I am about to go into the jaws of this machine, where I will be ordered to lie perfectly still for 90 minutes - Hi, Bill! - Kalib studies the world

The thing is, my shoulder has made great improvement and continues to do so, but my wrist kind of got overlooked. I remember lying in the hospital after my shoulder replacement surgery, my wrist hurting like hell. I did not think too much of it - I figured that I just banged it up pretty good without doing any real damage.

The attention all went to my shoulder. Maybe three months later, when my wrist was still in pain, I brought it up to Dr. Duddy on one of my visits and so he had his beautiful technician shoot some some x-rays of it.

No breaks, no cracks, no damage of any kind that he could see.

So I continued to just tough it out, expecting the pain to eventually go away.

But it did not.

And now, on the whole, my wrist causes me more pain than my shoulder does. I can lift and pull with it, no problem. But if something pushes my palm downward, or someone shakes my hand too hard, or I lie on it wrong... AYYY YAHHH!

It hurts!

I have written about how I would like to get on a snowmachine this spring and head out onto the ice pack, but I am a bit afraid. And I know I could not hang onto the back of a sled.

It's my wrist, even more than my shoulder that causes me to bear such fear.

So yesterday, Dr. ordered up an MRI just for my wrist.

Today, I spent 90 minutes in this machine.

I had intended to describe the experience - the sounds of the MRI: some like a jackhammer, others like a machine gun, others like an old fashioned shock-treatment device putting an electric charge into flesh, all with NPR programs speaking soothingly to me through my headphones, but I have already written more words than I intended.

It was not painful, it was not terrible, it was just long.

And when I finally I got up, my wrist really hurt. My back was sore.

So I drove to Taco Bell and ordered a cheese quesidilla and a bean burrito with green sauce.

This is Bill, who works for Alaska Open Imaging here in Wasilla, the place where I got the MRI. He is not the technician who put me through the MRI, but he remembered me from the last time I came to AOI. That was after I got rear-ended the eve before Christmas Eve and was left with a bit of whiplash.

Not bad, mind you, but I had to get it checked out, anyway, and Bill is the one who took my x-rays. He was quite impressed today when he saw my G10 pocket camera and wanted to know all about it.

So, as a demonstration, I took his picture and gave him the address to this blog.

Hi, Bill!

And here is one sheet of film from that MRI. I must take it into town Monday to give to Dr. Duddy. I did not want to go to town, Monday. I already must go Tuesday to take Margie in for a followup visit regarding her injuries.

Oh, well.

And here is Kalib, looking out into the world. What a little man he has suddenly become!

It is white out there now, but soon it will be green. Mosquitoes will buzz through the air and tiny frogs will hop about in the back yard.

Not as many frogs as used to hop, though. 

Tons of frogs used to hop around out there.

Now only ounces of frogs hop about.

What happened to them all?

My deprived childhood: I sure wish I could have had duck lights like these

When I was quite small, my family always took one vacation per year, and always to the same place: Ogden, Utah, where my grandparents from both sides of the family lived. 

On the maternal side, that meant just my grandma, as Grandpa Roderick died when I was one. Other than a few hazy, mysterious, mental images that I believe come from the gathering that accompanied his funeral, I have no memory of him, but I do remember the plastic ducks that my Grandmother Roderick kept in her tiny house. There was a yellow one, and a red one.

I loved those ducks. As soon as we arrived at her house, I would go straight for those ducks. 

I always wanted ducks like that for myself, but, damnit, my mother would never get me any.

She believed in frugality.

When the time came for my grandma's estate to be divided among her descendents, I had grown into a young adult. There were two items that I wanted from her estate, and two items only - the yellow duck and the red duck.

I never got them.

God! My life has been hard!

So imagine my surprise, delight, jealousy, envy and pain when I walked into my grandson's bedroom to see the latest gift his parents had bestowed upon him.

Duck lights! Strung over his crib!

I thought about stealing them, to string over our bed, but his grandma would not have been happy with me. 

So I thought about kicking him out of his crib, so that I could sleep there myself, beneath the duck lights, but I feared that it would break beneath me.

Then his parents would have insisted that I buy a new crib.

I cannot be buying cribs right now.

