Sunday, March 15, 2020

East Pole Journal, the Ides of March 2020: I live here now

After Thursday's adventure (See The terrible horrible no-good very bad day that turned out all right) 
I woke up Friday feeling much better than I expected or deserved. No muscle aches, no new pains or injuries and in a decent mood. I spent the morning putzing around the cabin, then when the outdoor temperature rose into the mid teens, I dressed out and headed down the hill on another pair of snowshoes, these without the shovel in front. I pulled one of the light sleds to bring up what I could and in the process pack the trail down a little more in hopes of one day actually driving my snowmachine up it. I took a heavy-duty come-along with me intending to hook to a tree and at least pull the machine up the little hill where snow embraced it almost the handlebars. Turned out the rope I brought lacked something in length so rather than waste energy digging the machine out I left the machine for the next day when I could bring down a longer rope.
I put a few necessities from my stash into the sled: cell phone charger along with the computer pack, cream of chicken soup, a couple of bottles of juice and, of course, the next two seasons of Game of Thrones and headed back up the hill. Mind you this was easier than the previous day, but still I left the cabin around 12:30 and didn't return until a little after 4, not exactly marathoner time.
Once in the house, with the generator running and my phone charging, all of a sudden it went off like New Year's Eve chimes. Someone had sent me a number of texts and it took a minute to figure out the caller was a part owner of the cabin across the way who now lives in Washington state. The crux of her messages was her daughter's fiancé and her grandson were at the cabin and the younger wanted to meet me for some reason. As briefly as I could I explained my situation and told her I wasn't in any condition to go visiting just yet. Within minutes the guys at the cabin were texting me promising to come up in the morning and help free my machine and then help haul my stuff up to the cabin. Holy Crap on a Cracker! Mana from heaven. I don't like to ask for help. My attitude is the day I don't think I can do this by myself is the day I will give it up. Volunteer help doesn't count. I told them I would hike down as soon as the temperature hit double digits.
I relaxed, made a steak dinner, watched videos, slept soundly and woke up like it was Christmas morning. This would have been Saturday and again I putzed through the morning until the temperature hit double digits and then headed down the hill. By the time I got there they had the machine unstuck. James, my friend's grandson met me part way up walking and sinking into the deep snow. Later he asked if he had gotten half way at least and I told him no, maybe a tenth. The fiancé, Keith, said he thought he could pack a trail up the hill with his machine. I doubted it but he made it. I am going to have to look into snowmachines with articulated tracks. Anyway he went up and down once and then I went up ahead of him and made it almost to my porch until I got stuck again. (He had turned off my main trail before that last steep climb to the deck.)
So we went back down again, me figuring I could pack a sled and pull it up. But we got to talking and eventually went back to their cabin and told stories for a couple of hours while Keith made tacos. First ones I ever had out here. I was excusing myself hoping to get at least a small sled load up to the house. Keith said they planned taking a couple of trips hauling stuff out to the trailhead in preparation for leaving the next day and they'd be coming back empty. He asked me if I still had anything I needed brought in. Oh, boy did I. Over the evening they made a couple of trips. Meanwhile I pulled one small sled load up almost to the cabin but managed to mire the machine in deep snow again. I lightered my load hauling it up in two trips hand over hand on a rope pulling the sled. At that point I quit. But I had almost everything up the hill and could relax a little. Another pleasant evening feeling more and more at home.
So, it now being Sunday, as soon as the temp hit double digits I went down, dug out the snowmachine, turned it around and headed down the hill. Piled next to the trail I found my 5-gallon can of gasoline, an empty one-gallon can I bought for mixing fuel for the chainsaw, a 40-pound propane tank, and a duffel with all my freshly laundered underwear and socks, a few shirts and pairs of pants. Everything.
Instead of loading up, I went on over to their cabin to thank them. Keith and I spent some time chatting while he continued packing for their trip out while James headed out with a load. We talked for a while and then I excused myself and headed back. I put everything except the propane tank into the big cargo sled which I'd left down the hill since Thursday. I didn't even try to get all the way up. I stopped on a level spot just below where I'd stuck the machine the day before and hauled everything but the gasoline can up the hill by rope and the small sled again.
At that point I quit for a while, came indoors, had a can of soup and laid down for a nap. But my mind just kept working and I thought of all the little things I wanted to do to make things right. Soon I had risen to my feet and well-motivated accomplished the following over the next two hours:
·      Sorted all the food between the freezer and the cooler.
·      Wanting to bring up the gasoline can, I snowshoed down, but took my other yet-to-be-broken trail starting the process of packing it down to create a turning loop and no more getting stuck. Loaded the can into the sled and came up the same way I went down hauling about 50 pounds of sled and load and packing that part of the trail down more.
·      Snowshoed a trail along the uphill side of the house and dragged a ladder to where I could lay it up and reach the roof, not a big climb, believe me.
·      Shoveled what snow I could reach, then climbed up and shoveled off the ridge. (That generally helps to encourage the snow to slide off.)
·      In the process realized the snow was high enough near the house there was a possibility a heavy slab could slide off and fall back against the window next to my bed.
·      Dug out the bear board, slogged with it through the snow back to the window and nailed the board into place.
·      Made it back to the deck and sat in the sun until I realized, oh crap, I still have to get firewood. So off I go with another sled along the downhill side, load the sled and bring it back to throw the wood up onto the deck.
·      That done, I came indoors stoked the fire absolutely feeling like a restful peaceful evening. I live here again.
Starting on firewood tomorrow. Cutting wood to keep me warm next winter so I can be warm and comfortable while I cut wood for the following winter.


