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Happy Wife is far, far away (red star)…

… to attend a 2-day professional conference. Just now I got a text from her. She’s enduring a talk on targeted therapy in lung cancer and hopes I’m enjoying something more interesting. I texted back and said “Your latte’s getting cold.” I added a sad-faced emoji.

In fact I’m holding up well. It’s the weekend, a fine day outside, I’m into my second coffee and the dog is resting near my feet. Speaking of whom – he was recently voted Dog of The Month at his Doggie Day care. He goes there twice a week. Now when I arrive to pick him up I announce I’m here to pick up Mr. September. So far the stardom doesn’t seem to have gone to his head. For our part the award included three free days of care, a one hundred dollar value. I know, right – expensive! Our strategy is to get him good and tired twice a week (M-Th), which seems to work most of the time. Sometimes, though, it’s like he’s slept all day, because he has an alarming amount of energy left when he gets home. The Day Care has supervised quiet time twice daily where the toys are put away, the lights lowered, and the dogs are commanded to rest. (Think Kindergarten sans the half pint of milk). And supposedly they actually do. How the staff manages this with twenty dogs or more I don’t know. We struggle with getting one dog to lay down and chill. My suspicion is Mr. September sometimes oversleeps and, consequently, comes home well-rested. On these nights he enjoys leaping onto the couch with us with his favorite ball in mouth causing precious volumes of martini to go splashing everywhere.

…

You look at our state up there and you may think, my, what a grand place to live. In many respects it is, certainly the ones that matter to us the most. Yet trouble is knocking at the door. The government is facing a huge budget deficit, about 4.0 billion – yes, billion – and seems, so far (and not unexpectedly), rather inept when it comes to identifying acceptable solutions to fix it. The problem has one real cause – the low price of oil, currently about ~$45/barrel. Actually, I might mention a second cause, the government’s improvidence, which is an affliction of all governments so far as I know, so less an acute cause and more an ongoing systemic problem.

Although… once upon a time the Alaska government, contrary to its usual thriftless nature, did acknowledge it was a good idea to save for the future. I’m getting to that.

Taxes, of course, are on the table for discussion. Most Alaskans reel at the thought of an income tax. Especially those with an income. (Those without an income seem disproportionately in favor of it). Alaskans would prefer the lion’s share of government continue to be paid for by oil and gas revenues (taxes, fees, royalties, etc.), but at $45/barrel that option is no longer on the table. Never mind the (known) volume of oil on the North Slope continues to decline steadily. So even at a higher price the state would be dealing with budget woes, albeit less dire than what it’s facing today. Revenues from a state income tax would help the current budget crisis, but alone would be far too little to solve it. There’s only about 700 thousand people who live here, fewer who would be subject to an income tax. After subtracting the cost of the bureaucracy needed to administer an income tax (collection, enforcement, reporting, etc.), the government would likely see far fewer net dollars flowing into its coffers than expected.

The other option to pay for government is to use the State’s savings plan I alluded to earlier, the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF). At least until the price of oil goes back up, and surely it will (please tell me it will). There’s about $50 billion – yes, billion – in the APF, and the reason it was setup way back when (’72 if memory serves) was for this very reason – to pay for government when the oil runs out. I say simply amend the mission statement for the fund to include: “Or when the price of oil gets suddenly and perilously low.” Viola! Problem solved. Okay, easier said than done, maybe, but it seems an obvious solution (it does to me), and probably the only real solution. Unfortunately, tapping the APF to pay for government right now has been widely regarded like a fart in church. Some of the reasons for this are:

