Back in Wasilla, where a moose ran into the trees and Branson caught a fish, I glimpse back at Cibecue Creek

It is a beautiful Saturday here in Wasilla, Alaska. The sun shines brightly upon foilage, lucious and green. The air is pleasantly warm, leaning towards hot but not quite there yet. A light breeze rustles the leaves and the aroma given off by all this new greenery and blossoming flowers is sweet.

So I don't really want to spend the day inside, yet I have spent the past two-and-a-half hours doing just that - editing my take of May 27, when several of us took a hike up Cibecue Creek from the place where it empties into the Salt River. This, of course, took place in the homeland of Arizona's White Mountain Apache Tribe, of which my wife and children are all enrolled members.

It was a hike that began in desert heat intense enough to cause me to wonder if it was such a good idea for all of us to take off into it with a two-and-a-half year old boy walking along, but our destination would be one of magic, if we could but reach it.

Do you think this little boy, Kalib, could handle the six-hour hike that lay ahead of him?

I can't spend anymore time on it right now, but please come back tomorrow and I will show you.

I have a great deal of catching up to do - from my trips to Arizona and to Anaktuvuk Pass. I hope to get all caught up within a week, possibly two, certainly no more than three, because three weeks from right now the plan is for me to be on my way to Greenland - I MUST be caught up by then.

Kalib, by the way, is enrolled not in the White Mountain Apache Tribe but in the Navajo Nation. Both the Apache and Navajo are matrilineal societies, hence Kalib and Jobe belong to their mother's tribe and clan.

Just to make it clear that I truly am back in Wasilla, where I am attempting to slip back into my "normal home routine" for the three weeks that it might be possible to do so, here is a moose that I caught with my pocket camera as I drove down Shrock Road.

Even as I catch up on Arizona and Anaktuvuk Pass, I will drop in images from Wasilla, just to keep up to date.

Just before I came upon the moose, I had made the usual afternoon stop at Metro Cafe, where Carmen showed me this picture that she took of her son, Branson, her husband Scott and the fish Branson had just caught. As you can see, it is a special moment, but it is even more special than you likely realize, for there is a bigger story here.

I will tell it when time and circumstance permit. Carmen is going to throw a big five-year birthday party for Branson on the 27th. She thought that this would be a good time for me to come, take pictures and tell the story, but I will be Greenland then.

I am excited to be making my second trip to Greenland, but I hate to miss this party.

That's how this life is, though. To experience one thing, you must miss out on another - no: a trillion-plus others. An infinite number of others.

I find this very frustrating.

In keeping with tradition, I now title this image: Through the Window Metro Study, #6699.

Even though I had to worry about chips and dings, I witnessed some pretty marvelous sights from the Kendall Ford loaner car

Last week, I brought up the fact that the "check engine" light had come on in our Escape and that I had taken it to the shop at Kendall Ford, got the problem diagnosed, made an appointment and had then dropped it off very early in the morning for what was supposed to be a two-and-a-half to three hour repair. Yet, come the end of that day, I learned that it had proven much more complicated than that and I could not pick up the car. They would have to keep it for another day.

I had planned to follow the story through, but I got sidetracked by matters such as Jobe's baby shower and my Mother's Day tribute.

So today I got up thinking that, concerning this story, I had blown it. The time had passed. It was too late to post it now and that I might just as well forget about it, pretend that it never happened and let the pictures that I took to illustrate it slip quietly away into that vast, unseen, archive that holds the big majority of images that I have ever shot.

Then I decided, what the hell - this is not a daily newspaper, this is my blog, I can do with it whatever I want. I don't always need to be perfectly timely. Ultimately, my goal is to continually wrap the past and the present together here, anyway, so what's wrong with wrapping in the recent past?

Anyway, no matter how current the images and the memories, by the time I post them here they are the past. So, here goes:

Come the next day, I waited and waited for the call that would tell me the car was done. My plan then was to ride my bike the five or six miles to Kendall and pickup the car. Or, if Caleb was awake, I might have him take me. Instead, near the end of the day, I got a call from Mark, my intermediary at Kendall, and he informed me that in the process of making the repair, the mechanics had accidently ruptured the fuel line and it was leaking gasoline.

They had ordered a part from Anchorage, but would have to hold the car for at least one more day, possibly two.

Mark said they could provide me with a loaner car and they could send someone to my house to pick me up and drive me over. "Okay," I said.

