For seven years, she refused to date him when he would show up at the motel; now they have been married seven years; a temple blessing; contemplating, part 2, on hold

As you can see, I wound up at Family Restaurant again this morning, but for a different reason. Jobe has been vomiting again, so Margie left at about 8:30 this morning to drive into town so that she could babysit him. I figured that it might be my only chance to ride in a car today, so I had her drop me off at Family on her way. I took this image after breakfast, as I was beginning my walk home, maybe a bit less than four miles. It was a bit after 9:00 AM. This may look dark for 9:00 AM to some of you, but for us, it is amazing to see how quickly the light is coming back.

As I walked along Lucille Street a raven would come flying by, always headed south, directly over the road, every few minutes. They all looked pretty intent to reach their destinations. I figured that these were ravens who nest out in the hills near the foot of the Talkeetna Mountains, but make their living in downtown Wasilla, primarily off the food that people discard - the ravens that I see at Taco Bell, Carl's Jr., McDonald's and such.

It was morning, and these ravens were going to work.

It was garbage pick-up day in our neighborhood.

As I did not have a car and had already walked four miles, I figured that I would just skip my Metro coffee break and listen to the news in my office while I edited pictures. But about 3:30, I was overcome by a strong desire to get out of the office, so I took off on foot for Metro Cafe. It was snowing now. 

Here I am, walking down Lucille Street, toward Metro. Look how heavy the traffic is! Yet, it is too early for people to be coming home from work. Why are all these folks driving down Lucille?

I arrived at Metro a little before 4:30, closing time being 5:00. Carmen invited me to look at her wedding album. They got married seven years ago, when she was 38, Scott 48. It was his third, her first. She met him when she was working at the Best Western Motel on Spenard in Anchorage. He would sometimes come and check in for the night on his way to and from the Arctic Slope oil fields and each time he did, he would ask her out. 

Each time, she would say no. He would tell her that one day they would marry, she would be his wife and would have his babies. She would say, "no!" This went on for seven years. Finally, she agreed to go to a movie with him, just to put an end to all the nonsense and get him out of her life. Anyway, she was Catholic and he was not.

That one date led to the marriage. It could not take place in the Catholic church, but "God knew what he was doing when he brought us together," Carmen says.

Scott has completed all of his cancer treatment and has finally gone back to work on the Slope, where temperatures have been running in the -50 range, with -75 and even -95 windchills. Carmen says he is finding the cold a bit hard to take, given the aftereffects of his radiation and chemo treatments.

I hear that it is warming up now - into the -30's and -20's.

This is Ryder, who came to Metro Cafe with his mom, Buffy, and his Aunt Danielle. Ryder drank hot chocolate and, except for me, was the last customer to leave.

I had planned to walk home, but Nola offered me a ride. I decided that seven miles was enough to have walked today. I got into the car. Nola brushed the new snow off the window.

Nola drinks a bottle of water as she drives me home.

 Okay - Part 2 of Contemplating the future of this blog will just have to wait until tomorrow. This post is long enough already.

And this one from India:

Inside one of the temples at Pattadakal - blessings are offered.

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False front; politically correct and other signs of the time; the wind blows, a special girl is fed, a grasshopper befriended

For some damn reason, we have to pay bills - too many bills, adding up to way too much. So I drove to the Carr's Mall and let Margie out to go inside to the credit union and make our car payment. I then circled the parking lot and saw the half moon hanging over these false fronts - built to remind us here in the Far North of the Old West.

After she paid the bill, Margie got back into the car and we headed off to pay the next bill. We found ourselves directly behind this car, being ordered to think. So I thought and this is what I think: within the framework and social context of the car owner's life, community and media followed, these bumper stickers are all most likely 100 percent politically correct.

Ah... to think what might have been!

If you can't read all of the bumper stickers at this size, you probably can in slide show view.

It seemed pretty ridiculous to me and I didn't want to do it, but, being a law-abiding citizen, I stopped three times, just as the sign ordered. I don't think that my doing so made anybody any safer.

As I walked from the car to the post office, I suddenly saw these characters furiously flapping, coming directly in my direction, flying only about 20 to 30 feet above the parking lot. It would have been a wonderful picture had I been ready but, by the time I could draw and shoot, they had already passed by.

Did you know that I am a duck in human disguise?

It's true. I am. One day, I will tell the story. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I will leave readers to wonder and ponder, "what does he mean - he is a duck in human disguise?"

Melanie and Lisa are probably groaning right now.

