Vagabond coffee drinker in front of the world; Kalib comes to feed Bobby and the fish, then takes them home

Kalib was asleep in his car seat when he and his parents arrived to pick up the fish and so the lot of us headed over to Palmer to get some coffee at Vagabond Blues. Some of you may recall an earlier stop at Vagabond in August, when I photographed Charlie standing in front of this very map.

I have decided that each time I wind up in Vagabond with Charlie, I will photograph him in front of this map.

It should prove to be an interesting study.

I wish I had thought of it years ago.

The lady behind the cash register at Vagabond Blues in Palmer.

Kelsey, Vagabond Blues barista.

Charlie and his mug. Charlie always comes up with neat mugs.

Kalib was still asleep when we arrived at Vagabond, so Jacob had to stay in the car with him.

By the time we returned home, Kalib was wide awake. The first thing that he asked to do was to come out here to my office to feed "Bobby," to feed "fish." Ever since he has moved into his new home in Anchorage, he has continually brought up the subject of feeding fish. He has been sad that he had no fish to feed. His parents found what appeared to be a good deal on an aquarium complete with fish on Craigslist, but someone else beat them to it.

So I decided to give him one of my four active aquariums - not the one behind him, but the one that is most prominent in my earlier Kalib-fish feeding pictures.

I don't think that he understood yet that he would be going home with an aquarium and fish of his own.

Before they took the fish, Kalib, Jacob and Melanie did a little fish dance.

We also shared a little dinner. Royce took a seat near his buddy.

Kalib points at Bobby, his favorite fish, the one he named, the big pleco. I'm afraid that I did not do too well taking pictures of the fish-moving, because I was too active in the process.

I kept the orange parrot fish pictured in earlier posts. I moved it from the 55 gallon tank that Kalib would take home to the 90 gallon tank where Bobby had lived.

Kalib, about to leave for home with his fish.

I hope they all survive. They are pretty old fish, mostly eight and nine years, but the two smaller ones are four or five; I can't remember exactly.

Had things gone according to my original plan, I would have joined Margie in Arizona today. Tomorrow, assuming that everything goes according to my current plan, I will go to Barrow.

I have much to do in a short time up there. I will try to post every day, at least one or two pictures.

On a warm and snowy day, I eat at Family, get barked at, pass by Wasilla's Hall of Wisdom and receive a generous offer to help Royce

During my all too brief meagre hours in bed, I kept looking forward to getting up and heading to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant for breakfast. I had made up my mind before going to bed that this was what I would do and I was excited about it.

That doesn't mean that I popped right out of bed. I don't think that I have been to bed before 3:00 AM since Margie left for Arizona and sometimes not until 4:00 or after. And then I always lay awake for at least an hour, after which I wake up frequently through the night. So I wasn't popping out of bed for anything - not even breakfast at Family Restaurant.

But, at about 9:30, I carefully extracted myself from the quilt of cats that weighed down the blankets that covered me, took care of a few tasks, including some in this computer, and then headed over about 10:40 or so.

I got a new waitress, a woman who I do not recall seeing before, but she was good. She made sure the hashbrowns were done just right, and she took her time pouring the coffee, because one thing about this new little Canon s90 pocket camera - it is very slow to turn on and prepare. That's why she took her time, so I could get this picture.

I truly appreciate it.

Now I back up a few minutes, as I drive over, just to show you that it was a warm and snowy day - the first snow since before Christmas. Here I am, stopped at a stoplight, as this guy in front of me runs a green light.

One more shot from Family.

On my walk, Tequila came running, barking, growling, through the new snow.

Of course I know that she is a nice dog and does not mean any of it, but she forgets that I know. Or maybe she thinks that she can fool me this time into thinking that she really is mean.

Uh, oh! She gets bogged down in the new snow.

Oh, dear...

It's a humiliating thing for a nice dog who is trying to convince you that she really is mean and nasty to get bogged down in the new snow.

An empty school bus passes by King's Chapel, across the street from Metro Cafe. Well, if its empty, Bill then who is driving it?

I had a haircut scheduled for 4:15. I did not want to get a haircut at 4:15, but that was the only time available, the scheduler told me.

