Ninety-five teams started leaving the chute in Willow at one- or two-minute intervals at 2 PM Sunday, so sometime this afternoon they will all have been on the trail for a week.  Six mushers have scratched, and one, Kim Franklin, was withdrawn by officials for inability to keep up a reasonable pace.  Deborah Bicknell, in last (89th) position, has now been in Takotna for about 27 hours, and could be the next one withdrawn if she doesn't get a move on. [Update:  Deborah Bicknell left Takotna at 7:47 AM, last of this year's teams to complete the 24 hour layover.]

Only seven of the front 25 have not completed both mandatory rests as of 7:53 AM Saturday.

The first dog death of this year's Iditarod occurred at 1:20 AM today.  Zaster, a 7 year old male from John Stetson's team, had been dropped at Ophir at 2 AM Friday, and flown to Anchorage where he was being treated for apparent pneumonia symptoms.   A necropsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

Defending Champion Lance Mackey and his team of fourteen dogs were first into the Yukon River checkpoint of Ruby yesterday morning about 7:30.  For being first to the Yukon, Mackey received a six-course sit-down meal prepared by a chef flown out from Anchorage and served on real china, plus $5,000 cash.  He said, "I'm still unsure what to do with this money. I've considered buying a sit-down sled. My feet are so beat up. I'm leaning over the handlebars doing everything I can to take the pressure off my feet." (adn.com)

This comment has been in the back of my mind for ten days or so:

I had no hesitation about answering it, even though I did wonder if she was using romance as a euphemism for sex.  I was a little bit put off by the bullshit about "boundary crossing," and I do tend to bristle a little when anyone talks about what should or "shouldn't be."   Many of my readers know, too, how I feel about the "just curious" line.  Anyhow, the thing that delayed my response was knowing that I couldn't really begin to explain my relationship with Greyfox unless I talked a little about Mort first.

So, now that I've let Mort out of the closet and everyone not only knows that my husband isn't the man I married, but might also be able to intuit that our soulmate relationship that has lasted through millennia tends to eclipse any considerations of mere "romance," I can try to describe our relationship.

I could describe it in neuroelectrochemical terms.  Helen Fisher might say that we have ridden the neurochemical cascade through sexual attraction and romantic love, into attachment.  This places us in the minority in our culture.  Most couples don't make it this far, going their separate ways seeking different mates before they grow comfortable with each other.

I am not inclined to be giddy or giggly over love and romance, and Greyfox is, if it's possible to be, even less so.  Love is a serious matter for us, and romance is a genre of fiction that we both find rather silly and don't read.  That said, there are still elements of our relationship that are intensely romantic, and even sexy.  We didn't lose all of any one of those stages of pair-bonding as we progressed from each to the next.

We do most of our relating by phone lately.  I, for one, never did get a kick out of phone sex.  During the intensely sexy initial stage of our relationship, when we spoke on the phone about sex, it was usually just to say that we'd be glad when we got into geographical proximity so we could enjoy each other's company.  In recent times, even when we're on the move and intent on getting things done, a little sexual spark can ignite from time to time.  He often tells people that he's married to the smartest and sexiest great-grandma on the planet, so I know the sexy feelings are not all on my side.

He writes poetry for me, too.   That's one of the perks of being married to an English major.  He wrote me a sonnet before we ever met, when we were relating entirely by phone and snail mail.  He has written several poems for or about me in the four-plus years of the "new life" we've had together since he got clean and sober.  In my opinion, one of the most romantic things he does on a regular basis is to thank me for that new life, either privately or in a public forum such as his blog or an NA meeting.

Oh, and through harsh trial and error, and jarring feedback when he gave me wildly inappropriate gifts, he has finally learned what kinds of gifts will please me.  That's no small thing, there.  That he made the effort to learn is very romantic.

Six days into the race, much of the confusion surrounding the mandatory 24 hour layovers is sorting itself out.  Seventeen teams now in the front of the pack have all completed their 24s.

Now's the time, on the fifth day of the race, when the posted standings don't mean much.  In the update of 9:11 AM today, the top thirteen mushers still have not taken their mandatory 24 hour rests.  They will fall back in the standings as they stop for that rest and are passed by those whose 24s are done.

The five top leaders now are shown to have been in Cripple checkpoint for about two to three hours, so there's a good chance that they have begun their 24 hour layovers there. 

