Two months later: the slow emergence from darkness; the moment she became Muse

Once again, after having slept for just a few broken hours, I found myself awake and unable to sleep further. I quietly got up, punched the remote to start the car so that it could warm up, dressed, quietly slipped out of the bedroom without disturbing Margie, came to this computer, checked emails and then drove to Family Restaurant to eat an early morning breakfast in solitude.

It is now two months to the day since Muse and soul friend Soundarya chose to follow her husband Anil into the "thereafter," whatever the "thereafter" might be.

I put "thereafter" in quotation marks because Anil once used this word in an email to me to describe how long the journey that he would take with Soundarya as her husband would last - "life and thereafter."

Today is also the first day since November 18 that the sun will completely rise above the horizon in Barrow. A few days ago, I began to read reports from Facebook friends there that the top arch of the sun had been spotted peeking over the drifted tundra, but today is the first day that it will arise in its entirety.

I wish that I could be there to witness it.

Early in this process, I resigned myself to also living with an inner darkness for all the time that the Barrow sun would remain below the horizon. I most certainly have.

Now the sun is coming back.

What I always remember about the winters that I spent completely or mostly in Barrow is how, after the sun would come back, that was when the really deep, bitter, brutal, cold would set in.

I don't know. In my mind, I had imagined myself writing many things about all this in this post, but now that I am sitting here, I don't feel like it. I find that once again my eyes are moist and I feel a trickle on my cheek and I don't want to say or write anything.

I don't know why I am. To write in all circumstance is just who I am, I guess.

I feel so tired. So very, very, tired.

And I am not getting anything done. Except this blog. It is the only thing that I am getting done.

In many ways, this blog has helped me to get through, but I have found myself incapable of doing my work. I open it up and I try, but I just stare at the computer and get nothing done. For some reason, I can always blog, but I can't work.

I have accomplished almost nothing since I last returned from Barrow.

No, that's not true. Besides this blog, I also have a novel that I am working on. I started it quite awhile back, made some progress, stuck it aside, picked it up later, made a little more progress, stuck it aside again.

In the fall, I picked it up again and resolved that this time, I would stay with it, if even for as few as 15 minutes a day, until it is done. I figured that might take ten years - if I live and have a mind for ten more years.

Then, when Anil and then Sandy died, I quit working on it altogether.

But I picked it back up again a couple of weeks ago and I have worked on it every day since.

I set out to do 15 or 30 minutes but often wind up going anywhere from one to three hours. So I am making progress there.

But of course, that puts no money in my bank account.

Amazingly, thanks to the donate button that I have put up on the side bar, this blog does put a little money into my bank account. Nowhere near enough to live on or to allow me to become a full-time blogger, but enough to give me hope that such a thing might actually be possible.

If I could increase my regular readership 100 fold and have support come in at the same level percentage wise that it has been coming in, I could do this blog full time. Then, I could really create something here. Right now, it is just a whisper of what I envision it to become.

Surely, for every individual who does come here on a regular basis there must be 100 more who would if they could somehow be brought into it?

See, all I want to do now for the rest of my life is to work on my books, this blog and the electronic magazine that I plan to add to it.

I suppose that I have rambled like this before and this all sounds redundant. But its true. And that is how the rest of my life should be spent.

This picture, by the way, is me driving back home after breakfast - although I suspect most of you have probably surmised that already.

There are two other things that have helped me get through the darkness so far. One, my family. I don't talk about it much to them, but just to have kids and grandkids swing by now and then, to come around, to go out and get coffee, to carry a spatula everywhere, to look with adoring baby eyes into my eyes and to feel the often sad but sweet spirit of my wife who has endured through this insane, risky, always insecure, forever teetering on financial destruction, life-stye that living with me these past 37 years has subjected her to.

And there is Soundarya's family, which is also my family. Her brother, Ganesh, my nephew - he credits me for introducing him to the fact that he is a photographer. He is a natural and has the potential to be great. In our communications, although she is always there, we do not talk about Sandy much, but rather about pictures, and about what we are going to do in her memory, namely to take a long hike in the Brooks Range.

Then there is her sister, Sujitha - Suji - my niece, who has appeared in this blog, who loves Jobe and Kalib and who leaves a comment or two here now and then. In so many ways it is she, who has been hurt so very, very deeply, more deeply than I can even hint at here, who has helped me to the deepest degree, just in the communications that we share back in forth.

