I feel very lazy on this Wasilla spring day, so I will tell the truth, shun all lies and write about Sarah Palin's buick

It is springtime here in Wasilla and it is Saturday. I feel extremely lazy. I want to do nothing but lie around and be lazy - although I tried that last Sunday and it didn't work. Still, I am going to move slow here for awhile. I do have what to me is a very important task that I must complete today, but if I lollygag about and hit it as I feel like, I think I will complete that task by the time I go to bed tonight and it just might result in a book someday.

A book to make the reader fall in love and then break her heart. Or his heart. Male or female, it doesn't matter. If one has a heart, this book will make that heart love and then it will break that heart.

Anyway, yesterday, I took a morning walk. When I crossed the road in front of this school bus, the driver suddenly gunned it to about 90. He or she was determined to run me down. I sprinted for the edge of the road and barely dove out of the way.

I made it, all right, but the back fender of the bus caught the edge of my right shoe and ripped it off.

Now I am going to sue the school district for a new pair of shoes.

In fact, I think I'll go for cowboy boots.

I haven't worn cowboy boots in a long time.

I used to wear them all the time.

And a cowboy hat, too.

A Remington .357 six-shooter on my hip.

I was pretty dangerous.

I was tall, too.

Tall, dark, and handsome.

That's why Margie fell in love with me.

Then I ate a bad taco and wound up short and pale.

She still loves me, though.

So it's okay.

I will never stop eating tacos.

Just imagine this shadow wearing a cowboy hat and six shooter, and you will see what I mean.

In the afternoon, I drove to Carr's to pick up a muffin. Along the way I saw this kid enjoying spring in a melt puddle. Yeah - I know - the image is blurry. I don't care. You get the idea. Sometimes, for me, just the idea is good enough. Life is a blur, anyway.

I parked at Carr's and prepared to go in and get the muffin. I saw this man standing on the roof. When you see a man standing on the roof of Carr's, you know it's spring.

See how he has his hands in his pockets? That's because he's hiding bananas in those pockets. He will throw one of them at me, thinking that he will strike me in the head and knock me to ground, where I will get run over by Sarah Palin's Buick, which just happens to be rolling through the parking lot at this very moment.

That's another sure sign of spring in Wasilla - when you see Sarah Palin's Buick rolling through the parking lot. For decades now, it has been that way. "Look!" someone will say, "there's Sarah Palin's Buick, rolling through the parking lot. Must be spring."

This man did, in fact, hurl the banana at me, but I was quick. I caught it. I ate it. It went very well with the muffin.

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False front; politically correct and other signs of the time; the wind blows, a special girl is fed, a grasshopper befriended

For some damn reason, we have to pay bills - too many bills, adding up to way too much. So I drove to the Carr's Mall and let Margie out to go inside to the credit union and make our car payment. I then circled the parking lot and saw the half moon hanging over these false fronts - built to remind us here in the Far North of the Old West.

After she paid the bill, Margie got back into the car and we headed off to pay the next bill. We found ourselves directly behind this car, being ordered to think. So I thought and this is what I think: within the framework and social context of the car owner's life, community and media followed, these bumper stickers are all most likely 100 percent politically correct.

Ah... to think what might have been!

If you can't read all of the bumper stickers at this size, you probably can in slide show view.

It seemed pretty ridiculous to me and I didn't want to do it, but, being a law-abiding citizen, I stopped three times, just as the sign ordered. I don't think that my doing so made anybody any safer.

As I walked from the car to the post office, I suddenly saw these characters furiously flapping, coming directly in my direction, flying only about 20 to 30 feet above the parking lot. It would have been a wonderful picture had I been ready but, by the time I could draw and shoot, they had already passed by.

Did you know that I am a duck in human disguise?

It's true. I am. One day, I will tell the story. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I will leave readers to wonder and ponder, "what does he mean - he is a duck in human disguise?"

Melanie and Lisa are probably groaning right now.

