Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, from Wasilla and Anchorage, Alaska, with lyrics and verse from Cambridge, UK; a Christian Shrine in Tamil Nadu

On Christmas Eve, Margie discovered that she was short on the yeast that she would need to make the rolls. Carr's and Fred Meyer had already closed, but Wal-Mart was open until 8:00 PM, so she sent me on a 12 mile round trip to get some.

I had the radio on, tuned to 91.1 KSKA. A Christmas program titled, "A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols," was being broadcast from The Chapel of King's College, in Cambridge, UK, founded by King Henry VI. It had been on for awhile. As I drove past Wasilla Lake, where this Nativity scene sits on the frozen shore, the narrator recited Lesson 9 and I shot the above picture.

Lesson Nine:

St. John Unfolds the Great Mystery of the Incarnation

JOHN 1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.

That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Thanks be to God.

I continued on to Wal-Mart, where I bought yeast, and oranges, too. As I drove out of the parking lot, I saw this couple headed toward their car and then hopefully home to a Merry Christmas.

Unfortunately, as I would learn when I got home, I bought the wrong yeast. Margie had sent me with a packet of the right yeast, but still I bought the wrong yeast. And I couldn't go back to get more, because it was after 8:00 and Wal-Mart was closed.

On the way home, I suddenly decided that I would park the car, walk to the Nativity and take a close-up picture. This is our 29th winter in Wasilla and I believe this scene has been up for every one of those winters, but I had never done this.

As I pulled into the parking lot at the end of the lake, a familiar Christmas carol was being sung. I do not know if it was still part of the Festival or not. I think it was, "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful," but I do not remember for certain. It might have been, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," or maybe another one.

I had brought only a light jacket and it was fair walk from the car to the Nativity scene. It was cold. The wind was blowing. I could feel the sting on my ears, and my nose. I wasn't worried. I wouldn't be out there long.

My hands are very well cold-conditioned. I can work my camera bare-handed for hours in conditions that most people can only bear for a few minutes. Even many Iñupiat hunters have commented on my hands when they have seen me work for extended periods of time without gloves.

But they got cold in that wind. They stung, and headed in the direction of numbness.

My ears began to feel like they might drop off. So I headed back to the car.

A truck came roaring up the Parks Highway. American commerce, blasting away in frozen Alaska on Christmas Eve. Where was the truck headed? Fairbanks, maybe, or Deadhorse?

I wondered about the driver and where he or she would be on Christmas Day. With family? Camped out in the cab in the - 30, - 40, and -50 -> degree temperatures now resting over the Interior along the way.

As I pulled onto the Parks and turned toward home, the radio choir began to sing "Silent Night." They sang beautifully. And I will not tell you what happened to me. It was too hard and I don't want to go through it again.

I took this one for Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and Jobe right after Thanksgiving, so they could make a family Christmas card out of it. They made me promise not to post it until Christmas Day, so that the friends and family members they sent it to could see the card first.

As for me, to my friends and family, I apologize. I am not quite certain how it happened, but Christmas has arrived without me being ready for it. I did not make any cards. I did not send any out. Maybe Margie did, maybe she didn't. I don't know.

But, just the same...

"Merry Christmas!"

And if Christmas is not your holiday, then Happy Holidays.

And if you do not celebrate any kind of holiday at this time of year, enjoy the season.

And this one from India:

I shot this through the window of the cab that Vasanthi had hired to drive her, Soundarya, Anil, Buddy, Melanie and me to and from Ooty, Tamil Nadu, a mountainous place where tea is grown and the air grows cool at night. Somewhere in the vicinity, we came upon this shrine.

Somewhere in Bangalore there is another church. Hindu though she was, Sandy would sometimes visit that church and find peace there.

Thank you, Suji, for sharing with me.

I promise you that on this Christmas Day, I will find joy and happiness with my family. I promise. We will all hold you and your family fast in our hearts.

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Wasilla on a 78 degree scorcher: I go biking with Shadow Me, Tony and Taiga prepare for the hunt; relief from the heat at Wasilla Malibu

Yesterday, I had speculated that I would not post at all today, as people go out to play on summer Saturday's, my readership goes way down, I'm still jet-lagged from and getting over the sickness that struck me down in wonderful Greenland and maybe I should just relax and play today myself.

