Encounters at the Post Office: an aging dog, the man who loves the dog even more than he loves cameras and the anonymous woman coffee buyer; health benefits of coffee

I spotted them the other day at the post office as I was walking back to my car, the man still in his car with the dog. I thought, "I should photograph these two before the man gets out of the car," but I was feeling very lazy, tired to the extreme, worn down by all my recent travels and sleepless nights.

If I took the picture, then it would only be right to show it to the man and dog and tell them what I was doing, but I did not feel like explaining anything to anyone and I already had a tremendous amount of pictures to deal with, so I let the moment pass.

Just before I got into my car, the man stepped out of his car and commented on my camera. He wondered if it it was film or digital and if one could even still buy film at all.

He still had an old film camera, he said, but the camera didn't work anymore. He loved photography, he loved film. He had misgivings toward digital.

So I told him I would like to photograph his dog with my digital camera and he said sure. He wondered if he should roll down the window so that I could see the dog better but I told him "no" because if he left it up I could get both the dog and him in the picture - he by reflection.

The dog is Sleater, and she is 13 years old. She has cataracts and diabetes. Jerry would like to buy a new camera, but he spends a lot of money on Sleater's medical bills. There is not enough left to spare for a new camera.

Through the Metro Window, study # 4997: Discussing the health benefits of coffee

At the post office, I also came upon someone else. I am not quite certain who. A woman. Was it the woman driving a pickup truck who parked in the spot next to mine? Was it the woman who came through the door right behind me, so instead of letting it shut in her face I held it open and she walked through and smiled and said "Thank you?"

Or was it the one who held the door for me and I said "Thank you," to?

Or just one I passed in the hall?

There was one more who I remember seeing as she walked on the sidewalk to the post office door and then went inside well before I reached the door? She returned to her car even as I was still getting my mail.

These incidents happened on a couple of different days and I cannot quite sort which ones happened on the very day that I pulled up to the window at Metro Cafe and Carmen said my coffee was free, that a woman had seen me at the Post Office and so had bought this coffee for me, plus a pastry and she had even left one dollar for the tip.

This left a quarter in change, so Carmen gave me the quarter.

Whichever one of these ladies you might have been - thank you!

I also heard a story on NPR about coffee and health and in particular, prostate health. A study had been done and it found that men who drank a goodly amount of coffee were 60 percent less likely to get prostate cancer than men who did not. 

Those who drank a modest amount of coffee, 30 percent less likely.

And it noted that due to the anti-oxcidents in coffee, there are many other health benefits to be had from drinking coffee.

In my upbringing, to drink a cup of coffee was to sin - and to sin big.

I developed prostate problems very early in life. These problems caused me a great deal of pain and discomfort. I had to get up two or three times a night - sometimes even more.

I did not start drinking coffee until I started to hang out with Iñupiat whale hunters. 

It took a lot of years, but those prostate pains and problems all seem to have gone away.

Most nights, I do not have to get up even once now.

I did take some medication for awhile and it helped a lot, but I had to stop because I could not afford it and the insurance company that charged me cadillac premiums for clunker service and eventually drove me off their rolls before health care could pass would not help with the medications.

Yet the problems went away after I quit the medication.

Coffee?

I don't know. Maybe. Could have been.

In this picture, by the way, Carmen, Shoshana and I are having a serious discussion about the health benefits of drinking coffee, vs. religious taboos against drinking coffee.

In some ways, I still feel like I am committing a grave sin everytime I drink a cup of coffee, but I enjoy the coffee and maybe, just maybe, it is helping to keep me alive.

The story said that for maximum benefit, one should drink six cups of coffee every day. 

I would, but I fear that if I drank that much coffee every day, it would kill me.

When I am with whalers, I sometimes drink that much coffee but when one is on the ice the body metabolizes everything very fast.

View images as slides

Homely man with horses; two through the Window Metro Studies; I rush to Anchorage airport post office, then meet a man who wants whiskey

It is 1:38 AM and I am just now sitting down to do this blog. This is because I have been busy all day preparing the proposal that I mentioned yesterday. There were a few other little things that I had to attend to - emails to answer, pro-bono photo orders to postpone - that kind of thing. But basically, the day was given entirely to the proposal.