After we paid the bills, checked the mail and found more bills that need to be paid, we headed home, where I flailed away to no discernable accomplishment on this computer for a bit and then at 4:00 PM I headed to Metro Cafe. There were two vehicles in line ahead of me and, as I waited, Nola came walking out, headed to her own car with a cup for herself.

She stopped to chat, just for as long as her ears could take the icy bite of this bitter wind that now seems to have set in in perpetuity.

Nola would like to open up a coffee shop of her own one day soon - in Hawaii. 

And when she does, I want to stop by and buy a cup from her.

As for this day, when I got to the window, my gift cards in hand, I discovered that, once again, a kindly, anonymous reader of this blog had bought me an Americano and cinnamon roll.

My cup runneth over.

Trees, as seen from the drive-through line at Metro Cafe, after Nola had fled the wind and got back into her car.

I took the usual drive to sip and drink and so passed by Grotto Iona.

The horses from yesterday were still there, socializing.

And this plow was coming down the road, appearing to scrape ice, yet, after it passed by, all the ice still seemed to be in place.

Maybe some of it was gone. What we need now is snow, lots of snow, to cover all this stuff up and make winter look like winter should.

Right now, it's just cold, dry and windy. Not bitter cold, like it can be, but teens and single digits. But when you get into the wind, it feels pretty cold.

As readers who have stuck with me all week can see, my life this week has been pretty mundane and routine. I sit at my computer all day long, breaking away just long enough to go get a coffee or pay some bills.

Pretty boring stuff. Yet, it never seems boring to me.

Please don't abandon me, though. I will get this blog into some excitement pretty soon.

This is the roof of our house, btw. I have just returned from my coffee break.

And this from India:

Jesse Clithi runs a little day-care center in Bangalore that also functions kind of like a pre-school here in the US. The day after Soundarya and Anil married, Melanie and I stopped by for a visit along with my niece Sujitha, Soundarya's sister, and her fiance Manoj. The students were mostly about three or four years of age - except for one, who was eight.

She had suffered some kind of malady that had left both her brain and her body underdeveloped and so she was the same size as her classmates and, when it came to play, acted much as they did.

Yet, those who know her say that this little girl is very special, that even though her body is small and her language skills limited, she sees and understands many things that might pass by most of us. I have no doubt but what this is true.

On this day, she wanted to eat only if Manu would feed her. He did.

Suji gives the special girl a kiss.

Manu pats her on the head.

When I started this little project of frequently dropping in an image or few from India at the end of a post, I stated that I was doing so in order to let it be known that Soundarya was not and would not be forgotten, but that I would not be posting pictures of Soundarya herself.

I meant my pictures of Soundarya, which I have spent considerable time sorting through, lately, along with those of Anil, but Sujitha took this picture. She emailed it and three others to me as they were the last pictures of Sandy from her camera. She was a little apologetic about the quality of the 3 megapixel camera that she used, but my contention about pictures is that the feeling captured means much more than the technical quality rendered. 

And in this one, she captured the feeling of Soundarya and her Chooo'weet little friend, the grasshopper.

Suji calls Soundaraya, "Soundu," and uses the word with great affection. Soundu would often write to me of Suji and she would call her, "Barbie," also with great affection.

Perhaps I will include some or all of the three remaining pictures from Suji's camera in a subsequent post.

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We get our Christmas shopping done early; Todd - met at Carr's; Melanie gets the blessing of an elephant

We had no milk for oatmeal, so I didn't cook any. Instead, I sat down right here at my computer and started to work on pictures. Then Margie came in and wondered what we should do about Christmas shopping. "Well," I answered, "we're out of milk so we might as well go to breakfast and then see if we can get some shopping done."

She agreed. I remote started the car, let it warm up for about 15 minutes. It was still very chilly inside and the seats were like solid blocks of ice, but we climbed into the car and headed for Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. As we neared, this raven passed over the car.

"This guy is really annoying," Margie told Connie, our waitress, as I took this picture. Connie did not agree, but she laughed politely so that Margie would think she did.

I believe that I may have ranted about this before, and I probably will again, but this is one of the great ironies of my life as a photographer. It is only in recent years - pretty much since grandkids began to enter our lives - that Margie has tolerated me taking photographs of her at all.

