time well spent

This is how Gullible spent an hour or so yesterday. Seven degrees above zero, a new chain on the Stihl chainsaw, and lots of hard work. I bought some logs from the sawmill up the road and they were all stacked in a pile. All I had to do was cut them into rounds and load them on the trailer. Easy duty. My feet got cold about the same time my lower back said "UNCLE" so I didn't get quite a cord.



This is how Gullible spent a little over an hour today. There was a little fooling around getting things ready, gassing up the hydraulic wood splitter, and so on, but then it was just physical work. That left the Muse free to come up with a plan to get back inside. She snivels a lot, I've noticed, in adverse conditions. What a wimp. It was eight above.




She hatched a plot. No, I mean, she really hatched a new plot for this mystery writing course I'm taking online. I've been trying to adapt a complex short story I'd written a month ago, but it wasn't working out too well because of its complexity. It is still possible it might turn into a novel someday, but about the same time that my feet started getting cold, the muse had an epiphany. Or, maybe she laid an epiphany on me... I'm not too sure how that works.

I got to thinking about my junior high school Home Ec teacher, Mrs. Allen, and the Goldenrod Eggs (gag, gag, gag) she had us make as a way of teaching us how to a) boil water, b) hard boil eggs, c) scoop out and grate the yolks without adding vast amounts of human flesh, d) toast bread, e) make a simple white sauce, f) combine all the above into what was supposed to be an attractive, edible substance. You couldn't prove it by me because I wasn't going to eat that mess.

Meanwhile, the boys got to learn really neat stuff like how to cook wild game and fish and wild ducks and make biscuits without Bisquick. Important stuff! Stuff all of us girls would need to know some day. But do you think they'd teach us that? No, we had to make Goldenrod Eggs and I'll bet you not a darn one of us ever made them again.

Anyway, in thinking about how Mrs. Allen was teaching us basic cooking techniques, I realized that she was keeping it very elementary. First you boil water, then you add eggs, then.... and so on. That's when a bolt of epiphany arrived from left field to keep my cold feet from occupying center stage in my mind.

A new plot!!! The second one two years. Oh, in case you didn't know, Gullible's muse is severely plot-challenged when it comes to fiction. So, two plots in two years is miraculous. Am I on a roll, or what?

And why all the hullaballoo about a new plot? Well, I've been wanting to write fiction for a long time. Real fiction, not just the lies I tell sometimes when the muse is in full swing. Okay, not lies--exaggerations, editorial license, that kind of stuff. (Lies.)

So, this new plot takes place in the Klondike gold rush era. I don't have all the details worked out yet, and am waiting for my instructor's permission to jump ship on one and sail with another in mid-class. But it did get the muse back inside out of the cold, and up in the warm loft where the computer is. I'm pretty excited about this new plot. I did tons of research last winter that I can use, and even started a story based onthat research. But, I dropped it because I had no idea where to take the story. Now I do.

Stay tuned.

Important research on seniors and, umm, memory, I think...

I learned something really, really important about memory last night while watching the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. I was slumped in my favorite chair, which really isn’t a chair at all but an armless section out of a sectional couch, and eating peanut butter taffy, which are also called Mary Janes. I have no idea why.

I shouldn’t have been eating them anyway, because I’d just finished a bowl of Chicken Tortilla soup that I’d made from one of those big ol’ plump rotisserie chickens from Costco, and my tummy was quite full. Not to mention the fact that I have to hide the taffy from Pablo the Parrot, because he would want some, and a parrot with its beak stuck together with taffy is not a pretty sight. First I make a stock with the chicken and then add corn and black beans and onions and rice. After I ladle out an individual serving, I sprinkle tortilla chips and shredded cheese on top.

Anyway, the story I watched had to do with seniors and memory. Did you ever notice how cute that Brian Williams is? I mean, he’s ever so much cuter than Tom… what was his name? The guy who moderated the ultra-boring second McCain-Obama debate?

It wasn’t Brian who reported the story about seniors and their memory problems. It was some reporter named Robert something-or-other. I don’t know if Robert something-or-other is as cute as Brian, because I never saw his face. Instead, they kept showing this gal dressed up in a pink swim cap with a gazillion wires attached to it that made me think of the old days and ancient hair-dressing techniques that resembled nutty experiments a la Dr. Frankenstein.

These scientists are doing this brain-related research at the University of California in San Francisco, which is where I spent an eternity one October in a sunny hospital room on the umpteenth floor during a 90 plus degree heat wave. My husband was there for some testing, and I had to stay there too. Buildings in San Francisco don’t have air conditioning because they don’t need it. Add to that the fact that we couldn’t turn off the heat in the room. When the hot water heat pipes started flooding the room, they finally moved us to a room on the shady side of the building.

All those wires on the pink swim cap apparently were connected to a machine that did EEGs on volunteers who were told to remember some pictures but not others. The phone rang and a young man named Henry—whom I’ve never met but I should have because he lives in my small community—asked me if I would bake a cake for the Moose Pass school’s Halloween party this Friday. I said of course I would, and began to wonder what flavor cake mixes I had in my pantry. Oh, I forgot to mention that I also add cumin and coriander to the chicken stock. When did they stop putting an apostrophe between the two ees in Halloween?

