Anchoraguan scofflaws have constructed a 25-foot snowman in defiance of city codes.
I'm busy right now with my Santa Claus post, which, if there are not too many interruptions, will appear here later today.
Month: December 2008
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There, but for...
The sun is down, but it is not quite full dark yet. Doug and I just got back from a trip up to Sunshine, the Talkeetna Y, where the road turns off to Talkeetna. Recently, a new store opened there, Cubby's Marketplace, neither a supermarket nor a big box store, too small (or maybe too soon after opening) to have a motorized crip cart for me, and big enough that I was worn out before I got around it using a shopping cart as my walker.
I was pretty happy when I learned that we would have a shopping option closer to home. Those 50 mile shopping trips into Wasilla burn a lot of gas and take a lot of stamina for me to get through one. In winter, I either leave home before dawn or get home after dark, or both. I probably won't be doing much shopping at Cubby's, though. Even if I didn't have a love interest waiting for me at the end of that road to Wasilla, there's economy to consider. Cubby's appears to be just another country store with illusions of big-box status. Selection is limited and prices are high. Many things are about 20% higher than at Jack's little store, which is even closer to home for me. I'm hoping Cubby's won't drive Jack out of business.
As Doug and I were unpacking and putting away our purchases, we were discussing the new store and the people we saw there. I recognized almost all the employees. Cubby's just became the biggest local employer in an area with virtually no industry and a predominantly summer-seasonal tourism economy. Many had gone to school with Doug or were parents of kids who went to school with him. He said, "Yes. There, but for crippling social ineptitude, go I."
He's right, as far as it goes, I guess. There's more to it, of course. There's also lack of transportation, ADHD, congenital familial hardcore unemployability....
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Robert W. Service Christmas Verse
The Trapper’s Christmas EveIt’s mighty lonesome-like and drear.
Above the Wild the moon rides high,
And shows up sharp and needle-clear
The emptiness of earth and sky;
No happy homes with love a-glow;
No Santa Claus to make believe:
Just snow and snow, and then more snow;
It’s Christmas Eve, it’s Christmas Eve.And here am I where all things end,
And Undesirables are hurled;
A poor old man without a friend,
Forgot and dead to all the world;
Clean out of sight and out of mind . . .
Well, maybe it is better so;
We all in life our level find,
And mine, I guess, is pretty low.Yet as I sit with pipe alight
Beside the cabin-fir
take to-night
The backward trail of fifty year.
The school-house and the Christmas tree;
The children with their cheeks a-glow;
Two bright blue eyes that smile on me . . .
Just half a century ago.Again (it’s maybe forty years),
With faith and trust almost divine,
These same blue eyes, abrim with tears,
Through depths of love look into mine.
A parting, tender, soft and low,
With arms that cling and lips that cleave . . .
Ah me! it’s all so long ago,
Yet seems so sweet this Christmas Eve.Just thirty years ago, again . . .
We say a bitter, last good-bye;
Our lips are white with wrath and pain;
Our little children cling and cry.
Whose was the fault? it matters not,
For man and woman both deceive;
It’s buried now and all forgot,
Forgiven, too, this Christmas Eve.And she (God pity me) is dead;
Our children men and women grown.
I like to think that they are wed,
With little children of their own,
That crowd around their Christmas tree . . .
I would not ever have them grieve,
Or shed a single tear for me,
To mar their joy this Christmas Eve.Stripped to the buff and gaunt and still
Lies all the land in grim distress.
Like lost soul wailing, long and shrill,
A wolf-howl cleaves the emptiness.
Then hushed as Death is everything.
The moon rides haggard and forlorn . . .
“O hark the herald angels sing!”
God bless all men—it’s Christmas morn.From Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
by Robert W. Service
The Christmas TreeIn the dark and damp of the alley cold,
Lay the Christmas tree that hadn't been sold;
By a shopman dourly thrown outside;
With the ruck and rubble of Christmas-tide;
Trodden deep in the muck and mire,
Unworthy even to feed a fire...
