Dog flies from Nuiqsut to Barrow; Shoshana the young writer who is not to be taken for granted and other unnamed Metro studies; lady drives off the road on Lucas

Late last night, or rather early this morning as I was bringing my work day to an end, this picture showed up on the final frames that scrolled into my editor. It is a dog, and the person owned by the dog and the dog is in an airplane that is flying from Nuiqsut to Barrow.

I have not been to Nuiqsut lately but even so, I pretty much spent all of yesterday there and on nearby Cross Island - at least in my mind and on my computer screen, as I tried to figure out how to narrow down and shape up the Nuiqsut/Cross Island portion of the big project that I am working on.

The effort left me very frustrated for a couple of reasons. For one, I have 116 pages for this project and I must divide those pages up somewhere between 20 and 30 topics, involving pictures that include hundreds of people.

Yet, I could use the entire 116 pages on Nuiqsut/Cross Island - and I would still feel that I had fallen short.

And, when I work on the other topics, I feel the same about them.

So that is one frustration.

The other is that, to finish this project and the others that appear to be following close on its tail, I would do well to just sit this blog aside for a few months and put my entire focus there.

But I really don't want to set this blog aside.

So, when I came to this picture of this dog in the airplane flying from Nuiqsut to Barrow, I thought, "I will put this dog in the blog and it will be the only picture that I blog tomorrow. If I blog but one picture a day, I will at least keep the blog alive and it won't take much time at all."

So that is what I decided to do: to blog the dog today and nothing else.

When I got out of this plane back in September, I knew the name of the dog and of the person that it owns.

I no longer know their names. As I recall, they were headed south. Far south, like somewhere in the southern states.

I could be wrong, but that's how I hazily remember it.

So I have now blogged the dog. I am done blogging for the day. It didn't take long.

WAIT A MINUTE! I must include the above study!

Yesterday, after I pedaled my bike to Metro Cafe, Shoshana went to her car and brought in this story to give to me. She does this every now and then and then I take the stories home and read them and they are always good. 

This one was titled, Taken for granted.

These are the first three lines, which I asked her permission to include:

My life has always been anything but normal. It is unique to the point of questionable. I have often said that if my life were a movie, well, there is no doubt that it would be a drama. But not just a drama, it would be a drama/thriller/comedy; but mostly a drama nonetheless.

So I shot this young writer study, and having shot it, I decided I wanted to use it even though I was only going to blog the dog today. So here it is:

Study of the young writer, Shoshana, #6589: Shoshana, who is not to be taken for granted, with her story, Taken for granted.

Well, Hell. I also shot a couple of nameless studies while at Metro. I figure I might as well add them in as well. It won't take that much extra time. So, here is the first:

Metro Cafe nameless study, #99: Guy working at computer who told me his name and I was sure that this time I would remember so I did not write it down but I have forgotten.

Metro Cafe nameless study, #990: Carmen causes customer at drive-through window to laugh and she laughs, too. He told me his name and I was certain that I would remember so I did not write it down, but I have forgotten.

Metro Cafe nameless study, #1099: Actually, I did not forget his name. It is "Nike." I might have forgotten, but he kindly wrote it down on the back of his jacket before I took the picture so that I would not forget. Nike was born in Japan, wears cowboy boots and rides a black horse.

And then this morning, as I was driving home from breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant uphill on Lucas Street, I saw this car stuck off to the side of the road, a lady sitting behind the wheel.

Thus I was presented with a moral dilemma - to stop or continue. Once, there would have been no question. I would have stopped. But things are different now. Everybody has cell phones. If you were to look at a larger version of this image - such as you can find in slide show view, depending on the size of your monitor - you will clearly see the reflection of flares burning at the side of the road.

There were no signs that the lady was in distress. It appeared that she had set the flares, had undoubtedly called someone and was now sitting calmly behind the wheel waiting for the help she had summoned to arrive.

If I were to stop, there would be nothing I could do but ask if she was okay. I am not equipped to pull her out and with my artificial shoulder I cannot physically push anybody. She would answer, yes, she was just waiting for someone to come and pick her up.

So, knowing that is how it would play out, I drove past without stopping.

I am quite certain that I analyzed the situation correctly, but I am still a little uncomfortable about it. Now, I wish I had stopped. I don't think that it would have made one bit of difference in this world but still, I wish I had stopped.

And I have spent too much time on today's blog. I can't afford this. Yes, I will still put in a full day's work on my project, but if I am ever to get it done, from here forward I really need to put in two day's worth of work each day until it is finished - except, of course, for the week that I will spend in Arizona.

I plan not to work on it at all when I am in Arizona, May 11 - 19.

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My fairweather biking friend; off to a glacier to cook ice worms; cat on a stump

With the good weather that we have had lately, I've been out everyday at coffee break time riding bikes with Mr. Shadow.

He is good company, Mr. Shadow - but only in fair weather.

When the weather is bad, he tends to desert me.

Mr. Shadow: my fair weather friend.

