Kalib blasts me out of the bedroom when he makes an annoying discovery

I was in the bedroom, when all of a sudden the horn in the Escape began to honk repeatedly. "Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!..."

I blasted out of the bedroom and charged toward the living room to see if I could put a stop to this racket, as I knew the neighbors were hearing it, too.

There, standing in the front room was Kalib, who had gotten ahold of the electronic key. Kalib likes to push buttons and had just done so, setting off the horn. But the horn was quiet now, because Kalib's Dad had just turned it off. 

Kalib still had possession of the keys, however, and was most excited about it, for he suddenly realized that he held a magical power within his hands.

Kalib presses the button again.

Kalib jumps up with excitement and looks out the window towards the car as the horn blasts away again. He knows that, somehow, when he pushed that button, he caused this to happen.

Kalib points toward the honking car, as if to say, "listen to what I just did!"

 Kalib pushes the button again. The horn stops.

Again he pushes the button.

He looks toward the window in amazement as the car begins to honk again.

Dad tries to get Kalib to give him the keys. Kalib does not want to yield them. 

I drop Margie off for her MRI, see sights, big man gets stuck in children's slide, a femur fracture is found

"No, Royce!" I shouted as the old man orange cat ran through the door and dashed outside. I was about to drive Margie to town for her MRI and I wanted him to stay in the house. Even so, he went outside. After I helped Margie into the car, I picked Royce up and put him back inside the house.

"Where do you want to eat?" I asked Margie, once we got to town. She mentioned a couple of possibilites but when I noted that we had not yet feasted at the any of the Fourth Avenue hot dog stands this summer, she got excited.

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed. "Let's go for hot dogs."

So, while Margie waited in the car, I bought two reindeer dogs. As the vendor prepared them, a guy roared by on a loud motorcycle. "What's this guy who comes by here everyday at the same time on his motorcycle going to do when winter comes?" the vendor asked.

I did not have the answer.

"I don't understand people who have to drive loud bikes," he continued. "Who are they trying to impress? I drive a bike, but it's not loud. A bike doesn't have to be loud."

I handed the money to the pretty young woman who works with him and who might be his wife and he handed me the hotdogs. I took them back to the car, along with Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and original Lay's Potato Chips. Margie and I sat there and ate them as the rain drummed on the roof.

It was the nicest time that we had experienced since she got injured and the dogs were delicious. I must go back and have another, but I think I will get beef next time, or maybe Kosher Polish.

I could not accompany Margie to the MRI room, so I dropped her off. I was told that the MRI would take 25 minutes, so I headed off to see what sights I might see. I had not gone far before I saw a young man push a woman in a wheelchair across the road as another man crossed in the opposite direction, carrying what appeared to be two cups of coffee.

The rain fell upon them all, just as the Bible says it does.

It didn't fall upon me, though, because I was in the car.

But not for long. Lisa had left her driver's license at Penney's, Penney's had sent it to us, so, as Margie lay in the MRI machine, I took it to the Alaska Native Medical Center's Family Medicine Clinic where Lisa works and brought it to her.

She then took a break and followed me back to the car. We then stood in the rain for just a little bit and discussed important things.

We hugged. "Bye, Dad," she said. I drove away.

To kill time, I circled the Alaska Native Medical Center itself and as I did, an airplane came flying by. At that very moment, Margie was in the tube, getting her knee cat-scanned. She did not like it. She felt claustrophobic, she kept her eyes closed and focused upon mental images of Kalib, running, laughing, playing. She saw him pull the telephone book off of the tiny table that it sits on, place it on the floor and then dance upon it - just the way he did yesterday.

She saw him pull Kleenix's, one after the other, out of the box and smile ever so sweetly and mischievously, as he drop them to the floor - as he did just a few months ago. She saw him at just a few weeks of age as he sat in his car seat in the back seat of the rental car and she and his mom drove across the Navajo Reservation to introduce him to his other grandma and a host of aunts, uncles and cousins.

She saw him as they drove on to the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, and then how happy her own mother had been when infant Kalib met his only living great-grandparent.

She replayed scenes from his whole life thus far in her mind, right up to that moment when we stood outside the door to the birthing room and heard his first, beautiful, cry.

