Chilled, golden moose nuggets simmering in the sun; Royce update; six reverse Metro studies

This morning, I walked only around the block, because Margie planned to drive into town and spend all afternoon and evening babysitting Jobe and Kalib - both to allow Jacob and Lavina to get out and celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary and for her own joy.

This meant that I would have to walk to Metro Cafe in the afternoon, so I figured there was no point taking a real walk in the morning, but I had to get out and get a breath of the air.

I hadn't gone far before before I came upon these chilled moose nuggets, simmering in the sun.

I am in the midst of processing a few hundred photos and I always start this process in a program called Lightroom. It is an excellent program, but sometimes it goes haywire and does some really strange things. Like last night, when I was downloading pictures from the Barrow basketball games, for some reason totally unbeknownst to me, it started the job properly and then, just a few frames into it, decided that it would only download every other picture that I had taken and that's how it went to the end.

This could have been disastrous for me, as I might well have believed that the images had downloaded completely and then I would have erased the completely full, 16 gigabyte disk and I would have lost half the images on it.

I discovered the fluke pretty much by accident, then I did a second download and this time the skipped photos came into my computer.

Today, Lightroom acted up in a completely different manner - but I won't explain, other than to say that it cost me several hours of wasted time.

During one period of frustration, I stepped out of my office and into the house and found Royce, posing.

Although he is now the skinniest cat I have ever seen - except for Chicago for a brief period in 2001 when she almost left this life - and it is a little horrible to pick him up or stroke him while he sits on my lap because I can feel every bone, he has considerable energy and seldom throws up anymore.

Before I started medicating him twice a day, he was throwing up maybe six to 10 times a day.

So I walked to Metro. I need to get an NPR ap for my iPhone. If I had one, I could have listened to the news as I walked. 

I thought about doing so, its just that with all the hassles Lightroom put me through, I didn't want to take the time.

Since I walked, I wound up inside and saw this lady outside, where I usually sit in my car to do my through the window studies.

Those two smoothies both went to her.

Anyway, this image is:

Reverse Metro Study, #9... #9... #9... #9... #9... #9... #9... #9... #9... #9... #9... #9 #9... #9... #9... #9... #9... #9...

Reverse Metro Study, #42

Now Nicole is fixing my drink.

Reverse Metro Study #193

Carmen with Serenity and Mia, who like to come into the cafe and help her out.

Reverse Metro Study, #17

Carmen and Mike, from her church.

Reverse Metro Study, #2901

Reverse Metro Study, #628

Carmen and Claudia, who works in pharmaceuticals. 

When she learned that I am one of those growing numbers of Americans who have lost their health insurance because the __________ insurance companies can do whatever the ______ they want and after 15 years of robbing me of my money and giving me very little back, my _______ insurance company, the _________ Mega Life and Health applied a formula to me that told them that it was time to get rid of me before I became a liability and so jacked up my rates overnight to the point where I could no longer pay them, Claudia said that I was in tough spot.

Now, the only reason that I put in blank spaces above is because of my ten-year old reader, Riana.

The words that are in my head go way beyond the "damns" and "hells" that she has busted me for.

Fifteen years worth of health insurance premiums - thrown away.

Senator Murkowski....???????????

Don Young.... ?????????

Coffee Break - Return to the Metro

Folks, I need to take a little break. As can easily be seen, I got a little carried away and went all out to say something about the birth of my second grandson, Jobe Atene Hess. I began the process in a state of sheer exhaustion and I am sheerly exhausted right now. I spent much more time on it than I could afford to, so now I have to back partly away from this blog for awhile and devote my time to other tasks - ones that might actually bring in some revenue.

So here I am, taking a break at Metro Cafe, where I shot this image, Through the Metro Window, Study #4.7, which I am certain will surely be hanging on the wall at MOMA in New York no later than early next week, just as soon as the folks there get a chance to log onto my blog and marvel at the sheer magnificence of this image.

"It's brilliant beyond superb," the MOMA Chief of Masterpiece Acquisitions will exude. "I want it in our museum, now!"

"It's downright piquant," her chief assistant will gush. "I will jump in the Learjet and dash off to Wasilla right now and I will acquire it."

The subjects of the study are, in the reverse order: Jessie, Doug, Jennifer and Brittney. Carmen said that Jessie came in the other night and helped her clean up. Or maybe it was Doug who helped her. Anyway, one of them did.

Remember last week, just before the birth of Jobe, when I mentioned that the dollar bill that I had given Carmen as a tip had blown away in the wind and as I retrieved it, having already shot a Metro Window study and with another car pulling up to the window behind me, I heard Carmen say, "It's those cute girls!" and then I looked and saw some beautiful Alaska Native girls running excitely from a pickup truck to the shop?

I had to move on, but did so in the hope that one day soon I could make those girls the subject of a Metro Window study.

Talk about Deja Vu! I looked in my rearview mirror and there they were, running toward Metro again. Only they were not coming from a pickup truck. They were coming from their home further up the road. Maybe I misinterpreted the other day and they only ran past the truck.

Or maybe someone just drove them the short distance from their home to Metro, because they were enroute to another place.

Anyway, here they are - or at least three of them: Melissa, Allison, and Jennifer in Through the Window Metro Study #538. Carmen says they come in every day, as regularly as I do. They buy smoothies. Sometimes they hang out and even help out around the cafe.