After we paid the bills, checked the mail and found more bills that need to be paid, we headed home, where I flailed away to no discernable accomplishment on this computer for a bit and then at 4:00 PM I headed to Metro Cafe. There were two vehicles in line ahead of me and, as I waited, Nola came walking out, headed to her own car with a cup for herself.

She stopped to chat, just for as long as her ears could take the icy bite of this bitter wind that now seems to have set in in perpetuity.

Nola would like to open up a coffee shop of her own one day soon - in Hawaii. 

And when she does, I want to stop by and buy a cup from her.

As for this day, when I got to the window, my gift cards in hand, I discovered that, once again, a kindly, anonymous reader of this blog had bought me an Americano and cinnamon roll.

My cup runneth over.

Trees, as seen from the drive-through line at Metro Cafe, after Nola had fled the wind and got back into her car.

I took the usual drive to sip and drink and so passed by Grotto Iona.

The horses from yesterday were still there, socializing.

And this plow was coming down the road, appearing to scrape ice, yet, after it passed by, all the ice still seemed to be in place.

Maybe some of it was gone. What we need now is snow, lots of snow, to cover all this stuff up and make winter look like winter should.

Right now, it's just cold, dry and windy. Not bitter cold, like it can be, but teens and single digits. But when you get into the wind, it feels pretty cold.

As readers who have stuck with me all week can see, my life this week has been pretty mundane and routine. I sit at my computer all day long, breaking away just long enough to go get a coffee or pay some bills.

Pretty boring stuff. Yet, it never seems boring to me.

Please don't abandon me, though. I will get this blog into some excitement pretty soon.

This is the roof of our house, btw. I have just returned from my coffee break.

And this from India:

Jesse Clithi runs a little day-care center in Bangalore that also functions kind of like a pre-school here in the US. The day after Soundarya and Anil married, Melanie and I stopped by for a visit along with my niece Sujitha, Soundarya's sister, and her fiance Manoj. The students were mostly about three or four years of age - except for one, who was eight.

She had suffered some kind of malady that had left both her brain and her body underdeveloped and so she was the same size as her classmates and, when it came to play, acted much as they did.

Yet, those who know her say that this little girl is very special, that even though her body is small and her language skills limited, she sees and understands many things that might pass by most of us. I have no doubt but what this is true.

On this day, she wanted to eat only if Manu would feed her. He did.

Suji gives the special girl a kiss.

Manu pats her on the head.

When I started this little project of frequently dropping in an image or few from India at the end of a post, I stated that I was doing so in order to let it be known that Soundarya was not and would not be forgotten, but that I would not be posting pictures of Soundarya herself.

I meant my pictures of Soundarya, which I have spent considerable time sorting through, lately, along with those of Anil, but Sujitha took this picture. She emailed it and three others to me as they were the last pictures of Sandy from her camera. She was a little apologetic about the quality of the 3 megapixel camera that she used, but my contention about pictures is that the feeling captured means much more than the technical quality rendered. 

And in this one, she captured the feeling of Soundarya and her Chooo'weet little friend, the grasshopper.

Suji calls Soundaraya, "Soundu," and uses the word with great affection. Soundu would often write to me of Suji and she would call her, "Barbie," also with great affection.

Perhaps I will include some or all of the three remaining pictures from Suji's camera in a subsequent post.

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Lisa Kelly, Ice Road Trucker and driver of India's most dangerous road, pulls up to Metro Cafe on horseback - followed by CNN

In answer to Saturday's quiz, I was hanging out at Metro Cafe on Friday when I heard someone shout, "horses are coming!"

I stepped out the door and this is what I saw - five women on horseback, coming down the bike trail. One of them, the second one from the left, looked like a truck driver. In fact, she looked like a truck driver who I had seen but a few nights before, on TV, facing terror on a narrow, windy, highway twisting through the Himalaya Mountains in India.

I seldom watch much TV, but this show caught my eye, because I have experienced the deadly madness of the Indian highway - although never in the Himalayas - and also because the truck driver was a beautiful, petite, young woman by the name of Lisa Kelly who lives right here in Wasilla, Alaska.

In fact, what I did not know at the time is that she lives right here, in my own neighborhood.

She gained her fame as one of Alaska's Ice Road Truckers, which has evolved to encompass the Deadliest Roads of all the world.

Now here Lisa was, riding her horse down the bike trail that passes by Metro Cafe.

Would she turn in?

Would she pull her horse right up to the drive through window and order hot chocolate for herself and a biscuit for her horse?

Lisa Kelly did pull in! And here she is, waiting in line at the drive-through with her friends and horses while Nola delivers an order to the customer ahead of her.

