I go to town to take Margie to the doctor, pay the printers and look at airplanes

I had to get up very early today and it was hard. No, you would not likely call it early - 8:00 AM, but I have turned the clock upside and have been going to bed somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00 or even 6:00 AM. I don't fall into a good sleep, because of these damn, persistent, shingles, but I seem to get my best rest between 8:00 AM and noon, which is when I usually get up.

But Margie had a follow up doctor appointment in Anchorage scheduled for 9:30, so I had to get up at at 8:00 after going to bed at 4:30.

This is what Pioneer Peak looked like at 8:42 AM as we passed by on the way to Anchorage. To get the picture at all, I had to push my ISO to 3200.

Still, there is a lot more light here this time of year than there is in Barrow.

So I dropped Margie off at the hospital and drove to University Mall, where Jack of Print Solutions Alaska met me. I gave him a huge check, which I would have really liked to have kept because it could have supported us for three months. He gave me some copies of Uiñiq magazine to take home. The rest went into the mail and to the North Slope Borough in Barrow.

Maybe someday I will look at them. It's kind of a funny thing, but after I finish a big job and get the printed product back, I can't look at it for a long time.

I still haven't looked throgh the Kivgiq Uiñiq that I put out a couple of months ago. That was 116 pages. This new one is 120.

Now that it is done, I do not have a single paying job in front of me. For the moment, I do not want one. I want to work on my own projects. But pretty soon I must find some kind of work that will pay me some decent money or Margie and I will be on the street. I think we can make it for another six weeks. Maybe two months with good luck, one month with bad.

I have no idea at all what kind of job might come along. I want to keep working in the Arctic, though. I do. I love the Arctic more than I can express. Sometimes, I wonder why, because it is a tough place and it can be terribly difficult to work in, but I want to, because there is so much that needs to be done and I want to do it.

And the people. For whatever reason, the people of the Arctic tend to be good to me.

So I want to keep working in the Arctic. It is changing so fast. My eyes can sometimes hardly believe the changes I see.

This isn't the Arctic, though - this is Anchorage. Once I paid for Uiñiq and got some magazines to bring home and stick aside and never look at, I knew that I would have an hour or so until Margie was done.

And so I just started to wander and pretty soon, as always happens, I came to a place where there were airplanes. Lake Hood this time. It could have just as easily been Merrill Field.

I remember reading the story in the Anchorage Daily News or the Alaska Dispatch when this old World War II era plane wreck was recovered, but I don't remember the details. I tried to find it online but failed. I do remember they were going to restore it. Maybe someday it will make it back up there, where it can play with the clouds.

I returned to the hospital at 11:00. Margie was waiting for her medications. She asked if I could go to Jake and Lavina's and feed Marty, the calico cat. Lisa usually feeds her but didn't make it over this morning.

So I did, and as I neared their house, I saw this woman cleaning snow off her car.

I think I fed Marty, anyway. I never saw her. I looked in every room, in every nook and cranny that I could find. I called her name. I called out, "kitty, kitty, kitty."

But I never saw her.

Then I went back and picked Margie up. The doctor had removed the tube from her abdomen. He said she was doing pretty good, although they do want to monitor her blood for awhile. We then drove out to the Dimond area where Lisa met us at Red Robin.

Lisa said that in all the days that she has been feeding Marty, she has not seen her once. When she comes back the next morning, the cat food she put out the day before has all been eaten.

The two of them looked very pretty sitting across the table from me and I meant to take a picture, but I forgot. So, as Margie I waited a nearby red light, I photographed this overpass instead.

We continued on. While we were stopped at another light, this little Cessna 150 or 152 flew over us. I don't want a plane like this one. As metal planes go, they are cheap and economical but they are lousy bush planes. They are good for training student pilots and that's about it.

Still, if someone were to offer me one, I would accept. Then I would try to trade up, probably to another Citabria 7GCBC, because I loved my Citabria.

As you can see, Jim makes things hard for me. He has been in the space between my keyboard and my monitor ever since I sat down here about three hours ago. In this capture, he is simply turning around to face the opposite direction from what he had been.

I don't make him move. I just tilt my head this way and that way and work around him.

Tonight I want to get bed early and see if I can force myself back onto a schedule that comes closer to matching that of the world around me.