This is Ginger, the driver who came to get me. Ginger spoke with a strong southern accent.

Ginger has two jobs at Kendall - driving customers like me back and forth and doing custodial work. 

"It's either cleaning a urinal, or driving a customer... cleaning a urinal, or driving a customer... cleaning a urinal, or driving a costumer," she expounded. "Which one do you think I'd rather be doing?"

Yet, driving customers was not so pleasant that morning when two women were killed in a head-on collision just a few hundred yards up the Park's Highway from Kendall Ford. It was a busy morning, but she found herself repeatedly stuck in slow traffic as she crept by the accident scene.

Her theory was that the woman who had crossed over the suicide-left turn lane and into the oncoming traffic must have been struck by a medical problem. Otherwise, how could anyone possibly make such an error?

One of the customers she gave a ride to later that same day believed otherwise. He thought it was most likely driver distraction. His job, perhaps as an EMT, had put him as a first responder at many accident scenes and in such cases it almost always proved to be driver distraction, he told her - something like eating a hamburger, drinking coffee, putting on makeup or, most often these days, talking on the phone.

While she respected his expertise, she was not convinced. "If you start to cross four lanes of traffic because you get distracted from drinking a cup of coffee, you're going to figure it out and you can through that cup of coffee aside and save yourself. I still think it was probably a medical problem."

Before she could expound further, her cell phone rang. It was the office, calling to tell her she had a visitor waiting for her. She speculated as to who it could be - a higher up from the work place, perhaps, or, "it might be my boyfriend."

After we turned off the Park's and drove past the Kendall dealership toward the big shop at the back, she studied the cars in the parking lot. "Yep, it's my boyfriend," she said. "There's his car." Then she stopped to let me out. "You have a right good day, sir," she said with that southern accent.

"Where are you originally from?" I asked.

"Viriginia," she said.

Before I went into the office to do the paper work to pick up the loaner car, I saw Mark looking at our Escape. The way he held the blanket kind of reminded me a bit of someone about to drape a shroud over a dead body. I walked over to investigate.

Mark points toward the original problem, before the fuel line was ruptured, and explains how all that stuff that in front of his finger had to get removed before they could replace the bent camshaft in the solenoid. 

This is Sharon, who took care of the paperwork for the loaner car. It was regular rental-car paperwork, it's just that instead of me, Kendall and Ford would pick up the tab. If I heard it, I forgot the name of the lady in pink. She did say that she was glad that it was Sharon who was working with me and who would be in my blog, because she does not think she photographs well and so does not like to appear in pictures.

We had to do a walk around to look for dings, dents, nicks, chips, scrapes, cracks and scratches before I could sign off and take the car. Sharon was very thorough in noting all the little mars, including ones that I would never spotted if she had not pointed them out to me.

On the one hand, this leaves one feeling grateful because now you know that these almost invisible mars are not going to get charged to you, should someone find them on your return. On the other, it makes one nervous, a bit afraid to drive the car much at all because there's no telling what she might discover when you do return it.

While it was a loaner car, the driver is still responsible for any damage it sustains while in his custody. My insurance would be there for big things, but there is always a deductible and I did not want to have to pay any deductible.

I signed for it, then took the car and drove away - feeling very nervous. Remember Larry, the Harley rider who came here from Florida and then gave up motorcyle riding, in part because the air above highways here tends to have an abundance of little rocks and gravel flying through it?

I am certain that you have noticed the cracks that lace our windshield along with the chips that pock it.

Yet, it was not long until I found myself in a parking lot as a train came rumbling past. This is that train, as seen through the windshield of the loaner Escape. I must admit, it is worth the risk, to be able to sit in a loaner Escape and witness such a wonderful, dramatic and exciting sight such as this.

That afternoon, I drove the loaner Escape up to the drive-through window at Metro Cafe. Branson, Carmen's four-year old son, rode this bicycle right up to the front of the loaner car, looked at me, smiled, and wiped his nose.

As I drove off with my coffee, I saw these two, through the window of the loaner Escape.

Then I saw this girl walking...

...and this guy riding his bike.

All these things I saw from the loaner Escape. 

When I took it back two nights later, it was given another thorough inspection. Not a single new ding was found in it.

