The wind tries to blow the moon away; Jimmy is a bad good cat; we pick up Kalib and Jobe; beauty at the cave temples

Again, I found myself walking in the hard, cold, wind which has seemed to become perpetual lately - temperature about 0 F. Yesterday afternoon, I heard a forecast on the radio calling for an overnight high wind advisory, with winds gusting up to 80 mph (130 km/h) at some places in this valley and temperatures going to -20 F (-28 C).

That would be quite a wind-chill factor.

Well, the night has past and none of that quite came true here - maybe it did somewhere else in the valley but not here. Still, it was a mighty cold brisk wind out there and when you went walking in it, it let you know it.

Even so, Ubiquitous Raven came sailing by.

On the moon, there was no wind at all. See how still it is up there?

The day before, a triple stop sign had ordered me to stop three times. Now, I was ordered to stop once, but I was on foot, so I did not obey that order.

Well, I guess I stopped to take the picture.

But not because I was ordered to.

If I were a child, and  had a sled...

So, just why did the chicken cross the road? I don't know, and this dog doesn't either. Furthermore, neither one of us cares. If a chicken wants to cross the road, that's the chicken's business.

Why do people make such a big deal about a chicken crossing the road, anyway?

When I left to go on my walk, Jimmy had been sitting on the sill of my office window, looking out. This had made me a bit nervous, as Jimmy can do some pretty bad things when he has the office to himself. He turns off hard drives, erases things from my computer and types gibberish into my stories.

I am not making this up - he does all of these things.

Plus, he loves to push things off counters, desks and tables and watch them fall to the floor.

Even so, he looked so happy in the window sill that I decided to chance it and leave him there.

I came home the back way, through the marsh, hoping that I might find some moose there.

I didn't, but when I came up through our back yard, I saw Jimmy sitting right where I had left him about one hour before.

He had been a good cat.

But then Jimmy is always a good cat, even when he is bad.

I don't know how there could be a better cat than Jimmy.

He is ten-and-a-half years old now.

If he goes before me, which seems quite possible, it will be very hard.

Jacob and Lavina wanted to do some major house cleaning this weekend, so they asked us to take the boys. We agreed and in the late afternoon drove into Anchorage to get them.

As you can see, Anchorage has not been scoured by the same high winds that we have - except for the Anchorage Hillside, populated largely by rich people who every winter endure 100 mph plus winds, but they have a really good view from up there. They can see Cook Inlet, Denali, Foraker and a host of active volcanoes.

The snow did not mostly all blow away there the way it did in Wasilla. Plenty was left behind to weather the big warmup - that warmup now being history.

Here we are, picking up the boys. Muzzy wants to come, too. We will not let him.

Now we are getting ready to leave, but before we do, Lisa stops by. That's her and Jacob in the driveway.

On the way out, we stopped at Taco Bell on Muldoon and found a cop with his lights flashing, parked behind an empty vehicle.

I have no idea what the story was. You could look in the Anchorage Daily News, but I doubt that you will find it there, either.

I could have played the role of the true reporter, gotten out, interviewed the officer, took a picture of any suspect with her hands over her eyes. I could have done something like that. I have those basic skills, you know.

If I had done it, then I could tell you why the cop had stopped behind the empty car.

But I was more interested in eating my burrito than in getting the story.

Nobody can fire me.

This is my blog and if I would rather eat a burrito than report on a cop-stop, I can.

We then drove on to Wasilla. The winds weren't bad at all until we reached the hay flats. Then it felt kind of like being in an airplane, flying through turbulence, except that the bumps and jolts were all lateral - no up and down.

A couple of times, we damn near got blasted out of our lane. I could hear the sound of dust and small pebbles smacking the car.

But we made it. I was glad, too, because if we hadn't have I would never have seen this tanker truck roar through the intersection of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways.

I don't know about you, but, at the end of a long, hard, tough, day, I really enjoy seeing a truck blast through the intersection like this.

It just takes all the stress that I feel and carries it down the road with it.

Poor truck driver! Now he must deal with that stress.

Better him than me.

He's probably tougher than I am, better able to take it.

Truck drivers are known for being tough, able to take it.

Once in the house, Kalib found a flashlight. I found another. We played flashlight games.

