I pass by a series of modest calamities, and then wind up at Taco Bell

Calamity Number 1: A four-wheeler is broken down, less than two blocks into my journey. I do not know what the problem is, but it looks pretty bad.

Calamity Number 2: Somebody's hood is open. There is a gas can on the ground by the red car. This is a perplexing combination. I can't figure it out. This happened less than one mile from my house.

Calamity Number 3: A tire has gone flat. A man fills it from a can as a woman observes while smoking a cigarette. This happened right in the Taco Bell parking lot.

A lady two vehicles ahead places her order as I think of inept calvary men. This is the Palmer Taco Bell, by the way. They tore the Wasilla one down while I was in India. When I left on that trip, I had this feeling that something bad would happen before I came home. Sure enough, it did. Margie thinks they had a fire in there, but is not certain.

Some people choose to eat inside. Me, I choose to sit in the car and eat outside.

The man ahead of me gets his order. I grow impatient with hunger.

He gives me my Pepsi. It is only my second Pepsi this week, so its okay that it is a large one. Plus, I am riding my bike a lot.

This is why I chose to eat outside, and not inside. I don't know why anyone would want to eat inside.

And then this worker comes to throw away trash. He is very thrilled to have the opportunity to be in my blog.

I get to witness the action. If I had eaten inside, I would have missed this.

Back in Wasilla, I see two dogs through a dirty windshield. A man walks with them.

Such is life in the Far North - well, the southern part of the Far North.

I will get back to blogging India. I just don't have time, right now. I don't even have time for this. That's why I drove to Taco Bell in the first place, because I did not have time to make a sandwich for lunch. And there was no ham.

I think it will take me all summer to blog my two weeks in India. Maybe a year. I will blog it, though - else why did I even take all those pictures?

Melanie and I take a small hike, frolic in the ash and take pictures of each other

Melanie takes my picture as I take her's. We are a bit above the old Independence Mine in the Hatcher Pass area, and a bit below Goldcord Lake. 

I had not planned to take a hike today, but this morning I found an email from Melanie. " What are you doing today? Considered going out today. Any time for a small hike?"

"Sure!" I responded. "I'll hike with you!" It would be my first hike since I broke my shoulder and got it replaced. I first went into surgery one year ago today.

So she drove out from Anchorage, transferred to the Escape and then we drove the wrong way into the most congested part of Wasilla so that I could drop off an electrical payment. We then turned around but drove less than a block before we saw these kids trying to entice us into a car wash.

I do not know what their cause was, but I am certain it is good, and the Escape was dirty, but it was raining and we had a small hike to do. We did not let them wash the car.

We were not quite certain where we would go, but decided that it would be somewhere in the Hatcher Pass area. We ruled Gold Mint trail out and then went up to Archangel Road which leads to the Reed Lake Trail but Archangel was blocked off, so we drove up to the mine, parked, and wound up on the trail to Goldcord Lake.

It is a short trail, just right for a small hike. So off we went. As we neared the "historic Lynch" sod cabin, built in 1930, Melanie stopped to examine various plants. She did not pick, but just examined.

We did step into the cabin, but it was obvious that people had been peeing in there, so we did not linger.

I decided that I never want to sleep in that cabin.

We did not see anyone as we hiked up, even though it was a Saturday, and I hoped it would remain that way once we reached Goldcord Lake, so that we could have perfect solitude.

Melanie looks at Goldcord Lake.

We did meet another human being. This lady. She had a friend with her, who we also met. I would tell you their names, but they were a bit wary and so kept their names to themselves.

They did tell us that they were scouting about for a good place to take some geology students from Alaska Pacific University on a field trip. They looked to me to be too young to be teachers, so I asked if they were students, thinking perhaps they were teacher assistants. No, they were not students, they assured us and they gave us no more information than that.

Maybe they are teachers. Professors even. As I get older, young people look younger and younger, so someone could be a teacher and even a professor and look the part to their peers and I could still think they were so young that they must be students.

They had seen some marmots and they were pretty pleased by that.

I told them how to find this blog.

I do not know if either of you will ever bother to do so, but, if you do, "hello." I enjoyed meeting you. It's true that I had hoped Melanie and I would see no one else, but you were both pleasant, even if wary. You made the experience a little nicer and more interesting than it would have been had we not met you.

If I were you and met me up in the mountains, I would probably be wary, too - even though you needn't have been.

There was a news story in the paper last week about how unusually fast the snow is melting off the mountain trails this year and there are two reasons for that. Although today was not one of them, we have had an abnormally big number of sunny, hot, days.

And Mt. Redoubt deposited so much volcanic ash in the mountains. That ash is dark, so it absorbs heat that the snow would otherwise reflect away. The heated ash swiftly melts the snow.

Despite how it looks in the distance, this is how all the snow that is left looks up close. It is covered with ash and here the paw of a dog broke through it.

