Kalib flicks dirt into Melanie's face - is he outgrowing the spatula phase? Branson graduates; Margie goes and I am left alone again

Melanie showed up late in the afternoon and gave Jim a pet as Kalib slyly observed.

This is the shoe Melanie wore on her left foot. The one she wore on her right foot looks pretty much the same, except that the toe tapers in the opposite direction.

When next I observed Melanie and Kalib, they had moved to the front yard. Kalib was busy observing something himself. What could it be?

It was ants. Fat, black, ants.

Not long afterward, I found them back in the back yard, a bit beyond the spot where Margie had placed the dinosaur boots that Kalib had muddied in the swamp the day before out to air dry after she had cleaned them.

But what are Kalib and Melanie up to in the background?

And what is that in Kalib's hands?

Oh - the thing that Kalib holds is a weed plucking tool. And right there in front of him is a dandelion, yet to bloom. Melanie is helping him shove the weed plucker beneath the dandelion so that he can yank it right out of the ground by the root.

Kalib yanks the dandelion from the earth and sends it and dirt flying straight into his Aunt Melanie. This turned into a big game - one that the two repeated time and time again, until all the new dandelion plants had been rooted out.

Even so, those dandelions will pop right back up again.

I view Kalib plucking out a dandelion from another angle.

Dandelion and dirt come flying right toward me.

As usual, Kalib brought his spatula to the house with him - but not once did I see him carry it or play with it. I only saw it sitting here, atop the classifieds on the coffee table.

Margie says she saw him play with it. She said he used to flip junk mail like pancakes. There, lying on the floor, you can see one of the pieces of junk mail that Margie saw Kalib flip.

Still, he basically left it alone.

It makes me wonder if he is outgrowing his spatula phase?

If so, the thought makes me a little sad.

It has to happen, sooner or later, though.

Later would be okay with me.

The original plan had been that Jacob, Lavina and Jobe would come out and pick Kalib up Sunday afternoon. Instead, Lavina called to say that Jobe was still sick and to ask if, instead, we could bring Kalib home and then leave Margie there to babysit Jobe for a day or two or a week or however long it would take until he was well enough to return to daycare.

Since Melanie had come, she drove Margie and Kalib back to town with her.

And once again, after just three days and nights together with Margie, I am left alone with the cats. Caleb is here, of course, but he works all night and sleeps all day, except for when he goes out to hit golf balls.

Now I back up to an earlier point in the day:

Branson Starheim, of Metro Cafe, just graduated from kindergarten Thursday night. I promised Carmen that if she brought him and his diploma to Metro Cafe I would take a photograph to commemorate this landmark achievement.

So she did and I took a pretty standard study of Branson and Carmen, posing with the diploma as Branson sat on his bike, but afterward I took this one of Carmen helping Branson don his crash helmet and I like it better.

Following the diploma photo session, Branson, the graduate, zooms past me on his bike. Branson calls me, "Uncle Bill."

Now - about that delayed Arctic Series that I had promised to run this week: I am going to! Starting tomorrow. It's just that I did not know that Kalib was going to spend the weekend with us. He did, and I had to post a few pics  for all of his many fans from Alaska to Arizona to India to see.

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Encounters at the Post Office: an aging dog, the man who loves the dog even more than he loves cameras and the anonymous woman coffee buyer; health benefits of coffee

I spotted them the other day at the post office as I was walking back to my car, the man still in his car with the dog. I thought, "I should photograph these two before the man gets out of the car," but I was feeling very lazy, tired to the extreme, worn down by all my recent travels and sleepless nights.

If I took the picture, then it would only be right to show it to the man and dog and tell them what I was doing, but I did not feel like explaining anything to anyone and I already had a tremendous amount of pictures to deal with, so I let the moment pass.

Just before I got into my car, the man stepped out of his car and commented on my camera. He wondered if it it was film or digital and if one could even still buy film at all.

He still had an old film camera, he said, but the camera didn't work anymore. He loved photography, he loved film. He had misgivings toward digital.

So I told him I would like to photograph his dog with my digital camera and he said sure. He wondered if he should roll down the window so that I could see the dog better but I told him "no" because if he left it up I could get both the dog and him in the picture - he by reflection.

The dog is Sleater, and she is 13 years old. She has cataracts and diabetes. Jerry would like to buy a new camera, but he spends a lot of money on Sleater's medical bills. There is not enough left to spare for a new camera.

