December 10, 2004

• The best trips are the uneventful ones.

  This was the Thursday, the “alternate Thursday”, that I drove to
  Wasilla to drive the van from the rehab ranch to the NA meeting. 
  This time, it wasn’t routine — wasn’t as harrowing as the bad weather
  and road conditions two weeks ago, but far from routine.  I’m
  exhausted, but too keyed up to sleep yet.  It’s now about a
  quarter to two, ayem, as I start to write this. 

  When I phoned Greyfox an hour or so ago, to tell him I’d made it home
  okay, I said I’d like to blog while it’s fresh in my mind, but thought
  I was too beat to do it tonight.  Then I got into my pajamas and
  into bed and realized I’d rather be up here writing the story of the
  day, than over there reading something someone else wrote, in an effort
  to unwind enough to sleep.

  Getting out of here this morning was easy enough — no flat tire to air
  up beforehand.  Why it had gone flat while sitting in the driveway
  between each of the last half dozen trips to town and then decided not
  to go flat this time, I’ve not a clue.  I accept such crazy
  blessings gratefully, but not unquestioningly.  I question, but
  this time no one has answered.

  The temperature was near zero, just half a degree above, when I left,
  and was at 11°F when I pulled off the highway at Felony Flats. 
  There had been enough traffic since the last snow to wear most of the
  ice off the highway, and it was an easy drive in.

  Greyfox was making coffee when I arrived, and it smelled so good that I
  weakened and asked for coffee when he offered me a cup of tea. 
  That’s my first coffee in many weeks.  While we had coffee and
  talked, I played with all the kittens, and held Dingus on my lap the
  longest,
  giving her a chance to get used to me since she will be coming home
  with me in a few months.

  Greyfox showed me some of the quartz clusters he had bought at his most
  recent show, and some of the more choice pyrite clusters that I’d not
  seen yet, from the lot he bought earlier.  After I playfully tried
  to distract him while I stuck one of the quartz clusters in my pocket
  (two large crystals –, one of which is a multi-record-keeper with a
  pattern of facets unlike any either of us has ever seen — set amid
  numerous smaller crystals)  he said he had been wondering what he
  could give me for Yule, and gave me the cluster I coveted, since we
  probably won’t see each other again for two weeks, until after the
  solstice.

  One of the pyrite clusters was so exquisite and unusual that I came
  right out and asked for it, no fooling around, and brought it home with
  me tonight, too.

  When we left his cabin to do some shopping before I went to the ranch
  to pick up my vanload of passengers, there was a brief discussion of
  which car to take.  Mine has only one headlight and his is leaking
  coolant from a faulty water pump.  We ended up taking his. 
  On the way into town (Greyfox’s place is out past the edge of
  Wasilla.), there was more than the usual amount of squeal from a loose
  belt, and I mentioned it.  I said it didn’t sound good.  He
  said he had talked to his friend Sam about it, and Sam said he could
  stop that squeal by putting some brake fluid on the belt.  I said
  if it was slipping because it was oily, that might help.  It would
  tend to make the belt tacky, but would hasten its deterioration.

  That’s a conversation much like several conversations we’ve had about
  that squealing belt over the past year or so that it has been squealing
  off and on.  This one ended with Greyfox saying that the brake
  fluid idea hadn’t sounded too good to him at the time, and my saying
  that if a belt was squealing like that on my car, I’d get it fixed,
  meaning either tightened or replaced.  The squealing belt
  punctuated my statement by stopping its squeal with a little *clunk*
  sound

  Then we pulled up to the stop light at the corner of Main Street and
  the Parks Highway, and when Greyfox started up as the light turned
  green he noticed that his engine temp was almost in the
  red.   As he started to make a left into the gas station on
  the next corner, he noticed that his power steering wasn’t
  working.  When he raised the hood after he’d gotten into the gas
  station, he noticed a couple of bare pulleys where a belt should have
  been.  It had been the long serpentine belt that ran his
  alternator, power steering, water pump and whatever else.

