I take an eight-dog walk

Dogs numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5: I came upon them at the Rocket House - Tequila and four others, who I think may be her pups, but I don't know. As regular readers know, Tequila always tries to act tough, even though I know otherwise.

On this walk, however, she was nothing but friendly.

"Hey Bill!" she shouted out in a welcoming bark. "Want to come in and have some coffee?"

"Who made it?" I shouted back.

"I did!" she barked proudly.

"No thanks," I answered.

I have never met a dog yet who could brew a decent cup of coffee.

I walked on, leaving Tequila and her kids to whine and pout.

Dogs numbers 6, 7 and 8: I saw them coming up Tamar as I was going down. The situation looked worrisome. I was reminded of the lone, western hero, his six-shooter Colt hanging from his belt as he walk down the street toward a quartet of sneering gunslingers, his six-shooter hanging low off his belt.

Except my Colt was a Canon camera and it doesn't shoot anything but pictures.

Oh, my goodness! I can see that I am in trouble! It is Button, Duke and Sugar, with their sidekick Robert - feared in every corner of Alaska! I know that I am about to get mauled to death.

Sure enough, they ripped me to pieces.

And then, leaving my torn remains lying on the icy road, they went about their business, looking for another walker to maul.

Somehow, I pulled my shredded self back together, got up and walked on - a one-armed shadow of my former self.

Through the Window Metro Study, # 4186: At the usual time in the afternoon, I drove to Metro for my coffee and found the friendly and wry smiles of Elizabeth, Greg and Carmen. It was good - great. Unlike the dog, Tequila, they know how to brew a cup of coffee at Metro.

So I drove away, drinking and savoring, putting myself back together after having been ripped apart by friendly dogs.

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Four studies of the young writer, Shoshana; tulip for an ill lady

Truly, I must keep it brief today, so I begin with:

Study of the young writer, Shoshana, # 3472: The young writer hands a pen to a customer so that he can sign his credit card in order to pay for his coffee.

Study of the young writer, Shoshana, # 2743: The young writer pours cream into a cup in preparation to make my Americano.

Study of the young writer, Shoshana, # 4732: Shoshana in black and white.

Study of the young writer, Shoshana, # 4273: The young writer works her way through a crowd of gold miners as they study gold mining equipment online via a laptop computer.

Through the Metro window study, #8222: Carmen, who just had a birthday, learns that my Margie is ill and feeling terrible. Carmen gives me a red tulip and tiny white flower to take to her.

Margie with her tulip and tiny white flower after putting them in a vase with water.

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Breakfast, a dog and coffee

Short and brief today: as noted yesterday, after Charlie won the beard contest I had to drop Margie off at Jacob and Lavina's to help care for Kalib and Jobe. Kalib was a bit ill.

Naturally, in the morning, with my family absent, I took breakfast at Family Restaurant.

I would have preferred to sleep until after noon, but I had a significant task that had to be completed by lunch time, so I got up early, before daybreak. Not so long ago it was easy to get up before daybreak. One could sleep late and still get up before daybreak.

As the days lengthen, it gets harder and harder.

Soon, it will be impossible, for day will not break. Day will just be there, fading into and out of itself.

In the afternoon I took a little walk. I soon came upon Taiga and Tony.

Taiga. 

We simply are not getting much snow this winter. To the north of us, Fairbanks, a normally very dry city with not much snow, is buried. South of us there is plenty of snow. There is snow to the east and west. Lately, there have been some big blizzards on the Arctic Coast that I am told have buried all kinds of things.

Here, at the end of February, the entire winter accumlation adds up to little more than a dusting.

When I stopped at Metro for coffee, Carmen was very excited. Some new people had moved into the neighborhood from Ketchikan. They were now coming to Metro Cafe every day and loving it.

So Carmen called the Ketchikan people to come over from the table where they were comfortable drinking their afternoon coffee and to pose for a Through the Metro Window study.

