I begin 2010 with a series of errors that destroy my documentation of its arrival; my two New Year's resolutions: blog and surf

I feel a little sick inside right now. I took a nice little series of pictures to welcome in the New Year year and then I destroyed them. The above scene is from a little earlier, before the destruction, in the final hours of 2009. Those of you who followed my mad dash to finish my review of 2009 before 2010 began saw the final picture, taken late in the after of December 30 at Metro Cafe, just before Carmen shut down for four days to welcome in the New Year.

Still, late yesterday afternoon, I wanted to take a coffee break and I convinced Margie to come with me. We drove over to Little Miller's on Bogard and, as we pulled into the parking lot, I saw the moon rising over the mountains.

As it happened, Little Miller's was closed. So we drove to Mocha Moose, which never closes. We ordered two Americanos and a cinnamon roll.

We then returned to the house and I began the process of rapidly finishing my 2009 review. I took a break for dinner, then worked on the review a bit more before deciding that, it being New Year's Eve and all, I should have a chocolate-dipped, vanilla cone from Dairy Queen.

I invited Margie, but she refused to come.

"It's cold out there!" she said.

So off I went, by myself. Here I am, pulling up to DQ, the moon now much higher in the sky.

Here I am in the drive-through line at DQ. Those of you who have spent all your winters in warm places might think the truck in front of me is burning oil, that it needs a ring job, but this is just what cold air does to automobile exhaust.

If you go to Fairbanks in midwinter during one of those periods - not so frequent as in the past but still they come every winter, when the temperature hangs out below the -40 mark day and night - yet the traffic keeps rolling along as usual, the air becomes so thick with the frozen exhaust that hangs in it that you don't even want to breathe, but, really, you have no choice.

When I pulled up to the intercom, I suddenly remembered how good Dairy Queen banana splits had tasted when we would buy them in Arizona, 30 years ago.

I figured I would splurge, and order a banana split instead of a chocolate dip. It was New Years Eve, after all.

Please note the orange crates against the wall. They are about to ruin my next picture.

Ruts form in the ice of drive-through passage ways, causing one's vehicle to slip sideways as he drives through. The lady behind the window had put those crates there as a buffer between her and cars that might slip off a rut in her direction.

There was a little ridge right in front of the window and I slipped off it to the left - right into one of her crates, which then got stuck between my tire and the fender.

"Most cars slip the other way," she told me.

I had wanted to get a decent shot of the banana split as she handed it to me, but now I turned my concentration towards freeing myself from the crate. I put the car in reverse, turned the steering wheel to the left so that it would push the front end to the right, and slowly back away to the sound of grunching, cracking and grinding, as my tire and car body wrestled with that crate.

Finally, I popped free. She handed me the banana split.

"Wait," I said, "I want to get a picture of the banana split."

But she didn't wait. I barely got this one, unappetizing, out-of-focus shot off as she retreated back into the warmth of her cubby hole for a few seconds until I could pull away and the driver behind me pull up.

I parked in the lot and ate the banana split - which was not as delicious as the ones I remember from Arizona. Still, it was good, but I think I would have enjoyed the chocolate-dipped cone better.

Then I went home and got back to work on my review.

There was one month that I finished - October, I think, but I can't remember for certain - that disappeared when I clicked the "save" button. I had to start over again. Pure Squarespace! (my blog host)

So I redid that month, did the remaining months, and finished the review with just minutes to spare.

Margie had bought a jug of sparkling grape juice. She poured us each a serving. We raised our glasses. I framed the image on the glasses, with her eyes above and two cats on the floor, looking up at us.

"To 2010!" we toasted, "may it be a good year." I clicked the picture.

Then I stepped outside into the brisk air. Around the neighborhood, people were shooting off rockets, popping firecrackers. I heard gunshots, and the staccato fire of automatic weapons. I hoped the gunners were shooting blanks - but you never know.

Holding my newest pocket camera free in my hand, I waited for bursts to appear in the sky and if they were close enough, turned my camera toward them and fired.

And so 2009 had fallen into the past. 2010 had begun.

We went to bed early - by my standards, anyway - but people in the neighborhood kept blasting rockets off until well after 2:00 AM, so we didn't get to sleep early.

