Plot #32 with a touch of meteorological schizophrenia

All week it’s been zero up a bit, down a bit. All of a sudden last night (though forecast) the temperature rose to 40 and it rained. Still near 40 this afternoon and most of the snow here is gone. So, maybe the expotition to the East Pole wouldn’t have been the best idea anyway. Had we gone in Wednesday planning to come out tomorrow, we might have been stuck by open creeks and long slush lakes. Going in today most likely the hills are icy; there was one time I couldn’t get up the first hill and gave up. And then once up the hill, again open creeks and long slush puddles in the rain. Not much fun no matter how you look at it. So rather than being trapped at the East Pole, I am kind of trapped by icy roads here in the Butte. Happy New Year.

New Year's Eve and Plot #32

I was looking forward to an expotition to the East Pole for New Year’s again, especially with my son being here, but it doesn’t look like it is going to happen. Seems like one thing after another gets in the way of going, including my son’s truck breaking down to the point we can’t afford to fix it right now. I told him he could use my Jeep and he took off yesterday and I haven’t seen him since, which means I can’t even go to the Pole by myself because I need the Jeep to haul the trailer for the snowmachines.

With all the actual obstructions, I also noticed his reticence toward making the trip which at this point has made it just about impossible. I was complaining about this to a friend who pointed out I watch too much television. Most families don’t have the kind of relationships you see on television, she said. It hit me that maybe I do watch too much and I had eventually accepted those relationships were normal. Reality bites. But at least maybe I can realize I am lamenting a situation that could never happen anyway.

Then again. Driving around today I got to thinking about this and came across a realization. Just in the past couple of weeks I have seen two sitcoms with similar situations. In one all the kids in the family revolted at spending yet another summer vacation at the lake -- that lake in everyone’s experience where Dad always wanted to teach the kids to fish. In the second a group of grown kids went to great extremes to avoid spending yet another Christmas at the family’s cabin in the woods. Somewhere in my memory ghosting around are other similar stories. Maybe this is one of those 39 plots. Did the Capulets take the family to the Alps on summer holiday?

So, maybe I watch too many sitcoms or maybe life imitates art instead of the other way around. Safe to say the kids win this round and Dad better get used to trips to the East Pole alone. Actually thinking Hawaii next year. And I have this friend who is suggesting a voyage from here to Palau.

Follow the money

A night seldom passes when the news doesn't bring a chuckle. I'm not talking about stories that are naturally funny, those are given. More it's when something so ridiculous affects something so serious that it seems totally ludicrous. Such a story came over last night, a very serious story about a very serious situation. It seems the president of the Ivory Coast lost a recent election but refuses to step aside. Many fear a civil war such as took place there in the 90s. The situation is serious enough that a union of Western African nations is threatening to invade the country to remove him. It is unlikely he will step down as long as he controls the military, which he does at the moment. However, the report said he only has enough reserve funds to pay the military perhaps another three months. For this reason, pressure has been put on the UN, the US and European nations to establish economic sanctions, including embargoes to put pressure on this assumed despot to leave. So far all those entities have refused. Care to guess why? It seems the Ivory Coast produces 40 percent of the world's cocoa. People, this is all about chocolate. We often criticize military action over oil. Lord knows we are fighting two wars over it now. But, chocolate? Of course, what right-minded functionary wants to face an angry mob of people who didn't get their chocolate fixes that day. And with Valentine's Day just a mere six weeks away. Betting here the Chocolate President (and that statement has nothing to do with race) stays in office for a while yet.

Confessions of a reluctant shepherd

Doing something I haven't done in a long time, sitting back with the stereo loud and listening and thinking. I guess it's normal this time of year to want some Christmas music and I don't listen to the radio much so I am not sick of it yet. Though I am not religious at all, it is the Christian songs I want to hear. And nobody does it better than the Mormons. "Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir." Some of it reaches the extent of emotionalism, there are a couple of songs on this recording that raise it. One of them is "Oh Holy Night." Again, I have never been much of a fan of operatic sopranos, but the woman who sings the solo on that carol gives me goose bumps. It starts out with pretty much just her and gradually builds to the whole choir, but she is so strong a singer she even overwhelms that whole Tabernacle Choir.
      Part of that song takes me so far back. It goes to the that little Lutheran Church in my home town where every year all of us kids had to participate in the Christmas pageant. We formed a nativity scene and sang some of these songs while someone narrated the Christmas story. It was my first experience with type casting and I resented it greatly. Year after year I yearned to be Joseph but if not that at least a Wise Man. But, no, such was my lot in life that I was condemned to watch my sheep by night and greet the heavenly host, my burlap sack over my shoulders, my improvised shepherd's crook in hand and stand there doing nothing while I was supposed to be adoring the Christ child.
      Who I was adoring was a girl named Bonnie. For the life of me I cannot recall her last name now. She was beautiful and very exotic because she didn't attend the public school the rest of us did. She went to a boarding school somewhere and the only time we saw her was at Christmas and every year from about the age of 8 on she stood in front of that scene and sang Oh Holy Night. And I stood in the back in my burlap knowing I would never be good enough to approach this beautiful girl who sang that song so beautifully. So, from about the time I walked out onto that little alter stage until the last song was sung and the candy canes were handed out and we were freed from that burlap for another year, the only thing I knew about what was going on was that Bonnie was there and she was singing and nothing else mattered.
     I have to take that back. One other thing mattered. One of the songs all of us sang was "Silent Night." Now this choir director was insistent that we pronounce our "ts" She wanted to hear the "t" in silent and she wanted the hear the "t" in night. We tried but we never did clip that "T" in unison. As a result, our Silent Night came out "Silent -t-t-t-t-t-t Night-t-t-t-t-t, Holy night-t-t-t-t-t-t. All those Tuh tuh tuhs made those of us in the back giggle until we could barely control ourselves. If that director had only let us leave the ts off she would never have had to apologize for us every year like she did. It was always "well I did my best, but these boys are incorrigible." I would have been less so if I could have done something besides herd fake sheep. Maybe be Joseph and stand there next to Bonnie when she sang. 

