Breakfast, coffee break; Melanie comes out and we decorate the tree

Now, today:

In the morning, I got up and drove to Abby's Home Cooking. Abby had been at the wedding last night with her family, including daughter Emily who was a member of the bridal party.

So I decided I would go and let her fix breakfast for me.

I passed this cyclist along the way.

As you can see, another horrid mass of warm air has moved in from the Pacific - just like I speculated it would when I was trying to read the signs and predict the weather.

Damnit!

I hate this warm weather in December.

Funny, if any place else in the country, including the coldest states of the northern tier, had experienced the degree of consistent cold that we did in November, the religious among them would have said it was a sign that end was coming soon.

Hmmmm... perhaps all this warm weather in December here in South Central Alaska means... the end is coming soon?

There she is - Abby - cooking away behind the counter. This morning was the busiest I have ever seen it at Abby's. Every table but one was filled and there was action at the counter, too.

Shelly was not there to help her, because Shelly had run the restaurant all by herself all yesterday so that Abby could go to the wedding.

Abby's husband Andy was there, helping her.

Still, Abby was waitressing, cooking and busing.

If business keeps building up like this, she is going to have to hire more help.

As always at Abby's, I enjoyed my breakfast.

I guess I didn't totally work through the afternoon. Margie took the car and went shopping, so, having little rituals that I follow to keep me sane, when the time came, I walked to Metro Cafe for my coffee break. As I walked, this airplane flew by to both inspire and taunt me.

If it had been me up there, I would have had skis on by now.

I surely would have.

I'm not criticising, mind you.

This pilot might have a perfectly good reason to have kept this plane on wheels.

I can't think of a good reason, but the pilot might have thought of one.

Still, I would have rejected such a thought.

One of Carmen's guests had brought his 1974 yearbook to Metro. I would tell you his name, but I am going to let you see if you can figure it out for yourself.

If you can't, then I am sorry to say it, but your own education was a waste.

I don't care if you are a historian now, getting paid millions of dollars by government agencies and $60,000 a speech - if you can't figure this out...

Now, don't anybody post your answers in comments.

If you were wrong, I would hate to have to inform you.

In the evening, Melanie came over. We ate dinner, then we ate Alaska Wildberry chocolates. After that, we decorated the tree - or least Melanie and Margie did, after they went out into the yard while I was working on the wedding and cut it down.

For a long time, Margie had what she called "a Charlie Brown tree" all picked out.

They didn't cut it, though, because Melanie found another, even better, Charlie Brown tree.

Now, I have a very serious question to ask you:

Do you see any chocolate on the left side of Melanie's face?

Do you see any chocolate on the right side of Melanie's face?

Neither do I.

This is important, because a bit after I took these pictures, Melanie saw the image of herself in a mirror. She claims that chocolate was spread all across her face. She says she then washed that chocolate off.

She then began to scold me, telling me not to dare put a picture of her with chocolate on her face in the blog.

You didn't have chocolate on your face, I told her.

Yes I did, she insisted, and don't use any pictures showing chocolate on my face. Delete them. Delete them all.

I never delete a picture, I told her.

It didn't matter. There was no chocolate.

Margie hangs a Christmas tree ornament.

Melanie hangs a birch bark canoe ornament on a high branch. "We should get a star for the top," Margie said.

"Okay," I agreed.

This conversation has taken place now for, oh, I don't know... 25 years now? 30.

We really should, though.

Or an angel.

Or a cat, holding a song book, singing Christmas carols.

It could have a chip in it and really sing.

Last came the tinsel.

When it was done, I noticed they hadn't put the airplane oraments on the tree.

"Why didn't you put the airplanes on the tree?" I asked, reasonably.

"You have to do it," Melanie said.

"No," I said. "You could have done it."

"No. You always scold me. 'Don't put the airplanes on the tree,' you always say, 'only I can do that.'"

"No," I countered, truth on my side but to no avail, "I never say that."

Yet, it was clear that if the airplanes were going to get on the tree, I would have to do it.

So I did.

There were only two of them.

What happened to the rest?

I had enough airplane ornaments to decorate a whole tree all by themselves.

Not that I would ever do that.

But I had enough.

Where did they go?

Probably flew away, I guess.

Finally, the tree was done. The three of us stood before it and altogether we sang, "Oh Christmas Tree."

Or at least I did. All by myself.

Or at least I sang this much of it, in a non-existant key of my own invention:

"Oh, Christmas tree, oh, Christmas tree! How lovely are thy branches!"

"Dad," Melanie challenged, "are those the real lyrics? Or did you make them up?"

