Iditarod altered… again

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race used to start in downtown Anchorage on
Saturday.  That was the “ceremonial start” when mushers lined up,
either dodged or hogged the microphones and cameras lined up there, and
were counted down and cheered as they left the gate.  The same
municipal workers who had previously cleaned snow from the street and
trucked it to vacant lots on the edge of town would haul the snow back
and spread it on a few blocks of downtown streets for the racers. 
Once the dog teams were away from the paved and plowed city streets,
they’d race to suburban Eagle River, out past Fort Richardson and
Elmendorf Air Force Base.  Then the mushers would load the dogs
back in their trucks and drive to Wasilla for the real start of the
race on Sunday.

The race started in Wasilla because that’s where Joe Redington Senior,
father of the Iditarod, lived.  The ceremonial start in Anchorage
was a politico-economic thing, which means it really makes no sense so
don’t try to make sense of it.  With the passage of time and the
warming of the climate, it has gone from senseless to silly, but it’s a
tradition and Alaska, being as young and short on traditions as it is,
clings to every one it can get.  Anchorage snow removers don’t
usually have much to do this time of year, so they become snow movers,
and re-removers.  That’s some awfully dirty, slushy snow by the
time it gets back to those snow storage lots.

Wasilla is a different place.  It can boast about being the Home
of the Iditarod, and little else.  For a few years during and
right after the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, Wasilla was
the fastest-growing city in the US.  That title now belongs to Las
Vegas, NV, but Wasillies are still boasting about it.

Citizens were upset last year
when a visitor from Washington, DC commented that it needs some
planning and zoning.  Some were upset because they agreed with the
guy and were embarrassed to live in the ugly tacky town.  Others
were upset because they enjoy our traditional Alaskan freedoms from
such things and feared that the hoohaw would result in a loss of
liberty.

Wasilla doesn’t have Anchorage’s resources for snow
moving and removing and re-removing.  Several years ago, when
global warming resulted in there being too little snow in Wasilla for
sleds to run on, they moved the restart twenty miles or so up the
Susitna Valley to Willow.  It wasn’t a permanent move, but that
temporary expedient has had to be repeated every year since.  So,
as usual, the more things change the more they stay the same.

This is from iditarod.com:

Some Subtle Signs of PTSD

My mind no longer replays the scene of the moose stomping Koji, as it
did incessantly for a few days after the attack.  After a few
days, Koji stopped thrashing around in his sleep, yelping and
whimpering. 

The onset of Doug’s reaction after having shot the moose was delayed
compared to mine and the dog’s.  The next day after the incident,
he started pausing occasionally, getting a distant look in his eyes,
and saying, “I killed a moose,” or, “one shot through the lungs, and
one to the head.”  That behavior stopped after two or three days.

Those are all manifestations of traumatic stress.  The crisis
imprinted itself on our consciousness and we expressed it in different
ways.  That was four weeks ago.  Now I recognize in each of
us some reflections of the stress we experienced then.

Koji, for example, has never been deprived of food or water.  HIs
feeding station is in a central location here in the front part of the
trailer, the part he inhabits.  HIs kibble dish is refilled when
he empties it because he has never shown any tendency to overeat. 
The water bottle that feeds fresh water into the bowl as he drinks is
also kept filled.

The cats have their own feeding station in the hallway beyond the gate
that keeps Koji out of the back portion of the house.  They can
sail over the gate or squeeze through a small hole in the pantry wall
if I leave its door ajar.  Often, they choose to drink from Koji’s
dish instead of making the trip back to their own.  Occasionally,
one of them will also snack on a little of his kibble.

From puppyhood, Koji has watched them eat his food and drink his water
without reaction.  Since the moose attack, he jealously guards his
feeding station.  His habitual resting place is in the middle of my
bed in the far corner of the front room, out of sight of his
dish.  If he hears the crunch of kibble or the gurgle of water
from his water bottle now, he will leap off the bed and charge over
there.  Then we hear the hiss of a startled cat and the scrabble
of cat feet and dog toenails across the kitchen floor, followed by the
rattle and thump of a cat leaping the gate and the sounds of Koji’s
sliding to a halt.

There doesn’t seem to be any connection between a moose in the yard and
a cat at his feeding station, but the change in his behavior came in
the aftermath of the attack.  It’s too much of a coincidence for
me to credit.  Post-traumatic stress disorder often manifests in
generalized or displaced aggression.

Anxiety is another common manifestation of PTSD.  That one is
where I’m at.  It has never before bothered me that our door
doesn’t latch.  Before we moved in here, snow sliding off the roof
of the little cabin beside the trailer had burst in the door and torn
away the part of the frame that held the latching mechanism.  A
subsequent avalanche had torn away the makeshift repair Mark had done,
and I never fixed it. 
Alaskans pride themselves on not locking their doors.  Having a
door that won’t latch, that the cats can push open, put me one up on my
neighbors.  That was before I started thinking about bears
awakening from hibernation and being attracted to the moose blood in
the snow out there.

