Hunter's recovery, and Emma & The Evil Hat

Seems like it will take a while to catch up the journal (getting started on the Kenai Peninsula trip finally tonight - first entry on that is on Sept 17). Hunter is improving every day - his hair is growing back, thinly, but enough that now his backside looks merely afflicted with butt-pattern baldness instead of the technicolor baboon. I continue to veto the taking of photos - this chapter can go without documentation. Our friend Kapi in Vermont sent him a package of his very favorite treat - Icelandic Fish Skins - and tonight he swooned over one of them. (He also points out I could have brought him about 400 dead salmon from my Kenai trip, but this will do.)

The last few weeks have just been so out of control, with work, volunteering, family issues, health and other concerns - my whole schedule is out of whack. Hunter and I have barely gotten any walks in for weeks, I've gained ten pounds and am constantly feeling the need to get a grip, to reorder the world and get back to the things that restore me daily. Soon, soon...

...and something else soon is that Emma will be back to visit with us, the third week of October. She is such a joy. On her last visit recently, she modeled one of Phyllis's knit hats that she kindly donated for FOP's quilt auction this Saturday. This is evidently a hat with evil powers. As you can see, before the hat, Emma is a lovely, petite golden retriever enjoying her bed privileges at my house:

Upon donning the hat, she (1) shrinks, (2) suffers nearsightedness, and (3) becomes paralyzed.


Hat off, normal. Hat on, paralysis. Because of my dedication as a tireless and humane advocate for the protection of companion animals, I only played this game for my own entertainment for ten minutes or so.

Dog Tired

(I know I am but what are you?) Actually, Dog Tired is the name of the doggie daycare our friends Kari and Erin have started, and today was opening day. Knatolee created their adorable logo, and they took those colors through the paint job, the furniture, even the scrubs, and it's so darned cute you just can't help but love it. I get credit for providing their tag line. There's a virtual tour of the facility on their website. I'm just so thrilled for them as they embrace the hard work of following this dream.

You know you're getting tired when...

....you stumble in, sit down at the computer, and check your own blog to see what's up with you...

I'm baaaaaack

Took a quick trip down the Kenai Peninsula and am now shellshocked on re-entry, but will fill in the missing days once I get my photos back and my urgent to-do list handled... okay, when I get that to-do list even made....

Kenai Peninsula: Homer / Kenai / Hope

This placeholder is here to embarrass me daily until I write up the last day of the KP trip.

Kenai Peninsula: Seward / Homer

We woke up to a lovely sunny day and headed back down to the harbor for breakfast before touring the Alaska Sea Life Center. I am embarrassed that this has been here so long and I haven’t visited to know what a real jewel it is – the research, rehabilitation and hands-on stuff is so nicely combined and presented in creative and interesting ways. We enjoyed looking at so many species of fish and sea creatures, plus touching them in the Discovery Pool. I learned more interesting things about barnacles than I thought possible! We had fun watching the seals and sea lion and nesting birds too. There are a lot of activities going on that make this a good community center as well as a tourist draw, and I coveted the many quilts displayed on the walls with all sorts of imaginative interpretations of marine life - wish I could bring those back for FOP's auction!

The day grew more sunny and pleasant as we took a short drive along the road that hugs the mountains along the bay out to Lowell Point, where I planted a letterbox and played with a cute dog on the beach - you can just barely see him at the water's edge in this pic. All the while I'm thinking I just love it here - I've got to find a way to GET here for good...

Then we took the 8-mile side road through beautiful yellow leaves to visit Exit Glacier on our way out of town. One of 35 glaciers that come off the largest icefield in North America (Harding Icefield), Exit Glacier is named because it provided a relatively easy trail off the icefield for early explorers. In this picture with Exit still a few miles distant, consider that only a few hundred years ago everything between you and it was under ice as this glacier occupied this whole valley – it created this plain. It’s still a very actively surging glacier, advancing about two feet per year; however, the aggressive summer melt reduces it so that the net effect is a retreat of about six inches annually.

Mom was not sure she could make the whole walk (the round trip was close to a mile and a half, though most of it was a nicely paved walkway), but I knew that with lots of rest stops, she could do it. So with a combination of encouragement and browbeating, she did indeed get there, and even ventured out some distance across the rocks of the outwash plain to within 30 yards of the glacier face. I think she was a little scared to go closer (plus there are all those big ‘danger of imminent death’ signs – I'm not making light of that, as real tragedy has occurred here). I told her she'd regret not taking those last few steps, and sure enough a day later, she did. Anyway, this is one of the most picturesque spots in Alaska that is also this readily accessible to just walk right up to this ice mountain. To see what I mean, check out these photos in the Natural Born Hikers webpage as they take you up onto the icefield for a hike they rate at Purgatory for difficulty level. (My mother might agree.) I planted a letterbox along the trail before we left.

By then it was well after 3 pm so I just opened the throttle and got us down to the end of the road. Literally – the end of the road, down to the Homer Spit on Kachemak Bay (check out the slide show on this link!). On the way down the western peninsula coast, the string of volcanoes greeted us from across the inlet – Spurr, Redoubt, Iliamna and even Augustine visible in the late afternoon light.