True, I did manage to get a few in here and there, mostly when the children were somehow involved, but fundamentally, I, who am possessed with genuine passion to photograph anything and everything, found myself with this exceptionally gorgeous and beautiful wife and everyday that we were together I would look upon her and I would want to photograph her and everyday she would refuse to be photographed.

Be assured, I still find her beautiful - sometimes so much so that it makes me ache just to look at her. She now has the beauty of an aging woman who has weathered much in life, suffered many hurts and disappointments but has created a family that loves and adores her.

Each one of us loves and adores her.

Back when we were first married, she possessed a different kind of beauty - exquisite physical beauty of the most desirous kind - her hair so deep black, long and wavy against her lovely brown skin, her eyes radiant, dancing with fun and mischief - and I, the artist, who looked upon her every day, was not allowed to document this beauty - except on rare occassions, almost always involving children.

The only exception that I can think of is this one, which I posted on Mother's Day last.

I cannot remember how I persuaded her to pose that day, but, even though she relented, if you click the link and look at the picture, you will see that she was not happy about it.

And now, as the years and decades push those days of youthful beauty ever farther back, I sometimes long to look at the photos of my beautiful, young, wife. I long to show the photos to her children, her grandchildren and say to them, "see how beautiful she was? She had a host of would be suitors and yet she chose, short, awkward, shy, socially inept, me and together we made you."

But those pictures do not exist. I cannot look at them; I cannot show them to anybody.

If all the people who I have photographed over the years would have reacted to my camera the way she did, I would have utterly failed as a photographer. I would probably be selling newspapers on the street somewhere, because there's nothing else I could have done.

Our first stop was at Meta Rose Square, home of All I Saw Cookware. Get it. "All I Saw?" "Wasilla" backwards? Was-i-lla?

We parked right next to this car. I am not quite certain why some guys feel compelled to emblazon their vehicles in this manner. To attract attention, I guess.

In my case, it didn't work. I didn't even notice. I didn't notice at all. I walked away without even giving it a sideways glance.

I am not quite sure why, but, as we walked through Meta Rose, I found myself wondering why I had to grow up Mormon; I was sort of a cowboy, once, briefly, but a Mormon sort of cowboy and it wasn't like this.

Inside the store, we came upon this piggy bank. As piggy banks always do, this one transported my mind back to Pendleton, Oregon, when I was five years old. My mom had taken me downtown to go shopping and when we came to JC Penney's, there was a red, plastic, piggy bank in the window. Or maybe it was the window of a bank. Or perhaps Woolworth's. Whatever window it was, the pig on the other side was wearing a little hat.

I wanted that piggy bank. I wanted it badly.

Mom had grown up very hard in the Depression and was against all spending that was in any way frivolous. And a piggy bank was frivolous. One could make a very fine bank from an empty Morton's salt box, or a band-aid can.

She did not understand that it was not that I wanted a bank - I wanted the little red pig with the hat on its head, but in the name of frugality I was denied this item that maybe cost 25 cents. I never did get a piggy bank. I kept my coins in Morton salt boxes and bandaid cans. And every time I would go into a store and see a piggy bank, I longed to have it.

Then, when I became a young man, a curious thing happened. I would go into a store, see a piggy bank and feel the same longing. So I would buy the piggy bank.

I bought all kinds of piggy banks. It became a waste of money. There was no place to put all these piggy banks. At the Alaska State Fair, I even found a little red plastic one, wearing a hat - made from the very same mold as the one that I had been denied in the first place.

Finally, I had to get rid of most of those piggy banks.

As for the ones I kept - I don't even know where they are now - not even the little red plastic one.

When I saw this one yesterday, I wanted to buy it - not as a gift but for me.

But I didn't. I resisted temptation and moved on.

I am not going to show you what Margie is holding in her hand, because it might be a gift for someone. It might not be, but if it is, I would not want to spoil the surprise.

Out in the hall, a little boy took a ride on giant duckling.

