The battle was fought and Liberty came out dancing; the Escape gets serviced, but I don't get a Pepsi; A crime scene - scenes of Spring

While our new Escape was undergoing it's 5000 mile free service - basically, an oil change - I wandered on foot a short distance down the road to take a picture of this kid who was dancing on the side of the highway in the hope of luring customers into Liberty Tax Service before the impending deadline, just eight days hence.

He is CJ and he has been dancing out there for about five hours a day since January. He has danced when the temperature was far below zero and now he was dancing on the warmest day so far this spring - the high temperature was close to 45, although when I first set out this morning it was 26.

CJ was friendly and polite, and tried to answer my questions, but he was also dedicated to his job and was determined to not let a single vehicle pass by without dancing, waving and smiling at the occupants.

In return, many people honked and shouted back greetings. This would cause him to dance even harder and smile bigger.

"Anyone ever shout anything mean at you?" I asked.

"Yeah," he answered, "but it doesn't bother me."

I then walked back to Kendall Ford. The car was still being serviced, so I took a seat in the waiting room, where I could see through this big window into the shop. I know things are tough for the car companies, but, from this vantage point, it did not show.

There were some vending machines in the room, so I decided to get a Pepsi to make my stay a little more pleasant. They did not have Pepsi. They only had Coke.

I don't like Coke.

Some say there is no difference. But they are wrong. There is a huge difference.

I don't like Coke.

When the work was done, Brad Tidwell, Kendall Service Consultant, came in to go over the paperwork and show me all that was done. He also showed me a survey form that he said Ford will send to me.

The first question will ask how satisfied I was, starting with, "Completely Satisfied," "Very Satisfied" on down through a total of five steps to enraged dissatisfaction.

He wondered how satisfied I was. I was satisfied, I said. He said that Ford only gives him and the service staff two grades regarding that question, "A" & "F". Completely satisfied is an "A", "Very Satisfied" is an "F."

He hoped I was completely satisfied.

I didn't feel any dissatisfaction. 

I reckon I'll check "completely." I don't want the poor guy to get an "F."

I sure wish I could have got a Pepsi, though.

Brad, I'll give you a pass on that one this time, but that might be something to think about by the time I come in for my 10,000 mile service. To completely satisfy this customer, you must get Pepsi. I want a Pepsi!

Especially on a hot day like today - and it's only going to get hotter.

As I drove away in my newly serviced car, undamaged by the ash fall, CJ waved at me and smiled. I wonder if he knew it was me?

Liberty Tax used to be in another location, down the hill, near Wasilla Lake. Down there, the dancers used to not only dance beside the highway but wave signs, too. Then, one day, I came by and they were not dancing by the highway. They were standing in the parking lot, looking forlorn.

And there they stayed, for days, for weeks... in the parking lot.

I talked to the owner, Chris Cork, who graduated from Wasilla High with Caleb. He told me that a competitor who had no dancers himself and did not like the Liberty dancers had raised hell and had come up with some kind of Wasilla law from somewhere that prohibited a business in the city from putting dancers carrying signs at the side of the road.

That state of affairs persisted for a couple of years and then, all of sudden, at this new location, the dancers again began to perform at the side of the road.

But without signs.

Chris got some attorneys of his own and they raised their own hell. Turned out, if they were going to bar the Liberty dancers from the side of the road, they must also bar all the other people who dance and wave from the highway's edge - like those who jumped up and down for both Barack Obama and Sarah Palin last fall, those who shout out for Christ and the Little League and hockey players who seek to entice motorists with dirty cars to their fundraiser washes.

So the Liberty Tax dancers are back, but without signs.

Yet, the political boosters, Christians, Little Leaguers and others do carry signs.

A bit further down the road, I passed a crime scene.

I wonder what crime was committed? I have seen nothing on the news. I have looked at the Mat-Su section of the continually-updated, online edition of the Anchorage Daily News.

No information. Still, when an entire parking lot is cordoned off and two theodolites put into action, whatever it was, someone is taking it pretty seriously.

I could have called the police station, or stopped and asked to interview somebody. But I don't have time for that.

One block away from the crime scene, a girl rode a bike around a corner. Look how the snow has melted in downtown Wasilla.

Later, I ventured out again, to get coffee for Margie and me. School had just let out. Kids were walking away from Wasilla Middle School, just like my kids used to do.

You can see that the snow is melting more slowly in our neighborhood then in downtown Wasilla - if there is such a thing as downtown Wasilla. There is a street called Main Street, but the name is basically a fiction. I don't care who says otherwise. Yes, there is some wisdom on this street with the fictitious name, but there's a lot of foolishness, too.

Looks like we are going to need to do some spring cleaning. I'm a bit vexed with that water heater that we just replaced. I don't know how to get rid of it. 

We will find a way.

