Kids get off the bus and go home

Truly, I am tempted to put in one of my multi-picture posts and to tell little stories with each picture, because a good number of pictures have accumulated in my archives these past two or three days and there are a multitude of little stories within them - including Lynxton on his one month birthday, which was yesterday and he came to the house.

But I haven't the time. Or the energy. I am way behind where I had planned to be by now and instead of racing along I am crawling toward my deadline, inch by inch, barely getting anywhere, but still I must get it done.

So, I post just one picture - this one - and not a single written story today.

This will change, soon. I will be shooting and posting and writing like mad, like a man insane, which right now I am pretty convinced is what I am.

The week so far in catch up: girl sled boats in meltwater; school bus adventures; Oscar's bike ride; Jobe is ill; Studies of dogs eating biscuits

Thanks to my three part series covering Jobe's first steps stepping out party Sunday evening, I have neglected to post anything about the week since as it has unfolded so far. Truth is, while it has been a week of furious and relentless activity inside my head and flowing through my fingers into the keyboard and then my computer, visually it has not been a week that has given me many images to post.

I have basically spent it right here, at my computer, day and night, typing and mousing, picking cats up off my keyboard and putting them on the floor only to have to them ump right back up so we can do it all over again.

Still, I have a few images to post. I will start with today, a day that has begun very lazily for me for the simple fact that this morning at 3:00 AM I finally finished up the task that I had hoped to complete by last Saturday night, but which proved much more time-consuming than I had reckoned.

As all my tasks seem to do.

I then went to bed exhausted, yet wired up and so lay awake for about two hours, after which I slept sporadically and then got up about 9:00 AM, determined to take this day off and relax.

I found that it was snowing, and the wind was blowing.

Pretty normal for this time of year.

It is also not unusual this time of year to have the image of spring appear before you, to have people say, "this is really it, this is spring," even though everybody knows that this a very foolish thing to say because, even though for Alaska our climate is fairly temperate here, spring still means something different in Wasilla than it does in most of the more populated world.

So late Monday afternoon, when I pedaled my bike back home from Metro Cafe and saw this girl, using ski poles to propel herself through a huge puddle of melt water, it certainly looked like winter had given up altogether.

Yesterday afternoon, I pedaled by there again. The puddle had refrozen. The yard behind was again blanketed in snow. I thought about taking a picture to prove it, but I did not want to stop and so I just pedaled on.

When Margie stays in town to babysit, I tend to eat breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. So that is what I did Tuesday morning. As I drove home, I saw these students, waiting for their school bus.

A bit further down the road, I witnessed what might have been their bus, turning onto Church Road. It was a damned exciting sight to see.

Then up ahead on Church, I saw another bus, stopped, stopping the pickup behind it, stopping me, so that these three students could board and head for class.

And in the afternoon, post-Metrol Cafe, I came upon this four-wheeler.

Wasilla forever teems with exciting activities.

In the evening, I went to Anchorage to pick Margie up and bring her home, but first I stopped at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art to take in an ASMP slide show titled Nomadic Photographer presented by Oscar Avellanda.

Oscar's roots are in Columbia, so in January of 2010, he got on his bike and with his sister and a friend pedaled his bike from Anchorage to Whittier. There, they boarded the ferry and traveled to Bellingham, Washington and then he and his sister continued on and pedaled all the way down through the West Coast, through Mexico, El Salvadore and into Columbia.

As you would expect, he took pictures all along the way, although not nearly as many as he had anticipated, as the work of pedaling a bike often took precedence over photography. The picture that stands out strongest in my mind is a black and white of his little tiny bike parked near the oceanside in southern Mexico, with a gigantic cruise ship looming large above it in the background.

This what the online ASMP announcement had to say about Oscar:

"Along the way, Oscar was attacked by a dog, underwent treatment for rabies, became engaged, discovered his roots, and redefined his conceptions of material necessities. Mr. Avellaneda’s artistic photographic images and stories have redefined his role as a photographer while challenging the social norms of his industry."

It is a much more complex story than that, of course, but I think for now, I will that suffice. In time, I suspect, Oscar will produce something that tells the story in depth.

I then went over to Jake and Lavina's to pick Margie up, but Jobe had taken a turn for the worse. He had vomited. He was running a fever. Margie decided to stay, probably until Sunday, when Jacob, Lavina and family depart for a workshop in New Mexico and then a vacation in Arizona. She will help them out until they go.

Yesterday, for my one break in a very long day, I again pedaled my bike to Metro Cafe at coffee time. There, I shot this series of three Metro studies:

Through the Metro Window from inside, Study #410: Carmen offers a dog biscuit to Loki. Loki sniffs the biscuit, but does not take it.

Through the Metro Window from inside, Study #63: Jim, the dog's pet human, takes the biscuit. Loki then takes the biscuit from his pet.

Through the Metro Window from inside, Study #7,895: Jim takes a second biscuit from Carmen and the dog, Coda, takes it from Jim.

