2010: How it ended; 2011: How we have spent the year so far

To close out 2010, Margie and I drove to the new Tikahtnu theatres on the near edge of Anchorage to see a late afternoon matinee showing of "True Grit."

Here we are, approaching the theatre.

Right after we had we taken our seats in the theatre, before I had silenced my iPhone, a message came in. It was from Lavina. She and her boys were roaming about elsewhere in Anchorage and Kalib had found himself holding a snake, surrounded by dinosaurs.

It was a damn frightening scene to see.

As for True Grit, we enjoyed it. It had some moments in it that were extremely emotional for me, due more to the connections they caused my mind to make, rather than to what was happening onscreen itself.

It is at such moments that one appreciates the fact that it is very dark in a movie theatre and that no one is looking at you, but at the one bright spot in the theatre - the screen.

2010 ended with a shockingly warm blast of air sweeping in from the south Pacific, causing a 55 degree rise in temperature at our house, from -10 F to 45 above. Even Fairbanks warmed up, but not quite so much as we did. The roads became wet, dirty, and slippery. By the time we headed home, the temperature had dropped down to 25 and the highway was very slick.  Not everyone who drove it succeeded at staying on it.

Some even wound up upside down.

I hope no one was badly hurt.

After we got home, Margie watched a little TV. I seldom care to watch TV, but was too tired to do anything else. So I sat on the couch next to her for awhile. Outside, on the other side of the marsh, someone was shooting fireworks.

In fact, all over Wasilla and any other place in South Central Alaska where people live, people were shooting off fireworks.

At the moment the iPhone flashed midnight, we toasted in the New Year. I do not precisely remember the toasts, but they did mention grandkids.

I stepped briefly outside to see what I could see. The air smelled of burnt gun powder. Country music blared from two houses down, where people were partying. I shot this image of a rocket blasting over that house and then stepped back into our house.

Margie and I did not last long after that.

2010 had ended hard and had left me exhausted.

I did not get up until about 10:00 AM. I figured a young couple such as us should not dirty dishes on the first day of the new year. "Want to go to breakfast?" I asked Margie, as she lay groggily in bed.

"Sure," she answered.

So I started to the car with the remote.

Soon, the Ford Escape was ready to drive us into the New Year.

Here we are, on Lucille Street, approaching the four-way stop at the intersection with Spruce. Metro Cafe sits just beyond, but they have been closed for two days. Carmen and Scott are in Arizona. Shoshana has been running the shop, but she and her boyfriend headed for Chena Hot Springs to celebrate the New Year. 

I had been a little bit jealous of that idea, to think how nice it would be to soak in those hot springs in the midst of the -40 degree cold, but with the big warmup, I was not quite so jealous anymore.

Still, it would be great fun to be in Chena Hot Springs today.

I wonder if I could ever get Margie to do something like that?

As we walked from the car to the entrance to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, Ubiquitous Raven flew over us. "Chooo'weet!"

The seat in the corner against the wall was not available, so I had to risk getting shot in the back. Still, this is the snuggest, coziest part of Family Restaurant because you are close to the kitchen and can feel the warmth of it.

Not that this made much difference on what is proving to be another very warm day, with the temp above freezing.

I hope it cools off soon.

I hate this kind of weather.

Especially on New Year's day.

As we we prepared to drive away, I saw this doggie in the car window next door.

The scene as we drove away from Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, looking into the new year with both anticipation and apprehension.

I know for a fact that the year ahead will be a terrible one, and it will be an excellent one. This is the conflicted state in which it has begun and in which it will remain, because that is the state of all of our lives, all of the time.

May the excellent times outnumber and overpower the terrible ones.

That is my wish and prayer for the new year, for us all.

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2010: The end of dreams, the beginning of dreams, the continuation of dreams

So this is the final day of 2010. I don't quite know what to think about that.

I had planned to do a month-by-month review of the entire year - just as I did last year before 2009 came to an end. I was also going to expand stories that I managed to get the beginnings in but never finished, or to fill in some of the huge gaps that I left out because time ran out - like at the Gwich'in Gathering, the Inuit Circumpolar Council General Assembly in Nuuk, Greenland and to complete the tribute to my late friend, Navajo artist, poet, cartoonist, songwriter, performer, husband, father, grandfather and brother, Vincent Craig.

Plus, there were many little picture stories that I got pieces of, perhaps shot in whole and never posted at all, simply because I ran out of time and energy.