As for this image, it is a picture of a holdover from yesterday's take. That's me on the computer screen, in a photo that Ron Mancil took of me with my camera out by the horses. Some of you may have noticed that when I include a picture taken by someone else in this blog, I first take a picture of that picture, whether it be on an iPhone, computer screen, wedding invitation or whatever.

That's because this blog is an impression of how I see the world through my camera, even when I extend that camera out somewhere and point it at something - maybe me - without actually looking through the lens.

One thing that I notice when I see a picture of myself like this is that I am going downhill fast, growing more homely and ugly every day. My mind's eye never sees me this way. When it envisions me, my mind's eye still pictures a dashing young tall guy of about 37, not a short guy headed towards old age.

But look - here's proof. I am going the way of all mankind; womankind, too. Humankind. And catkind, as we have observed in Royce.

Horsekind, too - although none of these horses look old or homely to me.

Through the Window Metro Study, #9723

Well, I did break away from my computer at 4:00, so I could go to Metro and hear at least a little bit of news on my car radio. When I got there, some of the same good-looking kids that I photographed very recently were on the other side of the window, with a newcomer. I got his name but I had forgotten my iPhone so I didn't record it and I forgot it.

So, to make him feel better about it, I just won't name anybody.

Through the Window Metro Study #3

One of Carmen's friends was there - a lady that she used to work with at Northern Air Cargo. Carmen told me her name, too, and I was certain I would remember, but I forgot.

Oddly enough, whenever I have had my iPhone with me and have actually used to it record the names of people I have photographed, I have always remembered those names - even without opening up the iPhone.

If I forget the phone again, I suppose what I should do is cup my hand to my head, speak the names into it as if I were recording and then maybe I won't forget.

The proposal had to be postmarked before midnight and the only Post Office I know of in the state of Alaska that is open until midnight is the one by the airport. I left the house about 10:15. It takes a little over an hour to drive from here to that post office, but I had give myself a little extra time, just in case somebody hit a moose or something somewhere in front of me and caused traffic to slow down.

I arrived at the Post Office just past 11:20, congratulating myself on making it with time to spare. I had planned to put the package in a priority mail envelope and so had made no label at home, as I would just have to do it at the post office again, anyway.

So I got the priority envelope and then pulled out my packet to get the mailing address off the application materials.

Oh no! Even though I was certain it was, the address was not printed anywhere on the application materials. The logo was, but not the address.

Aha! This time, I had my iPhone with me!

I pulled it out, logged onto the net and quickly found the address.

I then got into the line, which was long and slow, as it always it as this post office just before midnight.

Oh, my goodness! Look at this!

I have grown even more homely and ugly than I was just yesterday, when Ron photographed me with the horses.

Just proves what I said under photo #1.

Joe took the package from me and let me watch as he gave it the March 1 postmark. Joe asked that I not photograph his face, but only his hands.

So that's what I did.

I didn't have enough gas to get home, so I stopped at the Holiday Station by Merrill Field. I noticed this guy sitting by this pile of firewood and I was pretty certain that before I left, he would ask me for money.

Sure enough, just as I was putting the hose back into the pump, he got up, walked over and made his request. He and his brother had just flown in from Hawaii to take in Fur Rendezvous, he said, but they didn't have enough money left to buy whiskey. They needed some whiskey so they could enjoy Fur Rendez. 

They weren't going to start on it tonight, he said, but were going to wait until tomorrow when the events started. Then they would start drinking the whiskey.

"I'm sorry," I told him, "I don't have any cash on me at all and my bank account is down to about $100," all of which was true.

"That's okay," he said. He then went and sat back down.

Then I remembered that when I bought my coffee from Carmen with a credit card, I had seen a quarter and a penny sitting in the slot by the gear shifter.

So I opened the car door, took out the quarter and the penny, walked over and gave it to the man.

"Well, at least you're honest about needing the money for whiskey," I said. "Here's 26 cents. That's all the cash I have."

"Yes," he said. "That's the honest truth. I'm not a panhandler and I'm not homeless. Me and my brother just came all the way from Hawaii to see Fur Rendezvous and we need whiskey."

"You're lucky its warm," I said. 

Regular readers might recall how, a few days ago, I mentioned that there was a mass of cold air sitting to the north of us even as a low pressure system of warm air was spinning toward us from Hawaii.

