As Jobe turns Terrible Two, his cousins (and several mostly unseen adults) gather to eat his cake and ice cream, and play in his Thomas the Train

Today was Jobe's birthday - two years old. "Terrible two." He's been practicising the Terrible Twos for awhile, his mom said.

Speaking of his mom, here she comes, carrying Lynxton into the room. Wait a minute! Something's off here. Lynxton does not swaddle in pink. Tiny as he is, last time I saw him, Lynxton was not this tiny.

Something is definitely off here.

Ha! It's not Lynxton at all! It's Ariel! Lynxton's newest cousin, born six days ago to Lavina's brother Anthony and his partner, Julie.

And look! There is another of Lynxton's cousins, Gracie, who hitchiked by herself all the way up from Shonto, Navajo Nation, just to help Jobe celebrate his second birthday. Readers who were with my old blog two years ago will recall that Gracie had hitchhiked up by herself then, too, to help Lavina care for baby Jobe and Kalib. Gracie got so attached, nothing could keep her away today.

Here's Lynxton - in his grandmother's arms.

Kalib wrestles with his cousin Gracie. To my surprise, I found Gracie's mom, Laverne, elsewhere in the house. She is going to help Gracie care for Lavina, Kalib, Jobe, Lynxton and Jacob while Margie goes off to Arizona.

This is one of the two cakes that Margie baked late last night. Then, we thought the party was going to be held at H2Oasis, Anchorage's big indoor water park. That's why I made the comment about Jobe getting wet. But Jobe was feeling not so well earlier today, so the party was moved to the house.

Margie outdid herself with this cake! Made it from scratch. It was the best cake I have eaten this year and maybe last year, too.

Jobe received a Percy the Train lamp from Margie and I. When one is two, even terrible two, there is magic in such a lamp.

Others want to hold Jobe's Percy lamp, but, being Terrible Two, he runs away with it, screaming.

His parents gave Jobe a fold-out Thomas the Train engine. For the moment, Jobe was not that interested - but his cousins and big brother were. That's Julian tumbling backwards out of Thomas.

Cousin Gracie, Kalib and Ariel's big brother, cousin Ashley in the Thomas the Train fold-out engine.

They went wild in there.

After Margie and I entered Wasilla on the way home, we found ourselves overtaking a train. I hoped we would reach the engine before we had to turn right at Lucille Street, but we didn't. Still, I'm pretty sure that it was Thomas pulling these guys.

Smiling, rough, tough, super-strong Thomas the Train rolling through Wasilla, Alaska on the day that Jobe turned Terrible Two.

Tomorrow, I return this blog to October, 1988 and the Great Gray Whale Rescue.

One raven feasted, the other complained; Kalib battles Melanie over her cake; train wreck - Friday, I will begin my gray whale rescue series

This morning, I saw two ravens in the road. One was eating something. What could it be?

It was a toad! One of those famous Wasilla Anti-Freeze toads! As the raven gobbled up the toad, the other raven grew upset and began to shriek at it. "Share the toad! Share the toad!" the second raven screamed. "I always share my toad with you! Share the toad! Share the toad! Mabel! Share the toad!"

But Mabel did not share. She gobbled down that toad and didn't even care that the other raven had none.

Thereafter, I went out for my daily bike ride. I have riden every day this week. I am kind of sad, though. I have just over two weeks left to ride and then I leave for Arizona and from there on to India. I will not be back until March 23. My winter bike riding will be over, so soon. Maybe I will be able to get in a little more winter biking after I return, but not much.

I might not be able to get any more at all. March 23 could be cold, March 23 could be warm, with slush everywhere. There is no way to know just yet. If I have my way, I will go to the Arctic Slope not long after I return. It will still be cold up there, but I won't be able to take my bike with me.

And I don't know if I will be able to go, anyway. I have no contracts with anybody right now. I have no paying work lined up. I do not know what will become of Uiñiq. Maybe its day is past. Our cash is just about gone. I am expecting one more check for another project I did and I am hoping that can carry us through until I get back from India and can figure out how to carry on, but I don't know.

