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Xanax. One milligram. You would’ve thought he was in a coma. I know we slept as though we were.

Glorious.

Xanax was so successful we thought to reduce the dose by half, and because of Happy Wife’s alarm that she prescribes a whole quarter milligram for her human patients. As expected one half milligram was about one half as effective as one milligram  (I’m a pharmacologist — I think I know why!). The following morning Harry was up and bleating at 4:30 am. Better than 2:30 am; less desirable than 6:30 am. So we’re thinking we may go back to one milligram.

Yesterday HW & I celebrated the 10th anniversary of our (re-)introduction ten years ago. Duh, right? We’re both far more squishy around 12/04/04 than our wedding day (6/03/06). I was living elsewhere in Anchorage at the time, 12/04/04, just me and Rufus, anxiously waiting to hear which, if any, of the seven graduate schools I’d applied to would invite me for an interview during their recruitment week. I was at work one day finishing up a project when a friend and colleague (Marty) suddenly appeared in my office wondering if I might be interested in dating someone. I wasn’t. I was hopeful I’d be off to school soon; not a good time to begin a new relationship. I was about to wave Marty off when he said, “Do you know someone named Nancy?”

Full stop. I spun around in my chair and locked on him. “Describe her,” I said.

…

Backtrack to 2001. I’d first met a “Nancy” at a wine tasting and was quite taken with her, and, it turned out, she with me. Unbeknownst to her I followed her home after the tasting. Which was, technically speaking, stalking I suppose, but only because I was curious where she lived. Oh, and I should mention that earlier at the tasting a friend of Nancy’s had invited everyone at the table to his house the following week for Thanksgiving dinner. So it was early the following week that I was at work and couldn’t stop thinking about her. I called the number where she worked, asked to speak to a nurse practitioner named Nancy (I didn’t even know her last name), got her on the phone and asked if she was going to the Thanksgiving dinner. She said she was, and so I went too. We got along swimmingly there. I remember that during a moment of excited gesticulation in the living room she (or was it me?) spilled a glass of wine on her blouse. Off it came (unfortunately in the privacy of the bedroom), replaced by a loaner from a friend. Funny, innit, how we remember these details. Anyway, at evening’s end I drove her home. It was winter, cold outside. But I’d never felt warmer. Or more anxious. What would I do when we got to her house? If she invites me in? At the time I was in another “relationship” — scare quotes says it all — and a hapless victim of misguided loyalty. It didn’t happen, thankfully. Or so I thought at the time. We pulled into her driveway, I thanked her for a fun evening, she me, and then she stepped out of my truck and closed the door. I might have shook her hand. Ooh, daring! I didn’t even walk her to her front door. I know, right, what a schmuck. In my defense, though, I knew I’d be helpless to control my impulses were I to find myself, say, caught up in her arms? So I self-arrested. Like I said, misguided loyalty. After that, for the next three years, we never saw or spoke to each other again. Three years.

…

Marty described Nancy to me.

“A nurse practitioner, right? I said. “Yes, I remember now, we met several years ago. What about her?”

“She wants to know if she can call you.” I stared at Marty a second, thinking back to that night in her driveway, the tasting, the grace and beauty of her smile, the glow of her hair, the ease with which we talked to each other.

“She wants to call me? Now? Like tonight? Yeah, sure, of course, have her call me.”

I need to be honest in my recall here. The implied casualness of that, “yeah, sure, okay” completely belied my inner excitement.

That turned out to be the wisest Of Course I have ever uttered in my entire life. For the record I did have to call her. I waited at home for the phone to ring as I studied for my final biochemistry exam, and eventually it did ring, but when I picked up it was Marty, “Did she call you?”

“No.”

“Crap. She’s too scared is all. Just call her, okay?”

“Okay.”

And so I did. And from that night forward we have never been apart.

You may dry your eyes now.

Oh, the travails of old dog companionship. Wasn’t it just a month or so ago, while Lucy was still with us, he was sleeping contentedly through the night? We’re pretty sure it was. Now? Well, somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00 am we hear him downstairs, bleating. It’s usually Happy Wife who gets up and goes down to let him outside. Most often he’ll take a pee and then lay down in the snow in the middle of the yard. And stare, at nothing in particular. Or bark a few times at the northwest corner of the fence. But there’s nothing there. Eventually he gets cold and comes onto the porch and lays on his bed for awhile. After a time he paws at the door and wants back in. Happy Wife will get up from her makeshift bed on the couch and let him in. Once he resettles she can slip back up stairs without him knowing and come back to bed with me. Most nights, not all, he will then rest quietly until about 5:30 or 6:00 am. Then, copy/paste, except it’s me who’s on duty this time, wanting to let HW enjoy a little more sleep.

We tried Benadryl before bedtime. Didn’t seem to help restore his normal sleep cycle. Neither has Amitriptyline, which he’s also on. And Gabapentin for neurological pain. And Rimadyl, an anti-inflammatory.

