Two November 13 birthdays, part 1: No alcohol at this party, but boy, it was a wild one!

It was Rex's birthday party - which one? - 33 I think, but I'm not certain...32? 34? He's my third son and I'm still a young man, barely into my 30's, I'm sure; possibly still in my 20's. That's how I usually feel, anyway - not so much right now, because of these damn shingles - but usually I think of myself as being just about as young as I was on the day I married Rex's mom.

So I don't know how he could be 33 or 32 - I hope he's not 34 - but, according to the calendar, he is, indeed, somewhere in that age range.

Oddly enough, Rex hosted his own party at the home he now shares with his special friend, Cortney, who has won all of our hearts since she and Rex first got together last summer.

It was a brunch party, with eggs, biscuits and gravy, sausage and a cut up fruit mix of pomegranate, strawberrys, pineapples, melons and such.

It began with coffee - french press or American style.

Charlie went for French Press, which is just what anyone would expect him to do. 

We had not been sitting and eating long before Lisa passed her iPhone 4 around the table, so that people could laugh at the picture on the screen. Rex and Cortney did, indeed, laugh.

I was slightly baffled. "It's a men-up," Lisa said. I had no idea what a men-up was, so after I got home, I googled the term. I learned that men-ups are  "colorful photographs of 20-something guys dressed in guises of stereotypical masculinity and posed like mid-century pin-up girls." 

Men-ups have gone viral. They even have their own men-up calendar.

Next, Cortney passed her phone around. Even before she and Rex got together, she shared her home and heart with another guy, Kingston. When she was not looking, Kingston kept opening the door to let the birds fly in.

For some reason, birds really like to fly into this cozy little log cabin.

This is Kingston. Not the honey - the dog. 

And this is Lynxton. He is studying the world that he was born into, trying to figure out what is what. I wish he had a camera that matched his eyes, so he could show us what he sees and how he sees it.

Kalib was as full of mischief as I have ever seen him. If I had had the energy and good health and had kept my eyes open more of the time, I could have taken about 3000 pictures of him doing things like this. He was all over the place, shooting from one side of the room to the other, then to the other sides and then all four sides, seemingly at once. 

He was under the table, then on this chair and then that chair.

One time, I opened my eyes and saw him running upside down across the ceiling. I don't know how he did that, but he did.

"That's impossible!" I exclaimed.

"No it's not! I could do that!" Charlie claimed.

"Well, do it then!" I challenged.

Okay," Charlie said. "I will." He then ran up the wall, took two steps across the ceiling and then fell onto his head, fortunately on the dog bed.

I photographed the whole thing, but, damnit, I forgot to use my camera.

Melanie, Lynxton and Margie, partying hard at the party.

Lavina shovels some nutrition into Jobe's mouth.

I enjoyed the food and the company. No matter what I am doing, I must bear the pain of these shingles, so I thought I would be just as well off feeling the pain at the party as sitting home. And Cortney is a doctor in residency and she reassured me of what I had already been told. While I can theoretically pass chicken pox from my shingles to someone who has never had the pox or been immunized against it, I cannot do so through the air. I can only do so with close physical contact.

The only person in the room who had not had the pox or been immunized was Lynxton. So, as badly as I wanted to pick him up, I did not. I kept my distance from him.

Yet, the experience proved to be much tougher on me than I had anticipated. I spent a good deal of the time huddled up somewhere with my eyes closed, trying to retreat from the pain into my own pysche and meditation. I was jarred from one such round by the sudden, loud, angry screams of a wronged Jobe.

I quickly gathered that he had secured a new prized possession, but someone had taken it from him.

He quickly got it back. The screaming stopped. Jobe was happy again.

Any long-time reader knows that whenever anybody in this family has a birthday, Kalib must assist in the blowing out of the candles.

So, after the candles had been lit and the cake placed before Rex, Kalib was called over to assist with the blowing out.

But Kalib refused to blow. He would not blow. Then he produced a Thomas train engine and developed a new method of putting birthday candles out - the "fan and snuff" method. He furiously pumped the train up and down over the candles, creating enough wind that he actually blew some out, but some of the flames would not yield to this little wind. These he snuffed out by bringing his Tom train engine right down onto the flame.

Jobe got to eat the first raspberry.

Then Kalib got a raspberry.

One wasn't enough. Laughing with each bite, Kalib repeatedly shot his hand in, grabbed a raspberry, shoved it into his mouth, then grabbed another before Rex could stop him.

I think he got about half the raspberries.

I only got one.

The cake was delicious, but the bite with the one raspberry that had escaped Kalib's thievery to make it to me was the most delicious of all.

Oh, that was a good bite!

But I only got one such bite...  :'-(

I got the idea that I should take a regular-style group photo of all who were there, except for me, to make certain that everybody present wound up pictured on the blog. It was okay that I would not be in the photo, because the mere fact that such a photo would exist would be proof that I was there.

