Katrina

This week I have not been keeping very well informed or allowing myself to be saturated by the constant news reports - have kept my head down, stayed about my business, though praying for the people and for the animals impacted by this disaster. Mostly when I reflect on this, it's with a leaden feeling, and an inability to grasp the full scope of horror and shock that people are facing, or what they may have faced as they died. I think often of people who died in terror or who simply could not endure, and pray that God did not abandon them in those last hours.

Tonight is the first time I really watched a significant amount of news. I often feel skeptical of what passes for civilization in this country, but when you get such an example of what occurs when that inhibition is lifted, it certainly hits home what a thin veneer it is that keeps us humans from our cannibal nature. In times like these we show our true essence, I believe. And so we see both the predation that makes me ashamed of our species (not that there weren't reasons before now) and the heroism far beyond what others might guess was in our capacity.

Links below are where I've sent my money, if you need suggestions on where to send yours.

American Red Cross
United Animal Nations - Emergency Animal Rescue Service
Noah's Wish

Wanderlust

Last Saturday was one of those incredibly gorgeous days, the air so crisp and the sky a deep, clear blue without a single cloud. I had hours and hours of computer work to do and it really just felt criminal to me to be inside on such a day. Hunter and I went early-morning dogwalking with our new friends Ron and Elsa, out on the coastal trail here in Anchorage. The clarity in the view of Denali (Mt. McKinley) across the inlet was staggering. After some hard downpours over the previous few days, the trees weren't just sprinkled clean - they were pressure-washed - and the freshness of the leaves and branches picked up the sun from every conceivable angle, making the trees appear translucent and light-laden. We had a lot of moments to just stop and gaze.

Hopped in the car next for brunch with my friend Allen, out in Eagle River some 20 miles north. Perfect day for driving, so went on to Chugiak to pick up accumulated mail at the post office and get another eyeful of Denali and Foraker dominating the sky to the west.

Eventually I ran out of excuses and came back home to work. But dragged along as the afternoon passed, feeling unfocused and unimaginative for what was supposed to be light and peppy layout work. Finally bagged it about 5:30 pm and told Mom to get in the car, let's take a drive. I'd meant to take a quick spin around town, but we ended up driving south along Turnagain Arm, following the rolling high tide all the way to Portage Glacier. Drove up through Girdwood next and had a lovely dinner at the Alyeska Prince ski resort while watching tram cars make their way up the mountain to a spectacular sunset view across the water.

By the time we headed home around 9 o'clock, some clouds had rolled in to the west, filtering the sun from warm yellow to a pale bright white, the water on the inlet glowing silvery with that reflection. Made me think of all the lovely days I spent with friends on Lake Champlain about a year ago.

Mostly I found myself thinking how two years ago about this time, I was getting ready to drive by myself from Alaska to Pennsylvania. And then about a year ago, I was getting ready to make the drive back home. Something about this time of year now, I guess, because if money and circumstance allowed, I'd be ready to roll. Those long days on the road with small unexpected serendipities, and a sense of growing confidence in being capable to manage whatever arises... I miss that. The air is getting colder and it feels like it's time to go see what's around that bend.

Urban jungle, part 2

Lead story in today's Anchorage Daily News is about a man and his dog surviving an encounter with a grizzly bear on a trail in east Anchorage.

Because we care about our victims - er, our tourists - the State of Alaska wants YOU to be prepared, and provides the following helpful websites:

Bears and You

What To Do About Aggressive Moose

No state website about llamas, so you're on your own.