1. Every eligible citizen in Alaska gets a check once a year from the government just for living here. It’s called the Dividend program. The amount of the Dividend is based on the interest earned annually on the APF. Use the APF to pay for government and people fear the amount of free money will shrink, or disappear entirely. (The concern is justified. Already the government has put on the table a proposal to limit the amount of free money people would get each year, even suspending the program entirely until oil goes back up (please tell me it will) ).
2. The governor alone cannot authorize principal in the APF be withdrawn to pay for government, or limit or suspend the Dividend program. I don’t know if either or both of these is true. There are statutes and constitutional provisions regulating the management of and disbursements from the APF. It’s a hot topic of debate in Juneau right now; legal interpretations of the rules vary. Suffice it to say the controversy has fueled skepticism statewide that the government can or should be dipping into the People’s Piggy Bank^®.
3. Leave the APF alone – make Big Oil pay for government! This is less a reason and more an alternative. One more and more people in their shared contempt for Big Oil are rallying around. Nevermind that without Big Oil, life in Alaska, as we know it, doesn’t exist. Despite a very low price of oil (and thinner margins for Big Oil) many people still think the industry at large rakes in far too much money, doesn’t pay its fare share of taxes, revenues, windfall, etc., and thus their impression is that there is far more ill-gotten profit to be squeezed out these Robber Barons and redirected to government coffers. (I have an opinion on this, which I’ll leave for another post).

So, if it’s no to taxes and no to tapping the APF, what options are left? None so far as I can see. The loudest conservative voices say cut government spending. While I agree that’s prudent, it should be an ongoing goal of the government, not something expected to save us from going over the fiscal cliff. Besides, I heard somewhere we could cut government spending by 90% and it wouldn’t be nearly enough to overcome the deficit. That’s how important oil revenue is up here.

I’m not a Doomsayer generally speaking. I first moved to Alaska when the price of oil was very low and the State was in financial trouble at least as bad as it is now, maybe worse. That was 27 years ago. The problem eventually resolved and good times were ours again. But even I am becoming skeptical this time. The Party May Really Be Over.

Happy Wife found a dog washed up on the beach. We’re guessing it’s the dog that washed overboard on a boat out in the bay earlier this week. There’s a wedding today on that section of beach. Bless her heart, HW’s doing what she can to have the dog removed before the celebration. She left a message with Animal Control in Seward, after calls to the local police and state troopers proved fruitless. And to think yesterday was National Dog Day. Tragic.

We haven’t backpacked in who knows how long. HW’s never been on the Lost Lake trail, one of my favorites, so I booked the Dale Clemens cabin for a night

The southern trail head is about four miles north of Seward, and from there a five mile hike, all up, but over a reasonable grade. Each of us was schlepping a 25-30 pound pack — sleeping bags, mats, a change of clothes, food, wine, gun, etc. The Dog led the way. The rain had stopped by the time we set out, but it was still pretty socked in when we arrived at the cabin about two and a half hours later. Last time I stayed at this cabin was twenty years ago or so. Didn’t remember much about it. We got inside and dried off. It was surprisingly warm and humid the entire way up. We were both drenched in perspiration. We changed into dry clothes and I managed to get the heater working, just to dry out our stuff. I think the forest service hauls in fresh propane canisters on snow machines in winter. I found one partially filled and hooked it up. An unexpected luxury. As was the deck out back, something I’m sure wasn’t there twenty years ago. We sat out there, each of us with a plastic cup of box wine, taking in the quiet, the Dog alert to the faintest snap crackle or pop in the forest below

Within an hour or so the clouds broke, and the thick cauldron of fog sloshing around inside what I had thought were all deep mountain valleys below us began to break up as well. We were surrounded by mountains, some with glaciers

The last fog to lift was in the “valley” the deck overlooked. But wait, that’s no valley. I ran inside the cabin, grabbed HW’s hand and said close your eyes as I guided her outside onto the deck

Would You Look at That – it’s Seward! Resurrection Bay. Our Nest, way out on that point!

I had no memory the cabin had such a spectacular overlook. Explains why we had cell service. We refilled our wine and sat there, taking it all in. As the night wore on the weather continued to improve. We made Mac ‘n Cheese and sandwiches for dinner

I used to be notoriously clumsy dangerous when lighting camp stoves. This time I avoided burning the place down.

By the time we packed up and hiked out the next morning it was 65 and sunny with hardly a breeze. Over 70 back at the car. We held up pretty well all things considered. I thought for sure we were gonna need a lot more Ibuprofen than what we brought along. Turns out there were a few left in the bag. Not bad for a couple Old Farts.