     Today though, that experience gave me this appreciation of the beautiful Christian music at Christmas and a lifelong dislike for most other Christmas music. I don't even like "Silver Bells", let alone" Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." Give me "Silenttttt Nightttt" or "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," even "Little Drummer Boy" and "Do You Hear What I Hear." And let me believe that somewhere out there tomorrow night a bunch of kids are trying to enunciate their Ts in unison and somewhere Bonnie is rehearsing tonight for tomorrow night's solo of "Oh Holy Night."
      Meanwhile I have the Mormons here and they have whom I can only assume is a beautiful soprano singing "Oh Holy Night."

Here is another take on the same scene from someone else who was there:
      It was probably Bonnie Matchulet. Her Mom was the organist. Her brother was my brother, Chip's age. I always got stuck singing because I could sing harmony [alto]. I remember all the guys standing around in their [or their Fathers'] bathrobes, and then when we'd see Bible story movies, the characters always had the same types of robes.
— Peter Leitzke

Schizophrenia, roller coaster style

When I left for work yesterday it was about 10 below. Last night when i walked out of work it was 2 above. On the drive it dropped to minus 3 but when I left the red highway for the blue highway, I looked down and it was 14 above. It rose to 18, then started dropping and it was back to minus 6 when I got home. At 11 a.m. today it is just about zero, The forecast says it will rise to 20 on the plus side today, but, then, the low for tonight is predicted to be minus 20. Tell me again why I live here.

Merry Christmas from Quinhagak, Alaska

I have never sent Christmas cards. I don't know why, I am not against it, probably just lazy. I like getting them but with my history, I don't expect them anymore. But this year is different. I have a Christmas card for everyone, I only wish I had participated in the making of it. This video was produced by a group of young Yup'ik Eskimos along with their fifth grade teacher in Quinhagak (it's pronounced how it's spelled ha ha). If you never watch another Christmas video again, please watch this one. I almost guarantee it will make you feel good.




It will serve as my Christmas card for everyone.

Here is a link to a story about how it was made.

Some days you just have to love Alaskans

Two events took place in Anchorage Saturday. They were unrelated except that each provided people with something to do that day. In one, the Governor Interrupted autographed her new book at a warehouse store. Some people stood in line for an hour or so with the temperature around zero. In the other, some people jumped into a near frozen lake in something called the Polar Plunge to raise money for the Special Olympics. Care to venture a guess which event drew more participants? An estimated 200 to 300 showed up to get a book or two signed. But over at the lake more than 700 took that plunge. And, they raised more than $275.000. That is not a typo. Two hundred seventy five thousand dollars. Probably more than twice as many chose to jump into a lake as chose to get a book signed. Like the title says, some days you just have to love Alaskans.

Here's a photo gallery from the Anchorage Daily News of the Polar Plunge

Here's a photo gallery from the Anchorage Daily News of the Governor Interrupted signing books

The view from 20 below

Severe clear day, the kind that would have sun dogs if the sun hadn't gone behind a mountain already, with a steel blue sky, mountains pure white rising into it as if attempting to reach a silver and white full moon, until late in the afternoon alpineglow turns those white slopes a subtle pastel pink. As if nothing that pure could be left alone by mankind, an Air Force jet crosses the sky leaving its contrail, the only break in the blue, an accepted form of military tagging, a gangsta marking territory.

Marketing, the new order

My episodes with chainsaws continue. Here's the way to do business these days, I guess, at least you get one sale out of it but I am not so committed to this brand that I would ever buy another one. In early October I wrote about some problems with a chainsaw. One of the problems was the operator's manual was soaked with grease. On the company's website, there were directions to e-mail them if you needed a part or anything. I followed the directions exactly, but now in early December I had not heard back from them. Until today. Today I received an e-mail pointing out all the Husqvarna products that would make perfect gifts for Christmas. There is no other way that company got my e-mail address on their list except from my request for the manual. How sweet of them. There are other reasons, too, but this cemented the deal. Husqvarna will never get another cent of my money. And, I will spread the word as I am now. You don't want to mess with Alaskans and their chainsaws.

Now, sweetheart, if you are still out there somewhere, PLEASE send a picture of that saw.

Special night

Maybe there isn't much around or maybe I haven't been watching closely enough but I haven't noticed a lot of wildlife recently. The moose tracks the other day, yes, but that wasn't even the whole moose. But tonight I saw something special. A wolverine ran across the road. Very rare. In 37 years here this is the second one I have seen and I am not absolutely sure about the first one. So that makes this one extraordinary. There was no doubt this time. The biggest members of the weasel family, they are solitary animals and range over a wide territory so that makes them scarce, plus apparently they stay out of the way on purpose, though their reputation indicates they are not afraid of anything.

This is the best story I know about a wolverine. I knew a guide years ago who in the winter offseason would go beachcombing in Bristol Bay to see what the Bering storms had stranded there Now, beachcombing in the Alaska winter takes on a slightly different mode than the usual idea. On a clear calm day he would fly his Super Cub from near Anchorage to the bay and then fly low along the beaches. If he saw something interesting and he could, he would land and pick it up. One day he flew over the carcass of a walrus that had drifted up onto the beach. He circled it and when he did he noticed a pretty big hole in its side. During another pass he saw a wolverine stick its head out of that hole in the side of the walrus. He said he flew over that walrus two or three times during the course of the winter and each time he did, that wolverine would poke its head out to see what the noise was about. That little fellow had it made: warm and cozy protected by some of nature's best insulation he could survive anything and any time he was hungry, well, he was living inside about two tons of meat well preserved by winter temperatures, not that spoilage probably mattered to him. Pretty nice setup all told, for a wolverine anyway. Can't help wondering what he smelled like in the spring though.

