It was a big day here today, but I do not have the time to edit the photos and do a report, so here is Charlie and Royce

Yes, Charlie and Melanie came out today - and they weren't the only ones. But, at the end of the day, even more left than arrived to begin with and now the population of this house is even smaller than it was this morning.

Unfortunately, I have something that I simply must get done before I do anything else, so this picture is all I can manage for this post.

Hopefully, I will find the time to put up a full report tomorrow.

I'm under a great deal of pressure right now, though, so I might not make it. And I am exhausted, too. I hate to make excuses, but it is just flat-out true.

I am EXHAUSTED!!!

Like a frog, who just swam across the Pacific Ocean.

But I will try to make that report tomorrow.

We will see if I succeed.

Poor Royce. He is growing so old, so fast! Charlie commented on how thin he is getting. He looks so ragged. And what a great cat he has been. I did not fully appreciate how great until I saw how lovingly and patiently he raised Kalib these past 19 months - even when Kalib got very rough, Royce was gentle and patient with him - always looking out for him.

I have never seen anything else like it. And now he is growing so old, so fast.

Our Thanksgiving Day, 2009

Not long after Lisa arrived for Thanksgiving, Jacob began to treat her just like he did when she was a little girl and he was a big boy.

Lisa's boyfriend Bryce, who is deeply allergic to cats and dogs, came too, of course.

Lisa and Bryce.

Needless to say, the other boyfriend, Melanie's, Charlie, showed up as well. Soon, he engaged Kalib in a game of "Peek-a-Roo." Here, he sings out, "peek-a..."

"...Roo!" That's because we sometimes call Royce, "Royce-a-Roo." Naturally, that sometimes gets shortened to just "Roo." Hence, the game of "Peek-a-Roo." 

Kalib was greatly pleased with the game.

When I get time, or just take time, I will let Grahamn Kracker post more of this game - and other cat activities from the day - on his No Cats Allowed blog.

Lavina and her feet.

Lisa and Bryce pour the punch.

Kalib comes to the table.

Setting the table. Traditionally, I am the one who cooks the turkey, but, somehow, Margie cooked two of them today. I still cut it up. See that pumpkin chiffon pie? Melanie made that from a recipe that originated with my late mother. It is the best pumpkin pie in the world.

Melanie also made some cranberry sauce out of cranberries she picked herself.

Sooooo goood!

And she made a walnut pie. Margie tells me it is excellent, but so far I have found no room for it in my tummy.

I will try it tomorrow.

As baby Kalib peeks down from a picture on the cabinet door, the feasting begins. I have no more pictures of it, because I was too busy feasting. Please note the state of Caleb's facial hair. 

Readers who have been with this blog - and especially those who visited after the excellent feast that we had last year in Anchorage at Rex and Stephanie's house - cannot help but notice that two members of the family are absent: Rex and Stephanie.

Again, I just want to give them space and not say too much, but Rex went to Homer to spend the weekend alone in a cabin contemplating life. Stephanie - well, we don't know. She no longer shares her life with us.

It is a painful and puzzling thing.

Charlie brought his guitar and gave Kalib his first-ever live concert.

Soon, under the watchful eye of Royce-a-Roo, Kalib was dancing to a tune about little fishes - a song composed just for him.

Lisa and Bryce left a bit early to go back to Anchorage to share a second Thanksgiving with Bryce's parents. A bit after that, a bunch of the rest of us crowded into the Escape and headed to Metro Cafe for a coffee break.

When we got there, Carmen told us that Lisa and Bryce had stopped on their way to town. All week long, Carmen had been telling me that the drive-through would be open from 10-7 on Thanksgiving Day, while her family would gather from all over to have dinner inside. Every day, she reminded me, and urged me to come by.

Naturally, with our bellies stuffed and us growing sleepy, such a break was essential, so we did stop by.