So that is what I was going to devote this blog to these past couple of weeks - a review of what I did post and a glimpse at what I didn't.

But, as it happened, when it came time to review this year, I did not want to go there. I just didn't. And so I'm not. Suffice it to say that it was a year when beautiful and hopeful dreams came to abrupt and crushing ends, when new dreams sprouted, and old dreams, diminished in scope and joy but still determined, pushed on.

I took this picture of myself two days ago as I walked with ravens and breathed frost into my beard and mustache. I think it is a pretty good summation of the year 2010 as I lived it.

I will not here go into the dreams that came to an end, nor even look at those that continue, but will instead focus upon those that began. Here is such a new dream of hope and joy that began in 2010 - little Jobe, born February 12.

I know that right now he has dreams and desires, some in the very early stages, others of which have yet to even begin to shape themselves in his conscious mind.

I have a dream for him, too and it is a very simple dream - that one day, he and I might paddle a canoe together, through a quiet place frequented not by people but by animals, fish and birds, surrounded by a tiny piece of the beauty that is Alaska.

I dream that we would catch a fish or two, barbecue them on the bank or shore and then eat them together.

As for the present, or at least the very near past, this is how I found Jobe when I went into his house the other night to pick up Margie and bring her home.

This is the moment that he noticed that I had entered the room.

Jobe immediately rolled over and began to crawl towards me.

...he drew nearer...

He reached up for me...

Jobe loves his grandpa. His grandpa loves Jobe. One day, I hope, we will catch and eat fish together.

As to Jobe's older brother Kalib, many of his dreams seem to involve a spatula. Before I returned home with Margie, Lavina invited us to dinner at Taco King. Kalib brought his spatula.

Carrying his spatula, Kalib heads to the door at Taco King. Having seen how neat this picture looked large, it pains me to present it so small, but such is the format of this blog. If you click slide show, it will help a bit.

Kalib, his spatula and his mom, at Taco King.

How the moon loves the sun!

When I look at this, I cannot help but wonder what kind of babies the two might make, the sun and the moon? Stars, perhaps? A trillion, zillion, quadrillion stars?

Even more than that?

Star children, without number.

The dad joined us. Two chefs, one spatula, at Taco King.

Sometimes in a restaurant, Kalib will suddenly leave the table and start to run all over the place. I was trying to chase him down, but I had to shoot at least one frame before I caught him.

And this one from India:

Do you ever think of these two ladies when you drink your tea?

To be quite honest, I tend not to, either. But here they are, picking tea in the Ooty area of Tamil Nadu, at about 7,000 feet above sea level.

One must be careful walking about here, because there are cobras and other chooo'weet snakes slithering about amongst the tea plants.

I did not see any men picking tea - just women. Their boss, a man, told me that is because women are the more diligent workers. They stick to the job and don't goof around, he said, but men do.

He also made some kind of joke about how women deal with cobras better than men do, but I can't remember the joke.

Somehow, given the dreams that so recently came to an and abrupt end this year, including dreams that walked together not far from me in the form of a newly wed wife and husband at the moment I took this picture, the phrase "Happy New Year" does not feel quite right to me at this moment.

Yet, happiness is what I wish for us all.

May you all find happiness within the new year that is about to begin.

A request for help to the village of Savoonga

I received this message from Jenny Canfield, concerning the power outage that has left the village of Savoonga frozen:

This note comes from my good friend Ossie. His good friend Yaari is from Savoonga and they're having a tough time right now. Please read the note below and consider informing your readers, listeners, friends, coworkers, etc. 

They are mostly in need of non-perishable goods. Era aviation is providing free shipping to Savoonga.

If you're so inclined, have a food drive at your workplace. The holiday weekend is coming up, so many of you may be out of the office. Savoonga will still need your help come Monday, so please don't forget.

You can contact Yaari at 223-4124 or yaari30@yahoo.com for more information. 

per my good friend, yaari kineekuk: Savoonga (her village) had power outage for several days now. Some recovered as of yesterday. 150+ stayed at the school to keep warm; 50+ at the City Hall; 20+ at the Fire Dept. Pipes bursted, store is closed, all phones are down. If you can please help... 

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What I did while Margie was gone; the correct spelling of S-h-o-s-h-a-n-a

Once again, I have selected and loaded too damn many pictures. Oh well. I am not going to take them out now. After I left Margie in town to take care of Jobe, I had no desire to cook my steel cut oats and then eat them in a cold house while waiting for the fire to warm up.

