A snowball for Soundarya; Margie and I drive off to Anchorage and stop at Metro Cafe; a feeling of peace and serenity; raven stories

Margie started the car with the remote at about 1:00 PM. Maybe five minutes later, I went out to clean the snow off of it as she gathered up the things that we would need to take to the Thanksgiving feast. I scraped the snow off the windshield with my hand. Our snow here, at least in the past, is most often cold, dry and powdery, but this snow was warm and wet, so I packed it into a snowball.

I was trying to decide what to do with the snowball when suddenly I thought about an email that Sandy sent to me just over two weeks ago. She had dreamed that she had been sitting in the living room of our house here in Wasilla with Margie, Kalib and me drinking coffee and then she and I had decided to go on a bike ride.

It was snowing, and she was exhilarated, because snow was new to her. She was enthralled by the view of the mountains around her. We pedaled for awhile and then stopped, so she could play in the snow for the first time in her life. "I behaved like a five-year old," she wrote. She dreamed she made a snowball, smashed it on me and then we got into a snowball fight. 

The dream ended when the sound of Anil's snoring awakened her and she found herself not in Alaska, but back in India.

So, Soundarya, this snowball is for you.

Margie came out, carrying the dough that still needed to spend time in a warm place and to rise before she could bake it into rolls.

She looked so pretty to me, standing in the weak light of a dim winter afternoon, the headlights of the car striking her knees.

I thought about throwing Sandy's snowball at her, but I knew that she would not appreciate getting struck by something cold, wet and hard when she was carrying bread dough. I tossed the snowball into the yard, to join the other snowflakes that were piling up there.

Metro Cafe was closed, but Carmen was having a family and friends Thanksgiving get-together there and had asked me to swing by with Margie on our way to Anchorage.

We swung by. Scott was in the driveway, so we stopped and said "hi" to him first.

Then we pulled up to the window, where Carmen gave us each a coffee and a biscotti and wished us a happy Thanksgiving. Then she was joined by her sister, Teresa, Carmen's son Branson and Teresa's son Evan and together they posed for:

Through the Metro Window, study 242,996.88: Thanksgiving Day, 2010

After we shared our few minutes of smiles and laughter, they returned to their gathering and we drove away. As has been the case for every conscious moment since I learned the news, Soundarya's image was in my mind and grief in my heart.

I felt determined to move forward and to have a wonderful holiday with my family, yet I still felt absolutely, hopelessly, bitterly, crushed. There would be no snowball fight - never. Sandy would never sit in our living room and drink coffee with Margie and me while Kalib performed his antics. We would share no bike rides. She would not look upon Alaska's mountains.

The business of her heart and dreams that she had been laboring to launch in Bangalore would never blossom to fruition.

As we drove through the snow on towards Anchorage, I felt a completely unexpected feeling of peace come upon me. In many ways, I did not want to feel it, because it did not seem right, given that Sandy's many and passionate dreams had all been taken from her, but that feeling of peace was there and it just kept growing stronger.

It felt to me like Sandy was there, right there, in the car with us, here in Alaska, and that this feeling of serenity was coming directly to me from her.

As I have said many times, notwithstanding my religious upbringing, the preaching and testifying that I myself have done in the past and the fact that I constantly intermingle with people of faith, many faiths, so many of them firm and sincere believers striving to make their way through this hard life into the sweet beyond, I know nothing of God or of the hereafter. It is all a mystery to me and will be for as long as I reside on mortal earth.

Yet that's how it felt to me - that this feeling of peace and comfort was coming to me directly from her - that she was there, in a form that I could feel but not see.

She was giving me the feeling that somehow, in the eternal ethereal, it is all okay.

We drove on. Here and there, drivers had slipped on the ice and left the road, this one to tip over.

This one just got stuck.

They have ravens in India too, but they are different than ours - smaller, and while the black of our ravens tends to also reflect a slight, iridescent blue hue, in southern India that reflection seems to lean more toward a burgundy-brown. Sandy loved ravens. Before she got together with Anil, she once brought an injured one into her apartment to care for it. 

When her landlord discovered what she had done, he was outraged, as it is believed by many in India that a raven in the house will bring many years of bad luck and ordered her to get the raven out. She didn't care. She had compassion for the raven and was willing to be booted out of her apartment, if that's what it took to help it.

Later, she found another injured raven when she was out with Anil during their time of engagement. She cradled the raven in her arms and took a seat on the back of her motor bike, behind Anil. As he drove in search of a vet, she sang to the raven.