So I stopped and salvaged that tarnished tree,
And thus is the story it told to me:"My Mother was Queen of the forest glade,
And proudly I prospered in her shade;
For she said to me: 'When I am dead,
You will be monarch in my stead,
And reign, as I, for a hundred years,
A tower of triumph amid your peers,
When I crash in storm I will yield you space;
Son, you will worthily take my place.'"So I grew in grace like a happy child,
In the heart of the forest free and wild;
And the moss and the ferns were all about,
And the craintive mice crept in and out;
And a wood-dove swung on my highest twig,
And a chipmunk chattered: 'So big! So big!'
And a shy fawn nibbled a tender shoot,
And a rabbit nibbled under my root...
Oh, I was happy in rain and shine
As I thought of the destiny that was mine!
Then a man with an axe came cruising by
And I knew that my fate was to fall and die."With a hundred others he packed me tight,
And we drove to a magic city of light,
To an avenue lined with Christmas trees,
And I thought: may be I'll be one of these,
Tinselled with silver and tricked with gold,
A lovely sight for a child to behold;
A-glitter with lights of every hue,
Ruby and emerald, orange and blue,
And kiddies dancing, with shrieks of glee -
One might fare worse than a Christmas tree."So they stood me up with a hundred more
In the blaze of a big department store;
But I thought of the forest dark and still,
And the dew and the snow and the heat and the chill,
And the soft chinook and the summer breeze,
And the dappled deer and the birds and the bees...
I was so homesick I wanted to cry,
But patient I waited for someone to buy.
And some said 'Too big,' and some 'Too small,'
And some passed on saying nothing at all.
Then a little boy cried: Ma, buy that one,'
But she shook her head: 'Too dear, my son."
So the evening came, when they closed the store,
And I was left on the littered floor,
A tree unwanted, despised, unsold,
Thrown out at last in the alley cold."Then I said: "Don't sorrow; at least you'll be
A bright and beautiful New Year's tree,
All shimmer and glimmer and glow and gleam,
A radiant sight like a fairy dream.
For there is a little child I know,
Who lives in poverty, want and woe;
Who lies abed from morn to night,
And never has known an hour's delight..."So I stood the tree at the foot of her bed:
"Santa's a little late," I said.
"Poor old chap! Snowbound on the way,
But he's here at last, so let's be gay."
Then she woke from sleep and she saw you there,
And her eyes were love and her lips were prayer.
And her thin little arms were stretched to you
With a yearning joy that they never knew.
She woke from the darkest dark to see
Like a heavenly vision, that Christmas Tree.Her mother despaired and feared the end,
But from that day she began to mend,
To play, to sing, to laugh with glee...
Bless you, O little Christmas Tree!
You died, but your life was not in vain:
You helped a child to forget her pain,
And let hope live in our hearts again.
Robert ServiceNeither of these is my favorite Robert Service Christmas verse. That one is still to come. -
Cowboy Christmas
Draggin' the TreeThe cowboy ain't no lumberjack,
an' if you want the facks,
One thing he ain't the fondest of
is choppin' with an axe.
But when December snow has got
the range all wrapped in white,
There is one job of choppin'
that he seems to like all right.
A sharp ax on his shoulder,
he will ride off up the draw
Until he finds an evergreen
without a single flaw.
A spruce, a fir, a juniper
that's shaped just to a T
To set up in a corner
for the ranchhouse Christmas tree.As like as not, last summer
while a-ridin' after cows
He noticed just the tree he wants,
with green and graceful boughs
That's stout enough to ornament
without no droop nor saggin',
But still a tree that ain't too big
to fetch without a wagon.
It may be that he picked it out
when August sun was hot,
But he knows where to find it,
For his mind has marked the spot.It ain't no chore to chop it down,
an' if the snow is deep
He drags it in behind his horse.
It warms him up a heap
To see them rancher kids
run out a-hollerin' with glee
To watch him an' admire him
when he's bringin' the tree.
Them kids may not belong to him,
but that don't matter none—
His boss' brood, a nester's brats—
It's still a heap of fun
To some ol' lonesome cowpoke,
an' it sets his heart aglow
To come a-draggin' in the tree
across the Christmas snow.