So I headed to Family Restaurant. It is not starting to get light as early as this picture implies. It's just that I was going to breakfast very late.

I like late breakfasts. Late breakfasts are good - and then you don't have to worry about lunch.

I actually took this following breakfast after I got in my car to leave Family, but what the hell. I will pretend that I have just arrived at Family, have just parked and have just now spotted these people walking to the door ahead of me. This causes me to worry, because there is a certain booth that I like to get - by the window so that I can see outside, but also in a corner, against a wall, so nobody can shoot me in the back the way that damn coward, John "Broken Nose" McCall did Wild Bill Hickock down in Deadwood, South Dakota.

That's why I always try to sit with my back to the wall. You just never know - especially when your name is Bill.

Fortunately, I got the corner seat with my back to the wall. Nobody would shoot me from behind - and I was left in a good position to do some shooting myself.

My waitress - she is fairly new and I did not get her name. She poured, I shot.

Reflections on the window, cars parked behind.

I did not see a train come by. It always disappoints me a bit when I go through an entire breakfast at Family Restaurant and not a single train comes by.

A raven flew by, though.

I leave Family Restaurant. The moon is framed.

Later, I go walking. I come upon a new dog, one that I do not recognize, barking at me. This dog wants to scare me. This dog failed. This dog was not scary at all. This dog just puts on airs.

On Tamar, a car zipped past, creating its own little mini-blizzard. We have had a reasonably amount of cool weather and the temperature out in this neighborhood has been below zero most of the time for awhile, but we haven't had much snow. Very little.

They have much more in Anchorage at Jacob and Lavina's house but still not that much for this time of year.

I came upon a raven that was carrying something around. I wanted to find out what so I began to follow the raven.

That raven led me from pole to pole - each time I would just about get close, the raven would hop off the pole and then fly to the next one.

See? I have been trying to tell you that this is now ravens are.

Do you believe me now?

Chooo'weet, Sandy. Chooo'weet. This raven is for you.

We are now nine days beyond solstice. The sun is coming back.

As I reach the house, a Super Cub scoots by overhead - kind of like I used to do back when I would buzz the house after a long absence and signal the family that I was home and they should drive to Anderson Lake airstrip to pick me up. When will such a thing ever happen again?

Before the end of 2011 maybe? Right now, it feels impossible, but this will be a goal for 2011.

I think in the beginning, I might have spelled her name correctly, but then, somehow, my brain misfired and I began to spell it, "Shoshauna." Then I saw that she had written it as "Shoshana." I began to do the same.

Again my brain misfired. Again I began to write, "Shoshauna."

She's so understanding and gentle that she never corrected me. The other day, I realized what I had done. I apologized.

No need to apologize, SHOSHONA said, people make this kind of mistake all the time.

Well, if some dummy is going around posting her name as Shoshauna for all to read, then of course other people are going to do the same, because they will believe that the dummy knows.

Sorry, Shoshana - and thank you.

A guy bought my coffee the other day. She didn't know who - a guy who once lived in Wasilla but now lives elsewhere. He reads the blog to keep a connection to home.

After I left Shoshana behind the Metro window, I headed towards town. Jobe was doing better. It was time to go pick Margie up.

And this one from India:

As we drove about southern India... I would like to tell you more but I just can't get enough sleep. I am too tired to write another

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Lavina's masterpiece: The little boy, the spatula and the befuddled old man with long, white, hair and beard

As you would suspect, given the fact that it took me two days to complete my posts on Kalib's birthday and in that two days I did not sit still, but encountered and photographed waitresses, baristas, ravens, airplanes, the moon and such, I had plenty of material from which to make today's post.

And then Lavina emailed this picture to me, that she took at Jacob's office Christmas party. When I opened her email I laughed. Last night, as I was lying in bed wondering when sleep might finally overtake me, I thought of this picture and laughed again. And then this morning when I awoke for the final time, once again all too soon to get a good night's sleep, I thought of this picture and laughed once more.

Laughing is not what I have been doing these past many weeks, before repeatedly falling briefly into and awakening from short spurts of troubled sleep.

Poor, befuddled, Santa!

But I understand - and you, dear reader, if you have been with this blog lately, and Kalib's various adventures with the spatula, you also understand.

