Grandma Mary returns home from hospital, insundry Wasilla scenes, ending with four images of Kalib in the snow

I am pleased to report that, while she must suffer pain and discomfort for a couple of months, Kalib's Grandma Mary has already been discharged from the hospital and has returned home. She suffered a broken sternum and a broken rib, neither of which can be treated. It just takes time.

I've had a number of cracked or broken ribs in my day, and I can tell you, they can be mighty painful but there is nothing you can do but go about your life as best you can and try real hard at night to find a laying position that does not aggravate the situation.

I suspect that the problem is multiplied with a broken sternum.

As for the man who hit her, we have received no word as to whether or not he had been drinking, but he was reported to be driving down the highway at a high rate of speed, pulling a trailer, in and out of traffic as he was in a big hurry to get to wherever he was going before anyone else did.

The next morning, he was seen chopping firewood at his house.

At any rate, we are glad that no one was critically injured or killed and are greatly relieved that Grandma Mary is home with her family.

Lavina wants to take Kalib and go down to be with her for Thanksgiving, but, due to the expense and the short time that she would be able to stay, she will probably wait until she can go and stay longer.

I took the above picture of Mary dancing Apache style with Jacob at the celebration following his wedding to Lavina on March 18, 2006, in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Now for some random shots about Wasilla - the Talkeetna Mountains in my rearview mirror.

Breakfast at Family Restuarant.

I receive a dog biscuit at the drive-through window to Metro Cafe. The little boy is the son of Carmen and Scott, and he looks just like Scott. Carmen told me his name and I wrote it down in my brain, but now it has been erased.

I had no dog in car with me, but the little boy was anxious to give me a dog biscuit, anyway. So I told him about Muzzy and he gave me one.

Pioneer Peak and the Chugach Mountains, over the Lowe's parking lot. You can't see them from here, because Pioneer Peak blocks the view, but if my airplane still flew and I could put you in it, I would fly you through that little saddle to the right and then you would see that the mountains behind are considerably higher and more dramatic looking.

...just thought you should know.

Sparks flying from the ice-scraping blade of a snowplow as it rolls alongside Wasilla Lake.

Last night, for the first time in what seems like about 42 years, I took Margie to a movie in Eagle River, a little more than half-way to Anchorage and about 35 minutes away.

I had to get gas, first. As I was inserting my credit card, I heard a female voice say, "Hello. I don't know where to put the oil in. Where do I put the oil in."

I thought the voice was directed at me, but it was not. It was this lady and she was talking on her cell phone. I guess she got the info that she needed, because it sure looks like she's putting oil in her car now.

Grandma Mary still can use some good cheer, so I will close this entry with four shots of Kalib that I just took while out walking with him, his dad, Muzzy and my pocket camera. This is Kalib wearing his new snow suit.

He tries to ride Muzzy, but it doesn't work out so well. Muzzy complains and swears. "What the hell do you think I am, a camel?"

I wonder how Muzzy knows about camels?

Kalib treks across Little Lake through a four-wheeler circle.

He checks out the goose decoy.

It is a very nice, warm, day, with the temperature having risen into the mid-20's.

I just hope that's as far as it rises.

I don't trust these El Niño warm up periods.

Catch up* Part 6: Kalib potpourri

Okay. This will be the final day that I revisit recent pictures that I did not post when I shot them but instead waited until Thursday, November 5, after I had fallen ill. I might as well end this catch-up series with a Kalib potpourri. Here he is, on the couch.

I worry that perhaps some of my regulars will have grown weary of this journey through the recent past by now, but I know there is a group of people down in Arizona Navajo/Apache country who cannot get enough Kalib images. 

Actually, this one dates all the way back to September. Just about every day since then, Jacob has asked me if I am ever going to post it. We went out to eat at Jalepeno's, where Kalib dipped his chip in the salsa. He must have liked it, because...

...he then picked up the bowl and began to drink the salsa. He drank quite a bit, too.

Kalib with some of my fish. The little outfit that he wears has ears.

Kalib did not like it at all when the ears came up. This reminded me of the bunny-rabbit pj scene from the classic film, A Christmas Story.

Kalib and Margie.

They had been to a thrift store a short time earlier, where they bought this very noisy ambulance. Each time that he set it off, I had to look in my rearview mirror.

One day, as I drove back home from somewhere, I saw these three ahead of me. By the time this appears on my blog, more than a full week will have passed since I typed these words - I sure hope all this bare gound is now, at long last, covered in snow. I hope my project is done - at least to the client review stage.

Perhaps I am not even in Wasilla anymore. Perhaps I somewhere else.

If so, where could that be?

*Although I have scheduled this to appear Saturday, November 14, 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.

Addendum: One Kalib image from today:

Here is Kalib a bit after 8:00 AM, caught in my headlights as I return home from a breakfast at Family Restaurant and he gets ready to go into Anchorage with his parents to spend the day at daycare.