While it may be difficult for some to understand this deep, platonic, relationship that I share with her sister, still, now, even in her death as I did in her life, Sujitha does understand and she lends comfort that could only be lent by one who understands and is hurt and grieving to the maximum degree herself.

The maximum degree. Yet, she helps me. I am happy that little Jobe, in particular, helps her. And from 9000 miles away.

It looks like Suji and Manu's wedding will happen late next month. I wish that I could be there, but I see no way.

There is also Kavitha, or Cawitha, Soundarya's cousin. I met her only one time and that was at Sandy and Anil's wedding. We do not exchange emails all the time, but every now and then and, except for those that came with announcements of death, I always enjoy receiving them. Kavitha is a trekker. She treks in the Himalayas, she treks about southern India, she treks into dark caves.

She plans to come on the Brooks Range hike.

I hope the rest of us can keep up with her.

One thing worries me a little bit about this hike. My Indian relatives are all vegetarians. We can carry a certain amount of dried food, maybe even enough to get us through with some fairlly significant weight loss, which will be good for me, but I would kind of like to supplement our diet with at least a few fish and maybe some ptarmigan. If there are enough of us to eat it all, maybe even a caribou. But I can't feed fish, ptarmigan and caribou to vegetarians!

We will have to carry a gun or two, both for protection and as a survival mechanism, should it come to that.

I think we will figure it all out, though.

Last night, I dreamed that we had just left on this hike. We were very unprepared. Margie had packed my pack and I did not even know what was in it.

When I opened it up, I found a suit, white shirt, tie and a pair of shiny, black, shoes.

The above image, by the way, is Metro Cafe as I drive by on my way home from breakfast.

There is a folder within my pictures folder labeled, "Ravens for Sandy." It has many photos in it, many that I sent her and others that I did not, but that I placed in the folder to hold until the day that I would.

And all these ravens that continually appear here, I still photograph them for Sandy. I no longer put them in that folder, but only here, in my daily blog folders, but still I photograph them for her.

I photographed this one yesterday, as I walked to Metro to get my afternoon coffee. Both Kalib and Jobe had fallen ill, could not go to daycare and so Margie had gone to town to babysit them. I was left without a car and so I walked.

I am a little surprised to realize that I took no pictures while I was at Metro.

I don't know how that happened. I had my camera. It just never occurred to me to take a picture while I was there. 

And this was one of those rare times when I was on the inside, at a table, slowly devouring a hot cinnamon roll as I sipped and savored the coffee - not on the outside, looking in through the drive-through window. Maybe I am beginning to lose it.

Hey - just a couple of weeks ago, it would have been completely dark at the time that I took this picture.

So the light is coming back. It feels kind of strange - as it always does when the light first manifests itself in the new year. We have had plenty of cool weather in the sub-zeros here in Wasilla, but we have yet to experience any true, deep, cold this year like we can get in this neighborhood this time of year.

I guess we had better brace ourselves. It ought to be coming any time now.

The moment she became Muse

Although I have been running this little series of India pictures in memory of her, I have not been including pictures of Sandy herself.

Today, I make what I believe will be my one exception, because I did not explain this muse thing quite well enough. I did explain how, after my first trip to India, I began to photograph the world that I live and work in here in Alaska with the goal of producing images that could explain it to a young woman in India and thus she was my muse.

But this is the moment - the very moment - she became Muse.

In the early 1990's, at the request of Melanie and Lisa, whenever I would travel, I began to photograph cats wherever I could find them. If I went to a new community, village, city, state or country, I would always seek out a cat and photograph it for my daughters.

So, when my sister's daughter Khena and Vivek planned their wedding and it became clear that I was going to go to India, I immediately began to imagine the cats that I might find to photograph there.

But Khena told me that in all her travels with Vivek in India, she had not seen a single cat. She did not believe that it was common there for people to keep cats the way they do here. Vivek could think of no cats, either. When I got off the plane and met his parents, they did not know about any cats.

And then, after the wedding feast where two soul friends from who knows how far back recognized each other, Sandy invited me to walk and so we walked.

We talked of other things and did not speak of cats.

Then all of a sudden she squealed with delight. She had spotted a cat - this one. She hurried over to the fence. She did not know the lady but asked her to hand her the kitten and let her hold it for awhile. The lady picked up the kitten and lifted it over the top of the fence. I raised my camera.

Hence, Soundarya! Muse!