Yesterday, I barred the door.  Something was out there.  Koji
caught scent of something,  He snuffled at the bottom of the door,
hackles up, growling.  I started thinking about piling furniture
in front of the door.  Then I noticed the bunjis dangling beside
the door.  During a recent spate of housecleaning, each time I
found a bunji cord, I hung it from the hook beside the door frame,
marshalling them to be moved out to the car where I have the most
frequent use for them.  It’s a sturdy hook, to which we attached
the cords that anchor one end of the shelf unit that holds our stero
and most of our rock collection — an earthquake precaution.

About a foot and a half higher and on the opposite side of the door is
another sturdy hook.  It holds the line to which we tether Koji
when I want to keep him out of my way or when he just needs a calming
time out.  I stretched half a dozen sturdy elastic bunji cords
between the hooks.  I’m thinking it would be even more secure than
a solid bar with anchors bolted to the wall.  The elastic will
absorb impacts that might otherwise tear the anchors from the
walls.  I know it doesn’t address the issue of the three picture
windows in the room, but at least it’s going to take more than a nudge
from a bear’s nose to get in here now.

When I discussed the bear and blood issue with Greyfox, he suggested I
keep the shotgun handy.  I keep it leaning safely in the corner
behind my worktable.  Getting to it and getting it out would take
a minute or two.  I’ve been thinking off and on about where I
might keep it where it would be just as safe but more accessible. 
I still haven’t found the right spot, and it’s not a high priority for
me.  Shooting first seems to be the guys’ preferred
strategy.  When I think about dealing with a dead bear in the
house, I think I’d rather keep it out in the first place.

A couple of weeks ago, one morning when I woke up, Doug explained that
he had moved the .44 magnum from its usual place back in the hallway
and put it in the box beside the door where we keep hats and
gloves.  That night while I slept, Koji had been snuffling at the
door and growling at something out there, and when Doug went out to get
firewood he had seen a young moose.

Doug, Greyfox and I all collect weapons but we aren’t much inclined to
use them.  Our collections of knives and swords are primarily
decorative.  We three have diverse tastes in just about everything
including armament, but one trait we share is an interest in
weapons.  Doug goes mostly for swords and fantasy knives. 
Greyfox covets guns.  I like to look at wild fantasy knives but
the ones I collect are the sleek and elegant tactical kind or traditional designs.  The
two firearms I have are practical tools of self-defense:  a .357
magnum Ruger revolver and a 12 gauge Remington pump shotgun.  I
don’t hunt and I have never fired my shotgun.  A scattergun is not
something for which one needs to practice marksmanship.  They’re
noisy and they kick and I’d rather save it for when I need it.

Last year, Doug had asked Greyfox to keep an eye out at the gun shows
for a good deal on a handgun for him.  He has a blowgun and a .22
Marlin rifle his dad gave him when he graduated from high school. 
He has done target practice with both of them, but he’s not a hunter,
either.  They’d become survival tools if our supplies of groceries
were ever cut off. 

I don’t know what urge prompted the request
for the handgun, but ArmsMerchant
Greyfox didn’t question it.  He found a good deal and bought
it.  Later in the summer, when a customer expressed an interest in
that kind of pistol, Greyfox asked Doug if he’d be willing to sell
it.  Doug didn’t hesitate to let it go, so I don’t suppose at that
time he felt any pressing need for a handgun.

Since the moose attack, however, he seems to have altered that
attitude.  This morning when I woke he had already gone to bed but
there on the coffee table beside the couch where we sit to play at the
PS2 was Greyfox’s .44 mag that had been in the box by the door.  I
don’t know what happened in the night to prompt him to put it nearer to
hand, but you can bet we’ll discuss it when he wakes up.
 

Buffalo Bill’s Birthday

William Frederick Cody was born February 26, 1845 in Scott County, Iowa.

At 15 years of age William Cody was employed as a Pony Express rider
and given a short 45-mile run from Julesburg to the west. After some
months he was transferred to Slade’s Division in Wyoming where he made
the longest non-stop ride from Red Buttes Station to Rocky Ridge
Station and back when he found that his relief rider had been killed.
The distance of 322 miles over one of the most dangerous portions of
the entire trail was completed in 21 hours and 40 minutes using 21
horses.

(Source:  Saddles and Spurs, the saga of the Pony Express by Settle and Settle)

Cody earned the nickname Buffalo Bill while working as a scout during
the Civil War.  After George Armstrong Custer’s defeat at the
battle of the Greasy Grass, he rode with the Fifth Cavalry on its
misson to avenge Custer.  At Warbonnet Creek he killed and scalped
the Cheyenne chief Yellow Hand.  That was the point where Cody the
man became Buffalo Bill the legend.

