A boy, a dog, a pizza, a cat and a wife on Super Bowl Sunday; Durga, in the form of a beautiful woman, slayer of the buffalo demon

Yes, all who have returned from yesterday, you guessed it: I ordered our Super Bowl Sunday meal from Fat Boyz Fatery Pizza. As Fat Boyz is only 1.5 miles from the house, I decided to walk over, place my order, then walk back home, get in the car, drive back, pick it up and bring it home.

That would be a three mile walk - not as much as I want or need, but better than no walk at all.

As I walked down Seldon towards Fat Boyz, I saw this boy and this dog walking in the opposite direction, coming towards me. I decided immediately that I would not take any pictures. I would give them a sociable nod hello and just keep going.

That's because, given all that I must do before I leave for Barrow tomorrow and given the fact that I knew that, in spite of myself, I would not get much done during the Super Bowl, I wanted to keep this blog post very short.

I figured that the pizza and Margie watching the Super Bowl would be all that I could deal with.

But when I reached the kid and the dog, the boy stopped me.

"I'm exhausted!" he exclaimed.

"How come?" I asked.

"Because I just got up!" he said.

So I figured that if he was up to it, I might as well take a picture for the blog.

"What's the dogs name?" I asked, as I shot the above.

"I'm not sure," he answered. "This dog has had lots of names. I think its Smokey now."

As to his own name, the boy said it was Unknown. I showed him my blog on my iPhone and he said he recognized the folks at Far Boyz. 

I then thanked him and was about to move on, but then Smokey playfully tipped Unknown onto his back.

Smokey and Unknown. BTW - Unkown assured me that Smokey does not bite. Unknown's mother insists that he wear the muzzle when he is out walking, just to be safe.

Unknown tries to get up but Smokey licks him in the face.

Unknown again tries to rise, but Smokey puts his weight on his shoulder.

So Smokey and Unknown take a break.

Then Unknown again tries to rise, but Smokey takes him back down.

Finally, Unknown manages to get up and they start walking down the street. "That Smokey's a good dog," I tell him.

"I don't know," Unknown answered. "He had his manlys cut off a few days ago."

Then Smokey tripped him up a bit.

I was reminded of a recurring dream that comes to me in one form or another. Somehow, I fall down. I keep trying to get up, but I keep tripping and falling again. Over and over.

"Who you for, Unknown?" I shouted after them.

"Green Bay!" he shouted back. "Of course I'm for Green Bay."

I did not see them on the return, so I assume they made it home safely.

Soon, I made it to Fat Boyz. My camera was too cold to use inside, where it would just fog and ice up.

No sooner had I walked in then I was informed that, just before me, someone had placed an order because they had read about Fat Boyz on this blog.

You know, when you are a blogger, you want to make a difference in this world. You labor hours and hours upon end, reaping far, far, less than minimum wage, just hoping to make a difference. Sometimes, you wonder if it is all futile, if you are laboring in vain, your images and words slipping into the deep abyss of cyberspace, making no difference whatsover.

And then you walk into Fat Boyz pizza and find out that someone has just placed an order because of your blog.

Suddenly, you know its all worthwhile.

Suddenly, you know you and your blog are making a difference in this world.

You feel new strength, new determination to carry on.

And carry on I will.

I will!

Damnit!

I will!

As I walked home, I saw this guy walking towards me. I could have stopped him to learn his story but I decided I had enough to deal with already.

And then this airplane flew overhead and I remembered how my life once was, how I hope it will yet become again. It will yet become again.

I was not created to remain always upon the ground.

As I drew closer to home, I saw Jared, out in his yard. Jared was not going to watch the game. He had other things to do that interested him more. Jared has a snow plow and anyone can hire him to come and plow their driveway or road.

Unfortunately, of all the winters that I have ever seen here, this has been the least snowiest of all.

We have a dearth of snow.

It is terrible.

But there's lots of February still ahead, March and April, too. March can often be the snowiest month of the year.

So there's hope for Jared, yet.

As every US reader already knows and maybe some of the rest of you, too, towards the end of the first quarter, the packers put a touch down on the board and then, 28 seconds later, Nick Collins intercepted a Steeler pass and scored six more.

Unkown would get to celebrate a Packers victory. We were for the Packers, too - mostly because Green Bay is a small town. I googled the population: just over 102,000 - less than half the population of Anchorage?

Can you imagine, if Anchorage had an NFL team?

But that's not the important part of this picture.

See how the Fat Boyz pizza is already half eaten.

