I get my work done with a little help from my friend

It is now 1:49 AM. I am in my office. I first came in and sat down to work about 10:00 AM this morning and, except for a couple of small breaks, I have been in here ever since. This is pretty typical for me, so I decided its time to show this side of my life, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.

I have been printing pictures from Kivgiq that will hang on a wall in the North Slope Borough Mayor's Office in Barrow - not in the room where the mayor sits, but out in the foyer where everybody congregates.

As always, Jim, my good black cat buddy, was here to help.

He did take a break to get a drink, however. For about 7 years, I had a big oscar in that tank, but it died about six weeks ago. I have not decided what to replace it with, but I am changing the decor of the tank. I recently bought a good-sized ceramic pig and a proportionally smaller piglet.

After I soak them for a couple of months to hopefully leech out any toxins that might be in the enamel, they will go into the tank with whatever fish I replace the oscar with. 

It won't be an oscar. It will be a big cichlid, however. Maybe two.

Right now, a giant pleco still lives in this tank, but I will have to find a home for it before I restock, because if I don't, it will eat the new baby fish.

As I continue to work, Jimmy crosses the room and takes a seat in the window sill above another tank. This one has a lively population. Too bad I didn't have the lights on.

Even when Jimmy just sits in the window, it is good to have him here. His presence helps to get me through the day.

Jimmy returns from the window sill and takes a seat on the keyboard. I needed to pause, anyway.

Then he decides to come to me. No matter how busy I am, I never turn him away. I have learned how to keep working when he does this.

He can make it a little difficult to see the screen, however.

Later, as he often does, Jimmy determines that I must take a break and pay attention to him, not my work, and so he digs his claws into my sweatshirt and pulls himself up onto my chest.

He stays a little while, then leaps to the floor and I get back to work.

A bit later, he does it again. He makes it hard to breath. You notice I only have one arm to support him with. Obviously, I man the camera with the other.

When I am not holding a camera, I am pretty skilled at supporting the black cat while simultaneously manipulating my computer.

He steps away from me. Before I can get back to work, he steps onto my keyboard.

I can't believe it! The photo that I was working with disappears right out of Lightroom. I panic for a moment, thinking that he has deleted it and I will have to go find a backup copy. But Jimmy did not delete it; he changed the rating from 3 to 1, and so it vanished from the screen, as I had Lightroom set to display threes and higher. This one popped up in its place.

I had been arguing with myself which of the two to actually print, and had decided on the other.

If you look closely at the picture, you will see also that Jim bumped the rating up from three to four.

For a moment, I thought, "Okay, Jim, if you say so, I will print this one instead."

But then I changed my mind and went back to the other.

I love my black cat, but I can't allow him to become my picture editor.

Now that we are on Daylight Savings Time, it doesn't get dark until nearly 9:00 PM. The sun goes down before that, but in the north, we have long, lingering twilight.

As you can see, the amount of daylight creeping into my office is declining with the hour, causing the screen to appear more pronounced.

Jimmy is still with me. He is that kind of cat.

He sticks with me all the time.

I have to print this picture several times, because ink splotches keep appearing on it. I clean the heads, print again, clean the heads, print again, and still the ink splotches appear.

Finally, I pull out a big pad of ink soaked lint. It looks like it might be made of cat hairs. The printing proceeds just fine, after that.

Now, it is completely dark outside. Jimmy keeps me going.

But wait! This is not Jim! This is not a black cat! This is a tabby cat!

Why, it's Pistol-Yero!

He usually hangs out here with Jim and I, but shortly after we got up this morning, he went to lay back down on the bed and soon fell into a nap.

He napped all day.

But now that it is night, he comes to the office to do his part.

Pistol-Yero!

Yesterday, I was too tired to tell the story of how that cup of coffee came to be set in front of me at IHOP, but I promised that I would tell it later.

So this afternoon, about 4:30, when I was taking one of those little breaks that I mentioned, I drove to Mocha Moose. I figured that I would get a new coffee picture and use that to illustrate the story.

This is Kaylee. At first, she was a little shy about the idea of being in the picture, but then she said, "ok."