When I got back to Brian—no, it was still the other guy—the lady in the pink swim cap was on. Have you ever noticed that Brian’s nose is crooked? The next time you see him, take notice that he’s always shown from the camera angle that diminishes the crookedness. I don’t mean that in a disparaging way because I think it adds to his appeal. Just the same as when he showed a picture of his dog Lucy and said that now “they” think dogs can read expressions on the faces of humans.

But, before that, this guy from UCSF was saying that the ability to ignore irrelevant distractions and to stay focused is one of the first things we lose as we age. Therefore, if I use the yellow cake mix, should I frost it with the milk chocolate or coconut-pecan icing? Ewwww, what a color combination that would be—coconut-pecan and yellow cake. I think I just answered my own question.

And here I always thought my dogs could read my mind, not my facial expressions.

-30-

right place....

We've all heard of and sometimes experienced it, "IT" being in the wrong place at the wrong time. All things being equal, and assuming there must be balance in the universe, then the converse must also be true: right place, right time.

Today I was making the mail run through Cooper Landing, heading to my last stop, which was Betty's house. Betty is in her eighties now, a fixture and a favorite in this settlement along the shores of Kenai Lake and Kenai River. Turns out she and my late husband were distantly related, but I keep forgetting exactly how. See, my husband didn't have a family tree so much as he had a family forest.

Every once in a while I would think I had it all straight--all the various cousins, aunts, etc.--and then it would all come crashing down around me in a geneological avalanche of halves, and steps, and seconds, and in-laws. It took Betty a while to figure it out, too, and she decided it must be through her late husband. Therefore it only makes sense to us that we are outlaws lately related through in laws.

After I dropped off Betty's mail--I take it right into her house, picking up the puppy poodle that comes out to greet me--I didn't stay long to visit today. The masseuse was arriving to give Betty a massage, and I was anxious to get back out on the highway. I had spotted something that looked like it would make a good photo, so off I went.

Across the highway from Betty's I saw this:


There's no snow on the ground yet, and the sky is clear, which means it's cold. It was five above when I started the mail this morning at 8:30, and now, at one o'clock, it was probably in the twenties. I couldn't get quite the shot I wanted at that spot across from Betty's, so I drove a couple hundred yards up the highway.

The sun had just peeked around the side of the mountain and set the hoar frost on the trees a-glistening. A breath of air so light it couldn't be felt lifted the frost into the air, casting sparkles across the river and a galaxy of miniaturized stars all around me. Vapor from the aqua river billowed up to meet them.



Then, in a few minutes, the magic was gone, and it was just another beautiful day along the river.


But, for an enchanted few minutes, I was in the right place at the right time...

stylin'....

Tum-de-dum, here I am. All grown up and walking myself to the school bus stop.... Hey! What's that little house doing there?

Wow. That's kinda neat. Nice yard and all.

And just my size... Think I'll wait for the school bus in there....

The Muse Wants to Know

I’ve been trying to talk the muse out of this all afternoon, but she has a burning question she insists on asking. In order to keep the peace in the cranium, I agreed to help her out just this one time, against my better judgment.

Let me make this clear: I have not sworn allegiance to any political party. Okay, maybe once I did sign up for the Young Democrats, but that had nothing to do with political beliefs and everything to do with Ronnie. Come on, I was eighteen. What did I know? Other than that Ronnie was cute, I mean. And I only went to one meeting. These were the days of John Kennedy, and I was thoroughly inspired by JFK. Not enough to take politics all that seriously, but enough to think that I probably was a Democrat. Whatever that meant.


At the time, I was working as a newspaper reporter, and eventually the political reporter, Ginnie, asked me if I’d like to attend the monthly luncheon meetings of the Democrats and Republicans. No, they didn’t have lunch together—they each had separate luncheons on opposite sides of town. By this time I’d met Mr. Democrat, who was a lot of fun to talk with, and since I was pretty sure he’d be at those luncheons, why, of course, Ginnie, I’d love to go with you…. And, yes, Mr. Democrat would usually come and sit with me, unless he was the main speaker. Sigh…

The Republicans? Well, that was another matter. Their luncheons were, ummm, stodgy. Nobody joked. Nobody had any fun. Everyone was way too serious. One Republican got so mad, he quit and joined the Democrats. All in all, the Democrats’s lunches were ever so much more fun than the Republicans’s. And the food was better, but that might have had something to do with Mr. Democrat.

Even their choice of venues differed. The GOP held their lunches in the fanciest, stuffiest hotel in town. The Democrats held theirs at the Penguin Club. Now, I was not yet twenty-one when all this was going on, so I can’t tell you for sure, but I heard the Penguin Club was a whole lot of fun, too. After the luncheon, of course.


As the years passed, I crossed party lines like they were a hopscotch grid, voting for the candidate rather than the party. Then, I quite often found myself voting for the lesser of two evils. My political persuasions continued to evolve, but could never be pinned to one party. When my husband and I owned and operated a small business (less than thirty employees), and I got a good look at the various taxes employers had to pay, I soon found myself with a definite starboard list.