Along the way, I passed this hitchhiker. See that place behind him? The Mug Shot Saloon? You are probably already familiar with it - at least from the inside. As everyone knows, the national media all descended upon Wasilla after John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his VP running mate.

Invariably, it seemed, the media always wound up here, inside the Mug Shot Saloon, seeking local wisdom, asking intelligent, probing, incisive questions to highly knowledgeable, clear-headed, sharp-minded individuals. They then dispensed this wisdom and knowledge upon the rest of the nation. Yes, they saw the Mugshot Saloon as Wasilla's Grand Hall of Wisdom and so came by to see how much of that wisdom they could soak up themselves.

After the haircut, an experience that I will not bother to describe, I went to the bank to transfer money from our business account to the personal account. It was a most discouraging experience - but I remain optimistic.

Now, I hardly know what to write, even though I have been thinking about it on and off for hours. In the comments to yesterday's post there is a message from Funny Face - the same generous person who surprised me with two gift cards to Metro Cafe.

After she read about Royce's trip to the vet, she offered to start up a little fund-raising effort to pay Royce's vet bills.

I am deeply touched and moved not only that she thought of this and even called the vet clinic, but that she got positive response - even from Mocha, who just lost a cat. I never imagined anything like this happening.

I did not respond right away because I had to think about it and I had to consult both with Melanie in Anchorage and Margie in Arizona. 

Royce came to us in December of 1994 through a stray cat that followed Rex home and then camped out with us for a couple of years. By the time Royce was born, we had already had a house full of cats and so we determined that we would give away his entire litter of four. One, a black cat, went to friend of Jacob's named Angel and she named it "Little Guy." Angel lives in Phoenix now, Little Guy still with her, and she often leaves comments on this blog.

Melanie fell in love with Royce. When we told her that too many cats already lived in the house, along with the dog Willow, and that the orange kitten just had to go, she was crestfallen but tried to be brave.

One day, a woman who had seen one of the ads I put out called and told me that she wanted an orange kitten. "Is the orange one still available?" she asked.

I was just about to say "yes," but then I spotted Melanie and Royce, snuggled up together, loving each other.

"No," I said, "I'm sorry, but the orange kitten has been claimed."

Melanie grew up, went off to college, got two new cats and now the three of them live together in Anchorage with Charlie and his cat Epizzles, or "Poof" as regular visitors, but she still loves Royce as dearly as she did when she lived in this house with him.

So I had to get her input. "I want to pay for his care, Dad," she told me.

I also talked to Margie. She noted that, sooner or later, after every natural disaster of major proportions, stories come out about animals in need of rescue. Margie suggested that Haiti might be a good place for the contributions that would go to Royce to be sent.

I am greatly touched. Part of this is probably also a desire to help me with this blog, something that a number of posters have expressed a desire to do.

Sooner or later, hopefully in February, (although I had once planned to do it in October, then November, then December...) I plan to restructure this blog a bit. One of the things that I plan to do is to create a store where I can make prints available. Then, anyone who wants to help will be able to do so and get a print, too.

Funny Face, I thank you, greatly.

And be assured - Royce will be in at least one of those prints, along with Kalib.

I expect to see Kalib tomorrow. So he will be in this blog again.

Royce; Ham and Swiss at the Alaska Bagel; strange animal in the back of a car by a pawn shop; Carpenter makes progress, etc.

Royce has an appointment to see the vet tomorrow morning at 10:45. Today, as usual, his appetite has been voracious and what he is doing right here is ordering me to "give me some chow, right now! Brown cow! Brown cow chow! Right now!"

But I fed him salmon chow instead - senior blend. I have fed him a number of times and, as was suggested to me in comments, have raised his water bowl up about half-an-inch off the floor, just in case that might help.

I have not found any blatant vomit today, although at one point I stepped in something slippery and almost invisible - a thin film of something. Maybe it came out of Royce, maybe out of someone else; I don't even know what it was.

Royce sure has gotten thin and frail, though.

Some readers speculate that it is because he misses Kalib, but he certainly has not lost his appetite - just his weight.