I had hoped the cold air would win the battle and, for a time, on Saturday, it looked like it might. Then the warm front spun in and took over. The temperature when I took this picture was about 30 degrees (-1 c).

"Yeah, I'm told it gets pretty cold here this time of year," Ilya said.

"It can," I said, "a lot colder than this."

Then we shook hands and parted company.

Kalib makes a toast, leaving me no choice but to cheat a little bit; a brown dog named Blue goes into the post office; Pineapple Express causes the weather to turn miserably warm

Thanks to this guy and what he is about to do, I now have to cheat a little bit. Until I get on top of things (and I am not even close), I pledged to limit my posts to two photos a day - one of Kalib and another from out and about. So when I took this picture of Kalib, I figured that I had my one of him and that would do it.

But then he wanted to make toasts all around - "to the best damned grandparents in the world," he toasted. Oh, those weren't his exact words, most of which are not spoken in adult English, but that was what he meant. The best damned grandma agreed, and so joined in the toast.

So, you see, I felt it necessary to break my pledge, and post three images. I could have posted ten, easy enough, but I only posted three.

The occasion, by the way, was the opening of the new "Alaska Bagel." The three of us were very curious to try it out. Margie ordered a wrap, I ordered a bagel sandwich, we both ordered a cup of chicken gumbo soup, I ordered a root beer and, as you can see, these two ordered glasses of water. Margie and I shared with Kalib.

The soup was excellent. The sandwich was okay - the fresh bagel was excellent as was the mustard, mayo, tomatoes, onions, avacado, etc, but there was only one, very thin, slice of ham on my sandwich.

I could hardly taste the ham!

And the bill came to over $26, which is just too much to spend for a simple lunch with only one thin slice of ham, no matter how good the bagel is.  So I won't be going there as often as I would have hoped.

Jacob and Lavina stopped on their way to work and bought breakfast there. Both reported breakfast to be delicious. So maybe I will give that a try, too, before I give up.

I had to go to the post office and stand in a long line. This guy stood in front of me with his back toward me, so I really didn't notice that there was anything special about him - until he reached the point where he was next in line and turned towards the counters.

Suddenly, I saw that there was something very special about him, poking its head out through his unzipped jacket.

I was only able to do a short interview, maybe five seconds - just long enough to discover that the dog's name is Blue. As there is no blue to be seen in the dog, this raised some obvious questions, but before I could ask any of them, a postal worker looked at the man and the dog, motioned with his hand and said, "come forward please."

That was that.

Maybe one day I will see them again.

As long as I am cheating, I might as well cheat a little more and put in two pictures from out and about. Right now, we are having the second most miserable type of weather that we get around here in the winter time. A Pineapple Express low pressure system has moved up the Pacific from Hawaii and vicinity and brought warm temperatures and strong winds.

It is awful. The temperature is 38 degrees above zero and snow is melting. I hate it.

The only winter weather that we get that is worse is when the Pineapple Express is even stronger, warmer and wetter, when the temperature rises into the 40's and rain pours from the sky.

We live on the edge of one of the great climatic battle zones of this world - the masses of super-deep, cold air that move our way from the north and west, and the warm air flows that slip up from the Pacific.

When the cold wins out, life is good. When the warm wins, it is miserable.

And, as I have noted before, this is an El Niño winter. In El Niño winters, the Pineapple Express wins the battle all too often.

In these warming times (Alaska's average wintertime temperatures are over six degrees warmer than they were just 30 years ago) the misery is only exacerbated.

Okay. Tomorrow, I try to go back to my two image scheme.

Correction: Yesterday, I confused Diane Benson's halibut with another one and erroneously stated that it was over 300 pounds. It was actually about 120 - but that's still pretty big.

Real Wasilla - not to be found in Rogue: Snowplow comes down the road, turns around and goes back up again; Kalib loses shoe on sub-zero drive; more

As I took my walk today, I saw a snowplow coming down the road.

It zipped right past me.

It reached the end of the road, then turned around and came right back again, it's second blade grinding loudly against the pavement it scraped.

It zipped right past me all over again - talk about deja vu!

Here is Kalib, at the Post Office. I see that he has removed one shoe. That's the thing to do when the temperature outside is -5 F (-21C).