Not too long ago, I was discussing the two presidential candidates with a friend from the old days, who used to work with Mr. Democrat. I think he was a bit surprised to discover I wasn’t a rabid Democrat. “I find that the older I get,” I told him, “the more conservative I get.”

He said something along the lines of people become conservative when they have something to conserve. He asked me to keep an open mind. I have. In fact, my mind has been so open I’m getting a headache from the political winds whistling through. When it all becomes too much, I fall back on my usual therapy—picking up highway litter.

When I heard that Colin Powell jumped party lines and endorsed Barack Obama, I was in mucho need for mucho therapy. I went out and picked up eight bags of litter yesterday. I skipped all the football games for this, even the Seaturkeys’ game against the Buccaneers. Today I went out for more of the same, and loaded up another nine bags. This is the perfect segue into what the muse wanted to say, because picking up garbage was what I was doing when she began making her demands and insisting on asking a very important question.

Here’s the situation on the economic crisis from our—I mean HER—point of view.

First, this is what I know of economics:

1. There’s black ink and there’s red ink. Black ink is good; red ink is bad.

2. If you spend more black ink than you have, you are awash in red ink.

3. I am jinxed in the stock market.

Now, here’s HER take on the national scene:

The Democrat Obama proposes to alleviate the current economic crisis by spending. He wants to dump buckets of cash into roads and bridges to put people to work. He wants to extend unemployment benefits. He wants to tax relatively high earners and businesses and “spread the wealth around.” (He did too say that—I heard him say it.) He wants to make everybody more equal. (Isn’t that a prelude to destroying personal initiative?)

The Republican McCain want to freeze spending until things are under control. He wants to reduce taxes on small businesses, so those businesses will be able to create more jobs. He wants those that earn the big bucks to keep the big bucks. (We aren’t even gonna discuss the partiers at AIG!!! Or Wall Street. That’s another story.)

Spend. Freeze. Spend. Freeze. SPREAD THE WEALTH AROUND?????

Which leads me to the question the muse wants me to ask:

Of the two Emperor Wannabees, which one has no clothes?

I can't stand it.....

My Dsl service is running about as fast as a snail on Prozac today, which is a line I stole outright from writer Eva Shaw. Actually, I feel she gave it to me, because she wrote it to me in response to a remark of mine. Anyway, I can't stand this slower-than-dial-up speed anymore. I'm gonna go do something else today.

going postal....

Overheard in the Hope post office today:


Man: Those bears been to your place?

Woman: No, not for a couple days. Had three black bears a few days ago. Been to yours?

Man: Yeah, had three of them around all morning.


Woman: Black?


Man: No, brownies.



*******


The fact that I was in the post office in the little settlement of Hope, Alaska, is a big hint why this blog site has been so quiet lately. My neighbor who has the contract to deliver the mail to Hope and Cooper Landing is on vacation, and I'm doing the daily route for her.


Snow, freezing temps in the 20s and a screaming Chinook windstorm pretty well took care of the autumn colors, so I haven't been taking many pictures lately. Instead, I decided to post some I took in the last couple months, and tell you about going postal.


I start off driving six miles to the post office in Moose Pass, and picking up the mail to be delivered to Hope, and also some to folks along the way.



These are my favorite mailboxes along the route to Hope.








Some scenery along the route.




Moose Pass to Hope is about forty-five miles, through the mountains and over a pass. Once at the post office in the village of Hope, I unload all the mail and then have an hour to wait while the Postmaster sorts the mail, boxes up the outgoing mail, and hands me a box of mail to be delivered on the way out of town.



Sometimes I kill that hour by parking right there and reading. Other times, I wander around the old gold mining settlement.





Hope post office.

Wild roses abloom in Hope:
A couple of the old historic Hope cabins:

Then, I pick up the outgoing mail and start my deliveries, to mailboxes such as these:

Back over the mountain pass, retracing my earlier journey, I reach Jerome and Tern lakes.

Jerome Lake, one of my favorite places to kayak:

Tern Lake, where I might see migrating trumpeter swans with their gray cygnets:

I turn south on the Sterling Highway, and pass through the small town of Cooper Landing. Mostly it caters to the fishing crowd.






Small cabins for rent in Cooper Landing.







I pick up the Cooper Landing mail at the post office there, and deliver to folks along a stretch of the Sterling Highway.





The famous Kenai river, known for vast runs of red and silver salmon, trophy rainbow trout, and king salmon close to 100 pounds. It's also a favorite of rafters who like to stay in their rafts, as opposed to Sixmile Creek near Hope, and its Class V rapids.

A trail riding business in Cooper Landing.

In the trail ride store. Those shed moose racks are good for all kinds of things.


Then, it's back to Moose Pass where I unload all the out-going mail. After completing the 130 mile round trip, I'm done for the day. And, that's how Gullible goes postal....

Moose Pass post office.

When I get home, it might be time for a little shut-eye.....