Still, I am optimistic I will get paying work and I will get up to the Slope this spring. I have to. I must. The Slope is in my DNA.

As I drew near to home on my bike, this dog came chasing after me, barking. The dog that I believe was the mother to this dog once teamed up with another dog, who might also have been a forebearer to this one, invaded our yard and killed our wonderful orange and white tabby, Thunder Paws.

After that, I had a lot of hatred in me for that dog and its people for awhile, but I have pushed that hatred away. At their core, the people are good people and the dog was just being a dog - albeit a mean dog. Plus, after it raised some bloody hell with someone else's pet, it got put down.

It does one no good to carry a grudge against a dead dog.

In the early evening, I got in the car and drove towards Anchorage. There had been a super warm up. The temperature was a couple of degrees above freezing. The roads were treacherously slick. Lots of cars had slid off.

I drove kind of slow, but not real slow.

I went to town because it is Melanie's 31st birthday. Kalib tried to prevent her from blowing out her candles. He wanted to blow them out. Funny - on his last birthday, he did not want to blow out the candles at all.

Finally, Kalib let Melanie blow out her candles. Except for Caleb, the whole family was there, but I am lazy tonight.

She failed to blow out the last candle. So Kalib blew it out for her.

Jobe got tossed almost to the ceiling. I was tired and lazy, and did not want to move from the couch where I sat, so I didn't. Then I felt kind of bad about that, because I could see that picture was directly below, where I could have caught Jobe rising into his own shadow.

So I moved to the floor to get it, but Jobe ran off. The opportunity had been lost. Photography is like that.

Baby Lynx seems to be all better now. He has put his viral infection behind him.

Just before I left, bringing Margie with me, one night early, I found Kalib, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas and Thomas's friend, James, pushing Thomas over the edge of a cliff.

This is why I do not let Kalib and Jobe play unsupervised with the electric HO Thomas the Train that Sujitha gifted to us at Christmas.

Tomorrow, Friday, February 3, the movie Big Miracle will be released nationwide. I also plan to start blogging my own experience. I usually don't get my post up until late at night or even after midnight, but I will try to get my first post, which will start out where the movie starts out, up fairly early.

Lynxton is ill, gets three shots; boys who love trains; January ends in a snowy heatwave

When I drove into Anchorage Friday evening to pick Margie up from her week of babysitting, Lynxton was sick with a viral infection. It was hard on him and we could not explain to him why it was so. It was also hard on his parents, as he needed round-the-clock attention.

So we brought Kalib and Jobe home with us. They brought Thomas the Train and a few of his friends. And yes, we spent some time playing with the electric HO Thomas that their Aunt Suji had given us at Christmas as well, but for some reason, I forgot to take pictures. I shot this and the next few that follow with my iPhone.

Every now and then, as I would be sitting at my computer working, or maybe just goofing around, my office door would fly open and the boys would come bounding in. "Grampa!" Kalib would tug at me. "Your train! Go fast!" So I would have to get up and turn the train on.

Invaribly, by the time I returned to my chair, they had taken it over. Here they are, watching the train from my chair as Jimmy, the black cat, takes a drink from the large aquarium.

Oh, my goodness. The large orange fish in the large aquarium is staring at me RIGHT NOW! He wants to eat. "Get up out of that chair, Bill, and feed me!"

Kalib keeps his eyes fast on the train as it goes around, but Jobe gets distracted by Jim, who has finished his drink and is now looking for a good place to nap.

Kalib continues to watch the train. Jobe follows Jimmy with his eyes as Jimmy jumps up onto a crude cabinet I made from fibreboard. There, he will curl up and take a nap.

This morning, after getting nowhere near enough sleep, I had to get up and drive Margie back to Anchorage to spend another week babysitting. The boys had returned home yesterday, after their parents picked them up from us at the movie theatre.

When we first arrived, Lynxton was not home. He had gone to see the doctor with his dad. I hung around for awhile. Finally, Lynxton returned. He had gotten three shots. Kalib watched Thomas the Train on TV - or maybe Thomas the Train watched Kalib.