So I asked everybody to gather on the other side of the table and everybody did - except for Kalib. As different folks called out, "Kalib, come over here," he dashed this way and that way, out into the entry and back again, but he would not join the group.

Then he ran beneath the table, where he knew I could not see him. I couldn't, either. All I could see was the top of the table and the people behind it - all of them damn cute, but Lynxton the cutest of all.

It suddenly occurred to me that if I dropped down to a squatting position, I would be able to see Kalib. I also knew that once I spotted him, I had to act instantly. As soon as he realized what I was doing, he would shoot out from under the table and be gone.

So I dropped down to a knee. At that very moment, Melanie began to choke mildly upon a raspberry, Jobe threw a fit and there was distraction all around. I shot.

I suddenly realized that from this angle, all the camera could see of Lynxton was the top of his head, including part of his right ear. "Margie, lift Lynxton u..." I began to shout.

Too late. Kalib scooted out from beneath the table and was gone.

Two November 13 birthdays, part 2.

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The eye of the New York Times focuses on Barrow; winter draws nigh to Wasilla

This is New York Times reporter William Yardley, as his byline reads in the paper, although he introduced himself to me as Bill Yardley. As I am Bill, too, and we were in Barrow, that would make him my "atik," which, in a way, kind of makes us like relatives of sorts.

I first met him, along with New York Times photographer Jim Wilson and videographer Erik Olsen, in the North Slope Borough office building, where they had just interviewed Mayor Edward Itta. 

Then, the next day, I saw them at the Barrow Whalers' football playoff game when our boys defeated Monroe Catholic and again immediately afterward at the site where the Aiken whale had been landed and butchered.

I took this picture in the rearview mirror as Yardley drove the car they had rented from the landing site back to Barrow, about five miles. We happened to leave at the same time and they were kind enough to give me a ride.

Judging from what they told me, they must have more coverage coming, in addition to what appeared today in two parts online.

The two parts can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/3z6rurw

http://nyti.ms/nP8QSC

Yardley has also spent a lot of time in Wasilla, covering... well, you know who... the same person who pulled media from all over the world to Wasilla... while I, a media person who lives right here... just turned around and walked away from it all, just about. Yardley covered her for the New York Times.

I took a walk today. As you can see, winter has not quite reached Wasilla, the way it has reached Barrow and the Arctic Slope, but it is getting close.

This dog came running, barking, growling, snarling, charging in from behind, pretending that it was going to rip me to pieces. When I turned and pointed my camera at it, it stopped cold. It let its tail fall down.

Most "mean" dogs are like this - but in Barrow, I met a genuinely mean dog.

It was scary. Given the level of its gnashing teeth teeth to my body, I was thinking it was good that I had already fathered all the children I ever need to, but, at the same time, the idea of losing the capability to a mean dog did exactly please me.

Later in the afternoon, during my usual 4:00 PM coffee break, I drove down Shrock Road and discovered that it had snowed there - just a couple of miles from our house. It was late in the afternoon and it had been sunny all day, so the snow must have completely covered the ground in the morning.

Winter is drawing nigh to Wasilla - I hope. The leaves are long gone now. Once the leaves go, I am ready for the snow.

Plus, I got used to it in Barrow and Atqasuk.

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A ninja, cat, and absent-minded dog, met one week ago today on my way to The Loft

This is one week ago this morning, taken at a train station in Newark, from where I launched myself toward David Alan Harvey's Loft in Brooklyn. 

Right now, it is 11:15 PM and I have settled down into the home of my westside Uptown hosts, Tom and Susan Nicholson, former Alaskans and parents of the filmmaker Zac Nicholson who loves to come to Alaska and especially to Barrow.

I am exhausted. Too exhausted to do any kind of picture editing or blogging.

The only reason that I am not in bed right now is because after sweating profusely throughout this past week while walking mile upon mile, sitting, riding the baking subway and trying sleep in the sultry heat, my supply of clothing had gone bad and so I am now doing laundry.

I shared an apartment with three other workshop students. When I arrived, I found this cat just outside the door. Seemed to me like a good beginning.

Then, a bit before 5:00 PM, I joined my temporary roommates in a cab ride to The Loft. Something was wrong with the elevator, so we trudged up the stairs to the sixth floor. This dog followed.

I didn't think much about the dog until it suddenly said, "say, can you tell me if this is the stairway to The Loft?"

"Yes," I answered, "but why would a dog want to know that?"

The dog looked at me like I was stupid. "I ran here all the way from Texas just to take part in The Loft workshop and I would hate to find out that on the final stretch I had gone up the wrong stairway," he answered in irritated disgust.

"It's the right stairway," I said, "but where's your camera?"