So I bike to Metro Cafe and there I find short Carmen, being hugged by tall Sarah. Tall Sarah has come to say goodbye, because she is leaving for Skagway, where she will spend the summer on a glacier, cooking for people on tour.

She didn't say, but I believe Sarah will be cooking ice worms for her guests. Ice worms crawl around on the glaciers by the multi-millions. A cook can just step outside the cook tent, scoop them up, throw them into the vat and boil them up.

Put them in tomato sauce and they look just like spaghetti. So I think is what Sarah will do. She will cook the iceworms and then tell the guests that it is glacier spaghetti.

"Hey!" one of her guests will invariably shout, "This is the strangest damn spaghetti I have ever tasted! Tastes like worms!"

"Eat your damn spaghetti and quit whining!" Sarah will shout back.

The guest will eat it, too, but will mumble to himself, all the way through.

Back home, I hang out with Jim.

It seems odd to me that some people probably look at him and see just another cat. 

I look at Jim and see a friend. A close, close, friend who hangs out with me every day, from morning until night and then through the night - unless I am traveling of course.

Margie reports that he can hardly bear it when I am traveling.

When I return, he goes a bit insane. He jumps onto me, clambers all over me, jumps off, jumps on, clambers, jumps off... maybe 50 or 60 times.

Unlike Shadow, Jim is not a fair weather friend. He is an all weather friend.

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On Soundarya's birthday, cake was cut on three continents, there were animals: small, big, newborn, passed on and symbolized

Manoj, fiance and more to Sujitha Ravichandran, Soundarya's younger sister, put out a request for Sandyz birthday that we who loved her should celebrate with cake for us and her. Although I had put up my birthday remembrance on the 12th, so that her family and friends in India could see it early on her birthday of April 13, I waited until the morning of the 13th here to begin our celebration.

Margie then mixed up a cake and put it in the oven, to bake for Soundarya. As it baked, I went walking. I came upon a frozen puddle that held this face - or faces. One can clearly see the ears and face of a cat, its chin resting atop its front paws. Yet, look closely and you will see that within the face of the cat there is a human face as well.

One of those little odd things that happens in nature, and on a day such as this.

Cats played an enormous role between Sandy and me. A gigantic role. I have been told from multiple good authorities that cats are very rare in India, but for Sandy and me, they were ubiquitous; they were everywhere.

As I walked in the morning of the 13th, her birthday, it was late night of her birthday in India. So I placed a Skype call over the local AT&T 3g network to Sujitha in Bangalore. It was an exquisitely beautiful morning - the sky clear and blue, the snow on the mountains bright against it, the clean, frosted air wonderfully chilled and pleasant.

So I tried to describe what I was seeing and experiencing to Niece Suji, which is very different than anything she would ever see in Bangalore.

It seemed to me that my description was inadequate. I wanted her to somehow sense and feel it herself. Suddenly, it struck me - I could break the ice of a puddle with my foot and let her hear the sound of the ice cracking and crunching beneath my shoe.

I stopped, held the phone near to the puddle and then crunched it repeatedly with my foot.

Sujitha, I am pleased to say, was pleased.

After Margie baked and frosted the cake, she cut it into three pieces - one for me, one for her and one for Soundarya. Jim observed. That's Margie's thumb, there at the edge of the plate.

I was a little unsure as to what to do with Sandy's piece of cake. I could eat it myself, but that didn't feel right. "Why don't you take it out back and leave it for her where we have buried the cats and dogs?" Margie suggested.

So I took Soundarya's plate to the back door and then opened it. Jim shot out ahead of me and led me across the grass in the direction of our pet cemetery, but stopped short of entering there himself.

Although she never met them, Sandy knew my cats - both the living and the dead. She knew Royce and sent me words of comfort after his death - just about one year ago. So I put her piece of cake at the head of his grave. I then looked through the trees into the clear blue sky and spoke a few words to her.

There was nothing more to do after that, so I stepped out of the cemetery. I found Jim waiting for me on this stump, right at the cemetery edge.

Manoj, "Manu" - posted these pictures on a special web page set up by Sandy's cousins to commemorate her birthday. He took them at his celebration in London, where he is looking for work. Sandy's brother, Ganesh, also told of his cake in Pune - and of course there those in Bangalore had their own cake.

So on her birthday, Soundarya... Sandy... Sound... Soundu... Muse... was remembered on at least three continents. 

Not long after I pedaled my bike to Metro Cafe, Kristine from almost next door showed up with a bagful of puppies - born at 2:00 AM, 14 hours earlier. 

It was a nice touch to add to Sandy's birthday... and not the last one, either...

In the evening of Sandy's birthday, this young bull moose came to our house. I was sitting on the couch when I saw him trot through the backyard, so I grabbed a camera and followed him. He stopped in the low growth that lies just beyond the pet cemetery and there allowed me to take this portrait.

So, Soundarya - this moose is for you. This is your birthday moose. I hope you like him.

