Too lazy, I take Margie to Abby's; moose licks Caleb's truck and then flees; fire on the snowy mountain side; woman gets pulled over by cop; continents drift but gray whale rescue posts loom over me

I woke up lazy today and I didn't want to do any damn thing. Except eat breakfast. I thought about oatmeal, but I could hear that the TV was on in the living room and Caleb was watching golf. I hate to eat breakfast with the TV on, although sometimes I do, but Caleb deserves to watch golf on Saturday morning, too.

Margie was still asleep but at just the right moment, she opened her eyes and looked groggily about. Having just come home from a week in Anchorage, I figured she would want to stay put and eat oatmeal. She doesn't mind having the TV on during breakfast. In fact, if Caleb is not around, she will often turn the TV on herself.

Still, I asked her, "I don't suppose you would like to go get breakfast?"

She looked around. I could tell she was feeling pretty lazy herself. "Yes," she said. "I think I would."

So off we went to Abby's. Margie had an omelette, with hashbrowns and homemade wheat toast. I had multi-grain sourdough pancakes with two eggs over easy and ham. Margie had not been to Abby's in awhile, and she was thrilled. Abby's just keeps getting better and better. I do not say this to put down either of the Family restaurants, or any others, but there is no place else in Wasilla that you can come even close to getting a breakfast so good as what we had at Abby's today.

Superb! Margie remained in a state of bliss for hours afterward.

Here is Abby and husband Andy visiting another customer who is about to depart. Behind the counter is Meda Warrior, who doesn't work there all the time but was helping out today. Meda is Aurora's sister, whose December wedding I photographed - even though I am not a wedding photographer.

I didn't charge anything to shoot the wedding, because if I did that would make me a wedding photographer, but afterward Aurora and Meda's mother Arlene created an account for me at Abby's and so buys me breakfast there once a week and a couple of times even twice. Abby was ready to put our breakfast on the account, but I had already used it one day this week and it didn't seem right, especially since two of us ate. So I paid for it.

I am getting a little worried, though. I have been expecting a check for about three weeks now. On Monday, I was told it would be mailed Tuesday. It still hasn't come. If it doesn't come this coming week, we are going to be in a hard fix. Margie leaves town Tuesday night and I leave Saturday night. We need that check before we go.

Such is the life of a freelance photographer and his poor wife - or at least this one and mine. There are those photographers who are much smarter, economically speaking than I am, who do not always get in the kind of jams I do.

Margie did not have jam on her toast. She was enjoying her buttered, homemade, wheat bread so much that it didn't even occur to her that she had not put jam on it until she only had two bites left to eat. 

"You should have had jam," I told her. "It's usually homemade and its real good."

After breakfast, I remained lazy. I did not feel like doing anything at all, but I decided I would go pedal my bike for five to ten miles anyway - but the front tire was flat. So I went on walk. Coming back, as I neared the house, I was startled out of a daydream when suddenly I heard something crashing about in the bushes right beside me. I had walked right to within a few feet of a moose. It, and the one it was with, charged off a short distance into the trees. I took a few pictures through the branches, then noticed I was standing right in front of my driveway, so I put my camera on the porch and went into the house to get a plastic bag to put it in so that lens would not fog up.

When I came back to get it, the moose had crossed the street and were in our driveway. The cow took off around the side of the house. The maturing calf licked salt off the back of Caleb's truck.

Once it had satisifactorily salted itself, the young moose took off to run across the yard and see if it could find its mother. 

I went back into the house. I had a great deal of work to do, but I still felt very lazy. I did not want to do it. So I just got on my computer and web-surfed for awhile. Then I went out into the living room and laid down on the couch, by the fire in the woodstove. I semi-napped for a little and might have fully napped, but Chicago had also decided to nap, on my chest. She kept trying to lick my beard. I didn't like that, so each time she would try, I scoot her an inch or two down my chest.

Then she would purr,creep back up and try to lick my beard again.

So it really wasn't much of nap. 

I then decided that I was not going to work at all. I was just going to take the whole damn day off and be lazy. It wouldn't matter in the long run. I heard a story on the radio yesterday about how, in a few hundred million years, all the continents north of Antartica, including Australia, will again be fused into one super continent. When it happens, it will be today, as surely as it is today right now and the fact that I got lazy today won't matter one bit.

Margie was out shopping and didn't come back with the car until close to 5:00. I then took a late coffee break. Metro was closed, so I went the Mocha Moose hut. Here I am, leaving the hut, getting ready to pull back into the traffic of the Parks Highway. There was no car behind me, so I took my time.

Now I am coming down Seldon, nearing home. It is drawing close to 6:00 PM. Look how much light there is! The dark season is coming to its end. Up ahead, I noticed that a cop had pulled someone over and was sauntering toward their car.

I pass the cop and the woman he has pulled over.

Finally, in the evening, I couldn't take it anymore. I was still tired and lazy and felt like doing nothing, but this gray whale series is looming over me. So I came out here. I made a huge amount of progress in a short time. You can't see it yet, but I did.

