That Momma Pitbull that gave me the big scare until I discovered that she is really a sweet American bulldog named Tequilla

I saw Tequilla on the second-floor deck of the rocket house as I walked today, so I stopped to introduce myself to her people.

Tequilla, who I mistakenly described as a pitbull is really an American bulldog and her primary caretaker is Malia, and that is her in the background. The pug-nosed dog at left is Lolita, the cat is Mellow and the little boy is Gabe.

While Malia notes that Tequilla is protective and will raise a fuss should a suspicious person come around, she describes her both as a sweetheart and a Houdini, as she can be locked in the house or in a pen and then she will appear outside, at the bottom of the stairs.

Tequilla is most affectionate and so shares a kiss with Malia as Gabe looks on. 

Sadly, Rocky, the black pup, is no longer here, but has passed on. Malia only recently adopted the two dogs. Right after she did, the father of her children died. In the midst of such tragedy, Rocky contracted Parvo.

How does a Mom and her children deal with such loss, back to back?

They just go on living. That's what people do. It seems impossible, but they do it, anyway.

Gabe and Mellow.

Tequilla and Mellow.

A little further on my walk, I found Mary in her driveway. I had not seen her for a long time but today she was out. We talked for quite awhile and she told me many stories, but I am tired and need to go to bed soon, so I will not attempt to relate any of them.

Suffice it to say, she has led an interesting life and grew up in Florida, where her sister would like her to return. She did visit recently and the jet ride there and back was pretty miserable.

As we visited, her poodle and cat came out to join in.

Miss Rita, Mary's cat.

Then I was in downtown Wasilla where I had just parked when the train came along. Naturally, I was thrilled.

The Alaska Railroad engines were pulling Princess Cruise passenger cars and one of them had a picture of a giant grizzly bear on it - probably to scare the real bears away so that they will not frighten the tourists inside.

Nobody likes it when the tourists get frightened. 

Well, the bears like it. They think its great fun.

After our Vagabond caffeine party, we happen upon some tomatoes

Melanie, Charlie and I had partied on caffeine and pastries at Vagabond Blues in Palmer and were coming home via Fishhook Road when we saw this sign. Fresh tomatoes sounded good, so I turned the Escape onto a road that led to a long driveway. When we saw what at first looked like a duplex house at the end of the driveway, we began to have some doubts that we had come to the right place.

Then we saw a magnificent garden just beyond the duplex, which is not a duplex at all, but a house. We parked, got out, and then this dog came running to us. It jumped on me, then it jumped on Charlie. As I struggled to regain my balance and before I could ready my camera, it jumped on Melanie.

I mean, really jumped, like paws to shoulder - that high. But, by the time I had my camera ready, an elder lady came and collared the dog, took it to a corner of the porch and chained it up. 

"If you are going to jump on people," she scolded it in a voice with a strong north Italy accent, "then you are just going to have to stay on this chain."

We told the lady that we wanted to buy some tomatoes. "I have tomatoes in the house," she said. "Come on in." So we followed her through a door that led into a big shop. Resting by the window was this two year-old male cat, "Mucho."

The lady paid no attention to Mucho, but the three of us did. When she saw that we were interested in the cat, she picked it up and put it on the cement floor and then showed us how she could hold her arms in a circle in front of Mucho and he would jump through, just like her arms were a hoop.

It was too dark to take a picture, so she brought Mucho into the house itself, where it was still pretty dark, too dark, really, for the pocket camera, and did it again. At that moment, I wished that I had my big DSlr's with me instead of just the pocket camera, but, oh well.

You can't take pictures with the camera you don't have with you, so you have to take them with the camera you do have with you.

I believe Donald Rumsfeld said that.

Then Charlie made an arm hoop. Mucho jumped right through it.

Charlie and Mucho. We picked out our tomatoes and bought them. Then we went out to take some pictures in the garden and greenhouse.

So this is Pia, with a box of tomatoes, of which she is very proud. Pia was born in California but raised in North Italy, which is why she has the accent. My dad used to fly over Italy to drop bombs on the Germans. I wondered if she had been there at the time and had ever heard his B-24 pass by?

I didn't ask, though. Why didn't I ask? Someday, I must go buy more tomatoes from her, and then I can ask her if she was there during the war and if she heard the squadrons of B-24's flying by, the sound of German anti-aircraft fire and the explosions of American bombs. 

