Kivgiq, 2011, part 6, day 2a: My Kivgiq work gets interrupted by family and love

Earlier today, I was busily editing day 2 of Kivgiq and I kept seeing the words, "Family" and "love," - just like you see them here, behind the Kaktovik drummers.

There was evidence of "family" and "love" all around - sometimes mixed with a bit of mischief, such as when little Jessie James Bodfish Panik of Wainwright boy went running across the dance stage with a drum stick.

Of course, today when I would look at such pictures, I would think of my own family, especially my own small grandsons, Kalib and Jobe.

I have pretty much been alone all week. On Monday, we got a call from Jacob. Lavina was not feeling well and needed help with the little ones. So Monday afternoon - our anniversary - I drove Margie into town, dropped her off to help with Kalib and Jobe and then turned right around and drove back home to Wasilla.

In the time since, except for momentarily glimpses of Caleb just before he goes to bed after working his night shift, I have been all alone.

It doesn't bother me to be alone, not when I have all these pictures to sort through and edit. I can just go and go and go without interruption and so I do.

Perhaps too much. Without Margie here to rein me in a bit, I tend not to stop, but to keep going when I should give up and go to bed. I posted last night's blog at 2:04 AM, for example, then stayed right here, at this computer and dabbled with other things until about 4:00 AM.

I did not expect to see Margie until this evening, but, right after lunch, I heard a knock upon my office door. Guess who was here?

This guy, Jobe! Lavina was feeling much better and had driven Margie home.

I'm afraid my work fell apart after that. My picture editing slowed down to almost nothing.

I accomplished very little workwise, but accomplished a bit more "family" and "love" wise.

Kalib came, too, but he had fallen asleep in the car and never woke up. Lavina soon left, taking the sleeping Kalib with her. She left Jobe to spend all or part of the weekend with us - depending on how lonely she gets without him.

And I discovered something else late this afternoon. Monday is a holiday. That makes this a three-day weekend. My readership tends to drop off on weekends - especially three day weekends.

And the truth is, I am very tired. "Exhausted" would be a better word. I pushed myself hard day and night during Kivgiq and I have done the same since my return.

So I decided to take it a little easy this weekend - to get some visiting done with Jobe. I will keep editing my Kivgiq pictures, but I will hold my further Kivgiq posts until the weekend has passed. By then, maybe I will have a better handle on the material that I have.

I will still make little posts through the weekend - maybe on Jobe, or whatever. 

Then, on Tuesday, I will resume my Kivgiq posts. I am not covering a news story anymore anyway. I am now putting out a record of a historical event - but one that I want to share the pictures from, particularly with my friends on the Arctic Slope but also with anyone else who is interested. It's going to take more time than I originally anticiapated, but that's okay.

Maybe I will find some time this weekend to hang out with moose. I found this mom and her two nearly grown calves as I was driving home from my coffee break.

View images as slide show

Even on this birthday, Melanie remains trustworthy; cats are not wierd, they are normal

Those of us who were free gathered together to celebrate Melanie's birthday. I will not tell you what birthday it was, but I will note that when I was a young adult, we feared this birthday above all others. The belief among young people was that no matter how good a person was before they hit this birthday, once they reached it, the ways of the world would overtake them and they could not be trusted after that.

Hell.

Melanie can still be trusted.

Now I will move write along, writing very little, because I have already spent quite a bit of time editing, preparing and placing pictures and I do not have time to write much. So I won't. Because if I write words that I do not need to write, it will just eat up my time, so why should I write such words that waste time when I do not need to write them?

So I won't write much.

Just a little bit.

Not much at all.

Because it would waste time.

And I do not have time to waste.

So I will write very little today.

I will just show you the pictures.

And not worry about writing many words.

That would be a waste of time when all that you need to know is in the pictures.

Well, maybe are other things that should know, too - like how to do math, for example.

Math is a good skill for anyone to have.

Here is Lavina, making frybread.

Once must have some comprehension of math to make frybread.