On the way home, we passed a postal worker distributing mail. Kalib did not witness this great event.

He had fallen asleep - that's why. I picked him up, carried him into the house and gave him to Margie, who put him into bed for his afternoon nap. 

As soon as he hit the mattress, he was wide awake. (I received a complaint from down in the Navajo Nation today: each of my last two posts contained only one photo each of Kalib. This was highly inadequate, I was informed. POST MORE PICTURES OF KALIB!!! I was chastised. Well, today there is three. I suppose three won't be enough, though.)

At 4:00 PM, I took my coffee break and drove past these kids, playing in the snow.

And here I am, in the drive-through at Metro Cafe, where some important business was being conducted.

As should be clear to all readers, here in Wasilla, the excitement never ends.

You won't find anything like this in "Going Rogue," but you will find it right here, on this blog.

Catch 22 upon Catch 22: I could blame the ravens, but actually, it is all my fault

I want to go to bed right now - in fact, I wanted to go to bed an hour ago, but I have fallen behind on this blog and if I don't catch up right now, when will I?

I have a good excuse. I had a little project that had to be postmarked no later than March 1 and it ate up all my time, day and night, and then after I drove to Anchorage late Sunday night, got the postmark, bought a cheese quesedilla, a cheesy-bean burrito and a strawberry mango drink at the Parks Highway Taco Bell all-night drivethrough and then drove home, I was drained and have been ever since.

Taco Bell. That is where the problems started. Not the one on the Parks Highway in Anchorage, but the one here, in Wasilla, Saturday, where I photographed this and the other two ravens seen here. 

This is how it happened: I had no cash on Saturday when I went through the Wasilla Taco Bell drivethrough. Margie was stretched out across the back seat of the Escape, so pulled out my wallet, slipped my debit card out of that, paid with the debit card, slipped the card back into the wallet and then put the wallet...

Where did I put the wallet? Did I put it on my lap? I don't remember. Perhaps because I was paying too much attention to the ravens. I always pay attention to ravens. They demand it.

Did I put it in the little pouch on the inside of the drivers door?

Just where did I put it? It was black. These ravens are squabbling over and eating something black. Did they take it? Did they eat it?

All I know for certain is that, after we finished dining, I drove up to the outside Taco Bell garbage can. I handed my sack of Taco Bell garbage back to Margie, she put her sack of Taco Bell garbage into it, handed it back to me and then I got out of the car, walked to the garbage can, threw it in, got back in the car and then drove straight at the ravens, thinking that they would fly before I got to them.

But they didn't. They called my bluff and I had to stop and then go around them. It is not because they were stupid and did not understand the danger a Ford Escape could pose to them.

They are smart. They just knew that I was bluffing, and that I would stop. And if by chance I didn't, they had it all calculated down to the micro-second just when they would actually need to hop and flap out of the way.

But they did not want to do that unless it was absolutely necessary, and they knew it wouldn't be. They wanted to call my bluff, to humiliate me, and they did.

Margie wanted to go to Carr's to buy some groceries after that. So I drove her to Carr's. I thought that she meant that she wanted me to go in and buy some groceries, but she meant she wanted us to go in and buy some groceries. It would be the very first time that she had gone into a store since she suffered her injury, January 20.

I drove her as close as I could to the door, got out of the car, opened up the back door, helped her out, made certain she got through the new fallen snow to the walk that leads inside the store, then got back into the car. By then, the lady and the boy above were in front of me, so I took their picture.

I then found a place far from the store to park the car. Being a rough, tough, Alaskan, I did not care at all about the falling snow. I hiked from the car to Carr's as if it was not even snowing at all. As if I was in Phoenix, Arizona.

That's how I did it. I then entered the store and these two boys - I assume the one with a beard is a boy, but who knows, he could be a girl - how could I tell? - offered me a Peanut Butter Cup. First, I took their picture and then I took the Peanut Butter Cup.

That is the kind of thing of thing that you do when you are a serious photographer, which I am. You take your picture before you take your Peanut Butter Cup. It does not matter how badly you want that Peanut Butter Cup, you take the picture first.

If you can't do that, then, hell, you might just as well throw your damn camera in the trash.

