Kalib visits us all day; I meet some friends on my walk; Melanie and Lisa come out

I can't remember precisely what time, but I think about 3:00 AM, I was suddenly awakened by what sounded to be a "thump," followed by the sound of Kalib screaming. I leaped out of bed in an instant and dashed for his room - even as Margie, who is still moving ever so slowly and always with a bad limp, did the same.

But all was fine in his room - except for the fact that he was sitting in the middle of the bed that Margie made for him and he was screaming.

It must be kind of frightening, that having been his room for as long as he can remember, to suddenly be in it by himself, with his parents and all their furniture gone.

He quickly settled down and went back to sleep.

Then, at 4:30, I heard him scream again and this time I heard the pounding of his footsteps as he charged through the door and down the hall. I jumped up again, but Margie stayed put. "He's going to Caleb," she said, as I charged for the door.

Caleb, of course, is a night-shift worker and although it was his night off, I could now hear what sounded to be him playing video games."

"You got The Little One, Caleb?" I shouted out.

"I've got him," she shouted back.

So I went back to bed and fell asleep and stayed asleep for too long, even though, totaled up, I feel significantly short of the eight hours they say you need.

When finally I came out, this was the scene that greeted me.

A bit later, I was sitting here, in my office, at this computer, when Margie brought him out to feed the fish. I always clean and rinse my hands real good before I put them into any of my tanks, but Kalib suddenly plunged his hand in and offered a pellet of fish food directly to one of my fish.

I suspect that all the fish will be okay. The fish in this tank are all eight or nine years old, so, if I were to find one floating tomorrow, how would I know if a germ got them or it was just old age?

I'm pretty sure they will be okay.

Not long afterward, I went walking. I soon came upon this car, stuck off to the side of the road. Judging from the deep, burned-in rut of a tire spinning, it would appear that someone tried to pull it out but didn't succeed.

A little further on, I came upon Danny, Becky and their mom. They had come out to go sledding. I am always happy to see them and they are always happy to see me.

So we did a New Year's family portrait.

Afterwards, mom mentioned that she was looking at the picture that I gave them of Becky and Danny with their bicycles, the morning after their grandfather Red - her father - died. It was the first picture that I had ever taken of the two together - although I had once photographed a little tiny Danny with his late grandfather, Red.

She looked at the date on the photograph and was surprised. "I couldn't believe that it has been five years already," she said.

Becky then asked what I saw when I looked down at the white snow and the brown snow. "I see white sugar and brown sugar," she said.

Then she showed me the new phone that she got for Christmas. She was very pleased. Her mother told her not to lose it, because if she did, then she would have to go back to having one of those generic "minute" phones that you can buy at Wal-Mart.

Everybody then set off to walk up the hill, but Becky set the fastest pace, so we walked together as the other two dropped back again.

"I'm the fastest walker," she told me.

She then told me how excited she was about an all-night get-together that her church was hosting for its young people. "We're not going to go to bed all night," she said. She said they would probably go bowling, too.

Once we got to the top of the hill, she climbed to the top of a snowmachine trail off the road - and then zipped past me on her sled.

Back home, Jim, my good black cat, came to see me, to get an affectionate scruff.

Jim and Kalib. A short time before, Kalib had been vacuuming the floor.

Melanie and Lisa came out late in the afternoon. The three of us went to Little Miller's for coffee and brought one home to Margie.

After we came in and sat down, Kalib put some stickers on himself. Here, he shows one to Lisa.

Then Kalib started chasing Melanie around the wall that separates the kitchen from the woodstove and the living room. Or maybe Melanie was chasing Kalib.

I am not quite certain.

Now, I am very sorry to say, there are three images left that I had planned to include in this post. I am unable to load them. The picture upload feature of Squarespace, my blog host, has frozen up. I cannot upload any more pictures. Over the past two hours, I have tried all kinds of things. I have cleared the cache, I have refreshed the page, I have closed down my browzer and opened it back up again. I have restarted my computer.

Nothing does the trick.

Nearly two hours ago, I sent a message to Squarespace support, where they promise to "respond to service related incidents immediately," hoping that they might help and solve this problem. So far, nothing.

So I am unable to finish this blog post.

