The party begins with a buttery shout, progresses to flaming fire, and ends in displays of affection

The party began with a shout,"Pizzles stop licking the butter!" It was Liza who shouted, instantly causing all heads to turn to look at Pizzles as he licked the butter.

Shortly thereafter, Rex fed a piece of buttered bread to Cortney. Nobody shouted, "Cortney stop licking the butter!" 

No, this indignity was saved for Pizzles alone. True, Cortney was eating bread that the butter was spread on, yet, however one consumes the butter, in one way or another, one must still lick the butter.

Afterward, poor Pizzles begged for a piece of the bread spread with butter so that he might lick that butter too, but nobody would give him one. I am proud to say that, a little bit later, when I was eating my salmon, I gave three pieces to Pizzles. They were tiny pieces, yes, but he is a cat. He is a tiny creature. Tiny pieces for a tiny creature - just right and quite generous of me, because I wanted to eat all of the salmon - my piece and everybody else's, too.

I should note that Lisa took a little heat for calling Epizzles, Pizzles, rather than the nickname that has become the moniker of preference for him: "Poof."

This is because awhile back, Pizzles, who had always been an occasionally well-mannered cat, started to pee outside his litter box.

Poor Melanie and Charlie - they tried all the known remedies to convince a cat to restrict his peeing to the litter box, but nothing worked.

Then, they suddenly realized, "Pizzles.... Pizzzz..." Kind of sounds like the whiz of a cat peeing, pisssss. It occurred to them that everytime Epizzles heard them call him "Pizzles," he could be misinterpreting his name as an inducement to pee wherever he wanted.

So Melanie and Charlie quit calling him "Pizzles" and stuck to his other nickname, "Poof."

And sure enough, Poof quit peeing in the house.

I understand that he started to blow lots of stinkers, however. Nobody told me this, but it only makes sense.

Poof was well-mannered on this night, however, and didn't poof often, because he wanted some of my salmon and he innately understood that I do not share my salmon with Poof cats who are poofing all about.

Pretty soon, Charlie appeared with Lisa's surprise birthday cake. Her birthday was actually November 22 and we had all planned to celebrate together as a family down on my wife and children's ancestral White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona, but then Margie had to go to the hospital for emergency surgery.

I stayed home with her, of course, but given the fact that I was in the hard, early stages of the shingles that still bother me, if to a lesser but still sometimes very aggravating degree, traveling would have been pretty hard on me, anyway.

So we had a late celebration.

It has, of course, become a tradition that no matter whose birthday it is, Kalib, joined now by Jobe, with Lynxton on deck, helps to blow out the candles. But Kalib and Jobe are in Phoenix tonight. Tomorrow, they will board a plane and fly back to Alaska.

So Lisa had to blow her candles out all by herself. Without the benefit of the assistance of little people, this process, which normally takes at least 10 or 15 seconds, happened just like that. So I did not get to snap a bunch of frames, but had to settle for just one.

This was a wild berry cheesecake, by the way, made by Melanie with assistance from Charlie - I am pretty sure it was the best cheesecake I ever tasted.

Afterwards, the glow of young love brightened up the otherwise very dim room: Lisa and Bryce.

Melanie and Charlie.

Rex and Cortney... and a reminder of young love from a different time, which feels like maybe last week to me... the young love that made all of this evening's display of young love possible... Margie.

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Even on this birthday, Melanie remains trustworthy; cats are not wierd, they are normal

Those of us who were free gathered together to celebrate Melanie's birthday. I will not tell you what birthday it was, but I will note that when I was a young adult, we feared this birthday above all others. The belief among young people was that no matter how good a person was before they hit this birthday, once they reached it, the ways of the world would overtake them and they could not be trusted after that.

Hell.

Melanie can still be trusted.

Now I will move write along, writing very little, because I have already spent quite a bit of time editing, preparing and placing pictures and I do not have time to write much. So I won't. Because if I write words that I do not need to write, it will just eat up my time, so why should I write such words that waste time when I do not need to write them?

So I won't write much.

Just a little bit.

Not much at all.

Because it would waste time.

And I do not have time to waste.

So I will write very little today.

I will just show you the pictures.

And not worry about writing many words.

That would be a waste of time when all that you need to know is in the pictures.

Well, maybe are other things that should know, too - like how to do math, for example.

Math is a good skill for anyone to have.

Here is Lavina, making frybread.

Once must have some comprehension of math to make frybread.

Otherwise, one might make 100 frybreads, when one dozen would do.

Or use 6 teaspoons of salt when one would be just right.

Kalib entered carrying his spatula, but then laid it down. I picked it up. He did not quite know what to think about that.

Melanie prepares her Navajo/Apache taco.

