At the Kaktovik Eskimo dance, a young woman took my camera away from me and shot back at me - two Facebook profile pictures

Some people may not believe this, but I am in fact a painfully shy person and the thought of getting up in front of a crowd to dance - any kind of dance - is terrifying to me. Yet, during the welcoming part of Eskimo dance held Friday night in Kaktovik to close out the Healthy Communities Summit, drum leader George Kaleak would call out different groups of people to come to the floor and dance - like those from each village: Wainwright, Anaktuvuk Pass, Atqasuk... and so on.

Then I heard another drummer say to him, "photographers! photographers!" Now I was really terrified. There had been another photographer at the summit, but she had left earlier in the day. If George called out "photographers," I would have to do a solo.

But George was nice, and he used a more general term, but one that did include me. Still, I was trying to think of a way out of it, but I looked at the drummers and singers, where I saw Katheryn Aishanna, a graceful and accomplished dancer, look at me, smile and nod her head toward the floor.

I had no choice. I had to dance.

So I stepped onto the floor and began to dance in my awkward, clumsy way. As I danced, I held my camera in my right hand.

I had barely started when Ruby Rexford ran up to me and took my camera away.

Next thing I knew, Ruby was crouching on the floor, shooting pictures of me.

I glanced at her a couple of times as she worked and she reminded me of someone... who??? Who???

Hmmm... me! She reminded me of me!

Afterward, I looked at the pictures and saw that she had done an excellent job. She could be a photographer. Yes, she could.

"You must put it up on Facebook as your profile picture!" She laughed.

I promised her that I would.

So here is the frame that I chose. As soon as I post this, I will post it again as my profile pic.

And here is Ruby - in her own Facebook profile picture.

Now, I have broken all my own rules (I never cared much about rules, anyway) and I have a made a post that I didn't even take a single picture for. I did not even photograph Ruby's picture of me - which is what I am supposed to do when I put pictures in here taken by photographers other than myself.

I have just been too tired today to edit pictures, that's why.

Tired and lazy.

And with Ruby shooting for me, there was no need to.

Thank you, Ruby!

I needed a day off.

I should note that later, George called me out by name, along with some other people, so I danced again. This time, a young man from Point Hope by the name of Jeff Kuwanna took my camera and photographed me again. 

I was terrified, alright, but you know what?

I had fun.

Images from the life of Royce, part 2 of 2 - the color images: A birthday cake, a comfy lap, an amazing bond with a baby and more

After thinking more about it, I decided that I would drop part 2 and just let the previous black and white post stand as the total "Images from the life of Royce series." I did not want to overdo it. But I had made two promises - one, I would tell the story of how Royce once saved Jacob from getting a ticket.

I could not break such a promise, and so, hoping to save time by doing copy and paste, I just spent one hour searching for that story, which I wrote down shortly after it happened. I could not find it. It is out there, on some disk somewhere, probably in paper form too.

Well, now that I have thrown an hour away, I'll sum it up:

Royce had a brother, a black cat by the name of Little Guy (not to be confused with my own Little Guy) whom Jacob gave to his friend, Angel. Angel and Little Guy now live in Phoenix, but back then they lived in Wasilla. One day, Jacob. Jacob put Royce in a pet carrier of the kind that fold and are made either of plastic or cardboard so that he could take him to Angel's house to play with his brother. Royce hated to travel in the car and howled and fussed all the way over.

I understand that once they got there and Royce went inside and saw Little Guy, he calmed right down and they had an excellent time.

When it came time to go home, Royce fought hard against the idea of getting back into the pet carrier, but Jacob stuffed him in anyway.

Again, Royce howled and screamed and clawed and fought, but he could not get out of the carrier... until he did. He went a little mad. Jacob then stuffed him back into the carrier, but Royce now had his escape technique down and just kept popping back out.

Jacob gunned the gas, hoping to get home fast. A cop pulled him over on Lucille for breaking 50 in a 35 mph speed.

Royce was out of the box, but now he wanted out of the car. The cop came with his ticket book pulled out and motioned to Jake to roll down his window. Jake partially did. Royce lunged for it. Jacob pulled him back and tried to get him back into the carrier, but Royce soon broke free and lunged for the window again.

This kept up for awhile until the cop gave up and told Jacob just to get that cat home as quickly as possible.

That's how Royce saved Jacob from getting a speeding ticket.

Of course, you could also say that Royce was the one who caused Jake to speed in the first place - but, knowing Jake, he would probably have sped anyway and then would surely have gotten a ticket.

So Royce actually did save him.

Royce and Melanie.

