Baby suddenly starts to dart about house, goes wild, wreaks havoc

All of a sudden, Kalib is able to scoot, crawl, and while he can't yet walk outright, he can shuffle about on his feet by grabbing hold of things like the edges of couches and coffee tables to support himself. Hands against the wall are a pretty good source of support as well.

And all of a sudden, today, he scurried all about the living room and the kitchen, raising hell.

He gets into a little pantry.

I leave grandma to deal with his mischief and retreat to my office. I step back in about ten minutes later and find that he has crawled onto the lower run of this end table. He has a Pepsi bottle and is shaking it vigorously. Margie is dumfounded. "Thirty seconds ago, he was on the other side of the room," she insists.

Again, I retreat to my office.

When next I step back into the house, he is getting into the cupboard beneath the microwave - far from the last position that I saw him in.

Everything that is in the cupboard, he pulls out. 

Kalib closes the cupboard door and goes for the broom.

He pulls the broom down.

He tests the bristles for texture.

Then he gives it a good shake up and down.

Grandma snatches him from the floor. While I spend all but a few minutes of the day in my office, he keeps her on the run continually. But I must tell you - she does not begrudge him. Margie delights in his company.

In the evening, we celebrate Jacob's birthday. He is much older than four, but four candles is what we have, so four candles he gets. As his dad prepares to blow out the flames, Kalib reaches out to grab one. Dad acts fast, and blows it out just before Kalib's fingers close down on it.

He put in a pretty darn good day.

After the show, an image that is not Mom appears

I did my little show tonight at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art and it was a lot of fun. The theme, of course, was how I was forced to shoot with just my left hand after my injury, and how this led me to the G9 pocket camera and the resultant images.

About three million people came (and considering that the entire population of Alaska is about 600,000, that's a pretty good turnout) and each one of them let me know they enjoyed it.

Afterward, Jacob, Lavina, Kalib, Melanie, Charlie and Lisa and I all went to get a late dinner at a place on 3rd Avenue called the Snow Goose. I would have ordered a snow goose, too, had there been one on the menu, but there was not. Yet, the halibut tacos.... OOOOOHH!.... exquisite!

I can still taste those tacos.

On the other side of the table from me were some large windows, darkened by the night. And I looked at one and saw... Mom... deceased now for almost three years... looking back at me. 

It was a hazy, mottled, reflection of a poster that hung on the wall behind me. "Who does that look like?" I pointed to the reflection and asked Melanie, who, at times, appears to me to be a darker, taller, version of Mom walking. "Gramma," she said, without hesitation. When I got home and put it on my computer screen, I called Margie out. 

"Mom," she said right away.

This is the poster that made the reflection. Doesn't look like Mom... and yet, it does. Interestingly enough, my mother often speculated that maybe somewhere back in her family there was some Asian blood. On my Grandmother Roderick's wall hung a portrait of my Aunt Myrtle, mother's oldest sister, who died in her mid-twenties, before I was born. 

When we would visit, I would study that picture for long periods of time, and then at night would lie awake in bed trying to imagine what this beautiful girl with the delicate, Asian-like features had been like in life.

For Mom to make that speculation was a bit amazing, because, from the time that I was small until the time that she knew that I was going to marry an American Indian, Mom was adamant that when the time came, we were all to marry within our church and race.

About the latter, she changed her mind after she met Margie.

She loved Margie.

And who could not?

Mom was a teetotaler and considered alcohol a gift from the devil.

Today we dined at Taco Bell

Even though it was Sunday, we did not go to IHOP today. Instead, as lunch neared, Jacob, Muzzy and I took off walking towards Taco Bell, somewhere between four and five miles away. Margie would be coming the other way, taking her lunch break.

She would pick me up, and Lavina would come from behind, and pick Jacob and Muzzy up.

Sometimes in the past, I have left early enough to walk all the way to Taco Bell and meet Margie there.

Before I got hurt, I often rode my bicycle and I would almost beat her there.

I would not have wanted to ride a bike today, anyway. This is a bike trail that we are on, right here. Someone had plowed it in the morning, but enough snow had since fallen to make a miserable pedal out of it.

Lavina, Jacob, Kalib and me at the Taco Bell order counter. That's me in the blue. I am holding the camera out over the cash register with my left hand, since it is still hard to stretch my right that far. I asked the kid behind the counter if he could see those three on the camera screen. He said he could, so I took the picture.

The focus could have been better, but it's good enough.

Kalib ignores his Cheerios to watch little kids pass by. I heard a girl at the table behind him tell her dad, "It's your birthday, Dad! Happy birthday, Dad!"