The tacos were damn good.

The day before, Rex had submitted his entry for a grant to help him with a sculpture that he hopes to create and then display at Burning Man in Nevada this summer. Unfortunately, due to some computer shenanigans, much of his proposal did not get submitted. Only a piece of it.

Anyway, this is model of only a piece of what he hopes to create. In the real thing, this salmon skeleton will be five foot long and there will also be a whole salmon, concrete, five feet long and a number of other elements as well.

His sculpture will cover some significant space.

I hope he gets the damn grant. 

Melanie was presented with two birthday cakes, not one. I am not sure why. I did not ask. I know Charlie made one of the cakes. I'm not sure who made the other.

Lisa made the frosting.

We ate the cakes with vanilla ice cream and they were damn good.

Afterward, she opened gifts.

All of the gifts were damned good.

Charlie gave her a damned good book titled "Cats Are Wierd." Not withstanding the fact that it is a damned good book, I take exception to the title.

Cats are not weird. As you can see, Diamond is as normal as normal can be.

Bear Meach is not weird.

Melanie observes Bear Meach being normal as Rex and Margie wash dishes.

Kalib studies Poof. "This cat is not weird," he would have proclaimed, had the proper words come to him to thus proclaim.

Perhaps it is little boys, not cats, who are weird.

Jobe goes for Poof, who is not weird.

The Three Musketeers showed up: Carl, Charlie and Bryce. They did not bring their swords. I was disappointed. I wanted to borrow a sword to cut the cake.

As the party drew towards its wild conclusion, Kalib crawled up to see his mom.

Two of my children, paired off. Lisa came late to the party, because she is carrying such a heavy load between being a full time student and full time job, and taking on extra tasks to help pay for it all.

She must deal with stress.

And then, as always happens, the time came to say goodbye, see you later.

Always this time comes. 

What a fine thing it has been these past 30 years to have Melanie as my daughter.

An absolutely fine thing.

Oh, dear! I was not going to say, "30 years," but I did.

Even so, I trust her.

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Rex and Ama invite us to dinner, cats attend, hog camera

Rex and Ama invited us to dinner last night. Ama has been staying with Rex in his basement apartment at Melanie's, so they did the cooking upstairs at her place, where the eating would be done, too.

When we arrived, Diamond was waiting in the window, ready to take control of my camera.

Rex and Ama cooking - chip dinner, made with blue corn chips, green enchilada sauce, avocados, black beans, lettuce, tomatoes, a healthy dose of chili powder and oregano and some sort of meat substitute as Ama is basically vegetarian - although she did try some pickled maktak when she visited the house.

Bear Meach wants to eat, too.

Three cats gather around Charlie, knowing that he will feed them. First, they must allow him to give them, "high pets."

Charlie just got a haircut. As for his beard, he plans to take it to an international beard contest in Norway next May. He said that I should take my beard there, too, and enter it.

About the only category that I could qualify for would be "salt and pepper"... more and more salt, less pepper. Maybe by May, my beard will be all pepper - or perhaps snow. I could then enter it in the "snow drift" category - but not yet.

I do not yet qualify for that category.

Bear Meach turns his back upon us, but pays strict attention to what we are doing.

Charlie and Epizzles.

Rex.

Now, I feel kind of bad. I had meant to get some good pictures of Rex and Ama, but somehow I didn't. I think it is because most of the time I was out in the living room and she was in the kitchen and then when she was in the living room and we were all eating I was too busy eating to take pictures.

Afterward, I found myself feeling so fatigued and tired that I failed to follow through.

She got her job in Alaska, but doesn't start until December. In the meantime, she is going back to the Bay Area. 

When she returns, I will make up for this lapse.

BTW: Charlie thinks Rex should take his beard to the Norway competition, too.

Or maybe it was the fault of these cats. Sometimes, cats can be camera hogs. Diamond is a camera hog and has been since the first day that I met her - probably even before that.

I was wondering where Lisa was, because I had not seen her for a long time, what with her work, her studies, her trip to Oregon. I hadn't seen much of Melanie, either, who also went to Oregon, but Melanie was right there in front of me, so I knew she would be there.

Melanie called Lisa to make sure she and Bryce were coming.

Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and Jobe arrived. Kalib was thrilled to see Melanie.

Jobe was thrilled to see his grandpa - as you can clearly tell.

Finally, Lisa and Bryce arrived. Diamond greeted them at the door.

Lisa zapped Jobe with a red beam from her phaser.

Lisa, Lavina and Kalib.

We visited and talked about many important things. 

And then I had to go. I was just too tired to linger. Ama was worried that I should not drive, but Margie has hard time driving at night and I always come back when I am behind the wheel.