May her memory live forever.

View images as slides

The big crash strikes; Eight studies of the young writer, Shoshana; fish greet us at Sakura Sushi

Two posts ago, I mentioned how I have reached a state in which my body just seems to have forgotten how to sleep - I go night after night with very little sleep until suddenly I just crash and sleep.

Such a crash happened that very night. I don't know what time I went to bed - somewhere between midnight and 1:00 AM, I believe. I felt so tired that my eyelids seemed to be falling to the floor and I could not think to compose even the simplest email or to return a Facebook message or comment.

So I went to bed and just zoned out. Cats came in and piled on top of me, adding a pleasant warmth to the blankets that covered me. I did wake up a few times, but only briefly and then went right back to sleep.

I did not wake up for good until afternoon.

AFTER NOON!!!

Just by a few minutes, but still afternoon.

And I woke up feeling somewhat pleasant, which felt very odd and not quite right. No. It did not feel right at all and it didn't last but that's how it was for several minutes.

I had a great deal of work ahead of me but I didn't do any of it - except to put up yesterday's blog post on Clark James Mishler, which went up much later than I had intended - not until 4:04 PM.

Immediately afterward, I jumped into the car and headed to Metro Cafe to buy my NPR - All Things Considered listening and driving coffee.

Shoshana greeted me at the window and I told her that I had not taken a single picture all day long and that I had better shoot some frames of her right now because darkness was setting down heavy and if I didn't, I might somehow not take a picture this entire day and that would not be good.

She was game for it, so I shot this series of Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana.

The above image, in case any reader has not already surmised, is Study # 1.

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 2

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 3

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 4

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 5

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 6

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 7

Eight Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshana: Study # 8

It is my hope that one day, far in the future, a researcher of some sort will be delving into all that took place in and concerning Wasilla, Alaska at this time in history and will conclude that while on the national scene Wasilla was a noisy place, what proved to be the most important event to concern this town was that a young writer named Shoshana quietly performed her job at Metro Cafe.

Perhaps The New Yorker will still be around, or there will some other publication of some sort or another that fills the same niche.

That publication will run these pictures and they will state, "Eight images of the noted author, Shoshana of Wasilla, Alaska, photographed by the erstwhile blogger, Bill Hess, when she was young and working at Metro Cafe."

Just before 2010 ended, I received an exceptionally generous donation from a reader who specified that I was to use to to take Margie out to a fine dinner. I figured this was the night to do it.

There is a new restaurant in Wasilla called Sakura Sushi. It took over the spot previously occupied by Wasilla's only Indian restaurant. I was a little dismayed by that, because I like to get Indian food now and then so that I can sit there, breathe in the familiar aromas, eat and remember India.

But I love Sushi, too, and so we decided to give it a try. We entered the door and were greeted by fish. 

Beyond the fish, people were gathering.

It was a very long wait, but so what? The company was good. I have never been able to convince Margie that raw fish is good, so when we go to a sushi place, she orders something else - on this night, teriyaki chicken and tempura shrimp and vegetables.

My sushi was served first, but I resisted and waited until she got her meal before I ate mine.

My first bite was of the roll on the upper right hand corner of the dish - dipped in wasabi and soy sauce.

Oooooooohhhh my! 

Heaven! Heaven! Heaven!

Heaven...

And every bite that followed was like heaven and this proved true for Margie, too.

It was well worth the wait.

To have a sushi restaurant of such quality, right here in Wasilla, Alaska...

If I were rich, I would eat here 30 times a week.

Or maybe twice.

Perhaps just once, so as not to render the experience commonplace.

But I would want to eat here 30 times a week.

Here is the master chef, O.B. I learned nothing of his history, but he did speak with a strong Japanese accent. I hope he loves Wasilla, because I do not want him to leave.

And here is our host and waitress, as I pay the bill. I did not catch their names.

On the way out, we passed by the fish, who seemed unaware, contented enough.

Thank you, Michael P, for a wonderful dinner out with my wife.

Also let that future researcher also note that on this day, a master chef sliced up some excellent sushi in Wasilla, Alaska, and someone broke down on the side of an icy road, where someone else stopped to help.

As to sleep, now that the crash has come and gone, I am right back to the same place. I went to bed at 4:00 this morning and could not sleep a wink past 7:00 - and I didn't sleep all that great in between.

I did stay home, where I cooked oatmeal and ate it with berries and walnuts.