Kalib also got a "Tyke Light."

It is just a little bit spooky.

Welcome home, Lavina.

Too bad I did not have a card in my camera when you entered my office with a naked Kalib in your arms and I took all those wonderful pictures.

Too damned exhausted to blog

Here I am, earlier this evening, altogether too exhausted to blog. It is getting ridiculous, to be so damned exhausted all the time. I keep wondering, why?

Maybe its my shoulder - as improved and improving as it is, it still wakes me up periodically through each night - as do other minor ailments.

Maybe its because I need more Vitamin B-12. 

Maybe its because of this blog, and Grahamn Kracker's blog.

Not that this blog is that exhausting. It isn't.

This blog is fun.

But, when I put it on top of everything else... when the end of the day comes and instead of flopping down with a book or maybe a DVD, I download pictures, edit pictures, process pictures, upload pictures, then deal with all the absurd, annoying, aggravating, time-wasting proclivities of Squarespace, it pushes me beyond the edge of rest.

But maybe not, I don't know.

Maybe the reckless way that I have lived my life all these years is taking a toll. 

Maybe I just need to go sit on a beach in Mexico and watch pelicans dive for fish.

That's not going to happen anytime, soon.

Maybe instead I will go sit on a beach in Southern India, and see what kind of fishing birds are there, observe what kind of fish they eat.

Maybe that would help.

I could eat a banana, fresh off a tree, if a monkey didn't steal it from me.

On the way home from Anchorage with his dad, Kalib ate some Girl Scout cookies. Mint cookies, with chocolate coating.

This post is for you, Lavina, beloved daughter-in-law, wonderful mother of my grandson

Lavina, I hope that you are enjoying Vancouver and learning much that will help you in your work. I especially hope that your presentation goes well. I know you miss Kalib terribly, so this blog entry is for you. Here is Kalib, this morning, at the back door, when I returned from my walk.

This is from yesterday's walk. Your husband just hurled the sled as hard as he could, to see how far Kalib would slide.

I had to jump out of the way.

Then we all went back into the marsh.

Jacob and Kalib headed home from there. I had not walked far enough, so I continued on. "Bye, bye!" I waved to Kalib.

He raised his hand and waved back.

Then I walked through the snow. For just a little while, it really snowed. Then the sun came out.

So here they are, your dog, your son and your mother-in-law, who you call, "Mom," just like you call me "Dad." This gives us a warm and good feeling, Daughter.

Lisa brought Juniper out. Kalib and Juniper had a good time. Grahamn Kracker has posted more pictures from that visit on his No Cats Allowed blog. If you go there, you will not only see more pictures of Kalib, but the moment when Juniper discovered herself in the mirror.

A wider shot, from my return this morning, of Kalib, in Caleb's arms. Very similar to another I did awhile back, except that I made a point of including my reflection in this one.

I suppose that I ruined it, by including myself in it.

I know that you have heard about the latest eruptions of Mt. Redoubt. Today, the flights going north toward Fairbanks and Barrow were canceled, but the flights going and coming from the south mostly flew.

We sure do hope that the planes all fly on the day of your scheduled return.

A boy with a huge talent was buried in Barrow today

Actually, he was no longer a boy, but a young man - a husband and father - but in my memory he is a boy, out on the snow-blown tundra, making people laugh, because that is how I knew him. The boy that I speak of is Perry Nageak and that is him sitting closest to the camera, with the uncovered head. 

The month was May, the year, 1997, and he was out at spring goose camp with the family of his uncle, Roy Nageak, the man to the right. In between them is Roy's son, Ernest, then nine-years old. Ernest had just shot the two geese - his first ever. I managed to shoot a nice little sequence of pictures that told the story.

As for Perry, what I remember best about him is how quick-witted and funny he was. What a story-teller!

I thought maybe someday, I'd see him on TV, making people laugh the world over.

Here he is, telling a hunting story, late at night in the tent - probably about 1 or 2 AM. Remember, this is the Arctic, and by May the time of the midnight sun has arrived.

You can see how amused he kept all the other young people in camp - his cousins and siblings.

Although you cannot see them clearly in this picture, there are adults in the tent as well. They laugh, too.