I got up late and did not want to cook oatmeal. I decided to go to Family Restaurant.

"Want to come?" I asked Margie.

"No!" she said. "It's too cold out there!"

It wasn't that cold, -6 (-21c) when I left, -10 (-23c) when I returned, but Margie and I perceive cold differently.

That is why we will be in Arizona soon.

When I got to Family, my neighbor, Michael, was there. He appeared recently in this blog, blowing snow out of his driveway.

So I joined him. He has been doing a lot of cross-country skiing at Hatchers. He says its just beautiful right now, especially under the moon. I have yet to make my first trip - in fact, my first trip since I shattered my shoulder 18 months ago. We lamented the passage of the old days, before Serendipity, when we would just step into our respective back yards and then go out and ski through all the series of swamp and marsh lands and over the little hills inbetween, for the whole day if we wanted.

Sometimes, we would cross paths. Sometimes, he would be with his wife, children, too.

I was always alone, as Margie never got into skiing. My boys were strictly down-hillers at that time and my daughters skaters.

Michael finished before me and left.

Soon, this couple came walking by. I still had the camera set at a slow shutter speed and so their movement blurred the image.

The perfect moment - the only moment when their passage would have been worth an image - caught imperfectly.

And what makes it the perfect moment to me is because it was taken on the morning of the first day of the New Year and when you look at it, you can see that the subjects have weathered years that have been tough as well as good. Now, they enter a brand new year, a new decade, with the hope and optimism to step forward and move into the future, yet with wariness and uncertainty, for who can know what 2010 will bring?

Me, I blew the very beginning of it.

When I took off toward Family Restaurant this morning, I saw that I still had several days worth of images in my camera. I looked at the most recent of them - the rocket exploding, the toast with Margie, the cats - and remembered seeing them on my computer screen, so I reformatted the disk - which, in reality, had ample space left on it to cover all of my breakfast happenings.

But I remembered wrong. I had seen those images on the LCD of my camera, not my computer screen. I had downloaded nothing past Dairy Queen.

So those images - those moments of Margie and I beginning the New Year together - are gone.

They exist only in our faulty memories, and when we go, they will go with us.

Not that it will matter one whit over time, but, right now, thinking about it, it matters to me.

I am very sorry to have lost the images of that moment, the moment 2010 began, Margie and I alone with the cats.

Now, my two New Year's resolutions, both of which seem impossible:

1. This blog. Anyone who reads my purpose as stated to the right will clearly see that I have fallen far short of my original goals. So this year, I resolve to make this blog into what I want it to be. To do that, I must find a way to make it generate income, to free up the time that I need.

Readers have given me suggestions, I have ideas of my own, but when the problem is looked at frankly and honestly, it is clear that this is an unreasonable, if not impossible, goal. Yet, it is my goal and I hereby resolve to meet it.

2. Surf on birthday. Nearly four decades have lapsed since I last rode a surfboard. Hell. It's been that long since I have even done anything that I would call swimming for real. If I were to try to surf right now, I would surely drown.

But I've got to do it, this year, on my birthday, July 14, before even more decades pass by and I am obliterated.

And here is where I want to do it: The Tlingit village of Yakutak, under the slopes of 19,000 foot plus Mt. St. Elias. Yakutak has become the surfing capitol of Alaska, so this is where I want to do it. If Barrow had good surf, I would do it there. But Barrow doesn't.

Will I succeed?

We will see.

Three of my neighbors: Tim builds his shop casually, Patty fights off her cancer intently, Michael blows away the snow; umbilical cord discussed at IHOP; coffee-dogs-Kalib

This is my neighbor, Tim, the carpenter who lives kitty-corner across the street. Sometimes, people who in their professions do things for other people have a hard time getting around to doing the same things for themselves.

Some of you who have been with me for awhile have probably noticed that my walls are almost bare. Photos do not hang on them. True, there is one of Kalib when he was little more than a newborn wedged into a cabinet door in the kitchen and another of him crawling with Marty past Muzzy that hangs at the opening to the hallway.

Other than that, there are none at all and these two are only recent developments. Prior to Kalib's birth, in all the time that I have been married, not one photo has hung on my wall.

Not a single one.