And tonight I got to see one.

Schizophrenic

Driving to work in twilight at 3:30 in the afternoon, the sun just a sliver of reddish gold on the southwestern horizon. Fresh new snow, finally enough now, makes the country look so clean. It fell deep enough at the house to be able to do something at last.

Four weeks ago the temperature was in single digits and below. Three weeks ago we had about an inch on the ground, That was until the rain and ice storm came making everything so treacherous. I remember thinking one night as I was pussyfooting the car along the treacherous icy road that I hadn’t seen a moose along the roadside in the area close to the house in about a year

Then it went back into the single digits again until the day before yesterday when the temperature went up to 40. Along with the higher temperatures came howling winds. 

The sky threatened darkly all day but it wasn’t until late in the evening that the snow started. For a while in the wind it blew horizontally past the house plastering the east sides of things, trees, cars, house then the winds settled down. Overnight about six or eight inches fell and in the morning a blanket covered the ground, untracked except for one trail where a dog had passed through the yard at some time during the early part of the day.

Time passed into the inevitable necessity to get ready for work. A bit later, showered and dressed I looked out that front window again and now there was another track diagonally across the yard from back to front and into the trees near the road. In the 15 or 20 minutes I was getting ready, a moose had walked through the yard.

And today? First time this year to blow dry the driveway. It’s been strange. Most years I have embraced winter but this year it took forever to accept that winter is coming and oddly I finally did the day before this snow. A week ago I had traded summer for winter machines and started the snowblower, but this past week got plastic on the windows, water taken care of, some kindling for the wood stove split and extension cords out for the vehicles. And then it snowed, And then a moose walked through the yard. And I realized on the drive in twilight it’s only a little more than two weeks until the solstice which will mean I have made it through the dark days 37 times now. It only gets brighter after that.

I was thinking…

Thoughts you come across but have no idea what to do with:

Today I was carving the meat off the leftover turkey. I know, I know, shouldn’t let it go a week, but I have never suffered from it before. It sat on the top shelf of the refrigerator right under the freezer for the past week. Some of it froze or at least frosted, but why this? The dark meat froze a little, but the white meat didn’t. How come? The only thing I can think is the dark meat is muscle that gets used whereas the breast (white meat) doesn’t do much except create meat. Perhaps there is a density factor, or one of moisture retention. Maybe that's it, after all, when you cook a turkey wrong, it is the white meat that dries out first.

And this is a darn you to “Sesame Street.” Since iTunes published the Beatles library I have been going through picking my favorites. But “Sesame Street” ruined one of them. I cannot listen to “Let it Be” anymore without hearing a muppet sing “letter B, letter B, letter B, there will be an answer, Letter B.”

And, I am still trying to locate the Jelly Coast. (You will have to ask, but a hint: has to do with the season)

And on the offense side: Pampers is still selling diapers to the tune of “Silent Night.” One more reason to use cloth. I am dreading what they come up with for Depends.

Beasts and Biophiles

A while back there was this sailing trip on a square-rigged ship in the North Pacific. On that trip we were to look for, try to quantify and come up with solutions for the huge amount of plastic garbage floating in the ocean. Among the crew was a young woman whom we often saw sitting alone sketching in an artist's pad. After the trip she put together a show of her artwork, some obviously drawn from that sketch pad. and others accomplished after she returned. With her work she organized a show at the university she attends. Her work in multi media is intriguing, original, amazing, and yes, if garbage can hold beauty, beautiful.

Take a look at her presentation titled Kaisei Art Show.

Drive-bys

Is there anything better in the world than drive-by turkey dressing? Every year I find this one little thing to be thankful for, even though it sometimes takes an extended search. Four stores this year until I found the Pepperidge Farm mix I like. It took that many to find a turkey small enough as well, but the Pepperidge Farm is the real prize. So, now there is a huge bowl of dressing sitting like a target in the refrigerator. The drive-by reference? Who can walk past a fridge with a bowl of stuffing in it without reaching in for a handful. Drive-by stuffing. Really.

Rain? Really?

Some days just aren’t fair. I mean, you live in Alaska and you can expect certain things from the weather. Mostly it won’t get too hot in the summer. It will rain on and off from mid July until September and in winter it is cold and there’s snow. Given.

So today we had icy rain. All the way from the south coast to the Arctic coast. Roads so icy they were barely passable. The first 10 miles of the commute were ice shoulder to shoulder on the road and no treatment whatsoever, not even a little gravel spread on the curves or hills. It was 20 mph the whole way. I followed a school bus with chains and they chewed up a little track that I kept one wheel in, The highway was a little better but never got over 45. Schools closed around me and should have been closed in Anchorage.

Fairbanks was just about immobilized and even Barrow the northernmost city in North America got icy rain. A meteorologist in Fairbanks said something like this only happened twice in the last 100 years.

Coming home was worse. An hour and a half to do a trip that normally takes about 40 minutes. Worst again was the blue highway to the house. Ten miles of sheet ice and no school bus. I stopped once I got on it to clean the headlights but even pulled off the road it was so slick I could barely stand up. Thought better of it and drove on with dirty headlights. On the way out this afternoon I passed some folks who were going the other way. A truck was hooked up to a small car and it looked like the car couldn’t make an icy hill and the truck was going to pull it up. I remembered that on the way home and got a little way on at the two hills I have to climb. First one went fine, but the second one was longer. 

I love the seven gears the paddle shifters offer for the control they afford, but even so I barely made it. There’s a good straight stretch before it but every time I got up to about fifth gear, the wheels started slipping and climbing toward the ditch. Barely made it to the top as I held onto each gear as long as I could, knowing each lower gear added that much more torque to make the wheels spin. Even so I topped it in second gear, barely, and then still slipped and slid the next five miles before I got off on a side road. Snow I can deal with but rain? Really? What’s fair about that? Supposed to be same tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving, indeed.