Today's pizza was truly super.

"Oh, this is good!" Margie said upon taking her first bite.

She offered many more praises before the game ended.

At some point in the second quarter, Chicago joined us.

She had no interest in the game whatsover.

Maybe if it had been the Bears...

From India... Durga, Slayer of the buffalo Demon:

While walking through one of the ancient Hindu temples of Pattadakal, Melanie and I met this priest, who invited us to enter a tiny, dark, alcove in which sat this idol of Durga.

I asked my friend, Kavitha, who wants to come and hike with us in the Brooks Range this summer, before returning to India to take a long trek and bike ride at 17,000 feet in the Himalayas that will finish in Tibet, if she could help me with Durga's story.

This is what she wrote:

The mythological story goes thus –

Long, long ago, there was a demon king called Mahishasura <Mahisha is Sanskrit word for buffalo and Asura = demon>. This demon had the capability to change between human and buffalo at will. He terrorized the earthling, invaded heaven defeated the gods, and drove all the Devas <Gods> out of heaven.

The gods got into a meeting to strategies against the Asura. Since he was invincible to all men, they decided to create his nemesis in the form of a woman. The Devas combined all their Shakti <energy / power> to create a beautiful woman. They named her Durga.

According to legend, Durga created an army to fight against the forces of the Mahishasura. After nine days of fighting, Mahishasura's army was destroyed; she finally killed him on the tenth day of the waxing moon. Durga is therefore called Mahishasuramardin i(literally the slayer of the buffalo demon), the destroyer of Mahishasura.

This event of victory of good over evil is celebrated in various versions in India.  It is also said that the region where Mahishasura ruled is now called Mysore.

Thank you, Kavitha (Cawitha)!

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Rex, Ama, Chicago and the burning man; Yes, we have bananas, we have lots of bananas today

We had not seen Rex and Ama since Christmas. Late yesterday afternoon, they dropped in for a visit. Chicago could not believe her happy eyes. She stepped onto Rex's lap and looked him in the eye. "Where the hell you been, bro?" she asked.

"I've been to Tennessee, cat," Rex answered. This was a lie. Rex had not been to Tennessee. He hadn't even been to Texas. 

Margie and Ama cooked up a stir-fry vegetarian meal in the wok that Jacob and Lavina gave Margie for her birthday last September. I went out to take a look.

"What would you add, Bill?" Margie asked.

I took a whiff of the scent and it suddenly seemed that orange would be just the thing.

"An orange," I said.

But we were out of oranges.

"I've got one in my pack," Rex said.

So he got it. It was a very red "blood" orange.

Margie put it into the stir fry.

The zing of the orange proved to be quite tasty in there.

Then I went and sat back on the living room couch. Chicago left Rex and came back to me. 

Late each August in northern Nevada, a very strange community of about 50,000 people comes together on a hot stretch of absolutely barren, alkaline, desert - a place where not even cactus, snakes, or spiders live. They call it "Burning Man" in honor of the huge, log, effigy of a man that is put up there every year and then burned to the ground at the end.

Except for water, coffee and tea, no concessions are allowed. Community members must bring in all their own food and supplies - and for many, that includes their own alcohol and drugs. People pedal about on the bare earth on bicycles and ride about in tiny vehicles that look like cupcakes. A hot wind blows, and dries out and dehydrates everything in sight. There is a big car that looks like a cat.

All kinds of sculptures go up. When it is over, everything must be removed so that all that is left behind is desert, looking like it did before the event.

Ama has been going to Burning Man year for years and last summer introduced Rex to it.

Now he is applying to Burning Man for a grant that would fund what he needs to build his own, large, sprawling, sculpture there, one that includes a life-size concrete replica of the largest salmon ever caught - nearly six feet in length.

I hope he gets the grant.

And now I want to go to Burning Man, too.

See what is says at the top of this blog?

One photographer's search for community, home and family...?

I think this very strange event would qualify.

And Margie, who usually shies away from adventure these days, says she would like to go, too.

I kind of doubt that we will be able to pull it off - but watch this space and find out. If not this year, then maybe next.

All I've got to do is get this blog and electronic magazine up, running and cooking along the way I want, generating income, funding itself, funding my work, being my work and then, if I want to run off to someplace strange like Burning Man just to take some pictures and blog about it, well, by hell, I can do it!

Rex and Ama are both doing Burning Man things in this picture, BTW. He is refining his ideas and she is pulling up Burning Man pictures to show Margie and I. 