Homer’s a quirky place (okay, so we have a lot of those), mixed about half artisans and half fishermen, and probably some who are both. I think the fishing charter operations may be outnumbered only by the espresso stands. The Spit extends about 4 miles out of town straight into the bay, and we got a room at Land’s End right at the tip, with nothing between our window and the beach. Scouted a few locations for letterboxing, got a quick dinner while watching a guy on the beach catching some little flounders and sole, and the state ferry Tustumena come past us to dock. Then headed back above town to Skyline Drive for incredible views of a gorgeous pink and purple and gold sunset. Back down to the hotel as the town lights came on, got settled in and then opened the door to our private deck, to see a full moonrise over the bay. Had I taken 15 seconds to pay attention to camera settings this could have been a gorgeous picture, but I just let that go, pointed it, held as still as I could and waited for the shutter to finnnnnnnnnally click - you get the idea anyway. Sat there quietly, sipping coffee and enjoying the light on the water and the sounds of the last few birds awake. The rooms are small and decked out like ship staterooms, so Mom settled into the captain's bed while I unlatched my berth hung from the wall, opened the windows and listened to the rhythm of the surf a few yards beyond, all night long.

Kenai Peninsula: Whittier / Seward

We left Anchorage in a roaring downpour early this morning to drive to the weird and wonderful - mostly just weird - port town of Whittier, crossing through North America’s longest land tunnel (you drive on the single one-way track shared with the railroad, so this is a tunnel you don’t really want to see a light at the end of), to get to what isn’t North America’s most anything really, but was once of military strategic use and now where everyone lives in one of two buildings (real estate development is an interesting proposition here, but tourism is big).

Hopped a triple-hulled catamaran tour boat to spend the day on Prince William Sound (of Exxon Valdez fame, though the closest we got to that part of things was still a good 40 miles away). The weather continued noxious but I much prefer that for a day on the water when the purpose is to look at wildlife and glaciers – too much sun makes it tough to see anything. I’ve taken the cruise out of Seward a few times but hadn’t had the chance to do it from Whittier before.

Had a yummy halibut lunch, took an amble straight through the commercial fishing fleet, moving slowly among the boats and nets, and past the nation's largest fish hatchery. No whales today but we saw eagles and otters and fish and birds and one sea lion hanging out at the hatchery (burp), and of course lots of Very Big Pieces of Ice. Spent much time on the deck in driving wind and rain - perfect. Even the intrepid Nana came out for a breath of fresh air.

Viewed literally dozens of tidewater glaciers and spent extra time stopped up-close to Cascade and Surprise Glaciers, hoping to see one of them calve but no luck. Just listening to the ice was incredible. On the cruise back, some Dall porpoises hooked up with us and played and played in our bow wake, leaping up and over and surfing along with us – I’m always delighted at the speed they can generate and the playfulness of their maneuvers.

We got back just in time to run for the 5:00 tunnel instead of waiting for the 6:00, so that saved us some time (well, an hour to be exact) on the drive south, as the clouds finally broke near Seward on lovely Resurrection Bay. The time saved allowed us a long dinner at one of my all-time favorite places, Ray’s Waterfront on the small boat harbor. Incredible fresh halibut, cedar plank salmon…shoot, just the appetizer of roasted garlic and warm gorgonzola on fresh baked sourdough washed down with some nice cabernet – I could have eaten a pile of it (okay, I pretty much did). Just took our time at our table by the window, looking at the splendid variety of boats as night came on.

Back to the room at the cute little Hotel Edgewater right next to the Sea Life Center on the waterfront. Watched a movie until midnight – such decadence – and didn’t even think twice about trying to log onto the computer in the hotel lobby (also would have been difficult to cut the line of senior citizens elbowing to email their grandchildren...er, wait, now I've got a grandchild too! no more grandparent jokes!). Woke up in the night and slipped out for a walk through Waterfront Park in the dark, with just the sounds of the bay and the rain mostly having stopped.

I had just plain forgotten what a great little place this three-time All-America city is and how I've been so charmed by it always. It’s on my top ten list at “Find Your Spot” and suddenly I did feel very much like I'd been too long away from home.

The Snowball effect

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the impact this disaster had on separating pets from their people, my friend Phyllis DeGioia has begun a grassroots effort to change the procedures at American Red Cross shelters so that pets can be accepted. She calls this The Snowball Effect, after the widely publicized case of the little boy and his dog who were forcibly separated during the New Orleans evacuation (and were later reunited).

I think this dialogue is critical to have. I see issues of feasibility, safety, liability and expertise that make me think having the same shelters accepting both people and pets is not the answer. I don't see one reason why evacuation should not include plans for both. Whether they are housed in the very same space to me is less important than to have them co-located in proximity, and more critically, to have a coordinated evacuation and intake plan. Animal welfare organizations tell people not to leave their pets behind. Human welfare organizations tell people they can't bring them. Meanwhile, there are people who risked their lives rather than abandon their animal companions, and for those who were left behind, there are other people out there risking their lives now. We have to talk.

Happiness in small things

This little girl greeted me on my desk yesterday, a gift from my boss Nancy. It's the "Happiness" figure from Willow Tree - she has this one and I'd admired it in the past. Until then I didn't know WT made anything besides their 'angels' series, which are very sweet but I am more drawn to plain earthbound beings instead.

It reminds me of two things. That despite pain and loss, my arms and heart must stay fully open if happiness is to find me. And to notice when it has found me already, since that touch may be as light as a bird's and as fleeting.

