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.