Ned
Buntline’s dime novels made his name a household word in the East and
forever mingled the facts and fiction about Bill Cody in the public’s
mind.  We know some facts about his early life, and much of his
later life with the traveling Wild West Show is documented.  The
legend that lies in the middle is a matter of scholarly research and
debate.

Whoever Bill Cody was, the life he lived and the things Ned Buntline
and others made up about about him have been a great influence on how
the world perceives the American frontier.  His instincts and
ambitions carried him into many of the central events of his time: 
gold rush, Indian wars, cattle drives and traveling shows.  His
wits and reflexes got him through a long succession of close
scrapes.  I wonder how he’d adapt to the world today.

cultural disorientation and related discoveries

In this lifetime, I’m a gringa by chance and not by choice, a reluctant
red-haired anglo, all of whose youthful crushes were on dark-eyed,
raven-haired, brown-skinned boys.  In cowboy movies, I rooted for
the Indians.  When exposed to Español, I picked it up quickly and
easily, while I never had any facility for German or French. 
Listening to Ricky Martin, for example, his lyrics make more sense in
Spanish than when he sings in English.  It
made no sense to me until mid-life when I started recalling past
lives.  Now, somehow, I understand.  Still, I don’t entirely
fit in the cultural box into which I was born.

Last week, toward the end of those trying weeks without a computer, I
went to town.  Having viewed every video worth viewing from the
odd lot Greyfox had passed on to me, and discovering that Blockbuster
was selling VHS tapes for $1.99 and up on a buy-two-get-one-free deal,
I visited both of the Blockbuster stores in Wasilla.  I picked out
ten or a dozen videos that I knew Greyfox would never have
chosen.  A few were obviously chick flicks, which he won’t even
bother watching.  I really needed a break, a different flavor to
get the taste of his taste in movies out of my mind.

The best of the lot was Luminarias,
a Latina chick flick done in my native tongue, West Coast
Spanglish.  Written by and starring Evelina Fernandez, it made me
laugh and cry, just what I needed after all those flicks of Greyfox’s
that made me cringe and gag.  When I got the computer back, I went
looking for more info about Evelina.  I found out about the awards she has won, het teaching and advocacy work, along with a selection of her poetry.

I really like this one:

On The Edge…

As she stood on the edge of the volcano
Looking down at the bubbling lava
Shifting her weight
Burning her little patas
Knowing,
that she would soon be thrown in
A sacrifice for Aztec men
She thought to herself,
“Que Gacho! Porque tengo que brincar pa’ bajo?
The will of the Gods?
No puede ser
Para esto no se hizo la mujer.”
But, there was no turning back
it was clear
So, she closed her eyes
and threw back her crackling hair
“This may be the end of me,
but other Princesas I will be:
I will be La Malinche,
who will help El Pinche,
Cortez,
conquer my people…
(They had to find a way to blame a woman)
I will be La Rielera
and I will have my Juan
The only one – I’ll love
‘I will follow him,
follow him where ever he may go…’
I will be La Llorona, crying for my children
‘Hay, donde estan mis hijos de la chingada, si no se portan bien los mato!’
I will be Rosie the riveter during World War II,
La Jitterbugger with a pompadour on my head
My soldier’s picture by my bed
Then,
A black veil will cover my head
I will mourn the young men
who are dead,
again and again…
I will be Dolores, Amparo, Esperanza, Yes, Hope
Punished in the 60′s for smoking dope
And burning my bra, dressed like a hippie
‘Ama, make love not war.
Ay, don’t hit me!’
I’ll be a Chicana Princess wearing a brown beret
‘Chicano Power’ I will say
And, yes, si me da la gana,
I might even be gay
I won’t be afraid to say who I am
I will stand up to any man!
No more making tortillas a mano
I won’t put up with a drunk or a marijuano
Then, I’ll realize
Things don’t change overnight
‘I love my cultura
I don’t want to be white
I want to be equal
A partner in life
I want to be your lover
Not just your wife.’”
Just then, the Aztec men
came to throw her in, bien gacho
She smiled at them, winked and said
“Hay los watcho”
She jumped, did a flip and a three quarter turn
No, this princesa wasn’t afraid to get burned.
She dove in head first
Something no Aztec had seen
For she knew she’d live on
She would be a queen.

It’s only a mild concussion.

There’s more discomfort from the whiplash injury, but I’m okay… really I am.

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day.  We were almost out of water,
so we went to the spring.  Our last two water runs had been small
ones, just a few jugs to get us by, because of my breathing
difficulties and the cold weather.  This time, we loaded as many
buckets and jugs as we could get into the hatch and the rear footwell.

I took the Mutt® ice-chipping tool out of the hatch and headed down to
cut some steps in the sloping path and chip ice from the pallet we
stand on to fill our buckets.  I slipped, with a loud squawk, on
ice in the parking area before I’d even started down the slippery path
to the waterhole.  Doug dropped the empty buckets he was carrying
and rushed over to me.  Before he said anything, I said, “I hate concussions!”

