Pity Party

Call it what you will: pity party, poor loser, sour grapes, or whatever. I'm putting this photo of my long-ago cat on MY blog because a blogger who asked for cat photos failed to appreciate it enough to post it on her blog.

Did I expect to win her contest? No. Am I ticked off because I didn't win whatever prize she was offering? No. It was probably for some shop or event that doesn't have a branch in Alaska anyway.

But I did expect her to draw in her breath when she saw this elegant calico feline, her soft colors mirrored in the muted background. I thought she would immediately recognize a sweet and loving creature when she saw one. I was sure she would know royalty when she saw it.

Guess that's what happens when you live out in the flatlands of Oklahoma and don't see much of anything but cattle for weeks on end. You lose your ability to see quality.

So there. I'm posting this on MY blog, and I consider it a winner.

(Just kidding, PW. Just kidding. But....)

Natural Nutrients

Today was a beautiful day for soaking up vitamin D right from the organic source. I filled in for the mail carrier, delivering mail to Hope and Cooper Landing. Click on the photos to enlarge them to full screen, for that panorama experience.

The mail route takes me on 130 mile drive through the mountains of the eastern Kenai Peninsula.

This is what the narrow two-lane road to Hope looks like after a blizzard the day before.

This is Turnagain Arm. It's saltwater, sea level, and a ceiling of fog obscured the mountain tops while the sun slipped under them to illuminate the mountain's flanks.


The photo above shows the Arm in the other direction.



This is the texture of a light snow avalanche, soft and silky. Heavy snow avalanches look more like this photo below.


And those were the totally horrendous working conditions I suffered at my office today.....

Just how bad WAS that blizzard?

How bad?








Well, it was bad enough school was canceled today in Moose Pass because the busses couldn't get through, and also the biggest social event of the year so far was canceled.


Of course I didn't take this picture of the school today. We were having a blizzard! I didn't go out.


And it was bad enough that I didn't even bother going out to the end of my 500-foot long driveway to search for a newspaper buried somewhere in the massive drifts and knee-high snow. Plus it was bad enough the premier social event of the year had to be canceled, dignitaries and all.



Of course I didn't take this picture today of my driveway. We were having a blizzard! I didn't go out.


It was bad enough that it was too bad for Tom's pickup with the snowplow on the front. He had to bring out the heavy equipment for this one. He probably used it to plow the site where the big event was supposed to have taken place this afternoon--the one for the dignitaries, and officials, and Sexy Senior Dumpster Cleaners and the ribbon-cutting.



Yes. I took this one today. From the comfort of my upper deck.



And it was bad enough that having big picture windows to see the magnificent scenery was a joke. Besides, the much-anticipated social soiree in this area had to be canceled, dignitaries, ceremonies, and all.




Remember this picture from Friday's blizzard? The back deck steps I said I wasn't going to shovel clean?





Today's blizzard was bad enough that the wind sculpted new snow into an aerodynamic shape so it wouldn't get slowed down. Not to mention the canceled celebration that was to have taken place down the road a few miles, with dignitaries, ceremonies, local officials, and all.




Yes, I took this picture today, after the blizzard tired itself out. To give you an idea of dimensions, that step riser is a twelve-inch timber. Mother Nature put it there, and she can darn well take it off of there.



Oh, but I'll bet you want to hear about the grand fete planned for Moose Pass today, don't you? The one that got cancelled?

Well, the grand ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new dump was to be this afternoon, but the blizzard had something to say about that. I mean, dignitaries from the borough were gonna come over and everything. Why, even the Sexy Senior Dumpster Cleaners from Cooper Landing were gonna be there. And me, too, all gussied up in winter boots, Carhartt jacket, fleece and gloves.





I stopped by the new site--actually it's called the Moose Pass Solid Waste Transfer Site--and christened it with a few bags of garbage. It is ever-so-nice, with concrete bulkheads so you only have to lift the bags waist high to throw them into the containers, unlike our old site where I had to life them over my head to get them in the bin.



It even has the recycling container for cardboard, aluminum cans, and newspapers.



Now, you might ask why we're so proud of our new transfer site. It's because the old one used to be smack dab in the center of town, right alongside the main (AND ONLY) road through town, and the dumpster doors were always open and magpies and ravens and eagles and bears used to get in there and haul out all the garbage that smelled tasty and scatter it all over the place and the wind distributed it even father. That's why.



Definitely not a photo taken today. We were having a blizzard. That look like blizzard conditions to you?