Last night, I had thought that I could get by without taking any more medicine for whatever it is that has been ailing me. Big mistake. I coughed and coughed, all through the night, or at least that part of the night that spent in bed.

Having got to bed about 1:00 AM, and then after going to sleep having been woken up every few minutes by my coughing, I woke up for good at 5:00 AM. I did not want to believe it and so tried mighty hard to go back to sleep, but finally gave up about 6:00 AM and got up. I then came out to my computer to make a quick check the news, various blogs and such, then went to Family.

Later in the day, we went to Anchorage to celebrate Rex's birthday. I do have pictures that I want to blog, but I am too tired right now. It is midnight. I am going to take some medicine and see if I can sleep tonight. I have been coughing all day long and have a bad sideache and my throat is very sore.

I hope it is clear to everyone that when I say this addendum image is from today, I refer to the day that I have just lived, the day that is now ending. I have this post scheduled to come up at 4:00 AM which means that you, the viewer, will not see today's addendum image until tomorrow, by which time today's image will have been taken yesterday.

Still, at the time that I write the addendum, the statement was accurate.

Even now, as accurate as the statement is, it is now inaccurate, for the clock just passed midnight, which means it is now tomorrow, but of course it is never tomorrow, it is always today. Yesterday it was today and tomorrow it will be today.

But then you know that, don't you?

The last wild berry of summer - blog goes into cocoon mode

With summer on the wane, Jacob, Kalib and Muzzy walked back into the marsh and I decided to follow, for just a little ways and then to leave them behind, because I needed to move fast and stretch my muscles.

We had not gone far before Kalib insisted on walking himself. Shortly after he was put upon the ground, he darted off the trail and into the bushes. He wanted to find berries.

Dad looked around and did not see a berry. "Looks like the berries have all been picked, Shiyashi," he lamented. But then they found a blueberry, big, plump and juicy. Was it the last berry of summer?

As Kalib chomps on the blueberry, Jake searches to see if he can find one more. He did, but no more after that.

Blog now goes into cocoon mode: While I have never been able to devote the time and energy to this blog that will be required to make it into what I want it to be, I am at a point with my big project that I simply cannot afford to devote anything but the very smallest amounts of my time and mental energies toward any other tasks - including this blog.

In contemplating how to handle this, I have debated just signing off the blog for a month or so, but even though I have not given it what I want to, I have still worked too hard to do that.

So I have decided instead to put the blog into "cocoon mode," meaning that on the outside not much will happen but on the inside, things will be churning and developing as I finish my project. Hopefully, when I am done, this blog will emerge into something brighter and better, something that will take me closer to my blog goals.

This is the way it will work:

I will still keep a camera with me at all times, will continue to shoot whatever catches my eye as I move through the day and will post something, every single day that I have an internet connection, but I will limit myself to one or two pictures, from the present or past, and will give myself five minutes max to write the text.

Maybe some days I might cheat just a little bit, but not many and not much.

I am kind of sad to have to do this. After struggling with this thing seemingly in vain for a full year this past Monday, my readership remains miniscule, but keeps steadily, steadily, growing. On the average day, it is now nearly ten times what it was at the beginning of June. That is growth enough to give me some hope.

Now that the blog is in cocoon mode, my readership will certainly fall back to its earlier numbers.

For awhile, anyway. Once I finish this project and rip my way out of this cocoon, I will see what I can do with it then. In the meantime, please keep coming back to see my one or two pictures per day.

Bike ride, part 1: Kalib throws a big rock; the blonde lady battles her cancer with optimism

Later in the day, I got on my bicycle and pedaled away. Jacob and Kalib had taken off walking nearly an hour before and so I figured they would have looped around and been half-way through the march by now.

So I was very surprised to turn the corner and find them playing in these puddles, a mere few hundred yards from the house.

Jacob was holding this big rock over his head and was about to throw it into the puddle. This put me in a bit of a predicament, because I wanted to catch the splash but I knew that if I did, the water water would likely splash upon my pocket camera. I did not want to get it on the lens.

So I snapped the photo just when the rock reached the water and then jerked the camera away, but still the splash got on it. Big, ugly, gritt, drops of dirty water landed right upon the lens.

I had no lens cloth with me and so had to carefully use my t-shirt to clean the lens. Even so, I did not totally succeed and it would diminish the rest of the pictures that I would take on this ride - perhaps ever again with this pocket camera.

Kalib then picked up the rock again, with Dad's help.

Then his dad gave him a smaller rock and he threw that. If I would have had my motorized DSLR, I could have got the full series of him throwing and the rock splashing, but the pocket camera is slow and limited in this record.

But it is easy to carry and when you are riding a bike, this is important.

Kalib hefted this rock all by himself. But it was too heavy for him to raise much higher than this. Still, I was most impressed.

Then he grabbed a smaller rock and was able to raise it high.

Father and son.

Dad threw a rock into the grass. Kalib went to look for it, but he did not find it.

I got back on my bike and pedaled away, but turned for another look and this is what I saw.