I Googled “restless dogs at night.” Melatonin may work! Or Xanax! “Have you considered Selegiline?” Why no, I hadn’t. Says it helps some dogs in the throws of cognitive decline — nighttime relentlessness, reversed sleep cycles, barking into space. That kinda thing.

I offer my findings to HW as I prepare her morning latte (w/Eggnog — it’s that time of year!). She agrees we should try Xanax. He responded to it favorably before, she reminds me. Remember, we’d taken him to the vet to have him degassed and he came back home looking and behaving all panicky? Oh, right.

The advice I found included the caution not to scold a dog in cognitive decline. It’s like scolding an Alzheimer’s victim because he doesn’t understand. And equally futile.

Sometimes, usually on the weekends, when we sleep a little later and he’s been let outside (and back in) twice during the night, we’ll come downstairs and find him in “his” chair, zonked:

Whatchya gonna do.

My Michael Keaton moment:

I’d told asked Happy Wife to stay still. Now and then wives do not fulfill the humble requests of their husbands. Thus the wind swept face. We stopped here after I picked her up from work, earlier than usual.  Three women seated at the bar across from us each had a hearty pour of a deep red liquid smoldering in a glass in front of them. Words were exchanged, the glasses lifted high and mightily, clinked together and the liquid decanted with gusto down their gullets. What had they wished for, I wondered. The look on their faces struck me less as a felicitous celebration and more a vengeful release — “Take that sucker.” Perhaps a long and bitter divorce finally had been settled? A lawsuit concluded in one’s favor? Absolution from a moral judgement?

HW and I sat, talked, drank and ate. Nothing much, a happy hour appetizer, Quesedilla’d chicken I think. Texts were exchanged with HW’s brother. He and his family live in Fairbanks. He was evidently in a festive mood himself, referring to me, qua brother-in-law, as the “lighthouse of his life.” I felt unworthy of this affection. The “siren upon his shore,” maybe. Though I have no recollection of ever having led him astray.

HW has finished the Maple cheesecake and I have de-cellared what I hope will be a well-paired New Zealand Pinot Noir, our contributions to Thanksgiving dinner being hosted by our friend at his house later today.

What have I to be thankful for?  For you stopping by here, that’s what.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Google News yesterday: “Tiger Woods Hires Swing Consultant.“

Ambiguous.

Morning at our breakfast table: A small earthquake occurs and immediately Happy Wife darts away from the table and into the bathroom.

Also ambiguous.

As many of you already know I will be parting ways with my present employer come January. Wring (sic) out the old, they say.

Thus far I have been spared the usual pushing and shoving that ensues by those who are paid to take notice of these events, your hunters of heads, talent scouts, etc. etc., when a free agent of my Letteredness reappears suddenly on the labor market. To the contrary. You can hear a pin drop in my inbox.

I have my hypotheses. In no particular order, I am old. Whereas I used to be a young beast of burden, a capable farm animal sturdy and strong in my yoke putting furrows to field, the seeds of my vitae coveted by many — come work with us! — etcetera etcetera, I am now viewed with the same sentiment afforded a rescue to be brought inside the barn. Of all my hypotheses talk of this one greatly dispirits Happy Wife. And who can blame her. But cheer up, I tell her, the real reason might be the finest pastures (e.g., where we now live) are not coincident with the homes of the cultivators (employers) who would judge me too early for the barn. Not that they’d extend themselves and offer to pay to relocate me (or Us) to greener pastures, nevermind that in that regard (at least so far) HW and I are about as flexible as an icicle. Or it may simply be anonymity — I’m not strutting my stuff enough. Or a combination of all three. Or others I’ve overlooked. Or I’m merely impatient.

I did apply to the university. A tenure track job. It really was a fantastic application despite 1) what they (the search committee) may have said about it, and 2) their final decision.

Look on the bright side, I tell myself, unemployment has afforded you the opportunity to get to know the beasts in your own green brown pasture. Why, how many people can look out their kitchen window — and I mean right outside the window (I could’ve almost touched this beast) — whilst hand washing the morning’s dishes and see this:

He was finishing up a pee just as I started recording. Lovely, right? His girlfriend (I’m assuming) is back there by the raised beds. Listen carefully and you can hear Harry’s report from the backyard once he got a snoot-full of ’em, and later, me, giving an apparently pitiful rendition of a chorus line from Bohemian Rhapsody. This bad boy wasn’t the least bit amused. That expression on his face, it’s almost as if he’s saying: “You, sir, are no Freddie Mercury.”

“Yeah, well, at least I ain’t missing an antler. So there.”

Dish Network, our TV provider, removed CNN from its list of channels. Some sort of contract dispute with Turner Broadcasting which licenses CNN. So now instead of CNN on channel 5551, there’s MSNBC. Like FOX News, only in the opposite political direction, MSNBC appears unabashedly one-sided. CNN leaned left, too, but I thought certain of their broadcasts at least tried to achieve fairness. Nevertheless, we are left having to get our TV news from local channels, or PBS, which we usually enjoy. Say what you will about PBS, but those people are as stone-faced objective as any you’re going to find on TV when it comes to reporting the news.