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Passing airplane still generates magic; a man, a horse, and Catahoula; two girls on a riverbank; four-wheeler in the river; ice cream on the face

Despite all the work facing me, I remained lazy throughout the remainder of the day. One should not work on magical days such as yesterday, especially when his grandsons are present.

I was out in the back yard with Margie and the boys when an airplane passed overhead. I remembered when I was a child how wonderful, mystical, and magical it was to see an airplane pass overhead. What with their constant viewing of videos, the trips to the 3D movies and all that, could Kalib and Jobe ever possibly get that same feeling from watching an airplane pass overhead?

Ha! Kalib got the feeling!

And so did Jobe!

In the afternoon, I took off on a 16 mile bike ride. It wasn't long enough. It was too short. I wanted to go and go, but I figured I would be gone too long. Down on Sunrise Drive, I saw a man, a horse, and a dog coming toward me.

It was these three - the man is Jim, the horse is Warrior and the dog is Chain. Chain is a Catahoula Leopard Dog, a breed that I had never heard of.

"I never thought I would wind up with a Catahoula," Jim said. "But I did."

I looked Catahoula up on Google and found they originated in Louisana. Here is part of what I learned about them:

The Catahoula Leopard Dog is independent, protective, and territorial. Loving with its family and all people they know well and reserved with strangers (this would include strange children)...

These dogs need attention. This is not a dog that can be tied to a doghouse, fed, and ignored. Chaining and or ignoring a Catahoula Leopard Dog will either make them shy or aggressive. They need human companionship. This breed needs direction, training, something to do, people, attention...

A Catahoula Leopard Dog enjoys the company of a good horse...

Maybe I made up one of the above lines.

I pedaled until it looked like the road was about to end in someone's yard.

On the way back, I decided to stop, climb up the rise over the road and see what I could see. This is what I saw - the Little Susitna River, with two girls sitting on the bank. Hence, this series of studies, beginning with:

Two girls on a riverbank, study #4,328: They stick their feet in the water.

Two girls on a riverbank, study #2: The sky overhead.

Two girls on a riverbank, study #282,881: they are joined by a dog.

I shot this four-wheeler image as I pedaled across the bridge that crosses the Little Su.*

*In comments, reader AkPonyGirl has pointed out that it is illegal to drive a four-wheeler in the Little Su, due to the damage they cause to salmon spawn.  Thank you, AkPonyGirl.

About 10:00 PM, I mentioned the words, "ice cream cone" and Kalib got excited. So I loaded up the boys, left Margie home for some moments of solitude and headed off to Dairy Queen. On the way, we saw a rainbow and began to chase it.

We did not catch it, but we did overshoot Dairy Queen, so we turned around at the next stoplight and headed back in the direction of ice cream.

At Dairy Queen, we got our cones, then parked for awhile. In the outside driver's rearview mirror, I saw two Dairy Queen workers, taking a break.

The boys and their cones. After I took this picture, I started the car back up and drove home.Jobe was a sticky mess when we got home, but the cone made it all the way without being dumped on the floor, in his lap or on Kalib and that was a first.

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We dine at the hog shak; dog lunges at bike - I am off to Kaktovik

Atop the bluff overlooking the once fine meadow that, despite the developers promise that they would leave a nice lake behind, is now a barren gravel pit Margie and I spotted a new kiosk. The sign in front of it said, "The Hog Shak"

So we pulled up to find out what it was all about.

Turns out, it is a new eatery featuring hog products.

So we both ordered a hog sandwich and a bottle of water.

As we waited, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw these two passing by.

This is Eric, who founded the hog shop three days ago, and his mom, Margaret, who is giving her son a helping hand to crank up his new little business.

The hog sandwich was pretty good, too. I kind of wanted a hog burrito but Margaret was still making the tortilla dough.

After I return from Kaktovik, I intend to try a burrito.

Late Thursday night, as I was pedaling my bike home on a shorter-than-usual ride, this dog charged me. I could see that it was just a silly pup and it did not frighten me, but it did give me some interesting moments.

Joseph was out walking his dog. The pup went and gave them some interesting moments, too.

If all goes according to plan, by the time this posts, I will be in Kaktovik. Now - perhaps you see a picture at the top of this post that I took with my iPad inside the Era Aviation flight that just brought me to Fairbanks, enroute to Kaktovik. Using the Squarespace iPad ap, I just tried to add it to the bottom of this post, the rest of which I put together last night before I went to bed for three hours.

*After I added it, it simply disappeared from the working window of the Squarespace ap. I opened up Safari and saw that it had gone to the top, sideways. So I came back to the Squarespace ap window to see if I could fix the problem, but the photo still does not show here, at the top or the bottom.