But right now, as I type this sentence, it is 2:08 AM.

I have to get an early start tomorrow. I need to get to bed, sometime.

I'm tired.

I really am.

That story will have to wait.

It was not really my intent to blur this picture. I had set the shutter speed at 1/250 of a second, but sometimes the knobs on the pocket camera change without me knowing it. That's what happened. The shutter speed got reset to 1/40 of a second.

I don't really mind, though.

Life's a blur, anyway.

I have no time for this blog tonight, none at all - but what the hell, here it is

So here we are this morning at IHOP, Margie, Lavina, Kalib, me and our waitress. There's a pretty dramatic story behind that cup of coffee, and I thought I would tell it tonight, but I'm on deadline and haven't the time.

Someday, I will tell the story, if I don't wind up in Hell, first.

Pioneer Peak, from the stoplight immediately before the Taco Bell turnoff. No matter how crazy it gets around this place, guess what?

I can look any direction I want and Alaska is still out there.

And that feels good. I cannot tell you how good it feels.

Only Alaska feels that good.

Did you know that I love this place?

The place they call Alaska?

Damn, I love it!

A late afternoon drive on Schrock Road.

Lavina barbecues pork chops. They were damn good, scrumptious.

Muzzy invades and marks the red dog's territory. Red Dog can't do anything about it.

It's free, but I was afraid that if I took it, someone would shoot me, anyway. People are always getting shot around here for taking free TV's. Afterward, the shooter removes the "free" sign and claims he shot in defense of property.

Not a single shooter has ever been convicted.

I never take these free TV's.

That's why I'm still alive today.

Jacob turns Kalib's stroller loose on a hill.

Jacob and Lavina get into a game of "catch the stroller." It's Lavina's turn to catch.

Now it's Jacob's turn.

The game of catch is over, but the fun isn't.

Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and Muzzy.

I wonder if there was any school today?

Today as I walked through my personal nightmare, the subdivision called Serendipity, these two boys came zipping by. They turned onto a side road, then soon came zipping back.

If I had had my DSLR's, I could have followed the action, but I only took the pocket camera on my walk and it recycles too slow. So I missed the mishap, which happened immediately after I took the top picture. I did capture the aftermath. 

As you can see, they went around a corner and the sled broke where the rope was attached. The boy on the sled slid to the curb.

That's Tristan, 11, on the left, and Reed, 12, on the right. I wondered why they were out during school hours and thought about asking them, but I did not want to frighten them, so I did not.

It was the first walk that I have taken through Serendipity in a long time; I think the first time this year. It hurts me to walk in Serendipity, that's why. I knew it when it was wild, when no one called it Serendipity. I knew it when, on a day such as today, it would be just me back there, on my skis, with my late dog, Willow, or my even later dog, Scout.

I left Serendipity and headed back to the house. It was then that I discovered that someone was in the air, above me, manning the stick.

This hurts, too.

Kalib stayed with us, all day today, after being gone for several days in a row. He walked all about, as if walking was something that he had always been doing.

All day long, he was happy; happier then I have seen him since before we went to Washington DC and Margie got hurt and he went off to daycare.

All day long, Margie was happier than I have seen her, since she got hurt.

Kalib plays with Royce and Muzzy. There are two more images in this series, but I am saving them for Grahamn Kracker's No Cats Allowed Kracker Cat blog.

I had gone from my office into the bedroom to get my jacket so that I could go to a kiosk and get some coffee.

Margie came in. "There's a young person here to see you," she said.

"Who?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "He knocked on the door and then asked for you."

So I headed to the door expecting to see some kind of missionary or salesman but instead it was Mike. I had not seen Mike for years.

He was probably about 12 when I first met him. I was walking and he came pedaling by me on a bike. I took his picture. We became friends after that and he would often come by to watch my electric train buzz around my office.

He was a train enthusiast, and knew more about them then I did. Once, he needed a caboose, so I gave him mine.

He is 19 now and lives in Talkeetna. Something brought him to the neighborhood, so he stopped by to say hi.