Glasnost

Looking over the Beatles explosion on iTunes today. Just the names of all the songs bring back so many memories. If life were a musical the background in mine easily could have been the Beatles catelog. There are many stories associated with many songs, but one jumped off the page today.

It would have had to have been in the late 80s during the time of Gorbachev. As relations between our two countries were warming, in a cultural exchange between the United States and the U.S.S.R., a group of folks from Siberia, mostly involved in culture, came to Alaska for a week.

Several musical groups were involved. I went to one concert billed as a folk exchange. It was quite an event at the Performing Arts Center in Anchorage. Among the Russian acts coming was their most famous rock group Stas Namin. The folk event was advertised specifically saying the rockers would perform in their own concert, but would not be at the folk concert.

We sat through several performances, that were meant to showcase various types of music in each country. A Baptist church choir, a group of peasant folk singers who traveled their country gathering and recording the music, as much a research project as it was performance art. A Yup’ik Eskimo dance group from Bethel, Alaska, and another Eskimo group from Siberia. I recall noticing this young performer with the Bethel group who stood out, given the background of hoping young people learn and preserve their culture. He was very animated and obviously, not only good at it, but enjoying it.

Throughout the concert, there was a rock band setup in the background, drums and other equipment, but no one ever went near it.

The whole event raised many emotions in the audience, at least it did in me. We had grown up fearing that country, fearing a nuclear World War III; we built bomb shelters and even the interstate highway system fearing these people; we had endured the Cuban missile crisis right at the brink, and yet here they were on our stage with our performers and they were just people, just like us. I remember hoping people were feeling what I was feeling about seeing this fear come to an end. I had felt silly enough hiding under a school desk in an atomic bomb drill, and felt even sillier thinking about the futility of that maneuver now.

The concert reached the end of the scheduled performances in the program and then the master of ceremonies came out and said something about we didn’t want to announce this but here they are: “Stas Namin.”

The Soviet rockers ran out onto the stage and picked up their instruments from that setuup in the back and then roared into some heavy rock and roll. As I think back on it now, I only remember one song. The rest of what they played was I think a mix of a couple of their songs in Russian and some familiar Western songs.

The song I remember came up this way: After Stas Namin had played a short set, the leader, whom I later found out is named Stas Namin, spoke in halting English about a young man from America who had impressed the group while they were in Alaska.

Then he called up that kid from Bethel and handed him a microphone. The band immediately played the oh, so familiar first notes of a Beatles song that brought a roar from the crowd, Mind you, this was mostly an older crowd, many of whom had grown up with the Beatles.

Out of the introductory notes, the Yup’ik Eskimo boy from Bethel, Alaska, fronting for the greatest Soviet rock band from deep in Russia, broke into the first phrases of the Beatles’ “Back in the U.S.S.R.” The audience immediately came to its collective feet. The woman on my left grabbed my hand and I grabbed the one to my right. This was happening all over the auditorium. Where you could see, there were huge smiles on faces and here and there a tear on a cheek. What rushed through my mind was all that time wasted and how politicians sometimes get locked into things that we common folk could solve in a moment. The kid from Bethel belted out that song with the Soviet rockers, singing the song like he had done it all his life, the audience swaying to the beat. When they finished, they had left the audience exhausted, there was silence for a moment while we all tried to process what we had just seen, and then this huge roar of applause built gradually from us. I noticed leaving the show how many people were quiet, lost in some thoughts of their own, perhaps like mine.

It was something you wished John Lennon could have seen.

Take a sad song and make it better

A few months ago after I had written about Lady Gaga a couple of times, a very young friend of mine commented something like: “That’s great. You’re keeping up.” (Insinuating “at YOUR age”)

That didn’t sound right, but I didn’t have a defense at the time. Now I realize it was simply the latest manifestation of a lifelong curiosity. I had heard of her and an opportunity came up to learn more about her and her music and I took it. I liked what I learned and the rest is history. I have never in my life felt like I had to keep up. As a matter of fact I have more often thought people had to keep up with me. After all I am probably the oldest Lil Monster in the world.

So, now curiosity has gotten the better of me again. Last winter I had thought, given the amount of time I spend alone in this house it might be fun to have one of the video game systems. They turned out to cost much more than I felt comfortable spending so I let it drop. Then a couple of weeks ago I was looking at my rewards points for a credit card and discovered I was about to see 6,000 points expire. I raced through the offerings until I came to something very close to the number of points I had. In a flash without thinking I had ordered an Xbox 360. It’s even new enough to be able to use the new Kinect image gaming hardware.

It was then I realized I haven’t been successful on a video game since beating the game Jaws on the original Nintendo in the early 80s. Since then as I’ve watched my kids play and tried it a time or two it has been one 15-minute exercise in frustration after another. Once I had the unit, I went looking for a game. All I want is a simple car racing game. When I asked the cute girl with the nose jewel which one would be a simple racing game she looked at me like I was way out of my league (I was) and said there are no simple Xbox games. I bought Grand Theft Auto IV mostly because I recognized the name and I thought at least I could create some mayhem. I should have saved my money.

That was yesterday. Today I woke up remembering what I wanted to get last year when I was looking: one of the Rock Band games, particularly the Beatles. So today I went looking. A Walmart, a Fred Meyer, a Target. No one had it. But, the guy at Target said try Game Stop over there.

So off I went. Another one of those almost goth girls... neat clean, not overly made up, but the nose stud, the dark makeup and the oh so cute eyes and tight striped top. I hated to bring up the Beatles with her. It took two or three tries but a guy in the store finally came up with the whole Beatles Rock Band package: guitar, drums, microphone (I won’t be using that) and of course the game. 