I don't think you will see it tomorrow, either. Tomorrow is Jobe's second birthday. You should see it on Monday.

It is almost midnight and Margie is baking cakes right now. Tomorrow, we will go to Anchorage and see how wet Jobe and Kalib and their guest, including cousin Gracie, who just arrived from Arizona today, get on Jobe's birthday.

Break to update on the home front: Melanie and Charlie come - we all head to Vagabond in Palmer, etc. Internet Explorer proves faulty in displaying this blog's pix

When Melanie and Charlie came out yesterday afternoon, they parked right behind our Ford Escape. This meant that when it came time to go get coffee, Charlie had to move his car and park behind Caleb's rig. Caleb was asleep, not planning to go anywhere, so it was okay.

Then he walked back to get into the car.

As you can see, I have once again pulled back from my Loft series to catch up a bit on the home front. I have two conflicting feelings about doing this. First, I know this breaks the flow and is probably frustrating for some readers and might lessen the experience for them - although some readers have told me it is okay. 

Second, once I finish, I will have a record of the entire event as I experienced it. It will all be there. People can then come and go as they chose - they can read it all at once, if they want. They can start at the beginning and move to the end.

Or, as people tend to do when they come upon a blog series they have never read before, they can start at the end and move to the beginning.

They could start in the middle and zig back and forth.

They could read just one entry, or maybe two, spread apart.

Anyway, it will all be done and it will be there.

Melanie about to get into the car. The temperature is -26 F, or 32 degrees of frost, as the British of old might say (-32 C). Sometimes, I fear we put too much trust in technology. We are all dressed this way - very light clothing to go out into the kind of cold that can quickly rob you of toes, fingers, hands and feet, or even kill you altogether.

But the car has a good heater, we are going to a warm place, so we just go, and don't worry about it.

It used to be that I always kept a bag filled with cold weather gear in the car, but I have gotten lazy about it - at least for short drives in populated areas.

If we broke down, it could be trouble - but we do have cell phones.

Still, I think I should go back to keeping a bag of cold-weather gear in the car.

Every time I leave the house now, I seem to come upon a moose. On Thursday, when I drove to Metro for my rolling coffee break, I saw six moose. I photographed them all and I was going to put up a post and title it, I take a six moose coffee break, but I had too many other things to do. All six moose slipped into my archive, unseen. Likely, it will be that way for eternity.

This time of year is very hard on moose. The snow gets extremely deep out in the foothills and places where they like to hang out. Many die; they starve, get killed by wolves and so on. So they move into the populated areas, where the snow is not as deep, and there are roads and railroad tracks to walk upon.

Many die. They get hit by cars and trains.

Little kids throw snowballs at them.

Life is hard for our moose.

Later, after the weather gets good and they get nice and fat,people shoot them and put them on the dinner table.

They taste good, too.

Better than deer.

Better than beef.

Off we drove. Metro Cafe was closed, so we decided to go to Vagabond Blues in Palmer. The Talkeetnas stood frigid and beautiful.

On Seldon Street, headed toward Palmer, 12 miles from the house.

At Vagabond, we were briefly joined by 17 month old Carre. The temperature was much warmer there than here: only about -8, or maybe it was even as warm as -4.

Melanie, at Vagabond Blues in Palmer.

Charlie, at Vagabond Blues in Palmer.

On the way home, we passed by the Mormon church house across the street from Colony High and Middle schools, where Rex and Lisa graduated. Their older siblings all graduated from Wasilla High.

As we neared home, we saw a pickup truck stalled in the road, someone in a car trying to jump start it. After the warm temperatures we had experienced in Palmer, we were, once again, back in -26 degree weather. That's why the exhaust looks this way.

This is from this afternoon's coffee break. As you can see, we have had a big warm-up. Plus, look at the time, and look at the light. Remember when, so short a time ago, it had been pitch dark for a good hour by this time?

The season of light approaches. Give it a little time and it will bring summer with it.

We will forget all about darkness then. Pretty soon, we won't even remember what it looks like.

Awhile back, the folks who owned this house had a moving-out sale so Margie and I stopped and bought some worthless junk. Among the items they were selling was the house itself, and the property it sits on. I don't remember the exact price, but it was in the $40-thousands.

We wanted to buy it, but we didn't have the money. We even thought about selling our house, then using part of the proceeds to buy this place and put the rest to retiring our debt. Then we could live here simply and quietly, our cost of living dramatically reduced. I could write all my books - right here, in this house.

The owners wanted to sell soon. No way could we pull something like that off, soon.

Plus, we like our house. We raised our family here. And we have internet. There is no internet in this house - except maybe if we had put up a satellite dish. 

Two more things:

1) I must drive Margie back to Anchorage tomorrow, so she can resume her babysitting duties. There are a couple of other things that I must do while I am in town. I believe I can still get my next Loft post up tomorrow night, but I won't know for certain until it happens.

2) Some readers with Internet Explorer, including IE8, have discovered that some of the pictures that I post do not appear in their browser. Firefox works well - although on my computer it throws the color balance off on the magenta side, which makes snow in particular look bad.

Safari works great, color balance and all.