Looking for Lisa on the Rachel Maddow show; iPhoning it with Carmen, Scott and Shoshana at the Metro Cafe

The day before yesterday, I answered my iPhone to hear the very excited voice of my daughter, Lisa, whom I have not seen since before I left for Kaktovik at the beginning of the month. "Dad!" she exclaimed. "Did you know that Rachel Maddow is going to be doing her show in Anchorage tomorrow?"

It was the first that I had heard - although right after the call ended, I saw it plastered all over the Alaska blogosphere.

Only 200 tickets would be given out, first come, first serve, and Lisa had put in her name. If she was successful, she would get two tickets only.

So it was agreed that if she got the two tickets, her mom would drive into town and go with her.

Sadly, Lisa was not successful.

Happily, Charlie's mom was and she invited Lisa to go with her.

Trouble was, Lisa's car is out of commission. She had no transportation. So her mom volunteered to go into town, pick her up and take her to the Taproot Cafe in Anchorage, where Maddow would be doing the show live.

This meant that I would have no car in the afternoon, which was fine by me, because I would have my bike and I needed to do some bike-riding.

Still, I wanted to venture out in the car at least once that day, so Margie and I drove to Arby's for a sandwich.

Here we are, in the car, along the way, at the corner of Lucille and Seldon, where I have stopped at the sign until this vehicle passes by.

At about the same time that I would normally have gotten into the car to drive to Metro, I plugged the headset into my iPhone, tuned the radio to KSKA, put on my helmet, climbed onto my bike and pedaled to Metro.

In some ways, it was a horrifying pedal. I had not ridden my bike since before I left for Kaktovik and I have not even been taking any good walks. I have had no exercise to speak of all month long and I felt it - in my lungs, in my muscles.

Still, I pedaled resolutely on and soon I was in Metro, where I found Shoshana and Carmen in Halloween dress.

I cannot find my pocket camera, which I think might be under the bed somewhere, I did not want to carry my 5d II, so, again, the only camera that I had was my iPhone and the lens was extra smudged.

That's okay, because when you shoot pictures with a cell phone, you do not look for technical perfection. You look to see if you can capture some kind of feeling, even through the smudge and motion blur and if you do, that is good enough.

So here is Shoshana, photographed through my smudged iPhone. I get a good feeling when I look at the picture - just as I always do when I pull up to the Metro drive-through window and see Shoshana smiling, ready to take my order.

She is just the kind of person who gives one a good feeling.

Carmen, with Scott in the background, as seen in the mirror. In this blurry image, I get the feeling of energy, vivaciousness, friendly warmth and slightly devilish mischievousness that Carmen always brings to Metro Cafe. Although he occupies but a small part of the frame, I feel the absolute, determined, doggedness of Scott as he battles to defeat his horrid cancer.

I believe this is one of Scott's brothers, washing the Metro windows. Scott sat down with me and we talked for a long time - not much about cancer, but about other things, about America, Alaska, where we are, how we got here, what the future looks like.

It would all be worth expounding upon one day.

Afterwards, I pedaled home upon pavement coated with a thin layer of splotchy, frost ice. I wondered what would happen if the bike slid out from beneath me and I came down upon my artificial shoulder.

I did not really believe there was much chance of that happening, but soon, if I keep riding my bike, the chance will be fairly high. In the past, when this would happen, it was never a big deal, because you slid on ice, went down on ice and slid across ice - but now...

I had no cover on my ears. They got a little cold.

The Rachel Maddow show was nearing its end when I arrived home. I scanned the crowd, looking for Lisa.

I could not find her. As it turns out, when Margie picked her up at work she forgot her driver's license, left it behind and so was barred from entering the Taproot Cafe. Lisa did not get to be part of the crowd. To help make up for it, she plans to go do some volunteer work for Scott McAdams.

Later in the evening, I watched the repeat of the Maddow show. What I saw was Alaska, bursting with energy across the political spectrum, some of it rational, some of it irrational and a great mystery to me, given what has been made so obvious - all of it passionate and heartfelt. It looked like yesterday would have been a fun day to have been in Anchorage. 

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