It snowed Tuesday.  It snowed a lot.  At one point during the day, I looked out, and the fresh snow was higher than the back of a cat.  It snowed more after that, but I have no idea how much was accumulated before it turned to rain last night.  Now it is compacted and slushy, with a crisp layer of ice about half an inch thick on top.

Koji loves the warm weather.  Yesterday, he went out and was gone so long that by the time he came to the door wanting in, I had forgotten he was outside.  This morning, while Doug was shoveling the roof and I was doing a little bit of path snoveling, Koji was trotting around in the slush, a truly happy husky.

My first trip out there, I was wearing a knit cap with no brim, and my glasses got covered with freezing rain.  I came in, cleaned the glasses, and put on my floppy reversible polar fleece hat.  The sound of the icy raindrops hitting the hat was so resonant that I chuckled out loud.  I ran out of energy before I had done much work, but I did manage to scrape a lot of snow off the porch and steps, and a slushy path out as far as my car.

I also found the ash bucket, scooped the snow out of the top of it, and scattered the ashes on the ice and compacted slush on the steps and path.  It will be slick when freezing temperatures return.

A brief message Greyfox left on CallWave this morning, said it is windy in Wasilla.  The radio says high winds for Anchorage:  85 MPH with gust to 105 MPH along Turnagain Arm and at higher elevations.  That's the part of Anchorage where I used to live, and I remember watching furniture blow by in some of those wind storms.

Schools are closed in Anchorage and the entire Matanuska-Susitna Borough because of icy roads.  Lots of other closures, too.  Life that went on in a relatively normal fashion at temperatures from -20 to -40°F, comes to a skidding halt when the weather warms up. 

I was wise to take extreme measures to get my car started and go for food and water Monday.  I also think I prudently stopped snoveling today within my safe limit.  I'll know for certain by tomorrow whether that's true.

Doug took a short break a moment ago to come in and check the damage from a freak occurrence on the roof.  An icy ball of snow flung from his shovel, just the right size to go down the vent pipe over the kitchen stove, took off the blades of the exhaust fan, and left a pile of slush on the stove.  He's back up there again, now, finishing this roof before moving over to the little cabin to clear that roof.

I am letting the fire in the woodstove burn down.  Then I will shovel out several weeks' accumulation of ashes, and build a new fire.

Seeya later.

P.S.  Does anyone know the reasoning behind the Victorian mourning custom (not that there is ever any sane reasoning involved in death customs in general) of spreading straw in the roadway to muffle the sound of horses' hooves?  Were they afraid of waking the dead, or what?

Emmonak is a village of 800 people in Southwest Alaska.  A number of factors have converged to bring these people to a life and death crisis.  The salmon fishery has been poor for years, diminishing everyone's income.  Subsistence stocks have been diminishing too, due to climate change.  Prices for necessities have been rising, especially for heating fuel. 

This year, cold weather came earlier than usual, and temperatures have been lower than normal.  Heating oil had been almost $8.00 a gallon before the recent cold spell.  Fuel will now have to be airlifted in, and prices are going up to as much as $11.00 a gallon.  Some families in Emmonak didn't have enough food before this crisis hit, and few have enough fuel for the winter.

Resident Nicholas Tucker sent out a letter, asking for help.

Read his letter in The Bristol Bay Times.

Healthkicker reposted my "Neurochemistry of Addiction," after asking me to shorten it or divide it into two segments.  I pared it down from over 3200 words to about 1800, which was an improvement on the original.  I'd have no complaints if, in the process of copying it into their format, they had not made me into a plagiarist.

My words in that article only tie together a series of extensive quotations from authoritative sources.  I set the quotations apart in the usual way, by indenting them.  As the article appears on Healthkicker, there is no way to distinguish the quotations from my text.

That's the kind of stuff that often occurs when Mercury is retrograde, but knowing that doesn't make me any happier about it.  Greyfox's car trouble yesterday was also typical Mercury retch crap.  He dissected it last night and concluded that he simply panicked and used poor judgment.  Like me, he's being philosophical about the whole affair.

I don't think I can use Mercury as an excuse for what I did yesterday.  After all this time, I should know better.  I behaved true to form despite Doug's cautioning me not to overdo and my determination to take it easy and avoid the usual payback for activity.  This would be the place to tune out if you don't want to be subjected to the graphic details.

On second thought, I'm too damned exhausted to write it all out.  I said it all already, anyway.   Jodi Basset has summarized the damned disease.  On her ability scale, yesterday, after a three-week rest amounting to house arrest, I was about 50%, and today I'm about 20%, wobbly, weak, and needing albuterol every time I move around at all.