"What song did you sing to it?" I asked, via internet chat.

I expected her to name a Hindu song, or perhaps an Indian lullaby - something that I would not even know.

"Safe in the Arms of Jesus," she answered.

They found a vet, but the vet wanted nothing to do with the raven. He scolded her for bringing it to him. She scolded him right back with such intimidating force that he relented and treated the raven.

The raven healed, and when it came time to let it loose, a crowd gathered. The raven looked around, flapped its wings and rose above the packed streets of Bangalore. The crowd applauded.

Such was Soundarya!

Well.

I said that I would not let this blog dwell upon the memory of Soundarya, but would move on, just as life always moves on. 

I meant it, too.

But this blog will never forget her, either.

As we drew near to Jacob and Lavina's house in Anchorage, we passed this guy, blowing the snow out of his driveway.

Then we were there - and there was Lavina and Jobe, in the window above, waiting for us to come in and join them - to join the entire family in Alaska, Charlie and his parents included, for Thanksgiving dinner.

That dinner will be the subject of my next post.

Maybe I will get it up today. Maybe not until tomorrow. 

It will be history by then, but so what?

Each action that we take becomes history at the very moment we become aware of having taken it.

I kind of feel like I have blogged enough for today.

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I sneak Margie out on a date, eat raw fish, drift with ravens and spot a cop and a driver-less car on the Wasilla highway

As you know, this past Sunday afternoon I was happily working away in my office when Jobe suddenly appeared at my door, snatched Margie away from me and took her back to Anchorage to stay with him and Kalib for the week. This was because Lavina and Jacob were each traveling during different times of the week and so they needed Margie there, to care for Kalib and Jobe.

I do good alone, don't mind it, much, because as long as I have a camera, a computer or something to write with, I am never bored. I always have something to do.

More to do than I can do, in fact.

Even so, come Wednesday afternoon, I found myself longing to see Margie - to see a movie with her. We used to go to movies every week, when I would be home, but we have fallen off.

So I jumped into the car and rushed to town.

Whoever was in this car was headed into Wasilla even as I was headed out, Anchorage bound.

I snuck her out of the house. We then went to the movie, "Hereafter" and after we went out to dinner at Samurai Sushi, where we had never eaten before.

Margie doesn't care for sushi, so she ordered Teriyaki chicken. I ordered this plate of sushi and sashimi. For a moment, I was hesitant, because our bank account is once again just about tapped out - and we have an auto-withdrawal payment coming Monday that is bigger than the combination of all the funds left in all three of our bank accounts combined.

On the other hand, I had submitted an invoice the day before, which hopefully will be paid in time to cover everything, I had not been on a date with my wife in a long time and that sushi looked really good.

Here is my sushi and sashimi, as seen through my iPhone.

Oh, damn! It was good!

How do these Japanese chefs make raw fish taste so good?

If I take a fish and cut it up and eat it raw it is not going to taste like this.

These guys really know how to cut fish.

Margie's chicken teriyaki was delicious, too.

I know, because she let me sample a chopstick full.

I then drove Margie back to drop her off Jacob and Lavina's house until Saturday night. Do you remember that feeling you sometimes had when you were young and you had taken a girl you liked out on a date or maybe you were that girl and you were with a guy you liked and then the date was over and you were pulling up to her parent's house to drop her off?

That feeling of how good it felt to be with this person, how much you had enjoyed the date and now you still had the good feeling, but a little ache, too, because this girl with her parents and then go?

That was the very feeling that I had as I pulled into Jacob and Lavina's driveway with Margie beside me, after our date.

Only I wasn't taking back home to her parents.

I was taking her home to our grandkids. 

Jacob had returned from his travels and Lavina would not leave on her's until the next day, so they were both home.

Kalib was watching Dragons - probably for the 10,000th time. I got between him and the screen to take a picture of him. He peered around me to the left so that he could continue to watch.

I shifted left, to try again. Kalib peered around me to the right.

I shifted to the right. He was getting a little disgusted with me.

It's okay, though. He has all the scenes memorized. And he's probably seen them ten times since then.

Jobe was hanging out with Muzzy.

Maybe Jobe will go to Arizona some day and be a bull rider.

I don't really want him to be, but it might just be in his blood, so you never know.

Then Jacob caught me and Jobe together. Jobe loves me. Jobe loves my beard. One day, I want to take him out in a canoe and catch fish with him.

Maybe by then I can learn how to cut them right and then we can sit on the bank and eat sushi and sashimi, as fresh as sushi and sashimi can be.