In fact, I decided that was exactly what I would do - not blog today.

But then it seemed silly to just leave things sitting where they were, when we had all baked at 78 degrees in Wasilla and I could easily put up a very quick and easy post to tell you so.

So here is Shadow Me, biking at 78 degrees in Wasilla. Shadow Me never sweats, but I do - and I did.

Usually when I bike, I try to take all my pictures as I pedal past the subject. But when I saw Tony and his new pup, I had to stop. Tony is a hunter and he was training the pup how to be a hunting dog. The pup is named Taiga, because that is where they are going to go hunting - on the taiga.

Tony is a good neighbor, by the way. A very good neighbor. And he is an author - like me, but his subject matter is different. Related, but different.

His dogs are always good dogs.

I have never known Tony to have a bad dog.

I liked Barney the best.

Barney grew old and died, as dogs do with alarming frequency.

As we all do, unless we die young.

I miss Barney.

As I pedaled down Church Road toward the Little Susistna River, I saw a man working in his yard, where pretty flowers bloomed.

Such is summer life in the Great, White, Eternally-Frozen North.

Here we are, passing by Wasilla Lake's Wasilla Malibu Beach, Margie driving, me in the passenger seat, kids cooling off in the water.

Yesterday, Lisa read the part in my blog where I speculated that perhaps today I might want to play myself. She called. She should be here soon. Then we will go out into the country and play.

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A pushing boy, a walking man, a mountain in alpenglow; the lovely Sujitha of Bangalore, who so badly wants to come to Wasilla

This morning, as I walked, I saw this little kid pushing his pedal-powered four-wheeler up his driveway.

And in the early evening, I saw this man walking past Wasilla Lake. In just three months or so, there could be young women in bikinis lounging about on that beach just to his right.

I'll bet some of you looked at this picture and didn't even know there was a beach there, or a lake.

Here I am, stopped at a red light on the corner of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla highways, looking back at Pioneer Peak through my driver's door rearview mirror.

My niece, Sujitha, has been in this blog before and I am certain that she will be here again. She is a regular reader and every now and then she leaves a comment. She did yesterday, and she badly wants to come to Wasilla. She wants to meet Kalib, she wants to meet Margie.

She wants to meet all of her Alaska family. So far, she has met Melanie and she has met me.

I took these pictures, along with one of her and her true love, Manu, the day after the wedding of her sister, my special friend Soundarya, to Anil. In my 2009 review of May, I posted the one of Sujitha and Manu, but I haven't posted these.

Until now.

Sujitha, we all want you to come to Wasilla. So hurry up. 

Sooner or later, we want your whole family to come.

Here she is, with her grandfather, Natarajan. I took these photos in the Bangalore living room of Murthy and Vasanthi, the parents of Vivek, who married Khena, the daughter of my little sister and made us all family.

Here's Sujitha in that same living room nearly two years earlier, taking part in a women's ceremony for the Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth and Beauty. That's Vasanthi holding the flame and my good niece Vidya, who loves animals, behind.

Sujitha.

I have photographed but the tiniest hint of the magnificent nation of India, yet, I have so many images that I have never even had a chance to take even one look at myself, and I know there is some good material in there.

I still hope that in the future I will somehow find the time to go through, do an edit, and put up a whole bunch of posts.

If I do, I will mix it all up with Wasilla, just like I did here.

A blustery, burnout kind of day; Kalib - just for Riana

It was a blustery, total-burnout kind of day. I couldn't work. I couldn't even take a walk. I could hardly make myself do anything. In fact, I photographed only two scenes today: this one, blowing snow seen through the windshield of our car as I drove Margie past Wasilla Lake on our way to Eagle River.

There would have been more choices in Anchorage, but Anchorage was too far. I did not want to drive all the way to Anchorage. So we chose Valley River 6 Cinema in Eagle River and drove there.

Although Gift of the Whale is out of print, I still get quarterly royalty checks and last week one came in for $79.22 - not enough to pay any bills but enough to go to a movie and buy some popcorn, so that's what we did.

Shutter Island, with Leonard DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley is what we saw and it was just the break I needed.