Jobe does not know how to use a flashlight, but that did not stop him from joining in the games.

Yes, Kalib had brought his spatula - none of the expensive, fancy toys that he got for Christmas and his birthday. Just his spatula.

And this from India:

Two girls in front of the cave temples of Badami.

I hate to say this, and I mean no offense to any of my fellow Americans, but after one spends a little time in India and then returns to the US, the way people dress here - at least the women - just seems kind of dull and drab by comparison.

The women in India just dress beautifully - even poverty stricken women, begging in the streets.

They remind me of the Navajo saying, "I walk in beauty."

Badami is a long way from Navajo land, but the red rocks kind of remind me of it, as do temples, built in caves - not the same at all but yet evocative of cliff dwellings.

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Saga of the spatula continues; Bangalore girl

Today is Jacob's birthday, so yesterday I drove to Anchorage with Margie so that we could pick up the little ones and bring them home with us. This would give Jacob and Lavina a chance to go out on a date, just like they used to do before the babies came along.

As we drove towards town, we saw that this blue car had left the road and wound up on the other side of the fence. There were a number of police vehicles around, but I saw no ambulance. I hope this means that no one was hurt, but I don't know.

When we arrived at the house, we found Kalib with his spatula.

Lavina wanted me to take a picture of her and her boys in their Christmas jammies so that she could make a family Christmas card out of it.

Kalib put on his jammies, but still he kept hold of that spatula.

The idea was to get Muzzy and everybody posed, but Muzzy was shooting all over the place and Kalib had momentarily replaced his spatula with a shovel. All he wanted to do now was to shovel snow - Christmas card pictures be damned.

So, do you think I managed to pull a worthy Christmas card picture out of this chaos?

I don't know. I haven't looked at "the poses" yet. We will find out in time.

Soon, Kalib was dressed, had once again recovered his spatula and was ready to head back to Wasilla with us. 

When he realized that his parents and little brother were not coming, too, he cried a little bit, but held fast to the spatula.

Now it is late at night and Kalib lies in bed, next to his grandmother. The spatula is nowhere in sight, but still Kailb will fall asleep.

As for little Jobe, tied snug into his cradleboard, he has already fallen asleep.

And now, one frame from India:

Bangalore girl.

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We feast - the spatula, the leap, the dinosaur, a rolling baby, a short, dreamy, nap...

When Margie and I entered Jacob and Lavina's house for Thanksgiving dinner, we found Kalib with a spatula. The word is that he keeps this spatula with him almost all the time now. It has become his favorite toy.

After he climbed onto the arm of the couch, Kalib wanted to be certain that I was watching him.

When he knew for certain that he had my attention, Kalib leaped. Afterwards, he came running to me so that he could look at this picture on my camera's LCD monitor. It was the first time that he had done that.

I don't think it will be the last.

Jobe was there, too. Still in his mother's arms. As you can see, he has great admiration for his grandpa.

Jobe and Muzzy.

As I had never seen Kalib in the dinosaur outfit that he wore on Halloween, he modeled it just for me: Kalibsaurus.

Kalibsaurus runs into the kitchen, ready to devour all that he sees.

Suji - this one's for you.

Jobe, looking for his Aunt Suji, who is 9000 miles away.

Jobe has turned into a rolling baby. Instead of learning to crawl, he is learning to roll. I had to put my foot on him, just to keep him from rolling out of the house and all the way off to India to look for his Aunt Suji.

Gramma and Jobe.

The Ckaleibs.

Jake let's Bryce sample the turkey.

There were two tables - a higher one with stools and a lower one with chairs. It was too hard for Margie to sit on the stools, so she sat at the shorter table. I joined her there.

This is what it looked like, when I stood up and peeked over the top of the crowd. The fellow to the left is Carl, a friend of Rex's and that's Charlie's parents, Jim and Cyndy, next to him.

At first, I was a little disappointed that dinner was going to be at Jacob and Lavina's instead of our house. They planned it this way because I had intended to stay on the Slope for Thanksgiving, but after the tragedy I wanted only to come home.

As it turned out it was, perhaps, the most excellent Thanksgiving dinner that I have ever eaten - much better than Margie and I would have done. This because Jacob and Lavina are on their way to becoming master chefs. They love to watch shows like Iron Chef and other cooking extravaganzas, none of which interest me much.