Now also instead of rap and a game I can’t seem to play, I get good music and a game I am pretty sure I can play. (A couple of years ago I played it for a few minutes with my son and his friend and at the easiest level I could almost keep up.) Plus, this purchase held a couple of bonuses: first it was less than half the price I would have paid for the same thing last year, and, second I bought it from a local store rather than one of those big boxes that ruin local entrepreneurs. And on top of that there was the beautiful smile from the almost goth girl which I chose to interpret as "you're cool" rather than "I have to smile at this old guy trying to be young."

But the best part was yet to come. I had quite a hike across the parking lot to my car given that I had parked in front of Target (Jeep, but that’s another story from today). In the lot I was accosted by a woman who is probably close to my age. She had one of those happy, loud, kind of blousy voices and saw me and my Beatles box and said wow, that is so cool, Where did you find it. I told her and that it was half the original price. That is so great she said, Then she asked, looking me over, is that for you or is it a gift. Rather embarrassed I said in a low voice, it’s for me. She laughed. OH man, you rock. You go have good time. Rock on! I promised to do that, now somehow more confident with my purchase.

What I should have done was invite her to come along. Wondering now if there is a Leon Russell Rock Band game or OOOO, Ra Ra a a a-a-a Lady Gaga.

ADDENDUM: OK, that was officially fun. Took a while to get things to work but once I got the guitar going, well, lost in it for an hour. I even had to sing one song. Best not do that again. But this will be fun.

What democracy has come to

There's a talk radio mouth in Anchorage who was encouraging people to register as write-in candidates in order to confuse voters who asked for a list of them at the polls. This was to subvert the votes for one write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate. If memory serves the list now has about 180 names on it and runs 6 or 8 pages. He even offered a special prize if anyone signed up with a name similar enough to the candidate's to be confusing and perhaps corrupt legitimate votes. The Governor Interrupted called it good satire. A partial transcript of the radio show was published last night. Here is a quote from it:

Dan: I'm only tampering with the election so the right candidate
wins ... I'm only trying to trick voters so the right candidate gets
the victory.

A link to the whole story.

Yet, despite that, there is sanity in the world

To counter the previous post, here is a link to a gallery of signs waved at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Saturday in Washington, D.C. It reconfirms we are still out there only times have changed and now, perhaps WE are the silent majority. Have fun with these.

Party signs.

Conversations with Patricia: Day before the election (with apologies)

Please don't fret. Silence doesn't mean disapproval. Silence only means I am holding off for the perfect moment to give your story a good, thoughtful read, rather than rush through it when my mind is somewhere else. I can't believe how much the thought of Joe Miller being our US Senator depresses me.

You mind reader you. I’m already planning to get drunk tomorrow night. I don't see good ahead. Who's Hitler? Now that would be Glenn Beck, not O'Bama...xx PM

If you want to see Hitler: There is an ad on TV here by one of Miller's rivals. It is done in black and white and the message is "Do you know who Joe Miller is?" What is shown in black and white is a parade I think in Wasilla. First you see a huge black Hummer with American flags on it and two sullen rough looking people inside it. It has Joe Miller signs stuck to it. It passes and is followed by people carrying Miller signs and marching mostly in white shirts and black pants and carrying assault rifles and shoulder and hip holsters with handguns and a couple with big knives strapped to their legs. It is striking.

OMG When my friend Fiona was visiting from Ireland, she kept wanting to see a Hummer. We would drive around and she'd say, "there's one!" and it would be an SUV (still huge by Irish standards). When she finally saw one she was struck dumb, rare for an Irish person. Then she said, "wow. A pleasure tank.” I have always thought that the perfect description.

Now, hitting those keys...xx PM

PS You working tomorrow night? Or will you be joining me by drinking in front of the tellly? Or...out and about? Something I really miss about Alaska is the parties on election night, although I would think they are more hostile than in the past.

pleasure tank is a good description. I work tomorrow night though I am not enthused. Every poll here has a different result, it is that close.... and these pollsters are the same ones who had Murkowski winning the primary by a landslide

so it goes

Just be careful, remember Edgar Allen Poe being found dead drunk in a gutter on election night in Baltimore.

Somehow I had forgotten it was an election night. I knew I liked that fella.

the theory was someone got him drunk and dragged him around town to vote in several places. I feel like we ought to do that with a few people in Alaska tomorrow. I understand the bars can stay open on election day these days. I never understood that law. If there was ever a day thinking people needed to drink …

The most drunk I have been in recent history was the second stolen Bush election. I held out until Kerry conceded, way too early if you ask me. I wondered if the fix was in.

You talk about fixes. There is a big flap here over allowing election workers to hand out a list of write-in candidates at the polls. Two courts have ruled it is all right to do that. One of those right wing radio mouths here urged people to hurry and sign up as write-in candidates so the list would be confusing to people wanting to write in Lisa Murkowski. He even offered a special prize to anyone whose name looked enough like hers to be even more confusing. That is so outrageous on so many levels. And, I think it may be illegal. I hope he gets charged with attepting to corrupt an election. And, I don't even like Murkowski.

Murk. Murk is the relevant term here.

I feel old. I feel very very cynical. It's hard for me to imagine that people really want to vote for people as STUPID as Michelle Bachner. But then, I am constantly surprised at my students too. One student in my Senior Seminar on ecology of personal life made a contribution (his first in almost ten weeks) to the group report that he's supposed to be working on, studying the environmental impact of food waste. He posted three websites devoted to using food dyes on clothing. ??????? He's also the one who wanted, as his final project for the class, to buy and flip a house. I don't even know where to begin. xx PM

You went straight into the direction my mind was going. I have been thinking about this for a while. As I watched my kids progress through the schools it always bothered me that they were aimed for the lowest common denominator. In other words, the class only went as fast as its slowest member and the really bright kids had to rise above the system in order to thrive. not an easy thing to do in a world of peer pressure, electronics, drugs and so many other temptations and discouragements. Of course you are closer to the results of the school system than I am and probably see the result more clearly. What I have been thinking is this is what we get, a world where intellect is considered a drawback, where education is ridiculed and where being common is revered. Where someone like Sarah Palin calls global warming “snake oil science” and is cheered for it, where Barack Obama is criticized for his Harvard education and on and on. So instead we get gun toting right wing ignoramuses raising ignorance to worshipful levels. Could these be the Huns, Vandals, Goths and Visigoths and we are again entering a Dark Age?