Next I drove up onto the campus of Alaska Pacific University, where I saw these children, gathered in a circle.

I then returned to ANMC, parked the car, and headed toward the building. There is a children's playground just outside the door to the emergency room, where I would enter the hospital. I saw a small child climbing into the slide, helped by his Dad.

The small child's mother scolded the dad. "He's not going to like it!" she warned. "He's going to be frightened." Just the same, the dad gave the small child a shove and down into the tube he disappeared.

His mother readied her hands to catch him.

Then the small child began to scream. He had gotten stuck, somewhere in the darkness within the tube.

So the dad climbed in, to see if he could unstick him.

The small child got the hang of it and came out with a smile on his face. Now the Dad was stuck. He could not go up. He could not go down. Why... look at the kid! It's my own grandson, Kalib! He had come to ANMC to greet his grandmother when she came out of the MRI tube. That must mean that the dad stuck in this tube... is my own son... Jacob.

Jacob wiggled a bit, and finally he slid out. Kalib headed back, ready to go again.

Margie had not yet exited her tube. I strolled through the hospital, looking at the art, reminded of what life was like in Alaska just a short time ago.

Finally, Margie hobbled out into the hallway and headed for the car. She did not know that Jacob, Kalib and Lavina were behind her.

"Kalib!" she squealed when she discovered them. "Thank you! You got me through the MRI. I kept seeing you in my mind and that's what got me through."

When we reached the car, Margie handed me her crutches so that she could climb in. Kalib took the crutches away from me and handed them right back to her. 

So she put them on the floor and then climbed in. Kalib was very pleased, for he knew that he had done something good for his grandmother.

Kalib, Jacob and Lavina then went off to do some house shopping. Margie and I met Melanie at the Title Wave Kaladi Brothers coffee shop, where we discussed the airplanes that fly over her new house, renovations that she wants to make, the dogs that come and pee in her yard, her cats and other important things.

It was even better than sitting in the car, eating hotdogs. It was, in fact, the most pleasant experience that I have shared with Margie since she got hurt, and all the more pleasant because Melanie was there, encouraging her mom not to be discouraged. "It will be better, soon," Melanie soothed.

It already seemed quite a bit better, although we did not know what secrets the MRI would reveal.

Shortly after we said goodbye to Melanie and began the drive back to Wasilla, we got a message that Margie's doctor wanted her to call, so she did. The doctor had taken a look at the MRI and had immediately discovered something the original x-rays had not. 

Margie did break a bone when she fell. Not her knee cap, but her femur, right on the outside where it meets the knee.

"Try not to put any weight on it," the doctor said.

We have yet to get a report on any ligament damage.

It still rains and as I sit here typing this on my computer, I hear the whistle of a train, passing by miles from here. It seems kind of odd, but sometimes when it rains around here, sound really travels.

Meagre berry picking expedition leads to magic moment between toddler, cat and the clouds

Melanie and Charlie came to visit Sunday and as we took a little ride, we drank coffee, listened to All Things Considered and then This American Life. Afterwards, I returned to my office, sat down and worked for a couple of hours on a project that has been vexing me. 

When I stepped back in the living room, Lavina had prepared dinner, but Melanie, Charlie and Royce were nowhere to be seen. "They went into the swamp to pick berries," Margie said from her position on the couch. So I ate my chicken and salad, grabbed my G10 pocket camera and then went out to see if I could find them.

I did, as you should be able to tell, even without me saying so.

They were about done but they had not done well, so Melanie tried another place, where she spotted a few. She had barely begun to pluck them when she swatted her face. Must have been a mosquito, but the mosquitoes are just about all gone now. 

Just a short time ago, one could barely have tolerated being where she is in this picture, because the mosquitoes would have been maddening. But their season is over, thank goodness.

As you can see, the berry picking was not good at all. Melanie figured it is because the swamp has pretty much dried. "Back when it was wet, there were a lot more berries," she lamented. You cannot even rightfully call it a swamp anymore. She wondered if the house wells were responsible. I don't think so.

Quite some time ago, some developers tore out the wettest end of the swamp and made a gravel pit out of it. The developers said that after they had taken the gravel they would make a nice lake of it for the whole neighborhood to enjoy, but, as developers so often do, they didn't. Now it is just an ugly, abandoned, gravel pit with some ugly pools of water in it. I think that is what dried up the marsh.

