Sushi birthday party

When you enter Ronnie's Sushi house in Anchorage, there is a tank full of live fish close to the door.

The girl on the left - Lisa - she is the reason we gathered here. It was her 24th birthday party. H'mmm? Did I just call her a girl? Twenty-four. That must mean she is a woman - a full-fledged, beautiful, talented, woman. But she is my little girl. She will always be my little girl. My little baby girl.

Behind her, you can barely see the forehead of her boyfriend, Bryce. Bryce's parents, Brian and Lorena, came, too, as did his little nephew, Logan.

Lisa, as photographed through my glass of water.

Margie, as photographed through my glass of water.

You will remember Ryan from Rex's birthday party. This is he and his girlfriend, Jessica, as seen through my water glass. I photographed everybody this way, including myself, and I was going to post them all, but this is enough. You get the idea.

Lisa's boyfriend, Bryce, bought this sushi boat. Margie tried to pay for it, but he got to the counter first. So Margie was going to pay for everything else - and there was quite a bit else - but Charlie beat her to it.

Well, if Charlie is going to pay for a huge portion of the dinner, then surely he should be seen through my water glass, too. Here he is. This is Charlie. It's not Dan, it's not Robert, it's not Michelle. 

It's Charlie.

He is a mighty generous and thoughtful man and he lives with a great black cat named Pizzles that Melanie rescued a few years back.

Kalib told a funny joke and everyone at that end of the table laughed. I would share the joke with you, but it was rather ribald, so I had better not.

Bryce's parents gave Lisa this Chicago Cubs hat as a birthday present.

I think that it was Jacob and Lavina who gave her this pair of shoes. I could be wrong. She got a variety of gifts and I cannot remember who gave her each one. I do know that Melanie gave her a table with a yellow top and Lisa was very pleased with it.

She and Bryce have been eating off the floor and were in need of a table.

I might exaggerate the circumstance just a little bit.

We then moved to Melanie's house for the cake and ice cream. Here is Diamond. Margie and I gave Lisa the mix-master, plus a spatula to go with it.

Jacob and Cassie.

Jessica, Kalib and Ryan.

Rex carries Lisa's birthday cake to her. Margie made the cake.

Lisa blows the candles out.

After she blows them out, the candles light right back up again. They are trick candles, that is why. Kalib is very amused by this unexpected turn of events.

It takes a great deal of blowing by multiple lungs, but, after a couple of hours, the candles had all been blown out. 

And there was a lot of spit on the frosting.

Kalib, who enjoyed his cake.

Melanie, Kalib and Rex dance.

I have a couple of friends in the hospital and I wanted to stop in and see them before we drove back to Wasilla, so Margie and I left a bit early. Kalib waves to his Grandma.

Let me note that there is a new pocket camera out now, called the G11. It is much better suited for low-light photography than is this G1O that I am using, and I have been tempted to buy it. I probably will. But right now, I hate to spend the $500.

My pro-cameras would produce much finer image quality, but I do not want to carry them to such a function. I want to carry only a pocket camera.

So I come knowing that the images will be noisy, grainy, with much motion blur, because I am shooting mostly at 1/30 and even 1/15 of a second. But I don't care. I know a lot of people do, but not me. As long as I can catch a bit of the feeling and emotion, then I am fine with the noise, the grain, and the blur.

Still, one day, in time for this year's tax returns, I will get that G11. 

Catching up,* Final: Family Restaurant leftovers

Kalib and his mom as we enter Family Restaurant. 

Other people wait to enter and they look pretty darned excited and hungry.

Charlie and Melanie soon joined us. The last time we had seen Charlie, his hair was long, so this was a bit of a surprise.

Soon, there will be a toast at the table. In fact, there will be several pieces of toast.

Melanie and Charlie, who drove all the way out from Anchorage just to eat breakfast at Family Restaurant with us. It would have been nice if the entire family had come, but not everybody could make it.

Kalib examines his mother's wedding ring.