Through the Metro Window, study # 4997: Discussing the health benefits of coffee

At the post office, I also came upon someone else. I am not quite certain who. A woman. Was it the woman driving a pickup truck who parked in the spot next to mine? Was it the woman who came through the door right behind me, so instead of letting it shut in her face I held it open and she walked through and smiled and said "Thank you?"

Or was it the one who held the door for me and I said "Thank you," to?

Or just one I passed in the hall?

There was one more who I remember seeing as she walked on the sidewalk to the post office door and then went inside well before I reached the door? She returned to her car even as I was still getting my mail.

These incidents happened on a couple of different days and I cannot quite sort which ones happened on the very day that I pulled up to the window at Metro Cafe and Carmen said my coffee was free, that a woman had seen me at the Post Office and so had bought this coffee for me, plus a pastry and she had even left one dollar for the tip.

This left a quarter in change, so Carmen gave me the quarter.

Whichever one of these ladies you might have been - thank you!

I also heard a story on NPR about coffee and health and in particular, prostate health. A study had been done and it found that men who drank a goodly amount of coffee were 60 percent less likely to get prostate cancer than men who did not. 

Those who drank a modest amount of coffee, 30 percent less likely.

And it noted that due to the anti-oxcidents in coffee, there are many other health benefits to be had from drinking coffee.

In my upbringing, to drink a cup of coffee was to sin - and to sin big.

I developed prostate problems very early in life. These problems caused me a great deal of pain and discomfort. I had to get up two or three times a night - sometimes even more.

I did not start drinking coffee until I started to hang out with Iñupiat whale hunters. 

It took a lot of years, but those prostate pains and problems all seem to have gone away.

Most nights, I do not have to get up even once now.

I did take some medication for awhile and it helped a lot, but I had to stop because I could not afford it and the insurance company that charged me cadillac premiums for clunker service and eventually drove me off their rolls before health care could pass would not help with the medications.

Yet the problems went away after I quit the medication.

Coffee?

I don't know. Maybe. Could have been.

In this picture, by the way, Carmen, Shoshana and I are having a serious discussion about the health benefits of drinking coffee, vs. religious taboos against drinking coffee.

In some ways, I still feel like I am committing a grave sin everytime I drink a cup of coffee, but I enjoy the coffee and maybe, just maybe, it is helping to keep me alive.

The story said that for maximum benefit, one should drink six cups of coffee every day. 

I would, but I fear that if I drank that much coffee every day, it would kill me.

When I am with whalers, I sometimes drink that much coffee but when one is on the ice the body metabolizes everything very fast.

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They'rrrrrrre baaaaack.... in the blog: Jobe, Lavina, Kalib, Jacob and Margie - in that order

How long has it been since this face has appeared in my blog? Six weeks? Something like that. And look, in this, the very first frame that I shot of him upon our reunion, he is just standing around. STANDING around. Not wobbling shakily. Standing.

As though it is no big deal at all. As though it is just something that a little kid would be expected to do.

Jobe. 

Standing around.

And he walks around at will, too.

I was worried that after all this time, he might have forgotten his grampa. Remember how he loved me? How he adored me?

Has he now forgotten me?

After a brief period of study and contemplation, he walked right over and sat down on my lap. He had not forgotten.

And then he went out to play with Martigny. Martigny did not not want to play with him. Maybe it was the "woof" on his shirt that scared her away.

I'm afraid Jobe has been sick the past couple of days. Respiratory infection. 

Jobe needed rest.

Still, he gets up and moves happily around. He is getting better.

Then Jacob called, to say that he and Kalib were coming home from their walk and would soon reach the nearby park. I went out to see and this is the first frame I shot, right after they came into view.

Last time I saw them, there was a still a good amount of snow here. Now the leaves have come out.

Kalib went straight for the slide. As he started down, he looked up at his dad to see what his dad would do.

His dad came sliding after...

Kalib threw some pebbles into a slide chute and then watched as they tumbled and slid back down.

Then he ran off and his dad chased after.

Soon, they were in the house, eating popsicles. When offered a variety of colors, Kalib chose the green one. Then he saw his mom pick a red one for herself and decided that the red one would be better instead.

I also had a red one.

The red ones are best.

Although the green is pretty good.

It was about 10:30 PM now. Margie's flight was scheduled to arrive at 1:38 AM. I had come in early just so I could finally see the boys, but Jobe was now asleep and the rest would soon join them.

That meant I had three hours to wait.

The prospect horrified me.