We left the store with two days to go. This is the earliest we have ever done our shopping. Especially me. I am usually in a store at closing time on Christmas Eve, buying ceramic roosters, things like that.

Next we went to Fred Meyer's, where a raven sat upon a pole. You can't tell it in this tiny window, but that raven has its head cocked to one side. It looks very "Chooo 'weet."

Margie checks out some socks as gifts for grandkids. When I was small, it was such a great disappointment to open up a gift only to find socks. I wanted toys!

Now, this looks like a gift that a little boy could like! At least if his name is Kalib Hess. But then Kalib already has a spatula. What would he do with another?

I suppose this must be adorable, but personally, I found it to be just a little bit eery and frightening, somewhat macabre.

Then we happened upon a very cute scene - the two month old puppy, Brisa, held in the warm embrace of her human, Sierra.

Although we had eaten breakfast out, we found ourselves feeling hungry again. So we drove past the little cove at the west end of Wasilla lake, looking for hotdogs.

We found two hotdogs - both at Dairy Queen.

Dairy Queen has good hot dogs - especially the foot-longs. To all those from out of town who wonder whether or not they should come and visit Wasilla - come. If nothing else, for the Dairy Queen hot dogs.

They will taste just the same as the Dairy Queen hot dogs in your town, if you are an American.

So you will feel right at home - even if our little city is a bit more odd than yours. Which, trust me, it will be.

The view from Dairy Queen as I eat my hot dog. How come these guys are still up here in the north?

Late in the evening, Margie and I headed to Carr's, to buy turkeys and other food for Christmas dinner. Just as we reached the turkeys, this fellow stopped me. "Are you the guy who does the Wasilla 300 blog?" he asked.

Indeed, I am.

He told me that we disagree politically, but that he loves the blog - especially some of the stories that I do in Rural Alaska. He said that he has been looking out for me as he moves around town.

"Wasilla is a small town," he said. "I knew we would cross paths some day."

And there she is, my Margie, checking out the turkeys. We bought two 16 pounders.

And this one from India:

Remember the scorpion from yesterday? Photographed at, as Cawitha refreshed my memory with the name that just always flees my brain, Hampi?

I took this picture approximately 100 yards away from the place where I took that one.

It is Melanie, about to be blessed by an elephant. A "chooo 'weet" elephant.

For those who did not read the comments left on yesterday's post, one was left by Cawitha, Soundarya's cousin.

Yesterday, I speculated how Sandy might have reacted if I could have showed her the photo of the scorpion, and that was with the word, "Chooo'weet! I added that there was one element in the photo that would likely have disturbed her - namely, that the string had been tied to the scorpion's stinger.

Cawitha agreed, and took it one step further. She imagined Sandy not looking at the picture but being there at Hampi with us:

"Am sure Soundarya (Sandy) would have said "Chooo 'weet" and if she were to see this she would have ensured the arthropod was set free. She was the most compassionate person."

Thank you, Cawitha. I am certain that is exactly what Sandy would have done. And no matter how tough a guy the individual walking the scorpion might have imagined himself to be, he would have had to back down to her, just as did the vet who at first refused to treat the raven that she saved with Anil's help.

Cawitha, btw, has been my friend since the day that Sandy wed Anil. Like Margie, Cawitha does not like to be photographed and so that day asked me to please not take her picture. I didn't, unless maybe as part of the crowd, so I cannot show you what she looks likes. 

However, we are committed to one day going "trekking" together, perhaps in the Himalayas, perhaps in Alaska, maybe both. I expect that then, I will get her picture.

I can't be postive, but I think so.

Now, contrast this picture to yesterday's. Everything is turned around. It is the animal who is huge and powerful, the person who is small and relatively weak - especially because this person does not have the protection of a poisonous stinger.

But the elephant is gentle. The elephant blesses my daughter with its strength. The elephant does not harm her. And when the elephant laid the end of its heavy and powerful trunk upon my daughter's head, so powerful that it could easily have wrapped it around her neck and broken it, it felt like a blessing to her. 

