It warms up and snows, Carmen and Shoshana, Heaven-bound Christian goes nuckin' futs, dog challenges me to game of chicken; I go bananas

I don't mind cold - in fact, I like cold (although I hate to be cold). But I was getting fed up with this weather: temperatures consistently below zero F - lately most often double digits below, but no real snow on the ground - only ice, crust and frozen earth. I was just getting tired of it.

I wanted some fresh, new, snow to cover it all up but no snow had fallen for weeks. Maybe a month or more. It's been a long time. Down south, I see lots of reports of heavy snow, but up here in the north we have a dearth of it.

And we wouldn't get any more until the temperature warmed up a bit. It never snows when it is cold.

And then... the temperature warmed up to ten degrees above zero - plenty warm enough to snow. And so it began to snow. It wasn't much of a snow, really. Just a dusting.

The ravens enjoyed it, though. Ravens always enjoy the weather, no matter what it is. Or so it seems. I've really never asked a raven about it, but whenever I see ravens, they always look like they are having fun.

I see them in all kinds of weather.

Always having fun.

Ravens enjoy life.

That's why I enjoy ravens so much.

Eagles may be more grand and spectacular, but ravens - they're the smart, clever, mischievous, happy ones.

And the Mahoney horses - they were enjoying the dusting of snow.

And then it turned into slightly more than a dusting. By morning, a few inches had accumulated. Margie took the car, and left me on foot to walk. That other car? That belongs to Caleb. It hasn't really run or gone anywhere in a couple of years or so.

Every now and then, he starts it up just to see if he can still start it up, but it has some problems. Some day, he says, he will sell it.

At 4:00 PM, I stopped at Metro Cafe. The temperature had now warmed up to 18 degrees F. Carmen and Shoshana were marveling over the warm weather and talking about how, when such temperatures first strike right after summer, they come to the window, open it and freeze, then shut it as quickly as they can. Now, 18 degrees feels warm to them. They don't even bother to close the window.

Then Carmen began to tease Shoshana about her new boyfriend. That's what she's doing here. She's teasing Shoshana. When I get a chance to blog the party they invited me to last weekend, I will introduce her boyfriend.

He is very lucky and at the party I told him so.

As Carmen teased Shoshana, I looked in my mirror and saw two of the girls who live just a short distance up the road coming for their afternoon smoothies.

As the girls drew near, Carmen continued to tease Shoshana.

Then the girls were in Metro Cafe. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but, just like that, the oldest and Carmen began to compare their finger nails.

At first, I tried to focus on Carmen's, which were bright red. I didn't realize it at the time, but I missed the focus a bit.

Still, you get the idea.

Then I tried to focus on the girl's nails, which were sort of a fluorescent lemon-lime. I didn't realize it at the time, but I missed the focus by quite a bit. Still, you get the idea.

I would have stayed longer, tried a few more shots and made sure I got the focus, but I was in the drive-through line and I did not want to make anyone coming in line behind me wait until I had my focus perfect, so I drove away with blurry images.

Some photographers aim for perfection. Me, I just want to get the idea down and to tell a story, even if imperfectly.

I hadn't gone far before I found myself stopped at a red light, right behind this car. This should all be quite legible in slide show view, but just in case anyone is having trouble reading everything at this small size, I will interpret the three signs as I understand them, beginning with the fish at lower left. The name, "Jesus" is written in the fish. This tells me that the owner of the car is a Christian.

The license tells me that the owner is "heaven bound."

And the little bumper sticker in the window tells me that the owner is going "nuckin' futs."

This one puzzles me a bit. I have never heard of either of these words, "nuckin'" or "futs."

What does this mean?

Please, someone, tell me!

I start to wander how the Mahoney horses are doing today, so I point the car in their direction. Along the way, I see many exciting and wonderful sights. Here is one of those wonderful and exciting sights.

"How you doing, Mahoney horses?" I shout out the window.

"We're doing good, Bill. How about you?" they neigh in return.

"Could be doing better," I shout back. "But I'm surviving. Don't know how or why, but I am."

"Good," the horses neigh back. "It's better to survive than not to survive."

These horses are wise.

And yet, the time always comes when each one of us, horse and human alike, does no longer survive.

Make of this contradiction what you will.

Next, I come upon a little dog, standing in the road, facing me as I drive towards it. I wonder what the dog intends to do? I slow to a modest speed.

As if I was going fast to begin with.

Why!? The dog comes charging straight at me! The dog wants to play chicken! Foolish canine! Can it not see that I am driving a hunk of steel and it is just a fragile little skin packet of bones, flesh, blood and fur?

I will win this game of chicken, easy.

But I don't win. I chicken out and brake to a complete stop.

The dog stops, too. I would call this a tie.

The dog disagrees. The dog calls this a clear win for the dog.

