Again, I found myself walking in the hard, cold, wind which has seemed to become perpetual lately - temperature about 0 F. Yesterday afternoon, I heard a forecast on the radio calling for an overnight high wind advisory, with winds gusting up to 80 mph (130 km/h) at some places in this valley and temperatures going to -20 F (-28 C).
That would be quite a wind-chill factor.
Well, the night has past and none of that quite came true here - maybe it did somewhere else in the valley but not here. Still, it was a mighty cold brisk wind out there and when you went walking in it, it let you know it.
Even so, Ubiquitous Raven came sailing by.
On the moon, there was no wind at all. See how still it is up there?
The day before, a triple stop sign had ordered me to stop three times. Now, I was ordered to stop once, but I was on foot, so I did not obey that order.
Well, I guess I stopped to take the picture.
But not because I was ordered to.
If I were a child, and had a sled...
So, just why did the chicken cross the road? I don't know, and this dog doesn't either. Furthermore, neither one of us cares. If a chicken wants to cross the road, that's the chicken's business.
Why do people make such a big deal about a chicken crossing the road, anyway?
When I left to go on my walk, Jimmy had been sitting on the sill of my office window, looking out. This had made me a bit nervous, as Jimmy can do some pretty bad things when he has the office to himself. He turns off hard drives, erases things from my computer and types gibberish into my stories.
I am not making this up - he does all of these things.
Plus, he loves to push things off counters, desks and tables and watch them fall to the floor.
Even so, he looked so happy in the window sill that I decided to chance it and leave him there.
I came home the back way, through the marsh, hoping that I might find some moose there.
I didn't, but when I came up through our back yard, I saw Jimmy sitting right where I had left him about one hour before.
He had been a good cat.
But then Jimmy is always a good cat, even when he is bad.
I don't know how there could be a better cat than Jimmy.
He is ten-and-a-half years old now.
If he goes before me, which seems quite possible, it will be very hard.
Jacob and Lavina wanted to do some major house cleaning this weekend, so they asked us to take the boys. We agreed and in the late afternoon drove into Anchorage to get them.
As you can see, Anchorage has not been scoured by the same high winds that we have - except for the Anchorage Hillside, populated largely by rich people who every winter endure 100 mph plus winds, but they have a really good view from up there. They can see Cook Inlet, Denali, Foraker and a host of active volcanoes.
The snow did not mostly all blow away there the way it did in Wasilla. Plenty was left behind to weather the big warmup - that warmup now being history.
Here we are, picking up the boys. Muzzy wants to come, too. We will not let him.
Now we are getting ready to leave, but before we do, Lisa stops by. That's her and Jacob in the driveway.
On the way out, we stopped at Taco Bell on Muldoon and found a cop with his lights flashing, parked behind an empty vehicle.
I have no idea what the story was. You could look in the Anchorage Daily News, but I doubt that you will find it there, either.
I could have played the role of the true reporter, gotten out, interviewed the officer, took a picture of any suspect with her hands over her eyes. I could have done something like that. I have those basic skills, you know.
If I had done it, then I could tell you why the cop had stopped behind the empty car.
But I was more interested in eating my burrito than in getting the story.
Nobody can fire me.
This is my blog and if I would rather eat a burrito than report on a cop-stop, I can.
We then drove on to Wasilla. The winds weren't bad at all until we reached the hay flats. Then it felt kind of like being in an airplane, flying through turbulence, except that the bumps and jolts were all lateral - no up and down.
A couple of times, we damn near got blasted out of our lane. I could hear the sound of dust and small pebbles smacking the car.
But we made it. I was glad, too, because if we hadn't have I would never have seen this tanker truck roar through the intersection of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways.
I don't know about you, but, at the end of a long, hard, tough, day, I really enjoy seeing a truck blast through the intersection like this.
It just takes all the stress that I feel and carries it down the road with it.
Poor truck driver! Now he must deal with that stress.
Better him than me.
He's probably tougher than I am, better able to take it.
Truck drivers are known for being tough, able to take it.
Once in the house, Kalib found a flashlight. I found another. We played flashlight games.
Jobe does not know how to use a flashlight, but that did not stop him from joining in the games.
Yes, Kalib had brought his spatula - none of the expensive, fancy toys that he got for Christmas and his birthday. Just his spatula.
And this from India:
Two girls in front of the cave temples of Badami.
I hate to say this, and I mean no offense to any of my fellow Americans, but after one spends a little time in India and then returns to the US, the way people dress here - at least the women - just seems kind of dull and drab by comparison.
The women in India just dress beautifully - even poverty stricken women, begging in the streets.
They remind me of the Navajo saying, "I walk in beauty."
Badami is a long way from Navajo land, but the red rocks kind of remind me of it, as do temples, built in caves - not the same at all but yet evocative of cliff dwellings.
View as slide show
Monday, January 17, 2011 at 2:46PM ;)
;)