Caleb and Royce.

Lisa and Royce.

Charlie, Royce and the Oldsmobile Starfire. 

Charlie and Royce.

On December 26, 2007, a new baby was born into this family. When Jacob and Lavina brought Kalib out, Royce was right there, hanging close. We did not know it, but an amazing relationship had just begun. This is the second thing that I promised to do in this post - explain something of this relationship to newer readers who might not know.

Kalib and his family moved in with us for over a year so that they could save money to buy a house. During that year, Royce was always watching over Kalib and hanging out with him. He watched when ate his first birthday cake.

He was there to coach him on when Kalib took his first steps and his mother cried.

When Kalib went out to hunt Easter eggs for the first time, Royce was right there with him.

The two were together most all the time.

They would even go walking with Muzzy, out in the marsh.

When Kalib laid down to marvel at the mystery of a fluffy white cloud floating through a deep, blue, sky, Royce gave him a soft pillow on which to lie his head.

Kalib could be exuberantly rough with Royce, but no matter how rough he got, Royce understood and tolerated. Not once did he ever claw or bite him.

Not once. Martigny clawed once, but not Royce. Not ever.

Kalib could be caring and gentle, too, willing to share his food.

Kalib would cuddle the cat.

Royce did so love his little friend!

When little Kalib would sleep, Royce would watch over him.

Kalib was not the only one to ever use Royce as a pillow.

Then he got sick and I had to give him medicine.

I could go on and on and on. There's lots more, but I will just leave it here with Royce in the window, when he was good and healthy.

Images from the life of Royce, part 1 of 2: The black and whites - using his tail for a sail, the fluffy kitten sets out to explore the icy seas; more

Yesterday, I promised to post some pictures from the life of Royce, the cat who was always searching for love. Well, if I do what I was intending to do, this post will not be up for awhile, for I feel rather drained at the moment and lack the energy to do it. So, for now, I am just going to a post a few of the many black and white images that I took of him before I started shooting digital and hence, color. I will pretty much let the pictures tell the stories themselves.

Here is Royce, as a very young kitten, finding love with his "Uncle" Clyde.

In the first spring of his life, Royce decided that he wanted to be a sailor and sail the seven seas of the world. With a little assistance from Lisa, he set out to do so, but his boat wobbled, he paniced and jumped out.

Soon, he got his courage back. Royce returned to his boat, raised his own tail to use for a sail, caught the wind and then ventured off to explore the world.

He returned with many wonderful stories to tell and he told, always using but one word:

"Meow."

There used to be an old spool in the backyard. We made many uses of it, from rocket-launching pad to picnic table.

Royce made pretty good use of it, too.

Royce loved his dandelions. They matched his fur and his mane. Often, he would sit in them looking just like a king.

Royce, the Dandelion King.

One day an intruder by the name of Happy came from the house next door to invade Royce's dandelion kingdom. Royce was not happy.

Royce hissed and he growled and he snarled and he drove that intruder right out.

Royce loved it when the dandelions went to seed, because then he could leap into the air, catch the breeze, and drift about with the little parachutes.

Royce drifts over the dandelions.

Down he comes.

Off he walks.

That's my boy.

Royce C. Boy.

That's what I often called him, "Roycie Boy."

One day, Caleb felt melancholy and went out to sit on the porch. Royce saw him, went out and sat down by him so that they could be melancholy together. That's what a cat who always seeks love does - he gives love and so gets love.

During the time of construction of our addition, a carpenter left a ladder against the house. Royce climbed that ladder, to see what the world looked like from up there.

Melanie saw him, grew worried and went up to rescue her beloved cat. Royce would not be rescued. As the late Willow observed, he began the trip down the ladder all by himself.

Royce descends the ladder.

On the night of her Senior Prom, it was Royce who had the honor to dance first with my beautiful daughter, Melanie. Make no mistake, Melanie was Royce's girl.

During the time of the Miller's Reach Fire, when the flaming forest burned down 300 homes and buildings and we nervously watched the advancing smoke, Royce remained calm. He and the late Little Guy took a walk into and out of the marsh, which had pretty much dried up from the almost constant and unusual heat of that summer.

Royce and me, as photographed by Melanie.

There is no picture of me that I like better than this one. When I had a show go up in the atrium of the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, this is the photo that I chose to go with it.

Royce and me, together.

I will see if I can get the second post, the color post, up before the day is over. When I do, because I promised I would, I will at least tell the story of how Royce saved Jacob from getting a speeding ticket.