Update: I just got a response. I have been informed that I am at 99.9 percent of my storage space and that is why the upload is stalling.

So I have to buy some more storage space.

I don't have time right now. This will have to do it.

Margie and I drive into Anchorage and steal Kalib away from his parents

"I am so lonesome for Kalib," Margie said. "Let's go to Anchorage and steal him away." I had big plans for this weekend. Starting yesterday and then going all the way through Sunday, I was going to devote myself to a little proposal that I want to make, one that has the potential to make a big difference in my life. It also has the potential to take up three days of my time and then go nowhere at all.

New Year's Day, I discovered that I was simply too tired and burned out to do it. So I figured, "Ok, I'll go at it hard all day Saturday and Sunday and I can still get it done."

But when your wife announces that it is time to go to Anchorage and steal your grandson away from his parents, then you had better go steal your grandson.

So I warmed up the car and then we got in it.

So off we went, and drove out of Wasilla, headed for Anchorage to steal our grandson. Margie leaves for Arizona Thursday night and won't be back until February 2 (Melanie's birthday), and that it made it all the more urgent to her to spend some time with Kalib.

I'm going to Arizona, too, but I don't leave until the 17th. I will come back with Margie.

When we arrived in Anchorage, we learned over Margie's cellphone that Kalib had just dozed off for his afternoon nap. You can't steal a grandson when he is napping. It wouldn't be right. We wanted to visit Lisa, anyway, so she agreed to meet us at Middle Way Cafe for coffee. Melanie and Rex were both out of town.

Here's Lisa, coming to the back door of Middle Way. She will chide me after she enters; she will say that I looked ridiculous, standing there taking pictures. But, I will tell her, that's what photographers do.

Yes, she will say, but photographers stand there with big, professional-looking DSLR cameras and there I was, standing there with an itty-bitty pocket camera, looking ridiculous.

Well, I will tell  her, photographers can't worry about whether or not they look ridiculous. All photographers can worry worry about is whether or not they get the picture, whatever size their camera is.

As you can see, I got the picture.

I'm pretty sure it will win me a Nobel prize.

This, of course, is Bryce, Lisa's boyfriend. He works at Middle Way. Today, he was being a baristo.

This is Bryce's co-worker, Joel. "Okay," Joel said, "you can put me in your blog," after I told him I was going to. He will probably regret it when he sees this picture. I do have other images in which his eyes are open, but I like this one better.

I tried real hard to catch that blink and I succeeded.

You know what they say, "success breeds success."

This ought to be a successful year for me, now.

Thank you, Joel - I couldn't have done it without you.

Margie and Lisa. We bought one piece of chocolate beat cake to share. I'm not quite certain how they work beats into a chocolate cake recipe, but the result is scrumptious - when its fresh. It was stale today. Not so good. Somebody better get on the ball or I will stop buying beat cake.

Who wants stale cake, beats or not?

Lisa had much on her mind, but not for me to share here.

Bryce has some kind of technique that allows him to put designs in latte's. He put a heart in Margie's.

Soon, we said goodbye to Lisa and went over to steal Kalib. His parents let us in so we could do so, but he was still napping. They had bought him this remote-controlled train engine for Christmas, but had forgotten to buy batteries. 

Jacob had just put some in and was testing it out.

Finally, Kalib began to wake up. 

Now he is awake - sort of.

After Kalib came out, Jacob guided the train engine toward him. Kalib was leery.

He was still tired, feeling a little grumpy.

Then the three of us got in the car and drove away from his parents - back to Wasilla. Now that we had stolen their son, they have a night to themselves. They can go to a movie; whatever they want to do.

They can't make another baby, though, because they already got another one coming - February 27, for those of you don't already know.

I was going to help Kalib feed the fish after we got home, but, I came out to my office and found that Margie had beat me to it. These two were feeding the fish without me.

And then Kalib had to watch his movie, Ice Age. I am certain that he has every scene memorized by now.

After finishing all that precedes this image, I went into the house to see if these two had gone to bed yet. It is 1:00 AM, so I thought they probably would have. This is what I found.

Margie cannot carry him to bed, so, as soon as I save and close this, I will go in and do so.

