Margie bakes Christmas cookies but there is no little boy here to eat them

Here is Royce, lying around listless, missing his buddy Kalib, who he has not seen for four days now. If you are a cat, four days is like two months or so.

We have not gotten into the Christmas spirit here at all. We have yet to send out a Christmas card and we have done no shopping. When the kids were all at home and growing, every year, well before this time, I would pick up the saw, we would head out the back door, hike across the marsh and then keep going to this certain place where there were many trees of just the right size, but, being Alaska trees, most of them were kind of thin and sparse in the branches - but we always knew that if we looked hard enough, we would find the right one. 

The kids would fan out and everybody would look for that special tree.

Once the candidates were chosen, we would gather around and compare and, amazingly enough, almost always everybody would agree on the same tree. Then we would cut it down and tromp back through the snow, everyone getting their turn at helping to carry the tree home.

One year, Royce followed us to and from. The snow was way too deep for him to wade through, but he would hop about in our footprints.

The experience seemed to please him greatly.

Then they made Serendipity and that ended that. In each year since, I have been amazed to find a suitable tree in our own backyard. Last year, I was certain there was not a single one left that would make a good Christmas tree, but Caleb found one right on the fringe, headed into the marsh.

It was the best Christmas tree that we had ever found, period.

Now, Margie is saying that this year she is just going to buy one.

I feel kind of bad about that, and I hate to see a Christmas tree go onto a credit card, but that's what happens in life, I guess.

Margie does want to get the Christmas spirit going here, so she decided to bake some sugar cookies. And look - there, jammed into the cabinet door above her - baby Kalib, in a picture that I took while he was still brand new.

And further over - a picture of Kalib on a book marker, courtesy of his day care center, and another of him and his buddy Lafe, when they were tiny (and yet, even when he was tiny, Lafe was large). You have not seen Lafe in this blog for awhile because he has moved out of state.

Margie with the first batch of cookies.

But there is no little boy here to eat them.

So Margie eats a Christmas tree cookie by herself. Above her hangs one of Kalib's earliest pieces of art. Perhaps his first piece of art. I am not certain. Certainly, his first piece of art to be framed and hanged.

There is a chance that we might see Kalib today. Jacob is home now. I know he is exhausted from his two weeks training in Washington, DC, but he is going to get lonesome for Muzzy pretty soon. He will have to come and get him and Martigne, too.

Maybe that will happen today.

Sally at Family: Clean and sober for five years now; I drive to town, take Margie to a movie, eat dinner with Lisa, Kalib eats, watches Cars

Yesterday morning I got up, went online, checked the balance in my checking account, saw that it was $69 and a few cents and said, "what the hell, I'll go to breakfast at Family Restaurant." I do have an invoice out there which hopefully will be paid in time to do some Christmas shopping but, in the meantime, I needed breakfast. I didn't want oatmeal and there was nothing else to cook. Margie had overnighted in Anchorage with Lavina and Kalib - Jacob was still in Washington, D.C., but is scheduled to arrive in Anchorage this afternoon.

So I sat down and ordered my omelette and then Sally walked in. I invited her to join me.

I first met Sally close to ten years ago in Cordova. I had gone there to cover the annual Sobriety Celebration sponsored by the tribal government of the Native Village of Eyak for Alaska's Village Voices, back in the days when a few of us had the doomed vision that we could turn the publication into one that would truly get into and cover rural, Native, issues and people in a meaningful way.

Sally was then working with NVE to provide services to a group of village Elders. A few years back, she moved to Wasilla and now she works at Arby's. She stops at Family every morning on the way to work to get a coffee and to visit with the cooks, waitresses and some of the regulars.

Our conversation quickly turned to the group of Elders that Sally used to work with - all, but one, now dead.

Each death hurts, but one in particular caused Sally great pain and she feels it every day. She particularly loved this Elder, but the Elder had grown weary and tired of the trials of this life and so set out to drink herself to death. She did just that.