Otherwise, one might make 100 frybreads, when one dozen would do.

Or use 6 teaspoons of salt when one would be just right.

Kalib entered carrying his spatula, but then laid it down. I picked it up. He did not quite know what to think about that.

Melanie prepares her Navajo/Apache taco.

The tacos were damn good.

The day before, Rex had submitted his entry for a grant to help him with a sculpture that he hopes to create and then display at Burning Man in Nevada this summer. Unfortunately, due to some computer shenanigans, much of his proposal did not get submitted. Only a piece of it.

Anyway, this is model of only a piece of what he hopes to create. In the real thing, this salmon skeleton will be five foot long and there will also be a whole salmon, concrete, five feet long and a number of other elements as well.

His sculpture will cover some significant space.

I hope he gets the damn grant. 

Melanie was presented with two birthday cakes, not one. I am not sure why. I did not ask. I know Charlie made one of the cakes. I'm not sure who made the other.

Lisa made the frosting.

We ate the cakes with vanilla ice cream and they were damn good.

Afterward, she opened gifts.

All of the gifts were damned good.

Charlie gave her a damned good book titled "Cats Are Wierd." Not withstanding the fact that it is a damned good book, I take exception to the title.

Cats are not weird. As you can see, Diamond is as normal as normal can be.

Bear Meach is not weird.

Melanie observes Bear Meach being normal as Rex and Margie wash dishes.

Kalib studies Poof. "This cat is not weird," he would have proclaimed, had the proper words come to him to thus proclaim.

Perhaps it is little boys, not cats, who are weird.

Jobe goes for Poof, who is not weird.

The Three Musketeers showed up: Carl, Charlie and Bryce. They did not bring their swords. I was disappointed. I wanted to borrow a sword to cut the cake.

As the party drew towards its wild conclusion, Kalib crawled up to see his mom.

Two of my children, paired off. Lisa came late to the party, because she is carrying such a heavy load between being a full time student and full time job, and taking on extra tasks to help pay for it all.

She must deal with stress.

And then, as always happens, the time came to say goodbye, see you later.

Always this time comes. 

What a fine thing it has been these past 30 years to have Melanie as my daughter.

An absolutely fine thing.

Oh, dear! I was not going to say, "30 years," but I did.

Even so, I trust her.

View images as slide show

A cat full of coffee and other New Year's tails

The New Year began with me sleepy and exhausted and I am sleepy and exhausted right now - too much so to write much with these pictures. So I will simply say that, with breakfast and such behind us, Margie and I are in the car, driving past Wasilla Lake, enroute to Anchorage to celebrate the New Year at Jacob and Lavina's house.

The wind is howling and it is one of those horrible warm winds from the South Pacific that sometimes materialize this time of year and then ruin a good Alaska winter.

There is nothing to be done about it, though, so we just drive to Anchorage.

The New Year got off to a poor start for someone. On occassion, these guys in their patrol cars with their sirens, beepers and flashing lights unnerve me a bit, but I am damn glad they are there.

While I do not believe the US should enforce or coerce its ways upon any other nation, I just cannot help but to think that if in India they set up and enforced traffic laws, honestly, with no bribery, to the degree that they do here, I might have slept a lot better these past six weeks and three people who should still be breathing and walking on this earth would be doing so.

Yes, only two of them went by crash, but the third would not have followed had there been no accident in the first place.

So, yes, I appreciate these uniformed men and women who we call cops, these who we ask to risk their lives to keep us safe even as they sometimes suffer our abuse. Yes, there are some bad ones to be found here and there among them - the same is true of preachers, teachers, astronauts, photographers, and baseball players -but on the whole they do a pretty good job and get cussed at all too often.

Even if they pull me over later today and write me a ticket, I will appreciate them. I will swear and cuss when they walk back to their car, but still I will appreciate them.

When we arrived at Jacob and Lavina's house, we found a bag filled with something in the living room. It was kind of curious, because the bag was upside down.