I’m experienced at this.  By now, I suppose I should be able to
twist when I fall and land on a shoulder or something.  But it
happens so fast — my feet go out, butt hits the ground, and then the
head goes crack.

Doug asked if I needed help, but I used the Mutt and levered myself to my feet.  I am
experienced at this.  Too many times, with someone trying to help
me up, I’ve lost my balance and ended up in a painful heap with them on
the ground.  One fall at a time is quite enough.  I started
looking on the bright side right away.  As I pulled myself up on
the Mutt handle, I looked down that steep slope and felt glad that I’d
slipped in the level parking area.  If I’d slipped on the path,
I’d have slid to the bottom and probably have lost some skin, maybe
even have landed in the water.

I picked my way carefully down using the Mutt for stability.  The
steps that other neighbors had cut were all but obliterated by recent
snowfalls, but there were little foot-hollows to follow.  The
worst part was the ice accumulation on the freight pallet beside the
spring.  It’s more than a foot thick, maybe about sixteen
inches.  In my profile pic you can see me crouching on the pallet,
reaching down to fill a jug.  Imagine the reach and the balance
needed to do it from an icy surface more than a foot higher than that.

I chipped away at it without much effect until my shoulders were
aching.   After Doug had brought down some empty buckets, I
sent the Mutt back up with him and told him to bring me a pad to kneel
on and had him scatter some kitty litter for traction on the icy pallet
and the path.  Then I got down on my knees and started filling the
jugs and buckets.

Doug asked me if I was okay to do that.  I said I’d let him know
if I wasn’t.  I said, “It’s not a bad concussion.  If I
notice any nausea or…”  I was going to say double vision, but
then I noticed that I was already seeing double.  I told him that
and said I’d fill jugs as long as I could, then I’d quit and let him
finish up.   As I worked, I was trying to remember how many
concussions I’ve had.  I remembered one ER doctor telling me that
damage from them is cumulative.  He cited the example of
“punch-drunk” fighters.

I recalled the “windfall” when a gust swept me off my feet in an icy
parking lot, and the time my father-in-law’s horse ran me under a
low-hanging branch and swept me out of the saddle.  That one broke
my arm and cracked my skull.  There were four car wrecks, a few
beatings, the slip on my icy front porch when I cracked my tailbone,
that time I misjudged the overhead clearance crawling around under the
shed….   I really don’t know how many, but I’m sure
Muhammad Ali’s brain is a lot more beat-up than mine is.

I filled ‘em and Doug carried ‘em, two at a time until there was only
one left.  Then I carried that one up the path and we came
home.  Before we stopped at the spring we had already gone up the
valley to Sunshine and down to Camp Caswell to tack up posters for
Greyfox’s next gun show.  It’s the same weekend as the start of
the Iditarod.  I wonder how that will affect business.

I didn’t even notice the whiplash until I was cooking dinner.  The
headache had been there, steadily increasing all along, but my vision
had cleared and there was no nausea, so I knew I was in no mortal
danger.  It was just pain and some muscular weakness in my neck.
  I know how to deal with pain, and I’m used to weakness. 
Periodically, it comes as part of the damned disease.  No big deal.

Even so, as I was reading in bed last night about the characters
swigging laudanum, my mind turned to drugs.  If I’d had any handy,
I’d have taken some, maybe.  I dunno.  The option wasn’t
readily available, so my NA clean date remains intact.  I did take
some ibuprofen after dinner and another dose before sleep.

When Greyfox called and I told him about the fall, he asked me why I
don’t just do the driving, stay in the car and let Doug do the
work.  I sputtered and stammered some lame answer about that
meaning another short water run and my preferring to fill all the jugs
so we don’t have to do it again so soon.  That was true as far as
it went, but a deeper truth is that I just can’t sit idly by and let
other people do my work for me unless I am genuinely incapable.  I
have quite enough incidents of incapacity as it is.  If I’m not
pulling my weight, earning my oxygen, I feel worthless.  The
result of that is self-destructive behavior.  No thanks.

I vented a little to Greyfox about how the various stresses of this
past month have left me craving laudanum or any other available
anodyne.  That must have triggered some of his 12-step
programming.  He advised me to look for some positive factors, to
find in all of this some reason for gratitude.  Since I’d already
been doing as much self-consolation as I could manage, I left it at
that and read myself to sleep.

When I woke today, I had a new cause for gratitude.  I realized
that I’ve known several women my age or younger who have broken a hip
with a fall no harder than the one I took yesterday.  I’ve
apparenly thus far escaped osteoporosis.  That is surely partially
due to genetic factors.  I have big heavy bones.  Premature
gray hair is a marker for osteoporosis, too, and many of my
contemporaries are completely gray by now.  I have sprouted a few
gray hairs.  My first mother-in-law found the first one on the day
after my wedding, when I was fourteen.  But my hair remains
predominantly copper red even now.