Here I am, back in my own red Ford Escape. I have just driven away from the Ford Kendall shop and am waiting at the intersection so that I can turn onto the Park's Highway. It will be a long wait, as there will be no breaks in the traffic for many minutes.

Given the view, I do not really mind. In fact, if I could show you this picture at its original size, you would see that the words above "MOTEL" on the sign say, "Alaskan View."

Except for the motel, it was a grand Alaskan view indeed.

Oddly enough, every single view that we have around here is an Alaskan view.

Then, of course, someone had to turn in and cut off that view. Fortunately, he would not cut it off for too long.

Unfortunately, the next guy cut the view off even worse. Yet, look at the pleased smile upon his face - it looks like he is returning to Kendall from a test drive in a new car.

I wonder if he bought it?

32 hours pass and I look into but one human face - guess who's? Wrap of Jobe's baby shower

Just after 9:00 PM Sunday night,  as is now the norm, Margie left here with Jacob and Lavina so that she could spend the week babysitting Jobe. From that moment up until this morning, 32 hours later, I spent my entire time, save maybe three minutes, alone with the cats. I caught not even a glimpse of Caleb. I looked into but one human face, and that for only about three minutes.

It was Carmen. She showed me this little vase from which not flowers but little hand-prints grow. It was her Mother's Day present from her four year-old son, Branson. Thus I shot,

Through the Metro Window Study, #1212 - Carmen with Branson's Mothers Day present

She was very pleased, but still she found it in her to sigh. "Pretty soon, he's going to be chasing girls, Bill. He will Bill, he will."

I should hope so.

OK. Now I back up again to last Friday. What are all these people so raptly looking at? Even that guy on the TV is looking.

Why, it's little Jobe, still tied into a cradle nap.

Jobe is admired by his aunties, Melanie and Lisa.

After he wakes, he gets passed around. Sandy takes him.

Jobe received many wonderful and exotic gifts, from cute little outfits to diapers and toys.

That's little Anna, sitting peacefully upon the floor. That's Cooper in the background. Yesterday, I mentioned that Cooper is mischievous.

Here is proof.

Cooper, Anna and Ian were all watching TV when Ian leaned too far back in his chair. 

This is Ngone and her daughter, Kathleen. Ngone comes from Senegal and has been in the US for 6.5 years, Alaska for a year-and-a-half. She does not much care for life in Alaska. "The winters are crazy," she explained. Before she and husband Dave, who wears the baseball cap in the group picture, moved here, they lived in Los Angeles. She liked it much better there. She loved getting out on the freeways to drive anywhere she wanted to go. Here, she is surrounded by big, huge country and there is no easy way to get into most of it.

She also remembers Africa with much warmth and fondness - all the little neighborhood shops and street vendors, the brightly-colored, beautiful clothing that the women sew and wear.

By comparison, everyday American clothing looks kind of drab. When she shows her mother pictures of her and others running around the US dressed in blue jeans and casual clothes, Mom is a little horrified to think that women would actually dress that way.

One thing about Jacob and Lavina's home - it has no shortage of stuffed Muzzys. Kathleen finds one and loves it.

Yesterday, did I not say that Kathleen is not only beautiful but cute, too?

And very bright, too.

She is a girl with roots in North America and Africa. I wonder where life will take her?

I know it seems unlikely, but I hope that in 20 years I am still around, still taking pictures, still writing stories and that I might come upon her somewhere. I would take her picture again, talk to her, find out how things are going, where she has been and where she hopes to go.

Kathleen - 20 years from now, if I still walk the earth, remember to give me a call. We must get together.

You met Kathleen's brother David yesterday. Well, here he is again.

What will he be doing in 20 years?

And this little beauty, Ashlyn, here in the arms of her mother, Tamara, what will she be up to?

Ashlyn also found a stuffed Muzzy to love.

Yesterday, I also posted a group shot from the shower, but there were a few individuals present, such as Caleb and Kalib, who were not in it, but they came running to get into this one.

I am not certain how it happened, but there was a beautiful young friend of Lavina's by the name of Toni in the lower left hand of the shot that ran yesterday, right there alongside Natalee and Jazmin, but she is out of the picture in this one. I tried to make certain everyone was in, but to take this picture, I stretch my arms upward and hold the camera as high above my head as I could reach and so I had a very poor view of the LCD screen.

You will note that of my immediate family, Rex is missing. He had gone to Seward to take some sailing lessons in a 45-foot boat with a pretty tall mast. One day, I hope to get pictures of him sailing such a boat.