I wondered, what could this bag be filled with?

Why, it was filled with Kalib!

Remember those dinosaurs Kalib had been surrounded by in yesterday's post? As part of his late birthday present, his parents let him pick one out.

This is the one he choose. They say that it was the most realistic out of the bunch. Some were bigger, they say, but Kalib went for realism over size.

I am jealous. I loved dinosaurs when I was little, too, but I never got to have one like this. I think the biggest dinosaur that I hever had stood maybe three inches tall and was made of hard plastic - and I only had that one because I found it lying in the road.

Jobe had been napping when we arrived, but soon he floated out to join us.

Jobe and his mom.

Did you know that my daughter, Lisa, carried a full semester worth of credits this past fall even as she worked full time, and also made the honor roll?

She did. 

I wonder who she is calling? Could it be me? Is it possible I placed my phone somewhere and could not find it?

I was lying on the floor, in front of the TV, feeling so exhausted that I could hardly move. Yet, I wanted to get a group New Year's day picture of everybody that was there. The light here is very dim, so I wanted to get them in front of the TV, both so that there would be a little more light on them and so I would not have to move from my position on the floor.

I called everybody over to pose.

I could see that it was going to be a challenge to get them to do so.

Still, I was determined to get the photo, and to do so from down on floor.

It took some doing, but finally I got it. You will notice that Caleb, Rex, Ama and Bryce are not here. Sometimes, you can get everybody together and sometimes you can't. So you take a group picture of those who you can.

I am in this picture, too - just on the other side of it, sprawled across the floor in front of the TV.

I was so exhausted I did not know how I was going to drive home. And Margie hates to drive at night, on black, slippery roads.

So Melanie poured me a cup of coffee from her cat thermos. "Charlie and I never go anywhere without a cat full of coffee," she explained. She also said that she was a chick-a-dee, and that in the winter she eats one-and-a-half times her weight everyday.

As for Lavina, she wound up with a cat full of... cat!

Just in case you were worried that with all the new Christmas and birthday toys Kalib might have forgotten about his beloved spatula...

Kalib and Jobe came home with us. Kalib feel asleep in the car. When I brought him into the house, he transferred his sleep to the couch. Then about 3:00 in the morning, he came in, climbed onto the bed and slept right by me.

Margie likes to collect rocks. She keeps some of them in this little basket. Looks like she needs to find a new place to keep the basket.

Jobe woke up maybe three times during the night, but went back to sleep after he dined on mother's milk stored in a bottle.

Looks like I wrote a little more than I though I would. I'm still sleepy and exhausted. I need to go back to Barrow before the sun rises, find a nice cubby hole somewhere, crawl into it, pull a quilt over my head and sleep for 20 days straight.

Hey - what would you do if you found a suitcase filled with $50,000 cash?

This actually happened to a friend of mine in Barrow. I will see if I can find him by phone or net and will make this the subject of my next post.

View images as slides

2010: The end of dreams, the beginning of dreams, the continuation of dreams

So this is the final day of 2010. I don't quite know what to think about that.

I had planned to do a month-by-month review of the entire year - just as I did last year before 2009 came to an end. I was also going to expand stories that I managed to get the beginnings in but never finished, or to fill in some of the huge gaps that I left out because time ran out - like at the Gwich'in Gathering, the Inuit Circumpolar Council General Assembly in Nuuk, Greenland and to complete the tribute to my late friend, Navajo artist, poet, cartoonist, songwriter, performer, husband, father, grandfather and brother, Vincent Craig.

Plus, there were many little picture stories that I got pieces of, perhaps shot in whole and never posted at all, simply because I ran out of time and energy.

So that is what I was going to devote this blog to these past couple of weeks - a review of what I did post and a glimpse at what I didn't.

But, as it happened, when it came time to review this year, I did not want to go there. I just didn't. And so I'm not. Suffice it to say that it was a year when beautiful and hopeful dreams came to abrupt and crushing ends, when new dreams sprouted, and old dreams, diminished in scope and joy but still determined, pushed on.