Sometimes when there's a schoolmarm
an' she wants a tree at school,
She gets half a dozen.
for you'll find that as a rule
At least that many cowboys,
in sweet education's cause,
Will somehow get to feelin'
That they're kin to Santy Claus!Sometimes the rangeland's lonesome
an' sometimes it's kind o' grim,
But not when every ranchhouse
has a Christmas tree to trim.
An' though the wild cowpuncher
ain't no hand to swing an ax,
Across the white December snow
you'll often find his tracks
A-leadin' to the timber,
then back out again once more,
A-draggin' in the Christmas tree—
his purt near favorite chore!from Classic Rhymes
by S. Omar Barker (1894-1985) -
Reach Out and Touch
FUN WITH TELEMPATHYThis one requires a little background info, I guess.
Alaska has a special exemption from FCC rules about personal messages on radio and TV. When I moved here 35 years ago, even in the cities there were programs at least twice a day on most radio stations, where people could either walk or phone in with messages to be relayed, use CB radio, telegrams, or could send letters, any means at their disposal to get a message to a radio station, where it would be broadcast to people off the grid. The shows had names like Mukluk Telegraph, Tundra Drums, North Wind, Bush Pipeline, etc.
In homesteaders' cabins and hunters' camps all over the state, battery-powered radios would be turned on once or twice a day to check for messages. Messages could be anything: reminders to feed the dog, notification of weddings, funerals, etc., proposals of marriage, declarations of love, pleas for someone to meet a plane at the airport or send supplies. I heard one from a climber who had just summited McKinley, and listened in to personal and family business of some strangers, some people I knew, and others I'd remember from those messages, later on when I met them. Those programs are gone now from the city stations, but are still going strong out here around Talkeetna and beyond, where relatively few people have phones or Internet connections.
Today was the annual "holiday greetings" show on Talk of Alaska, a public radio show that goes all over the state through APRN. I listened to a few minutes of the calls, people from remote places saying hi and wishing a merry and a happy to their widely scattered friends and family. After I heard greetings go out to several people I know (Alaska is really just one big spread-out small town.) and a familiar voice or two sending greetings, I picked up my phone.
While I waited for my turn to talk, I made a list so I could get in a big bunch of greetings without taking up more than my share of air. I got on, and said hi to half a dozen individuals who had moved away to Fairbanks, Delta Junction or some other part of Alaska and lost touch, then I mentioned "all my old friends from the Girdwood Forest Fair and Talkeetna Bluegrass Festival," and finished up with "to my SCA friends in Wintersgate, Eskalya, and Selveirgaard, a Merrie Yule from Faianna."
Then I got up to turn up the radio which had been turned down to prevent feedback. Before I got over to the radio, I was giggling from the warm fuzzies, the psychic feedback from all the people who recognized my voice and remembered me, not just my old friends and acquaintances, but people who had gotten readings from me at Girdwood, where I did my first professional gig, and Talkeetna Bluegrass where I set up the booth for several years after I'd cut out the grueling far-and-wide summer festival trail.
Yeah....
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The Weather and Other Stuff
Two things on the morning news today caught my attention in that foggy waking-up time:"...blizzard conditions for Seward, Whittier, and Girdwood. All travel and outdoor activity is strongly discouraged for those areas."
That's not exactly a small area, but since Alaska is so big it is really nowhere near here. Still, it is mountainous and... "forbidding" is probably a good word for it. I would not want to be caught out in a blizzard anywhere, especially not there. Seward and Whittier are coastal towns. Girdwood is an upscale bedroom community for Anchorage, and a popular ski area. Avalanches are common road hazards around there.
"...sunrise 10:26, sunset 3:33 today, a gain of 23 seconds over yesterday." Yaay!
We got a little snow overnight, not even near as much as was forecast. Same for Greyfox at the lower end of this valley. Today is the last day of his stand at the mini-mall. All the tables and boxes of merchandise he schlepped upstairs last week will have to be packed up and schlepped back down this evening, then he has no more scheduled business until mid-January.