Sure enough, the horse ordered a biscuit. "Do we have any horse biscuits?" Nola shouted, "There's a horse at my window who has just ordered a biscuit!"*

Nola found a biscuit and served it to Sky, the horse.

"Damn good!" the horse neighed, after devouring the biscuit. "Now give me that one, too!"** Nola did. The horses behind would also all get their biscuits.

Camera and production people working on contract for CNN were following Lisa. I don't know when, but CNN plan to do a little story in which they follow Lisa as she takes them to her favorite places in Wasilla.

One of those favorite places is Metro Cafe. Another is Fat Boy's Pizza, which sits in the opposite direction from my house.

I bought a pizza there on the day Fat Boy's opened. If Fat Boy's is now one of the favorite places of the famous ice road trucker, Lisa Kelly, they must have figured out how to do it.

Sometime after I get back from my next trip to the Arctic Slope, I will go back and give them another try.

"Wasilla is MY city," she tells the camera people here, "and Metro Cafe is one of my favorite places!"

If one is going to sip on hot chocolate at Metro Cafe, it is more pleasant to sit and sip inside, rather than outside, in the saddle, on horse back.

Lisa... I will not tell you to stay safe out on those roads you drive. That is impossible and would defeat the whole purpose of your adventures. But please, always, do come safely home.

Outside, I had chatted briefly with photographer David A. Van Amber of Mankato, Minnesota. When I asked him who he was working for, he answered, "I'm hers," and nodded toward Linda Kelly.

I inquired a little further, and learned that this meant he was her photographer only, and that she is married.

Inside Metro, in what appeared to be an inside joke, he touched her on the shoulder and then they broke laughing.

Lisa autographs a baseball cap for David.

The cameraman depicts hard-working barista and writer in the making, Shoshana, making a smoothie.

When not out on the ice roads or the Himalayan highways, Lisa says she drops into Metro Cafe about three times a week. Hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls are her favorite.

She likes to come to Metro, she says, because, "sometimes you just want to go to a place where everybody knows your name."

When she said that, for some reason, I began to hear the theme song from Cheers in my head.

And it was a fact - every single person in Metro Cafe knew Lisa Kelly by name.

Lisa and Carmen.

Scott's dad is a truck driver and he drives Kenworth - the same kind of rig that Lisa drives. When he learned that she was a regular at Metro, he asked Scott to be sure to get a photo of Lisa with Carmen and him and send to him.

So, Scott's dad, this is for you.

My printer is broken and I am about to leave to the Far North for a couple of weeks or so, so it will be awhile before I can make a print.

Then I went back outside and to create one of my famous "Through the Metro window" studies with Lisa, Carmen, Scott, Nola and the crew that recorded her visit for CNN. I am afraid I did not get everybody's name, but the fellow at right is Russell J. Weston, of Weston Productions out of Anchorage, who contracted with CNN.

It had been decades since I had last seen him, but I first met him nearly 30 years ago when he was working as a photographer for the Anchorage Times and my family and I were living in two small tents, which we pitched here and there, trying to find a way to survive in Alaska.

There were three newspapers in Anchorage then and so whenever we would run out of money to buy gas for the Volkswagen Rabbit that had transported us from Arizona to Alaska, or food, I would stop in at the different papers.

If they had any extra assignments that staff had been unable to fill, I would take them and then they would pay me $25.00 per published shot.

That's how I met Russell, who is now an independent "An Emmy Award Winner" producer.

He gave his card and it says so right on it.

So here you have it:

Through the Metro Window Study, #3,444,899.23: With Lisa Kelly and CNN

And here is Scott.

Regular readers will recall the post when, after learning that he had cancer, Scott told me that in building Metro Cafe, he had created a stage for Carmen, that it was she who worked the magic that brought the stage and the plays that unfold therein to life.

On this day, another such play had unfolded on the stage that Scott had built for his beautiful and vivacious wife, Carmen.

So here is Scott, alongside the stage that he built.

As for Carmen, when I returned to the drive-through window at 4:00 PM for my regular, we talked a bit about the flurry of activity from earlier in the day.

"It will be very good for Metro Cafe," I assured her.

She remembered when Scott and she had opened the cafe, how much fun it had been and that now, what she wants, more than anything, more than publicity and success in business, is for Scott to get well.

That's it. She wants Scott to be well.

*Sometimes, when a quote cannot be precisely remembered, it must be made up. I am not saying that this is the case here, only that sometimes it happens.

**This is a definite, definite, quote, not made up at all. These are the very words that Sky the horse spoke.

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