I wonder if I threw my wallet in the trash at Taco Bell? I wonder if I had accidently placed it in the Taco Bell sack when I was eating, the one that became my trash bag?

All I know for certain is that when I got to the check-out stand, with Margie hobbling behind, and the checker rang up the $200 plus bill, I reached into my pocket for my wallet, but it was not there.

I went back to the car and searched in and all around it. My wallet was not there. I went to Carr's customer service, to see if someone had turned my wallet in. They had not. I drove back to Taco Bell, to see if someone had turned in my wallet there.

No one had. I asked if the garbage can had been emptied. It had.

The Taco Bell ravens laughed at me.

You don't believe me? You don't believe that a raven can laugh? Then come to Alaska and you will learn otherwise.

So I drove Margie home and checked my online bank account. No activity. Checked my credit cards. No activity. Still, I had to cancel them all. Each and every one.

Worse yet, I had no cash. Worse still, Margie had no cash. Even worse, when I cancelled my cards, I also cancelled her's, because we share accounts.

We do not have a pre-nup, either. Don't need one.

Although she was a little irritated with me, right now.

After that, there was nothing to do but go home and work on the project that I was telling you about. I worked on it all day Saturday for the remainder of the day and then when the day ended, I continued to work on it.

I did not stop until 5:00 AM. I then went to bed, pulled the covers over me and then the cats piled on. I sleep better when cats are piled atop me. Unless they grow mischievous. They grew mischievous.

I got up a bit before 10:00 AM, fixed Margie some oatmeal, fixed me some oatmeal and then got back to work. I did not stop until I was done, and that happened about 8:45 PM. At that time on Sunday, the only open Post Office in the whole state of Alaska is the airport Post Office in Anchorage, so I climbed into the car and drove - without my driver's license, because that was in the lost wallet.

Margie could not drive me, because her leg is in a brace and still cannot be bent. Her arm is in a cast and she could not grip the steering wheel.

So I drove, without my license. I set the cruise control to four miles above the speed limit to make certain that I would not accidently speed and get pulled over without a license.

I drove very cautious and carefully, so as not to attract any undo attention.

I drove past car after car that had gone off the road. Some had flipped over, some were on their side.

The road was dry. It was not icy. All those cars must have slid off the road the day before, when it was snowing. A whole lot of cars must have slide off the road Saturday, for so many to still not be retrieved Sunday night.

Probably, in the past, some of these drivers have laughed at news reports of snow-caused traffic mishaps in Lower 48 cities, especially in cities unaccustomed to snow that suddenly get snow.

Today, we seen such reports come out of Tennessee, and other southern states, like Maine.

I bet these drivers didn't laugh today.

Others did, though. Their time is coming.

As for today, it dawned clear, cold, and beautiful. -20 at our house. For you celsius people, that would be -29 on your scale. But I drove over the hill that is behind me in this picture and on Wasilla Main Street, it was +3. We live in a cold sink, that's why.

The good thing is, I now have so many bars on my cellphone right in my house that I haven't even bothered to count them, as that would require me to put on my reading glasses. But there are a lot of bars. No more dropped calls - thanks to this ugly monstrosity that just got turned on.

Now here is an amazing thing: when we flew out of Salt Lake City on the way home from Washington, DC, there was a guy at the gate next to ours peddling Delta Airlines American Express credit cards. He said if I got one and made just one purchase, why, hell, right there I would get enough free Delta Airlines miles just for doing so that I could fly free on a Delta Airlines roundtrip ticket  anywhere they go.

He said Margie could sign up and we could get two free round-trip tickets. I did not want another credit card, but I did like the idea of those free tickets. So I signed us both up. Margie was too broken up to sign herself up.

Those cards arrived the other day, but I just ignored them. This meant that I did not put them in my wallet. This meant that they did not get lost.

That is how I paid to mail my package from the Anchorage airport Post Office - with that Delta Airlines American Express card.

That is how I bought gas to drive back home from Anchorage - with that card.

And now I can fly anywhere in the US that Delta goes...

So today, driving illegally once again, I drove to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Palmer, figuring that I could be legal when I drove back.

When I got to the DMV, a sign asked me to please fill out all the relevant forms before my number was called. So I took my number from the number machine, then found the basket for the form that I needed.

It was empty.