So I drove home alone, through a light snow flurry. The temperature had really warmed up. It was 5 above. It felt so warm and balmy. They say it could go up to 20 soon, maybe even warmer. After going down as cold as -65, it also warmed up in the Interior today - into the -30's and -40's.

Yes, I also got my daily school bus picture, my daily raven, and my daily moose, but I am tired and this is enough for now.

I feel like I might be getting what Lynxton has. If so, at least I can understand why.

Technical glitch causes Loft final day delay, so I go local: the wind blows; my weekend wife; when the night lights of Wasilla outdo those of Times Square

Damn! I had stated that I would finish up my David Alan Harvey Loft Workshop series without any further breaks to update locally, but here I am, updating locally. This is because I ran into a technical glitch. I have a copy of the slideshow of all the student work that was shown the final night of the workshop and it has to be included in my next post.

I thought it would be a simple matter, because, just like there is a photo icon in my blog tools that I use to begin the process of uploading photos, there is also a video icon. I had never uploaded a video into either this or my previous blog and I thought it would be a simple matter of clicking that icon, then navigating to the video file and uploading it - just like I do with photos.

Instead, when I clicked on the icon, I got a window that instructed me to insert the code. I had absolutely no idea how to do this. I am sure it is a simple task once you understand it, and tomorrow I will understand it. But right now, I don't.

I don't feel too bad about the new delay, though. I will get it and in the meantime I can catch up locally a bit, and, while Times Square is fresh on reader's minds, prove to you that right here in Wasilla we have nighttime lights that are far more wondrous and spectacular than what you will find in Times Square.

First, I must tell you that since I last posted anything local, the wind picked up, to about 60.

I found a raven riding the wind. A very strange thing happened, temperature wise. In one place, the temperature would be - 20 F. A few blocks away, it would be +15. A few blocks beyond that, - 10. And it did the same in Anchorage. On the radio, I heard the announcer that it was -25 in this neighborhood, and 15 in that neighborhood.

When the wind quit blowing, it warmed up everywhere to about 15.

But now it is cool again; - 17 when last I checked.

I don't know what it is in the cold places of Alaska, but much colder than this, I am sure.

Here she is - my weekend wife. She is my weekend wife because she spends her weeks in town with Lynxton, Jobe and Kalib and so I am alone all week.

On Friday, Lavina brought her back to me for the weekend. Kalib came too. The first thing he wanted me to do was get Thomas out, set up the track and send him rolling around it. So I did. Just as I had hoped, the disappointment that he felt Christmas night when he had to go home and leave this wonderful gift that his Aunt Sujitha from India but now in London had given us has all gone away.

Now, when he comes, he is excited. He is eager to have his grandpa get Thomas out and when he goes, he is happy, because he knows Thomas will be waiting for him when he returns.

So, Monday I drove Margie to Anchorage, to begin her week babysitting. I found Jobe playing with Muzzy.

On the way home, I saw Denali, standing above everything. I am afraid my hoped for plan to climb Denali this May has fallen apart. Shingles just kicked the hell out of me physically. My conditioning is all gone. I was nowhere near ready physically, anyway, but had figured I could get ready.

But now I don't think it is possible. I am slowly trying to get in shape, but for whatever reason the shingles, while not so severe as when they hit, just seem to linger and linger and linger. There are days I think they are about to be gone and then they just come roaring back.

Late next month, I will join Margie in Arizona and then I will go to India for Sujitha's wedding and won't be back until late March. There is no way I could possibly get in the shape I would need to be in to climb Denali between then and May.

With Margie gone, I can hardly make myself go to bed at night. Even after I finish posting this blog, I will sit here at my computer for hours. By the time I get to sleep, it is time to get up. Instead, I sleep in. Then I get up late - noon, today. I do not want to cook oatmeal and eat it by myself. So, today, I headed to Abby's.

Shelly cooked me an excellent omelette and Abby cooked the hashbrowns. I think it was Shelly who toasted the homemade wheat bread. Afterwards, her shoulders were sore. So Andy gave her a little massage.

I listened to Obama's State of Union Address in my car. The moon was out. Just a little while ago, it would have been completely dark at this time.