  Since he had already used up his allotted free tows from AAA this year
  and I’d used none of mine, I called triple-A from the pay phone in the
  convenience store at the gas station.  I
  even resisted the aroma of coffee in there.  I WILL NOT let that
  one little slip this morning lead me back into regular coffee
  consumption.  It’s back to tea for me.  The towing service was there within about 20 minutes.

  Greyfox went out to meet the driver where he had parked at the far end
  of the lot, while I put on my hat and gloves.  When I got out
  there, I saw Greyfox talking to this very good looking man, and the
  thought that went through my mind was, “I never realized Greyfox was so
  little.”  Then I realized that the wrecker driver was very BIG. 

  I would not have been so gauche as to ask him just how tall he is, if
  he hadn’t given me such a good opening.  On the ride out to
  G-Force’s garage where he dropped us and Greyfox’s car, he said he had
  once owned a car like it, but he got rid of it because he couldn’t fit
  in it.  So I had to ask — he’s seven feet tall — and
  well-proportioned along with it.  No wonder he made Greyfox, whom
  I have to look up to, look so little.

  G-Force’s mechanics couldn’t get a replacement belt for the car until
  today, so Greyfox walked across the highway to his place where I’d left
  my car parked, and drove it back over to pick me up.  We still had
  enough time for one shopping stop before the meeting.  Both rear
  doors and the front passenger-side door are frozen shut.  I’m
  feeling lucky that the driver’s door opens.  Greyfox had to crawl
  in and out over the console and shifters (gearshift and 4WD shifter)
  every time we stopped anywhere all evening.

  On the way out to the warehouse food store, we stopped for gas. 
  It was already dark by then, and the wind was harsh.  Greyfox
  pumped gas while I checked and filled the oil.  First, he couldn’t
  get the little filler-cap hatch open, then I couldn’t find the
  screwdriver I keep handy for that purpose.  I crawled in through
  the rear hatch (thankful that that would open — I can only imagine
  [with horror] trying to load two weeks worth of groceries through the
  driver’s door) found my alternate screwdriver in the box of junk on the
  back seat, and popped open the little gas filler hatch. 

  After that, the shopping stop was a breeze, then Greyfox dropped me at
  the ranch.  I was early enough that Mayta (the new female ranch
  hand) and I had time to exchange a few of our bear and moose encounter
  stories.  She’s got some good ones.

  There’s some illness going around among the ranch residents and I had
  fewer passengers than usual.  The ones who rode with me were
  uncharacteristically quiet, too.  Something’s up, and of course
  Greyfox and I were speculating about what it might be.  We may
  never know, because it could all have blown over by the next time we
  all get together.

  Tonight after the regular meeting we had our monthly group conscience
  business meeting, and it was more eventful than most, with a couple of
  things to be discussed and voted on.  When that was done, I
  returned the van and passengers to the rehab ranch and Greyfox picked
  me up there for the shopping we hadn’t gotten done earlier.  Thank
  all the gods and goddesses for all-night supermarkets in small Alaskan
  towns.

  Except for the fatigue that Greyfox and I were both experiencing, and
  an excruciating case of “fibro-foot” that made me stop several times
  for in-store toe massages, the shopping went rather smoothly. 
  When I dropped Greyfox at his place, I took one of my socks off and
  stuck it in my coat pocket, and that made the drive home easier. 
  It might be more accurate to say that it made the drive home possible. 
  I’d been close to screaming in the last of the checkout lines, and did
  let out a few yips and moans in the car on the drive to Greyfox’s cabin
  because every step or toe-wiggle or foot stretch or bump in the road
  would reactivate a fibromyalgia trigger point in that foot.

  Considering what we two old people had been through during the day, I
  guess we did okay at sorting the groceries and unloading Greyfox’s
  stuff at his place.  He did remember the NA briefcase with all the
  group’s literature and the lit fund, etc., but forgot his
  clipboard.   I got all but two of his grocery items out of
  the bags in the hatch.  When I called him from home, he told me
  about the loaf of bread that was missing.  When I talk to him
  tomorrow, I can tell him about the can of coffee I found when I was
  putting my groceries away.
  

  • 6:56 am
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