Here's how severe the setback is:  I couldn't dance if I had to, not even to save my life.  That statement might not mean much to someone else, but coming from me, take my word for it, it means a lot.

While Doug and I were completing a relatively uneventful grocery shopping trip and water run, Greyfox was having a vehicular crisis.  First, he lost all his power steering fluid.  He drove (or herded) his red Mazda minivan full of knives, swords and various other things to where he could get the fluid filled, and he made an appointment with the mechanics to bring the car in Wednesday for repair. 

He was on his way back home when he threw a belt and lost all his coolant.  He called AAA, who said they couldn't have him towed for three hours and that would have gotten the car to the garage after it closed for the day, so he left the car by the road, hitchhiked to the mechanic's, and gave them the key so they could go pick up the car.  That will cost an extra $80, but might make the difference between his having the car running by the end of the week, or having to rent a car and transfer a load of merchandise from his MPV to the rental car for the Wasilla High School Gun Show this weekend.

Doesn't the thought of a high school gun show strike a weird chord?  It's for the benefit of the hockey booster club, and is one of Greyfox's most lucrative annual events.  "Only in Alaska," he says.

Blur, my silver Subaru wagon, started right up this afternoon after about three hours under a tarp with an electric space heater.  I love that car, and have a high degree of respect for and gratitude to the mechanic who was Blur's previous owner, for installing the manual choke and the toggle switch for the heater blower, for filling the engine with extra-slick synthetic lubricant, and whatever he did to the engine to make it run so fast.  I love that car... said that already, didn't I?

At Jack's store, we got 60 pounds of dog food, 30 pounds of kitty litter, and a few other items, but he didn't have everything we needed.  On to Cubby's, where we got a great price on Fuji apples, blanched at the price on the plain yogurt but paid it anyway,   The cart wasn't even half full, but the cost was appalling. 

As I waited to check out, Doug came up and dropped a toy on the conveyor.  With raised eyebrows, I asked him if he was buying that, or if he expected me to pay for it.  His response was oblique and indirect:  "You haven't bought me a toy for quite a while."  I replied, "Yes.  I haven't bought you a toy since you were a child."  I bought the toy.  It's supposed to light up, but it doesn't.  Doug doesn't care.  When he squeezes it, it is squishy, and he likes it.

I still hadn't scored any goat milk, and I recalled seeing a can of evaporated goat milk down at Camp Caswell, a mile or so beyond the spring, so we headed on down the valley to Caswell.  I got my milk, Doug got his milk, which he'd forgotten to pick up at Jack's or Cubby's, and we got ice cream (cherry chocolate chip), too, then turned back up the valley to get our water and go home.

At the spring, two trucks were there when we arrived.  The heavy traffic there suggests that my neighbor Lori wasn't the only one whose water system froze.  A man was filling jugs and a woman was waiting in her truck for him to finish.  I parked behind her to wait. 

A big shiny new red pickup truck pulled in, a man got out, grabbed two jugs from the bed and went down the path.  He filled them, and made two more trips up and down during the time the other two people were trying to fill their jugs.  There is only room at the pipe for one container at a time, so while he was filling his, someone else had to be waiting to fill one of theirs.  The asshole fellow in the red truck never said a word as far as I could tell, and didn't make eye contact with me coming or going.  He was focused, and he was in a hurry.  A perception of urgent time pressure is a symptom of NPD.

The recent weeks of cold had caused a thick buildup of ice around the waterhole.  It encroached from all sides, and made the surface of the pallet where we crouch or kneel to fill jugs about half a foot higher than usual, and s.l.i.c.k.  I carried a few empties down for Doug and then sat down on a bucket so I'd be there if he slipped.  He laughed and said, "Yeah, I'd slide into the water and you'd lunge ineffectually to catch me."  I didn't argue.  He was probably right.

I replied, "But if you got a compound fracture or something, I could drag you out of the hole and stop the bleeding before you bled out.  Then I'd shove you into the hatch and take you to the hospital."  He asked me what I'd do about the empty jugs.  I said that the next person who came for water would find a mystery.  He replied that the blood would be a clue.

About an hour ago, after I posted the earlier entry, Doug and I agreed on a plan to try and get the car started.  Dim daylight had just begun to dawn then and the sun is not yet up even now.  First, we started gathering gear:

• long heavy-duty cold weather outdoor extension cord
• small electric space heater
• dirty old quilted, padded bedspread
• 1'x3' plywood scrap
• 1 1/2 tarps

While Doug rummaged around for tarps and shook dirt and animal hair out of the old quilt, I unsnarled the extension cord.  It was plugged into the new GFI exterior outlet.  Together we stretched the cord over the piled-up snow between the house and the car, and with a flick of a wrist I flipped the slack over a little thicket of bushes, putting it where Koji is less likely to interact destructively with it.

