This morning, I encounter a little conflict between the Wasilla Tea Party and my grandson Jobe - who do you think will win?

Recent readers will recall that Kalib burst into my office yesterday as I was working on this blog - just when I had gotten to the point where I was about to arrive at the Wasilla Tea Party rally, staged April 15, Tax Day. This little surprise knocked me off my schedule and when I tried to get back on, too much of the day had passed. I could spend no more of that day working on this blog than I already had, so I stopped, and left it to speculation as to whether or not I would get my tea party rally coverage up today, or ever, or whether I might get distracted by the natural progression of life.

This morning, I sort of woke up thinking that I had better post those Tea Party pictures and I had better write something about what I observed as I wandered through the rally. If not, then what was the point of ever taking the pictures in the first place? What was the point of listening to participants speak those words - some articulate and thoughtful, some totally absurd?

I say, "sort of woke up" because I am not 100 percent certain that I ever really went to sleep and if I did not ever really go to sleep then how could I have woke up?

So I am rather tired. I am not certain that I possess the energy required to think through the words that I must write to go along with the Tea Party pictures.

I will start today's post with this picture of Jobe, Lavina and Margie and see what happens from here - if I make it back to the Tea Party or not.

Even when I am so sleepy that my brain hardly functions, I can find a few words to write about Jobe.

Lavina had brought the two little ones out in part because Kalib has been very clingy towards his mom lately - at least when he gets the chance. So often, when he wants her, she is busy with Jobe, taking care of his needs. Kalib's day care center had scheduled a very special, annual fun day for he and his classmates and all their parents today, one at which a surprise animal always shows up.

Last year, it was a kangaroo.

Lavina wanted to be able to devote a period of uninterrupted, special time to Kalib and his fun day and so we agreed to keep Jobe with us overnight and to return him to Anchorage Saturday afternoon. It would be the first time that Lavina had ever been separated from Jobe for more than a couple of hours.

In the meantime, as the three visited us, both Kalib and Jobe fell asleep. By now, it was 4:00 PM. Coffee and All Things Considered time. So, as Margie stayed behind with the babies, Lavina joined me in the car, we went to Metro, got our coffee and then took the long way home.

Along the way, we saw this student leaving his school bus. I felt a little bad that Kalib was not in the car with us. The sight of a school bus greatly excites him. He would have loved this moment.

Shortly after we got home, not without misgivings near to the point of tears, Lavina picked up her oldest son and left her baby boy behind with we, the grandparents.

She would have a very hard night. One that would bring her to tears - especially when she looked at Jobe's changing table and the place where he sleeps. Even at midnight, she would almost give in, drive out, and pick up her baby - but, for the sake of her oldest son, she persevered and left him with us.

A bit later, I had to check the mail and run a couple of errands. As I did so, I kept hearing sirens and those deep-pitched yet screechy, loud horn blasts that firetrucks make when they are in a hurry and need to get around people. It sounded like the end of the world.

Many screaming, blasting, vehicles passed outside my range of vision, but when I came in sight of the highway, I saw this one coming behind the others - and police cars, too.

Trucks from different stations were involved. It appeared that something major had happened.

Right after the above truck passed, this guy came by on a motorcycle.

Now I had to pull out onto the highway. No more emergency vehicles were in sight, nor could I hear anymore coming. So out onto the highway I went. Then I heard a police siren. I looked in my mirror and saw a police car coming, fast. The traffic was packed in our lanes near the stop light where I now was, so the driver veered into the oncoming lane of traffic, shot past and ran the red light.

This fire vehicle soon followed, and went round on the right.

The driver, as he passed me. I scanned the horizons ahead for smoke, but could see none. I turned off the Highway onto Lucille Street and headed back towards home.

I do not know what happened. This morning, I looked at the Mat-Su section of the Anchorage Daily News, but there was not a word about it. So, for all the drama, it must not have been as bad as it appeared, but, I suspect, for someone, it was very bad indeed.

I decided just to spend some time relaxing in front of the TV with Margie and Jobe - something I very rarely do. We watched The 3:10 to Yuma. To me, there will never be a better kind of escapist movie than a good western.

To his great joy, I gave Jobe some whiskerly love.

And then I fed him some twice-warmed Momma's Milk.

At bedtime, Margie tied Jobe into his cradle board and put him down in our room. Not long afterward, I came in. As regular readers will know, I am joined by at least one and usually two, sometimes three or four, cats every night.

We decided to keep the cats out on this night. What if one of them jumped up onto Jobe's cradleboard?

And that is why I am so sleepy, why I wonder if I ever slept.

Two of those cats, Pistol and Jim, positioned themselves outside the door and kept up a ruckus, all night long. I know I gave in and got up and groggily let one, then the other, in, but somehow, each found the opportunity to get out at some point and then start pleading, pawing, and tapping to get back in.

As you would expect, Jobe woke up crying a couple of times.

And when I heard his little cry, pulling me again into full awakeness from the edge of sleep, I smiled and chuckled.

Never in my life have I heard a more beautiful sound than that little cry.

And so ends this post. No Wasilla Tea Party today.