Even in Barrow, the sun has come back. Two days ago.

I thought the President did a pretty good job with this speech. I could elaborate, but I'm too damn tired. It is 2:55 AM. I am going to try to get to bed a bit earlier than I have been lately.

Tonight I drove over and out onto Anderson Lake. In the wintertime, when I had my plane on skis, I used to tie it down on the lake, right about where this plane is now.

See? The lights of Times Square are something, but can they compare to this? 

A dramatic display of the Northern Lights had been forecast, but it didn't materialize - just a weak one.

Maybe tomorrow night.

I'm still a little chilled from taking this picture. I could not find my tripod head, so I decided to use the snow as a tripod. I did not want to rest my camera directly on the snow, so I covered the snow up with my jacket and put my camera on my jacket.

I spent some time at it - no jacket, no gloves, no hat, kneeling down and lying down on the snow atop the ice, the temperatue at - 10 when I started, - 12 by the time I finished up. When I would get cold, I would get back in the car for awhile. The ice was making those popping and hollow cracking expansion noises that it sometimes makes -- occasionally it sounded just like a rifle shot. It did so directly underneath me a couple of times. I knew it was too thick to crack open and drop me through, but it got my attention, anyway.

God! I love Alaska! I absolutely love it!

Damn! How could I be so fortunate as to live in this magnificent land? You've heard about God, and how he made the earth in six days and then rested on the seventh? He spent the first four of those six working days practicing on the rest of the earth, so that He could get Alaska just right. Then, on the fifth and sixth days, he took all that He had learned and then, very carefully and lovingly, shaped Alaska into the most wonderful part of all.

I will poke my head outside before I go to bed. Maybe that magnificent display of Northern Lights will finally have materialized.

If so, what will I do?

It doesn't matter. This blog post is up now.

Brief interlude from Loft into near present: Kalib forgives me - three studies with Thomas the Train; his brothers; the cold road

Even as I blog my Loft Workshop experience, I want to keep this blog rooted in the near present (the absolute present already being the near present the instant we perceive it). So here are some studies of Kalib and his brothers, who spent Sunday night and all day Monday with us.

Kalib - Thomas the Train, Study # 6982 - Kalib forgives me:

Sunday night, Kalib very nicely asked me if I would get Thomas out. I did, and set him back up.

Kalib - Thomas the Train, Study # 7: slowy, Kalib says:

 Several times, just for fun, I tried to make Thomas go fast around the tracks - as fast as Thomas could go. "No, grandpa!" Kalib protested each time. "Slowly! Slowly!" Then he would go to the controls and slow Thomas down to as slow as Thomas could go without stopping - because Kalib loves to study Thomas as Thomas goes slowly by.

Kalib - Thomas the Train, Study # 2424: Kalib did not cry:

Kalib keeps his eye on Thomas for as long as he can, but once Thomas goes by, he studies the cars that follow. Kalib has come to understand the situation. When it came time to put Thomas up and take Kalib and his bros home, Kalib did not protest. He did not cry. He did not pout.

Kalib gave me a hug. He knew that Thomas would be here waiting for him, the next time he comes to visit.

Jobezilla study # 54: He did not get to wreak havoc.

Jobezilla went to sleep very early. He slept through the entire running of Thomas the Train. He did not get to wreak havoc. He did not get to send Thomas or his cars flying all about.

Upon arising, he did, however, get to the still assembled tracks and tear them apart. He bent some of the connecters, but I am certainly I can easily bend them back.

Lynxston study, # 9,999,999.999999: He sleeps in Rex's cradleboard:

Lynxton was awake for awhile, and he looked so damn cute I could hardly stand it - but I could not find my camera, which I had hidden away for safe keeping so that Jobezilla could not get to it. When finally I did find it, Lynxton was asleep in Rex's cradleboard. If any of you have access to the February, 1980, issue of National Geographic, you can see a picture of Rex in this very cradleboard, made for him by his Grandma Rose.