(Recall a mere mouse click or finger tap embiggens pics)

Stepped out on the back porch the other morning

I recognize that back-lit fist of clouds. Like Silver Salmon they show up in August^*. To the casual observer they’re benign, nothing to fear. One might even say they look pretty in the summer sky, no? I know better. They’re a harbinger of rain, a pillowy contempt for summer, Fall’s early messenger, “Enjoy it while you can Sucker, I’m coming.“

They did not disappoint. This past week was wet, and cool. By now the grass is so high you’d think the dog in the backyard was a black dachshund. The path our great nephew (Caleb) and I walked down to the river on his last day here was lousy with worms. (The river, sadly, was not lousy with fish). Everything it seemed was swollen with water. Except the boy’s spirit, it was not the least bit dampened!

That’s us in front of the plane (a de Havilland Beaver) that took us to Lake Creek, where, I was sure, we would catch our limit of Silver salmon, possibly even before lunch at the lodge, in which case the afternoon would be left to catch ‘n release. Speaking of suckers. You would think I had lived here long enough to know better, some years the fish just don’t arrive in the numbers expected, or when they’re expected, or both. I wanted nothing more that day than for Caleb to hook and land his limit of Silvers. Alas, it was not to be. The only fish that made it into the boat all day were two slimy gray Suckers. As if Nature were mocking us.

Oh well, at least lunch at the Lodge was decent. And if only for that day the weather improved steadily from morning on. By afternoon we were fishing in t-shirts under bluesky. Near the end of the day Caleb did hook a nice Silver that broke water in a really spectacular way, but it got tangled in the line of one of the nearby fishermen (Germans) and spit the hook. Our guide shot ’em an evil stare for fishing too close to us. One of them mumbled something back, part German part English. I was standing in the boat at the time and wanted to shout back, “Still smarting from that ass kicking you took in WWII, eh?” I resisted the urge.

Earlier in the day Willy and his dogs motored by to find us all hypnotized by our bobbers

He’s somewhat of a celebrity up here. NatGeo made a special years ago about men living off the grid – “Alaska Wing Men.” Interviewed ol’ Willy they did. He’s quite the character

From the day he arrived we tried to keep the Boy’s agenda full. In Seward we took a half-hour water taxi to a place called Caine’s Head and hiked up to Fort McGilvray, an artillery installation established during WWII to shoot down Japanese war planes if they tried to get to Seward from the Aleutian Islands. Turns out it was all a feign by the Japanese, a trick to force the Allies to commit resources to Alaska and thus weaken the force in the South Pacific. Pretty impressive what got built up there. Including a hole to mount the turret for a 90-mm gun, and a pretty large concrete fort that housed up to 500 men at one point

 

HW and Caleb inside a gunner’s blind; HW takes aim

Being the Mother Hen I often accuse her of being, HW did not trust the Dog not to leap to his death on the return trip

Back at our Nest we made homemade pizzas. Mine, I will proudly add, was the evening’s prize winner (it was the Anaheim chilies)

That all happened in the first couple days. Then it was back to Anchorage for the flyout fishing trip, followed the next day by a hike with HW to Reed Lakes (a day Caleb’s quadriceps may not soon forget – thankfully I was at work!), a bike ride through town, Hamburgers at the Arctic Roadrunner (yum), more fruitless fishing at both Bird & Ship creeks, and countless games of Hearts with our friend Mel who was also staying with us that week

And then poof! – it was over. I schlepped ’em both to the airport the same night, first Mel, and a few hours later Caleb. HW had earlier left to go back down to our Nest to manage the new carpet install, leaving them both with kisses and hugs aplenty.

It was well after midnight by the time the Dog and I finally drifted off to a deliciously quiet night of sleep. I was awoken at 4:50 am by a text on my phone. I’d asked Caleb to let me know when he landed safely in Chicago. I got up to pee, then fell back asleep.

Sometimes I don’t know how parents do it. On the evidence of the week, though, some have done it pretty well.

* Except this year.