And this one from India:

A vendor in Ooty as photographed through the open window of our taxicab as our driver drove the newly-weds Soundarya and Anil, Vasanthi, Buddy, Melanie and me through the bustling street, where goats, horses and ox mingled with people driving motor bikes, cars, trucks and auto-rics.

View images as slides

Two views of the cats on Charlie's t-shirts: full front and rear, too; Ketchup in an empty restaurant; big mid-winter meltdown; Ramz - the girl who defended the tiny goat

Charlie showed up wearing this t-shirt. This is the front view.

This is the rear view. Charlie suggested that we all go to Anchorage and stroll through the Fifth Avenue Mall together, drinking coffee from cat mugs, but none of the rest of us wanted to join him there.

It seems that I have lost the ability to sleep - except for those blessed moments when I just crash. I find myself typically going to bed between midnight and 2:00 AM. It takes me too long to go to sleep and after I do, I might sleep for close to an hour and then I wake up and just keep waking up, multiple times each hour until finally I just give up and get up.

So far this week, I have not felt like cooking and besides, the steel-cut oatmeal was gone and so were the frozen berries that I put in it.

Family Restaurant opens at 6:00 AM, so for the last two days in a row I have headed over there at that time.

Both days, I have found the restaurant eerily empty.

Just me and the ketchup.

And a waitress or two.

Cooks in the back, cooking just for me, waiting for the crowd to start coming in.

I get in the car and leave to drive home. The fringe edge of the crowd has finally begun to arrive.

Corner of Seldon and Church Roads, on my way home from breakfast.

Despite the fact that I am peripatetic by nature, I have not had much energy for walking lately. Still, I must walk - especially since I have begun to lay the plans for a big Brooks Range hike this summer.

So I go walk, and this dog comes barking. Back in the trees, I hear a man shouting at the dog. He orders the dog to come back. The dog does not. The dog keeps following me, barking and barking.

The man keeps shouting orders, all of which the dog ignores.

In time, the man's voice fades into the trees.

The dog is still following, but barking less now.

The dog seems unsure of itself, now.

Maybe this is the farthest the dog has ever been away from home on its own.

The dog is probably wondering what it got itself into.

Soon, I will be home in my office with the cats, Jimmy and Pistol-Yero. 

They do not bark and they do not chase people down the road.

They just hang out in my office, knock things off my desk, counters and work table, spill my coffee, break my cups, prance across my keyboard when I am typing, interrupt my work and sit down on my lap every time I get on a roll. Sometimes, they even delete pictures!

So far (I think) I have always discovered each deletion in time to undo it.

They drink water from my fish tanks and throw up on the rug.

I sure do love these damn cats.

I see the tail of one them right now. It hangs down from the window sill beneath the cat, who is covered up the drape. He is looking outside at some creature that he would like to hunt - a raven, maybe. A moose, perhaps.

If so, that creature is damn lucky there is a pane of glass between it and the cat.

This is about as bad as a mid-winter warm-up can get. Well, not quite as bad. It hasn't rained all that much. The problem is, even through all the cold weather, we have had a dearth of snow and much of that had already been scoured away by the wind, even when the temperature was still cold, where it ought to be.

I read the part in the Anchorage Daily News that said this warmup was the result of Chinook winds. The Daily News is wrong. These winds have blown in off the Pacific. Chinook winds are caused when air flows down off mountains, warms up and spreads across a valley or plain.

My dad was a meteorologist, so I know these kind of things.

The Daily News is wrong.

This blog is right.

Here I am, on my 4:00 PM coffee break, which I got started on just a bit late. I have been to Metro. where Shoshana served me my Americano and cinnamon roll and told me that she and her boyfriend greatly enjoyed their New Year's jaunt to Chena Hot Springs, even if the temperature was 40 above instead of 40 below, where one would want it to be.

And here is one from India: Ramz my niece and Facebook friend

Recently, Ramz invited me to become one of her friends on Facebook. Ramz Iyer is Soundarya's cousin, but sisters is also a word they use.

I accepted the invitation, of course, and was very touched when I looked at all her profile pictures and saw one where she was hugging a small goat close to her chin and was smiling big. I have pictures like that of Soundarya, too.

Another of her Facebook friends, one closer to her own age, responded with this comment:

"dont u feel eeew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Ramz retorted:

"i feel more eew wen ppl eat it ! rader dan carrying it ! i luve animals ! nd nyways .....it was neat nd tidy !"