She prepared hot drinks for everybody, engaging us in conversation through it all. Before I could pay her, she closed the window. I thought she had forgotten, so I waved the 20 that Melanie had insisted on contributing in front of her.

Carmen opened the window just a crack, to tell us this one was on the house.

"You're a real good customer," she said.

And it was good coffee, too. It always is.

Back home, we ate the pie. Then Kalib came with the paper, looking at the Christmas ads.

So this is how it will be for the next month.

This year, I want to see if I can experience some Christmas spirit.

It was easy when I was young. Now it is hard. Despite all the promotions, Christmas tends to sneak up on me suddenly and then it is gone and I wonder if it ever happened at all.

Well, we will see.

Melanie and Charlie.

It is time for them to go, because they need to spend some Thanksgiving time with Charlie's parents. Kalib comes running to say goodbye.

Out the door they go and then they are gone. It always comes to this. Always.

I walk from the front door into the kitchen, where I find Kalib eating butter straight off the butter plate.

Kalib goes to work at 10:00 PM, beardless, but with a mustache. None of us have seen him like this before. Four of his coworkers are doing the same thing.

Maybe it is a contest, I don't know. He just needs a cowboy hat, a good pair of boots, spurs, a six-shooter and a horse. Can you imagine how sharp he would look, sitting on that horse, dressed like that, with this mustache?

A birthday party

Margie had me load the uncooked pinto beans that she had been soaking all afternoon into the car in such a way so that they would not spill, unless we hit a moose or something. We then headed to town to throw a party for Rex on his 32nd birthday.

I can hardly accept the idea that Rex is 32, for I am only slightly older than that, myself. The gap of years between us just keeps narrowing and if it continues on like this, it won't be long until my youngest son is older than me, and that will be a very strange occurrence. 

I do not believe that anything like it has ever happened before in all of history.

We arrived in Anchorage about 4:00 PM, as the sun was going down.

The party was to be at Melanie's house. I was so tired when we first arrived, that, after I hauled the beans up the stairs and into Melanie's house (she was still at work) and helped Margie rinse them off, then refill the pot and put them on the stove to boil, I laid down upon the couch and there I stayed as Margie cooked.

After about an hour or so, other people began to arrive. Lisa got onto Melanie's computer. Charlie went out into the kitchen to put his raspberry cheesecake on the counter and to melt chocolate chips. I maintained my spot on the couch, but every now and then raised my pocket camera up into the air to take a picture.

Rex and Kalib arrived at about the same time. They greeted each other robustly.

Bear Meech and Diamond watched in wonder as their house filled up with more people than they are used to seeing.

And that's Cassie, Rex's dog, the one that came with Stephanie when they got married. No, Stephanie cannot be seen in any of these pictures. Perhaps in time, I will provide the required explanation, but this is just a time to give space.

Even as Kalib played with his grandmother's phone, Melanie's land line rang. But the receiver was not about. Rex is living for awhile in Melanie's basement apartment and had taken the receiver down there. He jumped up and ran down the stairs to get it.

You guessed it - when he picked it up, he heard Kalib gibberish on the other end.

Lavina cooks the frybread. This would make it Navajo frybread. If Margie had cooked it, it would have been the same but then it would have been Apache frybread.

As for me, I maintained my position on the couch. I was really tired and lazy.

When Melanie left work, she went straight to the airport to pick up Ryan, who had flown in from Calgary to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends. Ryan and Melanie were special friends during their college days at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and spent some time in Europe together.

We all loved Ryan then and we still do, just as we love Charlie. And they are friends.

Here is Charlie's cheesecake, covered with the melted chocolate chips, which solidified into something very hard. A fork could not pierce this chocolate armor, an ordinary table knife could not cut through it.

The only way to get through the chocolate chip frosting was to saw with a serrated knife.

But... oh, was this cake good! The chocolate, the pumpkin cheese filling and the raspberries...

an absolutely magical combination!