But my goodness, what they have learned!

Who would have ever thought that you could cook cherries into dressing and come up with something so wonderful?

And it is not just what they see others do on the shows, but the creative thought process that it has helped to create in them. Before they began to prepare this meal, Jacob read up on the original Thanksgiving, when the Pilgrims got together with the indigenous people who had saved their lives and they feasted as friends.

He read that they ate squash, cooked with nuts and berries. So he cooked squash with walnuts, almonds and berries... and... oh my... just ask Lisa... who is still raving over it...

Delicious beyond delicious!

Scrumptious. Exquisite. Tantalizing!

The turkeys were pretty darn good, too...

...as was the company.

We are very fortunate in this family in that we, including those who have joined in to become part of us, all enjoy being together.

I was thinking about various Thanksgiving and holiday TV dramas and sitcoms where people come in and engage in verbal combat and unpleasantness before coming to or failing to reach whatever resolutions are necessary, but it is not that way here.

We all live tumultuous lives in our own ways, but we like to be together.

We are not only family, we are all friends.

Even so, to be quite honest, I sometimes had problems staying with all the conversations throughout, because my mind and spirit was burdened with a huge hurt. After we ate, several of us went into the living room to converse, but my body felt so tired and weary and my eyelids grew so heavy that I could not keep them open.

So I closed them, and reclined on the reclining chair, picking up snippets of the conversation until it morphed into dream bits in my mind and then became a dream.

I have no idea how long I stayed this way, but at some point I dimly heard Charlie's dad speaking of an airplane, maybe a Super Cub, flying at 30 mph and landing on a dime. And then I was in my now broken airplane, the Running Dog, and I was sliding between the tops of spruce trees along the Yukon River toward a frozen slough, covered in untouched, pristine, snow... slipping ever so slowly downward, my power pulled back to the minimum, my prop spinning slowly, my skis soon to slide into the snow.

I could feel the air as my wings slipped through it at minimum speed.

And sitting in the back seat was Soundarya, seeing all this frozen, wintry, magic of Alaska for the first time.

This jolted me to full awake.

I opened my eyes and the above is what I saw.

Elsewhere, I found that the turkey had overcome Rex, who would be leaving for San Francisco to join Ama in just a few hours.

Now, he is with her and her family at Lake Tahoe, where I suspect the snow is probably 10 feet deep - maybe deeper.

Back in the dining room, I found people going at round two - desert. Pumpkin pie and cookies and a superb blueberry crunch that Cyndy had made. Little Jobe was pigging out on some fruit-flavored, dehydrated treats made just for babies.

They are quite tasty. So I had one. Maybe I had two. Perhaps three... it's possible that I even ate four, but I certainly didn't eat the whole thing and I never have.

This is a story that Jacob is spreading and it is simply not true.

If you hear Jacob say it. Don't believe it.

Perhaps I ate five, but certainly no more than that.

The evening ended with Kalib chasing Melanie around the little tent. Or maybe Melanie was chasing Kalib. I was never quite certain who was chasing who.

I was glad they were not tigers, though. If they had been tigers, they would have chased each other until they got hold of each other's tails and then they would both have turned into butter.

That's what tigers do.

About 9:00 PM, Margie and I set out for Wasilla.

The roads were icy and slick. Off to the sides, I could see many dark forms of vehicles that had slid off the road. This one, however, still had its lights on.

At one point, up ahead, across the divide in the oncoming lanes, I barely managed to pick out the outline of a trotting moose silhouetted in the brief flash of a headlight and I could see that we were on a collision course.

Even with the new anti-lock breaks, braking on slick ice is a very tricky thing, so I began to hit the breaks in firm but gentle pumps, always letting go just when it felt like the car was going to go into a spin. I stopped, just in time, as the moose passed through my headlights.

I think of that moose and how it looked in our headlights at the last instant, its eyes big and fearful and I wish that I had got a picture of it. There are times that one must keep both hands on the steering wheel and this was one of those times.