Truth in advertising

In midtown Anchorage particularly, most corners of the broad boulevards that cut north/south and east/west across the city are occupied by panhandlers who hold signs and approach vehicles through the long light changes that control traffic in anywhere from 8 to 12 lanes. I do not wish to sound skeptical here, nor without compassion, but I am so curious about the great signage these folks have. They may be hungry and homeless (or not - I don't actually know that), but how do they all have access to large pieces of sturdy cardboard and thick black markers to make really readable, correctly spelled signs? Is there like a Panhandlers Depot nearby that provides these materials so consistently? [Yes, I know that joke should be Homeless Depot but that seemed so MEAN.] Anyway, I am well beyond the bounds of good taste so I'll stop with that but it's not about me riffin' on these people, I'm just dying to know where they get their supplies. Plus I actually am a fan of one guy who has turned himself into a sandwich board with tiny-lettered signs containing social and political commentary, and when I'm stuck at Minnesota and Spenard through three light changes at 5:30 in the evening, I like having something that long to read, and I appreciate that he turns the page without being asked.

Today, however, I damn near made a contribution to the cause, when on my way home, an older gent walked along the stopped cars with a sign that read

WHY LIE
I NEED
A DRINK
HONEST

I'm with you, brother. Hand me that marker.

Energy balance

There are a couple hundred thousand 'systems' out there to achieve balance of mind, balance of body. My gyroscope has been off kilter for a while, though, and especially in the last month as a combination of sorrow and anxiety has had a black, foul hold on me.

It occurred to me early this morning that it may be that even when I do the things that for me would generally help balance, cope, reorient - if I'm only going through the motions and my mind is still elsewhere in its grappling with life events, I just can't find that space. There are wonderful moments of it all over the place - right now I am just feeling such joy about the presence of my little grandson in the world. But so much dread and worry and grief and loss, it feels like my body has been poisoned. And I have added to that poison by how I'm treating myself lately.

Today will be different. I am trying to treat my...no, I am not just trying. Today I am treating my body well, and I am keeping my mind in it fully. Today is different:

- An early walk with Hunter in the near-dark with a brisk wind outside - but it's like 60F out there so it felt like being on a beach somewhere at night. Even the sound of that much wind in the trees, almost sounds like surf. Transporting.

- Standing with my friend Jenny in the wet grass in my backyard, in my bare feet, moving together through deep breathing to get centered and literally grounded.

- Coming back in the house and sweating hard on the treadmill for another 30 minutes.

I can't believe how much better I feel having done these things. Spending that 90 minutes to become tuned, calibrated. Will it last the day? Nothing has changed about my worries and my hurts. But clarity and honesty rise and say that among all the other things that are reaching for me, love has a hold on me too. And I can skip the system and the program and the plan. It's just about what I am doing today.

Thus it is our own mind

that should be established in all the Roots of the Good;

it is our own mind

that should be soaked by the rain of truth;

it is our own mind

that should be purified from all obstructive qualities;

it is our own mind

that should be made vigorous by energy.

Gandavyuha Sutra

No place like home

I took the quiz at Find Your Spot a couple of years ago and just ran across it tonight in my bookmarks. Back in 2003, my top recommended places to live were mainly in Oregon, Colorado, and Utah, though my own Palmer, Alaska (still my hometown - I'm just camping in Anchorage) made the list.

Did the test again tonight and Colorado and Utah fell off the list. Palmer was #1 (!) and there were other Alaska towns. During the Long Haul Chicks Tour last year I'd said you could set me down in Bozeman or Missoula MT and I'd be at home...and both are on this list. This time last year I was relaxing on Lake Champlain for a week, and said that Vermont was the first place I'd ever been that felt exactly as much at home to me as Alaska, and that the Adirondacks on the drive up there were just wonderful...and here are Vermont and upstate New York on the list, including Plattsburgh right on the edge of that beautiful big lake. Bremerton, Sequim and Walla Walla are all places where my family members have lived. Not sure what got Morgantown, WV picked (hi, Denise) on the quiz, but it happens to be the town where my father was born.

I am not at all surprised by my very clear sense of place. I know when I belong somewhere. So where are your top spots, and will I be running into you soon? [Disclaimer that I should have thought to add when I first posted this - the site will ask you to identify yourself. Though they don't save this and they don't share it, and I've used the site a bunch of times and never heard one thing from them as a result, I should have mentioned it so that you don't spend the time completing the quiz up front and then balk at the end!...it's still fun though.]