It is 2:29 AM right now. Maybe I can make it to bed by 2:45 and get up before Sunrise, which probably happens about 10:00 AM. Maybe a few minutes before. If you look at the time this actually posts, then you can figure I got to bed maybe 10 or 15 minutes after that.

I hope I can get some decent sleep. I've got all kinds of medications now to take away the pain and the horrid, horrid, itching and they help a little bit, but not as much as one would hope or think. In fact, the last several nights have been maddening.

I know I am not supposed to scratch, but when I get suspended in a strange state of near sleep and the itch that accompanies the pain is maddening, I can't stop myself. I scratch. I just hope this itching means that it is going away.

It has been just about four weeks now since I first knew that I was getting struck by something bad.

Thank God it was only shingles. At first, before the rash appeared, I truly thought this might be it, the affliction that would take me down. But it was only shingles. No big deal. Just a painful nuisance for awhile.

But I would like to sleep, uninterupted. I would really like to.

Tomorrow, I will post more pictures from my time of hiatus. They will be fun pictues, I promise you. 

Lazy, Saturday feeling prevails

The question is, what am I doing in the house right now? Margie and Kalib are in the backyard and I hear happy sounds coming from back there, as well as the sound of a stick occasionally bumping a turned-over canoe, and of water splashing.

Yesterday afternoon, I drove into Anchorage to pick Margie up at Jacob and Lavina's, where she had been baby-sitting all week, not to bring her home, but to take her on a date - out to a movie, to dinner - and then drop her back off until late late tonight, just before Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and Jobe catch their flight to Albuquerque.

But, things worked out differently than I had anticipated and I wound up bringing my date home with me - along with two little boys.

Having a desperate need to do so, l slept in very late today and it was good.

Now I have a very lazy Saturday feeling. Margie and Kalib are in the backyard.

I have a bunch of pictures sitting in front of me, waiting to be edited, processed, placed in this post and written about.

But I am not going to do it. Not now.

Instead, I will just post the first picture that I took after I left to pick up Margie and take her out on a date:

Pioneer Peak, looming above.

Maybe I will post some of the others later.

Maybe I won't.

We will see. For now, I am just going to go out into the backyard and see what kind of commotion Kalib and Margie are getting into.

Jobe is napping in his cradleboard. Caleb is in the house to listen, should Jobe wake up.

View image as slide

I drive to town through a beautiful part of America to pick Margie up; Kalib and Jobe; the wind blows; moose die in front of cars

It was time to go pick Margie up from her latest stint at Jacob and Lavina's to help care for Kalib and Jobe. When I took off about mid-afternoon, A Prairie Home Companion was on the radio. Soon, the song, America, the Beautiful was performed. As I happened to be driving in a particularly beautiful part of America, I lifted my camera and shot a frame through the windshield, just as they sang about "spacious skys" and "amber waves of grain."

Around the next bend, I came upon this car, sporting a decal of a grenade on the rear window. That grenade is a little hard to see at this size, but, depending on the size of your monitor, it stands out in slide show view.

In town, gas was a bit cheaper than out here. I wonder what the price will be next week? 

On my way to Jacob and Lavina's house.

I unlocked the door and entered the house. It was very quiet, as if no one was there. I was pretty sure someone was, so I headed up the stairs. At the top, I came upon Martigny.

Margie was resting in the living room. 

Jobe was taking a nap on Kalib's bed. As for Kalib and his parents, they had gone downtown to see some of the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous stuff, like the snow sculptures. As for me, I had no time for Fur Rendez on this day. I just wanted to pick up Margie and head back to Wasilla as quickly as possible.

But we could not head back with Jobe asleep and his parents and brother away.

After a bit, Jobe began to wake up. He had a cold, was not feeling well, and was a bit groggy.

Jobe's little feet.

I do a self-portrait of Jobe and I. I see I should have washed my hair that day.

Oh well.

About half-an-hour after I arrived, the rest of the family came home. Lavina reported that it had been very cold downtown, that the wind had been blowing, picking up the snow and hurling it through the air. The flying snow had stung everybody's faces.

But I know from experience that if I could have gone downtown I would have saw many people frolicking, riding the carnival rides and just having fun.

Lavina was not feeling well, either. Kalib needed a nap. Margie picked him up and carried him to his room. He was not pleased by this and vocally expressed his displeasure, but, once down, Kalib soon fell asleep.

I had been holding Jobe, but I gave him to his mom and then went and sat back down.

Jobe wanted me back. How could I refuse?