From India: Vijay feeds us bananas

Here we are, in the Chennai fruit store where Vijay has brought us so that he can buy bananas and feed us - as I have noted before.

Look at all that fruit! There is probably more fruit in this one store than in all of Alaska!

Well, maybe not than "all of Alaska," but there is a lot of fruit.

Many varieties of bananas were available and Vijay wanted to give us as wide an experience as possible. He picked his bananas very carefully.

The fruit store includes a little juice bar, where you can buy fruit drinks of many types, so Vijay bought fruit drinks for Melanie and I.

And now I must say that I am very surprised and a little disappointed in myself. In my mind, I remember taking many pictures, like of Melanie getting served, the juice baristo handing my drink to me, of Vijay and such, little kids passing by on motorcycles and observing us as we drank. I intended to include a few of these in this post - but this is the only image from the fruit store juice bar that I have!

How could this be?

I am wondering if I was using two cameras and somehow forgot to download the images from one camera, because it just doesn't make any sense that I would photograph just this static scene and then quit shooting.

I also wonder if they really had Washington apples there. India grows many apples in the north and they are very good. And all of the fruit at this store, apples included, were very cheap in price compared to what the same items would cost here - just pennies on the dollar or maybe in some cases a nickel or dime.

I don't think Washington State apples would be all that cheap after having been shipped all the way to India.

I wish that I could remember the names of all these banana varieties, but I can't. In the upper right hand corner is the banana most like the ones we usually find in the store here. Those little tiny ones - they were my favorite! So sweet and tender and good and after you eat them for awhile and then come back to the states the bananas here taste kind of bland. 

The green bananas are supposed to be green. They are ripe when they are green like this.

Anyway, we ate them all. Every banana. Afterward, both Melanie and I were stuffed, but Vijay wanted to feed us more food.

I toast Vijay with a banana. The situation here is the same as the juice bar. I could swear that I took many more pictures, including ones of Melanie and Vijay eating bananas, but what you see here is all the banana photos that I have.

And that just isn't like me.

It's okay, though. Just the other week, Vijay told me that when next I, and anyone who might travel with me, come back, he is going to treat me to another banana feast, with even more varieties. Remembering how I came up short here, I will be certain to take more pictures and to tell the story right.

So just consider this to be a preview.

And this is little miss Vaidehi, daughter of Vijay and wife Vidya. In the background is Vasanthi, Vivek and Vijay's mom, who brought Melanie and I to Chennai by bus. She paid for our tickets, our lodging and all of our food except for what Vijay bought us. She would not let us pay for anything.

That's what hosts in India do - they assume complete responsibility for your survival. It is a different kind of concept for an American to grasp but that is the kind of generosity that is built into the culture and you must put aside your pride and accept, respect, and be grateful for it.

And don't argue about whose going to pay, because you will use that argument. And if by chance you see an opportunity to sneak in and pay for a lunch before your host can do so - don't do it. Because afterward you will look into their eyes and see that they feel badly. So be gracious, and accept the hospitality.

And, of course, that is Melanie who Vaidehi is so fascinated to meet.

This will do it for today, but tomorrow I will include a range of studies of little Miss Vaidehi. Her mom will be included in these studies.

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Finally, last Sunday with kids and grandkids, abruptly remembered; jail house romance wrongly credited, near miss

Folks, I feel very abrupt today. For many reasons which I will not delve into, save to note that this damn computer, which has served me so well these past three or four years, seems to be getting ready to fail and it is wasting a lot of my time. This post should have been completed an hour ago.

So I am going to be abrupt today.

Sunday, however, was a good day. 

So I will return to Sunday, and will abruptly tell you how Jobe sat down and the waiter came...

Oh, hell... why should I tell you at all?

Look at the picture! You can see for yourself!

There were adults at the table, too. I was there, as well.

When you are little, you are as aware of the bottom of the table as you are the top.

Honk, honk!

At one point, Kalib got up and ran off to another table, being mischievous. He could have got away with it with his dad, but not his Auntie Mel. He had to come back and sit back down.

This is what you call, "sibling rivalry."

After we returned home, Melanie and Charlie tried to get comfortable on the couch. Kalib whipped them with a blanket.

So they got up and danced instead. Kalib played with the voice mail box on the phone. The first message was, "no new messages." So Kalib made it go, "no! no! no! no new. no! no! no new messages." Kind of like a disk dj. 

Then he got into a message left awhile back that I have not bothered to erase.