My whole list: Palmer, AK - Wenatchee, WA - Seward, AK - Salem, OR - Lewiston, ME - Johnson, VT - Grants Pass, OR - Ketchikan, AK - Bremerton, WA - Homer-Kenai Peninsula, AK - Missoula, MT - Mount Vernon, WA - Plattsburgh, NY - Bozeman, MT - Jamestown, NY - Johnstown, PA (okay, so part of me wants to go back home!) - Walla Walla, WA - Dillon, MT - Helena, MT - Spearfish, SD - Sheridan, WY - Morgantown, WV - Sequim, WA - Saranac Lake, NY

O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt*

Birthday dinner with friends tonight at Boston's. Note to self: Do not schedule birthday dinner right after homeless-animals vigil (grief = pasta + chocolate). Birthday present (new treadmill) delivered tomorrow.

*thanks, Hamlet

Happy birthday, mom

My mom is 79 years old today. There is not much that's been easy about her time on this earth. She came to Alaska with me at the new year and planned to stay until May; has extended her visit to November and I think will come back here again in the spring. She and Hunter have kept each other good company while I am gone a lot, working two jobs. She's gotten lots of birthday wishes this week; a card shower from friends here (thanks, everybody!!!) and greetings from her home back East. I thought this change could be difficult for her but it seems to have been a good experience - the Alaska contingent has made her feel very welcome and included, the church here has put her into service as a musician, and the notes and emails from home keep her connected with family and friends. Here's to many more happy birthdays.

Bridge: Pogo and DC

My friends Pogo the husky and DC the black cat will cross the Bridge together on Sunday morning. They are two of my boss's five animals, and are the two old ones that I've been helping to care for all these months. Their former vet from years ago will come to their home to help them make that journey. After the decision was made this afternoon, I went out to make their pawprints and to say my goodbyes while no one else was around.

I never thought I'd fall so hard in love with an old boy cat. It took some time to get to know him, and of course it didn't help that my only purpose for showing up at his house every day was to stick a needle in him. But the night that he had a medical issue come up while my boss was away, he cuddled up to me at the emergency vet and hooked a paw around my arm and held tight - right then I was all he had when he was scared. We had a much closer relationship after that. For some weeks now he has not cared much about holding onto life. They'd recently gone to twice-daily fluids and that was a hard line to cross. He moaned as I picked him up today, but at least I could cradle him, kiss him and tell him that I would never ever ever do that to him again.

Pogo still wants very much to be part of life but her body has betrayed her, and she's declined mentally a lot in the last month. I didn't spend too much time saying goodbye, because it so happened that today she didn't know who I was. I'll remember other days when she was full of herself and silly, or reading the riot act to her young pal Kozmo. She generally tolerates her shots well, but it was still nice to tell her too that we wouldn't be doing that today. Po is not a very large husky but she has giant feet and that's what made me think of making the prints. She hates having her feet handled but she settled for me and I got maybe the best print I've ever done - you can even see the texture of the leather in it.

We threw Pogo her first-ever real birthday party this past winter at age 15, invited the dogs from the neighborhood for roast beef sandwiches and cake and ice cream. It was so cute to see each one coming up the walk, brought by their moms and dads. It was also the only time I've seen a whole group of dogs keep party hats on all evening. DC would have been eighteen pretty soon. Neither will have to see another winter arrive, and I'm relieved for both of them that the struggle is ending (and honestly, I'm relieved for me too) - I have never believed that you have to let a beloved friend hit the absolute rock bottom. But I am sad to be losing two such very sweet, sweet old friends.

The summer night

Night, when words fade and things come alive. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Last night I was awake late into the night, sitting quietly on the bed, the room fully darkened except for the glow of the laptop screen, the sound of Hunter breathing evenly in his sleep. Sending a few email thoughts to loved ones. Though it's been two months since solstice, mid-August still surprises me in the sudden sense of moving from summer's endless days to the long dark hours that will overtake us soon. These nights are like dipping one's foot into the cold water to prepare for the eventual immersion.