The plywood went on top of packed snow under the heater, which was turned to the "hi" setting,  just abaft the front bumper, under Blur's radiator, aimed back toward the engine and oil pan.  First, after brushing all the snow off the car's hood, we laid the quilt down on it for insulation, then added the scrap of an old tarp, and over that the big newer tarp covering everything, snugged up to the windshield at one edge and tucked into snow at ground level on three sides.

Doug is napping now, so he can be awake this afternoon in case the car starts and we can go to the spring and the grocery store.  I'll be back here later with updates.

That's probably overstating the case, but after three weeks of twenties and thirties below zero Fahrenheit, single digits above zero suddenly feels warm.  The cats are going in and out at will.  I wish they'd make an effort to close the door after themselves.

Doug shoveled the berm from behind the car, and has been melting bucketfuls of snow in the pots on the woodstove, as I slept last night -- four buckets so far.    Two of the three pots we keep there for hot water had boiled dry yesterday because I had started conserving spring water for drinking.  Now two of them are full, but he just unthinkingly poured spring water to wash a frying pan.

I hope I get the car started soon, or find an alternate way to get to the spring.  I am not thrilled with the idea of drinking the melted snow.  My first act today, after lifting a lid and looking into one of those pots, was to get a tea strainer and skim off the floating tree parts.

Current conversation:

I suspect that I didn't make myself entirely clear in my earlier entry today.  I had been depressed very briefly when I woke today.  It took little more than some moving around and eating something to get my blood sugar up and my mood lighter.  I'm restless and need to get out of this place, but I'm happy nonetheless.

I called my neighbor Lori to ask if Doug could bring over a couple of buckets to fill, and she told me their water system has been frozen for a week.  When it thaws, they will probably have to deal with burst pipes.  I commiserated with her for a while, hung up, and congratulated myself again for making the choice not to go deeper into debt to get water piped in here.  The spring water is better quality, too.

Since the temp was up around -20°F, I suited up, grabbed the car key, and went out to evaluate our mobility.  I had to brush four inches or so of snow off the top of the car over the door so it wouldn't cascade into my seat when I opened it.  Then I remembered that it had been snowing when I parked the car a couple of days before Christmas.  Doug had shoveled the roof of the trailer, but after the temperature plummeted to thirty below zero, he left the car buried and the driveway unshoveled.  The plow added a berm behind the car, and I knew as I stood there looking at the driveway and the berm that even if the car would start, we were not going anywhere in it today.

I tried it anyway.  I depressed the clutch and wiggled the shifter as I routinely do, to make sure it's in neutral.  I should say, I tried to wiggle the shifter.  It's so cold and stiff it's not wiggling.  I managed to push it enough from side to side to ascertain that it wasn't in gear.  Then I pulled on the choke and turned the key.  The car went, "uh."  I went, "oh," and went back in the house.

Doug and I had a little fuss at each other because he used up the last of his energy before retiring for the day on a trip to the mailbox.  He left while I was on the phone, without saying where he was going, and had forgotten that I wanted him to drag along a sled and some buckets to see if he could get water at the motel, and to stop at the RV park and see if they had any dog food and/or kitty litter in their little store.

Doug brought in firewood for the night, and I decided to suit back up and shovel a little of the snow from around the car since I was feeling restless and twenty below wasn't feeling too cold.  As I went out the door, he said he was going to put a CD on if he could find Hobo Jim.  He said he'd had a couple of Hobo's songs running in his head for a while.

I shoveled out in front of the car, scraped the snow from the hood, and worked my way along the passenger side before running out of steam.  As I walked in the house, I heard the final verse of The Iditarod Trail Song:

I got all teary, as I have every time I've heard it since I heard Libby Riddles tell about the last leg of the 1985 Iditarod, when she was between Safety and Nome, about to become the first woman to win the Last Great Race.  It was stormy, windy, and she could barely see her team ahead of her.  She said the only thing that kept them going was that her dogs knew the way home and wanted to get there as fast as they could. 

She had her radio on, listening to KNOM in her earbuds.  Having gotten the word from Safety that she was on her way, the DJ played the song and dedicated it to her.  She said when she heard that last verse, her tears blinded her.

*sigh*  It's time for a woman to win the Iditarod again.

