Friday, December 31, 2010

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.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

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.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

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.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

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.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

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.

Monday, December 20, 2010

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

Friday, December 17, 2010

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.

Friday, December 10, 2010

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.


Tuesday, December 7, 2010

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.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

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.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

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.


Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel

Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel