Four standing portraits; my health care/Obama comment on New York Times website gets top number of reader recommendations

One week ago today I took portraits of four individuals standing still that I had intended to post that very day. However, I got distracted by Pia and her tomatoes and so did not.

On Saturday, I took many pictures, but I do not want to edit them right now. It is well into Sunday morning and I want to go to bed as soon as I can. So I am going to hold them for tomorrow and post last week's standing portraits instead.

This is Dillon, a reincarnated gangster from the 1920's and he has dropped by Vagabond Blues in Palmer to pick up a little "protection money" to insure that the coffee shop does not fall victim to the local bad elements.

I jokes! I jokes! 

It's just Dillon, a kid in a cool hat, and the money that the barista holds came from our own Charlie. He was buying coffee and pastries for us all.

And here he is, Charlie, one week ago today at Vagabond Blues. As you can see, Charlie is a man of the world. He, Melanie, and his dad should right now be camped out in Charlie's dad's boat, somewhere out in Prince William Sound, not far from Seward.

They wanted me to come and I desperately wanted to, too, but I couldn't. Not because of Margie - she is doing much better and between Jacob, Lavina, and Caleb, she would have been covered. The fisher trio will not be coming home until Monday afternoon, and I just have too much work to do to take that kind of time off right now.

I just hope they bring us back a salmon, a halibut and a rockfish, because they are hoping to catch all three.

We saw this cat standing in a mud splattered car, about four blocks from Vagabond Blues. I hope it heals, soon.

Given what has happened to both Margie and me over the past 14 months, it kind of unnerved me to see Kalib standing like this. But you know what? Little kids are going to climb and stand on many things and they are going to fall, too, and most of the time they won't lose their shoulder, like I lost mine after I fell in Barrow, or break their knee caps and femurs the way Margie did.

They might cry a bit and then they will get up, laugh, and go climb something else. Most of the time. That's what they've got to do.

Still, it makes me a bit nervous.

Speaking of falling, on Friday, I left a comment regarding health care reform on an opinion piece written by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. Over 400 other readers left their thoughts before the Times closed the comment period down. The Times allows readers to recommend columns and then gives those that get the most recommendations special attention on their own page.

To my amazement, my comment has so far received the most reader's recommendations of any, 369, making it number one on that list.

I know that this sounds like I am boasting and I guess I am, but I am so disgusted with the current state of health care in our country, and the demagoguery, lies and deceit that the opposition, including-you-know-who from right here in Wasilla, has thrown out there to scare people in the hope that they might inflame unjustified fear and thus bring down our President, the good of the country and its people be damned, should that good get in the way of their political ambition, that I must speak out.

You can find my comment, and the Herbert article that it is attached to, right here:

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/opinion/22herbert.html?sort=recommended

Kalib: the one who is about to change his life

Lavina brought home the latest ultrasound of the next Hess, our new grandchild-in-waiting, today. We do not know the sex and nobody wants to know until the birth, but, as you can see, boy or girl, (s)he is mighty handsome and beautiful, all at once.

Cute, too - just like innocent little Kalib is cute.

Last night as we lay in separate beds, waiting for her latest injury to heal, Margie expressed the longing she feels for Kalib, now that he is back at daycare and she can watch over him no longer.

Kalib and his mom.

On March 20, a big rain fell in Wasilla; Margie's latest orthopedic visit; contemplative barista

Not March 20, 2009, but March 20, 2006. It was a really big rain, the biggest that I ever saw in Wasilla. I wondered how high the Little Su had risen, so I drove down and saw that the Schrock Road bridge was under water - the road must be at least 15 feet over the river on a normal day, maybe even more than that.

Now it was under water. But the water over the road didn't look to be too deep, so I drove across. A bit later, I drove back. That was when these kids came pedalling toward me. The bridge is a ways around the bend behind them.

They enjoyed the flood. I enjoyed their enjoyment.

This morning, I had to drive Margie in for her latest checkup. Dr. Black took a look at her knee. He said for her to keep doing as she has been doing, and scheduled her for physical therapy, beginning August 28. 

Little Miller's, just before 5:00 PM, where I just ordered a mocha frappe. I wonder what she was thinking about?

That Momma Pitbull that gave me the big scare until I discovered that she is really a sweet American bulldog named Tequilla

I saw Tequilla on the second-floor deck of the rocket house as I walked today, so I stopped to introduce myself to her people.

