Kalib takes a midnight trip to the emergency room; the wind blows

Last night, Kalib got scratched by his cat, Martigny, who has always seemed to love him. It happened just before midnight, and because the cut on his lip went very deep, we took him to the emergency room at Mat-Su Regional Hospital. I have more to blog about on this subject, but tonight I have neither the time nor the energy, so I will hold it until I do.

Let it be enough to say that, even though a granddad knows that his grandson must suffer numerous little injuries as part of the natural course of growing - and please, let them all be little injuries - it is none-the-less a tough thing to see when it happens. And it was tough on the parents, too. Kalib, too. Very tough on Kalib, and he did not know why.

Here is Kalib, in his grandma's arms, in my office, right after the scratch, immediately before the trip to the emergency room.

Just now, Kalib came into my office, held in his mother's arms. "What do you think, Kalib?" I asked, as I pointed to the above picture on my computer screen. "That's you."

He smiled real big, raised his arms into the air and, with fists clenched, pumped them up and down happily, kicking his little legs as he did so.

This is how the weather has been for the past 48 hours straight. Blowing and blowing, the wind ripping down the Knik and Matanuska glaciers to blast its way mercilessly through this valley. Cold, too.

I have more to blog on this, also, but will hold off for the same reasons stated above.

And this is how it is at the moment, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.

My home town.

Click on any photo to see a larger copy.

The street man: what his Alaska Native peoples fed me; what I gave to him

I saw him standing on the corner ahead of me as I drove toward the green light. I hoped it would stay green, but the traffic ahead of me was moving slow and when it turned yellow, I knew that I would come to stop on the corner, right beside him.

I did. He came walking toward me through the zero degree (F) air, a friendly smile on his face. I could not turn away as if he were not there, so I smiled back and rolled down the window.

"God bless you on this good day, sir!" he said.

"You too," I answered. "Where you from?"

"Mountain Village," he said. "Yukon River. It's located on the Lower Yukon."

"Yes, I know," I told him. "I've been there."

I've been in villages all over Alaska, which is different than going to villages in any other state. Mostly, you fly to these villages, as very few are on our limited road system.

The people out there have treated me good. They have put me up in their homes and they have fed me: moose, caribou, salmon, bowhead whale, beluga whale, seal, duck, goose, swan, beaver, sheefish, whitefish, crab, blueberries, salmon berries' berries of many kinds, seaweed, walrus, bighorn sheep, musk ox, mountain goat...

Food does not get better than what they feed me.

I gave the man a dollar. I don't know how he will spend it. The light turned green. I drove away.

The incident described happened in Anchorage. This is the kind of day that it was.

And here I am, a bit earlier on the Glenn Highway, passing through the East Side of Anchorage. I should replace the cracked windshield. But soon, it would be cracked again.

Passing by Merrill Field.

What it looked like when I reached downtown Anchorage.

This is why I went to Anchorage. I had something that had to be mailed today. The only Post Office that was open was the Airport Post Office. I took this picture, looking backwards, after I had been in line for over an hour. I still had quite a wait ahead of me.

I suspect that most of them were mailing Christmas gifts.

As I drive away from the airport post office.

The Marriott Hotel, with Conoco Phillips rising behind it.

And this is from earlier in the day, when a bunch of us gathered at IHOP for the usual Sunday breakfast. Tots always pick each other out of the crowd.

Two miserable days yield to nice night - but with a headache; a damned strange headache

I was home alone on Sunday night and did not want to cook, so I went to Piccolino's. I was a little reluctant, because, although their food is excellent, they completely saturate it in garlic and even though I like garlic, I must eat a minimum of it these days.

"Very light on the garlic, please," I told the waitress.

My order came back saturated in garlic. I ate it anyway.

Sunday night, the wind started to blow and grew to fierce. It whistled and roared about the house all night long. In the morning, I knew that it had been a warm wind, because it was not at all cold in our bedroom and if it had been a cold wind, it would have been.

After I got up, I noticed that my tummy felt kind of queasy. I figured it was the garlic, but the queasiness persisted all day, so it must not be. It must be a bug.

As for the wind, it hit 70 and keep causing micro-power failures. Each time one struck, my screen would go white and my computer would restart.

It happened maybe 10 times.

Very annoying.

I felt too miserable to venture out into the wind until night, when I had to. Temperature was in the 20's, but damn, it felt cold anyway.

Why do I ramble like this? Who cares?

As to the photo above, I took it tonight with my brand new Canon 5D MII, set to 6400 ISO.

All these photos were shot at 6400 ISO. I am pretty damned impressed.

The only things is, I thought I had set the camera to shoot RAW, but I hadn't. So these are all jpegs. If I had put in the time and work, I could probably still work up a better color rendition, but I wish I had shot RAW.