See my truck? The main (AND ONLY) road through town is right behind it, so this mess was always on display for tourists driving through town. Every Monday trhe Sexy Senior Dumpster Cleaners would drive over from Cooper Landing and clean up the mess. A half hour later, it looked like this again. Or worse. See that heavy lid hanging open? Almost impossible for a woman to close by herself. See those dirty scuff marks on the lower part of the dumpster? Muddy bear feet made those.



No, I didn't take this picture today. We were having a blizzard. I didn't go out.



Ah, but these modified bins? You can open the door with one finger.



And, voila! A nice, safe, clean transfer site for Moose Pass, courtesy of a lot of local folk and long hours they spent in meetings.


And now, in closing, a shout out (I learned that from Sarah Palin) to my friends Bill and Betty over in Valdez: I AM NOT WHINING ABOUT THE SNOW!!!!! I rather like these blizzards.

See, if they think I'm whining about a little snow, they will never quit laughing at me. Over in Valdez it snows so much that the folks flatten the face of a big snow mound and project movies against the white snow. Everyone drives up and pretends they're at a drive-in movie.

And, as long as I'm on this subject, I was reading a story in the paper the other day about Fairbanks. Seems it was 45 below zero, and the schools were open. See, they don't close the schools until it gets 50 below, and then only because they can't keep the buildings warm.

I kid you not.

Love Notes

Jimmy loved me. He said so in a note I received this week.

It was delivered the modern way, an e-mail forwarded by a friend. In it, Jimmy confessed he loved me. At least, he loved me right up until he met Fronna, and then he dumped me in favor of her. I never knew.

We were seven when Jimmy loved me. That was sixty-one years ago and I suppose I should call him Jim, or James. He probably doesn’t go by Jimmy anymore, especially because in the intervening years he was a Marine, and none of the Marines I’ve ever known have gone by the diminutive of their proper names. But in second grade, I knew him as Jimmy, and thus I’ll continue to call him that until he asks that I not do so anymore.

Why he didn’t send the note directly to me deserves some explaining. In a few months, my high school graduating class will have its fiftieth reunion in Anchorage. There’s a web site dedicated to it, with vintage and current photos and short autobiographies posted for catching up with our friends. Craig, our volunteer webmaster, is doing a masterful job, especially when you remember that we are of a generation that does not have technology genes embedded in our DNA. Electric typewriters and Polaroid cameras were the hot gadgets back then.

Jimmy’s name and picture do not appear in our senior year book. He thinks it was the vice principal’s plot to keep him out. To set his mind at ease, I will write and tell him no one ever dated my diploma, and I wonder to this day if that means I never graduated.

(Jimmy is on the far left, me on the far right with the unruly hair.)

Craig didn't remember Jimmy from our class of about five hundred graduates, so with Jimmy’s bona fides in doubt, Craig asked several of us if we knew Jimmy, though he goes by a different last name now. I remembered him. I’d even posted a photo in an online Picassa album of a second grade class photo, and identified as many of the students as I could. Except, I wrote Jimmy’s last name wrong, and Picassa won’t let me correct it. (Remember what I said about those technology genes?)

Seven-year-old boys are not known for professing their love to seven-year-old girls, so I never knew that Jimmy loved me right up until he met Fronna in fourth grade, and then I was history.

I may still have been suffering from the mortal embarrassment I felt the previous Christmas when a first grade classmate (whose name I barely knew), gave me a Christmas present. He and his mom delivered it to me at home on Christmas Eve. I had nothing to give back, and was appalled. I still have that gift.

It was a sewing kit—a gray, hinged box filled with multi-colored cotton thread. Today, the piece of foam used as a spacer is crumbling into powder, but the thread is still bright, every bit as bright as the memory of that young bundled-up boy standing in a cold, snowy doorway with his bemused and smiling mom, holding out a gaily wrapped present, and my embarrassment.

A couple years ago a mutual friend put me in touch with another classmate, Jack, who told our friend he thought I was the cutest girl in class, which for grade school kids is tantamount to declaring undying love and adoration. I never knew about that either. Jack had a twin sister, and I would go to their house to play, but Jack never spoke to me. Today Jack and I are good friends.

Norman walked home from school with me in third grade for a couple days, then broke my heart the next by running ahead with the boys. In fifth grade, Wyatt perched on the edge of my desk and told me I was cute—then never spoke to me again. Wyatt was of the Marlon-Brando-come-to-town-n-a-motorcycle kind of boy. Just my type.