The friend eventually replied:

"i was just kidding,"

Ramz stood her ground:

"but I was not !"

I was pleased and proud.

I just went and took another look at her page. Her new profile pic depicts her as a platinum blond with blue green tint in her hair, dark blue eyes and a tattoo on her pale face!

I remain: pleased and proud!

View images as slides

2010: How it ended; 2011: How we have spent the year so far

To close out 2010, Margie and I drove to the new Tikahtnu theatres on the near edge of Anchorage to see a late afternoon matinee showing of "True Grit."

Here we are, approaching the theatre.

Right after we had we taken our seats in the theatre, before I had silenced my iPhone, a message came in. It was from Lavina. She and her boys were roaming about elsewhere in Anchorage and Kalib had found himself holding a snake, surrounded by dinosaurs.

It was a damn frightening scene to see.

As for True Grit, we enjoyed it. It had some moments in it that were extremely emotional for me, due more to the connections they caused my mind to make, rather than to what was happening onscreen itself.

It is at such moments that one appreciates the fact that it is very dark in a movie theatre and that no one is looking at you, but at the one bright spot in the theatre - the screen.

2010 ended with a shockingly warm blast of air sweeping in from the south Pacific, causing a 55 degree rise in temperature at our house, from -10 F to 45 above. Even Fairbanks warmed up, but not quite so much as we did. The roads became wet, dirty, and slippery. By the time we headed home, the temperature had dropped down to 25 and the highway was very slick.  Not everyone who drove it succeeded at staying on it.

Some even wound up upside down.

I hope no one was badly hurt.

After we got home, Margie watched a little TV. I seldom care to watch TV, but was too tired to do anything else. So I sat on the couch next to her for awhile. Outside, on the other side of the marsh, someone was shooting fireworks.

In fact, all over Wasilla and any other place in South Central Alaska where people live, people were shooting off fireworks.

At the moment the iPhone flashed midnight, we toasted in the New Year. I do not precisely remember the toasts, but they did mention grandkids.

I stepped briefly outside to see what I could see. The air smelled of burnt gun powder. Country music blared from two houses down, where people were partying. I shot this image of a rocket blasting over that house and then stepped back into our house.

Margie and I did not last long after that.

2010 had ended hard and had left me exhausted.

I did not get up until about 10:00 AM. I figured a young couple such as us should not dirty dishes on the first day of the new year. "Want to go to breakfast?" I asked Margie, as she lay groggily in bed.

"Sure," she answered.

So I started to the car with the remote.

Soon, the Ford Escape was ready to drive us into the New Year.

Here we are, on Lucille Street, approaching the four-way stop at the intersection with Spruce. Metro Cafe sits just beyond, but they have been closed for two days. Carmen and Scott are in Arizona. Shoshana has been running the shop, but she and her boyfriend headed for Chena Hot Springs to celebrate the New Year. 

I had been a little bit jealous of that idea, to think how nice it would be to soak in those hot springs in the midst of the -40 degree cold, but with the big warmup, I was not quite so jealous anymore.

Still, it would be great fun to be in Chena Hot Springs today.

I wonder if I could ever get Margie to do something like that?

As we walked from the car to the entrance to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, Ubiquitous Raven flew over us. "Chooo'weet!"

The seat in the corner against the wall was not available, so I had to risk getting shot in the back. Still, this is the snuggest, coziest part of Family Restaurant because you are close to the kitchen and can feel the warmth of it.

Not that this made much difference on what is proving to be another very warm day, with the temp above freezing.

I hope it cools off soon.

I hate this kind of weather.

Especially on New Year's day.

As we we prepared to drive away, I saw this doggie in the car window next door.

The scene as we drove away from Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, looking into the new year with both anticipation and apprehension.

I know for a fact that the year ahead will be a terrible one, and it will be an excellent one. This is the conflicted state in which it has begun and in which it will remain, because that is the state of all of our lives, all of the time.

May the excellent times outnumber and overpower the terrible ones.

That is my wish and prayer for the new year, for us all.

View images as slideshow

We get our Christmas shopping done early; Todd - met at Carr's; Melanie gets the blessing of an elephant

We had no milk for oatmeal, so I didn't cook any. Instead, I sat down right here at my computer and started to work on pictures. Then Margie came in and wondered what we should do about Christmas shopping. "Well," I answered, "we're out of milk so we might as well go to breakfast and then see if we can get some shopping done."