And so goes the world.

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I feel very lazy on this Wasilla spring day, so I will tell the truth, shun all lies and write about Sarah Palin's buick

It is springtime here in Wasilla and it is Saturday. I feel extremely lazy. I want to do nothing but lie around and be lazy - although I tried that last Sunday and it didn't work. Still, I am going to move slow here for awhile. I do have what to me is a very important task that I must complete today, but if I lollygag about and hit it as I feel like, I think I will complete that task by the time I go to bed tonight and it just might result in a book someday.

A book to make the reader fall in love and then break her heart. Or his heart. Male or female, it doesn't matter. If one has a heart, this book will make that heart love and then it will break that heart.

Anyway, yesterday, I took a morning walk. When I crossed the road in front of this school bus, the driver suddenly gunned it to about 90. He or she was determined to run me down. I sprinted for the edge of the road and barely dove out of the way.

I made it, all right, but the back fender of the bus caught the edge of my right shoe and ripped it off.

Now I am going to sue the school district for a new pair of shoes.

In fact, I think I'll go for cowboy boots.

I haven't worn cowboy boots in a long time.

I used to wear them all the time.

And a cowboy hat, too.

A Remington .357 six-shooter on my hip.

I was pretty dangerous.

I was tall, too.

Tall, dark, and handsome.

That's why Margie fell in love with me.

Then I ate a bad taco and wound up short and pale.

She still loves me, though.

So it's okay.

I will never stop eating tacos.

Just imagine this shadow wearing a cowboy hat and six shooter, and you will see what I mean.

In the afternoon, I drove to Carr's to pick up a muffin. Along the way I saw this kid enjoying spring in a melt puddle. Yeah - I know - the image is blurry. I don't care. You get the idea. Sometimes, for me, just the idea is good enough. Life is a blur, anyway.

I parked at Carr's and prepared to go in and get the muffin. I saw this man standing on the roof. When you see a man standing on the roof of Carr's, you know it's spring.

See how he has his hands in his pockets? That's because he's hiding bananas in those pockets. He will throw one of them at me, thinking that he will strike me in the head and knock me to ground, where I will get run over by Sarah Palin's Buick, which just happens to be rolling through the parking lot at this very moment.

That's another sure sign of spring in Wasilla - when you see Sarah Palin's Buick rolling through the parking lot. For decades now, it has been that way. "Look!" someone will say, "there's Sarah Palin's Buick, rolling through the parking lot. Must be spring."

This man did, in fact, hurl the banana at me, but I was quick. I caught it. I ate it. It went very well with the muffin.

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One study of the young writer, Shoshana, involving chicken soup; three buses and a really tight squeeze

Taking my one break away from the computer from just after I got up to just before I went to bed, at 4:00 PM I headed to Metro cafe to get my Americano. There, Shoshana greeted me with a bowl of chicken soup.

Shoshana's mother, Tobi, had made the soup and knowing that Margie was sick, Shoshana thought a bowl might do her some good.

Hence we have:

Study of the Young Writer, Shoshana, #21,324: Shoshana brings chicken soup for my ill wife.

Shoshana was a little surprised when I raised my camera to photograph her with the soup. I am not certain why, since I photograph just about everything, but I am pleased that she was, as her reaction gave the picture an added touch.

Bus # 1: spotted driving into a sunbeam as I was driving the soup home to Margie.

Margie was surprised and touched when I presented the soup to her.

In the evening, Margie heated up the soup. She took her first spoonful even before she could sit down. She pronounced it excellent. She shared a small bowl with me. It was delicious - seasoned just right, with an elegant touch of broccoli.

Thank you, Shoshana.

Thank you, Tobi.

And this from India: the really tight squeeze

Buses #2 and #3:

On Monday, I included a picture of two trucks passing by each other while traveling in opposite directions. One reader, Mrs Gunka, commented that it was "a tight squeeze."

So I decided it was time to show this, a really tight squeeze.

Furthermore, notice that there is a surprisingly large gap between our taxi and the bus ahead. No matter how tight, in India, no such gap can be left unfilled for but a fraction of a moment.

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, the Indian highway abhors a gap in traffic.

 A guy on a motor scooter shoots the gap as the buses slip by each other.

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Exceedingly brief conservations with two moose, three horses and maybe another horse, maybe not; Bus, and Mary in the Grotto

After warming up the car for a bit, I jumped in and headed for coffee. I had barely gone a 100 yards or so down the road when I spotted a moose standing by the McDaniel's house. Like us, the McDaniels were among the first residents of this subdivision when it was new, nearly 30 years ago. 

Back then, perhaps because we all moved in at about the same time just after Charlie Bumpus had cut the new subdivision from semi-wilderness, we in the neighborhood all knew each other and we knew each other's kids. Pretty much everybody got along and looked after each other and their kids and it was a good place to grow kids.

It is not that way today. We who are still here from back then still know each other but for the most part this has become a neighborhood much like you might expect to find in California, where few neighbors know each other by name and everybody tends to live in their own world and at least a few live in paranoia.