See that line? That is volcanic ash left behind after the snow that pushed it there melted. It leads to an even greater concentration of ash and Melanie is mining it.

Melanie with her haul of volcanic ash. She will take it home and give it to Charlie. 

We hike along the lake. It is very steep here and Melanie speculates as to what would happen if one of us slipped and went down into the water. I am very confident such a thing will not happen.

Melanie, a little further along.

Melanie, over the lake.

Afterward, not far beyond where the road exits the canyon that leads up to Hatcher Pass, we stopped at a little restaurant sporting signs that boast of its chowder and espresso. We were the only the customers, so I was a little worried about the owners. I always like to see little businesses like this make it.

The guy told us not to worry. He said he was going to have some music festivals here and lots of people would come.

Melanie then noted that her boyfriend is a guitarist, plays with a band and might want to come and join in. So the man asked what kind of music Charlie played.

"Mostly classic rock," Melanie responded.

"So he plays all classical music?" the man responded, looking a little worried.

"Classic Rock!" Melanie stressed. She then added that Charlie also composes music of his own.

I then told the guy how Charlie even composed a song to Melanie, where he scolds her for trying to get a cat out of a tree, when that is the job of the fire department.

He was mighty impressed by that. I have no doubt that he will now do whatever is necessary to make certain that Charlie is there to play at all of his festivals.

It's a good song. I like it a lot.

That's a brownie that Melanie holds in her hand. I ordered a piece of strawberry rhubard pie, alamode.

It was pretty good. So was Melanie's brownie. We shared, that's how I know.

PS: There's still lots more from India left to come.

Kalib goes away - I wonder how he will have changed when next I see him, six or seven weeks from now? (Part 2 - and then some more India)

When we leave Auntie Lisa's to return briefly to Auntie Melanie's, Kalib rides with us, holding his teddy St. Bernard.

Up the stairs to Melanie's Duck Downs apartment.

Kalib climbs into a kitty tunnel. He meows and purrs and swishes his tail.

Soon, we are the airport, where he looks upon the stuffed remains of a once wild Kodiak brown bear.

Kalib tries to sneak on with the baggage. Jacob grabs him.

He was with his dad in the bookstore, but then he saw his mother.

His dad kisses him goodbye.

Then the three of them head for security and out of sight.

Poor Jacob! He drives away separately from me but does not get far before Lavina calls him. Kalib does not have his teddy St. Bernard. It was left at Melanie's place. Jacob drives over. Melanie runs out to meet him and gives him the St. Bernard. He rushes it back to the airport. He can see Kalib, Lavina, and Margie on the other side of the security barrier.

A security man comes forward. Jacob gives him the bernard. He takes it back to Kalib. The flight is on.

Kalib goes away - I wonder how he will have changed when next I see him, six or seven weeks from now? (Part 1)

Very early this morning, Kalib (and his mother Lavina and grandmother Margie, my own dear wife) boarded an Alaska Airlines jet and headed for Phoenix. From there, he and Lavina were going to a workshop in Flagstaff and Margie would meet her sister and head back to her native home, the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

Later, Lavina and Kalib will join them. Jacob will go down, too.

Shortly before they boarded the plane, we all met at the home of Kalib's Auntie Melanie in Anchorage.

Kalib found a stool to get under.

Those are Charlie and Melanie's tomato plants behind them. Tomotoes don't work around here if you plant them outside - the growing season is just too short. So they planted them inside.

We were all going to go to Arizona for an Apache Sunrise Dance that Margie's sister was going to be a Godmother for, but a relative of the medicine man died and so it has been put on hold for a year.

Margie had not secured her ticket yet, but I still had mine from last year, when I didn't go because I wound up in the hospital. That ticket had to be used this month or go to waste, so I gave it to Margie.

After giving Kalib a diaper change, his dad tossed him around a bit.

They will be gone for three weeks, but when they come back, I will be on the Arctic Slope until late July. So I will not see them for at least six, maybe seven weeks. I hate to think of all that I am going to miss. He will practically be grown up by then; he will be reciting poetry, and batting a baseball.

I will wonder where the time went and how I missed it all.

Kalib and Diamond.

We all decide to go and check out Lisa's new apartment. Kalib is first to the door.

He walks away from Melanie's Duck Downs apartment toward the car.

He does not get into the car, but onto his dad's shoulders who walks over with Charlie. It is still hard for Margie to walk very far, so we drive. Melanie comes with us because she knows where the new apartment is and we do not.

Immediately after this scene falls behind us, we hear Kalib scream in grief. He did not like to us drive away without him.

Inside Lisa's empty kitchen, Kalib watches Juniper go for the fake mouse. Lisa and Bryce moved because they have not had water in their old apartment for the past month. Their landlord ignored all their pleas to get the problem fixed.