Basically, with Margie gone and Kalib and family moved out, I spend my entire days alone with only the cats. I do catch glimpses of Caleb in the morning, if I get up before he goes to bed. Usually, he is wrapped up in his video war game, or watching golf.

I took a pledge that this week that I would eat no junk food from beginning to end - and drink no Pepsi or any other soda pop. Despite the wrong impression I have managed to convey, I do not really drink a huge amount of pop. Maybe four Pepsis and half-a-root-beer per week on average.

But this week - none, not one soda pop - no junk food. 

I will see if it makes any difference in how I feel when the week is over.

So far, it hasn't made any difference at all.

I enjoy the company of cats and I am a person who does very well alone, but when lunch time came, I had to get out where people were circulating and eating and I had eliminated junk food as a means to do so.

The first alternative that came to my mind was the new place, The Alaska Bagel. It is fast food, but not junk food.

So here I am, placing an order with Johanna while her colleague, Erik, peers out from behind the bagels.

I ordered a ham and Swiss sandwich on a seasame seed bagel and helped myself to a glass of cold water that I poured from a pitcher. To any who might be having a difficult time reading Erik's right arm, it says, "Behold, I send you as sheep among wolves." His left, "As for me and my house, we will serve the..." the last word kind of fades from sight, but I strongly suspect that it reads, "...Lord."

The sandwich was good, the water, excellent, prepared just right.

On my home, I found myself behind this car and I was puzzled by the critter in the back window. It looked pretty cute, but something about it just didn't seem quite right. I hoped that there would be plenty of cross traffic at the stop sign just ahead, so that I would have time to study the critter, but there wasn't. The car briefly stopped, quickly took off and turned away fast.

Still, I got this shot off and, having looked closely at it, I have now concluded that it is not a real critter at all, but a toy - a stuffed cat.

Concerning the pawn shop ahead, I told the following story back in April, when I photographed Charlie playing my Martin Classical guitar, but I have picked up a number of new readers since then, so I will tell it again.

I first saw my Martin guitar in the display window of a music store in Globe, Arizona, in 1976. I went inside, told the salesman I wanted to play it, he took it out of the window, gave it to me, I took a seat, and played a bit of Bach on it.

Never had a guitar sounded so good in my hands. I had to have it. It cost $1800 and my annual income as the editor, reporter, writer, photographer, ad salesman and delivery boy of the Fort Apache Scout tribal newspaper was $10,000. I didn't care. I put some money down on lay-away and kept paying until that day came, a year or so later, when I finally brought that Martin guitar home.

I did love that guitar and I even played it in a master class with Christopher Parkening. Many people used to think that I was a superb guitarist, but that was only because they did not know better. Many said I should become a professional musician. I knew better.

There is only one way to be superb on the classic guitar, and that is to play and play and play and play. Practice, practice, practice. I'm a photographer, I'm a writer. I hardly have time for both. How could I be a classical guitarist, too? I can create original works through my camera and keyboard; through my guitar I could only interpret the works of others - and not nearly as good as those with true musical talent were already doing.

So I put the guitar aside. 

Once, during one of those times when I was broke and in dire need of money, I took my Martin guitar to this pawn shop. The man behind the counter considered himself to be sharp, smart, and savvy, wise to the ways of hoodwinkers hoping to get bucks for junk. He asked me how much the guitar was worth. I told him.

He laughed loud, long and scornful. "What kind of fool do you take me for?" he ridiculed. "I know guitars. That one, it's worth $150 at most. I'll loan you $50 for it - only because I'm so generous."

So I walked out of his store with no money but my guitar still in its case, leaving behind a chuckling man who had no idea of the potential profit he had just forfeited had he given me an honest loan and then I defaulted.

I often imagine that the day will come when I am able to devote myself fully to my books and this blog. I imagine that I might then find myself with a little time to play my guitar again.

No, no... It will never happen. My guitar playing days are in the past.

You will recall Tim, the professional carpenter who appeared here just last month, having finally raised two walls on the workshop that he had begun working towards slowly for four years. Despite the high winds, which just this afternoon tapered down to maybe about 20, I found him working on it when I took my walk.