The summer night is like a perfection of thought. - Wallace Stevens

Spending last summer back East, I enjoyed the nights especially (where one can watch the stars without freezing) but always had my eye on that north star. I'm close enough to the inlet's edge to see quite a few stars not overtaken by the city's ambience. It's not the same as sitting on the steps of my mountain cabin in subzero temperatures, watching the dazzling display and filling my soul with that peace and nearly touchable clarity. But near enough to know that they are still there and not fully beyond my grasp.

Movie: Face Down in His Potato Salad

Not in any theaters but still a heartwarmer with well-paced laughs throughout, here's a QuickTime movie of Nathaniel falling asleep at the dinner table.

The gang of four comes home

For the last 22 months, the remains of the Gang of Four have been at George and Becky's house. A bit of Gryphon's ashes were cast into the ocean and a bit are always with me in an amulet (see photo) that I cherish, but the rest of him, plus Max, Diva and Courtney stayed here in Alaska when I left to go East. I didn't want them to ever leave their home, and they were always safe at Uncle George & Auntie Becky's.

And though I wanted them and all their memory objects back with me, I didn't want to chance losing them in all of the moving chaos when I returned. Now that I recognize the chaos will never end, and we're looking at moving again anyway, I decided today to bring them home. It's them and a bunch of their stuff in a very large plastic tub. I didn't want to sit down and go through it just yet, though the dogs themselves are out and nearby. I'll get used to it being here and then sometime I'll go through all their things again. I'm looking forward to that visit.

How to lower your blood pressure

1. Go to doctor for some scary follow-up testing. Learn blood pressure is topping out dangerously. Question what the hell do they expect during scary follow-up testing? Also question why nurse needs to touch you to take pulse when you can hear it out loud so easily right now.
2. Get dose of emergency medication.
3. Go to old friend's house for long relaxing walk with dog and long relaxing talk with old friend.
4. Have encounter with Death-Ray Llamas from Hell.
5. Spend time in garden with old friend picking yummy beans, peas, lettuce, mesclun, cabbage, carrots, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, parsley and raspberries.
6. Allow adrenalin (from encounter with DRLfH) to evaporate or whatever it does.
7. Have old friend (who is also nurse) take blood pressure and find it is a mere shadow of its former self at 112/70.
8. Take home yummy beans, peas, lettuce, mesclun, cabbage, carrots, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, parsley and raspberries, and have dinner!

Death-Ray Llamas from Hell

To paraphrase Trixie (who is dog) Koontz: "Do not ha-ha-ha at llama who has COME TO KILL US ALL. Hide in truck, hope for survival."

I went out to the Valley today, and while there I had a long walk with Becky as we used to do with the dogs several times a week, and I did with my own dogs daily. She had kennel dogs to walk but decided not to bring them as they were new and she didn't know if they'd have an issue
with Hunter. That turned out to be a very important choice.

We adjusted our route a little to avoid the salmon stream, which is a grizzly snack bar right now. We'd gone a few miles and had turned back for home when one of Becky's fellow nurses from work, who lives nearby, pulled up and asked if we knew who kept llamas about, because there were two loose ones about 3/4 mile down the road on which we were returning. She'd already called Animal Control. She went down there and as we continued to walk, we saw them hanging out in the road by her car, saw two dogs come into the road and then beat feet out of there in a hurry, and mainly saw them milling, or its equivalent when there are only two.

No idea how Hunter would manage that interaction, and no intention of finding out, but we don't have a lot of optional routes. We plotted options and took another street in what is technically a subdivision but is really just a big spruce woods where each street is a good quarter mile from the next, and the few streets outnumber the houses on them. Road graders are about, getting ready to finally pave this subdiv which has been dirt roads for 20 years.