As it did to me, when the elephant blessed me.

This was the second elephant in India to bless me.

No, I do not worship elephants. But this does not mean that I cannot appreciate being blessed by one.

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A bald fellow in the parking lot at Carr's; Ron, Milo and the Mahoney horses

I got up late today, never took a walk and, after I ate my oatmeal and read the Sunday paper - or at least those portions that I had not already read online from one source or another - basically spent the entire day sitting in front of my computer, working on a proposal that I must have done tomorrow. I am a long ways from being finished, so, once I finish this blog entry, I will go back to it.

The proposal is a long shot, but I've got to try anyway. I've found that funders have a very difficult time getting past the word, "blog," but the proposal involves this blog and it could make a big difference to it.

The only time that I stepped outside the house was at 4:00 PM. Margie needed to buy a few groceries at Carr's and so I suggested that I come along, sit in the car and listen to NPR while she shopped, and then afterward we could get coffee and go for a short drive.

So this picture represents the first stage of that process. Margie is in the store, shopping for a few groceries and I am sitting in the car, listening to the news and glancing into my rearview mirror.

I wonder what she was going into Carr's to purchase? Cat food, I suspect. And some Vitamin C.

Metro Cafe is closed on Sunday's, so we went through the drive-through at Mocha Moose, then went driving. As we passed by the Mahoney place, I saw the horses that are usually out in the field in this little enclosure. My friend, Ron Mancil, originally of the Arctic Slope, was with them, so I stopped to say hi.

It has been a long time since I rode a horse. Over 30 years. At that time, Margie and I were still living on the reservation and we decided we needed a horse. We heard of one for sale at a ranch immediately over the reservation line, a gray mare, and we were told that it was a very good and gentle horse.

So we drove over. 

Margie climbed on first and that damn good and gentle horse bucked her right off.

So I climbed on and the damn good and gentle horse bucked me off, too.

We decided not to buy it.

Mikey, a horse-shoeing housewife from southern Arizona and a frequent visitor to this blog, could surely have handled that mare, though.

This is Milo. I tried to make friends with him, but he wasn't interested.

Milo prefers the friendship of horses.

Not long after the horse-bucking incident, Margie's family gave me a horse that they had already named, "Billy." Trouble is, it lived in Carrizo Canyon and pretty much went about its business as it wanted and we lived in Whiteriver, 25 miles away.

Every now and then, we would drive through Carrizo Canyon and we might have gotten a glimpse of Billy once or twice, but that was it.

We moved to Alaska shortly after that. Every now and then, we would receive reports that Billy had been seen here or there during family outings up the Canyon, to do things like plant and harvest corn.

I even think Red Nose caught him a couple of times and rode him.

But basically, my horse Billy lived a free life on the reservation and did whatever he wanted.

I have some other horse stories to tell, including my best ones, but it would take more words and time than I am prepared to devote tonight.

So I will save them for another time.

Ron says horses are kind of like "smart moose."

Good thing they don't grow antlers. Someone would shoot them, for sure.

It reminds me of when I was a boy living in Montana, where cows were often referred to as "slow elk."

Local hunters were always gripping about out-of-state hunters who, folk-lore held, came into Montana and shot and even butchered copious numbers of "slow elk."

Milo vigorously rounds up the horses. A good horse dog is indispensable when you live on a ranch.

Just before we left, this black horse suddenly appeared and walked right up to me. I reached out and patted it on the head, then, fearing the horse would not stay long, lifted up my pocket camera and turned it back on, only to discover that it had been on all along. This meant that I had actually turned it off.

The pocket camera does not make transitions quickly. I had to wait for the lens to retract and the camera to shut off. Then, after I pushed the turn on button again, I had to wait for the lens to come back out and the camera to activate itself. By then, the horse felt it had learned whatever it was it needed to learn about me and so left as I quickly snapped this one, out of focus frame.

As you know, I love the pocket camera even better than my big professional cameras, but I tell you, it does cause me to miss a lot of pictures, just by being so damn slow.