I knew that there was another reason Melanie and Charlie had found so few berries. For two days in row now, Jacob and Kalib have been out there picking and eating berries as though they were about to go out of season.

Speaking of those two, we heard some commotion so we looked, and here they came. With Muzzy.

Kalib left his Dad's shoulders so that he could pal around with Muzzy and Royce.

And then it was just Kalib, Royce, and grass going to seed.

 

Royce soon led Kalib to another spot, where they found an even taller blade of grass.

Kalib studies the grass.

And then he lays down upon Royce.

He soon spots an interesting cloud, and points it out. The cat does not care, but he cares about Kalib.

I think, perhaps, this was one of those magic moments of early childhood that, even if it may one day be forgotten, it will be felt for the remainder of Kalib's life, even when he is an old man.

Kalib, his head on the fur of a warm, tolerant, and loving cat, watching clouds drift through a clear, deep blue sky. Yes, this is a fleeting moment that is ever lasting.

And so passed this day, right here in Wasilla, Alaska.

I walk about in hand and ankle cuffs, throwing rocks, as I listen to old songs play in my head

Although the nights have been cold, today was the third day in a row of exquisite, warm, sunshine and after Caleb returned from his late-morning coffee outing, I got him to agree not to go to bed until I could take a walk. I headed down Seldon to Church Road and, as I returned, I saw this vehicle pull out from Lower Serendipity. I should know the make, model, and year, I suppose, but I don't.

When I first saw it, I wondered if it had once served as a hearse. If so, I wondered about the people it had carried. I pictured an old man with pure white hair and a handle-bar mustache lying in the back inside a fine, blue, coffin, his hands folded on top of his chest over a black suit with blue pinstripes, taking his final ride. Then I pictured a tiny coffin.

I decided that instead, maybe it had been a woody, with surfboards piled on top. I pictured bleached-blond surfers and their bikini-clad honeys from the 1960's driving it along the edge of California seaside cliffs, damn near driving off the road because they could not keep their eyes off the waves breaking below.

I remembered driving along such cliffs, surfboard on top, the girls in the car screaming in terror at me to watch the road instead of the surf. I wouldn't have driven off the road. Even though I studied the surf, I knew at all times right where the edge of that cliff was.

I'm afraid the car was not a woody, it was a 1960 Ford Fairlane sedan and the girls did not wear bikinis. They were modestly dressed, actually.

Mormon girls. That's why.

A Jan and Dean song came into my mind:

I bought a cool wagon and we call it a woody

Surf City, here we come

You know its not very cherry its an oldie but a goodie

Surf City, here we come

Well it ain't got a backseat or a rear window

but it still gets me where I want to go

And we're going to Surf City, 'cause its two to one

You know we're going to Surf City, gonna have some fun...

...Two girls for every boy...

If I could but live my youth again, those girls would not be Mormons, or, if they were, they would be the wild ones (sorry, Mom).

One is only young once, and those who stand at the pulpit and preach to young people about what will bring them unbearable regret later in life can really miss the mark.

I walked under a sky that was blue, so deep, clear and clean and in the not too far distance, the mountains rose beautifully into it. The air was wonderfully warm and its aroma was sweet. Yet, I felt trapped, as though I was shackled in steel cuffs - both on my wrists and ankles.

This is how I had felt last summer, too, when I would get out and walk and see the sky and the mountains. This is because it was all inaccessible to me. I could see it, but I could not reach it; I could not go to it. I could not walk in it. This was because of the injury that I had suffered. I was horribly fragile and had a long way to go before I would heal.

And that's how the summer passed, and the fall, but always I was improving slowly and in the winter I began to feel new strength, but still I was limited. The pain in my right shoulder, upper arm and wrist was constant and that whole arm was weak. My range of motion was limited. Even a slight amount of stress, whether by bump or pull, could jar me with startling pain and seemed to threaten to knock me right back to where I had been.

Come the beginning of this summer, despite the fact that I still wore a brace upon my wrist and that the pain remained constant, there 100 percent of the time but usually at a low enough level that I could forget about it, I felt as though I were ready to go, full bore now.