Tim is doing a little better in this regard than I. He started work on the shop that you see going up behind him four years ago. There wasn't much visible sign of it until early this summer, when a foundation began to appear.

Now that it is cold and snowy, he built two opposing wall frames just last week. He says the entire shop will be done soon.

Regular readers have already met my neighbor Patty, who I sometimes refer to as "The Fit Lady" because she has always kept herself so busy and fit walking, skiing, biking, sailing and such.

Just last summer, she discovered she had a cancer that the doctor said was terminal - so terminal that it was pointless for him to treat her further. He sent her home to die and said it would happen in just months.

In fact, according to that doctor, she is supposed to be dead right now.

She's not - because after he told her she was finished, she told herself she was not.

As I have reported before, she took up holistic healing and found a doctor who would work with her and give her chemo as she set her mind and dietary intake towards healing.

That doctor now says Patty is a miracle woman. He has her come and talk to other patients who have "terminal" cancers.

She was just tested. The tumors in her colon have all disappeared. Her liver tumor is still there, but is a tenth of its former size.

There are many reasons for her success, she says, including just putting herself "in touch with the universe." She says that sounds corny and strange, but "it's true."

I am sorry that this picture looks so ratty, but I took it at about 4:00 o'clock and it was dark - considerably darker then it appears in this picture. There are cameras that handle this level of darkness pretty well, but not this G10 pocket camera.

They say its successor, the G11, is much improved with low light. When I can, I will get one.

The fact is, this time of year, even in the middle of the day, the light here is pretty dim. We plan to go to Arizona next month and when we first step into the sun down there, it will shock us.

And this is my neighbor, Michael, two houses down, who works in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, two weeks on, two weeks off. I most often see him when I'm riding a bike one way and he is riding the other, or when we meet on skis. He is often with his wife and his children were growing, they would often be with him, too.

Of course, I have not met him on skis for a long time, because after they built Serendipity, I could no longer step off my back porch, take off on my skis and go and go and go and go, because they put the damn subdivision in my way.

And I still have yet to take my first ski since I shattered my shoulder 18 months ago.

But Michael has been skiing - at Hatcher Pass. He says it is wonderful right now.

I told him I am going to try to go up there next week. He said we should go together.

I haven't done anything physical since I put down my bike to attend the AFN Convention and then it had a flat tire and before I could patch it the snow fell.

I don't think I could keep up with him.

"I think you could," he said.

That reminds me - Patty went skiing at Hatcher Pass last week, too.

Here is a bigger snowplow, coming down Lucille.

Here it is again.

This is one of the pictures from yesterday that I did not post because I had to go to bed. I took this picture from my car and when I saw his man, I had no idea what his sign said. I had to stop at a red light and that gave me some time to concentrate on the sign and try to read it, but I simply could not make it out.

I did make out the words, "Happy" and "birthday." So I figured it must be a Christmas message. The fact that he was dressed in red reinforced this idea. I figured maybe he was wishing Jesus a happy upcoming birthday.

But when I pulled the picture into my computer and was able to examine it, I saw that he was actually wishing happy birthday to the US Bill of Rights and that he had singled out the Second Amendment - the right to bear arms - for special good wishes.

To all others who might want to stand on street corners waving signs, let me suggest that you make your letters big and bold and even colorful, so that passers by do not mistake you for Santa Claus - especially if you are going to wear red during the holiday season.

This is also from yesterday, when I was at IHOP. I swear, I was not eavesdropping on these people's conversation, but all of a sudden, in a very animated and amplified voice, so loud that no one anywhere nearby could have missed it, the fellow on the other side of the table blurted out, "when the baby comes out, you just snip that umbilical chord."

Then, speaking just as loudly, the fellow at left said that he had heard that when you cut the umbilical cord -sploosh! - the stuff inside it just comes gushing out to squirt all over you and everything else.

At that moment, my waitress came to my table and laid my ham, eggs, and strawberry-banana pancakes in front of me.

On my walk, this dog ran out of a driveway and took off down the street. Pretty soon, this car pulled out of the same driveway, drove to the dog, stopped, and then the lady got out to catch the dog.

As I pulled up to the drive-through of Metro Cafe yesterday, I was listening to All Things Considered on the radio, where I heard what an important fellow Joe Lieberman is trying to be. He is saying that he is following his conscience. Another person contends that the real argument is how many hundreds of thousands of people will die from lack of good health insurance.