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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

Commenting on an athlete with hearing impairment he said the player didn’t show any “uncomfortability.” “He's not doing things he can't do."

"… there's a fearlessment about him …"

"He's got to have the lead if he's going to win this race." "

"Kansas has always had the ability to score with the basketball."

"NFL to put computer chips in balls." Oh, that's gotta hurt.

"Now that you're in the finals you have to run the race that's going to get you on the podium."

"It's very important for both sides that they stay on their feet."

This is why you get to hate sportscasters. Kansas beats Texas for the first time since 1938. So the pundits open their segment with the question "let's talk about what went wrong." Wrong? Kansas WON a football game! That's what went RIGHT!

"I brought out the thermostat to show you how cold it is here." Points to a thermometer reading zero in Minneapolis.

"It's tough to win on the road when you turn the ball over." Oh, really? Like you can do all right if you turn the ball over playing at home?

Cliches so embedded in sportscasters' minds they can't help themselves: "Minnesota fell from the ranks of the undefeated today." What ranks? They were the only undefeated team left.

A good one: A 5'10" player went up and caught a pass off a defensive back over six feet tall. The quote? "He's got some hops."

Best homonym of the day so far: "It's all tied. Alabama 34, Kentucky 3." Oh, Tide.

"Steve Hooker commentates on his Olympic pole vault gold medal." When "comments" just won't do.

"He's certainly capable of the top ten, maybe even higher than that."

"Atlanta is capable of doing what they're doing."

"Biyombo, one of seven kids from the Republic of Congo." In the NBA? In America? In his whole country?

"You can't come out and be aggressive but you can't come out and be unaggressive."

"They're gonna be in every game they play!"

"First you have to get two strikes on the hitter before you get the strikeout."

"The game ended in the final seconds." You have to wonder when the others ended or are they still going on?

How is a team down by one touchdown before the half "totally demoralized?"

"If they score runs they will win."

"I think the matchup is what it is"

After a play a Houston defender was on his knees, his head on the ground and his hand underneath him appeared to clutch a very sensitive part of the male anatomy. He rolled onto his back and quickly removed his hand. (Remember the old Cosby routine "you cannot touch certain parts of your body?") Finally they helped the guy to the sideline and then the replay was shown. In it the guy clearly took a hard knee between his thighs. As this was being shown, one of the announcers says, "It looks like he hurt his shoulder." The other agrees and then they both talk about how serious a shoulder injury can be. Were we watching the same game?

"Somebody is going to be the quarterback or we're going to see a new quarterback."

"That was a playmaker making a play.”