A friend told me today she’s headed to Florida for eye surgery. A while back, while reading, she began to see small distortions around letters in random words. Then, a few weeks after that, some letters would disappear entirely. The ophthalmologist diagnosed her with VMT. I’ve known her a long time. Used to work with her. Many years ago she hooked up with another friend and co-worker of mine. They’re a good couple. I asked her how serious this was. She said it was pretty serious. We talked a bit longer in the lobby of the credit union before she went her way and I mine. I regret not giving her a hug. I should have given her a hug.

Last week I was at the table in our dining room sipping espresso thinking about the upcoming visit of our great nephew, Caleb (this Saturday!). Something – I forget what – came to mind and I thought to text my sister (Caleb’s grandmother) about it. In it, I mentioned how unseasonably warm it was in Alaska and “Oh, isn’t it too bad Caleb isn’t coming this week. But hey, no reason you shouldn’t come now, and why not, you could stay the weekend —  I’ll buy you dinner!”

Sister lives in Wisconsin.

I mentioned it to Happy Wife as she prepared our breakfast, asking if it would be okay if sister came on the spur of the moment, and she’s says, of course it would, but it’s not like she’s going to say yes and come. We shared a hearty laugh – Haha.

Minutes later my phone rings.

It’s sister. “I can be there Saturday, early morning. Direct flight from Minneapolis. I’d return Tuesday. Were you serious?”

Seriously?!

Yes, seriously. Better yet, she calls back just minutes after HW and I have had a chance to process this and start laying plans and says, “Wait, I can leave Minneapolis tonight, 11:00 PM. Be there at 2:00 AM, ‘kay?”

O’tay!

And so it came to pass we picked up her up at Anchorage International, schlepped her back home, hack-sawed the lock off her carry-on (Sisters, I’m tellin’ ya…), managed a few hours of sleep, shopped the Saturday market for seafood and vegetables, and then whisked her off to our Nest on the beach in Seward

The weather, you see, did not disappoint

If anything, HW was displeased with the SEARING SUMMER HEAT. About 76 degrees or so, if I recall correctly.

To cool off we tottered over to Chinooks for drinks and a selfie

 Back in Anchorage it was dinner out (my treat, as promised)

and the next morning – Poof! – she was gone, back to America.

But we’d hugged the night before. I remember it clearly, we hugged. You may think that’s an awfully long way to travel to and from just for a hug. You’d be right it’s a long way, and wrong it’s too far for a hug.

A thoroughly satisfying evening of intemperance. If you call this evening

Muscle Men, Swisher Sweets, A Grandma, Titos & Gatorade (lots), and plenty of Pringles (Cheesy Quesadilla). Must’ve been 11:00 pm when I snapped this Selfie. Happy Wife resisted joining us as long as she could but eventually succumbed to our incessant texts and phone calls and walked over with the Dog. By that time the four us were well pickled, laying on the grass around the campfire which we’d started purely for aesthetics except, well, we did need a way to light the cigars after all! Playing with fire, arguably, was the second instance of poor judgement. The first had it that we’d haul everything down to the lake, board the so-called Party Barge which was nothing more than a dozen or so two-by-sixes attached (somehow) to two pontoons – no railings or nothing, and then set off on the open water (white-capping pretty good by then) carrying on as we tootled along the shoreline. Try as he did, though, Jason couldn’t fix the ripcord on the Evinrude (and who could after 4 vodkas). It was then that I spotted the box of matches floating in the lake. So we moved the Party back on land and doused the wood with gasoline we found near the shed while someone ran into the house to fetch a lighter. Shortly after that it was announced we were out of Titos, so Grandma and I hustled over to Brown Jug for another half gallon, and then the Walgreens next door for Gatorade and Pringles. The cigars were an impulse buy at the register.

