Goodbye, Jim cat, I'm bound for Barrow - see you later!

Shortly after I came to this morning, I found Jim lying across my upper chest with his paws resting on my right shoulder. I did not want to disturb him, so I lay there for probably another 15 minutes. He felt warm on my chest and I found comfort in his presence. I spend much more time with Jim than I spend with any human. Right now, he is sitting atop my computer tower, in easy reach of my left hand.

When I am home, he is pretty much with me all the time. If I am in the office, he is, too. If I go into the house and watch a bit of TV, in no time at all, he is sitting right beside me or on my lap. When the weather is good, we often go outside together for lunch. He provides the shrews. I decline to eat them.

It used to be that the three of us were always together... Jim, Pistol-Yero and me - except I did not take Pistol outside, as he would have freaked out. Chicago would and does join in to sleep and for naps, usually near my feet, and sometimes to watch TV, too, but she never comes into the office and we often don't see much of her during the day and she never goes outside.

So now it is pretty much just Jim and me, all the time. Margie spends her weeks in town, babysitting. Caleb and I cross paths for maybe five to ten minutes a day - if that much.

When I leave, as I will within two hours, I hate to say goodbye to Jim. There is just no way to explain. From his perspective, one day I am here and he is happy hanging out with me and then I am gone, sometimes for long periods of time and he has no idea why or when or if he will ever even see me again. Margie tells me that she can see the stress he goes through when I do not return for awhile

I often think about that day when I was in Jaipur, India, when Pistol-Yero curled up under my desk, closed his eyes and slipped away into eternity. He was always with me, too, and he really depended on me. I was his number one and perhaps the only one he recognized as his true friend. Over four weeks had passed since he had last seen me. He had no idea why. No one could explain it to him. 

This will be a very short trip to Barrow. I plan to return Saturday night. I would stay longer, but I have a commitment Sunday, one that I made last August. I must keep that commitment. If things go well, then, come August and beyond, I could be spending quite a bit of time on the Arctic Slope - my second home, where I have not set foot now since early October, 2011.

I missed what was by far the most successful whaling season since we came to Alaska. There was nothing to be done about it. We were broke, could not pay all our bills, let alone buy a plane ticket and I had no job to take me there. I got calls and messages from whalers in every spring whaling village inviting me to come up and join them, but I couldn't do it. If this trip I am about to make proves successful and leads to what the folks bringing me up and I hope it does, then maybe next spring will be better and I can return to at least one of my Arctic homes for whaling season. 

Something waits ahead that I got to get through first.

A visitor came by iPad from London; Jimmy bit by mosquito; Jimmy bites shrew; boys get dirty and show off

I did not take even a single photo of the highlight of yesterday's activities. I meant to, but when the time

Click to read more ...

Jimmy peeks around a tree from both ends

I was very discouraged. For one thing, I had been roaming about with my camera and I had taken some brilliant pictures, fantastic images, probably the best I had ever shot in my life, images that

Click to read more ...

Grandsons: after an absence of more than five weeks, they reappear in the blog to play in the snow, pet Jim the cat, sit on Carmen's lap and don an India Indian suit

Margie informed me that Jobe was standing outside the door, so I opened it up to see if it was true. Sure enough, it was. More than five weeks had past since we had last seen each other. He looked at me with an expression of disbelief, a slight smile upon his face.

He held this expression for a very long time. Then I picked him up and carried him around for a bit.

I actually saw Lynxton and Kalib before I saw Jobe. I had stopped in at Metro Cafe to say "hi" to Carmen and to down an Americano. As I was sitting there, Kalib and Lynxton burst through the door, along with their parents, Jacob and Lavina. Jobe had fallen asleep and so stayed in the car where he continued to doze.

Carmen quickly scooped Lynxton from Lavina's arms and pretty much kept him for herself for the remainder of our visit. Although she had smiled and pleasantly entertained her customers throughout, this had been a bit of a trying day for her. Lynxton gave her spirit a boost.

It remains difficult for me to believe that Pistol-Yero is not going to appear at any instant and leap onto my lap, or my keyboard, or sleep by my head at night. I know he is wrapped up and in a box waiting to be buried, but still I keep expecting him to show himself.

He is not here anymore, but Jimmy is and so is Chicago.

We were going to try to bury Pistol-Yero today, but the truth is it was going to be too much of an ordeal, given the frozen earth and the depth of the snow in the cemetery where the fur-clad animal members of the family lie.

There are many places in Alaska where communities wait to bury their winter dead until after breakup. I am told that March has been a very cold month here, with sub-zero F weather (0F = -18 C) on an almost daily or at least nightly and morning basis, but it appears that the thaw is about to begin in earnest.

So we are going to wait for two or three weeks and see if it will be a little easier then.

Melanie is doing a job on the Arctic Slope and won't be home for three weeks. Hopefully, by then, it will be a little easier to make a grave out back.

A little after noon, I took a walk and Jacob, Kalib and Muzzy followed. The air was brisk when we left, the temperature still well below freezing although later in the afternoon it would go above. I did not wear a jacket, because after all my time in the heat of India and then Phoenix, I wanted to feel the cool air.

It felt wonderful!

Kalib plays in the snow.

After we returned home, Lynxton took a bath.

After he got all cleaned up, Lynx tried on his India Indian suit that his Aunt Sujitha bought for him. Everyone was quite pleased, because the colors were just right for him and he looked pretty damned handsome. Suji bought such a suit for me, too, and I wore it to her wedding... as you will see when I reach that part of my story.

So far, I have made no progress at all. 

I have some problems to solve and I am just flat-out jet-lagged and jet lag makes it difficult to solve such problems.

Jobe and Kalib are back in Anchorage and they should be going to sleep right about now. This is what they looked like when they dozed off here.

Rex came too, and so did his and Cortney's dogs.