What I could I do with all that time?

I could go sit in a bar and sip root beer, wink my eyes at honkey tonk women and say stupid things as they danced and sauntered across the floor.

Instead, I laid back on the couch. I sank right into it.

I closed my eyes. The lids were so heavy, I did not feel like I could ever open them again.

I fell asleep right there. At 1:09 AM, I forced myself to get up and go. I drove to the airport and picked Margie up. Her plane had come in half-an-hour early and she was standing there waiting when I pulled up, so I stopped, she put the one bag that she had left with in the back plus the other that she had bought and filled in Arizona and jumped in. 

I took off without even taking a picture.

As regular readers know, it is our tradition to go out for breakfast the morning after either one of us returns from a trip.

So this morning we went to Family Restaurant - no, not Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant but Denali Family Restaurant, just a few miles further up the Parks Highway.

I would not have even known about this brand new restaurant had I not gone to Fairbanks to cover Katie John's graduation, but I saw it as I drove home.

If they had named it, "Mckinley Family Restaurant," I would never have tried it. I would not have walked through the door. I try never to patronize a business that bears the name, "Mckinley." I stick to "Denali."

Inside, it was very much like Mat-Su Family Restaurant. The decor was similar, the menu similar, the food similar and the plates exactly the same. Even all the staff that I could see, including the waitresses, were staff I recognized from Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

So I thought maybe it was an extension, built by the same owner to compete with him/herself.

No. It wasn't. It was built by a competitor and the staff that I could see had all been hired away.

Breakfast was very good - the hash browns cooked just right and, I hate to say it, better than at Mat-Su. 

I will still continue to patronize Mat-Su. It is a bit closer. And Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant has helped me bear some extremely hard mornings. Very hard mornings. Mornings that followed nights of turmoil and grief, nights without sleep.

So I will keep going to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

But I will patronize Denali, too. Good hash browns are a big draw to me.

Margie enjoyed it, too.

It was the first time she had drank coffee in weeks, she said. 

She stayed with her sister, who remains a pretty active, decent and abiding Mormon. She allows visitors to brew coffee for themselves, but Margie did not feel like brewing coffee for just one so she abstained.

Tomorrow, I will discuss a recent NPR story about the health benefits of coffee - particularly for the prostate - and will thank a generous, almost not-anonymous lady who bought me a coffee at Metro the other day.

Margie is glad to be home, but she says it feels cold here.

"I have come back to winter," she said.

This, even though the leaves are sprouting out here and it snowed three inches at her sisters house 6000 feet up in Arizona her final morning there.

Still, it was warmer there than here.

Which it ought to have been.

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(warning - slideshow contains additional photos of Jobe and Kalib not seen in the actual post)

All alone at Family on Easter Sunday morning

Margie has been gone for just about a week now and I have breakfasted out altogether too often, so I had resolved that on this morning, both for the sake of our pocketbook and my health, I would stay home and cook oatmeal.

But when I woke up for the final time, buried in cats, I did not want to get up at all. I certainly did not want to get up and cook oatmeal. So I lay there, thinking about it, and it suddenly occurred to me that it was Easter Sunday. I did not think it right that on Easter Sunday, I should get up, cook oatmeal and eat it all alone on the couch.

I decided that, fiscal prudence and dietary health be damned - on both counts, I am pretty much hopelessly lost, anyway - I was going to have my Easter breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

Had Caleb been around, I would have invited him, too, but even though we sleep under the same roof - I sporadically at night and he through astoundingly long hours in the day - I rarely see him. He was off, somewhere.

So off I went to Family, alone.

"Do you need a menu?" Connie asked, knowing full well that I wouldn't.

"No," I answered, "I'll go with the omelette today."

"Denver, with mushrooms, hash browns lightly cooked, twelve-grain toast on the delay," she filled in the rest. Normally, she would have been 100 percent right, but today, instead of toast, I decided I wanted pancakes.

A bit later, Norman came walking by, carrying coffee and water. 

I got to thinking about my grandsons, who I have not seen now for a couple of weeks. They will spend today with Margie, her mom, their parents, Lavina's mom, sister and other family members from both the Apache and Navajo sides of the family at Margie's place of birth - Carrizo Canyon, on the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation.

It will almost certainly be warm, and they will gather seasoned oak and make a cooking fire. On that fire, they will cook Apache bread, slices of steak, hot dogs, and multi-colored Apache corn.

The adults will hide colored eggs here and there and then the little ones will go find them.