I took this picture of myself two days ago as I walked with ravens and breathed frost into my beard and mustache. I think it is a pretty good summation of the year 2010 as I lived it.

I will not here go into the dreams that came to an end, nor even look at those that continue, but will instead focus upon those that began. Here is such a new dream of hope and joy that began in 2010 - little Jobe, born February 12.

I know that right now he has dreams and desires, some in the very early stages, others of which have yet to even begin to shape themselves in his conscious mind.

I have a dream for him, too and it is a very simple dream - that one day, he and I might paddle a canoe together, through a quiet place frequented not by people but by animals, fish and birds, surrounded by a tiny piece of the beauty that is Alaska.

I dream that we would catch a fish or two, barbecue them on the bank or shore and then eat them together.

As for the present, or at least the very near past, this is how I found Jobe when I went into his house the other night to pick up Margie and bring her home.

This is the moment that he noticed that I had entered the room.

Jobe immediately rolled over and began to crawl towards me.

...he drew nearer...

He reached up for me...

Jobe loves his grandpa. His grandpa loves Jobe. One day, I hope, we will catch and eat fish together.

As to Jobe's older brother Kalib, many of his dreams seem to involve a spatula. Before I returned home with Margie, Lavina invited us to dinner at Taco King. Kalib brought his spatula.

Carrying his spatula, Kalib heads to the door at Taco King. Having seen how neat this picture looked large, it pains me to present it so small, but such is the format of this blog. If you click slide show, it will help a bit.

Kalib, his spatula and his mom, at Taco King.

How the moon loves the sun!

When I look at this, I cannot help but wonder what kind of babies the two might make, the sun and the moon? Stars, perhaps? A trillion, zillion, quadrillion stars?

Even more than that?

Star children, without number.

The dad joined us. Two chefs, one spatula, at Taco King.

Sometimes in a restaurant, Kalib will suddenly leave the table and start to run all over the place. I was trying to chase him down, but I had to shoot at least one frame before I caught him.

And this one from India:

Do you ever think of these two ladies when you drink your tea?

To be quite honest, I tend not to, either. But here they are, picking tea in the Ooty area of Tamil Nadu, at about 7,000 feet above sea level.

One must be careful walking about here, because there are cobras and other chooo'weet snakes slithering about amongst the tea plants.

I did not see any men picking tea - just women. Their boss, a man, told me that is because women are the more diligent workers. They stick to the job and don't goof around, he said, but men do.

He also made some kind of joke about how women deal with cobras better than men do, but I can't remember the joke.

Somehow, given the dreams that so recently came to an and abrupt end this year, including dreams that walked together not far from me in the form of a newly wed wife and husband at the moment I took this picture, the phrase "Happy New Year" does not feel quite right to me at this moment.

Yet, happiness is what I wish for us all.

May you all find happiness within the new year that is about to begin.

A request for help to the village of Savoonga

I received this message from Jenny Canfield, concerning the power outage that has left the village of Savoonga frozen:

This note comes from my good friend Ossie. His good friend Yaari is from Savoonga and they're having a tough time right now. Please read the note below and consider informing your readers, listeners, friends, coworkers, etc. 

They are mostly in need of non-perishable goods. Era aviation is providing free shipping to Savoonga.

If you're so inclined, have a food drive at your workplace. The holiday weekend is coming up, so many of you may be out of the office. Savoonga will still need your help come Monday, so please don't forget.

You can contact Yaari at 223-4124 or yaari30@yahoo.com for more information. 

per my good friend, yaari kineekuk: Savoonga (her village) had power outage for several days now. Some recovered as of yesterday. 150+ stayed at the school to keep warm; 50+ at the City Hall; 20+ at the Fire Dept. Pipes bursted, store is closed, all phones are down. If you can please help... 

