

Man. That's why I want our new grandchild to come soon, even three weeks ahead of it's due date - so this two week plus labor that Lavina has been in can come to an end.

PS: I was just headed for bed and I looked out the window... it is snowing. It looks like it might be for real, this time. And somewhere out in that snow, with no shelter but their own fur and tree branches aboe them, those moose have settled down for the night.

An insignificant entry

When one or the other of us has been traveling and returns - and it is usually me - Margie and I have a tradition. We always go out to breakfast the next morning. I still had a little over $7.00 left on the Funny Face Family Restaurant gift certificate, so that's where we went.

As always, it was delicious.

On my walk, I found this little saw lying by the side of the road. I often find tools and such as I walk, most of which I am certain have bounced off a snowmachine or four-wheeler.

A hand saw is not the kind of tool you would normally expect to bounce off a snowmachine. Maybe it bounced out of a pickup truck. When you find something like this, you wonder what you should do. Perhaps someone will come back looking for it, if you just leave it there.

More likely, if it bounced off of any kind of vehicle, by the time they discover it is missing, they will just be puzzled as to what could possibly have happened to it. They will never come back looking; if they do, it will already be gone.

So I picked it up and brought it home. But, it does bother me a little bit, so, if you live in Wasilla or nearby and you recognize this as the saw you just lost, you can have it back.

I had not seen this dog before - must be new in the neighborhood.

The above three pictures are all from yesterday. I fell behind after Margie got home, but now I am about to catch up.

This is from today. Margie, who had not driven a car since she left here to go to Arizona one month ago, wanted to drive into Anchorage to help Lavina get a room ready for her sister, Laverne, and Laverne's daughter, Gracie. They will arrive in Anchorage Saturday.

Margie left for town at noon, and I rode as far with her as Metro Cafe - about two miles away. I had never tried a Metro lunch before, it being a fairly recent feature, so I decided today I would. I had a panini ham sandwich and a bowl of tortilla soup, plus a glass of water.

It was just right.

Then I walked home.

The young woman working in the backgrounbd Kelsey, who readers might also recall seeing recently at work at Vagabond Blues in Palmer. 

Margie called not long after I got home. Lavina had gone to the hospital. Maybe the baby would be coming home, soon. But after a couple of hours, her doctor sent her back home. The doctor thinks it will still be awhile, but says also that it could be anytime.

Royce is hanging in there.

Now, I must keep this post short and simple, as I have much else to do, but struggle to do it.

It will probably be this way for a few days - but when this new baby comes, whatever I've got going on, I will drop it and you will know about it.

I am now caught up - although, actually, I never catch. I am always behind.