A gruff but happy sounding voice comes on talking to me, Bill Hess, saying I will know right away who he is and he leaves a number and tells me to get back to him.

I did not know who he was and there was something about the familiarity of the message coming from a voice that I did not recognize at all that put me on a bit of an edge, so I never called back.

Then one day he called back and got me. Turns out, he had spent time in jail in Palmer with a Bill Hess who was not this Bill Hess and that Bill Hess had somehow introduced him to the woman who became his wife and when he saw that this Bill Hess lives in Wasilla he thought it must be the same Bill Hess and so he was just calling to let that Bill Hess who wasn't me know how great everything had worked out with his marriage and to thank that Bill Hess for bringing the two together.

Sorry, I said. Wrong Bill Hess. I haven't been in jail since I got out of Juarez in November of 1969, just in time to eat Thanksgiving dinner in a casino in Las Vegas.

I don't know why we even bother to keep this phone anymore. Everybody calls us on our cells phones. Except for people wanting money, and folks who think they did time with me.

Then Melanie danced with Kalib, who seemed to enjoy it.

Kalib takes a break.

Caleb watched the NFL playoffs.

Lisa talked to Bryce on the phone.

At 4:00 PM, a bunch of us went out to get coffee. Metro is closed on Sunday so we went to the place at the corner of Fishhook and Seldon. As we waited for our coffee, we saw an exchange being made. Money for pizza. 

Now, there are two things notable about this picture. It is 4:00 PM and look how much light is in the sky! The long nights are in rapid retreat.

Also, the temperature stood at about -10 F (-23 C) but no real snow on the ground. Just ice and a hard crust.

Lisa and Jobe, back at the house.

After we returned home, Kalib laid his spatula upon the floor and ran circles around it. 

As always happens, it was soon time for them all to go. Lisa and Kalib head out the door.

Melanie and Kalib walk to the car.

They backed out and then, with their headlights shining through their frozen exhaust, began the drive back to Anchorage, where they would drop Kalib and Jobe off with their parents.

"It sure is quiet in here," Margie noted, after they had been gone awhile. 

I had not seen Chicago since Kalib and Jobe had arrived. Now that they had left, she came back out. 

Quiet is how Chicago likes it.

And this one from India:

This is what it is like riding on the Indian highways. Constantly. While it is exhilarating to a certain degree and on the surface seems to carry a bit of romance, it is deadly. And once that deadliness catches up to you it is awful and that, more than all the other reasons combined, is why I feel so abrupt today.

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My dream of Jobe, the momma grizzly and cub; Six studies of Chicago and the great fire; boy with tire

Chicago and the great fire - Study # 1: After eating her breakfast in the cold garage, Chicago enters the living room in search of fire and warmth.

Although it had already been going on for awhile and Jobe and I had experienced some great adventures out in the country, the dream now comes sharply into my memory only at that moment when Jobe and I walked out of the woods and into a large, grassy, meadow.

Yes, I say "walked" because in the dream Jobe had grown beyond toddler stage and was able to walk quite nicely all by himself.

As we stepped into the meadow, my eyes were on Jobe and I smiled as he ran ahead of me, until we were separated by about 50 feet. I then turned to my left and was startled to find myself looking right into the eyes of a grizzly bear, standing on all fours, perhaps five feet away from me, staring directly into my eyes.

Chicago and the great fire - Study # 2: Chicago finds fire and warmth.

About 30 or 40 feet beyond her, I could see a cub playing.

Oh, boy! The only way the situation could have been worse would have been if I or Jobe had come between the sow and her cub. Even though we hadn't and that neither of us were in a position to logically threaten the cub, I was not certain just how much logic the momma bear would apply to the situation.

Momma grizzlies are not known to be rational in such a situation. If a momma grizzly perceives a threat, real or imagined, she is going to do all in her power to kill that threat.

Chicago and the great fire - Study # 3

This momma studied me intently, as I tried to keep my eyes on her, the cub and Jobe.

"We mean no harm to you or your cub, Mamma bear," I told her.

Just then, the cub started to bound in a playful way straight towards Jobe.

When the sow saw this she charged, her legs churning hard as she bound straight toward my grandson, fast. She quickly outpaced the cub and then bore down on Jobe. I felt so helpless. I had no gun and I could not run nearly so fast as that momma grizzly could.

Chicago and the great fire - Study # 4: It is a warm fire and that makes it a great fire.

"No, bear!" I shouted out a plea. "No, bear! No, bear!"