Since I learned of his death the other day, I have been trying to recall the specific stories that he told, but after 12 years, they elude me. I only remember how funny they were.

But wait... one comes back, even as I sit here and type.

It takes place on a caribou hunt. A boy shoots a caribou. Maybe the boy was Perry; maybe it was a brother, or a cousin. The bullet does not strike the caribou directly, but instead slams into the base of its antlers. The antlers fall off and then the caribou drops dead onto the tundra.

"Oh no!" Perry explains the story from the point of view of the caribou. "My antlers! My antlers! My beautiful antlers! I just can't live without my antlers!"

To Ben, Bonnie and all those who loved Perry, my deepest condolences. And thank you for sharing your boy with me for that one beautiful, wonderful, experience, back in May of 1997.

My prayers are with you too, for whatever the prayers of a man of doubtful faith are worth.

Speaking of which... that brings me back to today. I had to drive to town, to drop the Kivgiq prints off at the North Slope Borough's liason office in Anchorage. Afterwards, I drove to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of things that I needed.

I returned to the car, and as I took my seat, I saw these two young Mormon missionaries talking to this man. Maybe they were trying to convert him. Maybe he was a fellow Mormon, and they were just having a friendly discussion.

I started the car and this brought KSKA, the Anchorage Public Radio station, into my speakers. The first sentence that I heard come was this, "I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints..."

The show was talk of the nation and the topic was a scene from "Big Love," the HBO series about a polygamist family belonging to a sect that had broken away from the Mormon Church. The most recent segment featured a scene that depicted an endowment ceremony in a Mormon temple. 

The caller was hurt and offended - as were all the Mormon callers who phoned in. Mormons are instructed that, once they step outside of the temple, they must never talk about the ordinances that take place within - not even among themselves.

The other point of view was that to tell the story the artist wanted to tell, it was necessary.

I could not only understand both points of view, but could empathize and justify each.

If my mother was still alive, I knew how she would have reacted. With horror. With utter and absolute horror. She would have saw it as a sign that the prophesied future times of the return of the persecution that our Mormon ancestors had borne was coming right back at us, that it was right around the corner.

And just beyond that - Armageddon, the cleansing of the world and the Second Coming of Christ.

I apologize for getting a little carried away here. Except for funerals of loved ones, I have not been inside a Mormon chapel for 25 years, but when one grows up as I did, this kind of thing never leaves you.

I thought about stopping, about getting the missionaries to pose for me, but I did not wish to interrupt their conversation and so just shot this image through the open window as I drove slowly past them.

I picked Melanie up at her place of work and then drove her to Ichiban's for lunch. It was Lisa who chose Ichiban's. She met us there, as did Charlie. Melanie and Charlie are going to ride the ferry to Cordova this weekend, just for fun.

They asked me for suggestions about what to do.

I've hung around Cordova a bit, so I gave them a few.

They can go down to the fishing boat docks, and watch sea otters play; they can go up the hill to the ski run and ski. They can walk all around, and drive here and there; visit with eagles.

Lisa and me. Lisa had asked me for a picture of Juniper, her cat. So I made a print last night and gave it to her today. She was most pleased about the timing, as some of her coworkers had been deriding cats, describing them as worthless, questioning why she would ever have a cat in the first place.

The answer was right there, in the picture, but such coworkers are unlikely to see it, even when they look straight at it.

Some of us ordered sushi.

When I arrived back home in Wasilla, I found Margie and Lavina watching what at first looked like an teen-exploitation flick, as the scene on screen depicted four high school cheerleaders running amok in a sex-toy shop. 

"What's this?" I asked. 

"Texas Cheerleader Massacre," Lavina answered.

I figured they must really be bored. I flopped down on the couch to see when the carnage would begin, determined to stay but minutes and then come out here and work on something.

But Lavina got the title wrong. 

It was, "Texas Cheerleader Scandal."

There was no carnage - just a rather oddly compelling story about a cheerleading coach trying to discipline some wild girls who were messing up the squad and intimidating all the other adults.

I watched it to the very end.

As he always does, Jimmy, who is here with me now even as I type, joined me and stayed right with me.

An evening sunbeam came through the window.

Kalib found it.