Well... I went in to carry him to bed and this is what I found... Royce, the frail, aging, old-man orange cat watching over him - just as he did during all the time that Kalib lived with us.

So, forgive me for dragging this out, but I had to take one more picture, come back out here and put it in the journal.

Now, I will go in and carry him into bed.

I stop at Mocha Moose, happen upon a bust on Wasilla Main Street and then photograph a polar bear that is about to travel to India

As I pulled up to the drive-through at Mocha Moose for my afternoon coffee break, I could hear Carmen's voice in my head, "Bill! Bill! Don't you go switching coffee houses on me while I'm gone!" As already stated, Carmen has shut down the Metro Cafe, all the way through the weekend.

When I pull up to her window Monday, Carmen will ask where I went while she was gone. I will tell her, "Mocha Moose." She will scold, "Bill! Bill! no, Bill!" and she will get a distressed look on her face.

I know this, because she always closes on Sunday and when I stop by on Monday, the conversation goes pretty much as stated above.

But, when the coffee you love is gone, you've got to love the coffee you can get.

Wasn't this the theme of an old rock-and-roll song?

There were three cars ahead of me when I pulled in and took the first picture. Now, there are two cars ahead of me and so I shoot the scene from where I stop again. That is Lindsey on the other side of the window and she will soon prepare an Americano for me.

Now there is only one car ahead of me. The people in the back seat of that car are watching an animated film on a tiny, flip-down screen. Lindsey serves them whatever it was they ordered.

Now Lindsey brings me my Americano. She gives the New Year a thumbs up. Optimism is good. I hope she is right.

Sorry, Carmen - but what was I to do?

As I prepare to drive away, three boys run across the parking lot. They seem to be having a good time. I remember when I was that age and would be running like this. It was usually because we were in some kind of trouble, or that we were happily imagining that we were.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not implying anything about these kids. I'm just remembering how we were, at the same age.

Three blocks away from Mocha Moose, on Wasilla's famous Main Street, I saw that the police had something going on. It was obviously not a routine traffic stop. It looked to be a bust of some kind. What I was most impressed about, though, was the amount of daylight that still lingered in the sky.

It was about 4:20 PM. We are only 12 days past solstice, and look how the light is already on the increase! It kind of gave me a feeling of impending spring.

That is a false feeling, and sometimes when people in Alaska get that feeling too early and then realize that it was all a lie, they go a little crazy. Sometimes, they go a lot crazy. Bad things can happen then.

They call it, "cabin fever."

Vidya Dixit, one of my nieces in India, stopped by on Facebook today for a chat. Whenever we get together, in person or online, we chat about animals. She was very worried about this polar bear, Nanuq. Vidya loves animals - even more than people, she says. I have seen her accept a blessing from an elephant. She has a beautiful daughter named Vaidehi, who is just a tiny bit younger than Kalib.

How fun it would be, to photograph Kalib and Vaidehi together!

Vidya is not in a situation right now where she can have any kind of animal living with her - not a cat, not a dog, not a mouse. She can look out the window and see a monkey now and then, but she cannot invite it into the family's living quarters.

So I told her I would send her a polar bear. "Really, Uncle? Really?" she queried.

I then took a quick trip to Barrow, went out on the ice and convinced this one to come back with me so I could send him to her, but in the insane rush that is my life, coupled with the insane crowd that filled the Post Office as Christmas approached, I never managed to send Nanuq off.

Today, I promised her that I will on Monday. She then insisted that I send her a picture of Nanuq tonight.

So, Good Niece Vidya, here is your polar bear. He will be coming soon. I know Chennai can get extremely hot, even though you are right by the sea. Please keep a block of ice for him to hang out on. I do not want him to melt.

On cool days, take him down to the beach and see if maybe a seal will come to him.

Nanuq loves seals.

I was about to go to bed when it suddenly occurred to me that if I were to type, "Vidya" into my computer's search engine, I might find a picture of her being blessed by that elephant. So I typed and I found. It is at a temple in Bangalore, less than a block away from the home of Murthy and Vasanthi, the parents of Vivek, who is married to my niece, Khena, daughter of my sister, Mary Ann. Vidya is married to Vijay, brother of Vivek.

I took this image in August of 2007, just days after the wedding of Vivek and Khena.