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The brothers two: Kalib and Jobe - what do they think of each other? I stop briefly at All Saints Episcopal to pay my respects to Senator Ted Stevens; a man walks alongside a fence

I made a quick trip to Anchorage late this afternoon and visited Kalib and Jobe. Jobe had been on his mother's lap, but Kalib pulled him from her and held him - for a few brief seconds.

This could be deceptive. Kalib is not trying to slug Jobe. Kalib is merely bounding across the couch with his usual energy. Lavina knows how rough Kalib can play and so she is ready, just in case he bounds too far.

Jobe studies his big brother. I wonder what he thinks of him? I wonder how he will think of him in the future? I had three older brothers and when I was small I looked at them with a combination of terror, adoration and, of course, love.

Well, the terror part didn't really apply too often to Ron, the youngest of three, four-and-half years older than me. He had his terror moments, but mostly he was very good to me, bought me treats, let me read his comic books, Mad Magazine and often took me out to fly the wonderful model airplanes that he spent so much time building. When I graduated from high school and followed him to Brigham Young University, where he had returned after serving a two-year Mormon mission in Germany, he let me look at his Playboy Magazines.

We hung the centerfolds on the wall in such a way that when the inspectors that BYU sent out to inspect student rooms, even in off-campus housing, the images would be hidden the moment our bedroom door opened. It was always amusing, to sit there  in our room as those serious, righteous-looking men in suits came through the door, stood there with the Playboy centerfolds hidden right behind them, observed the fish swimming in my tank, our study areas, various books - including the Bible and the Book of Mormon and proclaimed our room to be clean, appropriate and up to good BYU-LDS standards.

Damn! Ron died altogether too soon!

The older two, Mac the tall twin and Rex the short twin, kept me in a state of near constant terror, but still I held them in adulation and it was they who the bullies who came after me soon learned to fear and respect. 

So I wonder what it will be like for these two as they grow?

And what does Kalib think of Jobe right now? I know he is a little jealous, as Jobe gets attention that not so long ago went to Kalib alone, but I do believe he loves him as well.

Kalib rolls about in the midst of his dad and Muzzy.

Before I left them, I saw Jobe, Jacob and Lavina together on the couch and thought it would be nice if Kalib were there, too, so that I could get a picture of all four. Jacob and Lavina motioned to him, but he would not come over. Instead, he stood by the TV, where, in local news coverage of his life and death, Senator Ted Stevens, killed last week in a plane crash near Dillingham, appeared in an old news clip with President Jimmy Carter. 

It was okay that he did not come. It made a better picture this way.

I gave some thought to doing some serious coverage of the memorial for Senator Stevens on this, the day that he lay in repose in a closed casket in All Saints Episcopal Church in Anchorage, but decided against it. Many serious news organizations, including the Anchorage Daily News and The Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Newspapers, Incorporated, would be doing serious photo documentaries of everything that would happen, both today and tomorrow, the day of his funeral.

What could I add to it? Not much, I decided. Plus, I had no desire to go in and compete with my fellow photographers today. Still, Alaska history, American history, was being made today. Plus, I had several contacts with the man in life, had photographed him more times than I can remember and on this day I felt that I must go in and pay my respects.

So I did. I walked to the closed casket, stood solemnly in front of it for just the right amount of time, shook hands with his family members seated nearby, walked to the back, signed the guest register and then sat down for just a few minutes next to my friend, Al Grillo, the freelance photographer who for so long covered this state for the Associated Press. I shot a handful of frames and then I got up and quietly exited...

...but before I did, I noticed this trio and so photographed them, too. I have no idea who they are. I could have asked for their names, I suppose, and their feelings, but I was not being a journalist today. I was just being a citizen, there to briefly pay my respects and then go.

As I left, I saw Channel 11, preparing to broadcast. I'm not really too familiar with these folks, as I tend to watch Channel 2 News the most. Actually, I tend to get most of my news off the internet these days and locally that tends to mostly mean the Daily News and the Dispatch and a number of blogs, most of which don't really cover the news but get angry about it instead.

As I drove out of Anchorage, I saw a man, walking by a fence. This is frame 6...

...Frame 5...

...Frame 4...

...Frame 3...

...frame 2...

Frame 1.

And so walked this man on the evening that Senator Ted Stevens lay in repose.