He was curious about my train. Trouble is, after I broke my shoulder and got it replaced with titanium, I could not do the things necessary to keep that train running.

One day, I will make it run again.

Kalib studies a bubble.

Kalib reaches for bubbles. And who blows all these bubbles?

Why, its his Mom, Lavina. 

Kalib. These bubbles were blown last night, by the way.

Today, as I drank my coffee and ate a cinnamon roll, I drove by Iona, the place where people pray. I thought about Elvis Presley, and about the humble people that he sang about.

And this is from yesterday's coffee break. Church Road. People must pray here, too. Maybe that guy up there is praying, quietly, so no one will hear.

Curious. There are no churches on Church Road, but there are a bunch on Lucille Street.

Catch 22 upon Catch 22: I could blame the ravens, but actually, it is all my fault

I want to go to bed right now - in fact, I wanted to go to bed an hour ago, but I have fallen behind on this blog and if I don't catch up right now, when will I?

I have a good excuse. I had a little project that had to be postmarked no later than March 1 and it ate up all my time, day and night, and then after I drove to Anchorage late Sunday night, got the postmark, bought a cheese quesedilla, a cheesy-bean burrito and a strawberry mango drink at the Parks Highway Taco Bell all-night drivethrough and then drove home, I was drained and have been ever since.

Taco Bell. That is where the problems started. Not the one on the Parks Highway in Anchorage, but the one here, in Wasilla, Saturday, where I photographed this and the other two ravens seen here. 

This is how it happened: I had no cash on Saturday when I went through the Wasilla Taco Bell drivethrough. Margie was stretched out across the back seat of the Escape, so pulled out my wallet, slipped my debit card out of that, paid with the debit card, slipped the card back into the wallet and then put the wallet...

Where did I put the wallet? Did I put it on my lap? I don't remember. Perhaps because I was paying too much attention to the ravens. I always pay attention to ravens. They demand it.

Did I put it in the little pouch on the inside of the drivers door?

Just where did I put it? It was black. These ravens are squabbling over and eating something black. Did they take it? Did they eat it?

All I know for certain is that, after we finished dining, I drove up to the outside Taco Bell garbage can. I handed my sack of Taco Bell garbage back to Margie, she put her sack of Taco Bell garbage into it, handed it back to me and then I got out of the car, walked to the garbage can, threw it in, got back in the car and then drove straight at the ravens, thinking that they would fly before I got to them.

But they didn't. They called my bluff and I had to stop and then go around them. It is not because they were stupid and did not understand the danger a Ford Escape could pose to them.

They are smart. They just knew that I was bluffing, and that I would stop. And if by chance I didn't, they had it all calculated down to the micro-second just when they would actually need to hop and flap out of the way.

But they did not want to do that unless it was absolutely necessary, and they knew it wouldn't be. They wanted to call my bluff, to humiliate me, and they did.

Margie wanted to go to Carr's to buy some groceries after that. So I drove her to Carr's. I thought that she meant that she wanted me to go in and buy some groceries, but she meant she wanted us to go in and buy some groceries. It would be the very first time that she had gone into a store since she suffered her injury, January 20.

I drove her as close as I could to the door, got out of the car, opened up the back door, helped her out, made certain she got through the new fallen snow to the walk that leads inside the store, then got back into the car. By then, the lady and the boy above were in front of me, so I took their picture.

I then found a place far from the store to park the car. Being a rough, tough, Alaskan, I did not care at all about the falling snow. I hiked from the car to Carr's as if it was not even snowing at all. As if I was in Phoenix, Arizona.

That's how I did it. I then entered the store and these two boys - I assume the one with a beard is a boy, but who knows, he could be a girl - how could I tell? - offered me a Peanut Butter Cup. First, I took their picture and then I took the Peanut Butter Cup.

That is the kind of thing of thing that you do when you are a serious photographer, which I am. You take your picture before you take your Peanut Butter Cup. It does not matter how badly you want that Peanut Butter Cup, you take the picture first.

If you can't do that, then, hell, you might just as well throw your damn camera in the trash.