I take my first bike ride since I fell off the chair; The Fit Lady falls into Catch 22 with the Department of Agriculture and the IRS; various and insundry Wasilla scenes

The last time that I rode my bike was in early June of last year, just before I went to Barrow, stood on the chair, fell off the chair, shattered my shoulder, took a $37,000 ambulance ride in a Lear jet back to Anchorage and got a new shoulder.

But today I rode it. Now I want to ride and ride and ride.

It hurt. It burned my lungs and strained my arms. I am so out of shape.

It felt good.

I just want to ride and ride.

But I have places to go, soon. I won't be able to bring my bike.

As you can see, I kept my brace on. I have been told to keep it on all the time. 

As I neared Serendipity, I saw The Fit Lady, walking on the bike trail ahead of me. I slowed down and pedaled beside her for awhile. She always has a good story. I wondered what it would be today.

Here it is:

Not long ago, she got a bill from the Department of Agriculture demanding that she pay the interest on an agricultural loan that they had never given to her. The Fit Lady is not into agriculture. She is in to skiing and biking and sailing, but not agriculture.

So she wrote a letter and told them so. In time, they wrote back and said okay, maybe you don't have a loan with us. Sometime after that, they sent a statement to the IRS claiming that they had advanced $38,000 in taxable income to her.

Now, the IRS expects her to pay taxes on money she never received for an agriculture business that she does not own.

"I'm not going to pay it," she said. "If I had a cow on my porch, I think I would know. Well, yesterday, I did have a cow moose on my porch. I opened the door and accidently banged her nose. She was there for the bird feeder. She got it, too. There's no food for the birds, now."

Just when so many of them are arriving after their long winter's absence!

After I got home, I parked my bike by my wrecked airplane. After I crashed it, many people told me that I was lucky to have walked away unhurt. It didn't feel lucky then and it doesn't feel lucky now.

I was also told, many times, "any landing that you walk away from is a good landing."

I made many good landings in the Running Dog. This last one wasn't one of them.

Later, I saw this guy, riding his bike. 

I took Margie to Carr's, so that we could buy three-dozen eggs to boil and color. Kalib is coming home tonight. He will need eggs to find tomorrow.

Before I got out of the car, Michael came by. I had never met him before, but he was a nice kid, pleased to learn that he would be on the blog.

Michael has been working at Carr's since January or February, taking groceries to cars for customers, and retrieving shopping carts. "It's a good job," he said. "I meet lots of nice people. I enjoy helping people."

There you go: Michael of Carr's in Wasilla, Alaska.

Inside Carr's, I was surprised to see Slackwater Jack. Slackwater is a commercial fisherman from Cordova and a member of the Native Village of Eyak Tribal Council. I first met him many years ago, when I was doing portraits and interviews of Alaska Native veterans of foreign wars. 

Jack is Tlingit, and fought in Vietnam.

Now he shops at Carr's in Wasilla, because his wife moved here, so he must hang out here a bit, too.

A lot of people will be eating strawberry shortcake tomorrow - Easter Sunday. Does this look like a time of hardship?

And yet it is, for many. Maybe us, in a month or two. You never know, when you work freelance and have no business sense. When I have money, I spend it. When I don't, I don't and when it gets really bad, I sell things, and hock things and sometimes I never get them back - like those guns I was telling you about.

This hasn't happened for awhile, though. Years. Not even this last year, when my income dropped by more than half, due to my injury. I hope it never happens again, but one never knows.

I just want to write my books, now, and do this blog. Neither activity pays any money.

And then these cats who hang out with me always need food, and litter to deposit it in after they process it.

One place I spent money recklessly today was at Little Miller's, where I pulled up to the drive-in window and bought an Americano for me and another for Margie. I could see through to the other drive-in window, where this guy studied the menu before ordering.

I don't know why he stood there and did not sit in a car like the rest of us, but he did.

Margie spent the day working on taxes. I had to spend time rounding up receipts for her. As usual, wherever I was, Jim was there, too. He is here with me, in this office, right now, asleep, curled up on his chair.

My buddy, Jim.

I treasure his presence.