There were many happy people at Family Restaurant that day. Even though most present were strangers, it kind of felt like we were all one, big, family, all eating at Family, all enjoying breakfast together separately.

Jacob, at Family.

Do you remember how wonderful it felt, when you were his age, and you got to lay your head against your mother's chest and listen to her heartbeat? Although the recollections are a bit dreamy, I do remember. And, just a short distance away from the heart that Kalib listens to, a new one, ever so tiny, also beats.

After we ate, we headed back to the car and passed by this Doggie in the Window. None of us knew how much it was. Probably, it wasn't for sale at all.

*Yesterday's post mistakenly claimed it to be the final of the catch-up series. This is because I had originally scheduled this one to appear earlier in the week, but then moved it to this day so that I could post snow pictures. Then I simply forgot to correct yesterday's post before it went up. When the post was up and I saw my error, I thought, "Oh, well."

In honor of a veteran Dad who flew into hell... again... and again... and again... along with all other veterans and those who now serve

Dad is the man who lies in this flag-draped coffin. I will not say too much about him for now, except that he was a good father and that, thanks to him, and many more like him, most of them gone now, the evil dream of a man named Hitler died in flames and blood.

We buried Dad on June 2, 2007. He died on Memorial Day.

A short time earlier, at his Mormon chapel in Sandy, Utah. You can see that Melanie served as one of the pre-honor guard pallbearers. To her left stands my nephew-in-law, Vivek Iyer and to her right, my nephew-in-law, Steve Cook. My niece, Sarah Fox, daughter of my late brother, Ron, stands on the other side of the coffin.

Other family members can be seen in the background, including my brothers Mac and Rex and my nieces, Khena and Shaela.

A few days earlier, as he lay on his death bed. The important thing to understand about the picture that my sister, Mary Ann, shows to Dad before he goes is that it is not just any old, dramatic, war picture. It is a picture that I grew up with, because it was taken from his B-24 bomber and he knew the men in the plane that is breaking apart.

He knew also that it could just as easily have been his plane and at any moment might yet be. Each time he sandwiched himself into the navigator's hutch he knew this. Yet always he went. Fear did not stop him.

Dad did this kind of thing over and over during World War II, flying out of bases in North Africa and Europe. Once, he and his crew took off on a mission in a squadron of seven. Only their airplane reached the target and returned.

Another time, a German machine gun bullet ripped through the fuselage and struck his flight helmet right at his forehead. It spun the helmet around 180 degrees and knocked Dad unconscious. Believing him to be dead, his Captain ordered another crewman to shove him aside and take his place.

Mary Ann gives Dad a kiss.

Dad, as he looked on August 8, 2004.

I will post these images again one day. I once sent several stories that I wrote about Dad to Soundarya after she requested that I do so. Last summer, she told me that I should post them here and I will, when the time is right and I have the time.

I should also note that this is not one of the week's plus worth of posts that I put up on Thursday, November 5, because I was too ill to concentrate on my work and wanted to have several days of uninterrupted time to concentrate on my work as I recovered. I did not think of Veteran's Day at that time. 

The deaths of the 13 soldiers at Fort Hood and those that we continually hear about in Afghanistan and Iraq put Veteran's Day into my head.

Along with my Dad, I honor all these as well, along with those who now stand in harm's way.

Catching up with more missed photos, part 3*: The great Black Cat Football fake

I had no idea why Margie was holding a pan with a football in it on her lap. "Are we going to have boiled football for dinner tonight?" I asked.

It turns out, she didn't know why she had it there, either.

Somehow, I think this guy was behind it. Kalib comes to get the football.

It would appear that Melanie is simply giving Jim a few pets, but all those intimately familiar with the game of American football will recognize this as the famous "Black Cat Fake."

The "Black Cat Fake" worked! Melanie snags the football!

What a catch! She proves herself to be the greatest receiver in the world.

What a pass! She proves herself to be the greatest quarterback in the world.