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Transitions - Chilly Barrow to hot Fairbanks to cool and wet Wasilla; Kalib and Jobe return to the blog

Among the things that I did on my last day in Barrow was to interview elders Wesley and Anna Aiken for Uiñiq. They grew up the old way and still express amazement that they can now wake up everyday in a warm house and with the flick of a switch turn on a light.

On April 8, they will celebrate 63 years of marriage and they have a host of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to celebrate with them. I can't say for certain, but I hope to be in Barrow at that time so that I can photograph the celebration.

This is from the night before, and you can see Wesley sitting right up front. I took this picture at what was a Slope-wide gathering to honor the bilingual teachers and others instrumental in setting up bilingual programs over the past five decades or so. The teachers gathered in every village on the North Slope and were joined together by teleconference and then all were honored with certificates and pins. Many were honored posthumously. 

Some, such as Anna Aiken, were not able to attend, but Wesley picked up her awards and brought them home with her. 

These are some of the people who have been working hard to keep the Iñupiaq language alive and vital in the face of TV, video and internet.

Van Edwardson called me on my cell phone to tell me that he had been tearing up the floorboards at his late grandfather's house to build anew when he found this seal-oil lamp beneath it. These are the instruments that people used not so long ago to both light and heat their extremely well-insulated sod iglus.

The lamp would contain seal oil and wicks.

Van notes that the house of his grandfather, Ned Nusunginya, had been there for all of his life and undoubtedly longer than that. "I'm 51," he said.

The lamp is made from soapstone, apparently from Canada and must have got to Barrow via trading and bartering. "This was used by my ancestors," he told me.

After he found the lamp, he took it to the Iñupiat Heritage Center, where it is being given museum care.

Some time ago, I can't remember precisely how long, the artist Vernon Rexford contacted me to ask for permission to use my photographs as the basis for some balleen scrimshaw etchings. I greatly appreciated the fact that he asked and told him to go ahead and just etch my name in there, somewhere. Not long after I returned this time, he was out on his four-wheeler when he spotted me, came over and invited me to come and meet him at the Heritage Center, where he has a full-length balleen hanging in the gallery, with his recreations and interpretations of my photographs from one end to the other.

It was an amazing thing for me to see, to think that what I did had inspired him and he had found a way to work my work into his own vision and create a new kind of life for it that I had never imagined.

He later took me to his work area in the Heritage Center and showed me this smaller piece, also based on my photographs, that he was still working on.

You can see that it is sitting atop a copy of one of my old Uiñiq magazines, with another one above that. The sketch is of his grandmother, the late Bertha Leavitt, and was drawn by Larry Aiken, son of Wesley and Anna, from a photograph that I took of her on the beach in July of 2006. There was a nice breeze blowing that day and it would sometimes catch and lift the hem of Bertha's parka and when it did, I would snap the shutter.

Now he was going to work off the sketch of my photo to etch the image of his grandmother, his Aaka, into his balleen.

I ate a lot of food in Barrow, so much so that when it came time to go, my jacket was feeling tight around the tummy. It hadn't felt that way when I had arrived. 

Due to the satellite problems that were putting the internet out of commission for many hours at a time, Alaska Airlines had been advising passengers to check in at least a couple of hours early because if they were offline, they would have to write tickets by hand.

So I went in two hours early, but the satellite was behaving, Alaska Airlines was online and I received my ticket in reasonable time. Now I needed something to do, so I walked the short distance to the Teriyaki House. I just wanted something light, so I ordered a bowl of soup - a huge bowl of soup, as it turned out.

You will remember Jessie Sanchez, the young Eskimo dancer and whaler who has become a Barrow Whaler football player. He is the kid who got hurt in the first Whaler game. Now the Whalers would soon board the same jet as I would to fly to Fairbanks to play their second game at Eielson Air Force Base. Jessie was feeling much better and he had gotten a Mohawk cut.

He was also getting a bite to eat at Teriyaki, along with his friend Lawrence Kaleak, who you saw dancing at Pepe's at the victory celebration.

After we ate, we all walked back toward Alaska Airlines. That's Jessie's girlfriend, who told me her name but I forgot. She would not be going to Eielson, but only to the Alaska Airlines terminal to say goodbye. For the past week straight, the weather in Barrow had been continually cold and windy, with periods of rain, mist and fog thrown into the mix.