Finally, we just had to go. Jobe was not pleased.

Out on the road, we came upon Jacob, who had been walking Muzzy.

The wind buffeted and rocked the car as we drove home. If you were to view this in slide-show mode, you would see that those two signs have pictures of moose on them, as a warning to drivers. Another caution sign, just when you enter the valley, states that 198 moose have been killed by moose-car collisions in the valley so far this winter.

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Two studies of Pioneer Peak shot with a telephoto lens while stopped at a red light: I go up the hill, I go down the hill

Study of Pioneer Peak shot with a telephoto lens while stopped at a red light, #1: I need to get to the top of the hill just beyond this light, but the light turns red and I must stop.

So I take a picture of the peak while I wait for the light to change.

Study of Pioneer Peak shot with a telephoto lens while stopped at a red light, #2: Having made two purchases atop the hill, I turn around and drive back down the hill. Again, I get stopped by the same red light. So I take another picture - this time of the peak as it appears in my left-door rear view mirror. 

That is why everything looks like it is backwards. That is why all the people appear to driving on the wrong side of the road. This is a mirror image.

Of course, for my family and friends in India, it would look to them like the people are all driving on the right side of the road - the right side being the left side in India, just like it is in England.

Now, I have no time to blog any further today. I have a difficult problem to solve.

I didn't even have time to blog this much, but I did it anyway.

That is because I am dedicated to this blog.

So I blog even when I have no time to put up even the most simple of posts.

Which this one is.

Not withstanding the simplicity of it, beneath the surface it is very deep and exceedingly complex - meaningful.

Few will grasp it.

View images as slides

Moon behind the trees, icy road, free coffee and four studies of Pioneer Peak in the howling wind

As I walked, the half-moon tried to hide behind the trees. It didn't work. I spotted it, anyway.

I bet you can, too.

The wind was howling - I don't know how strong, but very strong. And the road was icy. It was kind of hard to walk, but I needed to walk, so I walked anyway and I never took a fall. I need to get some crampons to put on my shoes.

I used to have some. I don't know what happened to them.

Margie has some, but they don't fit on my shoes.

Off in the distance, a jet flew overhead. Judging from the direction that it was headed, it must have been on its way to Russia.

I suppose it might have landed before it got to Russia.

Or maybe it made a left turn, or even a right one, and then went and flew over the North Pole.

Despite the fierce wind that blew, Ubiquitous Raven came flying by. He was alone, though. I saw no other ravens on this walk. Usually, I see several.

A moose had walked by here, back when the snow was still good.

Other than my walk and coffee break, I spent the whole day right here, over 12 hours, working in my computer with Jimmy always here to help - and Pistol-Yero, too. I met the kitten seen on the screen in India. Sad story. Sad, sad, sad story.

Why did God design life to be like this?

When I arrived at Metro Cafe, Elizabeth handed me my coffee and cinnamon roll and told me that it was already paid for. As usual, she didn't know by whom. A woman, she said, whereas last time it was a man.

I know for certain that Akponygirl has bought me coffee. If this was again from you, thank you. If it was from someone else, then thank you, whoever you are.

I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed the cinnamon roll. Elisabeth cut it in half for me so that I would not eat the whole thing, but I ate the whole thing, anyway.

It's probably for the best. I was going to give the other half to Margie, but she's diabetic and it had a great deal of sugar on it.

Pioneer Peak in the Howing Wind, Study #1: The reason the sky is this color is because the wind, which is fierce, is hurling glacier dust through the air. The reason there is no snow on the ground is because, prior to the big meltdown, the wind, unrestrained here by trees or much of anything, scoured almost all of it away and then the tiny bit that was left melted.

Pioneer Peak in the Howing Wind, Study #2: You can get an idea how windy it was.

Pioneer Peak in the Howing Wind, Study #3: I actually got out of the car to take this one, but I kept getting struck in the face not only by dust but by small pebbles that were traveling with the wind. I feared one might strike me in the eye, or scratch and chip my lens, so I got back into the car pretty quick.

This guy had this in the back of his truck, but it got blown out. Now he is trying to put it back into his truck.

Pioneer Peak in the Howing Wind, Study #4: When Kalib came home from work, he reported that a number of his co-workers, all of whom use this same parking lot, lost car windows on this day, after the wind hurled pebbles into them with enough force to blow them out.

And this one from India:

Among the ruins of Hampi.

View images as slide show