Tomorrow, Tim says, the trusses will begin to go up. As for me, our walls are still almost totally bare of photos. He is way ahead of me.

Further along on my walk, this kid and I noticed each other.

Could this be the same kid, getting off his school bus?

Almost no matter what, I must take my 4:00 PM coffee break when All Things Considered comes on the radio. As usual, I stopped the Metro Cafe drivethrough.

It looks like I won't be joining Margie in Arizona after all. It's a matter of survival. I must stay here and see if I can drum up some work. Even if I never play it again, I don't ever want to take my guitar back to another pawn shop.

I think of all the rifles that I took to pawn shops - and a pistol, too - thinking that I would pay back the loan and get them back but now those guns are owned by others and who knows how they have been used?

Now I won't see Margie until February 2, but that's how its got to be.

I don't want to lose my Martin guitar.

Update: Perhaps some of you have wondered as I have how you might help the people of Haiti. Here is a link with different aid providers that you can contribute to:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/01/haiti_earthquake_how_to_help_a.html?sc=fb&cc=fp

As I photograph a Super Cub, the wind rips my hat off my head and keeps on blowing; Royce update

I got a bit curious today to see what kind of airplane is parked on Anderson Lake in the spot where I used to keep my, poor, crashed, broken, airplane, the Running Dog, tied down in winter.

I found this Super Cub, with another Cub behind it and a Maule behind that.

If I am ever to do this blog right, the way I envision it, I need another airplane. And its a crazy thing - if you were to look closely at my little business right now, you would see that a big struggle to merely survive looms right in front of me - and yet, I have this unshakeable, optimistic feeling in me that, this year, I am going to rise out of it all, make this blog into what I see it becoming, and once again fly about Alaska in my own, little, airplane.

Maybe it is a foolish, silly, absurd little feeling, based on fantasy, not reality, certainly not practicality, but a new friend of mine in India, Thruptha, who you can find in my 2009 May review, put this message on her Orkut page:

"The most successful people on the planet have failed more than ordinary ones."

So, you see, I, who have failed and failed and failed and failed and may well be about to do so again, am surely on the right track.

One more thing: I dream about airplanes frequently - just about every night. So my need to get another is more than just a utilitarian thing - my soul needs an airplane. I am not whole without one.

I am like a cowboy with no horse, a dog musher with no dogs.

As I photographed the Super Cub, my hat left my head and took off across the ice. It traveled so fast I did not think that I could catch it, but I went running after it.

It kept getting further ahead of me, but then it stalled for several seconds and I snatched it from the wind.

The wind has been howling, like 40, newspaper report said gusting over 55, I heard 80 on the radio. The temperature has finally cooled down a bit, too - not frigid, but cooler than it was and if you were standing in an 80 mph gust you would think it was cold. On my coffee break, depending on where I was, the temperatures ranged from 7 to 13 degrees. 

I have not read the forecast, but it feels like we are headed towards cold temperatures again. To the north of here, in the Interior, several places are into the -50's, so I think that air might slip down onto us.

I could be wrong. Another Pineapple Express from Hawaii could be charging up the Pacific, right now, headed straight at us.

It is an El Niño year, after all, and these things are supposed to be more frequent during such years.

That's the box that in which the newspaperman deposits our copy of The Anchorage Daily News every morning. You can see the morning paper itself sitting a littler further back in the snowmachine track. If you look real close at the upper right-hand corner of the photo, just above the entrance to our driveway, you can see the post on which the newspaper box once sat.

It could have been worse - it could have been our roof, or a tree might have dropped on the house or car, or maybe upon my head.

This is actually the first picture that I took today. Yes, I went to Family Restaurant again. I wasn't going to. I was going to cook oatmeal, but I changed my mind.

I think I will fall back to oatmeal for the rest of the week, but you never know.

Just as Melanie advised, I have been feeding multiple small servings of soft food to Royce. I am happy to say that he has not yet thrown up today and the end of the day draws nigh.

With Margie gone, I eat breakfast at Family; the iPhone - a simple, quick, transaction suddenly turns complex and long

I awoke thinking that, with Margie gone, I might just as well go to breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant - perhaps I would go every day until the 17th, when I leave to join her in Arizona. So what if I can't afford it? What does it matter? Will I be any more broke when they shove me into the cremator's fire then I will if I don't?