Back in 15th, 16th and 17th positions, Mitch Seavey, Ramey Smyth and Gerald Sousa are obviously well into their 24s at Ophir.  Seavey could be leaving there within the hour with his 24 completed. 

Thirty-two teams are shown in Takotna now, and many of them can be assumed to be taking their 24s.  Cheeseburgers and pie are only part of the attractions at Takotna.  It is one of the few checkpoints where water is available for the dogs without the musher having to melt ice or snow.  A big cooker is kept full of water for the dogs, and there is indoor sleeping space (on floors, mostly) for the mushers, and places to hang up soggy gear for drying.

In fourteenth position, Kjetil Backen of Team Norway is the current leader among the ten teams whose 24 hour layovers are completed.  He blew through Ophir just before 7 this morning.  The standings do not show how many dogs he has now. 

Such lacunae and lapses are par for the course in the official website's reporting on this year's race.  The new virtual reality tracking system is very buggy.  At one point, it said that one of the teams was going at an impossible seventy-some miles per hour.   The virtual tracking is being provided as a free service to fans in this its first year.  I'll go out on a limb with a prediction here:  if they get the bugs out by next year, it will become part of the paid "Insider" services.

On the trail between Takotna and Ophir, the next three teams who have completed their 24s are Lance Mackey in 18th position with 15 dogs, Jeff King in 19th position with his full starting team of 16, and Jim Lanier in 20th with his full 16.  Lance was 43 minutes behind Backen out of Takotna.  Jeff was 13 minutes behind Lance, and Jim Lanier was almost three hours behind him.

Hans Gatt in 50th position with 15 dogs, Rick Swenson in 51st with 15, William Kleedehn in 52nd with 14, Gerry Willomitzer in 53rd with 13, and John Baker in 56th with 14 dogs, completed their 24 hour layovers in McGrath.  Gatt, Swenson, Kleedehn and Willomitzer are in Takotna now, and Baker is on the trail between McGrath and Takotna.  William Hanes in 70th position, now in McGrath with 13 dogs, is the only other musher to have completed the mandatory 24 hour rest.

Rohn Buser, currently the front-running rookie, left Ophir in tenth position about 9 last night.

A fourth and fifth musher, Cliff Roberson and Jessica Hendricks, have scratched, cutting the field to 91 teams.  Rookie Kim Franklin from the UK is bringing up the rear with the Red Lantern. 

Snooze180 asked me about the Red Lantern, and I realized that I have neglected to explain it this year.  There is a real red lantern each year.  It's a trophy awarded to the last finisher.  If my memory is correct, the final team through Safety checkpoint picks up a red lantern there and carries it to Nome.  At the awards banquet, the last finisher is presented with a shiny new red lantern with a little brass plaque engraved with the year and his or her name.  My neighbor Rhodi Carella has one on display in her home.  In previous years, small groups of non-competitive mushers at the back of the pack have found various ways to resolve the issue of who gets to bring up the rear and get the trophy, including poker games, bribery, and coin tosses.

None of the photos below is my work.  All came from adn.com.

I don't recall when it was that I realized how warrior karma manifests itself in my life.  It was years ago, but not very far back in this lifetime.  I think I was already beginning to catch on to the deeper meaning behind the presence of all the broken and beat-up people in my life, when I came home from a long road trip and found myself married to a walk-in -- a weird guy by just about anyone's definition, and very obviously not the husband who been there when I left on that trip.

Maybe, for some of you, I need to back up here, define my terms, and explain some things.

That approximately describes Greyfox's state of mind when he found himself off the utility grid in a harsh environment without the material security of a regular paycheck for the first time in his adult life.  He had lived all his life in the same geographical area until he chucked it all and followed me to Alaska.  Despite all my best efforts to inform him, he didn't know what he was getting into, largely because he just couldn't believe what I told him.  He thought I was exaggerating.  He says that everyone he had ever known was a liar, so he wasn't at all prepared for me.

For him this move was a desperate grab for some kind of lifesaver.  His addictions to alcohol, prescription painkillers, anti-anxiety medications and various illicit drugs, had him scared.  One of the pivotal events for him was the day he looked out his window and saw that his SUV wasn't in his parking space.  When he called the cops to report it stolen, they told him it could be found in the parking lot of a local restaurant, from which he had called them (the police) the night before, asking for a ride home because he was too drunk to drive.  They'd advised him to call a cab.  He remembered none of that.