So here it is:

Through the Metro Window Study #7,656: Carmen with Ketchikan relocatees

Ketchikan is a rainy city - over 200 inches a year. It never gets very cold in Ketchikan. But once, a long time ago, I went to Ketchikan to cover a Tlingit and Haida meeting for the Tundra Times. The Ketchikan airport sits on an island a bow-and-arrow shot away from the city, but with no famous "Bridge to nowhere" one must cross over by ferry.

And on that day, a long time ago, it was raining and wind was blowing hard and I was sitting on that ferry with little protection from the elements and it felt darn cold.

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For seven years, she refused to date him when he would show up at the motel; now they have been married seven years; a temple blessing; contemplating, part 2, on hold

As you can see, I wound up at Family Restaurant again this morning, but for a different reason. Jobe has been vomiting again, so Margie left at about 8:30 this morning to drive into town so that she could babysit him. I figured that it might be my only chance to ride in a car today, so I had her drop me off at Family on her way. I took this image after breakfast, as I was beginning my walk home, maybe a bit less than four miles. It was a bit after 9:00 AM. This may look dark for 9:00 AM to some of you, but for us, it is amazing to see how quickly the light is coming back.

As I walked along Lucille Street a raven would come flying by, always headed south, directly over the road, every few minutes. They all looked pretty intent to reach their destinations. I figured that these were ravens who nest out in the hills near the foot of the Talkeetna Mountains, but make their living in downtown Wasilla, primarily off the food that people discard - the ravens that I see at Taco Bell, Carl's Jr., McDonald's and such.

It was morning, and these ravens were going to work.

It was garbage pick-up day in our neighborhood.

As I did not have a car and had already walked four miles, I figured that I would just skip my Metro coffee break and listen to the news in my office while I edited pictures. But about 3:30, I was overcome by a strong desire to get out of the office, so I took off on foot for Metro Cafe. It was snowing now. 

Here I am, walking down Lucille Street, toward Metro. Look how heavy the traffic is! Yet, it is too early for people to be coming home from work. Why are all these folks driving down Lucille?

I arrived at Metro a little before 4:30, closing time being 5:00. Carmen invited me to look at her wedding album. They got married seven years ago, when she was 38, Scott 48. It was his third, her first. She met him when she was working at the Best Western Motel on Spenard in Anchorage. He would sometimes come and check in for the night on his way to and from the Arctic Slope oil fields and each time he did, he would ask her out. 

Each time, she would say no. He would tell her that one day they would marry, she would be his wife and would have his babies. She would say, "no!" This went on for seven years. Finally, she agreed to go to a movie with him, just to put an end to all the nonsense and get him out of her life. Anyway, she was Catholic and he was not.

That one date led to the marriage. It could not take place in the Catholic church, but "God knew what he was doing when he brought us together," Carmen says.

Scott has completed all of his cancer treatment and has finally gone back to work on the Slope, where temperatures have been running in the -50 range, with -75 and even -95 windchills. Carmen says he is finding the cold a bit hard to take, given the aftereffects of his radiation and chemo treatments.

I hear that it is warming up now - into the -30's and -20's.

This is Ryder, who came to Metro Cafe with his mom, Buffy, and his Aunt Danielle. Ryder drank hot chocolate and, except for me, was the last customer to leave.

I had planned to walk home, but Nola offered me a ride. I decided that seven miles was enough to have walked today. I got into the car. Nola brushed the new snow off the window.

Nola drinks a bottle of water as she drives me home.

 Okay - Part 2 of Contemplating the future of this blog will just have to wait until tomorrow. This post is long enough already.

And this one from India:

Inside one of the temples at Pattadakal - blessings are offered.

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Margie and I drop in to Metro Cafe - she drives on to Anchorage, I walk home; boy takes precarious seat overlooking the temple and the sea

Jacob and Lavina had something to do Monday night, so they called and asked if Margie could come in to babysit and stay for the night.

This meant that I would be without a car. So we agreed that Margie and I would leave together at coffee break time, we would stop at Metro Cafe, go inside, enjoy a cup and cinnamon roll together and then she would drive on to Anchorage and I would walk back home.

So here is Elizabeth, seen not through the window from the outside, but from the inside, preparing our coffees.