Given the general troublesome nature of Squarespace, I am not really surprised.

*This is the image that was at the top, as described above. As that was how it happened and how I described it, I was just going to leave it that way, but it bother me too much to look at it. So, I just now happened upon an online computer here in Kaktovik on which I could work on this without using the Squarespace ap and so I moved the photo down to the bottom where I had tried to place it in the first place and rotated it.

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UK coffee treat; a shadow, biking through the shadows

When I pulled up to the drive through window at Metro Cafe yesterday afternoon and went to pull my wallet out, Elizabeth told me to put it back. Carmen had received a letter with a purchase order for a Metro punch card from Martin Garrod of the UK.

Carmen came out and read the letter. It was a very nice letter. She said she will make me a copy of it.

Here is Elizabeth, bringing me my coffee as Carmen talks with Martin on the phone... I jokes! I do not know who Carmen was talking to.

Thank you, Martin! It was a big and welcome surprise and the coffee was excellent.

Martin sometimes leaves a comment after a post.

I feel rather bad about comments right now, as it has always been my intent to keep up a daily dialogue with those who leave comments, but my days are so packed and I am always so far behind schedule that most days I just let the comments stand for themselves, without responding to them.

I hope that sometime in the future I can do better.

Be assured, I appreciate all comments that are left here.

If everything had gone according to my plan, I would be hanging out at Era Aviation in Deadhorse right now, waiting for the airplane that I had expected to take me to Kaktovik where I was scheduled to land at 3:45 this afternoon.

However, an order for pictures that must be delivered before I can leave came in yesterday and it involves some searching and lot of sorting, editing, and processing. I thought I could get it all done by 1:00 AM and then get a little bit of sleep and make my 9:30 AM flight out of Anchorage, but I couldn't. So I postponed my trip to Kaktovik by one more day - except that tomorrow I leave on the 6:30 AM flight, which means I must get up about 4:00 and that is going to be tough - but my scheduled arrival is 10:30 AM and that will give me most of the day to get a little work done.

Late at night, I got on bike and went shadow biking.

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Carmen rides a little bike; frog appears; in the long but waning light of early summer, one can feel the approach of winter

Yesterday afternoon when I pulled into the Metro drive through, I saw Carmen, pedaling through the parking lot on Branson's bike. Hence, the above study:

Carmen in the Metro Parking Lot, Study, #52: Carmen transforms into a little kid.

I ate lunch in the back yard, so that Jimmy could spend a little time outside. A frog appeared - the biggest I have seen around here in a long time - the body must have been nearly three inches long - and around here, that is a huge frog.

While the frog population appears to be much smaller than it once was, one must still be careful walking in the backyard, because these guys are well-camouflaged and easy to not see and so step on.

It is an awful thing, to step on a frog.

I took this picture well after 10:00 PM, as I was riding my bike down Church Road. When I looked up and saw these clouds, I could feel the impending darkness. This may seem absurd to people in lower latitudes who have never seen the night sky look like this, but up here, many of us get this feelng the day after summer solstice:

The dark of winter, coming on.

Yesterday, I found fireweed in bloom. The blooms start with the bottom flowers and then progress upward as we move through summer. When the top flowers bloom, it is said that summer is over.

Summer is wonderful right now, and yet I can feel its end so strong.

The feeling is made all the worse by the fact that I have a great deal of production work to do this summer, and that work must all be done inside, at my computer.

I have long had this theory that I should not have any production work to do in the summer. Summers should be spent outdoors, shooting. Winters can be spent inside, producing.

Yet, somehow, I always lose a signficant portion of my summer to production.

Right now, I am producing work based primarily on images that I shot during the winter. So, except for a few fleeting moments, I am pretty much stuck inside this summer. Fish are running, animals moving and I am pretty much stuck inside, producing work built of the images of winter.

Everything is backwards of how it ought to be.

This must be the last such summer.

Next summer, I must be free to spend most of my time outdoors, shooting, living. No more of this summer production work!

An hour or so a day producing this blog would be okay, but that's it.

Next summer!

This one is already lost - mostly. I will still ride my bike most everyday that I am home. I might get in a short canoe trip, a hike, I might catch and cook a fish and next week I do plan a field trip north and at least part of that will be outdoor work.

But I should be able to be outdoors, everyday, most all the time.

Here I am, on my bike, late at night, corner of Seldon and Church. A light rain has fallen. The air smells sweet, and fresh. It is wonderfully cool against my skin.

I bike through a late night sunbeam, down by the Little Susitna River. My shadow follows.

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