"Grandpa," he will say. "That was damn good raw fish. I sure hope that some day, I can grow a beard just like yours!"

So that was Wednesday. This was yesterday, back in Wasilla. I had to go to Wal-Mart to pick up some medications.

There were ravens there, waiting for me.

Wal-Mart raven.

Then, as I drove home, I saw ravens surfing the updraft, over the railroad tracks.

It was a windy day. Ravens love windy days.

I love ravens.

For those unclear about the difference between ravens and crows, they are related, but ravens are bigger. Much bigger. 

Ravens make a stronger impression on you than crows do.

Sometimes a raven will say, "never more."

A crow would never say that.

Never.

While I was stopped at the light on the corner of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways, I noticed a cop car pull into the left turn to my right with lights flashing. Then the cop stopped, right there in the left turn lane and got out of the car.

This seemed to me to be a very curious place to make a traffic stop. Then, as my light turned green and I had to go, I noticed that the car the cop had stopped behind did not have a driver.

It was empty - just sitting there unmanned in the left turn lane. Nor I could I see anyone just standing around, who might have once been the driver.

Just another of the usual strange sights that one gets to see just about everyday, right here in Wasilla, Alaska.

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A handsome young fellow with eye boogers sweeps in and takes my wife away

I am alone now, and this is how it happened: 

Early yesterday afternoon, as I was sitting right here, at my computer, I heard a knock on my office door. This should have caused me to be suspicious right then. Nobody around here needs to knock on my office door. All they need to do is to open it and walk in.

Hell. The cats do this all the time. They never knock. They just push the door open and walk in.

So you would expect the people to do the same.

But no.

Someone knocked.

So I opened the door.

What you see above is what I saw - Jobe, held in Margie's arms, just beyond the threshold to my door.

"Jobe's come to take me away," Margie told me.

Look into his eyes and you will see eye boogers, because Jobe had been napping. Little people get eye boogers when they nap - even handsome little people.

Yet, it does not diminish their magnetism and charm - the way it would to you or I, if either of us were to show up to steal someone's spouse away, with boogers in our eyes.

Look at Jobe's charm! See how handsome he is! Feel his magnetism!

Against this, eye boogers or no, I knew that I could not compete.

Jobe and Margie.

Soon, Margie was strapped into the back seat of the car Jacob gave to Lavina on her recent birthday, right next to Jobe. And look! There's Kalib! He was in on this, too!

And Lavina! For how could Jobe and Kalib even have come out here, without her assistance?

At any rate, Margie is gone now, to be with them in Anchorage.

She will be with them all week.

Jacob has gone to Bethel today and on to Kwethluk; after that, Kodiak.

As soon as he gets back, Lavina goes to Nome.

So Jobe and Kalib came to get Margie, to help fill the gap.

And me, I am left here alone, where I have no choice but to eat the left-over Halloween candy all by myself.

I have eaten quite a bit of it already, but there is still quite a bit left to go.

I am dedicated, though. I will get the job done.

It's much easier to eat the Halloween candy when you are alone, after a handsome and charming little guy has snatched your wife away.

I could choose alcohol to deal with the loneliness, but instead I choose Halloween candy.

Rex and Ama invite us to dinner, cats attend, hog camera

Rex and Ama invited us to dinner last night. Ama has been staying with Rex in his basement apartment at Melanie's, so they did the cooking upstairs at her place, where the eating would be done, too.

When we arrived, Diamond was waiting in the window, ready to take control of my camera.

Rex and Ama cooking - chip dinner, made with blue corn chips, green enchilada sauce, avocados, black beans, lettuce, tomatoes, a healthy dose of chili powder and oregano and some sort of meat substitute as Ama is basically vegetarian - although she did try some pickled maktak when she visited the house.

Bear Meach wants to eat, too.

Three cats gather around Charlie, knowing that he will feed them. First, they must allow him to give them, "high pets."

Charlie just got a haircut. As for his beard, he plans to take it to an international beard contest in Norway next May. He said that I should take my beard there, too, and enter it.

About the only category that I could qualify for would be "salt and pepper"... more and more salt, less pepper. Maybe by May, my beard will be all pepper - or perhaps snow. I could then enter it in the "snow drift" category - but not yet.

I do not yet qualify for that category.

Bear Meach turns his back upon us, but pays strict attention to what we are doing.

Charlie and Epizzles.

Rex.