It's funny - when I look at this image now, I feel like I should just be able to close my eyes, open them up in India, walk out the door and go down the street to this place.

There are so many places that I have such feelings about.

I begin 2010 with a series of errors that destroy my documentation of its arrival; my two New Year's resolutions: blog and surf

I feel a little sick inside right now. I took a nice little series of pictures to welcome in the New Year year and then I destroyed them. The above scene is from a little earlier, before the destruction, in the final hours of 2009. Those of you who followed my mad dash to finish my review of 2009 before 2010 began saw the final picture, taken late in the after of December 30 at Metro Cafe, just before Carmen shut down for four days to welcome in the New Year.

Still, late yesterday afternoon, I wanted to take a coffee break and I convinced Margie to come with me. We drove over to Little Miller's on Bogard and, as we pulled into the parking lot, I saw the moon rising over the mountains.

As it happened, Little Miller's was closed. So we drove to Mocha Moose, which never closes. We ordered two Americanos and a cinnamon roll.

We then returned to the house and I began the process of rapidly finishing my 2009 review. I took a break for dinner, then worked on the review a bit more before deciding that, it being New Year's Eve and all, I should have a chocolate-dipped, vanilla cone from Dairy Queen.

I invited Margie, but she refused to come.

"It's cold out there!" she said.

So off I went, by myself. Here I am, pulling up to DQ, the moon now much higher in the sky.

Here I am in the drive-through line at DQ. Those of you who have spent all your winters in warm places might think the truck in front of me is burning oil, that it needs a ring job, but this is just what cold air does to automobile exhaust.

If you go to Fairbanks in midwinter during one of those periods - not so frequent as in the past but still they come every winter, when the temperature hangs out below the -40 mark day and night - yet the traffic keeps rolling along as usual, the air becomes so thick with the frozen exhaust that hangs in it that you don't even want to breathe, but, really, you have no choice.

When I pulled up to the intercom, I suddenly remembered how good Dairy Queen banana splits had tasted when we would buy them in Arizona, 30 years ago.

I figured I would splurge, and order a banana split instead of a chocolate dip. It was New Years Eve, after all.

Please note the orange crates against the wall. They are about to ruin my next picture.

Ruts form in the ice of drive-through passage ways, causing one's vehicle to slip sideways as he drives through. The lady behind the window had put those crates there as a buffer between her and cars that might slip off a rut in her direction.

There was a little ridge right in front of the window and I slipped off it to the left - right into one of her crates, which then got stuck between my tire and the fender.

"Most cars slip the other way," she told me.

I had wanted to get a decent shot of the banana split as she handed it to me, but now I turned my concentration towards freeing myself from the crate. I put the car in reverse, turned the steering wheel to the left so that it would push the front end to the right, and slowly back away to the sound of grunching, cracking and grinding, as my tire and car body wrestled with that crate.

Finally, I popped free. She handed me the banana split.

"Wait," I said, "I want to get a picture of the banana split."

But she didn't wait. I barely got this one, unappetizing, out-of-focus shot off as she retreated back into the warmth of her cubby hole for a few seconds until I could pull away and the driver behind me pull up.

I parked in the lot and ate the banana split - which was not as delicious as the ones I remember from Arizona. Still, it was good, but I think I would have enjoyed the chocolate-dipped cone better.

Then I went home and got back to work on my review.

There was one month that I finished - October, I think, but I can't remember for certain - that disappeared when I clicked the "save" button. I had to start over again. Pure Squarespace! (my blog host)

So I redid that month, did the remaining months, and finished the review with just minutes to spare.

Margie had bought a jug of sparkling grape juice. She poured us each a serving. We raised our glasses. I framed the image on the glasses, with her eyes above and two cats on the floor, looking up at us.

"To 2010!" we toasted, "may it be a good year." I clicked the picture.

Then I stepped outside into the brisk air. Around the neighborhood, people were shooting off rockets, popping firecrackers. I heard gunshots, and the staccato fire of automatic weapons. I hoped the gunners were shooting blanks - but you never know.

Holding my newest pocket camera free in my hand, I waited for bursts to appear in the sky and if they were close enough, turned my camera toward them and fired.

And so 2009 had fallen into the past. 2010 had begun.