"My camera!" the dog suddenly screamed. "I forgot my camera! I left it at home in Texas! I better run back and get it!"

With that, the dog turned, leaped and bounded down the stairs and charged out the door on his way to Texas.

I don't know what happened to him, because the workshop is over now and he never made it back.

Too bad. I would have liked to have seen his portfolio.

Pregnant spider walking; Lavina comes to pick up her babies as we wait for the new baby; Hannah Solomon, who lived for almost 103 years

On my morning walk, I came upon this pregnant spider -- VERY PREGNANT! I had the wrong lens to be photographing a spider, but, to quote once again from Donald Rumsfeld:

"As you know, you photograph a spider with the lens you have, not the lens you wish you had brought or might bring at a later time, when the spider is gone."

Lavina had planned to come out yesterday and then spend the night with us so that she could see her babies again, but she didn't. This was because she had been having contractions Friday - not true labor contractions, but getting ready for labor contractions. Then it intensified to the point where she told Jake that it was time for him to take her to the hospital.

So Jake got ready to go and then the pains went away.

Margie and I then made plans to drive the boys back home Saturday. Lavina called to cancel our plans. She and Jacob were going to come out and pick them up themselves.

The idea of her traveling an hour away from her hospital scared me a bit, but I guess she had been cooped up at home too long, and needed to get out.

In the meantime, Kalib took a nap.

Jobe and me on the back porch.

Kalib prunes some bushes as he waits for his mom to arrive.

She arrived in the early evening, with Jacob and Muzzy in tow. She saw Jobe first, so picked him up and just gazed at him. This bed-rest stuff has been pretty hard on Lavina, because she loves to be with her babies but over the past weeks we have had them here more than she and Jacob have had them there.

Kalib then wanted her attention and he got it.

Soon she had them both.

Soon, they were ready to go - and they were taking Margie with them, so she could help out. Margie is one hell of a grandma, I'll say that. Back when we young and making babies ourselves, I never thought of her as a grandma, but she is a grandma and quite an amazing one, I think.

Before they got into the car to drive away, Jacob and Lavina discovered they had to clean dog poop off their shoes.

I jokes! I jokes! I jokes!

They were just checking out the soles of their shoes.

I think their shoes were new, that's why.

They sure look new to me.

Sooner or later, though, they will step in dog poop.

It happens to us all. It happened to me just yesterday... in the marsh that has dried up and become a meadow.

Gross!

Then they were all in the car, ready to go.

And there they go, Jake and Margie waving at me. You can't see Margie's face because she has turned it to her grandchildren, telling them to wave goodbye to grandpa, but I couldn't see them, so I don't know if they waved or not.

Kalib probably did. I doubt that Jobe did.

He wouldn't have been being stuck up or ornery, he's just not quite into waving yet... but he's getting there.

As I left, I climbed onto my bike and pedalled off on short ride, about ten miles round trip. As I pedalled down Seldon, this airplane flew overhead.

You can hardly see the plane at this size. It would show up bigger in slide show view. A few seconds later, I took a shot that I like better, because I dropped the camera down just a bit and you can see headlights coming down the road with the plane above.

But the plane is too small in that frame to even bother posting here.

I mention this less for the readers' benefit than my own.

One day, I intend to include these words in the title of a book I have so far only dabbled at but hope to publish before I die:

I still look up

And I think the one with the car headlights in it might be good enough to include in that book.

So I write this to myself so that when I come back to this page and see this plane, I will know that there is another image that I must go take another look at.

Remembering: Hannah Solomon, 10/10/08 - 9/16/11

Hannah Solomon, Matriarch of the Gwich'in Nation, who passed away in Fairbanks late Friday afternoon - three weeks before her 103rd birthday. July, 2006.

Hannah Solomon dancing at her 100th birthday party.

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Return to a missing day: bunny rabbit, cowboy and grandson, dogs, bear, horse hair and more

During my hiatus, I continued to take pictures as usual -- far too many to go back and blog it all, but I will blog a little bit of it. There are a couple of photographic encounters that stand out in my mind, and I will still blog those for sure. I thought about blogging one of them today, but my readership always falls on Saturdays, so instead, I closed my eyes, ran my cursor up and down over the list of missing days, stopped, opened my eyes, and found the cursor had stopped on Thursday, September 1.

So here we go on that day:

I decided to have breakfast at Abby's Home Cooking and to go by bicycle. When I stepped out of the house, I saw this bunny rabbit dashing through the yard.

Poor bunny rabbits.

They seemed to appear out of nowhere early this summer... two or three, maybe. Their numbers quickly grew. Soon, bunny rabbits were everywhere. One evening, I came driving down Sarah's way and there was a bunny rabbit standing at the end of every driveway, like little sentries. I passed maybe ten houses protected by these little sentries.