Cibecue Creek, part 4: We frolic at the magical falls; Jacob does a back-flop, Rex gets dizzy; we hike out in a race against darkness

As an old man watching from an audience of stone faces observes with a wry smile, Caleb takes a big leap and plummets into the pool below Cibecue Falls.

How could a place where spirit faces peer out from ancient stone be anything but magical?

You can be certain that when Jacob - who was actually the first to jump and jumped the most - hit the water on this plunge, he felt it. It stung; it felt for a moment like he had fallen into concrete. Later, when I asked him what in the world ever got into him to try it this way, he told me he thought that he could complete the rotation before he hit the water.

Remember, my children grew up in Alaska and never had much of an opportunity to hone their water-sport skills.

It looks to me like that old man who peers out from the rocks chuckled a bit as Jacob plunged past.

Even so, Jacob swam away feeling good about the experience.

I think he could have kept at it for hours - if we had hours available to keep at it. We didn't. The sun had long since left the canyon and we knew it would be getting dark soon.

It looked like a decent enough jump for Rex...

...but when he first tried to emerge from the water, he found that he had become dizzy, unable to stand. It took awhile, but finally Rex recovered enough to rise. He took no more jumps after that. Water had gotten into his ears and would stay there for a day or two.

Charlie hit okay.

As all this was going on, Kalib engaged in a game of "throw the rock." His mother stuck close by to guide and watch over him.

Lisa didn't jump, but she did swim a bit.

Melanie spent some time floating in the shallow end of the pool, where the jumpers would not come down on top of her.

As for me, I spent too much time trying to photograph it all with my pocket camera. Finally, I decided to go up and jump, but because of my shoulder, I began to climb very slow and deliberate, and then realized that it was going to take me so long that I had better abandon it, if we were to get out of the canyon before dark.

Anyone can believe that I just chickened out, should they choose, but anyone who knows my history in this life would know that is not true.

Still, I can't stop anyone from believing whatever they are going to believe.

Even before the jumping finished, everyone posed for a picture... well, not quite everyone...

Now it's everyone.

Before we began the hike out, we refueled on mangos, a giant sandwich, oatmeal bars, assorted berry candy and other delicacies.

Now we knew we had to hurry, if we were to get Kalib out by dark. Kalib himself gamely plunged forward.

Sometimes, he needed a little help - but remember, he is only two-and-a-half years old. I think he was doing pretty well.

Once he fell and completely submerged. Cibecue Creek took the hat that he had borrowed from Jobe and swept it right off his head. Still, he got up and forged on.

Not withstanding the big hurry that we were in, we had to stop when Kalib needed another diaper change. A dark rock was releasing the heat that it had gathered from the sun back into the cooling air, so, while Lavina changed the diaper, my fellow hikers laid down upon that rock to absorb some of that solar warmth themselves.

After his diaper had been changed, Kalib found a big stone and played, "strong man."

Now we had to hurry as fast as was safe to go. The sun had officially set - even above the canyon walls. Arizona is not like Alaska, where daylight lingers long even after the sun goes down. In Arizona, after the sun goes down, dark comes fast.

When we reached the small dirt and gravel parking where Cibecue Creek empties into the Salt River, the light was just about gone.

Before we could drive away, Lavina had to change Kalib's diaper one more time. She had only the light of the inside car lamps to work with. After spending six hours with his feet either submerged in water or held in soaked shoes, Kalib's feet were wrinkled to the extreme.

He was also extremely drowsy. At the moment his mom finished changing his diaper and strapped him into his car seat, Kalib fell asleep.

As we drove through the night along the dirt and gravel road that follows the Salt River toward the highway, the moon rose over the canyon walls.

Kalib slept all the way back to LeeAnn's house - a drive of about an hour-and-a-half. He did not wake up when Jacob unstrapped him and carried him inside. He did not wake up when his grandma took him from his dad so that she could hold him on her lap and love him.

He did not wake when his mother got him ready for bed. He did not wake when she put him to bed. He slept until the following morning.

It was a well-earned sleep.

I think he did pretty damned good.

Remember - he is only two-and-half.

This morning, I encounter a little conflict between the Wasilla Tea Party and my grandson Jobe - who do you think will win?

Recent readers will recall that Kalib burst into my office yesterday as I was working on this blog - just when I had gotten to the point where I was about to arrive at the Wasilla Tea Party rally, staged April 15, Tax Day. This little surprise knocked me off my schedule and when I tried to get back on, too much of the day had passed. I could spend no more of that day working on this blog than I already had, so I stopped, and left it to speculation as to whether or not I would get my tea party rally coverage up today, or ever, or whether I might get distracted by the natural progression of life.