I wonder if I threw my wallet in the trash at Taco Bell? I wonder if I had accidently placed it in the Taco Bell sack when I was eating, the one that became my trash bag?

All I know for certain is that when I got to the check-out stand, with Margie hobbling behind, and the checker rang up the $200 plus bill, I reached into my pocket for my wallet, but it was not there.

I went back to the car and searched in and all around it. My wallet was not there. I went to Carr's customer service, to see if someone had turned my wallet in. They had not. I drove back to Taco Bell, to see if someone had turned in my wallet there.

No one had. I asked if the garbage can had been emptied. It had.

The Taco Bell ravens laughed at me.

You don't believe me? You don't believe that a raven can laugh? Then come to Alaska and you will learn otherwise.

So I drove Margie home and checked my online bank account. No activity. Checked my credit cards. No activity. Still, I had to cancel them all. Each and every one.

Worse yet, I had no cash. Worse still, Margie had no cash. Even worse, when I cancelled my cards, I also cancelled her's, because we share accounts.

We do not have a pre-nup, either. Don't need one.

Although she was a little irritated with me, right now.

After that, there was nothing to do but go home and work on the project that I was telling you about. I worked on it all day Saturday for the remainder of the day and then when the day ended, I continued to work on it.

I did not stop until 5:00 AM. I then went to bed, pulled the covers over me and then the cats piled on. I sleep better when cats are piled atop me. Unless they grow mischievous. They grew mischievous.

I got up a bit before 10:00 AM, fixed Margie some oatmeal, fixed me some oatmeal and then got back to work. I did not stop until I was done, and that happened about 8:45 PM. At that time on Sunday, the only open Post Office in the whole state of Alaska is the airport Post Office in Anchorage, so I climbed into the car and drove - without my driver's license, because that was in the lost wallet.

Margie could not drive me, because her leg is in a brace and still cannot be bent. Her arm is in a cast and she could not grip the steering wheel.

So I drove, without my license. I set the cruise control to four miles above the speed limit to make certain that I would not accidently speed and get pulled over without a license.

I drove very cautious and carefully, so as not to attract any undo attention.

I drove past car after car that had gone off the road. Some had flipped over, some were on their side.

The road was dry. It was not icy. All those cars must have slid off the road the day before, when it was snowing. A whole lot of cars must have slide off the road Saturday, for so many to still not be retrieved Sunday night.

Probably, in the past, some of these drivers have laughed at news reports of snow-caused traffic mishaps in Lower 48 cities, especially in cities unaccustomed to snow that suddenly get snow.

Today, we seen such reports come out of Tennessee, and other southern states, like Maine.

I bet these drivers didn't laugh today.

Others did, though. Their time is coming.

As for today, it dawned clear, cold, and beautiful. -20 at our house. For you celsius people, that would be -29 on your scale. But I drove over the hill that is behind me in this picture and on Wasilla Main Street, it was +3. We live in a cold sink, that's why.

The good thing is, I now have so many bars on my cellphone right in my house that I haven't even bothered to count them, as that would require me to put on my reading glasses. But there are a lot of bars. No more dropped calls - thanks to this ugly monstrosity that just got turned on.

Now here is an amazing thing: when we flew out of Salt Lake City on the way home from Washington, DC, there was a guy at the gate next to ours peddling Delta Airlines American Express credit cards. He said if I got one and made just one purchase, why, hell, right there I would get enough free Delta Airlines miles just for doing so that I could fly free on a Delta Airlines roundtrip ticket  anywhere they go.

He said Margie could sign up and we could get two free round-trip tickets. I did not want another credit card, but I did like the idea of those free tickets. So I signed us both up. Margie was too broken up to sign herself up.

Those cards arrived the other day, but I just ignored them. This meant that I did not put them in my wallet. This meant that they did not get lost.

That is how I paid to mail my package from the Anchorage airport Post Office - with that Delta Airlines American Express card.

That is how I bought gas to drive back home from Anchorage - with that card.

And now I can fly anywhere in the US that Delta goes...

So today, driving illegally once again, I drove to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Palmer, figuring that I could be legal when I drove back.