She agreed. I remote started the car, let it warm up for about 15 minutes. It was still very chilly inside and the seats were like solid blocks of ice, but we climbed into the car and headed for Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. As we neared, this raven passed over the car.

"This guy is really annoying," Margie told Connie, our waitress, as I took this picture. Connie did not agree, but she laughed politely so that Margie would think she did.

I believe that I may have ranted about this before, and I probably will again, but this is one of the great ironies of my life as a photographer. It is only in recent years - pretty much since grandkids began to enter our lives - that Margie has tolerated me taking photographs of her at all.

True, I did manage to get a few in here and there, mostly when the children were somehow involved, but fundamentally, I, who am possessed with genuine passion to photograph anything and everything, found myself with this exceptionally gorgeous and beautiful wife and everyday that we were together I would look upon her and I would want to photograph her and everyday she would refuse to be photographed.

Be assured, I still find her beautiful - sometimes so much so that it makes me ache just to look at her. She now has the beauty of an aging woman who has weathered much in life, suffered many hurts and disappointments but has created a family that loves and adores her.

Each one of us loves and adores her.

Back when we were first married, she possessed a different kind of beauty - exquisite physical beauty of the most desirous kind - her hair so deep black, long and wavy against her lovely brown skin, her eyes radiant, dancing with fun and mischief - and I, the artist, who looked upon her every day, was not allowed to document this beauty - except on rare occassions, almost always involving children.

The only exception that I can think of is this one, which I posted on Mother's Day last.

I cannot remember how I persuaded her to pose that day, but, even though she relented, if you click the link and look at the picture, you will see that she was not happy about it.

And now, as the years and decades push those days of youthful beauty ever farther back, I sometimes long to look at the photos of my beautiful, young, wife. I long to show the photos to her children, her grandchildren and say to them, "see how beautiful she was? She had a host of would be suitors and yet she chose, short, awkward, shy, socially inept, me and together we made you."

But those pictures do not exist. I cannot look at them; I cannot show them to anybody.

If all the people who I have photographed over the years would have reacted to my camera the way she did, I would have utterly failed as a photographer. I would probably be selling newspapers on the street somewhere, because there's nothing else I could have done.

Our first stop was at Meta Rose Square, home of All I Saw Cookware. Get it. "All I Saw?" "Wasilla" backwards? Was-i-lla?

We parked right next to this car. I am not quite certain why some guys feel compelled to emblazon their vehicles in this manner. To attract attention, I guess.

In my case, it didn't work. I didn't even notice. I didn't notice at all. I walked away without even giving it a sideways glance.

I am not quite sure why, but, as we walked through Meta Rose, I found myself wondering why I had to grow up Mormon; I was sort of a cowboy, once, briefly, but a Mormon sort of cowboy and it wasn't like this.

Inside the store, we came upon this piggy bank. As piggy banks always do, this one transported my mind back to Pendleton, Oregon, when I was five years old. My mom had taken me downtown to go shopping and when we came to JC Penney's, there was a red, plastic, piggy bank in the window. Or maybe it was the window of a bank. Or perhaps Woolworth's. Whatever window it was, the pig on the other side was wearing a little hat.

I wanted that piggy bank. I wanted it badly.

Mom had grown up very hard in the Depression and was against all spending that was in any way frivolous. And a piggy bank was frivolous. One could make a very fine bank from an empty Morton's salt box, or a band-aid can.

She did not understand that it was not that I wanted a bank - I wanted the little red pig with the hat on its head, but in the name of frugality I was denied this item that maybe cost 25 cents. I never did get a piggy bank. I kept my coins in Morton salt boxes and bandaid cans. And every time I would go into a store and see a piggy bank, I longed to have it.

Then, when I became a young man, a curious thing happened. I would go into a store, see a piggy bank and feel the same longing. So I would buy the piggy bank.

I bought all kinds of piggy banks. It became a waste of money. There was no place to put all these piggy banks. At the Alaska State Fair, I even found a little red plastic one, wearing a hat - made from the very same mold as the one that I had been denied in the first place.

Finally, I had to get rid of most of those piggy banks.

As for the ones I kept - I don't even know where they are now - not even the little red plastic one.

When I saw this one yesterday, I wanted to buy it - not as a gift but for me.

But I didn't. I resisted temptation and moved on.