As any savvy addict knows, the geographical cure doesn't work.  Wherever you go, there you are.  After a couple of years of his addictions and personality disorders, I asked him to leave said he had to go.  He agreed and then reneged, so I took a vacation to get away from him.  While I was on the road, he went on a massive binge that climaxed when he did a sloppy job tightening a propane fitting in the house, ignited the gas leak, blew out some windows (in the middle of an Alaskan winter), burned up some of my furnishings and papers, and singed himself putting out the fire.  He was incommunicado for a while, and when next I talked to him, he was a different guy.

It wasn't until after I got home that the magnitude of the change was apparent.  He really was a different guy.  Most people who become walk-ins just go on with their lives, understanding on some level that they have experienced some kind of transformation, but without connection to or memory of the life the walk-in had before the shift.  The walk-in leaves the former life and simply becomes the person into whom he or she has moved.  But most people aren't shamans, aren't married to curious, inquisitive psychics, and don't have the sort of connections we have.

We now know much of the life history of "Mort," the guy who took over when the old Greyfox decided that his life wasn't worth living.  We know when he was born (20 years before Greyfox had been), his profession (warrior), and his reason for wanting a new body (quadriplegia).  The first Greyfox had warrior karma:  he and I had been wandering warrior monks in ancient China, and had been buddies in the Roman Legions.  But Mort's warrior karma dwarfs the old Greyfox's.  It was of more recent vintage, and it pops up occasionally when, out of nowhere, Greyfox (who had no military service in this lifetime) growls out an enthusiastic, "Semper Fi!" or talks about battle memories and experiences that aren't exactly his own.

I mentioned above, "all the broken and beat-up people in my life."  Virtually all of those to whom I have the closest bonds in this life, my family, friends and close associates, are physically injured, scarred, and/or maimed.  Some of them were injured in military service in this lifetime, but most of them, like myself, have spent this life as civilians.  My father, and my son Doug's father, both had hearing loss and other scars from explosive injuries.  The original Greyfox had no battlefield injuries, but he'd gotten some dings during his life before I met him, and even more since then.

Another thing most of us have in common is weapons.  We're interested in them, comfortable around them, proficient in their use and often without even trying, a "natural talent".  More than once, some new girly-girl acquaintance and I have gotten some good laughs when we discovered our mutual interest in guns, or in medieval arms and armor, or in martial arts.  Knowing us, no one would expect it.  I have raised eyebrows on several occasions when I'd throw a knife or axe and stick it, or pick up a rifle and group a nice tight cluster of shots in the middle of the target.  I've always thought of target practice as a waste of ammo.  I just point and shoot, and usually it works for me if I can see what I'm shooting at.  I do remember, in a former life, as a boy, shooting at targets.  I did it then, so I don't need to do it now.

On the surface, given the facts of this lifetime, this warrior thing doesn't make much sense.  I'm a peacenik and I don't tend to hang around with hawkish types.  Even the guys I know who went to war, most of them did it reluctantly, drafted or driven to it by economic need.  Maybe on the surface, a warrior who loves peace doesn't make sense, so look a little deeper.  One thing I've noticed in this lifetime:  some of the staunchest anti-war activists are old soldiers who have experienced the horrors firsthand. 

I have come to understand that I'm an old soul, and my closest associates in this life are also old souls.  We've lived in various cultures all over the planet through many centuries.  We've come together in various combinations here and there, now and then.  Most of those times and places there were wars going on.  When was there ever a time on this planet without war?

When we come together in this lifetime, sometimes we have some interpersonal crap to work out, but usually we just have this strong sense that we have things in common, that we are part of something.  That "something" is called a soul group.  Soul groups often include many generations of one family, or people whose lives and deaths have been connected in some other way.  The bond is a karmic effect.  The cause was shared experience, personal connections or interactions, debts incurred, unfinished business left hanging at the end of a life.  That's karma, action and deeds, the cause.  When those actions and deeds are violent, the karmic effects can be physically painful and crippling.  So we are a gimpy and beat-up bunch, but we've got our camaraderie and our combat skills to help compensate for that.
 

On this fourth day of the thousand-plus-mile sled dog race, twelve of the fourteen front-running teams are resting in the Takotna checkpoint.

Why?

Pie.