When I got to the DMV, a sign asked me to please fill out all the relevant forms before my number was called. So I took my number from the number machine, then found the basket for the form that I needed.

It was empty.

Next, I sat in a chair and waited for my number to be called. My number was 241. As you can see, the couple in the picture here had number 237, and I had already been waiting awhile when I took it.

See the two portraits hanging on the wall? The one on the left is of our Governor, Sarah Palin. Ever hear of her?

I doubt it. It seems unlikely.

Anyway, 241 was finally called. I journied to the counter. The guy who helped me was most friendly. He gave me the form that had not been in the basket and patiently waited while I filled it out. He then had me take the eye test, which I passed just fine.

I showed him my passport and he agreed that I am who I said I am.

"That'll be $15.00," he said.

So I whipped out my American Express card.

"I'm sorry," he said, "the DMV does not take American Express."

Come on, Sarah - for hell's sake! 

So I drove illegally from the DMV to the Palmer McDonald's to buy a cup of coffee and some cinnamon nuggets. I chose McDonald's because I figured they would probably take American Express.

I made my order and pulled to the first window. A girl was there to take my money. I had put my American Express Card inside my passport. I absent-mindedly handed her the passport.

She didn't know what to do.

But when she figured it out, McDonald's accepted the card. I pulled up to the next window and this kid handed me my coffee and my cinnamon nuggets.

I drove out of the lot toward the highway and as I did, these two kids jaywalked right across the highway. They were lucky it was me driving. Most drivers would not have realized what was happening until it was too late and would have run right over them, but not me.

The coffee was scalding hot. Way too hot to drink. It would have to cool down. So I decided to take the long drive home, via fishhook road, which would extend the trip from about 15 miles to at least 20. I figured that would give the coffee time to cool down enough for me to drink while I was still driving home.

Plus, it is a more pleasant drive. 

I hadn't driven far before I grew impatient and decided that I did not want to wait for that coffee to cool down. If the coffee cooled, so would the cinnamon nuggets. I looked at the car's temperature indicator. The exterior air temperature was 10 degrees. That's the thing about this time of year, after the sun comes back. In December and January, if the morning temperature is -20, it might rise to -18 or so, but that's about it.

I looked at the speedometer. It read 55 miles per hour. I did some quick mental calculations and came up with a wind chill factor of -19. I figured that would cool down the coffee real quick, so I rolled down the window and held the cup out into the wind for a couple of miles. The inside of my hand was burning, the outside freezing, but it did the trick.

The coffee was drinkable in short order. The cinnamon nuggets were still warm.

I turned off Fishhook onto Polar Bear. I hadn't gone far when I saw this snow machine, just sitting in the road. 

And a bit later, on Church, I saw this guy. His snowmachine was working just fine.

Which brings me to another dilemma that I face. I might need to do some snowmachining real soon, to do my work which I have fallen so far behind on since I got hurt. Or I might have to hang onto the back of a sled. I have not done either since I shattered my shoulder and got it replaced.

I am much improved now, but I don't think my shoulder is capable of handling a snowmachine on rough terrain - and sea ice is always rough terrain. And neither is my wrist, which got hurt, too, but was completely ignored due to the severity of my shoulder injury. Now, it often bothers me worse than my shoulder. Each night, I lose sleep by the hour to the pain in my wrist, and in my shoulder.

What do I do?

In part, my Muse seems to have solved the problem. I promised her that when she got married, I would come to India to photograph her wedding. I am not a wedding photographer, I do not photograph weddings. But sometimes I make an exception.

For her, I will make such an exception.

Tonight, she informed me that she has set the date for May 3, and said that I must come one week early. That's probably when I would be doing the most heavy snowmachining of all. Now, on the hope that all goes well, I will be India, where it is pretty hard to drive a snowmachine.

You could do it, but it would be mighty hard on the snowmachine.

Oh, good grief! Did I write, "hard on?"

I never intended this to be that kind of blog. I am shocked.

And on a snowmachine! That would be awful. Something might break right off.

I think it is time to get out of this blog and go to bed. I think I am sleep-deprived.