Our intention was to come out on the main road again just beyond the llamas. As we walked up the only road that would get us there, stepping around the road graders, Animal Control drives up - I said are you looking for the llamas? and he said yes and we said they're up on the main road and he said no they aren't someone says they're right down here.

Oh damn. And then I saw them behind a house on the far side of the road, pretty well set back. We thought maybe we'd be okay because they had to be 400 yards off.

And then they saw us. Specifically they saw Hunter. And made like two huge, pissed-off bullets right past the ACO and up onto the road. Becky had stayed up on the road while I had dashed with Hunter into the high brush and spruce deadfall off the road. We waited behind some trees, watched quietly, worked our way as far up trail as we could without being seen. Becky walked along the road making sure they could see she was unaccompanied by dog.

The ACO continued to try to capture them and we came out way ahead of them further up the road when we had no more brush to hide behind. See, we were thinking of these guys like mad moose. You give berth, you take a wide-around, you get out of their space and they're no longer
threatened so they're not a threat. We know moose, we know bears. And both of us have been around llamas but only just a little. We were soooo wrong about these llamas when we thought they would quit caring once we were out of their range. We never got out of their range and they meant to pursue us to make that point.

We'd walked pretty quickly and made it another 1/4 mile up the road, me going faster than Becky who was trying to push them back toward the ACO. From somewhere behind me she said Peg, run! and run we did.

Well, sort of. Anyone who has seen me will not mistake me for a runner in any circumstance. I'm strong legged from lots of walking, I've got a low center of gravity and can hike all day. But I'm not a wind sprinter. I look over my shoulder long enough to see Becky throwing rocks and holding them back a moment.

And I start to run. I've been walking fast for over an hour so have put on most of four miles already and am a little tired. I am wearing a Walkvest that is fully loaded, with 32 half-pound weights. And I am dragging a 60-lb dog that wants only to go in reverse. He never made a sound and we were never ever close enough to be an actual harassment, but he sure wants to go back and bitch-slap these llamas now. Whatever I was doing, I'm sure you couldn't classify it as a run. I hear Becky yell at me as they pass her and come rocketing up the road.

About 150 yards ahead of me there is a road grader and a man with his back to me working by it. It's running, so he can't hear me yelling. I hear what's coming up behind me and I drag Hunter harder. I run into the ditch where his truck is pulled over, yelling all the while but he still doesn't
hear. I grab the door handle and think please god let this not be locked, and it isn't. I look up. There's still time - they're about 40 yards from us and maybe? slowing just a bit.

Except Hunter doesn't want to get in this truck. It's a Man Truck, it's a Strange Truck, it's a Very Tall Truck, and plus mom remember those llamas, yes I remember them and now I can identify them by eye color.

But luckily I used to bench press a lame Rottweiler and I now have the equivalent of jet fuel in my veins, so I pick Hunter up by the collar, scream some really not nice words at him, and throw him in the truck. The man turns around and yells HEYYYYYYY!!! to see an apparent truckjacking in progress as I dive into his pickup. When I slam the door behind me and look up, Hunter is nose to nose with a llama through the driver's window.

I talk through the window with the road grader guy as the llamas mill around, up to the main road where we're basically parked now, back down near us. The ACO gets there. Becky gets there. Others get there. Nobody is being threatened. (Nobody is catching them either.) It's just about the dog. I keep Hunter's head down. Whoa, the guy says. I thought these are like calm farm animals but they really want to kill your dog. As we talk, Hunter's head pops up and from the main road the bigger llama whips around immediately and charges back toward us.

This goes on a while and Road Grader Guy needs to get to work. He says we can stay in the truck as long as needed. Becky says we'll lock the truck when we leave. We wait awhile until the proceeding pushes the llamas at least a half mile or more down the road, then slip out of the truck and along the edge of the woods for home. Becky says did you lock the truck? Hell no I'm not locking the truck - it's the only safe place between us and those damn beasts.