Not only pie, but steak, and great big cheeseburgers.  Jan Newton's hospitality and cooking have turned Takotna into the most popular stopping point on the trail.  Most of the teams in there now are expected to take their mandatory 24 hour rests at Takotna.  Some others are stopped at the previous checkpoint in McGrath for their 24s, and two teams, Mitch Seavey's and Hugh Neff's, with fourteen dogs each, blew through Takotna 25 minutes apart this morning, on toward Ophir, to get some more distance before the day warms up.

Snowfall has brought a big change to the trail, which until last night had been clear, smooth and fast.  Everyone has to work harder in fresh snow, especially those out front breaking trail.

Lance Mackey was first into Takotna, about 2 AM, after having had to drop Hobo, one of his best leaders, at a previous checkpoint.  Standings on iditarod.com are conflicting with what I heard on APRN this morning, on where the dog was dropped.  I don't have that degree of uncertainty, however, about the result of Hobo's loss to Lance's team.  I heard him tell the public radio reporter that it's like driving "without a steering wheel."  He said his team now has no real lead dog and, "four swing dogs."

Less than half an hour behind Lance and his fifteen dogs were Denali National Park Ranger Jeff King, with sixteen, and Kjetil Backen of team Norway with fifteen dogs.  Paul Gebhardt arrived in Takotna with all sixteen of his starting team, an hour behind Backen.  An hour and a half behind Gebhardt, Jim Lanier pulled in with his sixteen.

Also in Takotna at 8:23 AKST were Aaron Burmeister (13 dogs), Sebastian Schnuelle (16), Jessie Royer (14), Sigrid Ekran (14), Silvia Willis (14), DeeDee Jonrowe (15), and Ray Redington, Jr. (?)

On the trail out of McGrath toward Takotna are Zack Steer (14), Ed Iten with his full team of sixteen, Ramy Smyth (13), Warren Palfrey (14), Martin Buser (15) and Louis Nelson, Sr. with fifteen.

Twelve teams are in McGrath, having arrived there between about 1 AM and 6:30.  They include Hans Gatt, Aliy Zirkle, and Rick Swenson.  Rohn Buser is in McGrath in 25th position, still holding the lead for Rookie of the Year.  In close running for Rookie of the Year is William Kleedehn in 27th.

Rookie Dries Jacobs, in 93rd position, is the current Red Lantern.  Veteran musher Joe Garnie, who had intended to make this his farewell run, a chance to see old friends along the trail, scratched in Rainy Pass.

slave_slutangel wrote that she was, "really amazed that there is still nothing in the news about the race."  Thank PETA and a few extremists in the Humane Society for that.  They have threatened boycotts, pickets and other forms of retribution against all major media if they dare even to hint that they support the Iditarod.

It is the third day of the race, and some knowing insiders say they will know within the next half hour or so who is and who is not in the running for the championship.  Longtime Iditarod competitors and watchers say that by the time the leaders reach Nikolai, anyone who is more than four hours behind them doesn't have any chance to win.

At 1:05 PM today, in Nikolai, in this order:  Kjetil Backen, 15 dogs; Gerry Willomitzer, 14; Paul Gebhardt, 16; Lance Mackey, 15; Jeff King, 16; Hans Gatt, 15; Hugh Neff, 15, Mitch Seavey, 14.

Leaving Rohn, the checkpoint before Nikolai, 44 teams were four hours or less behind Backen.  Most of them will have fallen farther behind on the trail.  Between Rainy Pass and Rohn, Martin Buser's, Rick Swenson's, and rookie Sven Haltmann's teams averaged over 11 MPH.  On that same stretch, the standings show that Wayne Curtis averaged 18.23 MPH.  If that's not a reporting error, his team was flying.  Ten teams averaged between ten and eleven MPH on that leg, but most of them were down around 8 or below.

On the Rohn to Nikolai leg, the fastest time among the leaders was Hans Gatt, at  8.33 MPH.  Rohn Buser is ahead of all the other rookies.  In sixteenth position
out of Rohn, the checkpoint he was named for, on his way to Nikolai,
the checkpoint his older brother was named after, he's looking like the
Rookie of the Year.

One musher, rookie Tom Roig, has scratched since the restart.  He quit late last night at Finger Lake.  Kim Franklin, another rookie, who was bringing up the rear for a couple days, left Finger Lake this morning in 92nd position.  Trent Herbst, in 94th position, is the current Red Lantern.