Tomorrow.

Wal-Mart, ISO 1600. The wind has died down and it snows pleasantly.

Pickup truck.

Reserved parking.

100 percent detail clipped from the preceding picture. No processing. It is the second sign from the left. Yes, really - 6400 ISO. A whole new world of possibilities has just opened up.

Cyclist.

We pass him.

A man crosses the highway in front of Burger King. 

For you pocket camera fans, don't worry - the G9 and G10 are still going to be my carry around cameras, but what a great tool this 5D will be.

My tummy still doesn't feel very good. And I have an exceptionally strange headache. I would describe it, but when one has a headache, it is hard to describe anything.

Music to drive home from Wal-Mart by

I had the radio tuned to KSKA, Anchorage Public Radio, when I dropped Margie off at Wal-Mart the other day. A program called, "Rock Island Line" was on the air. The song, as these people walked in front of me into the parking lot, was Bob Dylan's, "Blowing in the Wind," as performed by Peter, Paul and Mary.

I drove home via the low road along the railroad tracks. Right here, the song was "This Land is Your Land," performed by Woody Guthrie himself. I am among those who believe this should be our national anthem.

While it might sound odd to some, as I listened to Guthrie sing, "from California to the New York Islands, from the redwood forests to the gulf-stream waters, this land was made for you and me," I thought of a certain young woman in India, who I call Muse, and who will marry soon. Someday, I hope to play this song in my car, for she and her husband, as I drive them down an American road.

An Alaskan road...

Now, back to Bob Dylan, with help from the Son of David, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: "To Every Thing There is a Season," or maybe the title is "Turn, Turn" this time performed by Joan Baez.

A Season was still playing when I came upon these two ravens. I pulled into a turnout, and shot through the open window.

One raven flew away. These three boys came walking by.

"Black Bird," by the Beatles, as I passed beneath this raven. That's a lie. I don't remember what song was broadcast here. I wish that it had been "Black Bird." But then you wouldn't have believed me.

Bob Dylan again - this time, performed by Bob Dylan: "Shelter From the Storm." Most appropriate.

Still "Shelter."

Altogether too appropriate: "Cumbaya" A few years back, I heard about a crash on this corner that killed a mother and her baby. Shortly after that, someone put up the cross on the left.

The cross on the right came later. It says, "Dad." I do not know the story.

"Someone's crying, my Lord, Cumbaya, someone's crying, my Lord, Cumbaya..." I don't remember who was singing. So many have done this song and when I remember back to this moment, I can hear different versions of it in my head.

"The Eerie Canal." Again, I cannot recall the performers."

"Winkin and Blinkin and nod..." The boy carries a rifle.

"Michael, Row the Boat Ashore..."

Puff, the Magic Dragon - Peter, Paul and Mary, of course.

"Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys..." - Willie Nelson. Not really... another lie. But it is a cow. Cow moose. Someone ought to enter it in a rodeo, let some cowboy chase it on a horse, lasso it, trip it, jump off his horse, tie its hoofs together and then raise his hands into the air.

I wonder how fast he could do it?

Today we dined at Taco Bell

Even though it was Sunday, we did not go to IHOP today. Instead, as lunch neared, Jacob, Muzzy and I took off walking towards Taco Bell, somewhere between four and five miles away. Margie would be coming the other way, taking her lunch break.

She would pick me up, and Lavina would come from behind, and pick Jacob and Muzzy up.

Sometimes in the past, I have left early enough to walk all the way to Taco Bell and meet Margie there.

Before I got hurt, I often rode my bicycle and I would almost beat her there.

I would not have wanted to ride a bike today, anyway. This is a bike trail that we are on, right here. Someone had plowed it in the morning, but enough snow had since fallen to make a miserable pedal out of it.

Lavina, Jacob, Kalib and me at the Taco Bell order counter. That's me in the blue. I am holding the camera out over the cash register with my left hand, since it is still hard to stretch my right that far. I asked the kid behind the counter if he could see those three on the camera screen. He said he could, so I took the picture.

The focus could have been better, but it's good enough.

Kalib ignores his Cheerios to watch little kids pass by. I heard a girl at the table behind him tell her dad, "It's your birthday, Dad! Happy birthday, Dad!"

A car passes by as Margie and Lavina visit. Lunch is over. In just minutes, I will drive Margie back to work at Wal-Mart, and then I will drive home the long way. I have a series of pictures from that drive, too. Let's see if I get a chance to post them.

I have much to do, and every minute that I spend in here is a minute away from that. And thanks to the odd vagaries of Squarespace, my bloghost, I spend much more time here than I ought to, just wrestling with the strange glitches that invariably pop up.