Skylight

[Anchorage Daily News image from this week looking north from town.] About 5:15 am, our doggie guest Emma became restless so I got up to let her outside. I was surprised by an auroral display to the north, stretching all the way from east to west, and largely unobscured by the ambient light below. It was not terribly chilly outside either, warm enough to just be wrapped in a blanket, so I woke my mom and we sat on the back deck for 20 minutes or so, listening to the still-sleeping city and watching the colors wrench and twist in the sky. Every combination was there - the large hanging curtains, sometimes blinking off and on as though to a switch; then the ribbons that explore, twisting and curling brighter and then to fade; the concentrated spots like searchlights growing in intensity until they shatter into spikes and ribbons of their own. In ghostly pale green with just a hint of pink here and there, while the stars far beyond continue to twinkle quietly as though unaware of the pyrotechnics in their midst.

The wheels on the bus go round and round

Here's a QuickTime movie of one of Nathaniel's many recent crawling attempts that actually resulted in nearly-apparent forward motion! Photos on his blog indicate the recent development of contradictory (and possibly extra) limbs that propel him in unexpected directions.

Time stood still

The week passed and the blog lapsed. It isn't that there aren't plenty of things that happened. It isn't that I wasn't present for quite a few of them too, and several may yet find their way here. But the last four days passed in a way just a bit beyond my full attention span, with my heart drawn constantly to worry about my little doggie boy. It has been a miserable week for him post-surgery, and today the worst so far. Our dear golden friend Emma is coming tomorrow to stay for a week and I'd hoped that Hunter would be well on the mend. He isn't. That's okay, it surely isn't the first time we've had a recuperating dog and in a bigger pack than this too.

But something has changed. There was a time when one or the other (or the other or the other) of the Gang of Four faced serious surgeries, several of them emergencies, in what seemed like every other week of Let's Play Build The Wing On the Vet Clinic, Ka Ching Ka Ching. And I was tough and rolled with the punches and wrapped love and support around those companions of mine and had all the strength to pull them through harrowing interventions and through recoveries that in some cases lasted for months. Except for a few times when friends arrived to be of support, I was alone on every trip to the vet clinic in 20 years, alone in making the decisions to cause pain in order to cause healing, or in making the decisions to kill my best friends. I was alone when their heartbeats ceased under my fingertips, and I was the one who loved them fiercely but never flinched.

But that was a different person, and my insides have shaken all week.

The heart is a lonely Hunter

My sweet boy had surgery today and he wasn't allowed to come home tonight. I'm told he's resting okay but in some pain, and I am becoming more restless as the hours pass, because I know how it is when you hurt in the middle of the night. A few hours ago I was okay with leaving him and now I am just...not.

Book: Jenny Willow

Outdoor magazine writer Mike Gaddis' first novel relates the life and times of an English setter in backwoods West Virginia. The hunting dog Jenny is the savior of Ben Willow in his old age, who after losing his two greatest loves in the death of his wife and the last of his generations of hunting dogs, decides he has enough life in him for one more dog. I am no fan of hunting but have gotten some glimpses into that world through people that I've loved and respected, and Gaddis portrays this activity at its more noble, as a backdrop for the events that unfold after Ben dies of a heart attack on a hunting expedition, leaving Jenny to survive on her own.

To be honest, I almost didn't get past the beginning because of the construction of the first couple paragraphs... On just the first page alone I found such stirring combinations as

There was no answer
The room was empty
Poplar and maple were beginning to color
The grouse would find them
They would come
The air was bracing
Crows were about

I thought dear god, I can't possibly choke through this for 280 more pages if this man can't find an action verb. But the style soon expands, and if anything becomes an exercise in sensory adjectives, which a few times threaten to overwhelm the story, but if you make yourself reread them, are worth the linger.

I picked this up at the recommendation of a friend who was reading it, and had told me a few of the pivotal plot developments as he reached them in the book. As a result I was expecting parts of this drama to be somewhat unbelievable and over the top, but as I reached those moments they seemed quite balanced and controlled. In that sense, Gaddis uses rich language to tell an ultimately simple story.

The moments that Gaddis captures perfectly are the moments of connectedness one feels alone on a mountain with none other but a faithful dog. From my own West Virginia family roots, the people he describes are authentic, as are his descriptions of the mountain realm. I read the first two chapters - 18 pages - the first night. The next night I didn't stop reading until I reached the end.

The thin line

Spent some time on the phone today with a friend, just processing the sights and sounds of this week. Talking about what are the best ways to offer support from our distant location.

Over and over I am arrested by the ways in which human behavior in this drama so quickly sorted itself into archetypes - into heroes and villains, predators and prey. And all driven by despair, and from within its center, no knowledge of what was happening in the world beyond...or even just where that world might begin. As it turns out, science fiction movies about a post-holocaust world do not actually seem to have exaggerated that part of the picture much. While we keep spending our money on terrorist paranoia that cannot reliably protect us from mayhem, I keep thinking that all that separates us from apocalypse is one big storm.

When the wind blows down this hard,
Many a bond is broken.
See the water lie on the ground
From where the heavens opened.
Lord, how will you get through this night
With your dreams departed?
And who alone will comfort you?
Only the broken hearted.

Eric Clapton, 'Broken Hearted'

Louisiana 1927

lyrics by Randy Newman

What has happened down here is the winds have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and it rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame
What the river has done to this poor crackers land."