We went to bed early - by my standards, anyway - but people in the neighborhood kept blasting rockets off until well after 2:00 AM, so we didn't get to sleep early.

I got up late and did not want to cook oatmeal. I decided to go to Family Restaurant.

"Want to come?" I asked Margie.

"No!" she said. "It's too cold out there!"

It wasn't that cold, -6 (-21c) when I left, -10 (-23c) when I returned, but Margie and I perceive cold differently.

That is why we will be in Arizona soon.

When I got to Family, my neighbor, Michael, was there. He appeared recently in this blog, blowing snow out of his driveway.

So I joined him. He has been doing a lot of cross-country skiing at Hatchers. He says its just beautiful right now, especially under the moon. I have yet to make my first trip - in fact, my first trip since I shattered my shoulder 18 months ago. We lamented the passage of the old days, before Serendipity, when we would just step into our respective back yards and then go out and ski through all the series of swamp and marsh lands and over the little hills inbetween, for the whole day if we wanted.

Sometimes, we would cross paths. Sometimes, he would be with his wife, children, too.

I was always alone, as Margie never got into skiing. My boys were strictly down-hillers at that time and my daughters skaters.

Michael finished before me and left.

Soon, this couple came walking by. I still had the camera set at a slow shutter speed and so their movement blurred the image.

The perfect moment - the only moment when their passage would have been worth an image - caught imperfectly.

And what makes it the perfect moment to me is because it was taken on the morning of the first day of the New Year and when you look at it, you can see that the subjects have weathered years that have been tough as well as good. Now, they enter a brand new year, a new decade, with the hope and optimism to step forward and move into the future, yet with wariness and uncertainty, for who can know what 2010 will bring?

Me, I blew the very beginning of it.

When I took off toward Family Restaurant this morning, I saw that I still had several days worth of images in my camera. I looked at the most recent of them - the rocket exploding, the toast with Margie, the cats - and remembered seeing them on my computer screen, so I reformatted the disk - which, in reality, had ample space left on it to cover all of my breakfast happenings.

But I remembered wrong. I had seen those images on the LCD of my camera, not my computer screen. I had downloaded nothing past Dairy Queen.

So those images - those moments of Margie and I beginning the New Year together - are gone.

They exist only in our faulty memories, and when we go, they will go with us.

Not that it will matter one whit over time, but, right now, thinking about it, it matters to me.

I am very sorry to have lost the images of that moment, the moment 2010 began, Margie and I alone with the cats.

Now, my two New Year's resolutions, both of which seem impossible:

1. This blog. Anyone who reads my purpose as stated to the right will clearly see that I have fallen far short of my original goals. So this year, I resolve to make this blog into what I want it to be. To do that, I must find a way to make it generate income, to free up the time that I need.

Readers have given me suggestions, I have ideas of my own, but when the problem is looked at frankly and honestly, it is clear that this is an unreasonable, if not impossible, goal. Yet, it is my goal and I hereby resolve to meet it.

2. Surf on birthday. Nearly four decades have lapsed since I last rode a surfboard. Hell. It's been that long since I have even done anything that I would call swimming for real. If I were to try to surf right now, I would surely drown.

But I've got to do it, this year, on my birthday, July 14, before even more decades pass by and I am obliterated.

And here is where I want to do it: The Tlingit village of Yakutak, under the slopes of 19,000 foot plus Mt. St. Elias. Yakutak has become the surfing capitol of Alaska, so this is where I want to do it. If Barrow had good surf, I would do it there. But Barrow doesn't.

Will I succeed?

We will see.

2009 in review - December: Carmen closes down for the rest of the year

What's the point of doing a review of December when it is still December. And yes, even though it is already 2010 for just about everybody else in the world, it is still December, 2009, here in Wasilla, Alaska - for eleven more minutes.

Here is Carmen, yesterday, handing me back one of my Funny Face gift cards after I used it for both Margie and me. Carmen was planning to close down right after that and to remain closed all the way through the New Year's weekend.

"Now Bill," she said, "Don't you go switching coffee houses on me, now!"

It is now nine minutes until 2010. I hear fireworks going off all over the place.

I will end this review and go bring in the New Year with Margie.