I had not gone very far at all when I spotted Patti, walking on the trail towards me. Patti is the blond woman whom I referred to last week, when I met her almost in this same spot and she informed me that she has cancer on her liver.

I did not name her then or show her picture, because it seemed to me that she had enough to deal with. She says it's okay, though, so here she is.

She looks much better than when I saw her last. Despite the diagnosis that would give her from months to just one year to live, she is walking, eating, thinking about riding a bike and she is determined to beat it.

I told her that was good, because for decades now I have been seeing her on my walks, bike rides, and ski expeditions and that was the only way I could imagine it. And if I didn't?

"It wouldn't be right," she said. "It wouldn't be right at all. So I'm going to beat it."

We all know of people who are told they have terminal cancer, but who beat it and live. So fight, Patti! Just like you are doing.

As I visited with Patti, here come these three.

Patti was glad to see Kalib, but Kalib was feeling shy. Muzzy was not shy.

Patti, who has always kept herself physical fit. This week, she will learn when she will go Outside for surgery.

How the contest between Senator Lisa Murkowski and toddler Kalib turned out

I awoke with a tough decision to make - go to the town hall meeting being sponsored by Senator Lisa Murkowski or follow Kalib to the Alaska State Fair. Ever since I learned about the town hall two or three weeks ago, I had been eagerly looking forward to it. I had prepared a little argument in my head and was ready to deliver. I knew it would upset some people but I suspected that they would not get so unruly and belligerent as we have seen in newscasts from the Lower 48 - but if they did, I was ready.

I had been debating whether to bring my big pro DSLR cameras or just the pocket camera and I had good arguments for each.

And then last night I learned that today was kid's day at the fair and Kalib would be going. I wanted to photograph that glorious expedition.

Two readers weighed in with opposing advice. Said aksuzyq, "Come to the fair. We will be there!"

To be moseying about and all of sudden have someone squeal, "Kalib!" and then come up and introduce herself - that would be fun. Good argument.

Omegamon said, "Go to Murkowski's meeting. We need some folks there who are for health care reform, so the yellers and shouters don't give the impression that everyone agrees with them."

There has been a curious phenomena at work here in Alaska. It seems that when Senator Mark Begich, a Democrat, holds town halls, most who come and sound out are in favor of health care reform. When Republican Murkowski does, it seems that most who speak up are against.

So, yes, indeed, she needs to hear from those of us who would like to see her do what I believe she knows at a fundamental level is right, but she does not want to buck party politics. And party politics right now is to bring down Barack Obama, at all costs and facts be damned.

As I mulled my decision, Margie and Lavina fed Kalib his oatmeal.

Finally, I decided to follow my grandson to the fair - and here is why: First, I have made my position on this matter known to Murkowski. I sent my first email to her several months ago and in the past couple of weeks I have sent her three more. I have called her office and left her a message.

I have stated my position in various online news forums, including my comment on the Bob Herbert column that was chosen most recommended by New York Times readers.

I have committed myself to attend a function in Anchorage September 3 that is designed to give both Murkowski and Begich a send-off message as they get ready to return to session in Washington, DC. So it is not as if I have not taken a stand on the matter.

And, the hard fact is, I could wave my hands all about at the town hall but many people would be doing the same and the odds are that Murkowski would never have called on me.

Most importantly, Kalib would be attending the fair as a one-year-and-seven-month-old only one time in his life. He has reached that absolutely magical stage where everything that he sees and touches is a new and wonderful discovery - and this year he would discover the fair.

Sure, he will get excited about it in subsequent years, but this year he would discover it. In his entire, life, he will make that discovery but once.

And I wanted to be there to observe and document the wonder of it all.

First, though, I had to take a short, vigorous, bike ride. So I did, and as I pumped the pedals toward home, I was surprised to see these three walking through the rain toward me.

So I stopped and laid my bike down. Kalib had to check it out - because, as I noted, everything is a new discovery to him.

He did not care that it was raining. This made me glad, because it would almost certainly be raining at the fair.

And then he decided to check out a mud puddle. It looked like he was going to stomp in it...

...but then he suddenly held back, but with great excitement, contemplated the possibilities..

He decided to go for it, but stepped cautiously.

And then he stomped his way through. Soon, we were all back home. His parents said we would leave within the hour. 

So I took a shower.

When I got out, Jake informed me that Kalib was exhausted, was going to sleep and that the trip to the fair was off.

At this point, there was about 15 minutes left in the Murkowski town hall.

Sometimes, life just plays funny tricks on you.

The thing that we mostly do at the fair is overeat. Not knowing what else to do, I suggested that we go somewhere else and overeat, but noted that one of the parents would have to stay home to watch over the dozing Kalib.

So Jacob stayed home. Margie hobbled out on her crutches and she, Lavina and I went to Jalepeno's. It was the first time that we had been there since May. Lavina insisted that she pay.

I invite her and she pays. I must invite her more often.