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away

Staggering

Of all of the unimaginable sights and sounds of the last week's hurricane disaster, possibly the most incomprehensible is the statement of the national FEMA director yesterday that they had been unaware that a situation was developing at the New Orleans convention center, and would begin to direct resources there. This was Thursday. So okay, now I know that I was not the only person not watching the television news - FEMA's honcho being the other - but even I knew those horrifying details through the web reports.

I keep playing that quote through my head trying to make it mean something different. Either it means that our country's leadership has no real ability to respond to a large-scale emergency, or it means that they are unconcerned with pursuing facts as applied to death in the streets among people who aren't of the right color or of the right economic franchise. I am not able to sort out which is the better explanation, or which is the worse truth.

The agony of de feet

I was thinking that was too obvious a pun, until I realized there are two younger generations who may not even know what that phrase actually refers to, and now I just feel depressed.

Anyway, these are my friend Phyllis's feet after her toe was stung by a bee. The way she tells it, this involved a visit to urgent care, steroids, emergency anti-anaphylactic, etc. The picture would certainly seem to support this, if it weren't for the disparate fact that she apparently had time to give herself a perfect pedicure in the middle of this emergency? Hmmmmmm, said the skeptic.

She is feeling better now, but still I'm very sure she would appreciate many MANY comments about her feet. Well, I would. Also I would like to point out that the difference between me and Knatolee is that she wouldn't have even asked before blogging this... (she's my hero).

Quote for September

You have only to let the soft animal in you love what it loves. - Mary Oliver, 'Wild Geese'

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.

Overachiever

This is the time of year that giant vegetables claim their spot in the Alaska mystique. Today's Anchorage Daily News front page shows Dave Iles' state-record-setting pumpkin at 752 lbs. It's his first pumpkin ever. Where does one go from here? His second pumpkin is set to be trucked from his home in Fairbanks to our state fair down here in Palmer in a couple of weeks, and may be even bigger. There'll be a host of such oddities on display, and walking into the giant vegetable exhibit on the fairgrounds is like walking into a 1950s science fiction movie. I like living in a world where people grow big scary vegetables and where other people give them glory for it. It beats the hell out of anything else you read on the front page these days.

Urban jungle

This morning two young moose came walking hurriedly down our street - a young bull maybe two years old, and a small calf surely born this year. My guess is that they are offspring of the same mother, and either something happened to her, or more likely she has kicked them both out. With bears on the move and trying to get their last fat on before winter, the baby will be moose tartare in no time I'm afraid, without mama's protection - that's virtually certain. We have a big road construction project going on nearby and these kids were motoring fast, away from the loud equipment, so I didn't take their picture (though I saw them again at the end of our street, on someone's porch), but here's a similar photo taken earlier this summer out my mom's second-story bedroom window.

Hunter and I are experiencing habitat displacement too. The wetlands area where we walk every day has become such a gauntlet of big game encounters that I've given up on it until the leaves fall and I can see better what problems we're walking into. The boring industrial access to the airport seemed like a safe spot until I woke up to the morning paper photo of two big bull moose occupying those environs. So we have been taking our morning walks on asphalt these last couple of weeks. Ugh. And there's no reason to think we won't have a wildlife encounter there either, as Anchorage is having its worst urban bear influx in years - they're hungry and we leave out garbage. Bears, as it turns out, are very good at adding 2 + 2.

But at least in the subdivisions and smaller parks there are some open areas where I can see better than in the dense cover, and more structures to get behind and detours one can take. We do have nicely paved bike trails and many small parks. But you can't get yourself grounded on concrete, and I can't wait to get back to our own trails soon.

Movie: An Unfinished Life

How about An Unfinished Movie? Oh, the heartlessness of a movie trailer that shows us two magnificent studs like Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman at their grizzly-bear scarred and weatherbeaten finest....and then hands us Jennifer Lopez???? Say it ain't so!

(There went Diane Lane's chance at a good movie!!!)

Movie: Must Love Dogs

Diane Lane and John Cusack - what's not to love. Stupid story, but then stories of unlikely, near-miss, near-miss, total-miss, almost connected, near-miss, near-miss FINALLY I FOUND YOU romantic love just make me pretty effin irritated generally.

John Cusack is always one I keep in my hip pocket but my eyes were on Christopher Plummer, who is of the age that gets my attention. Rowwwwr.

I adore Diane Lane too, but while I'm irritated, what's up with all these roles of hers in movies where the plot is entirely dependent on the unbelievable. I don't mean the kind of disbelief you suspend for purposes of alien invasions or giant asteroids or islands with prehistoric zoos. I mean where you have to suspend disbelief just for these people to make it through the day. On what planet will a man sign his divorce papers, be taken to the cleaners, have no visible means of support from his sensitive art of building boats he never sells, proclaim he is romantically benched forever and then in the next breath tell his best friend all of the qualities of the woman he's looking for because he's in it for a lifetime? Geez, not even divorced women behave like that.

Same deal with Diane in Under the Tuscan Sun...gosh, how horrible to be alone, broke, desperate and without prospects, so that your only remaining choice is to....buy an Italian villa and eat grapes for the rest of your life. Or how about in The Perfect Storm - you know our girl Diane would really be all over George Clooney instead of Mark Wahlberg. Or how about in Unfaithful where she abandons Richard Gere for hot times in the sack with Olivier Martinez.

