Author name: Rod

Years ago when talking about how crappy British cars are, a friend asked me, “You know why the British drink warm beer, don’t you?”

“Why no, I don’t.”

“It’s because they make refrigerators, too.”

And television journalists.

There is something — many things really — about that Piers Morgan person that annoy me. I cannot imagine the thinking behind the decision to have him replace Larry King. Especially when he goes prattling on about gun control, challenging his guests who hold a worldview different than his on the matter: “What could possibly be wrongheaded with one more itsy bitsy teenie weenie gun law, sir?” I want to smack him. I want to reach into the TV, grab him by his Jolly Ol’ lapels and say, “Look, if it weren’t for the fact that your bloody ancestors got a bit pissy with mine over a couple hundred years ago, we, modern Americans, may have a different attitude all together about guns in this country.”

Breathe. Just breathe.

….

Happy Wife was gifted with an Impatiens plant on Mother’s Day at one of our favorite water holes:

Not because she’s a mother, not technically, but because the generosity of the day tends to spill over to thanks for aunts and all other women who express maternal qualities.

We’ve been working on the beach house lately, prepping the floor for installation of the wood stove later this month, painting throughout, a new window blind or two, and we’re taking up the dingy carpet and replacing it with wood flooring. Or at least faux wood. There are entire aisles now in the big box improvement stores devoted to faux this and faux that. Why use real wood, stone, or tile when the fake stuff will fool any casual observer. And it’s cheaper and guaranteed for life. Which, now that I think about it, what does that really mean, legally speaking? I mean, who’s life, the buyer of the product? So if I lay the floor and die the following week and the flooring starts to come up, the company can say, “Sorry, dude’s dead. Warranty’s expired.”

Anyhoo, we’re leaning toward installing a faux wood product that we saw in a new brew pub that opened recently in Seward, which has already become a favorite watering hole away from home (Anchorage). Happy Wife loved it, and I have to say it does look really nice, easy to install, inexpensive, and even when you’re told it’s vinyl it’s hard to believe.

Which set me to wondering, in a world of simulated products, what if you wanted to lay, say, a vinyl floor? Is there an aisle, I wonder, at Home Depot devoted to faux vinyl — wood made to look like vinyl? Imagine the permutations.

That’s the sun, our sun, for those of you reading this on other worlds — though I’ve seen no evidence of intra- or extra-galactic IP addresses in my site log. Okay, and technically it’s a representation of our sun, one that looks more like a sunflower…

    

… which I assume is how the plant got its name. I’m not sure I could conceive a better pictorial representation of the sun. Who could blame whoever came up with this one, a yellow hot core encircled by flare and fire, being it was based, I assume, on just a few very short peeks at the sun. This because mothers forever have warned their sons never to look into the eyes of the sun, cautioning us that doing so would lead, like certain other boyhood “activities”, to blindness.

For the record it didn’t, and I don’t mean looking into the sun.

There’s a funny saying up here that I like to haul out while seated at a downtown bar filled with summer tourists, when one of them asks me,

Q: “Oh, so you live here, wow. I hear it’s cloudy a lot?”

A: “An Alaskan woke one spring day, looked into the sky and saw a very bright light, and he knew, from books he had read, that must be the sun.”

We do hear this from time to time: “You live here?” Uttered by some visitors we interpret this as envy, by others, sympathy. For still others it may merely imply wonder, they wonder what it might be like to live and work here. They are genuinely curious. These are the people I’m most likely to want to continue talking with. The trophy tourists, by contrast, the ones who’ll be deplaning by the thousands at our airport in a couple weeks, preloaded with their twenty insipid questions — “How dark does it get; How do you sleep in summer; Where’s Mt. McKinley; etc. etc.” — the ones who come here for a whirlwind week for no other reason but so that they can put push another pin into the national map hanging in their basement back home  — Illinois or wherever — not so much. I am suspicious these are the same people who go to oval track car races just to see the crashes.