I do know this moose, however. I have come upon this moose thousands of times over the past 30 years. It is a moose that always misinterprets things and each time I see it, it attempts to engage me in futile conversations that go nowhere.

So I hoped the moose would not see me, that I could drive by unnoticed.

"Hey, Bill!" the moose dashed my hope with a shout, "do you know whose kid this is?"

"What kid?" I answered, flummoxed, for I could see no kid.

"You blind?" the moose fired back. "This kid right here. The only kid in sight. For half-an-hour now, I've been asking the kid who his parents are, so I can take him home. Damn kid won't say a word."

"That's not a kid," I answered. "It's a lawn ornament."

"You think I'm stupid?" the moose retorted. "I know a kid when I see a kid. Now, whose kid is this?"

I had to get going and I could see that the conversation would be useless.

"Oh... yes...  I can see that you are right and I do recognize that kid. That's Alphonso, son of Rudy Guiliani, would-be President and the former Mayor of New York City."

"Okay, thanks! That's all I wanted to know," the moose said. It then turned its attention to the lawn ornament.

"Hey kid - pack a lunch bag of twigs and bark. We're going to New York City! I'm taking you home!"

I took advantage of the distraction and drove away as quickly as I could.

I stopped at Metro, bought a coffee and a cinnamon roll from Elizabeth and drove away. Remember how, just so short a time ago, it was completely dark during coffee break time? Well, look at it now.

I had not been by Grotto Iona for awhile or seen the Mahoney horses, so I thought I would swing by.

As I neared, I saw this school bus passing by the Grotto - A Place of Prayer. The driver did not stop to pray, but I'll bet he wanted to.

"Hey Bill!" the first Mahoney horse that I spotted shouted out at me. "Look at me! I know how to sleep walk! I'm walking in my sleep right now!"

"Pleasant dreams!" I shouted back.

"Hey Bill," the second horse shouted. "I know how to poop in the snow! Look, I just did."

I did not know what to say to that, so I said nothing.

"Hey Bill," this creature shouted out at me. "I've got ten bucks for you if you can tell me what I am, right now! No hestitation! Ten bucks!"

To be quite honest, I have not totally figured this creature out. Sometimes, I think its a mule. Look at the head - there is kind of a donkey shape to that head and mules are half donkey.

But I have known a few mules and they did not look quite like this.

Sometimes I have wondered if it might be some kind of horse bred special for cold climes. Before I made this post, I dropped by Facebook to see if Ron Mancil was there. Ron knows all the Mahoney stock well and I figured he could tell me.

But Ron was not on Facebook.

So I remain unsure.

"C'mon now, Bill!" the creature shouted back. "What am I?"

I had to come up with something, right or wrong.

"You're a creature of God!"

"Yes!" he shouted. "Come and get your ten bucks!"

So I got out of the car and went over. "Climb on my back and we'll go get it!"

So I climbed onto the back of this creature of God. The creature bucked ten times and on the tenth sent me flying nose first into the snow.

"Ha! A Creature of God!" the creature shouted. "Fooled you! I'm Satan's spawn!"

I staggered back to my feet. The final horse turned away from me. "What a dupe!" the horse muttered. "What a dupe! I have nothing to say to you. Nothing at all."

Humiliated, I climbed back into the car and pointed it toward home. Then I decided to stop for a few minutes at the Grotto, to see if I could regain my composure, to see if I could find some peace there.

Even though I am not Catholic and hardly know what to believe at all, everytime that I have ever stopped at the Grotto, even when beset by bitter grief, I have felt a bit of peace there.

This day was no exception.

Coming down Wards, I heard another voice shout out, "Hey Bill!" It was this bull moose, who has lost his antlers and must grow a new set.

"What?" I answered.

"Bethca can't see me!"

"I can too see you!" I countered.

"No you can't."

"Yes I can!"

"No you can't!"

"Yes I can!"

"No you can't."

I gave up, went home and ate some Kracker Jacks. 

I am getting tired of Kracker Jacks.

For four months now, I have been eating nothing but Kracker Jacks; Kracker Jacks everyday. Kracker Jacks for breakfast, Kracker Jacks for lunch, Kracker Jacks for dinner, Kracker Jacks for snacks.

I am tired of Kracker Jacks. And the prizes are nothing like they were when I was a kid.

I thought about getting my rifle and putting some moose on the table, but it was the wrong season for that.

So I tore open another box of Kracker Jacks.

Sure enough, there was a two-deminsional paper moose inside.

When I was a kid, it would have been a plastic moose - in three dimensions.

I tell you - America is going downhill!

I live on Sarah's Way in Wasilla, Alaska - so I know. No joke. I live on Sarah's Way. I am proud to say, though, that my street was named for a very good Sarah - Sarah Bumpus, daughter of the late Charlie Bumpus, a former mayor of Wasilla and builder of this subdivision.

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