My new approach has been to aim discussions at the better students. This has made the better students incredibly happy, and the ones who diligently refuse to do the classwork extremely angry. They are used to "respect," which means getting away with murder. Funny to find myself sounding like a right-wing advocate of elitism in my old age..xx PM

I remember when you earned respect rather than demanded it. ah, but how the world turns, elitism is the new left wing

The Mudflats

Stranger in a strange land; Recalling Leon Russell

Yes, children, this is where that phrase originated.

Curiosity once again drew me to a title on the Fuse network. Elton John and Leon Russell. Leon Russell may be the most accomplished rock and roll musician no one ever heard of, at least in the context of Gen X, Gen Y and the new millennium. But in the day he played with everyone, everyone. From Frank Sinatra, to the Beatles, to Willie Nelson. A unique voice among so many clones he was a rock and roller I was fortunate to have discovered early. I have been aware he has a new album out, a duet with Elton John and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how those two ever connected. So, it turns out Russell played in a studio band supporting John when no one had ever heard of him.

Leon Russell and I were born in the same year; he is six months older than I am almost to the day. It was startling to see him when he walked out on stage in this Fuse concert with Elton John. Obviously older now, he shuffled hesitantly with a cane. He had gained quite a bit of weight. I wondered if something had happened to him and did a little research. Turns out in January this year he reportedly had brain surgery though some reports had it as heart failure. Nevertheless he was back on stage by the end of that month.

I saw him in concert once in Anchorage at West High School. A woman thought she was taking me to see Leon Redbone. So it goes, I was much happier to see Leon Russell. His long, flowing white hair and beard, an icon, he played the entire concert even through an intermission he gave his band members. He has a higher range, kind of nasal voice that worked well with the songs he wrote or chose to sing, one that lends itself to the fusion of blues, rock and country he is so good at. In the new concert you can see and hear a bit of the effects of age, not as physically active, movements slow and measured, like that long. slow walk across the stage to the piano assisted by a cane. He has always had a calm visage, at least what I could see, but now seems even less animated. It all serves to take the edge off his classics. I enjoyed this televised concert but, I think I will keep my old recordings and forgo purchase of this album with Elton John. Many of those songs have been part of the background music complementing this unremarkable life.

Some songs that I have enjoyed over the years: “Delta Lady,” “Stranger in a Strange land,” “Back to the Island,” “Lady Blue,” “Out in the Woods,” “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” and a couple of covers: Bob Dylan’s “Hard Rain,” and the version of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” he did at the concert for Bangladesh. And one more: There is a version of the country classic “Big Boss Man” he did on a public television show in the early 70s but I have never found a recording of it. Funny, a guy like this has only 10,000 fans on the Myspace “I like” page and fewer than 9,000 on Facebook. He has many more fans out there, it’s just that many of them don’t know it because we aren’t always aware of where the music we love originated. Leon Russell was there playing and singing when a lot of it began.

Lost in the woods
And speaking of Delta

Creative solutions

Would you like to venture a guess what those things in the picture are? Take your time and look them over carefully.

Enough time? The ocean voyage aboard the KAIsei in August was to get a handle on the amount of trash plastic in the North Pacific Gyre. One objective of the organization is to look for solutions. The articles in the picture represent one solution, not the total one, but part of it. This particular solution has a two-pronged approach. But it sucks. Figured it out yet?

They are vacuum cleaners and they are made out of recycled plastic collected from beaches around the world. One of them is made from plastic found on Hawaiian beaches. Just think if one could be made big enough to collect other garbage from the water.

Here is the original story.

Biorhythms

Years ago when I ran boats for a living, a woman I met asked me how I could drive a boat all day, do all the maintenance, like 12 to 16 hours a day, then party late into the night, get up and do it all again the next day. My answer was always, “Plenty of time to sleep in the winter.” Later we got married. One day in December she asked me why I slept late into the morning and then was tired and ready for bed at 8 or 9 at night. All I could say was “remember when I said there’s plenty of time to sleep in winter? Well, it’s winter.”

Feeling that way now as we get deep into the dark days. It will get down to five hours of daylight in another month and a half. So, yesterday driving to work in relatively warm weather and looking at bare, snowless ground the thought of bears came up for some reason, as in, are they still up and around, or have they gone into hibernation. Bears don’t truly hibernate, they just sleep through the winter rather than go completely dormant. Some even get up once in a while and wander around.

Still to be determined is what triggers the hibernation instinct. Is it cold, light, lack of food? Lack of light could be the answer. Maybe they just go to sleep one night, wake up somewhat the way we do, only they look around and think, oh hell it will be dark in another couple of hours, so why bother getting up at all,. Then they just roll over and go back to sleep.

Maybe I need books on tape for the drive to work.

Why are we writers, again?

The following is an instant messaging conversation with my friend Patricia who died in 2012 long before her time.