View images as slide show

Kalib's birthday, part 2: We party, there is fire in the house, dinosaurs roar, a dragon flies and a train goes round the track; goats take the right of way

Once again, I am running behind. Time to catch up and put Kalib's birthday behind us for another year. Anyway, readers will recall that on Christmas night, Jobe came down with a nasty bug and so the family stayed with us that night. The next morning, December 26, Kalib cooked breakfast for us. It was his third birthday.

His mother had planned to throw him a big sledding party in the afternoon at a park near their house in Anchorage, but, given the circumstances, had to cancel those plans.

Still, except for Caleb, who was not feeling well himself, and Bryce, who had just lost his grandfather, we all gathered at Kalib's house in Anchorage in the evening to throw him a little party.

Kalib was happy to see his new love, Ama and so came with his spatula to visit her and his Uncle Rex.

After a bit, I heard the sound of laughter and commotion out in the kitchen. It was Lisa, playing a YouTube video title, The Dream of the 90s is Alive in Portland. There is a line in it that could only have been written about Charlie - "in Portland, you can put a bird on something and call it art."

Readers from way back then will recall that Charlie and Melanie put birds in his beard Charlie, which won him a big award at the national beard championships in Portland and got his picture spread round the world in a multitude of both print and online publications.

Lisa and Melanie, and Charlie and I believe Bryce as well, have all fallen in love with Portland, the city where young people go to retire, and sleep until 11:00. They think it is a great city and they talk about moving there someday.

Jobe was still under the weather, but improving. When the party ended, I would go home alone so that Margie could stay for two or three days and care for Jobe until he gets well enough to return to day care.

Readers who have been with us for previous birthday parties may have noted that cakes have been brought out for people in the 20's, 30's and even the breach of 60's that have had very few candles on them - even as few as three.

Now one was brought out for a three year-old and it had a bunch of candles. 

Kalib did not object.

Kalib cut the cake himself - with just a wee bit of help from dad. He did not need anybody's help to clean the cake-cutting knife.

Lisa and Martigne. She also entertained us with You-Tube videos of Maru, a Japanese cat with an obsession for boxes - even tiny, tiny, boxes that it cannot fit into, but fits into them anyway.

Then, as Walking With Dinosaurs played on the TV, Kalib set about to open his presents. It was clear from the box that this one from his grandma contained a dragon, but, try as he might, Kalib could not open the box.

He tried so hard to open the box that he stubbed his toe and started to cry. He went to his Uncle Rex for comfort. In the meantime, Jacob went and found some tools and began to try to open the box.

At a certain point, Kalib shifted to his mom, and there received comfort. 

Whoever had designed and constructed the box really did not want anyone to ever open it and to free the dragon. It took Jacob several minutes, but finally the dragon was out.

It was Toothless, from the movie, How to Train Your Dragon, piloted by his Viking friend, Hiccup.

Kalib went flying with them.

How they flew! And what magnificent things they saw!

If you might be worried that such a fine gift would cause Kalib to forget about his spatula, put that worry away right now.

Lisa is certain that Toothless was patterned after her black cat, Zed. To prove this, she pulled up a picture that she had taken of Zed with her iPhone and put the two side by side. "See? Toothless looks just like Zed," she said.

Since I first saw Toothless in the movie, I have been convinced that he had been patterned after Jim - not only in looks, but in movement and mannerisms.

He also got a little train.

Kalib, Toothless, Hiccup and Margie.

And this one from India:

The open road is always a wonderful and dangerous place, but, much to my now ever-lasting pain, the Indian highway is an exceptionally dangerous highway. There may be traffic laws, but if they are acknowledged at all, it is only as suggestions meant to be ignored. Lanes mean nothing. Tail-gating is taken to the extreme. It is considered good driving to charge straight at the oncoming driver from an impossibly close distance and then to swerve at the last instant and escape death from headon collision by one inch.

But there is a law on the Indian highway that is absolute. Everyone obeys this law:

Goats have the right of way.

Goats always have the right of way and that right is respected and obeyed.

View images as slide show