When I was in eighth grade, junior high school, we had a Sadie Hawkins Day dance. The tradition was that girls asked boys for dates for this dance. I asked a boy whose name I can’t remember now, and I suspect that has a lot to do with the embarrassment I inflicted on him with the corsage my mother fixed up for him. It was a small paper plate with two artificial sunny-side-up eggs and a rasher of bacon, all decorated with ribbon. The boy and I “danced” once, then retreated to opposite sides of the Central Junior High gymnasium and became one with the walls. He ditched the corsage rather early and avoided me afterward.

My crushes, and there were a couple, went unrequited in high school. I dated Art a couple times, but mostly ran around with a small group of close friends, both boys and girls.

Jan gave me my first kiss. It was during senior week, right before graduation. Actually, it was a week of one on-going party, and when Jan leaned in the window of my (parent’s) car and kissed me, I think beer might have had a lot to do with it. I don’t think we’ve ever spoken since, though I’ve seen him at some reunions over the years.

I am really looking forward to this fiftieth reunion. Maybe this year, now that we’ve learned how sad and unfulfilling it is not to tell people we like them, admire them, and value their friendship, I’ll tell Jan he was the first boy who ever kissed me.

Jimmy won’t be at the reunion so I’ll have to tell him by e-mail how sweet it would have been if he’d told me he loved me when we were seven. It would have been nice to know. Maybe if we’d been able to do that all along, I could have been spared much of my teenage angst, thinking no one cared, an angst that extended well into my adult years.

In the meantime, I have a very old sewing kit and some memories: a message from Jack, Wyatt's unexpected, thrilling declaration of my cuteness, a funny Sadie Hawkin’s Day corsage, sharing a milk shake at the Oyster Loaf café with Art, a kiss from Jan.

And, I have an e-mail forwarded by a friend: Jimmy loved me when we were seven.

Mrs. Graham's second grade class at North Star Elementary School on Fireweed Lane, 1949-50. Jimmy stands to the right of Mrs. Graham, I am the one with unruly permanent one boy away, and Jack is at the far left, with a striped tee and suspenders.


This story is dedicated to the members of Anchorage High School Class of 1960, and to class reunions everywhere.

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men gang aft agley...

THE SCHEME:

Today was all planned out, cast in bronze, carved in granite. Today I would awake to the alarm, deliver Pablo to the parrot-sitter, and head south a hundred and thirty miles to Homer.

Then, I would board the Mako water taxi, slip past the bald eagles on the breakwater, cross Kachemak Bay to Halibut Cove.

There I would spend a few days watching sunsets…

…photographing the full moon nights…..

and opening the door for Gerri the cat.

THE AGLEY:

Today I awoke before the alarm, took one look at the weather outside, and went back to bed. When the blizzard died down after noon, I went to the post office.

Past my friend Kathy’s house…

….around the emergency fusee burning on the highway…..

…past the guys helping get another guy unstuck….

...and down my unplowed driveway, which had been plowed the day before.

I didn’t shovel off the steps to the back deck…

…or the wind-blown front deck.

Instead, I threw another piece of split spruce in the woodstove…

…walked over to my “nest” by the big front picture windows…

…and spent the afternoon with a cup of decaf vanilla chai tea and “Game Change” on my Kindle.

I didn’t even get up when Tom came to plow the driveway just before dark.

Today was brought to me courtesy of Serendipity.

(The pix below is supposed to be a video. Maybe it'll work.)

Okay, so that was a lot of nothing without being able to enlarge it to full screen and get the full impact. Anyway, this was long after the blizzard had quit. I'm trying out a new camera.

Let me rephrase that...

It happened on Amchitka:

Construction worker complains to foreman about the difficulty of the work.

Foreman replies: If it was easy, the women and kids would be doing it.

Uncomfortable pause as both remember their supervisor's wife, son, and daughter are all working on the same job.

Perspective

We're having one of our mid-winter thaws, complete with warm Chinook winds and rain, so you could look at the above photo and see A Mid-Winter Night's Nightmare, what with all the water on the surface of frozen Trail Lake. Not good for sled dogs, skiers, or snowmachines.

On the other hand, you could look at the photo and see A Mid-Winter's Night Dream. Of course, you would have to understand that this is Mother Nature's way of sending in her Zamboni to re-surface the ice for the skaters.

(Yes, I did watch THE hockey game Sunday. )