We are told that regular weight-bearing exercise is the best preventive
measure for osteoporosis.  I’ve been hauling buckets of water from
that spring for amost 22 years.  For more than a decade I kept a
garden at Elvenhurst across the highway.  There, I collected
rainwater from the eaves in buckets and carried it to the garden and
greenhouse.  When I want to make a pot of tea here, or fill a
pet’s water dish, I have to lift a water jug to pour it.  There’s
firewood, too.  Although Doug does most of the chopping and
carrying, I lift wood to feed the fire.  Daddy did me an immense
favor in more ways than one when he demanded that I pull my own weight.

Getting to Know Myself

I had to chuckle at this from fatgirlpink:

I wasn’t amused at what she wrote as much as I was laughing at
myself.  Maybe it takes another Virgo to appreciate my
self-knowledge.  Astrologer Linda Goodman wrote about Virgo’s
obsession with mirrors. 

A quite different attitude toward self-absorption, self-interest and
self-centeredness is prevalent in our culture.  Maybe Virgos can
get away with our habitual focus on self because we also tend to be
focused on service to others.  I’ve discovered in my 12-step
groups that the better I know myself and express what I know, sharing
my thoughts and experiences, the more the other members tell me I’ve
helped them.  Go figure.

Over 2,000 years ago, Thales of Miletus in the West and SunTzu in the
East were advocating self-knowledge.  Sun Tzu also taught, “know
your enemy.”  My mother used to tell me I was my own worst enemy,
so there is yet another reason to get to know myself.

It’s not as if I could successfully choose NOT to get to know myself.  Try as I might to
divert myself, to occupy my consciousness with external stimuli, there
always seem to be those unguarded moments when the only object in my
awareness is me.  It happens in quiet moments at just about any
time, particularly those hypnogogic moments as I’m falling asleep.

Life (for me) just isn’t that simple.

Yesterday’s attempt to bring my journal up to date after the recent
hiatus elicited some questions and suggestions.  A few readers
questioned why I live out here on the frigid edge of the back of beyond,
and/or suggested other places to live that they thought would be better
for me.  The one who came closest to something I might be able to
live with was lupa, with a hint about moving to the Southwest.

I couldn’t survive a summer anywhere that temperatures were in the
hundreds.  Even at temps just in the eighties, my body
malfunctions.  This is what makes Alaska my best choice for
year-round living.  If I was careful about choosing a spot in the
American Southwest, or at a high elevation in Northern Mexico, I could
probably live with a snowbird’s lifestyle, winters there and summers in
Alaska.  The lack of sufficient money for such a lifestyle is not
the only reason I don’t do it.  It’s not that simple.  Even
if I were to attain wealth through my work, or win a lottery, or have
some nutty philanthropist take an interest in my welfare, there are
other complicating factors.

Chemical sensitivities make any town or city hazardous to my physical
health, and many of the people who live in them are hazardous to my
mental health.  One of the best things about living here is the
scarcity of indoor plumbing.  Few of my neighbors bathe
frequently, and counterintuitive as this may seem to some of you, it is
bathing that most often causes people to stink.  Town-dwellers who
bathe every day usually reek of perfume.  Apparently, for most
just getting clean is not the reason for bathing.  They then go on
and cover themselves with chemical scents.  Most of the people I
encounter at the spring when I’m getting water smell like I do, like a
human being.  I can live with that.

Water is a big factor, too.  I would need to find a place with a
clean water supply, as I have here.  Clean air is just as
important.  That’s why I mentioned the high elevation. 
Low-lying areas all over the lower 48 are thick with air
pollution.  I wouldn’t thrive in any of those places where you can
see the air.  Even here, when the wind stirs up the glacial silt,
volcanic ash, mold spores, etc., or when wildfires or volcanic
eruptions pollute the air, I have trouble breathing.  The winter
that Greyfox and I honeymooned in the Southwest, I did reasonably well
in the mountains of Southwest New Mexico, except for the mold in one of
the places we stayed and the dust storms that began in early spring.

Cold has to be fairly extreme to affect my breathing:  below minus
ten Fahrenheit (minus twenty-five Celsius).  Here, it seldom gets
that cold other than in mid-winter.  We are past that time this
year already.  Even in the two months when it does sometimes get
that cold, it’s usually only for a few days at a time.  Many of
the winters I have lived here, I have managed to stay indoors during
the coldest weather.  Only twice this winter did I have any
temperature-related breathing problems.  Both times, I could have
avoided it if I’d been alert to the hazard and chosen to stay
inside.  The first time, I could have opted not to keep my
appointment, and the second time I could have asked for help instead of
going to the spring myself.  In the first case, I’d made a
commitment and didn’t want to break it.  In the latter instance,
it would have meant getting well water instead of spring water, and I
chose as I did out of a personal preference.  I survived, so I
couldn’t have been too far wrong.