Well, okay, that one I get.

But really. Hollywood is already beginning to push Diane into the old-heifers club so she really needs to get a good movie soon or start taking hand-me-downs from Meryl Streep. But there are lots of laughs in this, the dogs are adorable, the little children are adorable, Diane Lane is adorable, John Cusack is adorable, Stockard Channing is adorable and Christopher Plummer is just a stone fox stud quoting Yeats and Browning. And it'll make you want to see Dr. Zhivago again.....and come to think of it, Diane Lane would have been a perfect Lara in her day.

The importance of being Nathaniel's nana

This beautiful child (the one on the right) is my grandson Nathaniel HyeongWoo Perry. (The beautiful child on the left is my daughter Kendra.) Kendra and Jay brought Nathaniel home from Korea a week ago.

Fear not that I will regale you overmuch with baby stories - I have no need, as this child is supported by a full geek squad and has a blog of his own that's far more interesting than mine. He has a photo stream and video conferencing. He has computerized diaper telemetry. He's a tiny Truman Show, but way cuter.

May we realize how urgent it is that we inhabit a world where no child is unwanted and no child is harmed and no child is hungry. That these are not global abstractions to the child who is friendless and the child who is broken and the child who has no food.

May we be fortunate enough to be loved. May we be wise enough to recognize it. And may all our hearts together make us a family.

Nana Peg

I'm faster than a crosstown bus

Okay, it isn't the first time that's been said. But it was independently verified this morning as I walked eight blocks from my office to pick up my car after its oil change. The People Mover came along the same route, pulled a little ahead of me, then I'd catch up, then it'd pass me, and we finished in a dead heat at the bus stop in front of the garage. Got a grin from the driver and I saved a buck fifty. I'm not only fast, I'm cheap.

And oh yeah

One night last winter my fear-crippled dog was suddenly a heroic black flash in a blacker night, and he probably saved my life.

Happy anniversary, baby...

...got Hunter on my mind.

Here's the day we made it official, three years ago. (Our friends Mary and Pete Osterberg were visiting in AK and Pete took this great shot.) It feels like it's been longer, but then this journey has taken us literally there and back again, from one end of the continent to the other, slingshot around the moon and home. And then the long journey of slowly, slowly discovering what may unfold in my sweet, puzzling boy.

I still don't think I know him very well. I know about him. He comes alive on our daily walks in the woods, tail high, eyes bright with delight and discovery. We look at each other and it's unspoken - "yeah, let's take that one and see where it goes." He loves meeting his friends on the trail. He loves naps and animal crackers. He can fit himself into the space under the steering column in my tiny 2-door coupe, where he tucks safely out of sight during errand stops.

He never gets a bath because he never needs it beyond rinsing the mud off his paws. He has a marvelous, unique combination coat that's wiry and fluffy and wonderful and completely clean to the touch, and when we walk in the rain he carries a scent like freshly washed cotton.

He has a developed a BARK that speaks of ferocity and of fear.

He likes to look out windows.

He loves puppies and young dogs. He loves cats too but not in a way that makes his mama proud.

He's not a mental giant. He's the first of my dogs that hasn't been 'trained' and it suits me just fine. I ask a little, he gives a little. I don't ask more because I understand better these days how it feels when life asks more of you than you have. Sometimes he collapses from the pressure; sometimes he's defiant. The space his spirit inhabits is partly here, and partly something that lies just a little beyond.

Though he gets goofy and silly and playful sometimes, a shadow still follows him. When I touch him his first response is always to tense, to resist. It thrills me just to see him in a full-body relax, and it sends me over the moon when the tail thumps too. After three years he's begun to trust men a little more. (And Mom trusts them a little less, so we achieve balance.) But our life together has been especially blessed with some particularly remarkable men, and from George, Keith, Chuck, Dirk, Kelly, and Shane, Hunter has learned the most precious lesson that not all men have hurting hands.

I think there's more to come. Only in the last few months has he begun to meet my gaze more fully with his own. Only in the last few months has he begun to voluntarily give small kisses. My heart dares to think I may yet be shown the soul beyond those incredible eyes.

I love you, my sweet, exasperating, haunted, beautiful boy. Let's take that one and see where it goes.

Twang....

There went my heartstrings.

Jay Hammond, 1922-2005

I'm feeling terribly sad to learn of the death of one of Alaska's most respected and beloved elder statesmen, former governor Jay Hammond. It shouldn't come as any real surprise in a man of advanced years, and I realized my reaction was from such deep respect that it never actually occurred to me that he could die. I certainly will never be accused of my conservative politics, but no matter your view, there's no denying that both the history and the future of our young state were crafted in large measure by this man's conviction and determination to act always in our best interests. I treasure the kind note he wrote to me in one of his two autobiographies, "Tales of Alaska's Bush Rat Governor." He was funny and pragmatic and compassionate and wise, and he'll be so very much missed, as his powerful voice has resounded authoritatively in our public discourse for more than 20 years since he left the governor's mansion. The man had permanence about him and we weren't done needing him yet.

Anchorage Daily News: "State has lost a giant in Hammond," 8/3/2005

Golden girl

Our friend Emma is staying with us for a while and brings such sunshine with her. She's happy, calm, cuddly. Having her around changes Hunter a bit too - he's sweet and affectionate in small doses, but not overmuch - but when Emma walks in with the tie dye and the love beads, he has to get in on the act. Mornings are rather chilly here now, so waking up with both of them snuggled against me is bliss as Hunter never sleeps in the bed except when Emma is there. And Emma never sleeps in the bed except when she visits here. And Peg is just happy with the whole arrangement.