A car passes by as Margie and Lavina visit. Lunch is over. In just minutes, I will drive Margie back to work at Wal-Mart, and then I will drive home the long way. I have a series of pictures from that drive, too. Let's see if I get a chance to post them.

I have much to do, and every minute that I spend in here is a minute away from that. And thanks to the odd vagaries of Squarespace, my bloghost, I spend much more time here than I ought to, just wrestling with the strange glitches that invariably pop up.

Thanksgiving, 2008, Part 2: We gather together and eat

At first, it felt terribly strange. Margie and I are the parents, and now the grandparents, too, and as such the family celebration of Thanksgiving and Christmas has always been at our house in Wasilla - except, during those times, many years past, when we had been able to travel to Utah or Arizona to celebrate in the house of either Margie's mom or my late parents.

This year, Rex and Stephanie wanted to host the Thanksgiving feast and so invited all of us to join them. It was terribly quiet Wednesday night in our home. None of the kids, save for those who live here, had come out. Melanie and Lisa were not furiously making pies, Margie was not scurrying here and there, cooking and preparing, although she did make a big batch of dough for rolls.

I was not brining the turkey. I would not cook the turkey. I would not carve the turkey.

I always do these things.

Rolls would be our sole contribution.

It all felt very strange.

And then, as the weather had warmed up something frightful, we drove the 50 miles over what proved to be a very icy and slippery highway. Next, we found ourselves in the house of our son and daughter-in-law. and there he was, my youngest son, carving the turkey. It would prove to be a most excellent cooked and carved turkey.

I might could have carved it with a little more expertise, but not much.

It's a fact - we who are young suddenly discover that we are not young anymore, and must give way to those who are.

As Rex finished his carving job, baby Kalib scurried into the kitchen.

Latin jazz played on the stereo. Melanie scooped Kalib off the kitchen floor, brought him into the living room where we would dine, and, gently swaying, danced across the floor with him. 

As I grew up, I often observed my mother as she danced across the floor. How Melanie reminds me of her!

Lisa and boyfriend Bryce made the punch. Now they pour it in the picture they will use to transfer it to individual glass. Oh, my! This is good punch!

If it had alcohol in it, we would all have gotten drunk.

Now we would be hung over. That would not be fun.

Stephanie and her sister Olivia finish setting the table.

Rex blesses the food.

Melanie, Charlie, and Bryce. The food will soon be devoured.

Various dishes travel around the table.

Kalib does not wish to sit still, but must be carried around behind the table. He amuses everybody.

Margie had me print this picture of Rex and Stephanie giving their tiny sailboat its first float test. The picture is passed about the table. 

That first float test began the first entry that I ever made in this blog.

Rex shows us the model of the new, larger, sailboat that he is going to make. The first one was an 11 footer. This one will be 15. He says I can get in on it. Maybe we will sail to China, or Africa.

I would like to do that - in a bigger boat. A seventeen footer, maybe.

Sadly, one of our children was not able to attend. Caleb had to pull an allnight shift (as he always does) and so he stayed home to sleep. Not so long ago, Charlie found a "missed connections" message on Craigslist left by someone who described a person that could only be Caleb. 

Frank reads the post on Melanie's Ipod.

The poster sure did know a lot about Caleb's normal movements about Wasilla, yet claimed not to know how to make contact with this "olive-skinned" young man who she had once seen sitting in Ihop with "an older gentleman."

That would be me. I hate to be described as "an older gentleman."

The kids thought it strange that anyone would describe me as a gentleman, period.

Bryce and Lisa listen to Thanksgiving conversation.

Melanie and Charlie listen to Bryce as he tells a story about a heavy metal concert.

Dinner is over. Baby Kalib and his parents will be the first to leave. 

Rex and Stephanie did a good job - as did everybody, from Margie and her rolls to Melanie and her pumpkin chiffon pie.

The drive home will be harder then the drive in. Cars and trucks slipping and sliding all over the highway, in the dark. My belly not merely full, but stuffed.

But we will make it safely. Then we will cook another turkey, so that we have turkey leftovers to eat for the next week.

I have a blogger friend in Nigeria who goes by the handle, "Standtall." She has undertaken a project to publish an interview with another blogger every Thursday and on Thanksgiving, she thus honored me, as Grahamn Kracker, the handle I use for my cat blog. Standtall's interview with Grahamn Kracker.

Flight 192: Fairbanks to Anchorage, 8:25 PM departure; scheduled arrival: 9:25 PM

I walk through the jet way tunnel to board Alaska Airlines Flight 192 in Fairbanks, headed to Anchorage.