I had a plan to do just that. I had what I figured would be a month's worth of field work - shooting pictures and conducting interviews - to do on the Arctic Slope. I created a fantasy in my head. Even as I did this field work - shooting and working oh, say, 12 hours a day, I would somehow find another eight hours or so to construct my 96 page Uiñiq magazine layout, write all my stories and get my publication press ready by August 1.

Then, I would cut loose for the entire month and do all those things that I had not been able to do last summer. I would hike in the mountains, I would canoe in the wild country, I would catch fish, including a king salmon, kayak in Prince William Sound and then at the end I would see if I could shoot a moose and put it on the table.

As anyone who has been with this blog knows, I had a great time on the Slope and I would judge my field work to have been quite successful. But how in the world I ever got the idea that I could put my magazine together at the same time as I did that field work, I do not know.

So I resigned myself to the idea that I had no choice but to use the month of August to put the magazine together - yet every now and then, no matter what, I would break away to go into the mountains, or onto the water, for one day, or even just an afternoon.

And then Margie fell. And now she needs me all the time. Even out here, on this short walk, knowing that Caleb was in the house with her should anything urgent come up, I was nervous and uncomfortable. I felt that I must get back to her quickly as I could. Those mountains were absolutely inaccessible to me. I felt trapped. Cuffed.

And then another old song came into my head, this one by the Everly Brothers:

Through the years our love will grow

like a river it will flow

It can't die because I'm so...

devoted...

to you!*

That "you" would be Margie. And being devoted does not necessarily mean romance at all; it does not necessarily mean holding hands and staring raptured into misty eyes. It means giving up what you so desperately want to do to be with that person when that person truly needs you - just as Margie gave up so much last summer to care for me; it means to be exhausted and to get up at any and all hours of the night, when you do not feel you can even open your eyes or raise your arms, to help that person through an unpleasant and painful task.

And even as I felt trapped and cuffed while walking in the open air under the bright sun, my Margie lay on the same bed where she had lain nearly eight days straight now, always on her back, never getting more than one foot... no, not even more than eight inches... from the bed in all that time.

And yes, I am devoted to my Margie. By so many standards upon which the marital relationship is often judged, I fail. Many is the woman who would have left me long ago. But we like each other. We don't just love each other. We like each other. We are friends. We enjoy hanging out together. And I am devoted to her. No matter how contrary to the idea of devotion some of my actions might seem by the so often artificial standards of the society that we live in.

So all those mountains must just sit there, for now, without me wandering through them.

I did not mean to get carried away like this. I should strike all this.

But what is that rock doing in the air, just beyond my thumb?

I threw it, and photographed as it left. See, yesterday, I threw an apple core into the bushes, for the birds, the squirrels, the bugs to eat. My throw was not good. In the time of my chidhood, if a boy had made such a throw his friends would have teased him, "you throw like a girl!"

It was a weak throw, and the core only traveled about 15 feet - the lingering result of my injury. So I decided that when I walk, I will stop every now and then, pick up a rock, and throw it, until I can hit a target a good distance away.

I probably threw two or three dozen rocks on this walk. I gripped the rocks the way you grip a baseball, and made a concerted effort to draw my arm over my head in good baseball style. It was difficult. It hurt. None of my rocks went much past 20 feet - until the last one. It flew maybe 30 feet.

So I am going to keep throwing rocks until they are frozen to the ground and buried under the snow.

In the midst of this coming winter, I will take Margie to Hawaii and I will rent a surfboard and with my strengthened arm I will paddle into the surf and then I will ride a wave.

It has been so damn long since I have ridden a wave.

So please, please... no more accidents!

Speaking of accidents... at the edge of Wards Road, over the tiny pond my kids named "Little Lake" when they were growing, I found this crash helmet in the weeds. See the indention that covers the nearby area? I could see that it was made by an up-ended machine, probably a four wheeler, most likely driven by a kid hot-rodding in wreckless abandon - maybe a little kid - just before (s)he went off the road.

But I don't know. Maybe it was a responsible adult. All I know for sure is that someone had an accident here and the helmet was left behind.

I wondered how bad it was? Hopefully, not too bad. Maybe Margie is not the only person around here laid up in bed right now.