I miss my Dad. I truly do. I will miss him until the day I die. After that, I don't know.

Pia then invited us into the greenhouse. It was surprisingly warm in there and the aroma was pleasant - a mix of tomato and the scent of birch burning in a woodstove.

I touched the woodstove and it was not hot. There was no fire in it. The scent lingered from the last time that there was.

You see how those leave stems have been clipped? Pia does that so that the nutrients that would go to the leaves go to the tomatoes instead. Of course, the plant needs leaves to survive. It must be an art to know just when and what leaves to cut.

Pia plants the tomatoes in March, in pots in the house, but waits until May to transfer them to the greenhouse. In about one month from now, it will be too cold in the greenhouse, even with the woodstove and that is when her growing season will end.

So, if you want to buy Pia's tomatoes - and if you are in Wasilla or Palmer or even Anchorage, you should want to - you've got about one month.

I'm out of order here, as I actually took this picture before we entered the greenhouse.

Oh well, life often gets out of order. I like the picture better here than where it would be if it was in order and this is my blog and I can do whatever I want with it.

She's telling us about the plant that she touches. I was unfamiliar with that plant, so I memorized the name so that I could include it here.

I have forgotten, though.

There was another plant, inside, that she had us touch. It left our hands smelling like lemon drops.

I haven't had any lemon drops in a long time. I want some.

Pia grows many things besides tomatoes. She asked if we wanted some fresh green beans. We did.

"These will be the best green beans you ever tasted," she told Melanie as she put some in her hand.

Next, Pia took us into the greenhouse where she grows peppers. "These are not hot peppers," she said. "They are banana peppers." She also had two kinds of cherry tomatoes growing in there and she gave us samples of each. One was more tart, the other more sweet. Both were superb.

There was the summer squash. It still had some growing to do. I imagined it boiled, but not too boiled, with a touch of butter, salt and pepper, on a plate beside a moose steak. Damn good, I'm sure.

Speaking of moose, see those wires with the flags on them? They are hot wires and they enclose every section of Pia's garden. I don't know what it is about hot wires, but whenever I see them, I have this terrible desire to touch them, to see just how strong of a shock they give.

"Don't do it, Dad!" Melanie said.

"No!" Charlie agreed, "Don't do it Bill."

I touched the electric fence. The power was off at the moment.

Elsewhere, there were wires that were hot.

"Don't do it, Dad!" Melanie warned.

I didn't.

Celery is a thirsty plant that needs much water. That is why Pia plants it beneath the eve of the greenhouse roof, which has no gutter - so all that extra rainwater will flow down onto it.

I asked Pia why she and her husband, who was feeling camera shy, came to Alaska. "More guts than brains," she answered. "We've been here 53 years."

After that, I drove us back to the house, where Jacob had cooked corn chowder for dinner. I added tomato slices. Melanie cooked her green beans and shared them with everybody.

It was a taste of heaven. I must go see Pia again.

I drop Margie off for her MRI, see sights, big man gets stuck in children's slide, a femur fracture is found

"No, Royce!" I shouted as the old man orange cat ran through the door and dashed outside. I was about to drive Margie to town for her MRI and I wanted him to stay in the house. Even so, he went outside. After I helped Margie into the car, I picked Royce up and put him back inside the house.

"Where do you want to eat?" I asked Margie, once we got to town. She mentioned a couple of possibilites but when I noted that we had not yet feasted at the any of the Fourth Avenue hot dog stands this summer, she got excited.

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed. "Let's go for hot dogs."

So, while Margie waited in the car, I bought two reindeer dogs. As the vendor prepared them, a guy roared by on a loud motorcycle. "What's this guy who comes by here everyday at the same time on his motorcycle going to do when winter comes?" the vendor asked.

I did not have the answer.

"I don't understand people who have to drive loud bikes," he continued. "Who are they trying to impress? I drive a bike, but it's not loud. A bike doesn't have to be loud."

I handed the money to the pretty young woman who works with him and who might be his wife and he handed me the hotdogs. I took them back to the car, along with Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and original Lay's Potato Chips. Margie and I sat there and ate them as the rain drummed on the roof.

It was the nicest time that we had experienced since she got injured and the dogs were delicious. I must go back and have another, but I think I will get beef next time, or maybe Kosher Polish.