Ironically, occasionally some friend in a warm climate invites me to
spend a “summer vacation” with them.  I suppose for most of them
it would be unthinkable to invite someone to spend a winter vacation
there.  To them, their winters are harsh and cold, while summers
are warm and green.  Their summers, to me, would be sweltering and
oppressive.  Greyfox (coming from Pennsylvania) and I got lots of
laughs during our winter in New Mexico when we’d see people wearing
parkas at temperatures in the fifties, while we were comfortable in
t-shirts.  By the time we got out of Silver City in March, it was
too hot for me and my eyes were red and swollen from the tree
pollen.   Doug and I spent January and February of 1994
camped out on the green, flowering desert north of Yuma, Arizona. 
That was for us a year without a winter.  Several times I caught
myself wondering what the place would be like in winter.  Then I’d
remember childhood trips across that desert in the summer, when it was
baked dry and unbearably hot.

The spring pollen season here is mercifully brief, and the fall mold
season ends quickly with the first snowfall.  During my second
summer in Alaska, this thought occurred to me:  “Anyone who
survives an Alaskan winter would be nuts to leave and miss the
summer.”  It remains true for me.  I wouldn’t mind missing an
occasional winter here, but I’m not crazy enough to go Outside for the
summer.  A summer full of light without excess heat is the best of
all worlds to me.  As long as economics and other constraints
necessitate my being in one place year-round, I’ll take the hazards and
hardships of winter here over those of summer anyplace else.

All the readers who presumed to advise me on health matters chose to
zero in on the geographical angles.  Nobody mentioned something
that has been on my mind a lot since I started studying the
biochemistry of “romance” or lust, limerance and attachment.  As I
have mentioned before, I had lengthy remissions of my chronic disorders
several times when I was “in love.”  I’m more interested in
finding ways to increase my dopamine and norepineprine levels and
decrease my serotonin level than I am in finding a place where
temperatures are never too hot or too cold for me.  I am
experienced enough to realize that I don’t want to live with the
chemical dependence and rebound effect, etc., from simply boosting
those neurotransmitters with chemical expedients.  Likewise, I
don’t think it would be wise to contrive a way to get thunderstruck and
fall in love — that would be almost certain to complicate an already
overcomplicated life.  As I said, it’s just not that simple.

By the way, Koji’s bad dreams are gone.  As I mentioned elsewhere,
that traumatic phase lasted only a few days.  As soon as the moose
was butchered and out of the yard, he had no hesitation about going out
there.  As Doug digs up and removes the bloody snow that was
covered by a subsequent snowfall (to make the yard less attractive to
hungry bears as they come out of hibernation), Koji is a great
help.  He keeps finding the bloody patches, digging them up, and
bringing chunks of the gory red ice to the door.  I still won’t
let him bring it inside, however.  He has to eat his crunchy moose
blood outside.

It wouldn’t have been so rough, if only….

It was Monday, January 24, and Doug was using the computer when
suddenly it went to the blue screen and a message that said, “cannot
write to drive C.”  When he tried restarting it, the message was,
“operating system not found.”  That wasn’t very scary at the
time.  It had happened before.  It happened every month or
two, and after half a dozen or so power cycles, the silly thing would
find its OS and boot up okay.

I left to take my car over to the neighborhood mechanic so he could
look it over and see what parts he’d need to fix it for
me.  The main thing I needed (to operate legally) was a headlight
lens so that the bulbs wouldn’t keep going out.  My plan was to
get an oil change, tune-up, and such, while he had it.  He looked
it over, took notes on what parts he’d need, and penciled me in for
Saturday, told me he’d call when he was ready for me to bring the car
over.  On the way
home, I stopped at the mailbox.

There was a pickup notice for a knife shipment Greyfox had been expecting.  I’ve already written about the subsequent rush trip to town
to deliver his knives and pick up the unwanted kitten.  While I
had been visiting Ray the mechanic, Doug had tired himself out trying
to power up the computer, so when we got home he fired up the
PS2.  I tried the computer once myself and then let it rest. 
Electronic equipment around here has a history of going down and then
fixing itself, so I wasn’t too worried yet.

Two days later, by Wednesday, we were both getting tired of trying to
power up the computer only to have it fail to find its OS.  I
wanted to make some jewelry, but each time I stood up and started
looking for some particular component or tool, I’d get out of breath
and shaky-legged before I found it.  When Doug was sleeping, I had
the PS2 all to myself, but would have preferred the computer.  I
was antsy, restless, and because of the breathing difficulties and
fatigue, practically helpless.

We spent a couple of days discussing whether it would be better to go
back to the same tech who had replaced our hard drive twice already, or
find someone closer to home.  On the one hand, that hard drive was
still under warranty, so we’d only have to pay him for labor.  On the
other hand, what if he just gave us another hard drive that would fail
before its warrany expired, as the last two had.  I tried to convince
Doug that he should talk to the computer medic because he’d been using
it when it crashed.  My hidden agenda there was an attempt to get him
to go beyond his shyness and make a phone call.   He procrastinated.

