Cats, sticks, ducks, geese, fish, Time Immemorial and oatmeal, with nuts, berries, peaches and milk

I've just got to move along, get this blog out of the way and get on to other things. Yesterday, after I posted the series that ended with beautiful Molly, I took a decent walk, and then a fifteen-mile bike ride.

On the walk I saw Jessie James, peering at me through the sticks.

I saw that the ice had melted off the tiny pond the kids named "Little Lake" when they were little. Geese and ducks had stopped by to visit, perhaps to make goslings and ducklings.

Melanie and Charlie invited those of us who were not in Arizona over for an Easter dinner of salmon, halibut, salad and potato salad.

Oh, my goodness... was it good!

Poor Bear Meech. He wanted it but he couldn't have it.

Then we went to the play, Time Immemorial, written, directed and acted by Allison Warden and Jack Dalton. 

Here is Allison and Jack, after the play.

I wish I had time to write more and to edit and post a few pics from the play, but I don't.

This morning, just before I woke up, I got a call from Niece Sujitha in Bangalore. She asked me what I was going to have for breakfast. Oatmeal, I told her. She wanted to see proof, just in case I changed my mind and went out to breakfast again.

So here it is: my oatmeal, with black berries, peaches, walnuts and milk.

Jim joined me, but didn't eat any.

Or maybe he just used my knee as a stepping stone, on his way to another place.

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Another day spent working with cats; a generous, anonymous, OmegaMom was in line behind me at Metro Cafe

Well, I have no time for this blog today. I must sit here at my desk and constantly scoop cats off my keyboard. That's just how it is for me - all day long. Cats on the keyboard. I scoop one off, another jumps on. I scoop that one off, the first jumps back on.

I did not want to fight the hard wind that blew yesterday, so I left my bike home and drove to Metro Cafe.

Do they look like they are teasing each other? They are. Over me. About who I love best, the one with black hair or the blond? Carmen and Shoshana! I love you both. There is no favoritism here.

And I really love your coffee.

Best coffee in Wasilla.

And the finest coffee shop.

There is none other like it.

This is the only coffee shop in the entire world where anyone has ever fought over me.

And here I am, just one step shy of being old.

How come?

As I was taking this picture, I was aware that there was a vehicle in line behind me. Once these two got my coffee prepared, it took them a little longer to get my apple pastry out of the fridge and warm it up and I got nervous that I was making the person in the car behind wait too long, so I drove around the building and briefly parked in front until Shoshana could bring my pastry out.

What I did not know was that the person in the car, who had now herself pulled up to the window, was, at that very moment, paying for my next round of coffee and pastry.

I wish I had known, because then I would have positioned myself where I could have taken a good look at this generous, anonymous, person so that I could have seen who she is and thanked her properly.

You can see the comment that she left yesterday under the name OmegaMom. 

Now I really must go. I have hundreds of other pictures that I have taken during my breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks this past week that I really want to post - I even have more of both Pistol and Jim making my work difficult. In fact, Jim is sitting atop my computer even as I write these words.

But I just don't have time.

I am way, way, WAAAAAAY behind and I must do what I can to catch up - even though I will never catch up.

I will always be behind.

When they slide me into the crematorium they will say, "well, he did a few things in life but he left most of his work unfinished, because he was always behind, could never catch up, and, in total sum, spent years and years picking cats up off his keyboard, holding them for a moment and then putting them down on the floor just in time for another cat to take the place of the first.

"Think what he might have accomplished, had he only got caught up!"

I think dedicated readers are going to see a lot of stunted posts from now until October. Probably, 70 to 80 percent. Maybe 90 percent - or 95 percent. By October, I hope to have come up with a strategy, the discipline and the means to make this online publishing endeavor work.

Jim just jumped down from the computer. He's on my chest now, cradled atop my left arm, leaving me to type with just one hand.

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Margie, the fork, and Jim

As you can see, I caught Margie with a fork in her hand, ready to eat Jim.

"No!" I shouted. "Don't! You can't! Jim is my buddy! And he'll give you indigestion!" Actually, Jim is very healthy and he would not give anyone indigestion. I just wanted her to think that, to discourage her from doing it.

"Oh, my!" she answered in shocked voice. "What did I just about do? It's because I'm so hungry I can't think straight. Jim is my buddy, too! Oh, poor Jim! What did I just about do?"

I gave her an orange. She ate it. 

Everything was okay after that.

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On Soundarya's birthday, cake was cut on three continents, there were animals: small, big, newborn, passed on and symbolized

Manoj, fiance and more to Sujitha Ravichandran, Soundarya's younger sister, put out a request for Sandyz birthday that we who loved her should celebrate with cake for us and her. Although I had put up my birthday remembrance on the 12th, so that her family and friends in India could see it early on her birthday of April 13, I waited until the morning of the 13th here to begin our celebration.

Margie then mixed up a cake and put it in the oven, to bake for Soundarya. As it baked, I went walking. I came upon a frozen puddle that held this face - or faces. One can clearly see the ears and face of a cat, its chin resting atop its front paws. Yet, look closely and you will see that within the face of the cat there is a human face as well.