I could not accompany Margie to the MRI room, so I dropped her off. I was told that the MRI would take 25 minutes, so I headed off to see what sights I might see. I had not gone far before I saw a young man push a woman in a wheelchair across the road as another man crossed in the opposite direction, carrying what appeared to be two cups of coffee.

The rain fell upon them all, just as the Bible says it does.

It didn't fall upon me, though, because I was in the car.

But not for long. Lisa had left her driver's license at Penney's, Penney's had sent it to us, so, as Margie lay in the MRI machine, I took it to the Alaska Native Medical Center's Family Medicine Clinic where Lisa works and brought it to her.

She then took a break and followed me back to the car. We then stood in the rain for just a little bit and discussed important things.

We hugged. "Bye, Dad," she said. I drove away.

To kill time, I circled the Alaska Native Medical Center itself and as I did, an airplane came flying by. At that very moment, Margie was in the tube, getting her knee cat-scanned. She did not like it. She felt claustrophobic, she kept her eyes closed and focused upon mental images of Kalib, running, laughing, playing. She saw him pull the telephone book off of the tiny table that it sits on, place it on the floor and then dance upon it - just the way he did yesterday.

She saw him pull Kleenix's, one after the other, out of the box and smile ever so sweetly and mischievously, as he drop them to the floor - as he did just a few months ago. She saw him at just a few weeks of age as he sat in his car seat in the back seat of the rental car and she and his mom drove across the Navajo Reservation to introduce him to his other grandma and a host of aunts, uncles and cousins.

She saw him as they drove on to the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, and then how happy her own mother had been when infant Kalib met his only living great-grandparent.

She replayed scenes from his whole life thus far in her mind, right up to that moment when we stood outside the door to the birthing room and heard his first, beautiful, cry.

Next I drove up onto the campus of Alaska Pacific University, where I saw these children, gathered in a circle.

I then returned to ANMC, parked the car, and headed toward the building. There is a children's playground just outside the door to the emergency room, where I would enter the hospital. I saw a small child climbing into the slide, helped by his Dad.

The small child's mother scolded the dad. "He's not going to like it!" she warned. "He's going to be frightened." Just the same, the dad gave the small child a shove and down into the tube he disappeared.

His mother readied her hands to catch him.

Then the small child began to scream. He had gotten stuck, somewhere in the darkness within the tube.

So the dad climbed in, to see if he could unstick him.

The small child got the hang of it and came out with a smile on his face. Now the Dad was stuck. He could not go up. He could not go down. Why... look at the kid! It's my own grandson, Kalib! He had come to ANMC to greet his grandmother when she came out of the MRI tube. That must mean that the dad stuck in this tube... is my own son... Jacob.

Jacob wiggled a bit, and finally he slid out. Kalib headed back, ready to go again.

Margie had not yet exited her tube. I strolled through the hospital, looking at the art, reminded of what life was like in Alaska just a short time ago.

Finally, Margie hobbled out into the hallway and headed for the car. She did not know that Jacob, Kalib and Lavina were behind her.

"Kalib!" she squealed when she discovered them. "Thank you! You got me through the MRI. I kept seeing you in my mind and that's what got me through."

When we reached the car, Margie handed me her crutches so that she could climb in. Kalib took the crutches away from me and handed them right back to her. 

So she put them on the floor and then climbed in. Kalib was very pleased, for he knew that he had done something good for his grandmother.

Kalib, Jacob and Lavina then went off to do some house shopping. Margie and I met Melanie at the Title Wave Kaladi Brothers coffee shop, where we discussed the airplanes that fly over her new house, renovations that she wants to make, the dogs that come and pee in her yard, her cats and other important things.

It was even better than sitting in the car, eating hotdogs. It was, in fact, the most pleasant experience that I have shared with Margie since she got hurt, and all the more pleasant because Melanie was there, encouraging her mom not to be discouraged. "It will be better, soon," Melanie soothed.

It already seemed quite a bit better, although we did not know what secrets the MRI would reveal.

Shortly after we said goodbye to Melanie and began the drive back to Wasilla, we got a message that Margie's doctor wanted her to call, so she did. The doctor had taken a look at the MRI and had immediately discovered something the original x-rays had not. 

Margie did break a bone when she fell. Not her knee cap, but her femur, right on the outside where it meets the knee.

"Try not to put any weight on it," the doctor said.

We have yet to get a report on any ligament damage.