I wondered today: on average how many days of sun a year are there in Anchorage? One site boasting the banner “Research News and Scientific Facts,” claimed we get 61 sunny days (65 partly sunny). Taken together, roughly a third of the year. That’s not terrible, until you consider that half the year here is practically winter, and a sunny day during winter, while by no means unappreciated, can feel like a waste of a cloudless day because 1) the sun has less punch in the winter, and 2) does little to increase the ambient air temperature. Assuming these 126 sunny to partly sunny days were evenly distributed throughout the year (and they aren’t — it seems to me we have more cloudless days in winter), that means  about 60 of our 180 non-winter days are sunny to partly sunny, about 1/3.

Based on over twenty years of living in Anchorage that seems high. But everyday we get one I am pleased as punch. (By the way, what does it mean to be Pleased as Punch?).

Anyway, yesterday was once such day, and together Otis I pedaled like there was no tomorrow.

Because you don’t know for sure that there will be.

BIGGER.

Recognize this man?

His bravery at the Battle of Puebla and unlikely victory over french forces there on May 5th, 1862 is celebrated every year as Cinco de Mayo. His name is Ignacio Zaragoza. The same first name of our favorite bartender at Gallos, where Happy Wife and I ventured to on our bikes yesterday, knowing that the carefree imbibition of tequila drinks would leave us unsafe for driving an automobile. Who knew that three of those babies would make even the bike ride home challenging! Happy Wife took a spill in the mud where the trail was in horrid condition, I nearly fell myself. I quickly helped her up, steadied her bike, and reassured her this happens from time to time, even to expert cyclists with perfect sobriety. What she didn’t need was the remark of the little brat further down the trail: Hey lady I saw you fall in that puddle.

In that second I totally understood Scrooge, “Are the orphanages full then?“

Oh, but we had a grand time, and the food was free. And good. And necessary! Ignacio wasn’t there, but other competent bartenders were, masters at fulfilling — and refilling! — Cadillac Margaritas, the means of our self-imposed depravity.

BIGGER.

You’ve got to love a restaurant concerned enough with the safety of its patrons to provide free shuttle service to and from the church parking lot. It was Sunday after all, and what better way to live this one than to leave the car in the lot after service is over, hop the shuttle to Gallos, and commit a range of uncomely behaviors needing forgiveness the next Sunday!

Now, you may be asking, what, for example, do I mean by “uncomely?”

Ahem. Well, for example, see here:

And no, I’m not providing a “BIGGER” link to this — it’s plenty big enough!

Even dogs were welcome — some arrived on the back of motorcycles.

We celebrated on the patio outside, drenched in afternoon sun and so it was comfortably warm, low 50s maybe, but I don’t know that it was this warm:

At least no drafty butt crackage there. More defiance I think: “It’s spring now, dammit, and I’m going to wear my open-toed wedgies and short shorts if it kills me.” And it might’ve, had she stayed there after sunset.

Finally, an argument against government intrusion in private affairs, as if we really needed another argument. If government men serviced Cinco de Mayo celebrations only one kind of booze would be served in faceless tin cans with the single word “booze” on the front, something like that. But turn it over to entrepreneurs and private markets and viola!, you get innovation like this (not our drink, the table next to us):

I mean really, is this inventive or what? A kind of steady IV drip of Corona into your cocktail! Something I’m quite certain would be banned in New York by Bloomberg and the anti-Big Gulpians — after all, who really needs a Corona continuously decanting into their Cadillac Margarita? It’s not about what we need, sir, it’s about what people want, on Cinco de Mayo, in Alaska. It’s how we roll.

You know it’s really spring in Anchorage when…

BIGGER.

… you see your first spring bear. Spotted this one on our way home from the dog walk this morning. And a glorious morning it was, certainly compared to yesterday morning. The bear was rooting for something to eat, a bear can get a mighty big appetite during hibernation, and after an unproductive minute or two thought it might check and see if the onlookers had anything to offer:

BIGGER.

Today: Snowy with periods of snow mixed with snow tapering to snow later today.

1-800-273-8255

Tempers were raised and disharmony resulted.

The day opened as it usually does around here, expectations no different than the day before, or the day before that. Same ol’ same ol’, copy-paste. However, no sooner had the day begun to unfurl — ablutions performed, lattes prepared, lips converged and parted again with a wave good-bye: “Have a nice day at work, Honey” — when I sensed a palpable disquiet in the air. One I could not put my finger on. And then just as suddenly as it came it was gone. Hmm, I thought, maybe a false positive.