Tequilla, who I mistakenly described as a pitbull is really an American bulldog and her primary caretaker is Malia, and that is her in the background. The pug-nosed dog at left is Lolita, the cat is Mellow and the little boy is Gabe.

While Malia notes that Tequilla is protective and will raise a fuss should a suspicious person come around, she describes her both as a sweetheart and a Houdini, as she can be locked in the house or in a pen and then she will appear outside, at the bottom of the stairs.

Tequilla is most affectionate and so shares a kiss with Malia as Gabe looks on. 

Sadly, Rocky, the black pup, is no longer here, but has passed on. Malia only recently adopted the two dogs. Right after she did, the father of her children died. In the midst of such tragedy, Rocky contracted Parvo.

How does a Mom and her children deal with such loss, back to back?

They just go on living. That's what people do. It seems impossible, but they do it, anyway.

Gabe and Mellow.

Tequilla and Mellow.

A little further on my walk, I found Mary in her driveway. I had not seen her for a long time but today she was out. We talked for quite awhile and she told me many stories, but I am tired and need to go to bed soon, so I will not attempt to relate any of them.

Suffice it to say, she has led an interesting life and grew up in Florida, where her sister would like her to return. She did visit recently and the jet ride there and back was pretty miserable.

As we visited, her poodle and cat came out to join in.

Miss Rita, Mary's cat.

Then I was in downtown Wasilla where I had just parked when the train came along. Naturally, I was thrilled.

The Alaska Railroad engines were pulling Princess Cruise passenger cars and one of them had a picture of a giant grizzly bear on it - probably to scare the real bears away so that they will not frighten the tourists inside.

Nobody likes it when the tourists get frightened. 

Well, the bears like it. They think its great fun.

How precious is one month? I walk, meet a friend who has discovered that she has a deadly cancer, but is determined to beat it

I passed these chickens as I walked, and thought of the day two years shy of four decades ago when I shot a pig between the eyes and then cut the heads off 76 chickens. It was a great feast, held in honor of a man 13 months dead, and it happened on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, not far from the new bank of the dammed Missouri River.

As I walked further, I saw a blond lady walking in the opposite direction, coming towards me. I had not seen her for a couple of months, since just before I left for the Arctic Slope in June. Over the past two-and-a-half decades, our paths have often crossed either on foot, on bicycle or, in the days prior to Serendipity, on cross-country skis.

Before Serendipity, these path-crossings happened mostly on trails, deep in the woods, but this cannot be anymore. Always, when we meet, we stop and visit for awhile.

"You're back!" she smiled. I noticed that she seemed more thin, more gaunt, then I had ever seen her. I attributed this to increasing age, and yet it seemed like too much aging to have happened in just two months.

She asked me how things were so I told her about Margie, and her fall. She listened and offered words of sympathy and consolation. Then, after a couple of minutes of this, she asked, "do you want to hear my story now?"

She had been suffering some abdominal discomfort for awhile and then had finally been able to go in for a cat scan. Immediately afterward, apparently before examining the cat scan, the doctor took off on a two-week vacation. 

Immediately after he returned, she received a call. Right after that, she checked into the hospital and got her gall-bladder removed.

During her surgery, the doctor discovered that she has cancer on her liver. Now she plans to see a specialist in the Lower 48. If that surgery goes well, then the odds are fairly good that she will have another year of life ahead of her. Without the surgery, or if it does not go well, she has only months.

"This is not right," she said.

"Can I give you a hug?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

I wrapped my arms around her and she her's around me. She squeezed hard. It was a long hug. "It's hard," she said. "It's so hard."

She is a strong, tough, lady who has always kept herself physically fit. "If this had been done right," she said of her medical care. "I could have had months more." Months doesn't sound like long, but when you get down to counting in months, then how precious is even one month?

"I'm going to beat it," she said. "I'm going to."

Before we parted, she told me to pass her condolences along to Margie. "Tell her I hope she heals soon."

Margie just received some good news from the doctor. The original diagnosis - that there was no break but almost certainly ligament damage which might or might not require surgery, was completely wrong.

The break, as I have already noted, was not in her knee but on the outside of her femur, where it joins the knee. Now she learned that her ligaments were not damaged. She will not need surgery. Just time for the femur to heal.

So all that pain that we thought was due to ligament damage that really wasn't there was actually due to the break that we thought she did not have.

I told her about the blond lady. She cried.

She is a good woman, my Margie. 

And my daughter-in-law, Lavina, napping there on the couch beside her?

She is a good woman, too.