It still rains and as I sit here typing this on my computer, I hear the whistle of a train, passing by miles from here. It seems kind of odd, but sometimes when it rains around here, sound really travels.

Meagre berry picking expedition leads to magic moment between toddler, cat and the clouds

Melanie and Charlie came to visit Sunday and as we took a little ride, we drank coffee, listened to All Things Considered and then This American Life. Afterwards, I returned to my office, sat down and worked for a couple of hours on a project that has been vexing me. 

When I stepped back in the living room, Lavina had prepared dinner, but Melanie, Charlie and Royce were nowhere to be seen. "They went into the swamp to pick berries," Margie said from her position on the couch. So I ate my chicken and salad, grabbed my G10 pocket camera and then went out to see if I could find them.

I did, as you should be able to tell, even without me saying so.

They were about done but they had not done well, so Melanie tried another place, where she spotted a few. She had barely begun to pluck them when she swatted her face. Must have been a mosquito, but the mosquitoes are just about all gone now. 

Just a short time ago, one could barely have tolerated being where she is in this picture, because the mosquitoes would have been maddening. But their season is over, thank goodness.

As you can see, the berry picking was not good at all. Melanie figured it is because the swamp has pretty much dried. "Back when it was wet, there were a lot more berries," she lamented. You cannot even rightfully call it a swamp anymore. She wondered if the house wells were responsible. I don't think so.

Quite some time ago, some developers tore out the wettest end of the swamp and made a gravel pit out of it. The developers said that after they had taken the gravel they would make a nice lake of it for the whole neighborhood to enjoy, but, as developers so often do, they didn't. Now it is just an ugly, abandoned, gravel pit with some ugly pools of water in it. I think that is what dried up the marsh.

I knew that there was another reason Melanie and Charlie had found so few berries. For two days in row now, Jacob and Kalib have been out there picking and eating berries as though they were about to go out of season.

Speaking of those two, we heard some commotion so we looked, and here they came. With Muzzy.

Kalib left his Dad's shoulders so that he could pal around with Muzzy and Royce.

And then it was just Kalib, Royce, and grass going to seed.

 

Royce soon led Kalib to another spot, where they found an even taller blade of grass.

Kalib studies the grass.

And then he lays down upon Royce.

He soon spots an interesting cloud, and points it out. The cat does not care, but he cares about Kalib.

I think, perhaps, this was one of those magic moments of early childhood that, even if it may one day be forgotten, it will be felt for the remainder of Kalib's life, even when he is an old man.

Kalib, his head on the fur of a warm, tolerant, and loving cat, watching clouds drift through a clear, deep blue sky. Yes, this is a fleeting moment that is ever lasting.

And so passed this day, right here in Wasilla, Alaska.

What she has missed the most

Other than the pain, discomfort and immobility, the thing that has bothered Margie the most is the time that she has missed with Kalib. She had been his official babysitter up until she suffered her first injury in January, and then his parents had to enroll him in daycare, because she was in no condition to care for him.

Then, about a month ago, she had healed enough that she took over his care once again. And now he is back in daycare.

At least she can get out of bed now, and come to the couch and sit with him.

Even when she couldn't, I would be in the room with her sometimes after his parents came home. The door would be closed, but then we would hear his little feet running down the hall.

Margie would smile, big.

Perhaps she will never be his regular sitter again. He and his parents moved in with us about a year-and-half ago so that they could save some money while Jacob applied to the US Public Health Service Commission Corps and then waited to hear from them. It was a very long process and until it was over, there was no point in them trying to buy a house.

Right now, Jacob works directly for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium as a civil engineer, but once accepted in the Corps, he would be subject to being sent anywhere in the world that the US operates health care programs, from Barrow to Afghanistan, maybe Guam.

Lavina was really hoping that he would be assigned to the Southwest. Flagstaff was the place she really wanted, because it is close to her home.

The assignment finally came - Anchorage.

Today, Jacob and Lavina went house shopping in Anchorage.

So, probably, by the time comes that Margie is again able to take care of little Kalib, he will be living in Anchorage with his parents.

Better that than Guam.

Not that I have anything against Guam. I am certain it is a nice place, but its a long way to have to go to see your grandson. It's a long way to have to go.

Anchorage is not.

That's hot chocolate that he's drinking there, by the way. His Auntie Lisa made it for him. That's her, sitting at the end of the couch, by Jim, the black cat.

I sure do love that cat.

I love them all.