But still, I would like to get on a snowmachine between now and India.

What do I do?

Now, being broke and all, how do I get to India?

My Muse has set her wedding date. I will find a way.

I have never let being broke stop me from traveling.

Now I will click "published," then "saved," and I will go to bed. 

Despite the time listed at the top of this page, it is 4:35 AM. 

Jack Russell puppies for sale; the boy is not sad to see the St. Bernard pup go... reflective Mocha Moose coffee girl

I got this bad headache, I am tired and the skin around the top of my head seems to be contracting in a strange way. I just want to go to bed without writing even one more word... or maybe not one more after this... but I have already placed these pictures. I suppose I should add a few words to them.

So here's the story above: once again, I coaxed Margie up off her convalescent couch and took her out for a fast food lunch, just so she could see something besides the four walls that surround her. It is a little hard to get her out the door and it is scary when she steps off the porch and onto the packed snow and ice of the driveway, but we are careful and it is good for her to get out.

We drove to KFC-A&W for chicken and cut through Fred Meyer's parking lot to get there. Before we reached the chicken, I spotted this guy, Lenny, trying to sell Jack Russell puppies, so naturally I stopped. He was asking $400 per pup, which he assured me was a very fair price, but it was too high for me, so I didn't buy one.

Of course, if Lenny had been giving them away I wouldn't have bought one either. There is no such thing as a free pup.

Although the lady is having a good conversation with someone on the phone and it looks like she might be telling whoever it is that she is bringing a Jack Russell pup home, she and the girls were pupless when they left.

Jack Russell butt. 

Lenny called his pickup the Jack Russell Pup Mobile, or something like that. When you have a headache as bad as the one that now smites me, it is hard to remember such quotations word for word.

Jack Russell ear.

Just beyond the Jack Russell Pup Mobile was another vehicle and in it this boy held this St. Bernard pup. As you can see in the windshield, the pup was going for $600. If Lavina had been with us, she would probably have bought it. She fell in love with it when I showed it to her on the LCD to my pocket camera. That was yesterday. This evening, she was still walking around, thinking about this puppy and sighing, wishing that I had bought it and brought it home to her.

Jacob strongly insinuated that if I really loved my grandson, I would have bought it for toddler Kalib. But, if a free pup is expensive, think how expensive a $600 pup is.

As for the boy holding the pup, you can see how sad he looks. "It must be kind of hard to know you have to give up the pup," I said to him.

"No," he said, "It doesn't bother me at all."

I had more questions that I wanted ask, but a grim and solemn air permeated the St. Bernard Pup Mobile, so I kept my questions to myself.

If I had shot these as a feature for a newspaper, I would have had to ask the questions; I would have had to write down names. But since its a blog - my blog - I can do whatever I decide to do.

And I decided to leave it at that.

The puppy pictures are all from yesterday, but now this raven catches me up to today. I spotted it as I took my walk. It is so good to have all this sunlight back, to see such a blue sky, but it fooled me a bit.

I did not wear my earband. My ears got cold.

Even so, the increased hours of sunlight is finally beginning to drive the SADS out of me. I am still lazy and listless, but new energy is radiating back into me.

A snowmachine trail across Little Lake. Little Lake is not really a lake at all, but a pond, a tiny pond. When my kids were small, they named it, "Little Lake." They even made a sign that said "Little Lake." They posted that sign by Little Lake so that all who passed by would know its name.

Serendipity. Damnit. That hill used to be mine. 

This dog came running from a house, barking at me with joy. He was so happy to see me. Or maybe "she." I didn't check.

Today, to get her out of the house again, I took Margie to Taco Bell. Right next to Taco Bell is this construction site. It will be a Walgreen's Drugstore. 

Wasilla grows ever more mainstream, but in a haphazard sort of way.

The coffee girl at Mocha Moose reaches out towards her own reflection to take a customer's money.

Headlights coming down Shrock Road. Click on the picture, if you don't believe me. And that is all I have to say about this day, which for me, in its entirety, was spent right here, in Wasilla, Alaska. Maybe not all within the official city limits, but Wasilla, just the same.