I forgot about it and set about my usual AM routine. I checked the morning e-mail, assessed the notifications on my phone, e-replied to certain matters which needed my attention, traversed the web along my usual route, prepared and enjoyed a second espresso. I was well into an analytical task related to work when the dogs began to stir, a bit sooner than usual I thought, and this should have confirmed my earlier suspicion of an ephemeral disquietude. Being preoccupied with my task it didn’t. It was five or ten minutes to 10:00; usually the dogs don’t pester me until 10:30 or later.

Okay, okay, we’ll go for our walk now. As we got ready to go it seemed to me they were much more snipey toward each other than usual.

It was a gloriously bright day on the bluff overlooking Cook Inlet and beyond, a great place to walk in peace (usually), or hunt should you have the ego of a national emblem:

BIGGER.

But it wasn’t a usual day. I sensed that unsettledness again, the same kind I’d felt earlier, and scolded the dogs to stop sparring so close to the bluff edge — One of you is going to fall down that hill! You might think I should know better than to think they understand me, but you’d be surprised how sensitive a mature dog can be to certain tones of voice. They stopped and came to me expecting a treat. I caved and gave them each one. Hippie parent that I am.

We rounded the final turn on the bluff and walked up and over the south face of the sand dune, by this time of year entirely snow free. We took the short route back to the car as I was anxious to get home to get some work done. Into the car we all went, the dogs into the back seat as usual, but sort of like when you were a kid and your sister was “in your space” in the back seat of the car and you shouted, “Mom, she’s touching me! She’s touching me!”, well, Harry was so growling at Lucy. I scolded him to be quiet, and when he did, caved and gave them both another treat. It would not be the end of doggie discord for the day.

Back at home there was an unusual disembarkation inside the garage, wiping of muddy paws and the removal of Harry’s harness, yes, but also more sniping and sparring — What is up with these two today? Once inside the house I made Lucy her usual breakfast — ground beef, brown rice and pinto beans — fed her outside, and then hand-fed Harry his kibble and ground beef, per Happy Wife’s suggestion that it’s best to do it this way to prevent him from eating like a maniac. It sort of works.

With that done I’m finally back at my work, concentrating, when the dogs start pestering me again. What now?! Outside? Fine. Let’s go. Out they go and I think what the hell I’ll give them each a rawhide bone to keep them quiet for a while. This usually works. I’m not back in the house thirty seconds when I hear this eruption on the back deck. One, or two dogs, I couldn’t tell as I sprinted to the back door, screeching and wailing. I get to the door and look out and all I see is Lucy with a ton of whoop-ass on top of Harry trying to rip him a new one. What the hell?!

I get out there quick and pull her off him, inspect them both and assure myself neither dog was hurt. I see one of the rawhide bones on the deck. Uh huh, I see, so Harry couldn’t find his bone for some reason and thought he might enjoy Lucy’s.

You know, on any usual day Lucy would allow this, do nothing, the fabric of the day’s harmony would continue unbroken.

But for reasons I don’t understand, even though I might have known had I trusted my earlier premonitions, it was not a usual day.

Received the latest rejection to publish a short fiction story I’ve been shopping around to literary journals. The rejection was printed on a small 4×5 card and, curiously, returned with it in the SASE I had provided was the first page of my manuscript?

There were no emoticons — I half expected to see a little yellow sad face.

The card was addressed: Dear Prospective Contributor…

And continued: Your manuscript has been read and evaluated by the appropriate editor.

I should’ve stopped reading right there! I mean, spectacular, right? One copy of my story was read by one human being, what more could a newbie writer ask for. But I didn’t stop, like a glutton for punishment I continued reading. It was all downhill.

We regret to inform you... Ugh, there it was, the big letdown, something to do with the lack of suitability of my work for publication in this journal.

The blow to the ego was softened by the following: Since manuscripts are declined for a great many reasons, this rejection is in no way intended as a declaration of the relative merits of your work.

Now, certainly one generous interpretation of this last may be: In the grand distribution of the merits of all stories ever written, your story, Dear Prospective Contributor, was in fact brilliant, meaning the real loser here is us, our journal and its reputation, because owing to the limited scope of the material we choose to publish your genius will go unrecognized by our readership.

Indeed, this the interpretation I prefer.