Some of those eggs will be hidden in plain sight and the bigger little ones will have to leave these eggs be.

These eggs will be for Jobe to find.

And yes, since he left here two weeks ago, Jobe has become a full-fledged walker.

In my mind, I can just picture the gleam in his eyes and his bright smile, as he toddles excitedly about, grabbing eggs with his chubby little hands. Maybe with a little help and guidance, he will then place his eggs in whatever type of basket he has been given.

And I will miss it.

I, his grandpa, who first photographed him only minutes after his birth, who, despite my wandering ways, have tried hard to document each step of his life as he has moved alone, will miss his first Easter Sunday Easter egg hunt.

Kalib, of course, will now be an old pro at Easter egg hunting. I hope he enjoys it, anyway. I hope he and cousin Gracie have a good time, gathering eggs.

I do pretty good alone. Better than most people, I think.

Yet, I felt awful sad and lonely, as I sat right here, in Family Restaurant, eating my Denver omelette with mushrooms. And yes, as I do throughout each and every day, I thought of Soundarya, too, and wondered how she and Anil might have spent the day, if they had but survived.

Even though she was Hindu, Sandy was very much up on all the Christian holidays.

Then along came Meda, refilling coffee cups. I had not seen Meda before today. She is new on the job - four or five days, she said. She said she loves the job, it is "awesome."

She was a little bit shy and slightly coy, but very friendly and warm and when she poured my refill, I felt a little better.

But still, I needed Jobe... and if not Jobe, at glimpse at that magical beam of the spectrum of life that Jobe currently occupies.

I looked around, and could not see a single child in Family Restaurant. I knew there would be plenty of children later, when families began to drop by after church, but I could see none, now.

And then, just as I finished my last bite, I heard a little squeal, accompanied by the sound of tiny foot-falls pattering rapidly across the floor.

A tiny girl, right about Jobe's age, scampered out of the large dining room beyond.

It was Molly.

Just Jobe's age.

On Easter Sunday morn.

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Another day spent working with cats; a generous, anonymous, OmegaMom was in line behind me at Metro Cafe

Well, I have no time for this blog today. I must sit here at my desk and constantly scoop cats off my keyboard. That's just how it is for me - all day long. Cats on the keyboard. I scoop one off, another jumps on. I scoop that one off, the first jumps back on.

I did not want to fight the hard wind that blew yesterday, so I left my bike home and drove to Metro Cafe.

Do they look like they are teasing each other? They are. Over me. About who I love best, the one with black hair or the blond? Carmen and Shoshana! I love you both. There is no favoritism here.

And I really love your coffee.

Best coffee in Wasilla.

And the finest coffee shop.

There is none other like it.

This is the only coffee shop in the entire world where anyone has ever fought over me.

And here I am, just one step shy of being old.

How come?

As I was taking this picture, I was aware that there was a vehicle in line behind me. Once these two got my coffee prepared, it took them a little longer to get my apple pastry out of the fridge and warm it up and I got nervous that I was making the person in the car behind wait too long, so I drove around the building and briefly parked in front until Shoshana could bring my pastry out.

What I did not know was that the person in the car, who had now herself pulled up to the window, was, at that very moment, paying for my next round of coffee and pastry.

I wish I had known, because then I would have positioned myself where I could have taken a good look at this generous, anonymous, person so that I could have seen who she is and thanked her properly.

You can see the comment that she left yesterday under the name OmegaMom. 

Now I really must go. I have hundreds of other pictures that I have taken during my breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks this past week that I really want to post - I even have more of both Pistol and Jim making my work difficult. In fact, Jim is sitting atop my computer even as I write these words.

But I just don't have time.

I am way, way, WAAAAAAY behind and I must do what I can to catch up - even though I will never catch up.

I will always be behind.

When they slide me into the crematorium they will say, "well, he did a few things in life but he left most of his work unfinished, because he was always behind, could never catch up, and, in total sum, spent years and years picking cats up off his keyboard, holding them for a moment and then putting them down on the floor just in time for another cat to take the place of the first.

"Think what he might have accomplished, had he only got caught up!"

I think dedicated readers are going to see a lot of stunted posts from now until October. Probably, 70 to 80 percent. Maybe 90 percent - or 95 percent. By October, I hope to have come up with a strategy, the discipline and the means to make this online publishing endeavor work.

Jim just jumped down from the computer. He's on my chest now, cradled atop my left arm, leaving me to type with just one hand.

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