UPDATE:

Race info below is outdated.  This just in:  At 1:16 this afternoon, Dee Dee Jonrowe (Go, Dee Dee!) pulled into Rainy Pass with fifteen dogs.   Five minutes later, they pulled out, making Dee Dee's the first team through Rainy Pass.  (Scratch that.  At about 3 PM, DeeDee is shown still in Rainy Pass, so that earlier report had to  have been erroneous.) Still resting in Rainy Pass at 1:46 PM were Mitch Seavey, Jim Lanier, Jeff King, Sigrid Ekran, Ramey Smyth, Kjetil Backen, and Ken Anderson.  Thirty-four teams were out of Finger Lake on the way to Rainy Pass at that time.  Kim Franklin, still in Skwentna, still has the Red Lantern.

Kjetil Backen is now (at 3 PM) shown into Rainy Pass at 1:16 and out at 1:21, making him first through Rainy Pass, unless that report is wrong, too.  I hope they get their reporting glitches and posting bugs worked out soon.  If not, it's gonna take a lot of the fun out of this for me.

---

Spinksy has asked me if I have a favorite this year.  No, I don't.  I'd love to see Jeff King or Martin Buser become a 5-time champion, love to see Lance Mackey make it four Yukon Quests and two Iditarods in a row, love for DeeDee Jonrowe to finally win after being so close so many times, love to watch Sigrid Ekran blow them all away this year after being Rookie of the Year in '07, love to see young Rohn Buser beat his dad and everyone else on his first try.  I wouldn't even mind watching my fellow Alaskans steam and fume if a Norwegian or other "furriner" wins this time.  But if that old misogynist Rick Swenson makes this his sixth championship and retires in a blaze of glory, I'll probably stamp my foot and spit.

---

 As of about noon today, Mitch Seavey, Jim Lanier, Jeff King, and Sigrid Ekran, in that order, had passed everyone else and were first into Rainy Pass checkpoint, with Seavey about an hour ahead of Sigrid.  Go, Jeff!  He is one of the 4-time champions, trying for 5 this time.  Go Sigrid!  She was last year's Rookie of the Year.  Wow, she's fast!

Lance Mackey was in 6th position, and Martin Buser in 8th, out of Finger Lake hours ago, could be getting into Rainy Pass any time.

---

On this second day of the race, I got a shock when I logged into the current standings around six AM.   Lance Mackey, the Comeback Kid, was way back, halfway back in the pack.  Kjetil Backen of Team Norway was in first position, the first team into Finger Lake checkpoint.

I had other stuff to take care of (see HERE) for a few hours.  When I got back, reality had gotten back into joint somewhat.  Backen was still in Finger Lake after five hours, resting his dogs, and he had been passed by eighteen teams.  Lance Mackey is in second position, leaving Finger Lake 52 minutes behind Gerry Willomitzer.

In ninety-fifth position, with the Red Lantern, rookie Kim Franklin has been in Skwentna for about an hour, as of 10:30 AM.

Postings on iditarod.com are... raggedy, is the first word that comes to mind.  There's long delay between posting of changes on the main standings page and their transfer to individual mushers' summaries.  I'm seeing lots of blanks in the standings chart too:  people shown in one checkpoint but no time shown for when they left the last one, "dogs out" shown, but not "dogs in", etc.  New webmaster?  No webmaster?  Who knows?

I don't know what I'll be doing today, but if you start getting impertinent, dopey, or less-than-polite comments from the Trickster KaiOaty, pay them no mind.  KaiOaty is thinking about trying to earn enough credits to give Greyfox lifetime Premium.  When the Trickster starts thinking, things can get weird.  There's already some funny business going on here.

Yeah, it's Sunday, the website is calling this "Day 2," and there's a chance that some national news or sports media outlet showed the start of the race yesterday, and maybe you saw that, but that wasn't really the start.  It was all for show.  When those dog teams had gotten out of downtown Anchorage, they were loaded onto trucks and hauled up the Susitna Valley to Willow, for the real start of the race.

Willow is a little town.  If the crowd for the Iditarod Re-Start is as big as expected, it will grow into the state's fourth most populous city for a few hours today.  I wouldn't want to be any nearer to it than I am.  Shuttle buses will be running up there from Wasilla, and down past here from Sunshine, in an attempt to alleviate some of the parking problems.  The Willow airstrip is charging $10.00 for a parking space there, just across the highway from Willow Lake, where the race will start (about an hour from now, as I'm writing this).  Other businesses will undoubtedly have their own ways to deal with the crowds, and State Troopers will be trying to control traffic and keep people from parking on the highway itself.  I wouldn't be surprised if they end up having cars towed from the turn lane in the middle of the road.  ...not surprised at all.