Margie and Lavina go to Starbuck's and get me in trouble with Lisa; Kalib visits a firetruck for muscular dystrophy; I hear gunshot as I photograph goose decoy frozen into pond

"Dad!!!!!????? Starbuck's?????!!!!! "Lisa accused. "You went to Starbuck's???"

I was innocent. Margie and Lavina had committed the sacrilege when they drove into Anchorage the other day to get the ultrasound of the new baby that now brews in Lavina's womb and, afterward, stopped at a Starbuck's. They carelessly left the evidence in the car.

Lisa was in the car with me because she came out today for about two hours and we went out to coffee together. There is no Starbuck's in Wasilla (yet) but I can assure you, even if there were, we would not have gone there.

Lisa is pretty liberal and tolerant of the foibles of her fellow human beings, but not when it comes to buying coffee from Starbuck's. This she will not tolerate.

After I made my case and told her the true story, she said something like this, "I'll bet that they told each other, 'Lisa never needs to know.'"

This evening, after the five-month pregnant Lavina returned home from her volleyball game in Anchorage, I told her how much trouble she and Margie had gotten me into.

"We didn't think Lisa would find out," Lavina said. "We told each other, 'Lisa never needs to know.'"

The money Jacob is handing to Kalib is not for the tot, but for the tot to drop in the fireman's boot. But the tot does not want to take the money and drop it in the boot. Before the incident is over, Jacob, Lavina and Kalib will drop about ten dollars into the boot. 

After dropping the money, Jacob and Lavina check out the firetruck on display in the Carr's parking lot.

It was the wheels that most impressed Kalib.

After awhile, he was ready to go.

This is fireman Danny, who explained that the money goes to send local children with muscular dystrophy to summer camp. They display the truck for two days each year. Last year, they raised over $10,000.

After we returned home, I jumped onto my bike and took a short ride. I crunched my way through frozen puddles.

As I passed the pond the kids named "Little Lake" when they were small, I saw a goose decoy, frozen into the surface. It used to be, several years ago, that each summer a number of ducks would nest around this pond and geese would drop in, too. 

Soon, we would see the little ducklings following their mothers about the pond.

There were no homes near the pond, but then Red and his wife bought a piece of property on the corner of Seldon and Wards that overlapped half of it. They built a home there. Red liked the idea of ducks and geese coming to their pond and so he put duck and goose decoys into the water to attract them.

Of course, they had been coming anyway.

Red died a few years back and his wife, who has remarried, twice, began to spend her winters in Arizona. About a year ago, she put the house and property up for sale. It is still for sale. 

This decoy still drifts in the pond. We have not seen ducklings in the pond for the past few years.

The water level has just dropped too low. I don't think it can support them.

Despite the ice, the weather is still warm and beautiful for this time of year. Little Lake may have frozen over, but the big lakes don't even appear to be close to doing so.

As I photographed the decoy, I heard a rifle shot that sounded to be about 200 yards away and like it came from a yard.

I didn't think too much about it, because gunshots are common around here and usually just mean someone has plunked at a target or that they just decided things were too quiet and they wanted to make a little noise.

Then I got to wondering what if, sometime, I heard a gunshot and thought it was nothing, when it was actually somebody shooting somebody else, perhaps to death. Unless someone started screaming and shouting, I would just go on about my business thinking that everything was okay.

I'm pretty certain everything was okay, today.

After I left the goose decoy in the pond, I got onto the bike trail and pedaled down the shadow of a guardrail.

Tot pulls fire alarm - daycare gets evacuated - firetruck comes - tots wear space blankets

It was awful. We drove into the parking lot of the daycare center where Kalib now goes and there found a firetruck, obviously called to action, and a bunch of toddlers huddled nearby, wrapped in space blankets.

That's not what was awful. That was kind of cute. What was awful is that Margie and I had not seen Kalib for several days. His Mom and Dad had been housesitting for some friends in Anchorage and they had taken him with them.

We had told them not to take him, but to leave him with us. They disobeyed.

Now I had to take Margie to town to get some X-rays so that we would know how well the breaks in her knee and wrist were healing.

Since we were in town, we went to see Kalib, but we arrived during an emergency.

We studied the faces of all the little toddlers huddled by the firetruck.

None belonged to Kalib.

And then the firetruck left.

We spotted Kalib! He was being carried in the arms of a daycare worker. He and the littlest toddlers had all been evacuated to a nearby building, but now she was bringing him back.

There never had been a fire. One of Kalib's more advanced and skilled daycare mates had found the emergency fire alarm and had pulled it.

Hence, all the excitement.

Too bad we did not get there earlier, when people still thought there might be a fire.

Once he was safely back inside the daycare center, Kalib completely ignored me. He wanted only to go to his Mom, who I had picked up at work and brought over.

Once he was safely in his mother's arms, Kalib wanted to come to me.

Kalib, coming to me.

And look at that! It's right there on his sweatshirt. It is he who is coming to the rescue, not me. 

As for Margie, I haven't the time or energy to post the experience tonight, but I will try tomorrow, if nothing prevents me.