I'm going nuckin' futs!

Whatever that means. I don't know. I have no idea. But I'm pretty sure that it describes me right now.

And this one from India:

See the hands on this side of the bananas? They belong to my nephew, Vijay Dixit, brother of Vivek who is husband to my sister's daughter Khena and first cousin to Soundarya, which in India makes him kind of like her brother.

One afternoon, Vijay treated Melanie and I to a feast of bananas - including bananas of varieties that we never see here in the US, let alone in Alaska.

For over a year-and-a-half now, Vijay has been waiting for me to post a picture sequence on that feast.

At the beginning of this week, I told him that I would post it for certain this week.

Each day, I thought that I would do it the next day, but then the next day there would be too many images in my regular, current, series for me to post the banana series, as to do so properly I must use several images.

Today, once again, my regular post came in with too many images. I don't know why. It just happens that way. Tomorrow is the last day of the week, so I decided I would post the bananas then. Then, this morning, it occurred to me that tomorrow is a doubly significant day and I must post something else.

So I decided I would wait until Sunday - but Sunday is next week.

So, in order to somewhat keep my promise to Vijay and get at least some banana material up this week, I now post this picture of Vijay in a Chennai fruit store, looking for just the right bananas to stuff into Melanie and me. 

I promise, Vijay - I will keep Sunday's Alaska material light - maybe just one image, perhaps two, no more than three, and I will post the full banana experience that you treated us to.

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Icy roads, horse, another coffee gift; I find Margie watching a speech

A little after noon, as the cat, Chicago and I sat on the couch chill'n, Margie worked on the fire. Look at the intensity of the light coming through the back door window! We have not seen light this intense in quite awhile.

I was late getting to my walk. Not until about 3:00. As I began my way up this icy stretch of road, I saw a car coming towards me. I wonder who was in it? Where were they going? What did they wonder about me?

Immediately after my walk, I headed to Metro, fully prepared and expecting to pay for my own coffee today. But Elizabeth wouldn't let me. Someone in North Carolina had bought, not one, but two, coffee cards for me.

Boy, if this keeps up, I may never have to pay for a cup of Metro coffee again - and all thanks to anonymous blog readers.

Thank you, North Carolina reader.

Carmen was too busy visiting others to come to the window, but she did post for a through the Metro window study with this lady, whose name I forget, but I do remember that she teaches a sewing class.

Through the Metro Window Study, # 11,213: Carmen and the Sewing Class Teacher, Elisabeth busy in the foreground

As I prepared to drive out of the Metro parking lot, I saw the moon, over the trees.

On I drove, sipping my coffee, eating my cinnamon roll. When I came to this stretch of road, I thought to myself, "hmmmmm... this looks like a place where there might be horses up ahead."

What do you think, reader? Could I possibly have been correct? Could there be horses ahead?

Sure enough, there was. If you don't believe me, here's proof. How could I have known such a thing? The horses must have whispered it to me on the wind, which continues to blow.

On my way home. I had thought that I would listen to the President's speech at the Memorial Service for the shooting victims in Tucson, but it was not on the radio.

When I stepped back into the house, I found Margie watching the speech on TV. I sat down beside her. Right after I did, President Obama announced that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords had opened her eyes. The TV camera zoomed in on First Lady Michelle Obama and Gifford's husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.

And this one from India:

Yesterday, I posted a picture of a young man and a girl standing amidst the ruins of Hampi, in front of a temple with a roof supported by elegant stone columns.

Today, I will take just a little more time so that I can tell you that the structure is called Vittala Temple, was built in the 15th century in honor to Lord Vishnu, and there is something special about those stone columns - music comes from them.

If one taps on the columns, they ring at different pitches. Our timing was not right to hear them, but there are groups of musicians who sometimes gather here and perform musical works on the columns. They do not use their hands as this couple is doing, but wooden mallets that better bring out the sound.

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Kalib and Jobe visit via pixel; a single study of the young writer, Shoshana; Carmen froze in Arizona; moose in the road; elephants in the road

I have not seen these two, Jobe and Kalib, for over a week now. Lavina is pretty good at sending pix to me over the phone. I always show them to Margie. She always likes them.

For those who might have read my entry three days ago about my dream of Jobe and the grizzly bears but who may not have read all the comments, here is the one left by Lavina:

"Wow, that intense, I got chills thinkn about it! But Jobe is of the Bear clan on his Apache side so maybe that's why they befriended him b/c he's one of them...I'll give hugs to Jobe for you."

As soon as I read this comment, I went into the house, grabbed Margie, dragged her out here into my office and had her read it.

She was startled, and pleased.

"Yes!" she of the Bear Clan said. "I didn't even think of that."

And neither did I.

That's Lavina - always in tune.