The bear quickly reached my little grandson and then stopped right beside him. She brought her nose right to his left cheek and she sniffed. Then she nudged him, gently, almost affectionately.

Then the cub reached them.

Next thing I knew, the three - momma bear, cub and Jobe were walking away from me. They all looked quite happy together.

Chicago and the great fire - Study # 5

I did not know quite what to do. I could not just let Jobe walk off with two bears, no matter how friendly disposed to him they were, but if I were to insert myself in the scene and try to remove Jobe from it, that momma bear just might kill me - and Jobe, too.

It was a hell of a predicament, I tell you.

That's where the dream ends.

Chicago and the great fire - Study # 6: Chicago is content.

And this one from India:

Boy with bicycle tire, as photographed through the open window of a taxi-cab as we passed through his village in southern India.

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I begin Christmas by taking a shower with a spider; we give gifts, eat, celebrate and the littlest among us falls ill

Late on Christmas morning, before the influx of family began to arrive, I took a shower. After I stepped out, I found this spider standing still on the shower curtain. I do not like to have spiders in the house, nor do I like to kill them. When I find a spider in the house between breakup and freezeup, I catch it and take it outside.

It seems cruel to do this in the winter, so in the winter, I apologize to whatever spider I find. "I am sorry, spider," I say. "I do not wish to harm you, but I just can't allow spiders to overwhelm my house." Then I will kill it.

When I looked at this spider, one word came into my mind: "Chooo'weet!" 

I could not kill it. It just simply was not in me to do. I dried myself with a towel, got dressed, left the spider in peace right where you see it and went out to greet family members as they arrived.

Jobe arrived with his mom brandishing a copy of the Anchorage Daily News. Whose picture do you think was in it...? Look close... heck, you don't even have to look that close... it's Jobe! Second from left on top, a crop from the Christmas card picture that I ran with yesterday's post.

Soon, Jobe took a seat on the floor. He looks good and happy as usual, but he had thrown up just a little bit earlier and he was not eating anything at the moment. None of us were too concerned. Babies throw up all the time.

You will note Kalib and Ama in the background. It is true that Rex is the one who discovered Ama and brought her into our lives, but I have to tell you, it was Kalib and Ama who were falling in love with each other on Christmas Day.

Jobe tried his hand at petting Jim. He was doing okay, but then he grabbed a big hank of fur and yanked. Jim turned around and meowed in protest.

Jobe was left with a clump of black fur in his paw.

When it came time for me to pass out the gifts, Jacob put a Santa hat on my head. Jobe came over and posed with Santa for this self-portrait.

Who would receive the first gift? I reached into the pile of gifts and grabbed one at random. It was addressed to Charlie, from Santa Paws. Which means it came from Muzzy and his family.

Charlie tore into the packaging to unwrap his gift.

It was a Betty Boop doll.

Well, actually, it was a grain mill. But if you squint until your eyes are almost closed and then look hazily at the box, those little pictures kind of look like Betty Boop.

Among the huge cache of gifts that cascaded down upon Kalib was this alligator, a triceratops, and a shark.

One gift was addressed to Diamond, Bear Meach and Poof, the cats who hang out with Melanie and Charlie. The cats had stayed home, so Melanie opened.

Somehow, I don't think those cats are going to wipe their paws.

As for me, I would rather wipe my muddy boots on the living room rug than to dirty this matt.

Margie held up a print of Jobe that I made for her.

"Joooooe - be!" Kalib said.

You will notice that Caleb is staying low key in the background, holding his throat. On Tuesday, he bought himself something to eat at Taco Bell and a crunchy taco shell scratched his throat on the way down. His throat grew sore and just kept getting worse and worse.

So he stayed low key, all day.

He didn't even play with Kalib.

Margie called me into the kitchen to tell me it was time to for me to carve the turkey, which she had just removed from the oven - with a little help from Lavina and Melanie.

Ama had been no help at all. As you can see, she had over-imbibed and had passed out on the dinning room table.

How could this have happened? This was an alcohol-free gathering.

It was Kalib that she had over-imbibed on. Kalib, and all his rambunctious energy.

So she passed out. Her head hit the table with a "thunk!"

I might exaggerate just a little bit.

As for me, I picked up the carving knife. The edge was dull. So I sharpened it, until it could have sliced right through a newspaper.

Instead, it sliced through the skin on the tip of my left pointer finger..

That knife was really sharp and went straight to bone, just like that.

Then Charlie brought some squash that Jacob had cooked with with berries and pine-nuts to the table. It was time to begin feasting.