I enjoy eating breakfast at Family. And it is a good place to see a good cross-section of Wasilla drift in and out. Should I ever find the time and resource to do this blog the way I want, I have this idea in my head where I will go to Family Restaurant a couple of times a week, pick out somebody, introduce myself and then do some kind of little feature on that person, both in and out of Family Restaurant.

But today I did not have the time nor was I up to such a thing. I just staggered in, groggily sat down and placed my order.

Breakfast is good at Family, but they do have a tendency to ruin the hash browns, to fry them to a hard crisp on the outside and turn them to mush on the inside.

A waitress taught me to order them "soft and light," and then they would cook them just right.

And when they do... oh, my, breakfast at Family is good!

So I ordered my hash browns, "soft and light."

She is a very good waitress and she treats me well. It is not her fault that the hashbrowns came back as mush encased in a hard shell. The omelette was delicious, but I had been looking forward to the hashbrowns and now I couldn't eat them. I tried to get a new order of hash browns done right, but the cooks were allegedly too busy.

So I had breakfast with no hash browns. I had been looking forward to those hashbrowns, soft and light, so it was a disappointment.

Even so, I still recommend Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. And if you order your hash browns "soft and light," there is about a 75 percent chance that you will actually get them that way; otherwise, maybe 10 percent - possibly 15.

And when the hash browns are soft and light, it is the best breakfast in town.

The excellent and charming waitresses are very good at keeping their customer's coffee hot.

After I finished breakfast, I returned to my car and found this dog sitting in the bed of truck parked next to it. The dog was old and looked sad, but maybe it wasn't. Some dogs just look sad.

Still, I had to stop, and visit with the dog for a minute or two.

As you can see, the dog enjoyed the stimulating conversation and perked right up. 

I started up my car, got into it and then noticed that the light was falling beautifully upon the lady in the manicure shop that sits alongside Family. You can see the reflection of my car at the left, but you can't see me. If I should find myself in this situation again, I will see if I can work myself into the picture. This time, I was just too far to the left.

Actually, I believe I'm in this one, but just barely. The reflection is so dark there that it is hard to tell for certain.

I went home after this and made an important phone call. No - not to Margie. I knew that she would be so tired after traveling all night that she might possibly be sleeping and if she was, I did not want to wake her up.

It was about health insurance. One of the great ironies that I have faced recently is that the same month that the US Senate passed health care reform is the same month that I lost my health insurance that I have paid such high premiums for these past 15 years - to the detriment of my health care, as they have covered almost nothing and if I had not been spending so much money on the premiums I would have had more to spend on health care.

Then, they recently raised the premiums 20 percent and in December I just could not cover it.

As worthless and expensive (priced in the Senate's "Cadillac" premium category, delivering "clunker" benefits)   as the policy is, I still feel very uncomfortable without it. So I called to find out how long I can push it before I lose the opportunity to reinstate it and if there was any way Mega Life and Health could make it more affordable.

As my insurance company has had such a negative impact on my health care, I have talked to their representatives a number of times, but an amazing thing happened today. I was connected with an intelligent, articulate, woman with both a knack for listening and explaining and the knowledge and patience to do both. She also seemed to care.

We talked for maybe two hours. While the problems are many, here is the basic one: to get a group rate, I bought this premium through the National Association of the Self Employed... oh hell, what reader is going to want to read through such an explanation? I've probably lost 75 percent of you already.

Briefly stated, almost all the members NASE that I joined with have moved on and now my group is very small - in fact, she couldn't assure me that my group includes anyone but me. My policy is not even offered anymore. Hence, my premiums are outrageous and my services minimal.

Plus the part that she didn't say - the heads of the company are not interested in my health, but only in their profits. When my health care gets in the way, they would just as soon raise my premiums to the point where I am forced to drop the coverage.

Worse yet, I have no alternatives - not yet.

About the best I can hope for is that somehow I last until I reach Medicare age, which is coming sooner than I wish, but perhaps not soon enough.

Thank you, Senator Joe Lieberman. I had a good chance and then your ego got in the way.