MOMA will have to battle the Louvre in Paris for this one, so it might not hang on the wall of whichever the of the two museums wins until maybe two weeks from now.

So that's it for today. 

You can expect brief posts for a few days to come.

Couch warfare; someone gave me a gift certificate to Family, but it went to another; dogs - both nice and mean; Through-the-Window Metro study

The day began with promise. I saw a human being right away - Caleb, deeply engrossed in his video war games. When I looked at the screen, he was blasting away at an enemy (the avatar of an actual person somewhere else) who was scampering down the street in great panic as he tried to avoid Caleb's bullets.

It sure looked to me like Caleb was hitting him, but he dived into an open doorway, apparently unscathed. Immediately after that, Caleb was firing at someone else when another fighter popped out from the side and almost ran into Caleb's fire. Caleb stopped shooting for just one moment, or he might have hit that guy.

"Wow," I said, "that guy almost ran right into your fire."

"That was one of my teammates," Caleb said.

"So if you had hit him it would have been a case of friendly fire."

"No," he said. "Nothing would have happened. This is set up so you can't kill your teammates."

Just then, some kind of rocket came down on Caleb's avatar and killed it.

"I hope I didn't cause that by distracting you," I apologized.

"Oh, no, you didn't cause it," he said. "Those rockets just get you. You can't avoid them. It happens all the time."

And then you just become someone else, or the old you pops back to life and you keep fighting.

Yesterday, after coming in contact with a total of three people all day, all at once, for just as long as it took to buy an Americano, I promised to go to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant today. I did, and as I parked my car, I saw Sally walking towards her's.

So I shouted out to her. She gave me a hug, and then we talked for just a little bit. She asked me if I had received my certificate to get a free breakfast at Family Restaurant.

I was puzzled by this, as I knew nothing about any certificate.

It turns out that after I included her and a bit of her story about her battle with alcohol and drug abuse in a past post, one of my blog readers purchased gift certificates at Family for both Sally and me.

"Really?" I asked, puzzled.

"Yes," she said. "I got mine and I've used it already. Ask Connie, she knows about it."

So we said goodbye and I went in to get my breakfast, wondering if it had already been paid for. 

I ordered ham and eggs, over easy, plus hash browns and multi-grain toast, which I asked to be delayed until I had eaten everything else.

And here is my waitress, bringing my toast, after I had eaten everything else. But I forgot to speak her name into my iPhone dictation ap, and I have forgotten it.

After I spread strawberry jam upon my toast and ate it, I went to the check-out register and asked about the gift certificate. The lady behind the counter knew nothing about it, so she called out to Connie. Connie got a horrified look on her face and said that she had given the gift certificate to someone else.

This lady, Cindy, was standing in line behind me. "It was my husband that she gave it to," she said. She told me his name was Bill, too. She said there had been an argument at the time as to whether or not the gift certificate was supposed to go to her husband, but in the end he had taken it.

"I've got it in the car," she said. "I'll give it to you."

So I followed her to her car, where she did some rummaging, but she could not find it. She said it must be at home. She said she would find it and bring it tomorrow.

"I've just been wondering who Funny Face is," she said. That could be kind of puzzling for a wife, for her husband to get a mysterious gift certificate from someone she does not know by the name of Funny Face.

"Funny Face is one of my blog readers," I told her. "From Texas."

"Oh," she said.

Thank you, Funny Face.

I did speak Cindy's name into my iPhone, but, just as in every other case where I have done so, I remembered the name even without going back to the iPhone.

What are the odds that Cindy would have been standing in line right behind me when I asked about that gift certificate?

This is just another one of those hugely unlikely coincidences that happen to me all the time.

A bit later, when I took my walk, this dog that I first met Tuesday appeared again and came to greet me. It seemed to come from the same house where a dog named Angel lives. Angel is one of the nastiest dogs that I have ever met. Angel has bitten me. I think Angel is the Devil's angel.

The German Shepherd followed. I was a little leery, but it proved not to be vicious. It's still a bit of a pup, though, so its got time.

Maybe tomorrow, I will dig up my pictures of Angel and include them in my post - if there's room. Then you will see how mean she is. You will think that I had nerves of steel just to take such pictures.

The German Shepherd, in profile, tail down submissively. Maybe the future will be okay with this dog.

She told me the dog's name. I knew I would not forget it, so I did not speak it into my iPhone. I have forgotten it.

At the usual time, I headed to Metro Cafe. Carmen was feeling happy. The day was warm for Wasilla in late January and business had been good.

Through the Metro Window Study, #532.

I take so many pictures through the window of people on the other side of Carmen's counter that I just decided I've got a genuine study going.

I don't really know the number of this particular study, but #532 sounds pretty impressive, so I settled on it.

Carmen's husband, Scott, was taking down Christmas lights. He said these lights had been a disaster. The wind had pounded them against the windows, badly chipping the glass.

"I want it to be Spring," Scott said. "The older I get, the colder I get."

Despite the warmth of the day, right near freezing, the wind was brisk, so that must account for the fact that Scott, who works at Prudhoe Bay, was cold.

The moon was very near full.

Baby-in-waiting update: Still not here yet. Lavina is resting and is more comfortable now. Margie comes home in just over three days. I am a little more hopeful now that baby will wait for her/his grandma than I was last night.