A walk with Muzzy, a dog who is a decent representative of Wasilla

Muzzy knew. I don't know how he knew, but he did. He knew that I was about to take my walk, even though I had not put on my jacket or done anything to signal my intent. His ears were perked; he had that excited look on his face and he was jumping up and down, hammering our bamboo floor with his claws.

I wanted to walk by myself. I walk to let my mind go, to let roam where it will even as I roam where I can reach, to let it play with words. I can not do this when I walk Muzzy. He demands 98.5 percent of my time and concentration, and then causes chaos during the 1.5 percent of my time that I do let my mind wander.

It is okay when Jacob and Lavina are here and I walk with them, because they take the responsibility, but Jacob is in New Mexico and Lavina in Arizona.

This type of thing used to be okay, too, back before Serendipity, before Muzzy, when Willow was the dog of the house. Willow and I would go into the woods and I would just let her go and she could run as she liked, my mind could go where it liked.

But now I cannot go into the woods. I must walk along roads and through subdivisions. Some call this, "improvement," "growth," "progress."

Even so, Muzzy needed to walk, so I took him.

"Muzzy! Muzzy!" I would keep saying and he was doing okay, until I saw this girl, walking her dog from Lower into Upper Serendipity.

Fortunately, I saw her before Muzzy did, and so I got a good solid grip on his collar.

He pulled and he jerked and he whined and he tugged against my arm. I thought about the screws that bind the artifical socket that my titanium humerus fits into to my bones and wondered how much of this kind of thing it could take before those screws popped out.

But I kept him restrained. He didn't like it, because he wanted to play with that dog, but he knew that I meant it.

Finally, the girl and her dog were safely out of sight. Next, I came upon Becky and her mother. Becky was thrilled to see Muzzy. "He's so sweet!" she said. "So beautiful."

This kind of thing happens often with Muzzy.

And he is all of those things. True, he's not a cat, but he is a pretty good fellow and if I did not have an artifical shoulder and they had never built Serendipity, I would not mind taking him out at all. I would enjoy it.

Becky's mother commented that she had a friend who has a collie that looks just like Lassie. "She's bigger than Muzzy," she said.

I wonder about that. Maybe she looks taller, because she's probably skinnier.

I bet Muzzy would weigh more, if you put the two on a scale.

I'm more than a bit disgusted with what is going on news-wise right now, emanating ultimately from our small town.

Muzzy could represent Wasilla better than these folks.

Both daughters come to visit, separately

Yesterday, she said she might come out and have breakfast with us this morning, but she arrived a bit before 3:00 PM. I still offered to take her to breakfast, but she was not in the mood for it and neither was I, to be honest.

She found a box that Kalib plays with when he is here and opened it up. "My kitty!" she exclaimed, for she did not know this kitty would be in it. She said it had been a very long time since she had seen the kitty, which was a gift to her from Jacob.

To me, it looks less like a kitty than a tiger. A white tiger. See that creature walking across the floor? That is Chicago. Chicago is a kitty, albeit full-grown for probably a decade now.

Chicago? A decade old? Chicago Kitty?

Where does the time go?

And speaking of tigers, Melanie was not certain whether or not she would come to India with me to attend the wedding of my Muse, the beloved Soundarya Ravichandran.

Today, Melanie announced that she has decided to come. It was the email from Murthy that convinced her.

We leave one month from tomorrow.

It will be fun, except that the nights will be dark there.

I can hardly take a dark night, during that time when the Alaska night is light.

It takes a lot to drag me out of Alaska during the season of light.

For Sandy and her wedding, I will venture forth into the night that is dark.

We waited until 4:00 to go get coffee, to see if Lisa would arrive. But she did not, so we went without her. As the car was warming up, we saw our neighbors from four houses down walk by with their two dogs. 

It was strange to see those two dogs on leash, but there they are.

We went to Mocha Moose, where they still have a sign up that says "Palin Fever." After this past week, none of us were feeling even the slightest bit of affection for our governor - who, for a brief period in history, I actually did admire and adore. This did not stop me from drinking Mocha Moose coffee, which is usually pretty good but today was subpar.

Immediately after I drove us back home, Melanie climbed into her little car and drove away. I don't know why, but her visits always come to this. She drives away and goes home.

Immediately after Melanie left, Lisa showed up, carrying laundry. She cooked us dinner: stir fry chicken and straw mushrooms. It was quite excellent.

After dinner, I took Lisa to Dairy Queen for ice cream. As we neared the Parks Highway, I heard the whistle blow. I was thrilled. I pulled out my pocket camera, put it on the dash, and, grateful for the fact that I had a red light before me and no car behind be, pointed it toward the railroad tracks.

And then the train came rumbling through!

It was thrilling - as it always is.

I never get bored with the train.

I love the train.

I have never ridden on it, but I love it.

Maybe this summer I will ride on it, and blog about it.

And I hope to ride the train in India, this time.

Last time I did not.