He is not sleeping in the picture. He is wide awake. He has a serious look on his face. I always thought National Geographic used the wrong picture, in this case. In one of the others, he was smiling big - as he was prone to do, just like Jobe is now. His mom and grandma look happier, too. But they had the ultimate say, not me, and I was just happy to be having my work featured in National Geographic. I thought my career was set, that the money would forever thereafter always be there to do any job that I wanted to do.

Lynxton's Aunt LeeAnn has made him his own white buckskin cradleboard, but she and Lavina did not manage to connect before Lynxton left Arizona back to Alaska on December 10. The new cradle has not yet arrived.

Come Monday, yesterday morning, Lavina was most anxious to get her boys back. She kept sending texts to Caleb telling him that she could hardly take the separation and was thinking about jumping in the car and coming out to get them immediately.

This made no practical sense, however, as I need to take Margie into Anchorage so she could spend the rest of the week babysitting. She could not ride back with the boys, because once they are buckled into the family car, the family present, there is no more room for Margie.

Having spent the night battling shingles and thus sleeping little (yes, the damn shingles still hangs on - not as bad, but bad enough to make good sleep hard to come by) I was slow to get going. Then, I had committed myself to starting the Loft Workshop series yesterday and it took me a little longer than normal to get that post put up.

So we got a late start to town, about 5:30. But here we are, in town, exhaust condensing in the chill air, ready to drop the boys off and then go to a movie.

Now we are in the driveway of their parents. The temperature is - 8, F (-22 C). On the colder stretches of highway coming in, it had been close to -20 (-29 C). Compared to Interior and Northern Alaska, this may be relatively warm, but it is still deadly. 

What a responsibility it is, to drive these little people around!

Even in warm weather, for the highway is always deadly.

What a responsibility!

God help me to always live up to this responsibility; God help me to shun road rage - even when the other driver is a total jerk who should be banned from the road.

The movie was "The Descendants" with George Clooney. I would highly recommend it but with this warning - however different your home situation might be, it will put you back in the hospital or hospice rooms, or perhaps your own bedroom, with any loved one or cherished friend that you have ever been at the time of their passing.

It will put you right there.

And if you are like me, come one or two scenes, the memories will be so strong, coupled with the knowledge that you are not yet done with this life and so more such scenes await and that they could involve absolutely anyone that you love, so strong, that tears will leave your eyes and roll down your cheeks. You will not be able to stop them.

Afterwards, I dropped Margie off to babysit, gave out hugs all around and drove home. Here I am, about to go under the Palmer overpass and enter greater Wasilla.

When I pulled into my driveway, the temperature was -18 and dropping. The house was empty of humans, but there were cats moseying about. The last logs in the woodstove had nearly depleted themselves and were little more than glowing goals. The air was very chilly.

It was after midnight and I did not wish to rebuild the fire, just to heat up a house that would be empty, except for me, sleeping. I spent two hours on my computer, acccomplishing nothing, then went to bed. I piled the blankets on.

When I first climbed into bed, the blankets were so cold as to chill my entire body, feet included, but in time my body-heat warmed them up. The cats came, and burrowed their way into the blankets with me. I was so tired I wanted to do nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep - and for awhile I did. Then the shingles began to manifest themselves.

The air grew so cold as to penetrate even the thick pile of blankets I had covered myself with. Finally, somewhere between four and five AM, I got up and turned on an electric heater. I hate to do that, because the heaters really burn up the wattage, but I just could not go through the process of building a new fire at this time of morning.

I did not sleep good until it was time to get up. I did not get up. I stayed in bed until 11:30, then got up, threw a couple of logs into the fire that Caleb had built after he returned from his night shift, before going to bed himself.

Then I went to Abby's for breakfast. It was midafternoon when I returned home, the warmest part of the day. The temperature in the driveway stood at -16 (-27 C). I have not checked, but it some of the colder parts of Alaska, I would not be at all surprised to learn that temperature are 30, 40, or even 50 degrees colder than this.

So I am way behind. But still, I will post another Loft workshop entry.

This one will be easy. It will cover our first get-together, really just a short social gathering. So for this one, I do not have much to work with. It won't be that hard to get up.

So check back in about four hours. Maybe five. Possibly six.

Right now, I am going to go to Metro and get my afternoon coffee.