Next thing I remember it’s 9:00 am Sunday morning. I’m waking up from a dream nightmare where I was hit by a train. Happy Wife spent most of the night in the tent with the Dog, yet when I rolled over there she was, next to me in bed. I got up and moved (and probably sounded) like the Tin Man after a night in the rain. Took four coffees, two midday naps, and a few gallons of water to finally bring me around. This was was about 3 pm. We decided we’d take a bike ride around the neighborhood. We hadn’t ridden more than a half mile when some a**hole drives by us way too close wailing his horn. We were both riding as close to the curb as possible. I shoot him the What’s your problem? gesture which I knew he saw in his rear view mirror, and then I see him flipping his thumb at the adjacent bike trail. To further express his outrage with the supposed lawlessness of cyclists in the roadway, as if to say the roadway is for motor vehicles only (he’s wrong about that, btw) he does a U-turn in front of us, crosses the road, goes up over the curb and drives his car on the bike trail on the opposite side of the street — flipping us off the whole time!

Well, Happy Wife returned him an invective or three of her own, and we pedaled on.

Finally made our way home, I drank a bunch more water, watered the trees (been hot & dry lately), and to cap our day HW made Marcona Almond-Crusted Halibut with Simmered Sofrito for dinner.

More water for me, then finally to bed.

Your record-breaking winner in the Men’s division today (41’26”)

The Women approach the base of the Mountain. Determined young lady (35 yrs old) in the middle won, and by quite a lot.

Another summer passing at the speed of Fun.

On the second to last day of their vacation the men and I flew a kite. One of those acrobatic models shaped like a Bat with two string pulls instead of one. It was not a day to earn one’s learner permit. The wind at the park (Kincaid) was gusting at >40 mph. It was like trying to control a Pterodactyl with dental floss

The instructions with the kite listed many cautions, among them “…misuse may result serious injury, even death.” We all had a hearty laugh at that one. “It’s a bloody kite for goodness sake. Death? Hey, we better call a personal injury attorney right now! Backslapping…Ha ha ha.”

And then it was in the air moving left, right, up and down so fast you could hardly follow it with your eyes. Then BLAM!, out of control it would slam into the ground. Let me tell you, if you happened to be on that patch of ground you’d have a plastic kite stay fused with your spine. Morals of the Day: 1) Stay well outside the radius of the kite and its flier, and 2) Not all product warnings are CYA!

…

A quiet evening on Resurrection Bay, here at our Nest for the holiday weekend. We’ll watch the mountain race on Monday and not do too much else. Except: A couple we met on the Denali bike ride in May are staying at a camp site down the road so we invited them to dinner tonight. Another couple we know in Anchorage said they might drive down, but weren’t sure given the wife’s slow recovery from a nasty fall on her mountain bike. Yesterday two girls who work at Happy Wife’s office stopped by, one with her boyfriend, Sam. We shared some wine and cheese and then walked the beach together with the Dog. Happy Wife’s boss’s son is running the race tomorrow, so they may stay the night in our cozy “Bear Cub” cabin on the back of the property.

More going on than I thought.

I like the 4th. It’s an noncontroversial holiday. Used to be anyway. Though it’s not hard these days to find people expressing contempt for the country. Sure enough if I were King I’d make some changes too, but so long as I’m not and Shangri-La isn’t an option America is a good place to live and work. Notwithstanding my waning sense of nationalism the longer I live in Alaska.

I don’t entirely dismiss the concern of certain conservatives that America has surrendered its leadership role in the world. My opinion, though, is that the mantle of leadership too easily segues to adventures in Nation Building, or the guise of Jingoism. My foreign policy, were I the King, would unashamedly lean toward Isolationism. I might authorize the use of force here and there around the world, but it’d be a really tough sell with me. I’m unpersuaded by the evidence that dropping bombs from drones on bad guys in Yemen (or wherever) is a direct cause of the preservation of liberty in America. Plus, on the evidence, it can be damn hard to get out of these messes once you’ve committed yourself (and far too easy to scale up). I think it was Colin Powell who cautioned GW Bush, “Careful, if you start this thing (War in Iraq), you’ll own it.” And look what happened.

And yet, if you ask me, it’s a mistake in the other direction to allow criticism of one’s country to morph into contempt for it. For all its warts and ills America is — still is — one of the greatest countries to call home. So Happy Birthday you.