Little Anna, Ian, Anna and Sharon are not in this picture, either. I thought this was because they had left.

They must have just gone down to the playroom to play, though, because soon they came back.

Rusty, husband of Natalee, father of Cooper. I mentioned that Cooper is mischievous. So is Rusty.

Sandy, with Andrew. The two plan to marry in September, in Hawaii. Even though I am not a wedding photographer, Sandy looked at the album that I made for Jacob and Lavina. She wants one like that. She wants me to come to Hawaii and photograph their wedding.

Again, let me reiterate... I am not a wedding photographer!

But Hawaii...?

A photographer must be flexible, right?

This post has gotten entirely too long, but, crimeny, you didn't expect me to leave Kalib out, did you?

As two boys pedal down Lucille bike trail a dog crosses the road; his people chase after; little kid on motor-bike nearly gets hit

It was a gorgeous, warm day - temperature 56 degrees farenheit - and as I drove down Lucille towards Metro, I felt the heat of the sun coming through the windows to toast up the interior of the loaner car. I wondered if perhaps it was time to get an icy frappe instead of a steaming Americano, but I wanted a muffin, too, so I stuck with the Americano.

Then, as I waited for a break in traffic so that I could turn out of the Metro driveway back onto Lucille, I saw these two kids coasting down the bike trail - looking oh so cool as they stood on the pegs that protrude out from their rear axles.

Traffic cleared and I pulled onto Lucille, just in time to see this dog break away from the couple who was walking it and dash across Lucille, toward the boys on the bikes. 

The couple then dashed across the road in pursuit of the dog.

The man then chased the dog past the next church down.

The dog dashed pass one of the biking boys who, apparently startled by the yelling and shouting, had stopped his bike.

The dog raced happily on. And I drove on. I saw the dog, the couple, and the kids on the bikes no more. 

And then I saw two little boys to the left of me, driving their little motor bikes where the bike trail goes. Motor vehicles are prohibited on the bike trail, so, apparently not wanting to break the law the boy in the lead, this boy, gunned his engine and shot across the road to the dirt trail on the other side.

By his nervous glance and body language, I could see the second boy did not want to be left behind and, even though it was too dangerous to do, was trying to decide to cross as well.

I moved my right foot off the gas pedal and brought it lightly to the brake. Sure enough, the second boy decided to go for it. I had to hit my brake, hard, to keep from hitting him.

I then drove on. I ate my cranberry muffin and sipped my Americano.

I then cut across to Church Road, where I saw this couple walking.

As readers returning in great anticipation from yesterday's post have undoubtedly noted, I had planned something else for today, but this just popped up, it was quick and easy to do, I have been going like crazy and just got a huge project, the budget for which I depleted about two months ago - to press last night, the day is beautiful, I am burned out, and I just want to find some way to get out and enjoy that beauty.

I wish Margie could join me, but she still cannot do anything physical and I must get out under the open sky today and do something physical.

I still have not decided what. A long, long, bike ride would be good, but I am still not in shape for a long, long, bike ride.

The places that I like to hike will be a slushy mess, so I am ruling that out.

I must do something, though.

What?

I suffer many trials and tribulations, then take a picture at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant for The New York Times

First, this is not the picture. The picture had to be taken this morning at 7:00 AM. It could not be 6:59, AM, it could not be 7:01. It had to be 7:00. Not only was this picture not taken at 7:00 AM, it was not taken today at all. I took it last Tuesday, while Margie was in Anchorage babysitting little Jobe.

Yet, it is the image that set me on the pursuit of today's picture.

One of the blogs that I visit everyday is Lens, published by The New York Times. Recently, Lens put out a call to all interested photographers anywhere in the world - pro, amateur, novice, whatever - to shoot a photo at 15:00 UTC/GMT. Out of these, they plan to build some kind of huge montage for a project they have titled A Moment in Time. In Wasilla, that moment would be 7:00 AM AKDT.

Naturally, when I learned of the project I immediately wanted to participate. So, I thought, where should I be at 7:00 AM Sunday?

My first choice was somewhere on the Arctic Slope where Iñupiat whalers are out right now, hunting bowhead: Barrow, Wainwright, Point Lay or Point Hope. Yet I lacked the funds to go there on my own and had no projects going that would take me there.