I am having the @##$est time trying to get back to work on the novel. Everything looks just stupid. I've been trying unsuccessfully for two days.. ISH, as they say in Minnesota...xx PM

There are X's and O's to type. I kind of hate to tell you this, but I learned over the years not to read back until I had a complete draft. When you said you fixed a word here and there I was a little worried you had done that and might be talking yourself out of the worth of the project. To get back to it, all I ever found I could do was try to stifle the past (of the project) and start off in a new direction. Maybe just for a flight of fancy take off on a bit of a sub plot. and, there is always the shower

I actually have a full draft done. I'm into the revisions. I have about half revised. I put a personal deadline of Jan 1 to get it done, and I think it's doable, if I can ever make myself believe I should spend my time this way. I know a lot has to do with momentum, and I lost that by taking a month off. I tried to work while traveling but that did NOT work. I have to be home to concentrate. Writing sucks, you know? What a stupid way to spend your time...ugh..PM

Just think of the joy of one well-turned phrase. You can do this. Maybe a sip of wine, maybe not. One thing I have done in the past, too is look carefully at one character and see how I could flesh that person out.

Ah, that is an idea. I would take some wine to help jump start except I've got yoga in two hours. I did make a few tiny changes that smooth the text. I know from past experience if I can just keep butt applied to chair for long enough, I can get momentum going again. Right now inertia is going in the other direction!! xx PM

One of my favorite phrases: this inertia is getting me nowhere.

Now imagine my dilemma: do I keep responding because I enjoy our talks, which would be selfish as it also encourages you to procrastinate, or

do I say um well this: I have a New Yorker cartoon where I write at the cabin. In it a writer is slumped over his typewriter holding his forehead. He is on a porch probably in the Hamptons and his wife is standing over him. She says Picture this, the rush of publication, store windows filled with your work, a nationwide publicity tour which puts you on Leno sandwiched between Sandra Bullock and an ocelot from the LA zoo, all this while the paperback bidding and movie rights soar to insane unimaginable amounts.

NOW HIT THOSE KEYS

OMG You have that cartoon? I had it on my office door for years. HITTING THOSE KEYS

There is another one.

Same scene, but this time the wife is holding a sandwich

She says. Try this: A woman spends her summer waiting on her artist husband, sublimating her own life while she supports his creative drive until one day she cracks, turns into a sado-maso killer whore. Now eat your sandwich.

Okay, I never cut that one out, but I saw it. I once performed in a line dance singing "nympho lesbo killer whore! nympho lesbo killer WHORE!" at a women's conference. Okay, now even I know I am procrastinating....

haha what do you mean NOW? Am I going to have to haul out the Updike poem?

Yes you are!!

All right! heavy artillery

I always have a copy of this wherever I write

MARCHING THROUGH A NOVEL

By John Updike

Each morning my characters

greet me with misty faces

willing, though chilled, to muster

for another day's progress

through the albumen quicksand,

the marsh of blank paper.

With instant obedience

they change clothes and mannerisms,

drop a speech impediment,

develop a motive backwards

to suit the deed that's done.

They extend skeletal arms

for the handcuffs of contrivance,

slog through docilely

maneuvers of coincidence,

look toward me hopefully,

their general and quartermaster,

for a clearer face, a bigger heart.

I do what I can for them

but it is not enough.

Forward is my order,

though their bandages unravel

and some have no backbones

and some turn traitor

like a head with two faces

and some fall forgotten

in the trenchwork of loose threads,

poor puffs of cartoon flack.

Forward. Believe me, I love them

though I march them to finish them off. 

It is now in my arsenal. PM

THE VERY NEXT DAY

I got a teeeeeeny little bit of writing done today. One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done. xx PM

First snow

The weather service threatened real snow on the ground today, but it came down as all rain, that is until I turned off the secondary highway onto the road to the house and noticed the shoulder was white and I could hear what sounded like slush squirting out from under the tires. Sure enough, snow when I got home. Not much and won't be there in the morning, but there is some and the first I have seen this year. Makes a repair to the chainsaw all the more mandatory.

Lost and found my Saving Grace

Stairway to heaven is still there and I am wondering how it squares with a belief like “swear there ain’t no heaven and pray there ain’t no hell.” Let it ride for another one time around the block, two times around the clock, three times to cross the road, hey hey. Winter still threatens but bright blue skies seen through the skeletal limbs of birch and cottonwood preclude the onset of snow, though it looks deeper higher in the mountains. The eagle has returned to the huge dead cottonwood on the river bank, watching, ever watching. In the yard leaves need raking, that tree is only half bucked up waiting for a chainsaw repair, but there is no rush, plenty of firewood remains from the last delivery, and is now dry enough to make good heat. The road to work is still visible in daylight though the sun is low enough in the sky at that time of day it necessitates the use of sunglasses as the drive is mostly straight at it. Overall, it is a world of waiting for something, anticipating with no clue as to what is over that horizon and not all that sure about wanting to find out. Aimless wandering back and forth with the edge of the flat world out there somewhere and not at all interested in going over, when the stairway seems a much more enticing option. And, Danny in Tortilla Flat out there in back with his chair leg screaming, “Bring it, Lord.”

Role models

I was in the Wasilla Walmart yesterday. This couldn't have happened anywhere else. As I was tooling around, a familiar silouhette(my spelling downfall) caught my eye. It was the combed back bouffant hairdo and the general outline of the face that turned my head. For just a moment she looked like Bristol Palin. On closer look with the hairdoo and face shape she could easily be a sister. But the best was yet to come. As I was leaving I saw her again walking into the little McDonalds' near the door. This time i could see her whole body. She was wearing a tight black t-shirt. Then she turned sideways. She was PREGNANT! Maybe seven or eight months. OMG Bristol really is a role model. And, as one friend of mine quipped, "The Palin family owes us a lot."

Adventures in shipping

Final tally. UPS price to ship a guitar (including building a box)$331. Fed-Ex price to ship a guitar $26.95 using a guitar store box. (Holding final judgment, though, until it is delivered) Do we have to wonder why UPS asked for a special congressional bail-out. For these prices they deserve to go out of business. Wow.