So today, I am going to push all of my pictures aside and run only this, a masterpiece of subtle humor and love, shot not by me but Lavina. Other than this, I won't say anything about the photo, but will let it speak entirely for itself.

Please - this is a picture that needs to be seen at a larger size. So click here or on the photograph itself to see it bigger.

To see all posts that include Kalib and his spatula, click here.

Kalib's birthday, part 2: We party, there is fire in the house, dinosaurs roar, a dragon flies and a train goes round the track; goats take the right of way

Once again, I am running behind. Time to catch up and put Kalib's birthday behind us for another year. Anyway, readers will recall that on Christmas night, Jobe came down with a nasty bug and so the family stayed with us that night. The next morning, December 26, Kalib cooked breakfast for us. It was his third birthday.

His mother had planned to throw him a big sledding party in the afternoon at a park near their house in Anchorage, but, given the circumstances, had to cancel those plans.

Still, except for Caleb, who was not feeling well himself, and Bryce, who had just lost his grandfather, we all gathered at Kalib's house in Anchorage in the evening to throw him a little party.

Kalib was happy to see his new love, Ama and so came with his spatula to visit her and his Uncle Rex.

After a bit, I heard the sound of laughter and commotion out in the kitchen. It was Lisa, playing a YouTube video title, The Dream of the 90s is Alive in Portland. There is a line in it that could only have been written about Charlie - "in Portland, you can put a bird on something and call it art."

Readers from way back then will recall that Charlie and Melanie put birds in his beard Charlie, which won him a big award at the national beard championships in Portland and got his picture spread round the world in a multitude of both print and online publications.

Lisa and Melanie, and Charlie and I believe Bryce as well, have all fallen in love with Portland, the city where young people go to retire, and sleep until 11:00. They think it is a great city and they talk about moving there someday.

Jobe was still under the weather, but improving. When the party ended, I would go home alone so that Margie could stay for two or three days and care for Jobe until he gets well enough to return to day care.

Readers who have been with us for previous birthday parties may have noted that cakes have been brought out for people in the 20's, 30's and even the breach of 60's that have had very few candles on them - even as few as three.

Now one was brought out for a three year-old and it had a bunch of candles. 

Kalib did not object.

Kalib cut the cake himself - with just a wee bit of help from dad. He did not need anybody's help to clean the cake-cutting knife.

Lisa and Martigne. She also entertained us with You-Tube videos of Maru, a Japanese cat with an obsession for boxes - even tiny, tiny, boxes that it cannot fit into, but fits into them anyway.

Then, as Walking With Dinosaurs played on the TV, Kalib set about to open his presents. It was clear from the box that this one from his grandma contained a dragon, but, try as he might, Kalib could not open the box.

He tried so hard to open the box that he stubbed his toe and started to cry. He went to his Uncle Rex for comfort. In the meantime, Jacob went and found some tools and began to try to open the box.

At a certain point, Kalib shifted to his mom, and there received comfort. 

Whoever had designed and constructed the box really did not want anyone to ever open it and to free the dragon. It took Jacob several minutes, but finally the dragon was out.

It was Toothless, from the movie, How to Train Your Dragon, piloted by his Viking friend, Hiccup.

Kalib went flying with them.

How they flew! And what magnificent things they saw!

If you might be worried that such a fine gift would cause Kalib to forget about his spatula, put that worry away right now.

Lisa is certain that Toothless was patterned after her black cat, Zed. To prove this, she pulled up a picture that she had taken of Zed with her iPhone and put the two side by side. "See? Toothless looks just like Zed," she said.

Since I first saw Toothless in the movie, I have been convinced that he had been patterned after Jim - not only in looks, but in movement and mannerisms.

He also got a little train.

Kalib, Toothless, Hiccup and Margie.

And this one from India:

The open road is always a wonderful and dangerous place, but, much to my now ever-lasting pain, the Indian highway is an exceptionally dangerous highway. There may be traffic laws, but if they are acknowledged at all, it is only as suggestions meant to be ignored. Lanes mean nothing. Tail-gating is taken to the extreme. It is considered good driving to charge straight at the oncoming driver from an impossibly close distance and then to swerve at the last instant and escape death from headon collision by one inch.

But there is a law on the Indian highway that is absolute. Everyone obeys this law:

Goats have the right of way.

Goats always have the right of way and that right is respected and obeyed.

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