The house guests arrived this week. From a distant land which anymore I to refer to as America. It’s just we’re just so damn far away from our fellow countrymen my sense of nationalism has faded over time.

Welcoming the house guests when they arrived

Good for them, not so much for Happy Wife. She looks to forward to a warm sunny day the way you look forward to a root canal appointment. Odd, I know, but I love her.

The house guests (4) left this morning in an R/V (24′) to go fishing for King salmon on the Deshka River, continuing on the next day to Talkeetna where they take off for a flight-seeing trip to Denali, followed the next day by a drive to Denali Park where they’ll take a bus into the park, followed by a two-day drive to Valdez (350 miles), a ferry ride across Prince William Sound to Whittier (a place where We Alaskans like to say the weather’s always “Shittier“), and finally a drive to Seward where they’ll rendezvous with us and the Dog at our place for three days of partying. Only one short week from now! Finally, if anything’s left of them, they’ll drive back to Anchorage, return the R/V , get on a plane and fly back to America. Specifically, Wisconsin.

They texted us from the Deshka this afternoon – The Kings Are In!

I know, right?

But hey, they’re Cheeseheads, so they’re cool.

Today, Happy Wife and I took a breather and went to the Solstice Festival downtown.

Cruel me: I thought to throw a bone (if I’d had one), just to see what might happen

Happy Wife at Holgate Glacier this past weekend. Click to Embiggen.

An ultra fine day outside. Bluesky and nary a breeze for my morning beach walk with the Dog. The tide was in retreat, exposing shoals atop which shore birds lighted to pick at what the water had left behind. The Dog was a black streak darting from one shoal to the next trying in vain to catch himself a bird. Or maybe that’s wrong. Maybe he understands he has no chance of catching a bird and only wants to run and play and scare them away. I’ve seen young children do the same thing. Put your average toddler who’s recently learned to run in a large field and point him at a gaggle of birds and watch what he does. Learning early in life that some goals are futile saves wasting time later on trying to achieve them.

Happy Wife and three (four?) other women went to Aialik (Aye-Al~lik) Bay to paddle Kayaks. To orient you, see the Red Dot

Zooming in to Holgate Glacier Bay, where they’re staying at a cabin

 

Two hours by water taxi to get out there. They left yesterday morning. Today should be fantastic for Kayaking. I spotted a whale in Resurrection Bay this morning during the beach walk with the Dog. I expect there will be plenty more to see in Aialik.

Supposedly this video is representative, less the wide-eyed guides. My women are out there on their own

I don’t mean to sound overly possessive of them, or suggest all of them really are mine. I’m no wannabe polygamist; longtime husbands especially will understand one is enough. The futility of sustaining multiple romantic relationships is a lesson best learned early in life. Chasing skirts and chasing birds is pretty much the same thing. Nevermind that I was a slow learner in this way.

And don’t tell me you’ve never Googled old girlfriends (or hetero-women, old boyfriends). I don’t think there’s any shame in doing so. It’s only natural to be curious about how Chris or Sue (or Larry) turned out. Especially Sue. I don’t know how many times I fruitlessly chased that bird. The problem comes when simple curiosity on Google gateways to rekindled infatuation, too often followed by the belief delusion that surely sending her one email can’t hurt. And before you know it’s, “Awesome, I can’t wait to see you at the class reunion!” This actually happened to a guy I worked with many years ago. Carl (made-up) had a wife and three nice children, a great job, a good circle of friends, he was a fine church-going family man. Really a storybook life (or so we all supposed). Then one day Carl’s wife gets a phone call from the husband of the wife Carl had just had a romantic affair with while at his high school reunion. His old high school sweetheart it turned out. The way I remember it, ol’ Carl was served with papers the second he returned home. Being a church-going man, and the fact he really did feel bad about the fallout at home — although, eventually, he did marry the high school sweetheart, after her husband divorced her — he repented for what he had done during a Sunday morning church service. In front of the entire congregation. So I was told.

Old Carl, it seems, had never given up chasing birds.

Me? A slow learner maybe, but eventually I got it