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The other day at Metro Cafe - a bunch of serious, intellectual, studies

Now that I am riding my bike to Metro Cafe most days, it is hard for me to shoot "Through the Metro Window" studies because I am mostly inside. Still, I can shoot studies of various inside kinds. Studies are, by definition, intellectual works of art and some might think it would be easier to shoot intellectual works of art from the outside and that is true, but when one is shooting intellectual works, "easy" does not factor into it.

One must really work the brain, and it is hard and challenging. Still, I am up to the task. So, I now present you with a bunch of serious, intellectual studies that I shot the other day after pedaling my bike to Metro Cafe:

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #222: Study of the young writer, Shoshana, Branson and Diane, #4: The place was hopping.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #422: Study of the young writer, Shoshana, #670: Carmen puts earrings to her ears. Branson strikes a serious, intellectual pose. 

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #622: Jeweler Leah, of Leah's Designs, who brought her work to Metro Cafe to put on display and sell. She did pretty good, Leah said.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #822: As Carmen struggles to get all the ladies present to pose with Leah for a group picture, Nola gets distracted.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #1022: Just before we were ready to shoot, Carmen had to put a scarf on the Young Writer, Shoshana, Study #12.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #1222: After a great struggle that lasted 2.46 hours, the serious, intellectual photographer succeeds at getting all the participants, including the three on the TV, to pose seriously and smartly for the study.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #1422: Branson and his dad, Scot, who had just returned from the Arctic Slope.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #1622: Branson poses with his red-headed friend known to the world as "Cash"... as in, "Hello, my name is Johnny Cash." I am told that this Cash has been a big fan of that Cash since he first became conscious of such things. Cash's grandma was one of Carmen's wedding attendants.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #1822: Through Nola's lens - Branson and the red-headed boy.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #2022: Through Nola's lens: Branson.

Serious Intellectual Study from Inside Metro Cafe, #2208: Cash.

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Metro Cafe - six studies from breakfast: the barista, the banker, the young entrepreneur, entrepreneur's mother, the church and the mountain + Carmen, of course

Caleb had just returned from his night shift at Wal-Mart and had already turned the TV on when I got up. I thought about cooking oatmeal, but the only way I can truly enjoy breakfast at home is if it is very quiet in the house and I can sit on the couch near the backdoor window and glance out at the woods every now and then as I eat.

This does not happen very often, because Margie and Caleb are morning TV watchers and one or the other of them usually beats me to the living room and even when I am first, the TV often comes on before I have taken more than a bite or two.

That's one reason that I really like to breakfast at Family Restaurant - there is no TV there. There are people walking in and out, fragments of conversations drift through the air along with the clinking of silverware against ceramic and  sound of waitresses laughing even when the jokes are not funny.

Then, of course, the Family breakfast is just plain good.

As Margie has been in town all week to care for Jobe, I had so far eaten breakfast thrice at Family and once at home - yesterday. Yesterday, I simply had to eat oatmeal. My body demanded it.

Today, I decided to have the simple Metro Cafe breakfast - a sandwich with ham and egg, a bagel with strawberry cream cheese and, of course, the best coffee in Wasilla.

Through the course of my breakfast, I shot six studies. The one above is the very last of the six studies that I shot, but, as it is a study of beauty, so obviously backed by intelligence, and everybody loves to look at beauty, it is the study that I will begin with. Hence:

From Inside the Metro Cafe, Study #72,629: Nicole, the morning barista, whom I never see during my regular afternoon coffee stops.

From Inside the Metro Cafe, Study #6.2: Nicole and the banker. Yes, I am told, the man at the window works as a banker, for Wells Fargo.

From Inside the Metro Cafe, Study #4698: Mitchell Slater, the young entrepreneur.

Mitchell, who will soon turn 18 and will also graduate from Home School, has already begun his own advertising business, which he calls Alaska's Affordable Advertising.

Some time back, he discovered Metro Cafe, fell in love with the place, the coffee and Carmen (as does just about everyone who discovers Metro and then gives the out-of-the-way-place a chance) and so decided that he would her promote it. Now he is helping Carmen put together a coupon promotion.

I will save the details for him to advertise in his promotion.

From Inside the Metro Cafe, Study # 10: Carmen discusses coupons with Mitchell, the Young Entrepreneur, as his mother, Nancy, and Nicole, the barista, observe.

From Inside the Metro Cafe, Study #9, #9, #9, #9,#9, #9, #9, #9,#9...: mother Linda admires her son, Mitchell, the young entrepeneur as Carmen smiles at him and Nicole, the barista, studies a draft menu made out of the goodness of his heart by Jim, the man owned by the dogs who showed up at the drive through window in yesterday's post.

From the parking lot of the Metro Cafe, study number 96: A car and two churches, one made by the hands of man, the other by the hand of God.

Still pending - the Metro study series that I shot as seen through Nola's new camera. Although the series is now history, I will still run it, because it is a fun series - and it is history and history should be told.

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