I read a lot, finished several interesting books and started half a
dozen or so that didn’t hold my interest.  Having to spend so much
time on my butt wouldn’t have been so rough if I’d had the TV, but
getting it working would have been more than the simple matter of
repairing the antenna wire Doug broke while shoveling snow from the
roof last winter.  This winter, a heavy snow load had brought down
the antenna itself.  It was too cold outside to even consider
finding another skinny tree to cut for an antenna mast. 

That cold was another matter.  Down to minus 30 outside, we had a
hard time keeping it above fifty in here.  Dressed in more layers
than I usually have to wear when going outdoors, I watched a few of the
videos Greyfox had brought me, which hadn’t seemed interesting enough
to view previously.  Some of them proved to be so bad I only
watched a few minutes of each.  Others, I watched all the way
through and then asked myself why I had.  When even that sorry lot
was exhausted, I started listening to public radio.  That wouldn’t
have been so rough, if only the news and the talk shows hadn’t been
either inane and boring or horrible and horrifying. 

By Thursday the 26th, the morning I had to call Greyfox to tell me what
day it was because without my computer I was totally lacking in
temporal referents, I gave up and called the computer medic.  He
said he’d make a house call on Saturday morning.

Friday was my worst day in years.  I couldn’t move around without
getting short of breath.  It was so cold outside that letting Koji
out onto his chain took my breath away.  The fibro fog on my brain
was thick, and a sinus infection that had been building for days had
finally erupted into a horrific headache.  That wouldn’t have been
so rough, but between the time Doug went to bed that morning and I got
up, the PS2 had stopped working.  He’d been having some problems
with it recognizing his new memory card and with it reading a few of
the game disks, but it worked within limits.  For me, it wouldn’t
read any disk and it suddenly wouldn’t recognize my memory card,
either.  I tried to use the older PS2, the one with the weak laser
unit that wouldn’t read some of the game disks, and it too wouldn’t
work at all.

The next morning, the computer medic did not show.  An hour after
the appointed time, I called him.  He said he couldn’t make it
because he had to pick up someone at the airport.  Maybe so, but I
think it might have been just too cold for him to want to drive up the
valley. He said he would be here two days later, on Monday.  
Ray, the mechanic, didn’t call.  When I called him he said he’d
been tied up with an emergency job for someone else and could probably
get to my car by Tuesday.  He said that when he was ready, he’d
come over and get the car.

The following day, Sunday, was the day Doug shot the moose.  The
warmer weather and a lot of albuterol helped with the fibro and
breathing problems, and the sinus infection minimized my olfactory
exposure to the guts and gore.  Koji and I were both shaky from
adrenaline letdown even before Dancing Bear got here to start
butchering the moose.  Doug’s reaction set in a bit later.

Monday, an hour or so after the appointed time, the computer medic
showed up, ran his diagnostics and took the tower away with him. 
He said he’d bring it back, “maybe tomorrow (Tuesday), but probably not
until Wednesday.” 

Tuesday, Ray called and asked if my car would start (it was cold again
by then, so that was a valid concern).  I plugged in the engine
heater for a while, started it, and called Ray back to tell him it was
warming up.  He gave it a little time to warm up, then his wife
dropped him off here and he took my car back with him.

My mind kept replaying the scene of Koji going down screaming under the
moose’s hooves.  When awake, Koji seemed anxious.  He was
clingy, didn’t want to go out.  When I was sitting down, his head
was in my lap.  When I was up, he was beside me.  When he
slept, he thrashed around, moaned and cried out in his sleep. 
Doug was restless, walking around the house with glassy eyes,
occasionally saying, “I killed a moose,” in an incredulous tone, or
with a shake of his head, “one shot to the lungs, one in the
head.”  This continued for three or four days.

On Wednesday, Ray called and said the parts clerk had given him the
wrong parts and he couldn’t get the right ones for a day or two. 
He asked when I needed to go to town and I told him I had been
scheduled to go Thursday, but had already called the rehab ranch and
told them I wouldn’t make it.  That evening,  I tried calling
the computer tech and got his machine.  I left a message, which he
hadn’t returned by the next day.

On Thursday, the PS2 started working again.  Gotta love that
technological faith healing talent.  That took some of the tension
out of the atmosphere around here.

I knew better than to bug Ray about the car.  It would be done
when it was done and that was that.  I was just hoping it would be
done before we ran out of water.

The computer guy was another matter.  He wasn’t returning my calls, so I kept leaving messages for him. 

On Sunday February 6th, I got the car back.  Doug and I loaded up
the buckets and jugs and went to the spring for water.  I was
short of breath before we left home, just from loading the car in temps
in the minus twenties.  I carried a load of empties down to the
spring and got such a severe asthma attack from the cold air and mild
exertion that I told Doug he’d have to do the filling and the schlepping. 

