November 5, 2011

• Ted’s Testicles, et cetera

  I’ve gotta write this now, exhausted as I am, while I can still hit these keys, and the memories are fresh.

  Ted, the kitten formerly known as Klaxxon, was old enough in October, at six months, to be neutered, but for some reason  Hagee Veterinary Service and Alaska Dog and Puppy Rescue didn’t have the usual monthly low cost spay and neuter clinic last month, so we made our appointment for this month’s clinic and waited.

  We’d had a minor snowfall in mid-October.  It melted, then the weather turned cold and the ground froze hard.  When it started snowing early this week, we knew it would stick.  It wasn’t much snow, couple of inches of fluffy stuff.  Then a night and a day of high winds brought trees down on power lines and left the whole upper end of this big valley without power one night.  I was feeling glad afterward, that the wind died down before I was scheduled to make that trip down the valley and across Wasilla to get Ted fixed — not that he’s broken or anything — maybe you know what I mean.

  That little snowfall did stick, in the sense that it’s still out there in its frozen form and is quite likely to still be there come next May, but it certainly didn’t stay put or stay pristine.  After the wind abated, that snow was rearranged, packed, drifted and mixed with all sorts of debris, mostly bits and pieces of trees.  I’d be challenged right now to find any of it, though.  Yesterday and today it was buried under another foot or so of white shit, as the sourdough types around here like to call it.

  Ted had to be restricted from food all last night.  We confined him in the dog crate so none of the other cats would have to fast along with him.  He cried a lot all night, and he wasn’t named Klaxxon for nothing.  I had set the alarm for 5 AM, to get to Wasilla by 7, but I needn’t have bothered.  Doug had brewed coffee for me by 4:45, ’cause he’d been up since midnight or so (on the night-shift leg of his ever shifting approximately 26-hour wake/sleep cycles) and we’d been conversing after a fashion since about 3.  Since there was coffee, I saw no point in lying abed that extra quarter hour.

  It was snowing when we left, but hadn’t done much more than just dusting over the paths that had been shoveled late last night.  Snow plows hadn’t been around the back roads, but a neighbor had laid down some tracks, so I didn’t have to break trail all the way out to the highway through that foot of snow.  Plows had cleared the main road sometime in the night, but with new stuff falling and blowing around when cars passed, the ups and downs and curves of this well-traveled (for this far out of town and this latitude [62°N]) 2-lane “highway” (It’s all relative, y’know?)  — it was challenging in the dark, slick in spots, with enough traffic to keep me blinded by headlights oncoming and in my mirrors.

  Getting to the clinic to drop off Ted was a big relief, and the vibe in that busy place, with cars coming and going in the small lot outside, crated dogs and cats piling up on the concrete floor inside, was happy and efficient.  It was evident that they’d done it all before, and that they liked what they were doing.  Pre-dawn on a windy snowy day, and an attentive crew was getting things done without fuss or hassle.  We got our part of the whole parade sorted out, and threaded our way out of the driveway through a steady stream of new arrivals.

  The nearest big box store was just opened, and Doug, on foot, followed me as I rode a crip cart up one aisle and down another, finding about two-thirds of the items on my list.  By the time we left there, it was getting light outside.  By the time we found a couple more items and left the next big store, the sun was coming up.  It was daytime for real when we got out of the next supermarket, and a nearby fast food joint was open, so we had lunch.  I ate half my order of fish and chips there, and finished them off just now as I’ve been writing this.

  A little side trip to a thrift shop netted 20-or-so episodes of Upstairs Downstairs (@ 50¢ each) on VHS, a few other movies on tape, a juice glass, 2 small “underliner” plates of sturdy old diner-style china and four or five assorted pasta dishes (or soup plates, depending on where and when one grew up) plus 2 tiny toy astronauts and an incomplete Transformer for Doug, the BIG kid, but the big prize of that visit was a kitchen timer, saving us ten or fifteen bucks and who knows how much more online shopping before we’d finally settle on which to buy… marvelous how these things work out!

  Then on our way out to Greyfox’s place, we stopped at AIH, Alaska Industrial Hardware, for a big roll of 3″ ordinary silver gray duct tape, a small roll of 2″ fluorescent green duct tape and a roll of 1″ strapping tape, all of a quality unavailable closer to home.  One of the best things about trekking into town is getting more and paying less for it.

  We filled Binky’s gas tank (he’s our “new” ’94 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, named for the famous late polar bear from the Alaska Zoo, just ’cause he’s big and white, not because we expect him to munch on any tourists.  Then we met up with Greyfox at his cabin and followed him over to the sports center where he and a bazillion other vendors are setting up for a weekend holiday craft and trade show. 