So I began to think about exciting, wild, dramatic places in the Mat-Su Valley where I could position myself - places that said, "this is wild and wooly Alaska!"

And then, last Tuesday, as Connie King poured my coffee, I thought, wait! I'll just go for the ordinary, mundane, everyday, typical Sunday morning, 7:00 AM scene: a waitress at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, pouring coffee.

I knew that such an image would have to compete for attention against much more dramatic fare: shots taken on the battlefront in Afghanistan, the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, rescue and relief efforts in disaster stricken regions of the world from China to Haiti; against the action of athletic events to the glamour of models and showgirls - for you can count on all of this kind of material and much more being prominent in the mix.

But what the hell. Every morning, at Family Restaurant, the waitresses pour coffee. And they always smile.

I told Connie I would come at 7:00 AM Sunday. She laughed and said "okay."

This is also from last Tuesday, as is the next image after it. The three that follow that are from today, but shot after 7:00 AM. I will use them as the backdrop to tell the story and then I will post today's 7:00 AM shot. Please do not cheat and skip ahead.

I could have cheated on the photo, and started shooting a couple of minutes before 7:00; I could have then continued for a couple of minutes after so that I would have a bigger selection to chose from, but I didn't. I kept it strictly honest.

This still gave me some choices to make. Should I shoot with the pocket camera, as I have typically been doing for this blog? Or should I use one of my big, pro, DSLR's?

As you know, the pocket camera is very slow to recycle, to focus, and to do all sorts of things that one wants a camera to do.

In the time it would take a waitress to pour a cup of coffee, I would be doing good to get two frames off. If I were to bring a DSLR, in that same time, I could shoot a dozen frames.

Plus, the technical quality would be far superior.

Still, I have elected to use the pocket camera as my primary tool for building this blog. If it is good enough for my blog, then is it not good enough for the New York Times "Lens" blog?

Yet, I do miss many images with my pocket camera that I would have gotten had I been shooting with a DSLR. For example, just before I shot this image last Tuesday, this big, tough-looking man patted the baby girl on the head.

I spotted the action and had the camera on them while it was still happening, but I could not get the damn thing to focus until the action was over. With any of my DSLR's, it would have been in focus just like that.

Still, the moment I did get was nice, if not as nice, and that is the kind of compromises one makes when shooting with a pocket camera. You get what you are able to get, not what you could have got and in return you live a more subtle, peaceful life.

Can you imagine what a spectacle I would be, sitting at the breakfast table in Family Restaurant blasting away with a big, noisy, DSLR?

This man followed the big man to the baby. Again, although I had the moment framed, the camera did not focus in time to get the image. Still, the emotion does bleed through the blur and, as I am giving a demonstration of the strengths and weaknesses of pocket cameras, I use it, anyway.

I decided to leave the big DSLR's at home and shoot today's image with the pocket camera.

I am not a morning person. I seldom get to bed before 1:00 AM. Three and 4:00 AM are common bedtimes for me. Once I get to bed, I have difficulty falling asleep and after I do, my sleep usually comes poorly, in fits and bursts.

There is only one place that I want to be at 7:00 AM and that is in bed.

This morning, knowing that I had to get up early, I started to head for bed at midnight, but somehow did not manage to tuck myself under the covers until 1:30 AM.

I then thought, "do I really need to participate in this? It will make no difference to my career. My image will get lost in the thousands upon thousands of images that will surely pour in - many of them to be shot in dramatic circumstance by top-notch photojournalists working with the best equipment; others will have been carefully planned, lit, composed and staged by genuine artists in preparation for that one moment.

"Doubtless," I thought on, "there will be some who will fudge a bit - who will start shooting at, say, 6:50, keep at it until 7:10, then choose the best of a few hundred frames. Set against all this, my poor little coffee shot will just disappear into the morass; no one will take note of it at all.

"Why I should I subject myself to the pain, agony, and suffering that getting up in time to be at Family Restaurant at 7:00 AM will inflict upon me?

"Yet, isn't that what the artist does? Subject himself to pain, agony, and suffering, just to create his art? Art which, in most cases, will simply disappear unseen and unnoted by the mass of humanity, itself destined in its entirety to die out and vanish?

"So why not just sleep in?"

As I thus deliberated, Pistol-Yero, the white-booted tabby cat, crawled onto the blankets atop my chest, flattened out there and began to purr. 