Jessica Hendricks won the Sheep Mountain 150 last month.

Lance Mackey, who has been winning Iditarods, Yukon Quests and lesser races a lot in recent years, is leading in the Copper Basin 300 today.  He has announced that he won't be running the Quest this year.  Instead, he is leasing some of his dogs to Kwethluk musher Harry Alexie and earning $50,000 to train Alexie.  That leaves Lance with no spares, and too little time between Quest in February and Iditarod in March for the team to recuperate.  He had to choose between the two big races, and decided to run the Iditarod.

The 26 teams in the CB300 are running in 50 below zero temperatures this weekend.  The photo here of an undentified frosty musher, from the CB300 website, is by race spectator Brad Henspeter.

I knew when I woke up today I was depressed.  My malaise was so deep, I did a sort of systems check to find out where all the gloom was coming from.  It's true depression, the real stuff, brain chemistry and not emotional sadness or despair in reaction to events.  That makes a lot of sense.  It's seasonal affective disorder, AKA cabin fever. 

It was snowing the last time I went anywhere, a trip to the grocery store, on December 23.  I have been cooped up in here for nineteen days.  On my one five-minute trip out to the yard this week to flip a light switch and pick up wood chips, the cold air filled my lungs with fluid and I spent most of that night working to breathe.  I haven't had adequate sleep for two weeks.  Chronic fatigue makes me tired all the time, and now I'm sleepy on top of it.

I haven't mentioned the pain for a while, have I?  It's there, all the time.  As I have said many times, pain is the easiest symptom of M.E. for me to deal with.  It is really no big deal as long as I have my wits about me and remember to switch it off.  Lately, I forget that I know how to do that sometimes, and forget to take my vitamins, forget to eat.... 

I don't think the retrograde Mercury is helping me any, either.  It has just occurred to me to check the ephemeris to see if the station is aspecting the intensity pattern in my chart.  BRB...  It isn't, just off by a few degrees, but it's opposite my Vertex and trine natal Moon.

While I was on that page I noticed that the Saturn retrograde station at the end of last month was conjunct my natal Sun/Chiron conjunction, which puts it in a square aspect to my natal Ascendant and thoroughly entangled in that intensity net.  In May, Saturn goes direct conjunct my natal Jupiter and Ceres, square natal Uranus, and ten days later Neptune's retrograde station is in the pattern.  Uranus is also in the pattern at the same time, and then Uranus goes retro in the pattern and both of them hang out there for months, even after they go direct in November and December. 

This is shaping up into an interesting year.  I'm so glad I enjoy intensity.

BTW, the warmth promised in yesterday's forecast hasn't been delivered.  It is -26.4°F now.  They're saying it will be 3°F above zero for today's high, and the same for tomorrow's low.  They're saying snow and 8°F tomorrow night, with a chance of snow tonight and Tuesday.  I wonder what the weather will be like, really.

Don't panic, dammit!  If there is any real peril in this situation, panic is not the best way to deal with it.

I know that many people fear and loathe having to live through Mercury retrograde, but I tend not to notice it until it becomes critical, and even then I soldier on with the communication and miscommunication.  2009 opened in the warning "shadow" period of this station.  Mid-week this week, the intensity increased.  There have been more than the usual number of people misunderstanding what I write in comments on their blogs or in replies to their comments on mine.  I could have guessed what was going on, but I wasn't paying attention.  I really should have been more aware.  I even spent time on the Xanga Welcome Wagon today.  I hope I didn't do any serious damage there.

January 2009

An amusing contretemps developed for me a couple of days ago in an ongoing correspondence, which might have clued me, but it didn't.  In response to a direct question about my criminal past, I had told my correspondent about a gang fight in which I was peripherally involved.  He asked me if I'd ever witnessed any murders or shootings, helped dispose of bodies, etc.  I said I had witnessed beatings but no shootings or killings.  He said he wouldn't be able to stand by and watch a beating without getting involved.  I asked him which side he'd get involved on, and he more or less came unglued at the mere suggestion that he would participate in a beating, after having said at the start of that discussion that he might possibly commit murder sometime.

If I had been paying attention last night when I was on the phone with Greyfox, I would have known Mercury was near stationary.  He was talking non-stop, as he tends to do.  I needed to tell Doug something, so I muted my phone.  Then I went on listening to Greyfox a while, eventually trying, when he paused for breath, to wedge in a word of response to something he'd said.  He talked right over me.  Again, when he reached the end of a sentence, I started to speak and he cut me off again.  After three or four such attempts, I noticed that I hadn't taken my phone off mute.  We both got a good laugh out of it.