I am not going to show you what Margie is holding in her hand, because it might be a gift for someone. It might not be, but if it is, I would not want to spoil the surprise.

Out in the hall, a little boy took a ride on giant duckling.

We left the store with two days to go. This is the earliest we have ever done our shopping. Especially me. I am usually in a store at closing time on Christmas Eve, buying ceramic roosters, things like that.

Next we went to Fred Meyer's, where a raven sat upon a pole. You can't tell it in this tiny window, but that raven has its head cocked to one side. It looks very "Chooo 'weet."

Margie checks out some socks as gifts for grandkids. When I was small, it was such a great disappointment to open up a gift only to find socks. I wanted toys!

Now, this looks like a gift that a little boy could like! At least if his name is Kalib Hess. But then Kalib already has a spatula. What would he do with another?

I suppose this must be adorable, but personally, I found it to be just a little bit eery and frightening, somewhat macabre.

Then we happened upon a very cute scene - the two month old puppy, Brisa, held in the warm embrace of her human, Sierra.

Although we had eaten breakfast out, we found ourselves feeling hungry again. So we drove past the little cove at the west end of Wasilla lake, looking for hotdogs.

We found two hotdogs - both at Dairy Queen.

Dairy Queen has good hot dogs - especially the foot-longs. To all those from out of town who wonder whether or not they should come and visit Wasilla - come. If nothing else, for the Dairy Queen hot dogs.

They will taste just the same as the Dairy Queen hot dogs in your town, if you are an American.

So you will feel right at home - even if our little city is a bit more odd than yours. Which, trust me, it will be.

The view from Dairy Queen as I eat my hot dog. How come these guys are still up here in the north?

Late in the evening, Margie and I headed to Carr's, to buy turkeys and other food for Christmas dinner. Just as we reached the turkeys, this fellow stopped me. "Are you the guy who does the Wasilla 300 blog?" he asked.

Indeed, I am.

He told me that we disagree politically, but that he loves the blog - especially some of the stories that I do in Rural Alaska. He said that he has been looking out for me as he moves around town.

"Wasilla is a small town," he said. "I knew we would cross paths some day."

And there she is, my Margie, checking out the turkeys. We bought two 16 pounders.

And this one from India:

Remember the scorpion from yesterday? Photographed at, as Cawitha refreshed my memory with the name that just always flees my brain, Hampi?

I took this picture approximately 100 yards away from the place where I took that one.

It is Melanie, about to be blessed by an elephant. A "chooo 'weet" elephant.

For those who did not read the comments left on yesterday's post, one was left by Cawitha, Soundarya's cousin.

Yesterday, I speculated how Sandy might have reacted if I could have showed her the photo of the scorpion, and that was with the word, "Chooo'weet! I added that there was one element in the photo that would likely have disturbed her - namely, that the string had been tied to the scorpion's stinger.

Cawitha agreed, and took it one step further. She imagined Sandy not looking at the picture but being there at Hampi with us:

"Am sure Soundarya (Sandy) would have said "Chooo 'weet" and if she were to see this she would have ensured the arthropod was set free. She was the most compassionate person."

Thank you, Cawitha. I am certain that is exactly what Sandy would have done. And no matter how tough a guy the individual walking the scorpion might have imagined himself to be, he would have had to back down to her, just as did the vet who at first refused to treat the raven that she saved with Anil's help.

Cawitha, btw, has been my friend since the day that Sandy wed Anil. Like Margie, Cawitha does not like to be photographed and so that day asked me to please not take her picture. I didn't, unless maybe as part of the crowd, so I cannot show you what she looks likes. 

However, we are committed to one day going "trekking" together, perhaps in the Himalayas, perhaps in Alaska, maybe both. I expect that then, I will get her picture.

I can't be postive, but I think so.

Now, contrast this picture to yesterday's. Everything is turned around. It is the animal who is huge and powerful, the person who is small and relatively weak - especially because this person does not have the protection of a poisonous stinger.

But the elephant is gentle. The elephant blesses my daughter with its strength. The elephant does not harm her. And when the elephant laid the end of its heavy and powerful trunk upon my daughter's head, so powerful that it could easily have wrapped it around her neck and broken it, it felt like a blessing to her. 

As it did to me, when the elephant blessed me.

This was the second elephant in India to bless me.

No, I do not worship elephants. But this does not mean that I cannot appreciate being blessed by one.

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