One of those little odd things that happens in nature, and on a day such as this.

Cats played an enormous role between Sandy and me. A gigantic role. I have been told from multiple good authorities that cats are very rare in India, but for Sandy and me, they were ubiquitous; they were everywhere.

As I walked in the morning of the 13th, her birthday, it was late night of her birthday in India. So I placed a Skype call over the local AT&T 3g network to Sujitha in Bangalore. It was an exquisitely beautiful morning - the sky clear and blue, the snow on the mountains bright against it, the clean, frosted air wonderfully chilled and pleasant.

So I tried to describe what I was seeing and experiencing to Niece Suji, which is very different than anything she would ever see in Bangalore.

It seemed to me that my description was inadequate. I wanted her to somehow sense and feel it herself. Suddenly, it struck me - I could break the ice of a puddle with my foot and let her hear the sound of the ice cracking and crunching beneath my shoe.

I stopped, held the phone near to the puddle and then crunched it repeatedly with my foot.

Sujitha, I am pleased to say, was pleased.

After Margie baked and frosted the cake, she cut it into three pieces - one for me, one for her and one for Soundarya. Jim observed. That's Margie's thumb, there at the edge of the plate.

I was a little unsure as to what to do with Sandy's piece of cake. I could eat it myself, but that didn't feel right. "Why don't you take it out back and leave it for her where we have buried the cats and dogs?" Margie suggested.

So I took Soundarya's plate to the back door and then opened it. Jim shot out ahead of me and led me across the grass in the direction of our pet cemetery, but stopped short of entering there himself.

Although she never met them, Sandy knew my cats - both the living and the dead. She knew Royce and sent me words of comfort after his death - just about one year ago. So I put her piece of cake at the head of his grave. I then looked through the trees into the clear blue sky and spoke a few words to her.

There was nothing more to do after that, so I stepped out of the cemetery. I found Jim waiting for me on this stump, right at the cemetery edge.

Manoj, "Manu" - posted these pictures on a special web page set up by Sandy's cousins to commemorate her birthday. He took them at his celebration in London, where he is looking for work. Sandy's brother, Ganesh, also told of his cake in Pune - and of course there those in Bangalore had their own cake.

So on her birthday, Soundarya... Sandy... Sound... Soundu... Muse... was remembered on at least three continents. 

Not long after I pedaled my bike to Metro Cafe, Kristine from almost next door showed up with a bagful of puppies - born at 2:00 AM, 14 hours earlier. 

It was a nice touch to add to Sandy's birthday... and not the last one, either...

In the evening of Sandy's birthday, this young bull moose came to our house. I was sitting on the couch when I saw him trot through the backyard, so I grabbed a camera and followed him. He stopped in the low growth that lies just beyond the pet cemetery and there allowed me to take this portrait.

So, Soundarya - this moose is for you. This is your birthday moose. I hope you like him.

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Branson, Metro Cafe's 38 pound hockey player, knows how to score and celebrate; cat and baby at the door

Not long before I headed off on one of my Arctic Slope trips last fall, I promised Carmen that I would take some pictures of Branson, her five-year old son, doing some hockey stuff. Well, you know what happens to time. His regular season ended and now he is attending a hocky camp at the Mernard Sports Center.

He had sessions schedule for Saturday and Sunday afternoons and then one more on Wednesday. I was pretty sure I would not be able to make the Sunday session, couldn't say about Wednesday and so I decided that I had better go Saturday. I arrived with a little more than one-half hour of the session left.

Here he is: Branson, the 38-pound, five-year old, hockey player.

Branson was, in fact, the smallest person on the ice. And he was competing against some older and bigger boys - six and seven year olds who have been playing for years.

But you can see - Branson was skating hard.

Branson and competitor go after puck.

Who will get it?

They are fighting hard, now.

Now they are in front of the goal, Branson on offense, his competitor on defense determined to stop him.

Branson belts the puck past the defender.

The defender knocks Branson to the ice, but it doesn't matter: the puck he slammed is shooting right between the feet of the goalie and into the net.

Branson skates away from his successful goal shot in celebration.

Pretty soon, he does it again... and then again after that. 

He raises his puck in victory, but now he is also searching the bleachers for a familiar face. Could it be Mom? Is she there? Will he find her? Did she notice?

She is there and he does find her and she did notice.

After the scrimmage ends an adult skates by. "Congratulations on your goal," he tells Branson.

Branson, the hockey player.

Branson with his friends, Colin and Caroline. They do not play hockey. They play soccer ("football" to all my relatives and friends in India and the rest of the world).

Carmen is pretty proud. 

After I returned home, I came here into my office and went to work. I had not been working long before I heard a knock on the door.

Puzzled, I got up and opened it. Who do you think I saw standing on the other side?

It was Jim, my good black cat. "C'mon on in, Jim!" I invited. He entered and soon walked across my keyboard as I was typing.

Then I heard another knock. Again I got up and opened the door.

This time it was Jobe, who had just driven his mother and older brother out from Anchorage.

Jobe came in. Jim decided it was time to leave, jumped off my keyboard and walked to the door.

And this from India:

Feral street dog at Ooty tea farm.

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