So we hugged all and left. 

This is what I mean about cats being camera hogs.

I should have photographed Rex and Ama, but Diamond forced me to photograph her instead.

Damn camera hog!

And you watch!

Next time I get together with people and these three cats, they will hog my camera again.

That's just how they are.

As for me, I still feel tired, fatigued, and exhausted.

I fear fatigue is perpetual now.

Exhaustion a way of life.

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As seen through my iPhone: we go to see Ira Glass, then hang out with cats and eat pizza

Before the Ira Glass performance began, Margie and I headed to the Kaladi brothers attached to the Anchorage Performing Arts Center. We had not planned to meet anyone else there, but when we arrived, Melanie, Charlie and Lisa were already standing in a long line, so Margie and I gave them our orders and found a place where we could all sit.

Soon, we all did: Melanie and Charlie.

Charlie and Lisa.

Margie and me - although I cannot be seen. Yet, I am here, as you can see, taking pictures with my iPhone.

Following the Ira Glass performance at the PAC, those of this family who attended all gathered together at Melanie and Charlie's place to eat pizza and hang out with cats. Three cats were present to hang out with, but, for some reason, it was Poof who kept putting himself into the middle of things.

"I can tell, Poof cat is getting ready to do something bad," Melanie said at some point. Apparently, the night before, as Charlie had been cooking, Poof had repeatedly tangled himself up in Charlie's feet and disrupted the cooking in a number. Finally, Charlie scolded him.

It is hard to imagine Charlie ever scolding a cat, and I am pretty certain that as cat scoldings go, it was a rather gentle one, but Charlie does insist that he actually scolded Poof. "I did. I scolded him," Charlie said.

Here is Poof, studying Lisa and Bryce. That's Lisa's feet on the table. 

Ira Glass fans are probably wondering why I do not have a picture of him here.

For one, given the situation, me armed with only an iPhone and faced with a difficult exposure situation and no way to exert any control over shutter speed, aperture and the like, it would have been very challenging to have gotten a picture of Glass.

I did not intend to bring only my iPhone. Before Margie I drove out of Wasilla, I put a full charge on my pocket camera battery, cleaned the lens and got it all ready to go. I then thought that I put it in my pocket but when we arrived in Anchorage and I got out of the car, I discovered that I had not. The only items in my pocket were my wallet, iPhone and lens cleaning cloth.

Then, just before Ira Glass came out, this fellow appeared on the stage and instructed everyone who wanted a photo to take it right now, of him, or the person seated next to them or whatever, because no photos would be allowed once Ira stepped onto the stage. Please turn off all cameras, cell phones and recording devices.

So, just before Ira stepped out, from the very excellent seats that Melanie and Rex had secured for us, in rows 5 and 6, almost directly in front of the table that had been set up for Glass and his sound equipment, I used my iPhone to snap the guy who was telling us that we could not take pictures.

I got the hand of the lady in front of me, too, as she put her hair in place.

I have been asked to give a full report on the Ira Glass performance, but I am at a loss as to how I might do that. He entered the stage in the dark, set down at his table in the dark, and then spent the first few minutes talking in the dark, to emphasize that radio is an acoustic medium, where the visuals are put into your head through the words of the speakers, not through photos or moving images.

He spoke of the power and direct connection this creates between the story tellers and their audience.

Indeed, sitting there in the dark, I felt very connected to every word that he spoke, and I felt the power of it.

Ira Glass said many things and even though I was exhausted and tired beyond all reason, it seemed to me that each one of his words reached me - even after the lights came on - and that I understood everything that he intended me to.

Although I work with images and written words rather than sound and even though I am reaching an age where some might want to believe my opportunities to truly succeed as a story-teller are in the past, Glass inspired me. In his voice, I heard the potential before me - if only I can but reach out and grab it.

Just before the performance started, someone took the seat immediately to my right. Then the lights went dim and I never really saw who that person was or what he looked like. Through the performance, he laughed boisterously and with approval and then mustered up the courage to ask a question during the Q&A period at the end.

As he asked his question, I looked at him and suddenly realized it was Jack Dalton.

Jack is himself a story teller - an actor, playwright and poet with both Yup'ik and Iñupiat ancestry and his fame both in and out of Alaska is growing.

This is he, Jack Dalton.

Lisa and Rex can be seen behind him.

Afterwards, those of this family who had attended discussed what we should do next. After five or ten minutes of indecision, during which time I swore I would make no recommendations, as, being a reckless and irresponsible eater, my recommendations sometimes get me in trouble with my daughters.

In time, though, I forgot my pledge and absent-mindedly recommended pizza from Milano's, delivered to Melanie's, where we could eat and hang out with cats at the same time.