We get home. I work in the garden with her a few hours. Time to drive back to Anchorage and I write a thank-you note to Road Grader Guy, figuring I'll leave it on his truck seat. I head up the main road, no vehicles in sight. I figure it's all over. I come to the corner and there's a llama next to the truck. No one else around. Don't know if they caught one and had to come back for the other or what, but the abandoned llama is running agitatedly up and down the road. I wait until it's a bit distant then jump out, leave my note, lock the truck and leave.

This has taken a lot to say, but the way my body hurts right now is something for which I can't begin to find any words at all. My friends here are glad that we are okay but want the video.

Uncle Henry said it

I realize that much of Thoreau is pretty much just riffin' off of Emerson, but still this quote has been on my mind over the last few difficult days.

"I wish so to live ever as to derive my satisfactions and inspirations from the commonest events, everyday phenomena, so what my senses hourly perceive, my daily walk, the conversation of my neighbors, may inspire me, and I may dream of no heaven but that which lies about me."

Progress!

The quality of the men who dump me is definitely improving!

Movie: The Skeleton Key

It's stupid and shallow and it's not even scary. (Here, you don't have to take my word for it.)

But John Hurt delivers a pretty amazing performance in a non-speaking role, in which he struggles to tell Kate Hudson that even though she's got him naked in a bathtub, he still wants the hell out of this movie.

Movie: March of the Penguins

Awwwwww. Awwwww. (Here, you don't have to take my word for it.)

The story is simple, the narration by Morgan Freeman is spare and subtle. On the big screen, the images are unforgettable in their texture and their intimacy beyond what you could possibly achieve on television. It's a story about survival and love and it is just compelling.

6 o'clock pm and +82F

I don't know what bizarro world I'm on, but somebody get me on a transport back to Alaska!

Voice mail archaeology

This morning one of my old voice mail messages came to the head of the line, to be re-saved or deleted. My provider is inexpensive and my storage capacity is vast, so with all of the messages about tasks and decisions and deadlines, there are dozens of personal messages I've saved for years if they touched me or entertained me or if I just haven't brought myself to hit the delete key on a voice I've loved.

This voice is one I didn't realize was even there, of a friend recently lost. I didn't remember he'd ever called that number. It's just a hello call, and in the easy way of close friends it assumes that we'll be catching up to each other later in the day. There's a lilt in the voice that tells me all is well and there are smiles to look forward to in our later conversation.

In real life there won't be any more conversations and that pain is fresh, so the tears slip down my cheeks quietly. But in truth I hear the smile of that moment more than I hear the loss to come, and I save that smile to hear again sometime. That moment can't be fully undone by what came after.

My voice mailbox has been my companion since 1997 when my longtime relationship busted up, I was without a place to live and needed a phone number when I didn't own a phone. For a time, those few circuits were what I used to create my sense of place in the world...or at least the illusion of it.

There are a number of my life's voices that exist only in that mailbox now. Lots of messages from another man who loved me for a time, and I can hear it without my old pain and cynicism. There are my niece and nephew in voices years-younger, singing me a Happy Birthday. I love who they have become and who they are becoming, but I still love hearing who they were.

This morning a second message was also up for renewal. I think to myself, I've been saving this message every 45 days for four years now, you'd think this system would have learned that. But since it comes today on the heels of the dear voice I've lost, I listen to this one again all the way through because it is such a comfort. It's my friend Michele's gentle voice raised in prayer for me on the day years ago when I told her that the second try with my life's love had failed for good. She recites one of her favorites "Mother's Evening Prayer," and she changes the words of one line to say "Keep thou my Peg on upward wing tonight."

As I ripped off the pages on my daily calendar at work today, there was a Mary Engelbreit illustration called "Don't Look Back." It shows a crossroads, one path marked "Your Life" and the other path marked "No Longer An Option." Sure enough there's wisdom in it as a reminder not to live only in losses or in regrets for what can't be changed, but there are so many things worth looking back on. Every time I remember that someone prayed to keep me on upward wing, I feel the slight lift of air beneath me if I'm willing to make use of it. And I'll feel that again 45 days from now.