Ninety-six teams went through the chute on Fourth Avenue yesterday.  Over a hundred teams had signed up, but some withdrew before they started.  G.B. Jones did the Ceremonial Start in Anchorage yesterday, rode the 11 miles to the parking lot where teams load up for the drive up the valley, and scratched.  Of the 95 starting mushers, only three had been racing in the 1970s:  five-time champion Rick Swenson (the only one to have won five times), Jim Lanier, and Joe Garnie.  Garnie lives up North, in the village of Teller.  To get to this year's Iditarod, which he says he wants to run, "one more time while I'm physically able to and to see old friends along the trail," he sorta started at the finish.  He mushed his team seventy-five miles from Teller to Nome to get on a plane with  them and take them to Anchorage so he can mush them back to Nome again.

In a quick scan down the starting lineup, I counted 33 rookies. (Iditarod.com isn't making such counts as easy this year as in the past.  Oh, well.  I'll cope.)  A rookie isn't one who has never entered the Iditarod before.  A rookie is one who has never finished the Iditarod.  Some of those rookies have been out there more than once.

One of this year's rookies is former international fashion model Zoya Denure, whose team includes dogs rescued from shelters, such as Hunter, shown with her at left.  "She is the owner and Chair of Crazy Dog Kennel and Canine Rescue, a
non-profit organization and racing kennel that focuses on the training
and rehabilitation of unwanted sled dogs. The Gin-Gin 120, a middle
distance women's sled dog race, was organized by Zoya in 2005 to
encourage the entry of women into the sport. Her goal is to be a
competitive racer while bringing attention to the need to properly care
for, train and socialize all sled dogs. She has competed in several
mid-distance races placing in the top five of the field over the past
three years and finishing the 2006 Chatanika 200 in second place." (source:  iditarod.com)

Sue Allen is not a rookie.  She ran the Iditarod in 2004.  Sue teaches physical education at Wasilla High School.  Finances forced her to reduce her kennel, curtailing her hopes to run another Iditarod.  One of her students, Rohn Buser, is running the Iditarod as a rookie this year, and that student's father is four-time champion and current speed record holder, Martin Buser.  Buserdogs are top of the line in health, vigor and speed.  When offered the chance to take a team of Buser puppies on the trail for training in real race conditions, she went for it.

"Picture an aspiring stock-car driver being tossed the keys to the buggy by Richard Petty.

'There's
no way I'd say no when a four-time Iditarod champion says, "Here, take
my future to Nome," ' Allen said, adding that the two's friendship and
mutual trust foremost prompted her consent." (source:  pressconnects.com)

 Okay, I've spent so much time now, tracking down quotes and background, that the first few teams are already on the trail down on Willow Lake.  I had something else in mind to write today, and might even get that done.  Who knows?

Yesterday afternoon, our dog gave with the insistent, deep-throated barking that signals some intruder in the area.  Admittedly, he is somewhat of an alarmist and not all of his alarms signal anything serious.  In very cold weather, when sounds travel eerily clearly, he comes unglued when a train goes by on the track half a mile away.  They do sound like they are right in the yard, I admit.

But yesterday, it wasn't that cold, and it wasn't a train.  Someone had left a pickup truck idling on the street and walked up our driveway.  Doug went out to see who it was.  It wasn't anyone he recognized, and I didn't get a look at the man.  He told Doug he was looking for his wife, that she had "disappeared" the previous day.

When Doug told him we hadn't seen anyone during that time, he left, presumably to carry on through the neighborhood asking after his missing wife.  The translucent poly sheeting on our windows lets in light and helps keep in heat, but obscures and distorts everything seen through it.  Not much can be seen from our windows in winter.  In summer, it is the trees and undergrowth that obscure our view, but we can see what's going by on the street out front, anyhow.

I have an uneasy feeling about this.  It has crept into my consciousness a hundred times since that man stopped by yesterday.  I try not to imagine her in a desperate situation, but that's the feeling I get.  I visualize white light and send it to her wherever she is.   I don't think she's just out there, lost or injured, alone.  Someone has her, I think, though I resist that idea, hate the thought for her sake, and also for the neighborhood's.  I send out the thought:  "LET HER GO!"