I got back in the car and used my albuterol “rescue”
inhaler.   It wasn’t working.  I couldn’t breathe deep
enough or hold it long enough for it to do any good.  My ears were
ringing and my vision going black.  My bladder let go and I pissed
myself before the meds took hold and I started breathing again.  I
told Doug to just fill a few jugs to get us by a couple of days. 
I was hoping the weather would warm up and I’d be feeling better. 
By the time he’d loaded up the jugs he’d filled, I was okay to
drive.  That kid has got to get a driver’s license!

The next day, Monday, a week after the computer guy had taken my
machine and five days after he’d said he’d bring it back, I got his
answering machine again.  Early the next morning, I called his
wife’s business number.  He works out of their home, where she
also runs a preschool.  I explained to her that I’d been trying to
reach him, and she put him on.  He said his software was scanning,
recovering my data, “even as we speak.”  He said it would be done,
“probably tomorrow.”  Days went by.  Again, he wouldn’t
return my calls. 

By Friday, I was desperate enough about the increased breathing
difficulty to call the local clinic and see if they’d had any response
to my application for patient assistance from the pharmaceutical
manufacturer, for a longer-acting inhaler, Advair.  They told me
that their new “Needy Meds” system was all fouled up and it was taking
as long as three months to get new applications through.  They
said they’d added prescriptions to their sliding fee system, and I
could get the inhaler I needed for only $15.  They were open on
Saturday, but I was too sick to go up there for the meds.  On
Monday, Valentine’s Day, Greyfox came up from Wasilla and drove up to
the clinic near Talkeetna and got my meds.

Within a couple of days, I was breathing a lot better, and by now I
have adjusted my dosage and eliminated most of the bad side-effects.

And that brings us up to date here.

**WHEW!**

What’s next?

Update on the Kim Tran amputation affair:

According to Anchorage Daily News and some local television new
sources, the man referred to in the Reuters story (quoted in
yesterday’s blog) as Kim Tran’s “partner” was really married to her
aunt.  The three of them lived together.

Kim Tran reportedly had demanded that he divorce her aunt, marry her
and impregnate her.  She wanted to have his baby.  It was
when he told her he had been vasectomized that she cut off his penis
and flushed it.

That report mentioned that she was being held without bail, which was
not entirely accurate or at least not the whole story.  At her
arraignment she had requested a Vietnamese interpreter so the
arraignment was postponed, thus no bail had been set.

Greyfox reported that on the TV newscast he watched, the anchors
expressed surprise that the city utility worker who recovered the man’s
penis from the plumbing declined to be interviewed on camera. 
What?  How could he pass up his 20 seconds of fame?

The most surprising aspect of the entire story, for me, was that police
said drugs and alcohol were not involved.  The guy told her he
wasn’t going to marry her and that she couldn’t have his baby, and then
(apparently cold sober) he let her tie him up.

**shakes head in wonder at the mysteries of man**

Ooooh, almost forgot!  Greyfox also said that one of his sources
(TV or newspaper) reported that within the last ten years, two similar
penile amputations have been committed by women named Kim Tran.

It’s Georgeraham Linkington’s Washday.

The holiday slipped right up on me.  I’ve written before about my
idiosyncratic relationship to chronological time (my time is more
Chirological) and Greyfox mentioned in one of his recent updates here
that without my computer I didn’t have the necessary chronological
reference point to be able to use a calendar.  But now that I know
what day it is, I’ve decided to take a day off from the task of
relating the personal and family events of these past weeks without our
computer, and talk about the news instead.

Hunter Thompson shot himself to death.  The original gonzo
journalist was hanging out with Hells Angels around the same time I
was.  I was present on the wine country run where he got beaten up
because the Angels didn’t think he had the proper attitude of respect
toward them.  I can’t help wondering what impelled his final act
of self-destruction.  Considering his lifestyle, it could have
been a drug-fueled accident, drug-induced suicide, or an attempt to
escape the physical deterioration and pain from a lifetime of toxic
recreations.  One thing evident in all of the man’s writings is
that there were ever so many things more important to him than life and
health.  With him gone, the planet is suddenly not such an
ironically funny place as it once was.

US government spin doctors are trying to say that prez shrub isn’t
responsible for pulling the covers on his own youthful drug use because
he believed it was a private conversation with someone he
trusted.  Yeah, right.  My advice/plea to journalists: 
lay off, let the story die, before they panic and invade some other
country or fake a terrorist attack in this one to create a
diversion.  We all know the man is not responsible, period.

And, in local news:

As I listened to a somewhat more detailed version of this story on
Anchorage’s public radio station this morning, several comments came to
mind.  Upon further reflection, I just wish I could have listened
in on the conversation of those utility workers and the dispatcher who
called them in on that job.