Study of the Young Writer, Shoshana - this from two or three days ago. I had not planned to do any more studies of Shoshana for maybe another week, at least a few more days, but her earrings caught my eye.

Here I am, on my way to Metro again, as this kid shoots by in the opposite direction. It is Monday, January 10. Carmen has been gone on vacation since Christmas. She is supposed to be back to work today. Will she be?

She is! Elisabeth tells her I am at the drive through window. We are all happy to see each other.

"How was Arizona?" I ask her.

"Freezing!" she answers. "Cold. It was so cold, Bill! I couldn't get warm. I was cold all the time. You must bring Margie by. I must ask her about this."

It was cold everywhere she went, she says, including Phoenix and Scottsdale.

They did not take any warm clothing with them because, after all, they were going to Arizona from Alaska.

She folds her arms and draws them tight against her body, as if she is trying to conserve the heat that she lost down in Arizona. She looks like she is about to shiver.

"It was cold, Bill," she says. "Freezing cold."

 Back out on the road, this moose crossed in front of me. I could have been forced to hit my brakes and to slide all over the place, maybe right into the moose, but I was watching out for it before it ever showed itself.

I just knew that a moose was going to pop up right around here.

I felt certain of it.

Sometimes, you just know these things.

Sometimes you don't.

Then you are more likely to hit the moose.

It happened again this morning. I got to sleep somewhere between two and three am, woke up a few times and then could not sleep a wink past 5:15. Still, I stayed in bed with the covers over my head, two cats laying on me and another tucked in close to my side until Family Restaurant opened.

Then I went, sat down, was served breakfast and all the coffee that I could drink and I drank too much. I photographed myself in the window. I noticed this morning that the amount of gray or white in my hair seems to have increased by at least four-fold over what it was just this past fall.

Maybe it was the mirror and the way the light hits it. Maybe if I look in another mirror, I will see that I have not gained all this gray, after all.

I need to get my hair cut and my beard and mustache trimmed.

Wouldn't everybody be surprised if one day I just shaved my beard and mustache completely off. They would really be surprised. Nobody has seen my like that for over a quarter century. I bet my face would be really pale, and shiny.

If I were ever to do something like that, I would grow the beard back real quick.

If I didn't, I would have to shave everyday. To me, it just makes no sense to waste time shaving every day.

And these two from India

We drove through two national parks where wild elephants hang out, and both times it was after dark. But every now and then, an elephant would appear in the headlights of our taxi.

People passing through the parks are required to stay in their cars. They cannot get out and go roam around. One can only hike in the parks with a permit.

My nephew, Ganesh, Soundarya's brother, knows how to get these permits and has promised to one day take me hiking out there, among the elephants.

When she saw the elephants, Soundarya shrieked with joy. There is more to this story, of course. There always is.

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To get out and take a walk

Regular readers know that I am a person who likes to get out and do something outside every day, whether it is to ride my bike, walk, cross-country ski, canoe, or whatever. I have not canoed or cross-country skied since I shattered my shoulder and got an artificial one in June of 2008 and I have only ridden my bike twice since the snow settled in.

With a shoulder like this, I am just afraid to fall. Even so I had thought that this would be a good week to finally dig my skis back out and see what I could do with them.

But so far I haven't done it and right now I don't feel like I am going to.

I have not even been able to make myself take my usual walks. Up until yesterday, I had not taken a single walk since the one that I took in Barrow immediately after I learned of the death of Soundarya.

We have so few hours of daylight this time of year and the sun never does rise very high over the mountains, so after I returned from Barrow I thought that I would walk, bike ride or ski every day right at high noon, when the low sun is at its highest, to get the most out of it that I can.

But everyday, high noon has come and gone and I have been lethargic and have stayed inside.

Yesterday, I decided, I would finally go. It was time to pull myself out into the cold and go.

But high noon came, and high noon went and I did not leave this house.

Then, a little after 3:00 PM, I decided I had to break out and go.

Without even thinking about it, I put on a light jacket and stepped outside.

The sun had already set, but still, I was outside and the alpenglow was beautiful upon the Talkeetnas. It was time to walk.

One thing about Alaska that is different than in the mid and low latitudes is that even after the sun sets, twilight lingers for a long time. In India, when the sun goes down, it gets dark, just like that.

Here, the light lingers long past sunset.

Of course, compared to Barrow, our days right now in Wasilla are long and sunny, and a thought struck me about that.

As you know, I was in Barrow on November 18 when the sun rose and set at practically the same moment and then disappeared until late January. It was just a couple of days after that Anil died in the car crash that also took Nick Hill and then one more day before Sandy followed.

I think that perhaps for this season, I have no choice but to live anywhere but in the dim light of winter's dark day until the sun returns in late January.