I did have MSNBC on briefly yesterday while I ate my sandwich — Black Forest ham, cheese, and a thin-sliced Claussen pickle on toasted Pugliese bread. Okay, and a handful of Fritos Scoops. So sue me. Anyway, I listened to a debate complaints about the Keystone XL pipeline on a show hosted by reverend Al Sharpton. He’d invited certain congress critters onto the show to weigh in. Honestly, I forget which ones, except they were all Democrats who strongly opposed the construction of KXL because it would run through the United states carrying exceptionally “dirty” oil. That much is true. But the one objection that struck me as foolish, one which was brought up again and again by different opponents and stated by some as the biggest reason why KXL should be rejected by the Obama administration, is that refining this oil and burning the fuels will generate more greenhouse gases and worsen global warming. Certainly the extent of that worsening is a matter of debate (not that any of these opponents would have agreed), but no question there would be some additional greenhouse gas generated. Unfortunately for the opponents, the Keystone oil is going to be produced, refined, and the fuels eventually burned anyway. Stopping construction of KXL will not keep the oil in the ground. TransCanada, who owns the resource, is already producing the raw crude, and, in fact, sending it via rail car to United States’ refineries, a mode of delivery much more prone to hazardous spills than a modern pipeline is. Beyond that, TransCanada is involved in at least three other projects to sell the oil abroad, one of which will involve putting the oil on tankers leaving Pacific Coast ports. Historically speaking, another rather dangerous way to transport heavy oil.

Why none of these facts were brought up by the reverend to challenge the arguments being made by the congress critters is baffling, especially since it took me all of one Google search to find them. Wait, what’s that? “MSNBC is bloody biased, Rod!”

I see. And here I thought it was only that Other network, the one with the pretty women, that was biased. Got it now.

Looking outside it’s as if the world has its arms folded, tapping its foot and checking its watch, “Any day now.” The trees are leafless. The grass is desiccate brown. Hibernators have gone to their shelters. Year-rounders brace themselves. The air is cold, the mountains restless, the sky a dingy gray. The sun? Ha! Nothing more than a dim orange smudge o’er the southern mountains this time of year, where it makes it o’er the mountains. And where it doesn’t, or it’s cloudy — Fuggetaboutit. Around the neighborhood tarpaulins cover boats and trailers and other summertime conveyances. Anchorage denizens lumber about, hooded, gloved, booted. Waiting. Every body and every thing, it seems, is waiting.

Overheard banter in the elevator: “I heard snow by Friday.” “Nah, they’ve been saying that for over two weeks now.” A hearty, mocking laughter goes up. These are the skeptics. For them forecasters are no more than witless soothsayers. Very often the skeptics are correct and so it justifies their philosophical swagger. The laughter has not died when the doors open on floor seven. The three who board wonder what they missed, sorry they did. Lightness and laughter are summer’s expressions, winter demands its solemn reflection. You take your relief where you find it this time of year. The doors close and the elevator continues its descent. Near floor two someone offers the culprit may be global warming. Ding: Lobby. Some shrug, gather themselves and exit. The shrug says it all. These are the conformists. They want to be on the right side of consensus, of course they do, but unlike the guffawing skeptic most prefer to remain quiet about it, just in case.

Keeps coming.

8:30 am again, this time from our backyard. I never jade to a pretty sky. A sucker for one really. Set against the haunt of Black Spruce — priceless.

Looks even cooler when embigened. Just sayin. It’s not like a single mouse click is going to be a major impediment to the important progress of your day.

A November sky over our fair city. ~ 8:30 am. Tangerine or Apricot? Possibly some Puce in there.

Busy the past few days. No time for wit until the weekend.

Sorry Midwest, Our bad. Judging from the wind that battered our house last night and continued into the wee hours of the morning, typhoon Nuri looks to be a real doozy. The temperature soared into the forties and every flake of snow that was in the backyard is gone this morning. Green grass! If I didn’t know better I’d mow it today.

Elsewhere on the Internets Nuri is being called the Bering Bomb. 924 millibars at Nuri’s center. I’m no meteorologist, but from what I gather that’s not very many millibars of pressure. In fact, it’s supposedly near the record of the lowest ever measured. Consequently, the jet stream, which placidly moves along west to east under ordinary circumstances has been shoved northward by Nuri, which in turn will pull a lot of really cold air from the Arctic down over the Midwest. Get out your jammies, folks, it’s gonna get chilly your way for a while:

I know, I know. We — Humans — have only our greenhouse-gas-belching selves to blame for the increase in the severity and frequency of these calamitous storms (although it’s a mistake to hold cows blameless). But while the scientific witch hunt for the real culprit of global warming is conducted I would just like to point out that forties in November in Anchorage ain’t such a bad thing.

Muktuk anyone?

Recently, near Barrow, Alaska.

More pictures of the harvest available through pic’s link. Caution: Sturdy gastric constitution required.