Next, I sat in a chair and waited for my number to be called. My number was 241. As you can see, the couple in the picture here had number 237, and I had already been waiting awhile when I took it.

See the two portraits hanging on the wall? The one on the left is of our Governor, Sarah Palin. Ever hear of her?

I doubt it. It seems unlikely.

Anyway, 241 was finally called. I journied to the counter. The guy who helped me was most friendly. He gave me the form that had not been in the basket and patiently waited while I filled it out. He then had me take the eye test, which I passed just fine.

I showed him my passport and he agreed that I am who I said I am.

"That'll be $15.00," he said.

So I whipped out my American Express card.

"I'm sorry," he said, "the DMV does not take American Express."

Come on, Sarah - for hell's sake! 

So I drove illegally from the DMV to the Palmer McDonald's to buy a cup of coffee and some cinnamon nuggets. I chose McDonald's because I figured they would probably take American Express.

I made my order and pulled to the first window. A girl was there to take my money. I had put my American Express Card inside my passport. I absent-mindedly handed her the passport.

She didn't know what to do.

But when she figured it out, McDonald's accepted the card. I pulled up to the next window and this kid handed me my coffee and my cinnamon nuggets.

I drove out of the lot toward the highway and as I did, these two kids jaywalked right across the highway. They were lucky it was me driving. Most drivers would not have realized what was happening until it was too late and would have run right over them, but not me.

The coffee was scalding hot. Way too hot to drink. It would have to cool down. So I decided to take the long drive home, via fishhook road, which would extend the trip from about 15 miles to at least 20. I figured that would give the coffee time to cool down enough for me to drink while I was still driving home.

Plus, it is a more pleasant drive. 

I hadn't driven far before I grew impatient and decided that I did not want to wait for that coffee to cool down. If the coffee cooled, so would the cinnamon nuggets. I looked at the car's temperature indicator. The exterior air temperature was 10 degrees. That's the thing about this time of year, after the sun comes back. In December and January, if the morning temperature is -20, it might rise to -18 or so, but that's about it.

I looked at the speedometer. It read 55 miles per hour. I did some quick mental calculations and came up with a wind chill factor of -19. I figured that would cool down the coffee real quick, so I rolled down the window and held the cup out into the wind for a couple of miles. The inside of my hand was burning, the outside freezing, but it did the trick.

The coffee was drinkable in short order. The cinnamon nuggets were still warm.

I turned off Fishhook onto Polar Bear. I hadn't gone far when I saw this snow machine, just sitting in the road. 

And a bit later, on Church, I saw this guy. His snowmachine was working just fine.

Which brings me to another dilemma that I face. I might need to do some snowmachining real soon, to do my work which I have fallen so far behind on since I got hurt. Or I might have to hang onto the back of a sled. I have not done either since I shattered my shoulder and got it replaced.

I am much improved now, but I don't think my shoulder is capable of handling a snowmachine on rough terrain - and sea ice is always rough terrain. And neither is my wrist, which got hurt, too, but was completely ignored due to the severity of my shoulder injury. Now, it often bothers me worse than my shoulder. Each night, I lose sleep by the hour to the pain in my wrist, and in my shoulder.

What do I do?

In part, my Muse seems to have solved the problem. I promised her that when she got married, I would come to India to photograph her wedding. I am not a wedding photographer, I do not photograph weddings. But sometimes I make an exception.

For her, I will make such an exception.

Tonight, she informed me that she has set the date for May 3, and said that I must come one week early. That's probably when I would be doing the most heavy snowmachining of all. Now, on the hope that all goes well, I will be India, where it is pretty hard to drive a snowmachine.

You could do it, but it would be mighty hard on the snowmachine.

Oh, good grief! Did I write, "hard on?"

I never intended this to be that kind of blog. I am shocked.

And on a snowmachine! That would be awful. Something might break right off.

I think it is time to get out of this blog and go to bed. I think I am sleep-deprived.

But still, I would like to get on a snowmachine between now and India.

What do I do?

Now, being broke and all, how do I get to India?

My Muse has set her wedding date. I will find a way.

I have never let being broke stop me from traveling.

Now I will click "published," then "saved," and I will go to bed. 

Despite the time listed at the top of this page, it is 4:35 AM.