It is after the sun rises again that the most bitterly cold weather sets in - but the spring always follows. The ice breaks open, the whales return and then soon it is summer.

This is what I have been telling myself.

I can't remember precisely when - more than a year ago, I am certain - but I came upon this dog at this same corner, Seldon and Tamar. The dog was right in the middle of traffic on very busy Seldon, not understanding, and drivers had to both dodge and hit their brakes to avoid striking it.

I did not think this dog's prospects to be very good - but here it is, still living in unleashed terror on the corner of Seldon and Tamar.

By the time I reached home, I was damn near frozen. I wondered what had gotten into me to take off with only a light jacket, no hat, no gloves. So I warmed the car up, climbed in and headed to Metro Cafe to get a hot cup.

I found Carmen, talking on the phone to Scot, who is going through the final stages of his radiation and chemo therapy and then it will just be a matter of waiting for a couple of months to learn if the treatment did the job it is supposed to do.

Scot was in his shop, where I had never been. Carmen handed me the phone, he told me how to get to the shop and so, after I had driven around long enough to finish my coffee and cinnamon roll and to hear some news, I stopped by.

Oh, my! I found Scot working on a once-scorched 1959 Corvette that he has been restoring for seven years... or was it nine...? I didn't take notes.

It is red and white and beautiful beyond belief. It filled me with love and longing just to look at it. I had left my camera in the car, but Scot said that was okay - he wants me to wait until he gets it done, until Carmen and Branson can ride in it, to photograph it.

So I will wait - but I will tell you right now, it is a thing of beauty.

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A cold wind blows and life just rolls along

As they say, no matter what happens, life just keeps rolling along. It's true. If you don't believe it, all you need to do is to glance into your rearview mirror. There you will see that people continue to smile, to laugh, and to drive big pickup trucks under the low high-noon sun of a chill, windy, day.

As for Margie and me, we need to eat and there was not much food in the refrigerator, or the cupboards, either. So we set out for the store, to do some grocery shopping. Yet, we were hungry right now, so we by-passed the grocery store and continued on toward Taco Bell, where we ate lightly - a bean burrito for Margie, an original crunchy taco for me, plus a small Pepsi and a Diet Pepsi for her.

Of all the fast food joints, Taco Bell is the best for eating lightly. Several years ago, I decided that I needed to lose 15 or 20 pounds and so I went on a diet that included lunch at Taco Bell, just about every day. Even when one loses weight, one must enjoy life.

It worked, too. In about three months, I met my goal.

Some of that weight has come back, but not all of it.

Once we had eaten, it was time to go to the grocery store. Along the way, while stopped for a red light, we saw some kids rolling along in a school bus. They looked trapped to me, prisoners of a system that they did not create but that seems to get us all. They did not look very happy - yet I see that one seems to be smiling a bit.

The driver doesn't look very happy, either.

I really don't like to shop at all - unless its for cameras, computers, airplanes, canoes, guns and things like that, that I can never afford to buy anyway. So I dropped Margie off at Carr's and then headed over to the Post Office to check the mail.

I parked by this car and went inside.

We got a credit card bill and an Aperture magazine. A day has now passed and I have yet to remove Aperture from its protective cover and even to glance at the cover.

In the past, I would tear these magazines open right away and, at first opportunity, spend an hour or two - sometimes more - just devouring the contents.

Not necessarily devouring the words - because they always manage to write a lot of nonsensical hyperbole in these photographic magazines as they try to explain just what it is or was that put the photographers featured on a different plane, but the photos.

Just the photos - some more than others.

Aperture has never featured any of my photos. That's mighty foolish of them, if you ask me.

Then I went back to Carr's to help Margie finish the shopping. Even so, we forgot to buy frozen raspberries.

I wanted some frozen raspberries.

After we bought the groceries, we returned home. I sat down to my computer to work and accomplished nothing - nothing at all. At the usual time, I headed off to Metro Cafe, to get my 4:00 o'clock cup and listen to NPR.

I pulled up to the window and did not even have to order because Carmen knew. I started to pull out my wallet, but she would not let me. Then she showed me this $5.00 bill and note from Shoshauna. Due to her changed schedule, I now only see Shoshauna on Saturday's, assuming that I can get to Metro before she leaves at 2:45.

Shoshauna was buying my coffee this day - and the next. too.

She reads this blog, too, you know. It was an act of kindness and care on her part.

Thank you, Shauna.

And keep writing.

Just keep writing.

One day, I will buy you a coffee - from one Wasilla writer to another.

I did give Carmen a pumpkin cookie after Thanksgiving.

On the way home, this young bull moose ran into the road in front of me. I saw it well ahead and so it was not a close call. Just another, typical, everyday moment, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska - where I find moments to thrill to the sight of what surrounds me, to smile and to laugh, despite the great sadness that blankets the land and all that it holds.

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