This morning, I sort of woke up thinking that I had better post those Tea Party pictures and I had better write something about what I observed as I wandered through the rally. If not, then what was the point of ever taking the pictures in the first place? What was the point of listening to participants speak those words - some articulate and thoughtful, some totally absurd?

I say, "sort of woke up" because I am not 100 percent certain that I ever really went to sleep and if I did not ever really go to sleep then how could I have woke up?

So I am rather tired. I am not certain that I possess the energy required to think through the words that I must write to go along with the Tea Party pictures.

I will start today's post with this picture of Jobe, Lavina and Margie and see what happens from here - if I make it back to the Tea Party or not.

Even when I am so sleepy that my brain hardly functions, I can find a few words to write about Jobe.

Lavina had brought the two little ones out in part because Kalib has been very clingy towards his mom lately - at least when he gets the chance. So often, when he wants her, she is busy with Jobe, taking care of his needs. Kalib's day care center had scheduled a very special, annual fun day for he and his classmates and all their parents today, one at which a surprise animal always shows up.

Last year, it was a kangaroo.

Lavina wanted to be able to devote a period of uninterrupted, special time to Kalib and his fun day and so we agreed to keep Jobe with us overnight and to return him to Anchorage Saturday afternoon. It would be the first time that Lavina had ever been separated from Jobe for more than a couple of hours.

In the meantime, as the three visited us, both Kalib and Jobe fell asleep. By now, it was 4:00 PM. Coffee and All Things Considered time. So, as Margie stayed behind with the babies, Lavina joined me in the car, we went to Metro, got our coffee and then took the long way home.

Along the way, we saw this student leaving his school bus. I felt a little bad that Kalib was not in the car with us. The sight of a school bus greatly excites him. He would have loved this moment.

Shortly after we got home, not without misgivings near to the point of tears, Lavina picked up her oldest son and left her baby boy behind with we, the grandparents.

She would have a very hard night. One that would bring her to tears - especially when she looked at Jobe's changing table and the place where he sleeps. Even at midnight, she would almost give in, drive out, and pick up her baby - but, for the sake of her oldest son, she persevered and left him with us.

A bit later, I had to check the mail and run a couple of errands. As I did so, I kept hearing sirens and those deep-pitched yet screechy, loud horn blasts that firetrucks make when they are in a hurry and need to get around people. It sounded like the end of the world.

Many screaming, blasting, vehicles passed outside my range of vision, but when I came in sight of the highway, I saw this one coming behind the others - and police cars, too.

Trucks from different stations were involved. It appeared that something major had happened.

Right after the above truck passed, this guy came by on a motorcycle.

Now I had to pull out onto the highway. No more emergency vehicles were in sight, nor could I hear anymore coming. So out onto the highway I went. Then I heard a police siren. I looked in my mirror and saw a police car coming, fast. The traffic was packed in our lanes near the stop light where I now was, so the driver veered into the oncoming lane of traffic, shot past and ran the red light.

This fire vehicle soon followed, and went round on the right.

The driver, as he passed me. I scanned the horizons ahead for smoke, but could see none. I turned off the Highway onto Lucille Street and headed back towards home.

I do not know what happened. This morning, I looked at the Mat-Su section of the Anchorage Daily News, but there was not a word about it. So, for all the drama, it must not have been as bad as it appeared, but, I suspect, for someone, it was very bad indeed.

I decided just to spend some time relaxing in front of the TV with Margie and Jobe - something I very rarely do. We watched The 3:10 to Yuma. To me, there will never be a better kind of escapist movie than a good western.

To his great joy, I gave Jobe some whiskerly love.

And then I fed him some twice-warmed Momma's Milk.

At bedtime, Margie tied Jobe into his cradle board and put him down in our room. Not long afterward, I came in. As regular readers will know, I am joined by at least one and usually two, sometimes three or four, cats every night.

We decided to keep the cats out on this night. What if one of them jumped up onto Jobe's cradleboard?

And that is why I am so sleepy, why I wonder if I ever slept.

Two of those cats, Pistol and Jim, positioned themselves outside the door and kept up a ruckus, all night long. I know I gave in and got up and groggily let one, then the other, in, but somehow, each found the opportunity to get out at some point and then start pleading, pawing, and tapping to get back in.

As you would expect, Jobe woke up crying a couple of times.

And when I heard his little cry, pulling me again into full awakeness from the edge of sleep, I smiled and chuckled.

Never in my life have I heard a more beautiful sound than that little cry.

And so ends this post. No Wasilla Tea Party today.