  Doug helped him schlep boxes, and I set up tables, unpacked merchandise… until Greyfox realized he’d left behind in his storage building some essential stock, and that his breakfast had been inadequate.  While he ate, Doug and I hit yet another big box store for a BiiiG box of rolled oats, several small packages of gluten-free spaghetti (oh how I’d love to find gluten-free pasta in economy-size packages) bananas, etc.  Then we rendezvoused with Greyfox at his storage place, cleared out a few boxes of stuff he’d accumulated for us, in the process of which we uncovered the 2 important boxes of knives he’d nearly despaired of finding.

  By then, it was time to go fetch our fixed Ted from the clinic out the other end of town.  Traffic heading our way was fairly heavy, probably swelled by a lot of Valley folk headed to town to party, it being Friday evening.  Coming toward us from the Anchorage direction, it was 2 lanes nearly bumper-to-bumper, prompting Doug to utter an awed, “Wow,” ’cause he’s not had occasion to view that phenomenon before.  By the time the stream of weekend refugees from the city reach our end of the valley, it’s thin and attenuated.  I confessed to him that I was forcing myself to relax and stay focused on the goal, when what my instincts were urging me to do was scream, get off that blasted highway out of that traffic and closer to nature — IMMEDIATELY!  But, Ted awaited retrieval.

  One more stop back at the same big box store we’d wandered through almost alone at the crack of dawn, for a package of absorbent pads for Ted’s convalescent crate, then on across Wasilla for a final visit to Greyfox to get the rest of the things he’d forgotten to unload on us the other times, and we were on the road up the valley.  And this is where my story starts — heh, I’ll bet you thought it was almost over, eh?

  Snow had been falling all day, a little bit here, little more there, big wet flakes followed by little dry ones, blowing around on the road, piling up along the center line… the usual.  From Wasilla out to Houston, it was mostly kinda slushy, catching the tires if one strayed out of the tracks laid down by previous travelers.  By the time we’d passed through Willow, it was frozen, slick, icy with patches of black ice.  Between Kashwitna Lake and Sheep Creek, the only way I could maintain traction consistently was to decelerate, and that’s a self-limiting tactic.  Even keeping a steady speed on a straight course, my rear wheels would spin or I’d fishtail a little due to those incessant tiny steering corrections that are one of the prices paid for power steering.  Any acceleration would spin the wheels and threaten a skid, but accelerate one must if one wants to travel, and I did want to get home, so I made my wheel-spinning, fish-tailing way on up the valley. 

  Doug, having worked hard after being up 20-some hours, dozed off holding Ted’s crate on his lap.  After we got home, he told me that every time he woke on that ride, I’d given him a moment of terror and a jolt of adrenaline.  I can relate.  I was there through it all, keeping the shiny side up and the greasy side down.  Vehicles with more traction, better tires, 4-wheel drive and such, had been passing me, and I’d pulled over a few times to get the blinding following lights out of my mirrors.  I pulled into the parking lot at Sheep Creek Lodge and discovered that it hadn’t been plowed.  I bogged down in the deep snow trying to get out onto the highway again, had to back up and slew around a few times, with ditches yawning on both sides of that snow-choked driveway, before I got back onto the plowed pavement.

  When I slowed down for our turn-off, I skidded past the first exit, went on half a mile or so and took the roundabout road that comes out on our road from the other direction.  Somebody had been through with a blade mounted on a truck, leaving one clear lane, but the big plow still hasn’t been through.  On my second attempt, I got through the berm and far enough into my driveway that I’m fairly confident that the plow will leave Binky unscathed when it passes. 

  The house was still warm:  50°F, but the fire had gone out.  My first task was to get the fire going.  Then I phoned Greyfox to let him know we’d gotten home safely.  Doug unloaded most perishable and frozen foods, partially prepared the big dog crate for Ted’s convalescence, then muttered something about sleep and fell into bed.  I made a few trips out to the car, brought in things that might be adversely affected by freezing, found my fish and chips and sat down here to finish them and the last cup of coffee that was left in the carafe from this morning.  Now, I think I’ll go finish preparing Ted’s convalescent crate, get him out of his carrier, and tucked into the crate, then it will be my turn to fall into bed, but since I sleep in the top bunk it won’t be as easy for me as it was for Doug.

  BTW:  we got 2 surgeries for the price of one today.  When we collected Ted, we learned that he’d had one retained testicle, so he has two incisions – one in his scrotum, another in the inguinal area.  I can’t adequately express my appreciation and gratitude for the low cost clinic and the expert crew that does so much for so many (about fifty dogs and cats spayed and neutered today) and apparently enjoy doing it, saving each of our families hundreds of dollars in the process.  Good job, guys!

  

  • 3:56 am
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