Nature continues to amaze

Some new natural wonders, or at least things I have not seen before. The other night I hit what I am pretty sure was a muskrat on the road. The next day driving to work I saw several others in the same area dead in the road. It was like a whole migration wiped out overnight. Then I got to wondering what caused so many on the road at one time. Two causes come to mind. One is that the river was very high from all the rain this summer and thinking perhaps their bank dens were flooded and forced them out. The only other thing I could think of was maybe it was this summer's litter chased out to fend for themselves. At any rate it was a strange occurrence. Perhaps if my imagination were working better these days, there was a grand adventure in progress with the muskrat army on its way to Redwall to help the defenders defeat the weasels and foxes.

Then last night I noticed an organization of stars I have never seen before. It was four stars in almost a vertical line rising from close to the eastern horizon. At first I thought it was lights on some kind of tower, but they seemed to rise higher than any tower around here. They were there all the way home, but at home I couldn't see them with all the trees around. No easy answer in my iPad star finder either. And a bigger question, things don't change that much in the sky, how come I never noticed this before? And, again, with some imagination applied, could this vertical line be illuminating the stairway to heaven? Can you hear Led Zeppelin in the background?

There are differences

UPS wanted $91 to build a box to ship my son's guitar to him. Fed-Ex suggested I go to a guitar store and ask for one of the boxes they receive guitars in. UPS box = $91 Guitar store box = $0 Fed-Ex customer service =priceless.

About a week ago

One day, two swans, gone. Maybe some hope for next year.

Conversations with Patricia: Part Deux

Settling back down to write. Trip was good until the weather turned dreadful and I caught a cold. Expensive way to watch TV: pay for a hotel in another country. But drugs are good...xx PM

That's good to know there are good drugs in Ireland, I will keep that in mind.--tj

The drugs came with us. Codeine. Stops the coughing, and most thought. Also makes everything glitter prettily.

I could use a glitter view of life... the view was tempered some when the lady of my dreams started wearing meat.

Yes, the meat dress was...interesting. It looked better than I expected it to, though, I must confess. I'm struggling to get back into writing after weeks away. You know, writing is hard....

Hard, really? I heard you artists lived on inspiration and literature just flows from your fingers when the mood strikes

Hahahahahahahaha It takes me days to get into writing when I've been away. I feel all squirrelly. Have been reading PalinGates for inspiration. Have changed a few words here and there but feel like I don't remember how to write. Y'know??

OH btw speaking of struggling with writing, I have been invited into a writing project and I am having a crisis of confidence wondering if I can actually do it. Some Iditarod people want to do a coffee table book of the first 10 years. One nice thing about it is that two of the musher from that era demanded that I be included and several others agreed. Honestly I just don't know if I have it any more to write for publication. (AND, honest, that was not a cheap hint for you to tell me how great I am) I really am very insecure about it.

I won't take up your cheap hint....I'll answer seriously. Writing really is hard, and self-exposing even when we don't seem to be writing about ourselves. That's what people don't really realize, the level of skinlessness it takes to write about anything at all. Once upon a time, I thought it got easier. Now I think it gets harder. I have taken to saying that I don't like writing, I like having written. And I do like having written. But man, the writing part is so darned painful...The only thing worse than writing is not writing, though. You'll feel bad either way, so I'd say, write the book and feel bad that way, rather than feeling bad about NOT writing it., Pretty morbid, huh.

For comments about not remembering how to write, see previous message. Over years of writing, I recall maybe an hour of pure inspiration. I also remember a morning where I took seven showers rather than let my mind get cluttered with life stuff and interfere with what I was unable to write

Seven showers. Now that is some record. I, for one, prefer cleaning house as a way of avoiding writing. I have even painted walls rather than writing. My house is always very clean when I am avoiding writing. Is there something about cleanliness and writing-avoidance here?????

Ha ha I don't think it is cleanliness as much as mindlessness. Remember Mary Tyler Moore always rearranged her cupboards when she was upset? So in the area of avoidance your have a clean house, I have a clean white raisin of a body.

You know what, Patricia, that is some of the best advice about writing I think I have ever seen anyone give. Although I am not totally enamored with what I have written. I have always felt I never cracked through my own mental barrier to that lucid insightful masterpiece I feel is lurking in there somewhere. It is like that blog comment some time ago about when did I start to "used to be a writer." And, I do recall moments of inspiration that were absolutely wonderful. I can think of only one other experience when I felt more alive and fulfilled. The self exposing got to me recently and I turned off my blog. When it got to 1,000 hits (I am sure you have more than that on your web page), I suddenly felt overexposed. I had just started that blog as an outlet for what little writing I have been doing lately, never intending for it to be widely read. I never even told many people about it. Mostly it was just for me. But, my view of the world isn't everybody's and when people started making judgments about me based on some spouting off on the blog I kind of panicked. The final thing was about the meat dress when my sister posted on facebook "I thought he just bought a new suit." Oh dear. I don't want some people reading what I think., On your words I will give the Iditarod book a try.

I'm glad I can help a bit. Only another writer friend can understand. I have SO MUCH trouble with the blog stuff and the FB stuff and all. Having the secret FB page helped; I feel I can be a bit honest there, not thinking about the writer-persona. (Personna? Perssona? How the @#$#$ do you spell that?) 

I don't have a counter on my web page at all...I don't want to know. I have occasionally googled myself, looking for something I know is out there--and found weird reviews of my work and gotten freaked out beyond words. (Did I ever tell you there was a brief right-wing campaign against me for working at a Catholic school but writing about goddesses?) 

I am sure one reason I hate Sarah Palin so much is that she WANTS exposure, and I hate it.

Some days I think I need a serious psychiatrist. But I have never gone because I think the psychoses are what I draw from to write.

Who was it who said he didn't want to see a therapist because, if his demons went away, his angels might go to? Was that Rilke? For me, I someday hope to be OUT of therapy....xx PM