And that is how we wound up going to Melanie's to hang out with cats and to eat pizza from Milano's. Despite my well-earned paranoia, my suggestion had been warmly received.

We had hardly stepped through the door into Melanie's house when Poof appeared and made his presence known.

Poof Cat.

Poof Cat, again.

I looked around and soon found Bear Meech. I could not see Diamond, so I asked where she was.

Immediately after I asked, she pranced into view.

She leaped up onto a table and looked at me as though she wanted me to pet her. I could not believe this, for usually, if I try to pet her, I am met by a growl as she jerks her head away from my hand.

Cautiously, I reached out to her. Diamond did want a pet!

My day was made.

But, as I have already noted, it was Poof who kept inserting himself into the scene. There were seven humans present, and he kept wandering about among all laps to make certain that his presence was acknowledged and adored by all. Here he is, winning Melanie's adoration.

Now he goes to Charlie, but fails to get his full attention.

Poof puts on his full charm. He gains Charlie's full attention.

Soon, he tucks himself in next to Margie.

Then he moves to my lap.

Suddenly, there was great clatter, clashing and banging, as dishes and pans and pizza box crashed onto the kitchen floor. Poof shot off like a rocket and immediately disappeared, as it was he who had caused this commotion. Once the humans among us regained our composure, we focused our attention upon a green-haired doll that had been with Melanie ever since she was a tiny girl. None of us can remember exactly when the doll came to Melanie, or just what was that TV series or cartoon character it was connected to, but, for as long as she can remember, this doll has always been with Melanie.

Not even the calamitous results of Poof's own mischief could long subdue him. Soon, he reappeared and took Rex over.

Poof - with Lisa and Bryce. Bryce did not go to the Ira Glass show, but he did come for pizza.

PS: Given the fact that the competition includes one of the most successful blogs in history, one that appears to have millions of followers, I recognize that the odds are against me but smahoney has nominated this blog for a Best Photography Blogger's Choice award and it has actually popped into first place for the moment.

I thank all who have voted for me and here is the link for any who might yet want to.

Also, I have encountered some problems in posting a Pay Pal donation link, but, when I can take 15 minutes to do so, I think I can solve those problems.

Thank you, smahoney!

Three cats enter the season of light; four blurred basketball shots, Point Hope v. Klawock

It is official.

We have entered the season of light.

LIGHT.

Wonderful, wonderful, glorious, light!

Sweet, sweet, northern light.

Charlie and Slick in the light that pours into Melanie's house.

Slick, you should know, is also known as Bear Meech.

Diamond glitters in the light.

Melanie, Charlie, and Poof Cat - all soak in the light at what not so long ago was a very dark hour.

But now it is the Vernal Equinox - the Spring Equinox.

And on this day, everyone in the world had 12 hours of sunlight. 

People at the equator would have seen the sun pop right up in the east and climb high fast until their shadows disappeared beneath their feet at high noon. From there, the sun would have just dropped, fast, straight down toward the west.

People standing on either pole could have watched the sun skim the horizon all day long. At the north pole, at the end of the 12 hours, the sun would have risen low into a day six months long and at the south, slipped away to a long, extended, twilight, thus beginning the six month night.

To you to the south - our days are now longer than your's.

But not as long as Barrow's, where the sun will climb higher and higher each day, and each day will stay up for about 15 minutes longer than the day before until finally, come May 10, it will stay above the horizon all day and will not set again until August 2.

Here in Wasilla, there will never be a night that the sun does not set, but soon the darkest part of the night will still be a light version of twilight and it will be wonderful.

Not so long ago, Slick was a creature of the night.

Now he is a creature of the light.

I went to three basketball games today, the final being the 2A championship game between Point Hope and Klawock.

Just before the game started, I set my cameras to shoot at a shutter speed of 1/400th of a second.

Then the game started and some good action happened in front of me immediately.

But, somehow, a knob on my camera had rubbed against something in such a way as to drop the shutter speed to 1/20th of a second.

Basketball players can move significantly in 1/20 of a second.

I would shoot seven frames before I discovered the error and every one would be blurry.

So here is one of those motioned-blurred frames.

And here is another.

Plus a third.

You can see the action is good and they do work in an artsy-kind of way, but they will not work for what I want them to work.

I was very disappointed that I blurred the shots, but I took a lot more afterwards, so I will be fine.

They are still downloading and I haven't had a chance to look at any of them, other than these blurry ones. These were right at the beginning of the take, so they popped up right away. The rest of the disk is still downloading and when it is done, I have two more disks to download.

But it is 1:09 AM, I am very sleepy and must go to bed.

So I will wait until tomorrow to download the other two disks.