After Carmen opens the window, she tells the beautiful lady on the other side of the counter that I always take pictures of everything, that I even photographed the grand opening of Metro Cafe and that she can find it all on my blog.

Her name is Sherry and the kid wearing the hat is Greg.

Or is he Doug?

I'm pretty sure he's Greg.

If not - Doug, I apologize.

And if by chance he is neither Doug nor Greg, well, hell. I apologize twice.

Sherry and Carmen ham it up for the camera. Today, Carmen told me that Sherry comes in every morning at 7:30 AM. "Just like you come in every day right after 4:00," she added.

I wonder how it happened that Sherry and I came at the same time?

Tamar Street.

Yes, I took Muzzy on another walk.

 

When we got home, Muzzy flopped down in the driveway and began to pull the snow out from between his toes.

And here is Kalib and Margie with two stuffed Muzzies, this evening.

Now I might not see either of them for a few days. The new house is airing out pretty good, so Lavina and Kalib plan to stay in town tomorrow night and Margie is going to go with them. Caleb, of course, works all night.

Party time.

I will get out the cat nip and pop some corn. The cats and I will party like crazy.

Our house; a few other images from today and nothing more

In case you are curious, this is our house - the place where I live and work, and keep this blog. We moved into this house 27 years ago this month. It was well below zero when we moved in and we had to keep the doors open to haul in our stuff, so the house got very cold.

So did our fingers.

I then sawed and split some of the birch that had been cleared to build the house and made a hot fire in the woodstove.

The heat felt very good as it warmed us from the outside.

Margie made some hot chocolate, which warmed us from the inside. 

Those were good days.

Really, really, good days.

We didn't know how good they were until they became the past.

This is my neighbor, from two houses down. I don't know his name. In February of 2001, I lost my black cat, Little Guy, who eight years earlier had passed from his mother's womb straight into my hands. On a day with about three times the snowfall you see here, he stepped out onto the back porch and I never saw him again.

I searched for him, long and hard. I knocked on every door. I asked everyone I saw if they had seen a black cat. I could hardly bear the loss. 

For weeks afterward, every time this neighbor would see me, he would always ask about that cat.

So I think highly of him, even though I don't know his name.

This is another view of my house, taken from down the street as I finished my walk. I usually come home through the marsh, but I did not feel like it. Margie does not like it when I track snow into the house and I did not want to be scolded, however gently she scolds, and so I came down the road instead of through the marsh.

I always take my shoes off at the door, but the snow would have stuck on my Levis, even up to my knees.

I did not want either to be scolded or to take my pants off at the door, so I came down the road.

I did not build that tall fence.

My neighbor did. He hates cats. He does not like to look at my wrecked airplane, so he built the fence. He often wakes me by revving up the engine to his Harley Davidson in the morning. He doesn't necessarily drive it anywhere, he just sits there and revs up the engine, again and again, so that it does not lock up on him.

We don't talk much. He works for the Alaska Marine Highway and is gone more than he is home.

A kid, apparently on his way home from school, but maybe he is going someplace else. I don't know.

It was warm today, teens and then 20's for awhile, but the wind blew.

I saw this boy, off to the side of Lucille Street, as I was coming home from Wal-Mart. Margie doesn't work there, anymore. She can't, because of her accident. I don't care. I want her to work for me. I work in constant chaos, even when all is calm around me. 

Maybe she can reduce the chaos and increase our income more than she lost by losing her job at Wal-Mart.

I don't know why the boy was down in the snow like that. Maybe he was skiing and fell down. That looks like a ski pole.

I didn't stop to ask. I just snapped and kept going.

I had things to do.

Martigny. She is never allowed to go outside. She doesn't even want to go outside.

Royce - 15 years old or so and the last of the indoor-outdoor cats. I hated to do it, but after Little Guy I never let a new cat go outside unchaperoned - and then only Jim. 

Now that he is growing old, Royce doesn't go outside much anymore and never for very long.

When its cold, he doesn't go out at all. He didn't used to care about the cold. He was born with a good cold-weather coat. Now, he doesn't like the cold.

And there you have it - nothing of consequence, just a few images from today, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.