I felt warm and snug. I wanted to stay that way as long as possible.

The thought struck me that, come 7:00 AM, I could just grab my camera from where I lay, take a bleary-eyed picture of Pistol-Yero and the black cat Jim, who would surely have joined us by then, close my eyes and then just drift back to sleep.

Yet, one cannot count on a cat for something like that. A cat is going to do what a cat is going to do and it does not matter what the cat did 30 days in a row prior without fail, the cat is going to do what it wants to do and if you plan in advance for it do something specific it will surely do something else.

I went to sleep fairly quickly and slept soundly until 2:30 AM. I then woke up, checked the time, fell back asleep and then stayed that way until 3:15, when I woke again. And so it went through the night until 6:15 AM. I then decided to get up and go get the picture.

I had planned to position myself at one of the booths by the windows that face the railroad tracks, so that the light that comes through those windows would fall upon my waitress. At the instant I stepped into Family, I saw a young family with a boy who looked to be about six-years old sitting together on the other side of the divider, near the bar-style counter. I suddenly knew that I had to make them the subject of my 7:00 AM shot, so I walked over, introduced myself, told them what I wanted to do and they said, "sure, join us."

So I did and I shot and I shot and it was all so beautiful and the interaction was wonderful and I knew that I was just getting the most fantastic shots. Then they finished their breakfast, got up and left the restaurant.

I looked at the clock. It was only 6:34 AM.

Oh, no! I had gotten so excited that I forgot to check the time. None of those fantastic pictures that I had just taken would qualify.

I decided to return to my original plan. I looked over at the booths by the window but was horrified to see that they were now all filled. There was no space for me to sit there. Wait... I saw a diner get up, leave his table. I arose and rushed for that booth... but just before I reached it, a serious-looking man wearing a white shirt, black slacks and black-rimmed glasses sat down there ahead of me, opened up a copy of the Anchorage Daily News and began to read.

Damnit! Rude S.O.B! Here, I had an assignment from The New York Times and I was blowing it! This man wasn't helping!

I looked back at the clock to see how much time I had. It read 6:35 - but this was the clock in my bedroom, not the one at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. I was still in bed. I had been dreaming.

I got up and drove to Family Restaurant, where, after completing my big shoot, I would see Rob, who I met last Tuesday right here at Family, and his wife, Katie, who I met just today. This is them, smiling above.

According to my iPhone, which must be right on, I took a seat at a window booth at 6:55 AM. Connie came over to fill my cup. "Wait!" I stopped her. "You can't fill it until exactly 7:00 AM!"

"Oh, this is for that special deal you were telling me about?" she said. "I thought it was supposed to be Saturday. I wondered why you didn't show up."

She promised to come back right at 7:00 and then left to do something else.

I decided that I should do a test shot to check out exposure and lighting. I let my hand play the role of the waitress.

I kept checking the minutes on my cell... 6:56... 6:57... 6:58...

Come 6:59, Connie was nowhere in sight.

I decided to give her 40 seconds. If she didn't show, I would then track her down.

Forty seconds passed. No Connie. I got up, walked a short distance to a spot where I could peer down into a little enclave alongside the kitchen where the waitresses sometimes go. There she was, talking with another waitress.

"Connie!" I said. "It's time!"

A look of panic swept over her. She scurried empty-handed into the area between the counter and the big window that opens up on the cooks, then dashed to the far end, grabbed the coffee pot and hurried to my table. She lifted the pot to pour.

"Wait!" I said. I picked up my cell phone. It still read 6:59. Two seconds later, it switched to 7:00.

"Okay," I said, "pour!"

Oh, damn! Despite my test, I could see that the shot was going to be somewhere between one and two stops underexposed and there was a strange purple cast that would be a bear to ever fully correct. The framing was not quite how I had envisioned it.

But it was 7:00 AM and the coffee was pouring...

I had to shoot...

Connie King, Waitress, Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, pouring my coffee at exactly 15:00 UTC/GMT, 7:00 AM AKDT.

It's nowhere near the best coffee pouring shot that I have ever taken, but it is the one that I took at a specific Moment in Time.

"Now, what is this for again?" Connie asked as she raised the coffee pot back up. I explained.

"I've been pouring coffee for 35 years," she mused. "I always knew it would take me somewhere."

I returned home via Church Road. Along the way, I passed this young woman. She, too, was going somewhere.