Jacob and Lavina gave me an iPhone for Christmas, in the form of two ATT gift cards. I have been eager to pick that phone up, but have been dreading the experience, too, because I was with Melanie when she picked hers up and it was a long and convoluted affair.

Since Christmas, I have been too busy to do it, plus, I had seen the ATT store after Christmas's past and it was wall-to-wall customers, most of them waiting and waiting.

So I waited until today, until after I finished talking with the insurance lady and then I headed over.

To my surprise, there was no line. I was served immediately.

I told the kid about my gift and handed my cards to him. He told me that my cards covered an 8 gig phone, but if I wanted I could add a little more and get a 16 or 32 gig phone. "How much more for the 16?" I asked.

"$100," he answered.

Logically, 8 gigs seems like more than enough for a phone, but my experience with anything having to do with computers is that no matter how much memory you get, sooner or later you find out it isn't enough. You can always plug in more harddrives to your computer, but not to your iPhone.

"The 8 gigs will do," I said. I did not want to pay $100 out of pocket today.

So he took the two gift cards, completed the transaction and zapped my phone number and data into the iPhone - just like that. The entire process took less than five minutes.

Then he handed one of the cards back to me. "You've got $48 left on that card," he said.

What? $48 left over? This meant that I would not have had to spend $100 out of pocket, but only $52.

"In that case," I said, "I'll go with the 16 gigs."

"Okay," he said.

 And from there it got complex and complicated. So much so that when I left the store close to one hour later, after spending time watching children play while my very good salesperson and his coworkers tried to troubleshoot the many problems that kept arising, I departed without an iPhone.

Not only that, but the data in my old phone had gotten messed up. The phone numbers that I had been dialing and receiving calls from all disappeared. My voicemail no longer functions.

I have to come back tomorrow, 24 hours after that he did the original transaction for the 8 gig phone. Then the money will be back in my gift cards and I can spend it again and leave with a properly functioning iPhone.

I hope.

The kid told me his name, so that I could put it in the blog and I memorized it.

But now I forget.

Sorry, kid.

My bad.

As long-time readers know, Royce has been growing old and thin. I have attributed the thinness to his age, but, during Christmas, Melanie and Lisa observed that he wolfed down bits of turkey like he was starving, whereas in the past he would gingerly sniff and sniff such offerings before eating them.

So they speculated that the reason that he was growing thin was because it was becoming painful for him to eat hard food.

After Christmas, I continued to feed him turkey until there was no turkey to feed and I also observed him when I put out the dry food. He seemed to eat it just fine.

"But maybe he can't eat as much," Melanie said. "Maybe it hurts too much. You should get him canned food.

Today, with Margie in Arizona, I did something that I hate to do. I went to the grocery store. While I was there, I not only bought soft, canned, food for Royce, I bought "Senior Blend."

As soon as I pulled a can out of the grocery bag - even before I began to open it - Royce trotted to me with a desperate look in his eye and began to meow loudly. Once I pulled the lid off, he went nuts.

So I put some in a bowl and then took Royce into the boys' old room, placed it before him and closed the door so that the other cats would not try to come and get it.

I didn't close the door tight enough. Chicago came in, nudged Royce out of the way and began to eat his food. He had eaten quite a bit by then, so I decided just to let Chicago eat and then I would give Royce more later.

Then Royce nudged Chicago away and returned to his meal.

What you need to understand about Chicago is that she is the meanest, toughest, cat in this house - not towards people, but towards other cats. There is a story behind this, but I am not going to take the space to write it, right now.

But Chicago did not fight for that food. She stepped back and watched as Royce ate.

I think maybe there are two reasons for this. Chicago loves Royce. She hates Pistol-Yero, despises Jim, absolutely could not stand Marty when she was here with Kalib, Jacob, Lavina and Muzzy, but she has always loved Royce. The two often sleep intertwined.

And I think that maybe she understood, somehow, that Royce needed that soft food more than she did.

Plus, maybe she saw the can and the words written on it, including "senior blend."

Next to Royce, she is the oldest cat here, but she still likes to think of herself as a pretty, young, kitty.

And she is pretty.