As for Sally, alcohol and drugs are a big part of her past, but she has now been clean and sober for five years.

It has been hard, and there are hard moments in every day and some days are hard from beginning to end - but still, life is better, a wonderful challenge, and the struggle worth it.

Once, before she sobered up, she sat down in a chair, placed a rifle butt-first on the floor with the tip of the barrel under her chin. She reached down and tripped the trigger with her thumb. She heard the click of the firing pin strike metal, but the rifle did not fire.

Angry, she lifted it up, pointed it upward, said, "son-of-a-bitch!" and pulled the trigger again.

The rifle fired.

She now believes that even at that moment, God was watching out for her, that He was by her side.

And it is He, she says, her Higher Power, who is getting her through all this now - with the help of her AA sponsor, and others who fight the same battle. She has also come to understand that she must live in the moment, she cannot dwell in the past or fantasize with unrealistic expectations for or dread of the future.

"I take it one day at a time." 

I asked if she would mind if I mentioned a bit of her story in this blog. 

That would be fine, she said, adding: "I work at Arby's, but that's my part-time job. Sobriety is my real job - not just my sobriety, but helping others. That's what I live for now - to help other people. It feels good."

In the early afternoon, about 2:00 o'clock, I got into the car to go to Anchorage. I did not want to go to Anchorage, I wanted to stay right here, but Margie needed a ride home. And we had decided to go see a movie. Plus, I would get to see Kalib and Lavina and perhaps some of my children as well.

So off I went. This is what the Talkeetna Mountains looked like when I reached the corner of Seldon and Lucille. The temperature was -12.

And here is Pioneer Peak, as I drive out of Wasilla. It was warmer here, with the temperature at -2. It had been a steady progression upward: -12 at the house, -7 at Metro Cafe and so on.

I have not checked Interior and Slope temperatures, but I am certain all must be much colder. 

And in Anchorage, as I drove down the street that Kalib and his parents now live on, the temperature was a balmy six degrees above zero.

The house at the very left is their's. I do not know who the man in the street is. There is a trail in the park just across the street. Lavina and Kalib can cut through there on foot and be to his day care and her work in less than five minutes.

Margie was alone in the house, so I picked her up and we headed straight for the movie theatre, passing these two along the way.

Damn! I sure would like to win that $100,000! I could then go at this blog full-time and in the time that it would give me, I bet I could figure out how make it into what I want it to be, and better yet, how to sustain itself.

But, if you don't buy a ticket you can't win, so I guess I don't have a chance.

We passed these three, who waited for a bus.

And this lady, who kept her face warm. 

I wanted to see Avatar, but so did too many other people so we decided to wait on that one. We saw "The Blind Side," because the starting time was just after we walked into the theatre. There were other movies playing that I would have preferred to see, had the timing been right, but...

I enjoyed this movie - I truly did. It was a good story and I hope it really is true. And Sandra Bullock looked good, maybe too good - warning to all heterosexual males who might want to go see this movie: Sandra Bullock is going to leave you feeling a little frustrated.

Because she still limps badly, moves slowly and finds it difficult and frightening to tread her way across ice and snow, I dropped Margie off at the curb and then, when the movie was over, went and got the car and picked her back up again.

As she got into the car, I noticed these two girls, talking on their phones.

After the movie, we picked up Lisa and took her to dinner. The health care bill was a big topic of conversation and whether or not it should be killed. We have all been strong proponents, but it is tragic and disgusting what has happened to that bill. As she sees it turning into something that discriminates against women, Lisa is leaning towards "kill the bill."

Still I, who lost my health care coverage this week because I could not cover the outrageous premium which had just jumped up 20 percent, feel the bill should be passed. I don't claim to understand it and it does seem to me to be turning into a big give-away to the Health Insurance companies (Joe Lieberman - you have served your masters and your ego well), but it does appear to me to be better than the present situation.

Also, as Paul Krugman states, citing Social Security and Medicare, once you get programs for the public good into law and create a base to work upon, they do tend to be improved over time and the chance of that happening seems pretty good.