The other day, Caleb bought himself an iPhone. He plays a game on it.

This is progress. I was able to help Margie out of bed and onto a chair, where she sat for a very long time and read a book. Since she can no longer babysit him, and Lavina had to go back to work, Kalib enrolled in daycare today, just as he did after she injured herself last January.

He and his parents did not get home until late, about 9:30, but they brought Margie's dinner with them. Hawaiian food -chicken and rice - cooked at that place in Mountain View, the name of which I forget.

I did not want to wait that late for dinner and so had eaten mine  - a can of pinto beans and a ham and cheese sandwich - earlier.

But Margie gave me a taste of hers.

Oh, geeze! Had I known, I would have waited until midnight, if need be.

That's how good it was.

It may have been the best chicken that I have ever tasted.

Other than Mom's, of course.

Oh yes - the Sarah Palin experiment:

It worked. I had the biggest flood of hits today that I have received since I posted the Barrow baby contest.

No - Sarah Palin did not draw as many people to the blog as did the Barrow babies, but she drew quite a few, anyway.

*My condolences to Congressman Don Young, over the loss of his wife, Lu.

Sarah Palin experiment - a berrylicious walk with Kalib and his dad

The experiment:

Typically, the number of visitors to this site drops off come Saturday and Sunday, but this weekend something curious happened: for no reason that I could think of, the number of visitors actually rose. It did not reach the stupendous levels (for me) that it did for two days running when I posted the Barrow baby contest, but, none-the-less, it showed a healthy increase over what it had been and certainly over the typical weekend.

I was curious as to why, and so did some back-tracking and discovered that some blogs that link to me (most notably the Immoral Minority) had stories that Sarah Palin and husband Todd are about to divorce (denied by Palin's spokeswoman). 

And then, last night, the word "Palin" was in my headline.

I figured that these two factors led to the increase.

So, other than what I have stated above, this blog post has nothing to do with Sarah Palin. It is merely an experiment to see what kind of numbers I will get by including her name in the post headline. This is a one-time experiment. I will not do it again. Nor is Sarah Palin about to become a regular topic of this blog, even though it is obvious to me that my really-pretty-small audience could be significantly larger if I were to run a few Sarah Palin stories every week, perhaps every day.

If she stays in Wasilla, or even Alaska, it is almost inevitable that our paths will cross somewhere and then I will probably get a picture and post it with a few words, but, otherwise, this blog has other concerns and I will leave her to the other bloggers.

The walk.

It began in our front yard, where Kalib observed as his parents engaged in a lovey-dovey wrestling match. Shortly thereafter, Kalib found a mushroom.

He did not try to eat it and if he would have, I would not have let him.

Lavina stayed home, just in case Margie would need some help. Jacob took off walking. Fearing that he was about to be left behind, Kalib came running after. I followed with my camera.

Eventually, Kalib wound up on his father's shoulders.

By and by, he was transferred to Muzzy's back. It was sweet.

Muzzy galloped up the embankment, bucking Kalib from his back. Tenaciously, Kalib kept hold of the reins.

There were berries to eat - raspberries, blueberries and currants. There were cranberries, too, but they were not yet ready to be picked.

By the time we reached a hill that we had to descend, Kalib was walking again. Two trails went down that hill - one off at an angle with a more gentle slope, the other straight down, at a steep slope. Jacob tried to lead Kalib down the gentle slope, but he refused to go that way. He insisted upon going down the steep slope, so Jacob got in front of him and gave him his hands.

Fireweed grew in abundance at the bottom, so Jacob and Kalib plunged in. There were many honey bees flying about in those flowers, plus bumble bees and yellow jackets. When a yellow jacket alit on a blossom right in front of Kalib, Jacob warned him to leave it alone.

But, as you can see, Kalib reached out with both hands. Fortunately, he did not get stung.

And then we found more berries.

Now we are on the last stretch, coming through the marsh towards home.

Even though we are now within three hundred yards of the house, it will take Kalib and Jacob more than an hour to reach it. I grew worried about Margie and so, right after I took the following picture, hurried back to our bedroom, leaving the father and son to enjoy the delights of so beautiful a day alone together.

Jacob and Kalib, picking berries. "It was a berrylicious walk," Jacob said.