Then, a few weeks ago, their numbers began to decline. Dogs? Maybe someone had a feast of bunny rabbit stew, somewhere, with bunny rabbits packed into the freezer for later? Humanely trapped and gone to the pound? Perished on chilly nights?

There are still a few bunny rabbits out there, but, a month from now, there won't be.

Winter is coming. These bunny rabbits are not winter rabbits.

Around here, winter is the domain of the snowshoe hare, dinner to the lynx, fox, and eagle.

Snowshoe hares are Arctic tough. These bunny rabbits are not.

At Abby's Home Cooking, I found Tim Mahoney, drinking coffee and feeding a fresh cinamon roll to his grandson, five-year old Wesley.

Wesley already helps out on the ranch.

Tim and Wesley, headed out the door.

Tim and Wesley, getting into the truck.

I was pedalling home when suddenly this dog shot past me, striking from behind, grazing my left ankle as it passed. It gave me a start, but then I recognized it. I know this dog. He likes to stage quick ambush charges, which can really startle you, because he seems to suddenly materialize out of nowhere and for a moment you do not know what is happening.

He is not a mean dog, though. He just likes to give you a start. Once he has done so, he is harmless, even without the muzzle.

I wonder if he has had any bunny rabbits to eat?

As usual when I am home, the remainder of September 1 was pretty much spent at my computer - although I did take my usual 4:00 PM coffee break at Metro Cafe. As I was driving and sipping on Sunset, this dog came charging after my car. 

The dog falls back, as seen in my rearview mirror.

Continuing on, I saw that a conversation was taking place ahead, at the side of the road.

I have no idea what they were conversing about. Could have been anything... dogs, horses, women, politics, the high cost of gas, all the heat and fire in Texas and how they're sure glad they are here and not there... I don't know. 

Anything.

Peanut butter, perhaps. Does it go better with honey or jelly?

Honey, I say - but jelly can be pretty good, too.

Especially when you are cold and you have been cold for a long time, but now someone has given you a hot thermos of coffee and some Sailor Boy pilot bread cookies and there is peanut butter and you slather it on, spread jelly on top of that and you feel the heat of the coffee as it chases the peanut butter jelly down your gullet and then you have to say, this peanut butter and jelly is pretty damn good, so you lather up another.

I continued and soon saw a little black bear crossing the road ahead of me. I hoped to catch up to it before it disappeared into the trees, but it disappeared quick.

Lately, I have heard reports of some big grizzlys in this same area - of paw prints over a foot long.

On Shrock I had to pull to the side of the road to let this screaming ambulance pass by.

Somewhere nearby, someone's day had gone terribly wrong.

I hope not too terrible, but who knows?

Perhaps for someone it was the day that ended all days; perhaps someone just had bad gas and thought it was a heart attack, or maybe they shattered their shoulder like I did.

I don't know.

Come evening, I took my bike ride. These two passed me on Church Road and as they did, the kid in back waved at me. I did not have my camera ready and I missed the picture.

I felt bad about that, but there was a downhill stretch ahead of me, so maybe I could get another chance. I pedaled as hard and fast as I could and caught them and passed them about a quarter mile on. As I passed, they both waved.

I stopped at the Mahoney Ranch and took a few photos of the oats, standing in teepee-like bundles. I am not going to post those pictures, because on other days I got some, complete with Mahoneys, that I like better.

As I was taking pictures, I heard someone shout, "Hey, Bill!" I looked up and saw a Mahoney horse, in the distance, too far away for me to photograph. "I notice your hair is getting thin," the horse shouted with the full force of his massive lungs. "I left some of mine on the fence for you. Put it on your head. You'll look lots better then."

Now, back to just yesterday:

Okay... just to keep this timely, I return almost to the present, to yesterday: Kalib, pushing an empty stroller through the back yard. His mom experienced many contractions yesterday, but did not go into full labor.

We are definitely on baby watch, now.

Study of the Young Writer, Shoshana, at Metro Cafe #7,829: Shoshana with Jay Cross, pilot and aircraft mechanic. Jay was thinking that maybe my airplane could be put back into the air for less than I think. Someday,he wants to come by take a look at it.

Unless I get rich, I think that airplane is done for. As I have stated before, if I could come up with the money to put it back into the air, I would just buy another one, so that I could get there, quick. But if I get rich, I will buy another and get my wreck rebuilt and then keep both. That airplane and I had many good experiences together. I love that airplane, and that's why I keep it around, even though its no good anymore.

My next door neighbor hates my plane. He built a fence between us, just so he wouldn't have to look at it.

He doesn't like cats, either. In fact, he hates cats.

Otherwise, he seems to be a pretty decent fellow, but I doubt that we will ever be the best of friends. He keeps pretty much to himself and so do we.

I wonder how he feels about bunny rabbits? Hopping through his yard?

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