My Utterly Cool Hot Date Last Night

The signs were auspicious.  Full Moon, clear sky.

 

By 10 PM, I thought I'd been stood up again.  I decided to drive north and look around some.  Not really stalking, see?

Okay, full on stalking.  Restraining order kind of stalking.

 

 

I waited an hour.  Finally, I headed home at 11 PM, more than aware of all the moose tracks on the snow berms lining the highway, tracks where they'd been crossing the road.

When I reached Mile post 40, where I'd been two nights before, I found them.

 

 

 

Shooting straight into the moon.

My camera is pointed directly over my head.

 

 

 

Stood Up, Jilted, and Broken-Hearted Thursday

How Could you?

I waited for you.  Impatiently, I’ll admit.  My anxiety built all day.  By evening I was checking every couple minutes to see if you were here.  Looking out windows, opening doors, even walking outside to see if I could see you.

Between 9 PM and 1 AM.  Your schedule, not mine.

Now today the weather’s all wrong.

I know I didn’t get the days mixed up.  You were very specific.  I also know I didn’t get the times wrong.  I know how speedy you are.  Five million miles an hour speedy.

I waited up until midnight and there was no sign of you.  All I saw was Jupiter and Venus.

Jupiter on the left, Venus on the right, by moonlight at midnight.

When will you return, Aurora?  When?

Ambient Ambiance, Day and Night

All day long, scattered white clouds floated across the sky.  By the time the moon rolled out from behind the mountains to the east, most of the clouds were gone, leaving only diaphanous footprints against the darkening blue backdrop of early evening.

I kept an eye on that moon as the wisps played peek-a-boo with it, suspecting that something special was on the way. 

 

 An amazing moon it was, big and full.  Once shed of those pesky clouds, its illumination onto this snow-covered land turned night as bright as day.

Something on TV kept me up late and it was midnight when I turned off the living room lights and put a cover over Pablo’s cage.  Through the dining room window next to his cage, neon green caught my eye.  I grabbed two cameras and ran for the door.

The temperature was five degrees above zero as I stood outside taking photos of the Aurora Borealis.  The gigantic mounds of snow limited where I could go to frame the pictures.

 

When the display quieted for a while, I jumped into the truck and headed north, searching for a different perspective.  I hung around Tern Lake for a bit, then decided I needed even wider horizons.

Three miles farther north, I parked right on the highway at the Mile 40 signpost, leaving only my parking lights on.  By then it was 1 am and I saw only three vehicles in an hour’s time, but overhead, an almost constant choreography played across the sky.

We seldom see red in the lights this far south of the Auroral Belt, but last night I saw red on the edges of the curtains swishing about.  Just hints, mind you, but red nonetheless.

 

By 2 in the morning the display has settled down and I was cold, so I headed home.

Perhaps tonight there will be more.  The sun has been active with solar flares and the sky remains clear this afternoon. 

Perhaps tonight….

 

(To fill your home with the Northern Lights, click on a photo.  When the thumbnail strip comes up, RIGHT click on the photo, click on 'View Image', wait for the enlargement, then left click on it for full screen.)

Give Me the Liberty

Forget Grauman’s Chinese Theater; give me the Liberty Theater in Seward, Alaska, any old time.  It’s my favorite theater in the whole world, at least until the Spanish Riding School in Vienna starts showing flicks.

Even then, I think I’d prefer the Liberty. 

When the muse yanked me out of my truck last Wednesday as I was leaving to go to the Liberty, it was more than just wanting to see a movie.  A couple weeks before that, I’d received a well-circulated e-mail suggesting a variation on flash mobs, only called a “cash mob.”  Let’s all go to the Liberty on February 20 and given Skip and Marie a shot of cash.  Incidentally, we could see Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse.”  Not a bad idea. 

The challenging weather we’ve been having all winter has been keeping a lot of folks indoors, or outdoors shoveling snow.  Perhaps business at the Liberty was off, suggested the e-mail.  Well, as a former small business owner who tried to keep a restaurant and motel open all winter, I know exactly what that’s like.

I fell in love with the Liberty the first time I walked in the front glass door, and that must have been thirty years ago.  No big glaring marquee, just a tasteful sign above the entrance.  Outside the door, a vending machine and a movie poster.  Inside somewhere, an automated machine that answers a phone number I've had memorized for thirty years, and when t clicks on, Skip tells you all about the movie that day, and what's coming up next week.

Once inside, you climb the carpeted stairs to the tiny ticket booth, usually manned by Skip, who with his wife Marie, is the owner, and also the projectionist.  General admission, $7; kids and seniors, $5.  For this night, I lopped twenty years off my real age, and paid as a “general admission.”

I continued through the small lobby, paneled all around with African ribbon stripe mahogany.

The line at the concession stand was long, so I went into the auditorium.  The first time I was here, I was amazed that they were selling Green River.  

One night Marie set my husband's popcorn on top of the cash register.  When he reached for it, he accidentally knocked it over, filling the cash drawer with buttered popcorn.  He was forever after embarrassed to order popcorn from her, so I had to do it and hand it to him..