I keep thinking of adding a dog to the family because I've always been a multi-dog mom and I've missed that dynamic since the days of the Gang of Four. The timing just doesn't seem right for that commitment, but I got a call on Sunday about another wolfhound mix who's looking for a home...

Doctor doctor, gimme the news

My mom's boatload of medical scans this month produced some cause for concern in her remaining breast (she's a 6-year bc survivor). She'll have a stereotactic biopsy next week and I have my followup on abnormal pap too...apparently the older you get, the more surreal the mother-daughter outings become.

Love me or don't

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

Dawna Markova, Fully Alive

I wouldn't have the nerve to make this one up

So I keep seeing that "What Science Fiction Character Are You?" quiz popping up here and there, and I finally went and did it. (That sound you hear is me scraping the bottom of the barrel on ways to avoid doing real work.) Turns out I am Galadriel:

"Possessing a rare combination of wisdom and humility, while serenely dominating your environment you selflessly use your powers to care for others."

Yeah. I choked on my coffee too, like you did just now.

My nephew Shane got me grounded, though. He's Gandalf, and told me to put that pipeweed in my pipe and smoke it.

Lightbearer

I took this picture of my buddy Nugget last week. Was messing around with the long lens and really should have had a tripod - couldn't keep it still as a hand-held - but I loved this pose in the warm evening light.

A unanimous verdict

So today I am hanging out with the East Side Gang. Dogs upstairs, dogs downstairs, dogs everywhere - that's what I'm talkin' about. Petsitting while my friends go dancing at a wedding in Talkeetna, where I suspect wedding dances are quite festive - I mean, this is a place that auctions off its bachelors.

This week I've been tired and careworn, grieving the loss of a friendship that just didn't have to be lost. I've done my internal work quickly - recoiling in pain, yes, but I never felt anything but loving and centered toward the person who's rejected me, relatively certain that I'd really done my best and with absolutely pure intention in every encounter we've had. The loss remains as does the love. Note to self: Being expendable to someone doesn't actually make you worthless. I'm guessing someone's already written a book about that.

But before I get too complacent, I decided to consult the most reliable judges of character that there are. And how often do you get the chance to convene a literal jury of them too. I asked the twelve dogs here to tell me if I'm just blowing smoke. The verdict is in and the fact is they know who I am, and they think who I am is actually kind of swell. And that was before the rawhide chewie treats, so they were not swayed by any misconduct. So I'm thinking my cred is only getting better and better as the night goes on. And they are healing me in a dozen ways.

My big brother

Today would have been my brother Barry's 51st birthday. He was young and wild and as genuine as anyone I have known in this life. I think of him always as this photo captures him some months before he died in 1976.

Flying home

Very likely she has always understood
what I have slowly learned...
that love is hard,
that while many good things are easy, true love is not,
because love is first of all a power,
its own power,
which continually must make its way forward, from night
into day, from transcending union
always forward into difficult day.

And as the plane descends, it comes to me...
that once the lover recognizes the other,
knows for the first time
what is most to be valued in another,
from then on, love is very much like courage,
perhaps it is courage, and even
perhaps
only courage.

--Galway Kinnell, from Mortal Acts, Mortal Words

You know you're getting old when...

...you can't read a hopscotch chalk anymore.

I walked down the street to the mailboxes tonight and amid all the drawings on the sidewalk there was the most complicated hopscotch chalk I had ever seen, with 40 squares. I stood there trying to figure out how you would even play (I could see my way through the 8th square and then it turned into some sort of hell). The two little girls were up on their porch so I just said "How do you do this?"

And then we played hopscotch. I have to admit they lost me on their logic a few times, but I had to allow that some things have changed in the 32 years since I last played and quite possibly they were more informed than me, but still....Part of me was just glad to know that kids anywhere still play this.

A cold one

Kari and Dirk the exceptional grill dude put on a most excellent July 4th chow today, of which I'm sure the founding fathers would be proud.

Now I'm quite fond of the whole Molson beer talking 'twin label' campaign ("Why drink something that says nothing when you can drink a beer that says it all?") Last time I got serious with a half rack, I got both "Friend to All Animals" and "I Take In Strays," so quite possibly the Canadians have a real corner on the beer-bottle oracle gig. Always open to a message from the universe, I passed over the St. Pauli Girl and the Moosehead and the first Molson I pulled out said

NO DAMAGED GOODS

How ironic, I chuckle.

A...little while...later, the second one said

NO DAMAGED GOODS

Even the damn beer bottles have to yell to get my attention.

Eastern girls vs midwestern girls

Nancy and I have had a protracted discussion about how much of her life's world view revolves around the emotional commerce of baking and delivery of chocolate chip cookies, and how much of mine...does not. This conversation is worth way more to me in the tears shed from laughter than any actual attempt to carry out her wish to use this device as part of my meeting a nice guy that she knows.

From that same wonderful midwestern perspective, Nancy once wrote a summary of me that makes me sound about as enticing as dating one's sister, if one's sister was a Boy Scout in good standing: "Loyal, funny, caring, loves animals, smart, hard working, thinks up really cool things, is very involved in the welfare of others.....a good human being that is worthwhile to know and relate to."

