Polar Bear Butts and Grizzilies On The Way To School

Polar bears can show you their butts at the local Zoo. It is the bear version of the giving you the finger. They are pissed about global warming, but happy they got put up in luxury digs. They are really sorry about the folks back home, though.

And then there are the Grizzlies.....

The hazards of walking to school have increased. We don't worry as much about the human predators as the Grizzlies. They have started to wander the bike trails and parking lots of luxury hotels.

Hence the saying, "Send more tourists, the last ones were delicious."

Lemurs and France

In my house we have lemurs. They are dug in and show no signs of leaving, at least until they are eighteen. Lemurs are exceptionally curious, full of appetite, and ready to start a stink fight at a moment's notice. They climb on anything, poke their noses into everything, and fidget to death anything remotely interesting.

They are also prone to sudden lapses of absolute torpor and can sleep through a 6.4 earthquake when they set their minds to it.

The lemurs like to send their parents to France. France is where we go when our brains are leaking out our ears from the sonic onslaught of the high-pitched, dog-range-only voices of our children. We travel to France when we are desperately trying to remember The Five Most Important Things We Had To Do Today before our thoughts run screaming from our minds like the nannies in Mary Poppins.

France is triggered by crossing any threshold in the house, but the kitchen threshold is the most powerful. You flee the kitchen to escape the lemur shrieks and quick-make-a-list, but once you cross its border any thoughts you wanted to capture, whether about tomorrow's IRS audit or attending your Aunt's funeral, are lost and will only be recalled when it is definitely, absolutely too late to do anything about it and you hear sirens.

France is a vague and mystical domain. It it filled with minor chores and tasks. You find yourself making a scrapbook, re-potting a plant, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, anything but the LIST. It is a subtle form of brainwashing developed between the children and the house fairies. Don't even get me started on the fairies.

My children have discovered that Mommy's brain is like the movie, "Memento". If you don't like the answer/consequence/clothing choice she has given you, wait ten minutes and ask her again. You will get a completely different answer.

When Mommy goes to France, she takes a vacation from her brain.

Children love vacations.


(photo by EPA)

Slow crazy

There is no time to write the great novel. The characters in my head are just another set of voices added to the constant sonic assault of "Momma, Momma, Momma...", that fills my every waking moment. My greatest creative works are five and eight years old and very chatty.

Somehow they are not the great works of philosophy, spirituality, and selfish achievement I had envisioned when I pondered how my creative energy would manifest in my life. There are still miracles; evidence of a higher power beyond understanding.

But things are getting serious. The voices in my head have hired an attorney. They are demanding equal time.

Now I know the true meaning of "slow crazy".

River beginning

The flow of my life follows the Kenai river. The river is an Alaskan legend, hailed for decades as the home of the giant 80lb king salmon. It is the only place they live. The river became a world famous tourist destination about the same time the Trans-Atlantic Pipeline began construction.

I grew up in the Alaska that existed before that time....

This is my story, and my journal of my life as it is today. The history and the present are from very different eras and I am still trying to adjust.