At first, Margie did not want to see it, because she thought it was a horror flick and she hates horror flicks. It did not look like a horror flick to me, but a 1950's cop drama and they can be fun. She decided I was probably right and it was playing at the right time so we chose it.

As it turned out it was neither a horror flick or a 1950's cop drama, but a pyschological thriller that involved a 1950's cop and a taste of horrific horror.

I won't say anymore about it than that, because I don't want to give anything away to anybody who hasn't yet seen it but still might.

Above is the second scene that I photographed today: the highway as we passed by Wasilla Lake on our return home. You can see the snow is still blowing, but more lightly than it had been three hours earlier.

These are left-overs from Friday. I am including them in here just for Riana - my ten-year old reader who keeps me from swearing all the time.

This is pretty hard on me, because I like to swear, damnit.

But for Riana, I have been cutting back.

She left a message today. She typed the word, "hell" and told me that I was busted for typing it first. She said she missed Kalib, who had been absent from this blog for a full day. 

So, Riana, here is Kalib. This is what was happening:

"Where's grandma?" Grandma asked.

Kalib pointed his butter knife at Grandma.

"Where is Grandpa?" Grandma asked. Kalib pointed the butter knife and me and actually touched me with it.

"Where is Momma?" Grandma asked. Kalib pointed his knife at Momma and touched her, just like he touched me.

I don't feel as burned out as I did this morning, but I still feel burned out.

No telling what will happen tomorrow, but, like I wrote last night, I could blog lightly all week long. Then again, something dramatic might happen.

Riana, I've got a couple of really good leftover picture stories of Kalib and his cousin Gracie that I still want to post. They both will require some editing time, but now that I know you are there and that you miss Kalib when he does not appear, it is more likely that I will actually get around to posting them before everybody grows too much older.

He came walking through my town in the snow; Royce setback; an accident, a horse and a few teenagers

As I have written a few times, I keep experiencing odd coincidences. This has been going on for years now and it happened again today. When I took this picture, I had A Prairie Home Companion on the radio and a Utah Phillips song was being performed by Robin and Linda Williams:

I'm walking through your town in the snow,
I'm walking through your town in the snow,
I got no place to go, all the trains are running slow
And I'm walking through your town in the snow

I carry my home on my back,
I carry my home on my back,
But the police only frown, every time I lay it down,
And I'm walking through your town in the snow

The train track was just across the street and the Wasilla Police station just ahead. The man wasn't carrying a pack, though. He was pulling a piece of rolling luggage.

So we finally got a modest dropping of snow to coat the old stuff. Nothing to brag about - six inches, maybe. Still, I was glad.

I suspect that this fellow could have just as soon gone without it.

I wonder why he was walking through my town in the snow?

I'm afraid Royce has had a couple of bad days. Something is leaking out of him and it stinks terribly. It has almost made me barf a couple of times and has left me feeling sick to my stomach, but different than the usual way. I haven't yet figured out how to describe it. Yesterday, I gave him a bath, but it all came back and I fear it would be too hard on him to have another bath right now. I have made a warm place for him and try to keep him off the furniture, because whatever he comes in contact with stinks, too, but he managed to slip by and get onto the couch. Once he did, the damage had been done.

I did not have the heart to make him move until he was ready. 

I called the vet this morning, hoping to get him in. They could not get back to me until nearly closing time (they close early on Saturday's). I explained what was happening and they had a couple of theories, but did not see it as an emergency.

So he is scheduled to go back to the vet Monday morning at 11:00 AM.

We may have to postpone, because I think Lavina is likely to be giving birth at that time.

Two snowmachines coming down Wards.

Pickup truck on Seldon. The ISO control on my pocket camera had inadvertantly slipped to 2500. I don't care. It just gives the picture a different feel, that's all - more contrasty and grainy.

Ditto.

Minor traffic accident near the corner of the Palmer-Wasilla and Parks Highways.

Horses on Sunrise.

Through the Window Metro Study, #9701. These numbers are completely arbitrary, because I cannot remember them from one post to the next. The tall man is Nick and he used to work at Northern Air Cargo in Anchorage with Carmen. That's his son on the left, but they had already moved on when I got the ID's and his name had slipped out with him.

A group of teens caught in my rearview mirror.