Being a man who always likes to sit by the window, I had requested, and won, Seat 7A. I entered the cabin to find a man already sitting in that seat; he was a big man, burly. His countenance was ornery. Still, by rights, 7A was mine.

"Sir," I spoke politely, "I'm afraid you are sitting in my assigned seat, 7A."

"No, this is 7C," he answered. "My assigned seat!"

"No," I held my ground, "Seven C is the aisle." I showed him the designations, "A" window, "B" middle, "C," aisle.

He muttered and grumbled angrily, but got up and stepped into the aisle. I stepped past him and took my seat by the window. Still muttering, he sat down in 7C. Throughout the entire flight, he would not say one kind word to me. He would glare at me continually, even when he was asleep.

His anger did not thwart the other passengers. They just kept boarding, as you can see above.

The man with the hand-held lights directs the airplane away from the Fairbanks terminal, toward the taxi-way.

I had boarded in a state of great thirst and eagerly looked forward to the beverage service. The flight from Fairbanks to Anchorage is so short that this service is minimal - your choice of orange juice or water, or you can buy booze. 

I wanted water. The cart ladies appeared beside us. They served the people in the one row ahead of us and in the two rows behind us. When they started to push the cart, I thought the lady in the back would stop beside us, and ask us what we wanted to drink.

I craved that water!

But the cart did not stop. It went right past us, and kept going until the cart ladies had positioned themselves just beyond the fourth row behind us. There, they began to serve passengers in the rows immediately in front of and behind them.

All the people in my row, on both sides of the aisle, kept looking back at them with disbelief. We were all parched. I figured that was what had made the guy who I had evicted from my seat so ornery. He was parched.

And now we were all outraged, as well.

Parched and outraged.

We did not let this injustice stand. A steward came by, to pick up empty cups. We made him go get us some full cups so that we could empty them.

As we neared Anchorage, it began to snow. I liked the way the snow looked in the aircraft lights.

In the final stages of our taxi run on the tarmac, even before we reached the gate, a man about four rows back suddenly undid his seat belt, jumped up, retrieved his baggage from the overhead bin and pushed his way to the very front of the aircraft, putting himself ahead of even the first class passengers.

The aircraft then pulled up adjacent to the jet walk way and then stop. Just about everybody stood up then. We all waited together. Some people talked on their cell phones. We waited some more.

After we waited for a spell, we kept waiting.  

Then came the voice of a stewardess over the intercom. She informed us that the worker in charge of pushing the jet walkway up to the plane so that the doors match had been on her way, when suddenly she had stopped, turned around, and went back the way she had come.

Something was wrong with the jet walk way. Now, they were going to roll some steps up to the back door, so instead of deplaning from the front of the aircraft, we would deplane from the back.

As you can see, the announcement caused great levity and amusement throughout the airplane.

So we walked to the back of the plane and exited. As I had been sitting so close to the front, there were very few people behind me - only the passengers from row six, first class, and the man who had so rudely got up and pushed ahead of everybody.

Now, he would be the last one to exit the aircraft.

Many people were pleased by this.

Nobody fell during the perilous walk across the icy tarmac. We then had to enter the terminal through this door and climb these stairs. A passenger ahead of me asked if this meant that we would wind up in a different part of the airport then we would have if we had deboarded through the jet walkway. He was worried that whoever was going to meet him at baggage pickup would go to the wrong baggage pickup.

An Alaska airlines worker assured him that we were in the very same part of the airport that we would have been had we debarked from the front, instead of the rear, of the aircraft.

I only had to stand by the curbside for about five minutes before Melanie drove up to pick me up. 

I was disappointed that she did not bring her kitties with her. It is always fun when the three of them pick me up, but she came alone. It looks like she is talking on her cell phone, but she is not. She is talking to me. We are talking the kitties and why she did not bring them.

Still, I was very glad to see my oldest daughter. I am always glad to see her.

Factoring in the stop for gas and her cautious driving on the icy roads, it took about an hour-and-a-half for Melanie to drive me to Wasilla. Then we stepped into the living room and found it to be strangely devoid of people. There were cats and a St. Bernard roaming about.

From far in the back of the house, I could hear the sound of a baby giggling and a woman laughing. So Melanie and I went back to investigate and this is what we found.

Please note the cat laying behind the pillow. That's Pistol-Yero. As for the sling in front of the pillow, I wore it every damn day for four months, but I don't wear it anymore.

I don't know why it was lying on the bed.

It just was.