 Once inside I was struck again by the resemblance to a humongous Quonset hut, a building with which I am very familiar.  I lived in one for several years after I first came to Alaska in 1948, and have a bit of a special affinity for them.

The choice of seats is another thing I love about the Liberty.  No fancy-dancy stadium seating with cup holders and such.  No, but the Liberty has several seats available for your selection:

There are the cushy plush seats:

The wooden back seats:

The Naugahyde seats:

More plush seats:

 My favorites are the plush seats that lean back.

There are five or six different kinds of seats here, as if the original builder bought seats-on-sale wherever he could find them.  What a kick.  No false pretense here, but simple down to earth small business.

Plus, there’s a real stage that is used occasionally for special events.

Skip isn’t sure how many seats are in the auditorium.  He thinks there are between 250 and 260.  On this special night, almost all were filled.

Marie and her helper at the concession stand dispensed popcorn and sodas and candy bars long after the movie had started.  “Great night,” I said to Marie.  She started to reply, then teared up and clamped her mouth shut.

Skip, on the other hand, was smiling and quite talkative.  He’s been in the movie business since the 1930s, beginning in Kodiak where his father owned a theater, and here at the Liberty since 1957.  He met Marie in Kodiak, when she worked at the theater for his dad.

I can tell you this for sure:  Skip and Marie are two of the most loved folks in Seward.  Remember that popular TV show called “Cheers?”  And the theme song with the words, “where everybody knows your name?” 

Same thing at the Liberty.

The Boss of Me

I stole this photo on Facebook from Amy McMahon Hankins's Photos.  It's a photo of Seward, Alaska, about 36 miles  south of me--the closest town.

I was all set to go to Seward tonight.  Of course, it doesn’t look like that lovely photo above right now because it’s covered in snow and ice, but I was going there anyway.

I’d been planning the trip for ten days.  I had two sacks of trash loaded in the bed of the pickup truck to drop off at the dump site on the way.  I’d taken a shower, put on clean clothes, got all the paraphernalia together that has to accompany me (cell phone, camera, driver’s license and credit cards, cash, and a notebook with pen.) whenever I leave home.

I’d switched from house shoes to outdoor shoes, put on my teal colored fleece jacket, and opened the door to the truck.  I even sat down in the driver’s seat.

And then.

That darned old muse pushed me out of the truck and slammed its door.  It marched me over to the wooden pegs, yanked off my lovely teal fleece jacket and hung it up.  It pulled my feet out of the outdoor shoes and stuffed them into the indoor shoes, and marched me upstairs to the loft.

So much for the movie.  I’d really been looking forward to it, too.  “Big Miracle.”  Okay, I haven’t seen it but it was filmed entirely in Alaska, which is a big WHOOP for us up here.  A positive whoop, that is.  We’re really tired of stuff like Northern Exposure, which was filmed in Washington state, for Pete’s sakes.

And the plot?  Ah, a favorite of mine.  Three whales trapped by ice in northern Alaska.  It was a big story on the news way back when it really happened, and a bunch of folks used chain saws to cut a series of holes in the ice to lead the whales to open water.

Anyway, there I was in the loft, seated in front of the computer and my fingers flying around the keys, some of the time hitting the correct ones.  That happens when the muse is giving dictation.

This is the backstory to why I missed the movie on the last night it was playing in Seward:  I hang out with a bunch of others at Ann Linquist Writes.  She’s a writer and a writing instructor and most of us have taken courses from her.  Just for fun, she throws out writing prompts for us to feast on, write about, and post at her site.

Her most recent one didn’t say much to me for a couple days.   Then, just before I was going to shut down the computer and go to the movie, I checked her site one more time.  Several people had posted, but I try not to read their stuff before I write mine.  I read the prompt again and WHAM!  I started writing.

I stuffed some notes into a notebook, made sure I had a pen, and loaded us all in the truck.  That’s when that impatient muse showed up and said, “No movie for you tonight.”

You would think I could have finished the story AFTER the movie, right?   Not a chance.   Not when the muse is here.

Someday I’d like to be the boss of myself.

The hell I would.  I wouldn’t miss the thrill of a visit from the muse for anything.  Ever.

Intermission between Blizzards

 Before rain rode in on Chinook winds a couple weeks ago week, I had the opportunity to photograph some of the old, historic cabins and homes in Hope.

The rain and warm temperatures didn't do much to eradicate snow in my neighborhood.  Sometime during that thawing mess, another foot or so fell.

I worked Friday, once again running the mail route.   Mild temperatures, sun with warmth to it, and dry pavement.  I could almost believe.

In fact, I had to keep kicking myself back into reality.  It's still February.  More snow.  More cold.  More winter.   Knock off the wishful thinking.

Saturday was another beautiful day.  Dry pavement.  Warm sun.  Had business to attend to and all was well with the world.

The blizzard held off until I was home.