As a further consolation to myself it’s worth noting that I’m swinging pretty hard in terms of where I shop this story, and I’m really not terribly surprised, as no newbie writer should be, that I’ve received multiple rejections. John Grisham’s first novel, which became the best selling novel of 1991, had been rejected by 28 publishers. So there. I’ve know all along, of course, that the probability of having this story accepted by any one of the publications I’ve submitted to thus far was roughly equivalent to the probability of me getting drafted as a walk-on to the Green Bay Packers. Still, nothing ventured nothing gained.

I will keep swinging.

Readers here who would like to read the story and provide me feedback should click the Contact link and let me know.

Drove up to Glen Alps with the dogs yesterday. Ten minutes from home. Happy Wife wanted to check on the snow condition for crust skiing, which was evidently superb, I’m sure I heard the word divine used. She’s headed back there today with Lucy. Lacking grace on skis, both Harry and I will go elsewhere in the mountains for a hearty walk. Another sensational bluesky day today, like yesterday:

BIGGER.

See that saddle-shaped pass way back there? That’s Powerline Pass. By late spring most of the snow here will have melted, although in a typical year some will linger at the top of the pass through June, but only a little, and then you can mountain bike from where Happy Wife is standing all the way back to the pass, do a hike-a-bike over the top (it’s pretty steep), and then descend the backside of the mountain on a very fun (though partly treacherous) trail that eventually spills out on the highway about 20 miles south of Anchorage. Hard core dudes ride the road back to Anchorage, as a friend and I did years ago. Dumpy old men in their 50s opt for a bar stool at the Brown Bear saloon and congratulate themselves behind a beer or three while they wait for a spouse to arrive with the car.

Found an old photograph of me and my good friend Fritz the day we did that ride together. Must be at least twenty years ago now. We were just starting up toward the pass on the hike-a-bike, kicking toe holds in the snow as we went. Funny, I was sportin’ a cookie duster back then. He and I did some fun rides together in those days. I very much wish he hadn’t died in ’01, shortly after reinventing himself and earning his MD in his fifties. Back then he and I were geophysicists with BIG oil. I remember being pretty incredulous when he told me he’d decided to go to medical school, “Who goes back to school in their forties?”

BIGGER.

I’ll staple the photo back on the wall in the garage where I found it, I like to look at it from time to time when I’m futzing around out there. It has always been this way, memory fastens us to the past and the future unfurls unknown.

I saw my cardiologist this past week and received a summary report of my visit, which included my BMI (Body Mass Index). According to a reputable web site I am an overweight American. Barely, but still above the normal range. I entered Happy Wife’s height and weight into the calculator at the site and discovered her BMI is in the normal range. But that set me to thinking — she and I, qua married couple, really function as a single unit. So I added our heights and weights together and entered these values in the calculator. Voilà — as a couple our BMI is below normal! The output said the ideal weight for an eleven foot seven inch individual (couple really) is 508-684 pounds.

Say hello to a guilt free weekend of eating and drinking!

Left a comment at Lileks place last week. Attached a photo of our backyard. The snow is in retreat for sure, but the freeze thaw cycle had created rows of snow and ice chevrons, jutting up from frozen ground like angry hackles on the back of some primordial beast. I did this as a gesture of northern solidarity, to assure him eventually winter would leave Minneapolis alone, and we Alaskans understood the pangs of snow in April. An empathy for the still frozen. There exist so many things in modernity to hold our attention, yet still the whims of the season have power to stir our laments.

It cuts both ways. I stepped outside our master bedroom door with coffee in hand, expecting the chill of a late April morn, and instead was surprised by the warmth of the sun that had hours earlier breached the mountains like a kiss in a bluebird sky:

BIGGER.

It felt like triumph over long odds, survival, “We’ve made it through another winter!” Birds of every kind reported from tree branches, a light breeze wafted the first scents of spring, and somewhere, way out there, beneath the still surface of Resurrection Bay, I imagined I sensed the collective arousal of expectant salmon. The first drink of coffee tasted better somehow, the call from Happy Wife in the kitchen downstairs — “Breakfast is ready” — sounded even cheerier than usual. Yes, you think, this is what blessed means.

Even the dogs were exaggeratedly pleased:

BIGGER.