On the other hand, if the bill is killed altogether, the force of irrationality that stood up with no real alternatives, banded together in pure obstinance just to kill the bill, determined to say "no" as a unified block of disunity, at all costs to their country and their constituents, just so that they could send Obama to his Waterloo, might find that they have killed themselves politically.

As for me, as soon as this invoice I mentioned is paid, I will get my insurance reinstated. I don't really know why. It costs a huge bundle and does more harm to me than good. But doctors won't see you if you don't have medical insurance.

So the way it works for me is, the doctors see me, bill the insurance, the insurance denies, and then I pay the doctors, buy my medicine, get free samples or go without.

I really don't want to get it reinstated. The money that I spend on it would be far better spent going directly into my health care. And when I had the catastrophic event, they didn't pay my ambulance bill from Barrow to Anchorage - as their saleswoman had promised me they would, should the need ever arise.

So I am very angry about this whole situation. 

We brought some dinner to Lavina and Kalib. There is still much work to be done to get them moved in and settled, but, as you can see, their new rug is now in place. It looks much better than the old one.

I think this is going to be a good house for them.

Kalib loves the animated film, Cars. He has already watched it more times than I have ever watched a single movie in my life.

As his Mom feeds him, he watches it again.

And yes, the activities of this day cost well over the $69 I had in my account at the beginning. After I picked her up, Margie put her credit card to liberal use.

Sometimes, I wonder why the hell I ever wanted to be a freelance photographer/writer/publisher, but damn - if you could look into my soul you would know that I never had a choice. I have always sought freedom, but this is just what I am.

I often - like right now - feel doomed, but something always seems to happen to keep me going.

What will it be this time?

The man who owns a '56 Chevy; a school bus goes off the road; dusk horse raises its tail

This is Bill, who lives two houses down Sarah's Way in the opposite direction from the one I took yesterday. Bill owns, rebuilt and maintains a very sharp looking, smooth-running, classic 1956 Chevy that he bought for $100. He painted it black and red/orange and when you see it coming down the road, it catches your eye right away and you wish that you were riding in it, Buddy Holly on the radio, that you were young and had a pretty girl clinging to you, nibbling at your ear, giggling each time she almost makes you crash.

Perhaps next summer, I will build a blog post around that Chevy. I know there is a good story in it.

Almost nine years has now passed since my first black cat, Little Guy, the one who passed straight from his mother's womb into my waiting hands, stepped out the back door on a day with three times as much snow as this one and disappeared.

I was devastated to lose that cat and I went up and down the street, knocking on every door to see if anyone had seen Little Guy.

For weeks afterward, whenever he would see me walking past, Bill would ask me if I had found my cat. He always looked very concerned. I know he was keeping an eye out for that cat.

I still appreciate that.

Bill blows the snow off his driveway.

A cottonwood tree, bent down toward Tamar.

Muzzy and a snowplow.

As I walked one way, this school bus came driving the other. Shortly after it passed, I turned just in time to see its right wheels slip off the shoulder of the road and then slide right into the culvert. 

Anyone who lives up here long enough will do this kind of thing sooner or later, probably a few times.

It can be embarrassing, but it must be worse when you have a busload of students.

One of the students looks out at me.

As St. Bernards do when people get into trouble in the snow, Muzzy comes to help out. Unfortunately, he forgot to bring his little barrel of brandy.

It's a good thing, because the driver shouldn't be touching brandy and the kids were all too young.

If someone had brought a dog harness, we could have hitched him to that bus and he would have pulled it right out.

But nobody had a harness.

I walked on, leaving the bus and kids in it to be rescued by the school district.

Margie is in town with Lavina and Kalib and will be staying with them overnight in their new house. She left some bills on the counter for me to pay. Along the way, I saw this guy on a green snowmachine waiting for a green light so he could cross the road.