Now, that we were all leaving, it was starting to improve.

Soon, we were all on the jet, football players, coaches and a whole bunch of other people including tourists, businessmen and women and people just heading out to visit someone or to return home.

That's Anthony Elavgak, sitting there thinking. What is it that Samuelu, Samoan, has in his hands in the row behind him? 

Why, it's a ukulele! He makes a nice sound with it. Before continuing on to Anchorage and then Wasilla, I got off the plane in Fairbanks and I did go to Eielson and photographed the game.

It was a very different game than the opener in Barrow. Whereas the temperature in Barrow had been in the 30s and the wind in the 30 mphs, it was hot in Fairbanks and Eielson - in the 80's. The game was tough and Barrow lost, big time, never got on the scoreboard.

But remember, they are a young team, with only four seniors. They never gave up. They fought to the end. And there was one young man, Adrian Panigeo, who really grabbed my heart because of the size of his heart. He was not the biggest man on the field - far from it - but pound for pound I think perhaps he was the toughest. Certainly, there was not one tougher, not on either team. Defense, offense - making tackles, carrying the ball, getting hit hard by bigger men, still to blast his way through for extra yards when it looked like he should have been stopped - that was Adrian Panigeo.

The announcer had a difficult time pronouncing his name, but he had plenty of opportunities to practice until he got it right, because Panigeo was key to so many plays.

Sadly, he was put out of the game before the first half ended and left the field in an ambulance, having taken a hard blow to the sternum and he got overheated.

Football is a new game to the Iñupiat, but to watch Panigeo play, you would think it had been in his genes forever. I haven't had time to edit and prepare my pictures of the game. Maybe I will put some in later, or maybe I will just wait and save them exclusively for Uiñiq.

We will see.

Early Sunday afternoon, I boarded the plane in Fairbanks. I didn't really want to. The high temperature in Fairbanks was forecast to be 85 degrees. I wanted to hang around, with nothing to do but whatever I wanted to do, and experience that 85 degrees. But I also wanted to see my family and I could not afford to stay in Fairbanks just to have fun, so I boarded the plane.

As it turned out, the temperature in Fairbanks hit 91 this day, a record both for the date and for this late in August.

The plane departed an hour-and-a-half late and there were a bunch of people on board with a tour group that was continuing on to Hawaii. They had to switch planes fast, so they asked all of us who were not going to Hawaii to stay in our seats until those who were had left the plane.

So all these folks you see standing and trying to get out were headed to Hawaii. Unless there's some cheaters in there, who were only pretending to go to Hawaii so that they could off the plane ahead of the rest of us.

After we landed, the voice on the intercom welcomed us to Ted Stevens International Airport. I had always wondered how it felt to Ted Stevens, each time he was on a plane and heard this same welcome.

Now, Alaska was preparing for his funeral. He would never hear that welcome again.

Anchorage had just set its own weather record - for the most consecutive days of rain, 29, I believe. It must be 31 now.

Margie was there to pick me up. As we exited the airport, we found ourselves traveling alongside this small tourist bus. We were in wild Alaska for certain.

Sunday night, Margie and I spent our one night in the same house together and then, early the next morning, I drove her into Anchorage so that she could spend the next four days babysitting Jobe.

Here's Jobe. My pocket camera battery died immediately after I took this picture.

The other day, I was looking at queries people use to get to this blog. One read, "Where is Kalib?!" 

Here he is, as captured in my iPhone.

An iPhone image of Margie, Muzzy, and Jobe. Muzzy recently had minor surgery that brought to an end all notions of perhaps breeding him. Now, he must not be allowed to lick himself in a certain place or to bite at stitches.

In the afternoon, I headed to Metro for the usual hot drink, then took the long way home. As I did, I was so overcome by sleepiness that I stopped at this secluded place, closed my eyes and feel alseep listening to All Things Considered.

When I sort of awoke a few minutes later, I shot this image with my iPhone.

I then drove home the even longer way and shot this image by iPhone, too. The battery was still dead in my pocket camera, that's why.

This was yesterday. I awoke this morning to the sound of more rain. Another weather record broken.

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