And here is Elizabeth serving one of those coffees. As you can tell by the punch card lying on the counter, the coffees this day still came courtesy of the generous reader in North Carolina. Even with a card, I still lay down cash for the tip.

In past posts, I have lamented about the ironic fact that when we were young and she possessed all of her exceptionally exquisite youthful, beauty, Margie would almost always refuse to let me photograph her. Most of the exceptions involved the kids also being in the picture. 

As I have pointed out, Now that we have grandkids, she has somewhat relaxed about it - especially if the grandkids are in the pictures. No grandkids were with us at Metro, but she did tolerate a photo. As you can see, "tolerate" is the exact right word.

And then my eye got distracted and my lens pulled away from her beautiful face by this four-wheeling guy and his dog, as they whizzed by. The dog is kind of hard to see, but if you look close, maybe you can find it. If you can't see it here and it is important enough to you, you can try again in slide show view.

It's really not all that important and I won't feel bad if you don't.

Inside the Metro Cafe, Carmen study, #13,496: Carmen poses with Margie and me

Were I to take the most direct route home, I would need to walk about two-and-half miles. That route follows two busy roads - Lucille and Seldon streets. I did not want to walk along busy roads al the way home. I wanted solitude. So I chose a route that would add about one mile, but in which I could find more solitude.

Even that route started out on a busy road, Spruce Street, which is where I walk right here.

Two ravens flew over as I walked down Spruce Street.

In 2002 or 2003, not long after I had made the leap from film to digital cameras, I managed to purchase a bulky, professional, Canon 1D camera body that shot an 11 mp image - the highest resolution available at the time - for just under $8,000. Funny - that I could manage such a purchase then, but now that I am more established and better known than ever, it would be impossible.

One morning, as I waited for my next flight during a stopover in Boise, Idaho, a gentleman who was then about the age I am now took note of my camera. He was impressed, his face full of smiles.

"I'll bet that digital photography is great for you," he gushed. "You can make your pictures better than ever - like, if you take a picture and there are powerlines in it, you can take them out."

"I wouldn't do that," I answered. "If there are powerlines there, they are there. They are part of the scene. I won't take them out. That would be a violation of my journalistic ethics."

This really angered and offended him. He became so indignant that his face turned red and his nose damn near popped off. His voice turned sharp, rasp and sputtery.

I tried to tell him that it did not matter to me what he did with his, that I did not apply my ethics to him, but that I was a photojournalist and a documentarian and that it would undermine my credibility if I started removing powerlines, just because I could. If I were doing ads or a different kind of art that is not documentary, an art in which the literal does not matter, then what the hell, it would be okay.

He did not buy this. He felt personally insulted and let me know it.

I imagine that he probably has a digital camera now - assuming that he still lives and is healthy enough to take pictures.

Perhaps he now takes the powerlines out of his pictures. If so, I'll bet that each time he does, he thinks of me and gets to feeling all indignant all over again.

But really, I do not care what he or anyone else does. I will not judge them for it.

As for me, the powerlines are simply just part of the picture.

Life has powerlines.

I continued on. A jet passed in the distance. I got a call from a friend, in tears, to tell me that her aunt had just died. I spoke what words of comfort to her that I could.

I walked on in solitude. As darkness slowly deepened, I passed beneath a street lamp and it cast my shadow before me. If it appears that there is a spirit accompanying me, then I must note that it is only a scuff on the trail left by someone who gunned their snowmachine right here and spun the track as they drove over this spot.

Yet, this does not mean that a spirit could not have been walking with me, or perhaps gliding along beside me. If the thought should frighten anyone, let me assure you, that spirit would have been a good one. Troubled, perhaps, but good. Simply, fundamentally, purely - good.

I don't know about spirits - if they truly exist or if they are just a creation of the human mind, a fiction, a survival mechanism to help us bear that which does not seem to be bearable. Yet, if spirits do not exist, then why do I so often seem to feel a spiritual presence? In something so simple, perhaps, as a sudden, unexpected, solitary, gust of wind in my face, at just the right moment?

And this one from India

A youth took a somewhat precarious seat overlooking the Mamallapuram temple grounds and the Bay of Bengal and then asked me to take his picture.

So I did.

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