So they moved. Now, the next battle will be to get their $1000 security deposit back.

Before we left, Kalib tipped over a box and out came this cat thermos. Melanie was amazed. The thermos is her's and she has been looking for it for awhile. She was a little chagrined with Lisa. Lisa said that she had planned to return it sometime when Melanie was not home.

Then Melanie would have returned and there it would have been. She would have wondered if she was going crazy.

Today, Part A: In the process of getting pictures for my India visa, I meet a friend from years ago, with his wife and daughter, then take a woman of grief to Taco Bell

Normally, I would have been able to mail my Visa application to the India Consulate in San Francisco from Wasilla, but, due to what proved to be an unnecessary process that I will not take the time to describe, I had not only my passport but Melanie's and I needed to get together with her, get a few things coordinated and then express mail both of our passports and applications out together.

So we had lunch, and then I headed to Wal-Mart to get my Visa photos taken. But the photo lady at Wal-Mart said she was closing down and I could come back in half-an-hour. I did not want to come back in half-an-hour, so I headed to Fred Meyer's.

As I drove through the parking lot, I saw George Oweltuck walking with his wife and daughter. I have not seen George in many year's - except on Facebook, where he is a friend.

I parked, got out out and he introduced me to his wife. I should have written her name down. I don't know what's happening to my brain!

Georgianna? If I am wrong, George, please correct me.

The beautiful daughter, I believe, is Nona, although I might need correcting there, too.

She is beautiful, too, but she was feeling very camera shy today, so you only get to see the back of her head.

I then went into Fred's to get the photo taken. I thought they would have lighting set up, but they didn't - just this guy with a flash and me against a tiny screen background. The picture, as you suspect, turned out awful.

Oh, well. I am rather homely anyway.

I then headed over to the Ingra Street post office to get the requisite money orders and express mail the package to San Francisco. I turned off my ignition and, BANG! Something smacked my passenger window. Then smacked it again.

I turned, and saw a short, frantic, woman of Southeast Asian decent motioning me to roll down my window. 

I did not want to, but I did. Did you ever hear about the Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief? Well, I did, and it is very hard for me to turn away, even when I know that ultimately, whatever I do in response will do no good at all.

"I'm hungry!" she spoke in a panic. "People are being mean to me! Nobody will feed me. Nobody will take me to the store, buy me food. My roommate wouldn't share his orange juice with me. Could you take me to Taco Bell?"

So I did, I drove her to Taco Bell and all the way there, she keep telling me how mean people had been being to her: young, pretty girls, mocking her, telling her they were prettier than she. "What does it mean, when they tell me that?" she asked. "Why do they say it? Why are they mean? When they call me retarded, what does that mean?"

She wanted to know the meaning of many things, but I could tell her the meaning of nothing.

She wanted five tacos, some crispy potatoes and a Diet Pepsi. "That's a lot of food," I said.

"I don't have food for later! It's for now and later." So I bought it all, then drove her to the place where she said she lived with her roommate, who was being mean to her, called her bitch, "hit on me."

"White people are mean to me! Black people are mean to me! Why? What does it mean when people are mean to me? Is this how people are in Alaska? What does it mean? How is it in the Lower 48? Is it better there?"

So I dropped her off to face her mean roommate, went back to the Post Office, got everything ready, paid my fees and then took note of the part in the instructions where it said that I should be certain to include my application number on the money order, and be certain to sign it.

I did not know why it said this. You can make a perfectly good money order without putting an actual signature on it. Yet, the Indian Consulate wanted a signature. No problem for my money order, but what about Melanie's?

So I called Melanie's place of work. She had just left to go perform some kind of task with her boss and a coworker. The receptionist did not know when she would be back. Worse yet, Melanie had forgotten her phone today, so I could not call her.

The postal lady who had taken my money had said that after I filled out the money orders, to give the packet straight back to her.

So I rushed over to Melanie's place of work, but she had not returned. I stayed in the area, got coffee, checked back. No Melanie. The clock hit 5:00. The office closed. No Melanie. The Post Office would close at 5:30. So I signed it for her and put my initials by it, rushed back to the P.O. and gave it to the lady just before she closed.

I could not help but think - if I had just ignored that hungry lady, shunted her aside, I would have gotten to Melanie in plenty of time. I would not have wasted the hours that I did. She would have survived. She is no better off now then she would be if I had turned her aside, avoided all this.

"A poor wayfaring man of grief hath often passed me on my way, who sued so humbly for relief that I could never answer 'nay.'"

How many people have helped me out, all over Alaska? I really had  no choice, did I?

I drove back to Wasilla, stopped at our post office to check my mail and there saw the above dog, waiting for a human.

And late in the evening, about 9:00 PM, as everything was beginning to refreeze, I went walking with Jacob and Kalib.