I can see now why you'd also need the cookie bribe.

She said she was raised that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. I said... actually I said something so reprehensibly vulgar (even for me) that I should never have said it the first time let alone repeat it now.

Alas, we remain women separated by a culture barrier.

But she was absolutely right when she said I had to experience the concept firsthand in order to get a better understanding... She just put in front of me a glass of milk and two huge cookies that are hot from the oven.

I can't even describe what these are like. It rivals the inspiration that wrote the garlic poem.

But if I could produce something like this, why would I use it to interest a man when I could use it to rule the planet?

Book: Sight Hound by Pam Houston

I love Pam Houston but this just isn't a novel, it's not got the strength of plot. The perspective (every chapter written by a different character, recurring throughout) is really interesting but by its nature is jumpy. If it were 20-30 pages in the chapter so you really got your teeth into that person's (or dog's, or cat's) perspective it would be a better book, than executed in these brief hops. There is so much depth of love, grief and hope in this book, it would be better if it were not in those snips that only seem to give promise of what is beneath. It felt light and unfinished for such deeply touching heart matter. And yet there are those Houston incredible turns of phrase that make one's heart soar, just from what she does with the sheer words.

Book: Life is Good! by Trixie (and Dean) Koontz

Life is Good! goes beyond the little truisms we've all seen about life interpreted through a dog's eyes. Dozens of beautiful and funny photos of "Trixie (who is dog)" herself, great camera angles, interesting layouts. Her idiom is conceived well beyond typical dogspeak, yet has some unique aspects that let you know English is her second language...as well as her opinion of it in general ("Hate; hate; hate semicolons").

She discusses everything from how Tolstoy was just as burdensome when she read him the second time in the original Russian, to what dark things in life should be met only with a "ha-ha-ha!"...except "Do not ha-ha-ha at mailman who has COME TO KILL US ALL. Hide behind sofa, hope for survival." It's a ton of fun both as clever literary device and as philosophy. You'll feel like you got a belly rub.

Proceeds of sales go to Canine Companions for Independence.

On spirituality

Being generally respectful of others' beliefs while personally having been kicked out of organized religion (more than once) has certainly colored my perspective. I seem to have found something comfortable in my free-lance eclectic spirituality (that probably won't be nearly so comfortable when I burn in hell).

Petsitting at Michele & Chuck's

I do miss my own dog, but it was wonderful to walk in here tonight and have 12 happy dogs greet me - including a teeny little Amber biscuit who dashed across the room, hopped up on the back of the sofa wagging her tail, and gave me furious kisses. A tiny gem among the giants.

This house is healing for me. There is so much love in it even when the people who make it so aren't here. Each of the special little greeting moments reminds me that these dogs are loved and secure as individuals, not part of some vague herd. Michele was beaming when she left - she said it just made her feel so good when I walked in and everyone was so excited to see me - she knows they are more than just merely okay.

The feeling in this home is the kind of feeling I want to create in my own home. And I've had it from time to time over the years. Strangely, it was more when I lived alone - it was never when I was partnered with someone because those important, loving, accepting, safe spots were never something I was able to create with another person and have it be ours to rely on and ours to share. And I don't know if I can fully make that space while my mom lives with me, which sounds terrible to say, though it's something I aspire to do. It's probably just from some sense that our relationships with our parents don't always allow us to be who we are at our core.

But the feeling I got tonight when I walked in, tired and spent and...and now finally able to let a few raw defeated tears escape because I'm safe enough here and no one will see and in the morning I'll have the game face on again...the feeling I got is the feeling I have seen on another's face at my own door in the middle of the night, to come in tired and burdened, be cared for and made comfortable, have dogs be companionably about, and know that for a little while this place is as much home as any other could be.

That's the peace I want to give to other people. Don't know how I will do that or whether I'll ever have the circumstance to make that so. But the sense of rest and healing that I always feel here is something I want others to know.

The sun rose anyway

As it tends to do even when life is kind of scary.

A nice morning

As much as I miss my dog while he's away, this morning was nice... going to bed at a reasonable hour, sleeping undisturbed and with no need to be subconsciously vigilant every moment, opening my eyes at 4:30 am as usual, realizing I was alone, and going back to sleep until nearly 7 am. I've been so tired for so long.

In my fantasy life, the cup of coffee I'm holding would have Bailey's in it, I'd bring the newspaper back upstairs, crawl back into bed, then read and nap the rest of the morning. No wonder I live in my head too much - it's way better there.

Quote both funny and wise

"She is so over her ex, she couldn't pick him out of a lineup."

There's a hole in my sidewalk

There's a Hole In My Sidewalk
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
by Portia Nelson

Chapter One
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I *see* it is there.
I still fall in... it's a habit... but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter Five
I walk down another street.

As much as I love the sunrise

...there is much to be said for an Alaskan sunset when the day won't surrender without one last fight. It's about 11;30 now, some clouds have rolled in here and there through the evening, and out my bedroom window as the midnight sun sets in the general direction of Earthquake Park and the great one Denali beyond it, the clouds are limned in rose gold below and suffused in deep plum above, no part left untouched by that dying blaze. The pinks are turning to near scarlet now and the gold is too bright to look at in thin, sharp jagged lines - like lightning strikes set parallel to the horizon. High above all that, the sky is still light gray-blue, still calm, knowing it only need bide its time while the plums turn to dark lavenders, the reds are gone entirely, the golds turn to a deep blush of peach. Part of me wanted to rush out with a camera but the image will not capture the heart-filling of the moment.