When the light changed, the left turn arrow turned green for me, which meant this guy's light was still red. As I began my turn, he gunned his throttle and shot straight across the road directly across my path. Maybe he was not waiting for a green light at all, but only for a gap in the traffic passing in front of him so that he could run a red one.

I believe this falls into the category that Melanie AND Lisa* calls, "soooooo Wasilla!"

This is what it looked like in front of Wasilla Lake. 

This person got stuck on the divider.

A school bus passed by without mishap.

I took my coffee break at the usual time. After I stopped at Metro Cafe, I took the long way home and passed by this horse as darkness drew down. The horse raised its tail and then dropped something.

*updated to include both coiners of the phrase: see Lisa's comment

Three of my neighbors: Tim builds his shop casually, Patty fights off her cancer intently, Michael blows away the snow; umbilical cord discussed at IHOP; coffee-dogs-Kalib

This is my neighbor, Tim, the carpenter who lives kitty-corner across the street. Sometimes, people who in their professions do things for other people have a hard time getting around to doing the same things for themselves.

Some of you who have been with me for awhile have probably noticed that my walls are almost bare. Photos do not hang on them. True, there is one of Kalib when he was little more than a newborn wedged into a cabinet door in the kitchen and another of him crawling with Marty past Muzzy that hangs at the opening to the hallway.

Other than that, there are none at all and these two are only recent developments. Prior to Kalib's birth, in all the time that I have been married, not one photo has hung on my wall.

Not a single one.

Tim is doing a little better in this regard than I. He started work on the shop that you see going up behind him four years ago. There wasn't much visible sign of it until early this summer, when a foundation began to appear.

Now that it is cold and snowy, he built two opposing wall frames just last week. He says the entire shop will be done soon.

Regular readers have already met my neighbor Patty, who I sometimes refer to as "The Fit Lady" because she has always kept herself so busy and fit walking, skiing, biking, sailing and such.

Just last summer, she discovered she had a cancer that the doctor said was terminal - so terminal that it was pointless for him to treat her further. He sent her home to die and said it would happen in just months.

In fact, according to that doctor, she is supposed to be dead right now.

She's not - because after he told her she was finished, she told herself she was not.

As I have reported before, she took up holistic healing and found a doctor who would work with her and give her chemo as she set her mind and dietary intake towards healing.

That doctor now says Patty is a miracle woman. He has her come and talk to other patients who have "terminal" cancers.

She was just tested. The tumors in her colon have all disappeared. Her liver tumor is still there, but is a tenth of its former size.

There are many reasons for her success, she says, including just putting herself "in touch with the universe." She says that sounds corny and strange, but "it's true."

I am sorry that this picture looks so ratty, but I took it at about 4:00 o'clock and it was dark - considerably darker then it appears in this picture. There are cameras that handle this level of darkness pretty well, but not this G10 pocket camera.

They say its successor, the G11, is much improved with low light. When I can, I will get one.

The fact is, this time of year, even in the middle of the day, the light here is pretty dim. We plan to go to Arizona next month and when we first step into the sun down there, it will shock us.

And this is my neighbor, Michael, two houses down, who works in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, two weeks on, two weeks off. I most often see him when I'm riding a bike one way and he is riding the other, or when we meet on skis. He is often with his wife and his children were growing, they would often be with him, too.

Of course, I have not met him on skis for a long time, because after they built Serendipity, I could no longer step off my back porch, take off on my skis and go and go and go and go, because they put the damn subdivision in my way.

And I still have yet to take my first ski since I shattered my shoulder 18 months ago.

But Michael has been skiing - at Hatcher Pass. He says it is wonderful right now.

I told him I am going to try to go up there next week. He said we should go together.

I haven't done anything physical since I put down my bike to attend the AFN Convention and then it had a flat tire and before I could patch it the snow fell.

I don't think I could keep up with him.

"I think you could," he said.

That reminds me - Patty went skiing at Hatcher Pass last week, too.

Here is a bigger snowplow, coming down Lucille.

Here it is again.