You probably wish you could see the Navajo/Apache tacos that we made out of Lavina's frybread and Margie's beans. I should have photographed them, but I was too busy eating my share.

Ryan pets Diamond. In fact, he "overpets" Diamond.

Charlie saws his way through the chocolate on a piece of his cheesecake as Kalib jumps up and down.

After the food had been eaten, we all engaged in good conversation.

Jacob and Lavina had brought a store cake and regular birthday candles to go along with it. The candles could not be found, but someone did find these three big ones somewhere in Melanie's house. 

Kalib helped Rex blow them out.

Jacob gives his little sister some love.

As Rex unwraps presents from Jacob and Lavina, he finds the missing birthday cake candles.

Rex continues to unwrap his presents.

Soon, it was all over. Rex hugged Kalib goodbye. We all hugged each other goodbye. And then Margie, Kalib and I headed back for Wasilla, leaving Jacob and Lavina to spend the night in town with Melanie and Rex to begin a new year of life.

Catching up,* Final: Family Restaurant leftovers

Kalib and his mom as we enter Family Restaurant. 

Other people wait to enter and they look pretty darned excited and hungry.

Charlie and Melanie soon joined us. The last time we had seen Charlie, his hair was long, so this was a bit of a surprise.

Soon, there will be a toast at the table. In fact, there will be several pieces of toast.

Melanie and Charlie, who drove all the way out from Anchorage just to eat breakfast at Family Restaurant with us. It would have been nice if the entire family had come, but not everybody could make it.

Kalib examines his mother's wedding ring.

There were many happy people at Family Restaurant that day. Even though most present were strangers, it kind of felt like we were all one, big, family, all eating at Family, all enjoying breakfast together separately.

Jacob, at Family.

Do you remember how wonderful it felt, when you were his age, and you got to lay your head against your mother's chest and listen to her heartbeat? Although the recollections are a bit dreamy, I do remember. And, just a short distance away from the heart that Kalib listens to, a new one, ever so tiny, also beats.

After we ate, we headed back to the car and passed by this Doggie in the Window. None of us knew how much it was. Probably, it wasn't for sale at all.

*Yesterday's post mistakenly claimed it to be the final of the catch-up series. This is because I had originally scheduled this one to appear earlier in the week, but then moved it to this day so that I could post snow pictures. Then I simply forgot to correct yesterday's post before it went up. When the post was up and I saw my error, I thought, "Oh, well."

Catching up with more missed photos, part 3*: The great Black Cat Football fake

I had no idea why Margie was holding a pan with a football in it on her lap. "Are we going to have boiled football for dinner tonight?" I asked.

It turns out, she didn't know why she had it there, either.

Somehow, I think this guy was behind it. Kalib comes to get the football.

It would appear that Melanie is simply giving Jim a few pets, but all those intimately familiar with the game of American football will recognize this as the famous "Black Cat Fake."

The "Black Cat Fake" worked! Melanie snags the football!

What a catch! She proves herself to be the greatest receiver in the world.

What a pass! She proves herself to be the greatest quarterback in the world.

Whoa! What an interception! She proves herself to be the greatest defensive back in the world! This is my daughter and I am damn proud of her - even when there is no football involved.

The football is put away. Charlie and Royce chill. Charlie knows about cats. Cats know about Charlie.

*Although I have scheduled this to appear Tuesday, November 10, I actually made this post on Thursday, November 5. There are two reasons for this: 1: whatever bug it is that has got me down has left me unable to concentrate to the degree that I must to do my work. 2: The project that I have been working on is very nearly done, but I have never brought such a project to a close without going full-bore, night and day, on it at the end, distracted by no other tasks, including this blog.

So, before I go to bed, I am going to put up several days worth of posts from photos that I have recently taken but have not used. Then, for the next several days, I will not blog, I will stay away from the internet as much as possible and just bear down on getting this job done - but my posts will keep coming.

I think Kalib with get three of those posts, two at the very least.