Unrepentant and irreligious though I be, I have been walking a very ethereal edge these past five weeks and it did not seem right to start Christmas dinner without a prayer and a word of thanks. I did not feel up to the task myself and so I asked Lavina, whose strong sense of spirituality is rooted in her Dene beliefs. She agreed. I asked her to be certain to remember other members of the family who are grieving, those in South India.

She did, along with many others spread widely over vast distances.

Then it was time to eat. I put my camera aside and picked up my fork and knife.

Afterward, we were all stuffed. Turkey can put you to sleep. It put Rex to sleep.

But Rex would not be allowed to sleep long, for a shark came flying at him. It was Lisa who had hurled the shark.

Knowing how much Melanie hates the very image of a spider, I called her over and showed her the picture of the spider on my camera monitor. She shrieked, and almost dropped Jobe.

"Why would you do that, Dad?" she asked.

So I told about how the spider had showered with me and how I had left it in peace.

"Why would you want to shower with a spider, anyway, Dad?" Lisa chimed in. "Don't you know that a spider has eight eyes?"

Charlie had borrowed my guitar. The spider incident inspired him and he suddenly began to sing one of his improvised, on the spot, ballads.

I wish I could quote him, but I can't.

Anyway, the ballad was about a guy who took a shower with a spider. Everything started out fine, but then the spider got a little too perverse in taking in the sights with its eight staring eyes and wound up getting washed down the drain.

It didn't have to be that way, Charlie sang. Everything would have been fine, if only that spider had kept its eyes to itself.

As for Kalib and Ama, the two just kept at it. Melanie had given Charlie a top Canon Rebel. As the two frolicked, he read the manual so that he could begin using it.

Ama, by the way, is Jewish and also vegetarian. She grew up in New York and her family did not celebrate Christmas, but, as it was a holiday and they had the day off, they would usually go to a movie and a Chinese restaurant.

Readers who were with me then will recall that right after Thanksgiving, she and Rex flew to San Francisco and then joined Ama's family at Lake Tahoe. After that, they drove into Canada and then followed the Al-Can Highway to Alaska. On their way to Anchorage, they stopped here. It was the end of Hanukkah, and so they lit the last candle of the menorah, right here. I was in Barrow at the time.

Then they flew to New England but now they are back, Ama just found an apartment and will soon start her new job teaching massage therapy.

I lay down on the couch to rest a bit. I closed my eyes, and slipped into that place half way between sleep and awake. I am not quite sure how he got there, but when I opened them again, Jobe was on my shoulder.

Jobe truly adores me and I adore him.

So I did another self-portrait. A bit later, Jobe's mom put him down for a nap in his cradleboard. A bit after that, we heard a loud, awful sounding retching noise come from the master bedroom, where Jobe had been sleeping.

He had thrown up badly. He was feverish.

So Jacob and Lavina took him to the emergency room at Mat-Su Valley Regional Hospital.

Kalib stayed with us.

They came back about three hours later. Jobe had come down with some kind of mix of bacteria and virus and had been given medicine. He would be okay, the doctor had said. His spirits were good and his smile was there. His parents decided to spend the night here.

Kalib watched as his dad stoked up the fire.

By the way - today, Sunday, December 26, is Kalib's third birthday.

Happy birthday, Kalib!

How did it happen so fast?

And why do all events just keep shooting by, faster and faster?

About midnight, Jobe began to get fussy. He cried and cried and it was hard to see and hear - this little grandson of mine, who is always so happy and good natured.

Lavina picked him up and patted and soothed and rocked him. In time, he settled down. And he slept reasonably well until 5:00 AM, when he woke up and cried again.

He seems okay now, though.

While Jimmy had hung out with us through much of the day, we had caught only flashing glimpses of Pistol-Yero and we had not seen Chicago at all.

This was because Muzzy had come to visit. Jimmy doesn't care, he does not fear the big-hearted St. Bernard, but those other two stay away from Muzzy.

Now that Christmas, 2010, was coming to its end and it was bedtime, Chicago stepped half-way into the hall to see if she could determine what was going on.

Despite Jobe's temporary illness, it was a good Christmas Day, well-below zero outside but warm in the love of family inside.

I enjoyed it, and when Melanie brought up the memory of the exploding nitro-squirrels that we used to come upon when she was little and we would go walking, I laughed loud and hard.

Even so, were I to tell you that I went through the day without my eyes ever watering I would be lying.

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