I have more holiday blogging plans for today. Seeya later.
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Down with Snowzilla!
For several years, an Anchoraguan man, Billy Powers, with help from his family, friends and neighbors, has built a big snowman, about the height of a two-story house, in his yard. This year, they were only partway done when city officials said it had to come down. Snowzilla has become internationally famous. The city considered the snowman himself and the traffic he attracted to that residential street, to be public nuisances and safety hazards.
According to the Fort Mill (SC) Times:
Snowzilla in 2005 rose 16 feet. He had a corncob pipe and a carrot nose and two eyes made out of beer bottles.
...When the notices went up, Snowzilla still didn't have a full torso or head.
"The kids had spent hours and hours of work on it," Billy Powers said Sunday.
He's not planning to finish the snowman this year. If he did, he could be arrested.
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Another Mad Dream
In the dream, I was Willie Nelson: same long graying red hair, same wrinkles, same Texas twang, and that bare hint of a smile that hides a million little secrets and a lot of pain... but, when someone asked for my autograph, what I signed was, "Bookstore."I was employed as secretary to a hospital administrator. At the time of the dream, however, I was on leave for an injury. A spider had bitten me on the butt. No, really, it was serious... serious enough to hospitalize me... only the hospital was full. So there I was, limping around my workplace with a nurse, trying to find a bed to lie down in. No luck, so they moved a bed into my office for me.
My office was the anteroom to my boss's office, so throughout this thing, he was coming and going through my hospital room. The dramatic tension in this story was supplied by a bind I was in. My butt was getting better, but I couldn't admit that because if I did I'd have to get out of bed and I didn't have anything to wear. I couldn't go back to work in my backless johnny, but if I didn't get better and go back to work they were going to amputate my butt... or Willie's butt, poor Willie.
My boss strode through one morning, waking me up to ask how I was and when I was coming back to work. I told him I thought I'd be able to get to work, "soon." After he went in and shut his office door, I got out of bed and started rummaging in my closet for something clean enough to wear. I found a long green skirt draped across a hanger, but it was too creased to wear. As I was thinking about running the shower to steam the wrinkles out, I noticed that there was a lot of marijuana in the closet.
If you are picturing stacks of bricks, or a big stash can, or bags or boxes of the stuff, wipe that picture from your mind. It was plants, hanging from the clothes rod, drying, and laid out on egg-crate trays to dry, up on the overhead shelf and across boxes stacked on the floor. Anyone walking into the room would see it and I'd be busted, so I slid the door shut.
Just then, a nurse walked in with a new patient, saw my empty bed and proceeded to bed the new woman down there. So, there I was in my johnny, hiding in the closet with felony-weight weed and a pile of dirty clothes, threatened with amputation of my right buttock and/or loss of my job... and I woke up.
Whew! I'm so glad I'm me. It could be ever so much worse than it is.
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Don't click
HEREif you are easily offended.
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fast-loading filler to dilute the image-heavy entries
Most of the time, I'm more inclusive than many Xangans. I block users only for real abuse, never simply because they disagree with me or call me names. I delete my subs only rarely, and usually only if the person stops blogging for a few years or starts sending me too many mass messages. That latter behavior will also get someone deleted from my friends list, but failure to blog, or even dying, isn't usually sufficient cause for me to delete a friend. Having the gone-but-not-forgotten friend's picture pop up randomly is kinda sweet.
I don't worry about stalkers, but I'm curious when I notice a new subscriber whose name has never shown up in comments. When I see that, I go see what that person's blog is like. If it turns out to be something I want to read regularly, I invite the writer to be my friend so I'll have that picture popping up to remind me. I did such a look-see today, and saw a blog, and a profile pic, that just sorta turned my stomach and left me with a creepy feeling. I decided to exercise my Xanga-given right and block it.
When I opened the "edit your subscribers" page, its name wasn't there. I clicked back and forth a couple of times from the "feedback log: connections" tab to the "edit your subscribers" tab, baffled, until the light dawned and I refreshed the former. Its name disappeared. It had unsubbed from me before I had a chance to block it. *hehee*
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