Now, I feel kind of bad. I had meant to get some good pictures of Rex and Ama, but somehow I didn't. I think it is because most of the time I was out in the living room and she was in the kitchen and then when she was in the living room and we were all eating I was too busy eating to take pictures.

Afterward, I found myself feeling so fatigued and tired that I failed to follow through.

She got her job in Alaska, but doesn't start until December. In the meantime, she is going back to the Bay Area. 

When she returns, I will make up for this lapse.

BTW: Charlie thinks Rex should take his beard to the Norway competition, too.

Or maybe it was the fault of these cats. Sometimes, cats can be camera hogs. Diamond is a camera hog and has been since the first day that I met her - probably even before that.

I was wondering where Lisa was, because I had not seen her for a long time, what with her work, her studies, her trip to Oregon. I hadn't seen much of Melanie, either, who also went to Oregon, but Melanie was right there in front of me, so I knew she would be there.

Melanie called Lisa to make sure she and Bryce were coming.

Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and Jobe arrived. Kalib was thrilled to see Melanie.

Jobe was thrilled to see his grandpa - as you can clearly tell.

Finally, Lisa and Bryce arrived. Diamond greeted them at the door.

Lisa zapped Jobe with a red beam from her phaser.

Lisa, Lavina and Kalib.

We visited and talked about many important things. 

And then I had to go. I was just too tired to linger. Ama was worried that I should not drive, but Margie has hard time driving at night and I always come back when I am behind the wheel.

So we hugged all and left. 

This is what I mean about cats being camera hogs.

I should have photographed Rex and Ama, but Diamond forced me to photograph her instead.

Damn camera hog!

And you watch!

Next time I get together with people and these three cats, they will hog my camera again.

That's just how they are.

As for me, I still feel tired, fatigued, and exhausted.

I fear fatigue is perpetual now.

Exhaustion a way of life.

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It's all Kalib and Jobe, all the time... A lion roars in Africa, then sleeps through the Alaska night

Yesterday, I drove into Anchorage to visit a friend who had come down from Barrow for medical care. Afterward, in the early evening, I stopped by to visit Kalib and Jobe, who had just returned home with their mother.

Not long after I arrived, their dad pedaled up on his bike, home from work. He stopped at the mailbox, then looked up a Kalib, who was looking at him.

The two greet each other.

Lavina was amusing Jobe.

As he waited for his dad to get situated and come in, Kalib decided to give Jobe a hug.

Kalib can get a little rough, but Jobe didn't seem to mind.

He pushed it to the edge.

Then Kalib needed a hug from his mom.

It turned into a rather nice group hug.

Dad came in and took a seat on the floor. Kalib jumped onto his lap to play. As noted, Kalib can get a little rough.

Dad gets rough right back.

Just a bunch of ruffians!

They invited me out to dinner at Taco Kings, so Kalib and I headed to the car so that he could ride with me. It was growing dark, darker than it looks in the picture. I had to push my ISO to 6400 and shoot slow shutter speeds.

Kalib and his blanket.

Kalib prepares to jump.

Dinner at Taco King. I had a bowl of chicken soup, chips, and water.

Then I brought Kalib and Jobe home with me. Jobe fell asleep right away. I kept thinking that Kalib had fallen asleep, too, but every now and then I would hear his little voice rise through the dark, "bus! bus!" Kalib loves buses.

I had the radio tuned to KSKA, to a program where they play contemporary music from around the world. As we drove through the dark, they played a Ladysmith Black Mambazo rendition of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." It begins with the roar of a lion, and then the soothing voice of Ladysmith speaking as though to children, telling them a story, as the choir softly sings acapella in the background. Then she sings the song... "hush, my baby, the lion sleeps tonight..."

As I drove through the dark Alaska night toward home with my little grandsons in the back seat, one asleep, the other looking for buses, the car filled with sweet sounds, spawned by grave danger, sounds from Africa.

At that moment, it seemed to me to be the most beautiful song that I had ever heard.

It was exquisite. 

After I got home, I googled it and came up with three Ladysmith versions, including the one I had heard, which I link to here. I put my headset on and listened to it maybe five times, mesmerized. It is playing right now, even as I type.

I went to iTunes, hoping to purchase it and put it in my iPhone, but iTunes did not have it.

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If go to the slide show and do not see a picture, but just a box that says, "thumbnail processing," click on it anyway and the first slide will appear. This is just another Squarespace aggravation. Hopefully, within the next few days, Squarespace will finish processing the thumbnails and the pictures will appear. With Squarespace, you never know.