A mid-afternoon drive down Shrock tells me winter is over - but then it is always a bit risky to say so

Look! The snow that these horses live on is melting! Fast! It is 37 degrees! At about 4:30 in the afternoon! The sun is shining and it feels hot. Winter is over. I must get out my bicycle. I haven't ridden it since early last June, before I took my fall and shattered my shoulder.

I haven't done much of anything physical since then, except a bit of therapy and my walks. I am in the worst physical condition of my life. But I think I will soon get that bike out and ride it.

I will do it! I sure hope I don't fall on my shoulder.

Unless we get another heavy snow, the temperature plummets and the roads all ice up again. Could happen. I don't think it will, but it could. If it does, I will not ride the bike. Or the air could fill with volcanic ash. Redoubt blew again this morning, but the ash missed us. It went to Homer.

Hey! What are those people doing up there, at the side of the road?

They are making firewood! 

When I arose this morning, the temperature was in the 20's and everything outside was solid. Inside, I was groggy and I did not want to cook, I did not want to eat cold cereal. I just wanted to sit down somewhere and have someone wait on me.

I knew Margie would not want to come with me, because I took her out yesterday and the day before and it was very hard on her and so I knew she would not want to step out of the house, but I asked her anyway.

She did not want to go.

So I went by myself, which is okay because I like to be alone.

But I wasn't alone. There were all kinds of people about, including this guy, talking to the man two tables in front of me.

He demanded that I take his picture. I do not think that he knew that he demanded that I take his picture. Even though he appears to be looking straight at the camera in this frame, I am not certain that he even knew that I took his picture.

Just the same, he demanded that I take it.

He demanded just by being there in front of me, creating a visual image that I found interesting. So I obeyed. I took his picture.

Then, even though I wanted only to be alone with my breakfast, I decided that I should find out something about him - his name, what he did, some sort of intelligent observation that he might make about this world.

I decided that I would wait until his conversation ended, and then ask him.

And then, as the waitress was laying my breakfast out in front of me, he finished his conversation, stepped out the door and disappeared. I could have chased after him, but the ham and eggs beckoned to me. 

From what little I saw of him, he appeared to be a jovial sort of man, but also one that you would not want to mess with. 

I have no idea what they conversed about, but at one point he did raise his voice and I overheard a little snippet. He had read something released by AARP. "Daylight savings time kills more people by heart attacks than any other cause," he said. He then continued on by saying something about golfers who had to get up one hour earlier, but that was all I heard.

Caleb is a golfer. I wonder if he knows about this?

Uncle Caleb and Nephew Kalib: dinner, and then goodbye

In both Apache and Navajo cultures, a child's uncle is a most important person in his life - a friend and teacher, in a way that is hard even for a father to be. And Kalib does have a most special relationship with his Apache Uncle, Caleb.

Last night, in the blog that I was too tired to make, I told you that after this morning, we would not see Kalib again for a week.

His Mom took pity on us and left Kalib with us today, provided that we would drive him into town this evening and turn him over to his parents, so that they could fly off to Jacob's business gathering Albuquerque, after which they will visit both their Apache and Navajo homelands in Arizona.

Caleb had driven to town earlier to get a haircut. When he learned that we were all going to get together in Anchorage for a Mexican dinner, he joined us, helped Kalib put his shoes back on and then lifted him out of the car. 

The air was chilly. Even though dinner would be inside where it would be warm, Caleb stopped to zip Kalib's jacket up.

Then Kalib and Caleb walked to the door of the restaurant together.

After they sat down, Kalib read the menu while Caleb ate chips. We were all quite surprised by this. Here, Kalib has not had one day of school, not one reading lesson, he hasn't even learned to talk yet.

And here he was, reading the menu!

Caleb then helped him remove his jacket.

Somehow, Kalib wound up in an empty chair at the empty booth across from us.

Caleb picked him up to bring him back to us.

After a good long wait, Kalib's parents arrived. Caleb steadied Kalib as Lavina got him situated beside her.

She then put quacomole on chip and handed it to her son. Kalib loves quacomole. 

Kalib discovered how to cement a corn chip to his face with quacomole.

After he pigged out on quacomole, Kalib's shirt was an avocado mess. Uncle Caleb helped his mom change him into another.

Somehow, Kalib soon wound up at another empty both. Caleb retrieved him and brought him back.

The dinner, by the way, was excellent. The best Mexican dinner I have had in Anchorage for a long time.

Mexican is my favorite food.

I had never eaten here before, but I will again. 

Vallarta's Mexican Restaurant, in the Value Village mini-mall, just off Northern Lights and Boniface. Damn good.

On the way out, Caleb photographed Kalib through the door.

Caleb looks at pictures of Kalib, as the toddler runs back to the restaurant.

Then it is goodbye time. Caleb turns Kalib over to Lavina as Jacob looks on.

Caleb then gave Kalib and his Mom a big hug. Then they were gone. As I write these words, they ought to be on a jet, headed south.