This is one of the pictures from yesterday that I did not post because I had to go to bed. I took this picture from my car and when I saw his man, I had no idea what his sign said. I had to stop at a red light and that gave me some time to concentrate on the sign and try to read it, but I simply could not make it out.

I did make out the words, "Happy" and "birthday." So I figured it must be a Christmas message. The fact that he was dressed in red reinforced this idea. I figured maybe he was wishing Jesus a happy upcoming birthday.

But when I pulled the picture into my computer and was able to examine it, I saw that he was actually wishing happy birthday to the US Bill of Rights and that he had singled out the Second Amendment - the right to bear arms - for special good wishes.

To all others who might want to stand on street corners waving signs, let me suggest that you make your letters big and bold and even colorful, so that passers by do not mistake you for Santa Claus - especially if you are going to wear red during the holiday season.

This is also from yesterday, when I was at IHOP. I swear, I was not eavesdropping on these people's conversation, but all of a sudden, in a very animated and amplified voice, so loud that no one anywhere nearby could have missed it, the fellow on the other side of the table blurted out, "when the baby comes out, you just snip that umbilical chord."

Then, speaking just as loudly, the fellow at left said that he had heard that when you cut the umbilical cord -sploosh! - the stuff inside it just comes gushing out to squirt all over you and everything else.

At that moment, my waitress came to my table and laid my ham, eggs, and strawberry-banana pancakes in front of me.

On my walk, this dog ran out of a driveway and took off down the street. Pretty soon, this car pulled out of the same driveway, drove to the dog, stopped, and then the lady got out to catch the dog.

As I pulled up to the drive-through of Metro Cafe yesterday, I was listening to All Things Considered on the radio, where I heard what an important fellow Joe Lieberman is trying to be. He is saying that he is following his conscience. Another person contends that the real argument is how many hundreds of thousands of people will die from lack of good health insurance.

After Carmen opens the window, she tells the beautiful lady on the other side of the counter that I always take pictures of everything, that I even photographed the grand opening of Metro Cafe and that she can find it all on my blog.

Her name is Sherry and the kid wearing the hat is Greg.

Or is he Doug?

I'm pretty sure he's Greg.

If not - Doug, I apologize.

And if by chance he is neither Doug nor Greg, well, hell. I apologize twice.

Sherry and Carmen ham it up for the camera. Today, Carmen told me that Sherry comes in every morning at 7:30 AM. "Just like you come in every day right after 4:00," she added.

I wonder how it happened that Sherry and I came at the same time?

Tamar Street.

Yes, I took Muzzy on another walk.

 

When we got home, Muzzy flopped down in the driveway and began to pull the snow out from between his toes.

And here is Kalib and Margie with two stuffed Muzzies, this evening.

Now I might not see either of them for a few days. The new house is airing out pretty good, so Lavina and Kalib plan to stay in town tomorrow night and Margie is going to go with them. Caleb, of course, works all night.

Party time.

I will get out the cat nip and pop some corn. The cats and I will party like crazy.

I took many pictures today, but I need some sleep, so tonight I am only going to post Alivia's picture

I took many pictures today and put over 30 selects in the queue from which I had planned to construct this blog entry. But the truth is, I am just too tired to do it. I must go to bed. I need sleep.

Maybe this is because I did not go to bed last night until 4:30 AM and then Margie woke me up at 7:00 to tell me she was going to Anchorage with Lavina. Try as I might, I could not go back to sleep after that.

I think that is why I am so tired.

It is now 11:37 PM, which is early for me but I don't care - I'm going to bed.

I was not going to make a post at all, but I had told these folks at IHOP that I would post this picture of baby Alivia today and I gave them the address so they could come and see it.

I would hate for them to come here for their first time ever and not find the picture, so here it is.

Baby Alivia, having breakfast at IHOP with people who love her.

I will still try to get in a decent selection of the others - including you, Tim, and you, Patty... Carmen, you too and your friend.

Now I must go to bed.

Sorry.