An unbridled love poem

I descend into aromatic madness
unhinged by tantalizing braided bulbs.
With cloves of kryptonite
your heady kiss disarms me.
This is garlic fever.

On forgiveness

Good people are often reticent to bestow that gift. Not because we're unforgiving, but because we want to say instead that there is nothing to forgive. We make the injury smaller than it was, we make our own feelings less important, we don't want to see ourselves in a position to give or withhold favor to another human being. Sure, we can accept an apology freely. Trifling in real forgiveness is a different matter.

But there are reasons that from time to time I insist on that exchange.

When I ask to be forgiven, it's because I know that whether or not what I did was intentional, whether it was large or small, the wrong cannot be fixed or helped by me. It can only be undone by another's willingness to undo it. I am humbled from that helplessness.

When I am asked to forgive another, it binds me to let go of that injury, rather than tend that wound privately and keep it a little open always. I cannot feed it if I have forgiven it - I have said out loud and in another's hearing that the thing is undone. I am humbled again, by yielding my pride.

Both asking and receiving forgiveness requires immense trust and courage and unselfish love. That humans can do this for each other at any time they choose is pretty astounding when you think of it - that we can personally be agents of these small acts of redemption... I think of forgiveness as one of the few moments in which we are capable of the divine, and that sometimes the words must be said.

Something I may never learn

Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

A date at the dog park

My date was handsome, charming, attentive, interested in the surroundings and in being with me. His company made for a lovely, relaxing hour that kept me nearly fully distracted from the muggy warm rain and terrible onslaught of mosquitoes as we explored the bog together.

I was so enamored of him, in fact, that I took him home with me and gave him a thorough, languid full-body rubdown which pleased us both immensely. He is lying spent on my bed while I head off to take a shower. His tail is too relaxed to thump and so is mine.

Uncle Walt said it

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

- Walt Whitman

In the doghouse

Guess who isn't going for a nice walk this morning, because he's already been, only it wasn't nice for either of us. Hunter decided to slip out as I was loading up to haul stuff - I put the cover on the load and saw him through the van windows - way down the block. He slowed but didn't freeze when I bellowed, was too scared to let me catch up and too scared to really take off hard running too. He isn't traffic savvy, so this all went on in the middle of the streets as everyone is exiting their driveways for work. He finally stopped loping and went down to just enough of a scurry to stay 10 yards ahead, then let me catch up to him a few blocks over and we had a terse walk home. Let the strangling commence.

And you should see the butter

I went here on my drive from Pennsylvania to Alaska last fall, while visiting my friend Lenette in Columbus, OH. We mainly went to see it because hidden in one of the Osage orange trees that flank this 'sculpture', there was a letterbox. The phallic cornfield was just a bonus.

Priorities

So about 8pm last night, I'm standing in the water trying to push boxes of my flood-destroyed belongings up out of the crawl space, when my phone rings with my boss's housesitter in a panic about DC (my boss's 17-yo kitty). So I spent the rest of the evening at the emergency vet. It was okay and I had a feeling it was fluid migration because it was rapid swelling (I'd only been there to give him his subq fluids about 4 hours prior) but it went into his right leg all the way down to his paw and looked pretty horrid. So better safe than sorry in case it was a hematoma or an infection.

Anyway. Not a red letter day for me. Still waiting for one of those red letter days. Or maybe those red letter days are a big red F, for yes, you're F****d. If that's the case I'm having a bunch ofthem.

Some days it's just too much

Went down in the crawl space for something and discovered it's flooded. Not from leaking in, as this is the side that's sealed, all visqueened and carpeted and nice. Not anymore. A joint in one of the water pipes apparently came loose from the rafter and has been spewing down for a while - I don't know how long it's been spraying everywhere because I haven't been in the crawl space in a couple of months.

Trying to manage work contingencies for my boss who is stamping her foot in Mexico, while trying to get back to the house to start pulling out everything that's destroyed and make room for a sump pump.

I don't understand why nothing can go right, even for just a little while.

I couldn't make this up

Kim Komando's 'Cool Site' for yesterday has a Game link to answer 10 questions to find out what breed dog you are. I turned out to be a Sussex Spaniel. Not at all a spaniel fan myself, I was surprised until I read this description of me - "Good working animal with an excellent sense of smell, and distinctive tongue action that is very reassuring to those close to it..."

I guess it had to be said.

I feel small

Trust of men in general is something I wonder if I can expect to regain. Even among my very closest male friendships, I keep waiting for the moment when that person also unveils that he never meant anything he said either, and I feel sad that I am so fearful and suspicious anymore. That the unease just gets worse is the part that is troubling me so. I've lost the last two years and think I am no closer to healing. My friend Michele points out that you can't heal when there is still active damage going on and you're still flailing to keep your head above water. Which is true. As far as being alone goes, I actually prefer it in a lot of ways. I've always preferred living alone, that's for sure. I probably wouldn't struggle with any of that so much if it wasn't for the ironic biology that made me one of those rare women who actually does need sex. But it feels like the only constant thread over time for me is loss, and I think maybe after decades of it, I'm reaching the end of my string.