Whoa! What an interception! She proves herself to be the greatest defensive back in the world! This is my daughter and I am damn proud of her - even when there is no football involved.

The football is put away. Charlie and Royce chill. Charlie knows about cats. Cats know about Charlie.

*Although I have scheduled this to appear Tuesday, November 10, I actually made this post on Thursday, November 5. There are two reasons for this: 1: whatever bug it is that has got me down has left me unable to concentrate to the degree that I must to do my work. 2: The project that I have been working on is very nearly done, but I have never brought such a project to a close without going full-bore, night and day, on it at the end, distracted by no other tasks, including this blog.

So, before I go to bed, I am going to put up several days worth of posts from photos that I have recently taken but have not used. Then, for the next several days, I will not blog, I will stay away from the internet as much as possible and just bear down on getting this job done - but my posts will keep coming.

I think Kalib with get three of those posts, two at the very least.

Melanie's recipe for pumpkin chili

In the week following the Halloween chili feed, I have received 6,795,351.82 angry emails and twice that many phone calls from irate readers, all demanding to know why I had not posted Melanie's pumpkin chili recipe. At first, it was just an annoyance, but lately these missives have begun to get threatening. Readers say if I don't post the recipe right away, they will abandon this blog and return no more.

It's not fair to me, because I am horribly sick and am coughing like crazy, wondering if I will die before the night ends, but if I lost that many readers, I would only have three left. I need to keep at least four readers, just to sustain my will to keep on blogging. So, as difficult as this is for me, I now post Melanie's pumpkin chili recipe:

1 Sugar pumpkin, about 2 lbs.

1 T. vegetable oil

1 large yellow onion, peeled and chopped

2 T. chili powder

1 T. curry powder

2 t. cumin

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

6 plum tomatoes, chopped

2 1/2 cooked bulgar

1 can kidney or pinto beans (drained and rinsed)

1/2 c. toasted (green) pumpkin seeds

1/2 c. chopped cilantro leaves and stems

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375. Cut the pumpkin in half with a large cleaver, ulu, or pocket knife, depending on what is convenient.

Scoop out the seeds, remove the stringy innards and feed them to the dog (I am not certain how Melanie accomplished this step, since she has two cats and no dog). Rinse the seeds in a colander to remove fleshy bits. Lay the seeds out on a paper towel to dry. Place the pumpkin open side down and bake until the flesh is soft, about 50 minutes to one hour. Remove the pumpkin from the oven and put it aside to cool. Sprinkle rinsed and dried pumpkin seeds on a baking sheet, sprinkle with some salt, and toast in the oven until they are nicely browned and crisp, about ten minutes. Set seeds aside.

In a large saucepan or stockpot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic, as well as the spices. Stir often for about five minutes, or until the onions turn soft. Add the tomatoes and bulgar (just what is bulgar, anyway? I meant to ask, but Melanie's out doing some work in Dillingham and can't be bothered with such questions) and about 2 cups of water. Bring to a simmer.

Meanwhile, spoon the flesh from the pumpkin and add it to the simmering chili along with the beans. Cook the the chili for about 20 minutes, adding more water if necessary to attain desired chili consistency. Right before serving, add the toasted pumpkin seeds and the cilantro. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve hot.

Melanie forgot to include this part, so I now take it upon myself to do so. Although this is a vegetarian dish, one that my Hindu relatives in India could eat with clear conscience, if you would like to add a special Alaskan touch to it, one that your visitors from the Far North will greatly appreciate, then serve it with a side of seal oil, to be applied at the discretion of your guests. 

Corn bread is also recommended. You can dip this in the seal oil, too.

As should be obvious to everyone, the picture is of Melanie and Charlie, who took my picture as I took theirs'. This kind of thing seems to happen all the time, anymore. In this case, it all happened before I got sick, before Melanie went to Dillingham.

As I am posting this two days ahead of its actual scheduled appearance on the net, maybe Melanie will be back by the time you read this. Maybe I will be feeling better. Maybe we will all be eating pumpkin chili.