Word of the day......

With my luck the word of the day is probably a swear word....I just don't know it
cause it is in Spanish.. that is just my luck.... With just a little good luck..I might
learn something!

I have to admit....I have wonderful friends.....James offered to pay for an extra
cub scout shirt. As it turned out the child in need left cub scouts. I think
he may have left because St. Maries is a depressed area. Few people have
jobs. Those who do have them are trying to help their friends who don't.
That is the type of town it is! They don't sit back and wish they could
help. They stand up and do something! He did not quit scouting because
he didn't have enough parental care.....

James and I cared. Computers are wonderful. I've never seen or met
James. I know he is a good man. I know he is a caring man and I think
of him with pride, that he is my friend!

I still have no idea who the child was. I know he was seven. I know he and my golden
Stephen did not have the uniform to be cub scouts. I doubt his parents
had any more money than my Daughter. I think there should be
more like James. People who don't care who the child is. People who
only care that he would be the ONLY seven year old in St. Maries
Cub Scouts Without a uniform... The only kid who didn't look like
the rest of the kids in their proud uniforms. The only kid who didn't have one!

St. Maries taught me many things... is a "different" town. Idaho is a
different place..We love our children.We want them to be children as long
as we can keep them that way. We want them to have wonderful child hoods!
Someday when they are grown, we want them to go off on their own
and be independent. They better do what we want them to do while they are
being independent.

Shut your mouth and EAT!

Then there was Shirl One Sister of my heart!
Shirl who has been through so much in the last few years. She hurts
so badly because of her generous heart! A heart so big, that when it
was broken she was stricken! She became ill, but her heart was
still Strong. Her spirit is weakened, but no one could make
her soul small. No one could steal her pride!

Mikie,who are like my sisters I have never seen in person, Sisters
I may never meet. In other lives, perhaps in other worlds we
grow in the same house. We are all women of strong conviction who
would fight for what we believe in! Women who would fight
for each other.Women who have fought WITH each other to
save the life of who ever was in trouble. These are bonds stronger
than those forged in the same house, the same town . These
are Heart sisters! All...

I never thought to have friends with bonds so strong I could feel
their pain in my own limbs. I could see their homes in my mind.
I could Nearly TOUCH them in my dream state. Friends like
Debra whom I met so many years ago. We have been through
so many trials. She has had surgery on her knees. She worked
so hard in her life fighting to make a living in a man's world at
a job held by only MEN in times gone by.

There is Joyce, And Kert, and Jon! Sometimes when I see
her words on screen I can feel the hurt in her heart. At
Other times I can feel the laughter. Who'd of thunk that
a fat lady from Idaho could be so blessed. That I could
have so much in my life. So many wonderful adventurous
and brave people. These are folks who have driven across
this continent from West to East just to get to know us!
They have done this TWICE....

Then I think of people I have met... friends in Idaho, I'm reminded of Linda.
Linda is a beautiful woman from the East. She strives to have a comfortable
way of life. Here in the WEST.I must admit she does it so very well.
I know it is not effortless.It is hard work having a charming home and keeping up with a husband.That is multi- tasking! She is good at it!

If you are reading this Linda...
I loved the fudge. I'm glad it is eaten. It won't be there calling me in the
middle of the night...."Laurel, Oh Laurel! Come out here! Things eaten
in the light of the fridge have no carbs! There are no sugars in things eaten
in the dark! Hay! Diabetic woman! IT is time to come get your sugar fix!"

OH! I shall MISS That fudge! Like lovers, We had such Homey conversations in the dark.
It would whisper to me. I would caress it! I would savor it. I'd let the
smooth chocolate silken Dark and tastey, melt in my mouth and trickle slowly down
my throat in an orgy of tastes and sensations Ever so slowly, I would masticate.
I'd move my tongue through that soft thick chocolate.
Slowly I would chew on the nuts! Till I was surfeit with the hard chewy geatness of
them. In a nearly orgasmic moment The flavor would SpURT forth! I would swallow!
When it was overI was compelled to lick my chocolate covered
fingers till the last vestige was gone, past my lips, every taste bud was
excited alive with pleasure and wanting more more more. Awwwwww!
Give me a SMOKE!

Then there is Sherri, a woman who's generosity is unforgetable.
This lady sent me bottles and bottles of cinnamon. To make sure
I didn't poison my diabetic self with the smooth delicious unforgettable
Fudge! Sherri who is another generous heart. Her life is not
easy. Always I feel her love of life in her words. When she describes
her children I can't hide my smile. All the love probably raises
my blood sugar by at least a hundred points....Yes! I am a blessed
person!

Maddie, Ahh Maddie, A woman who says what she believes in!
A woman of laughter and light! She is a woman of talent...how do you
know you are blessed. You are blessed when you get to know someone
so well, A woman you have never met, but a friend still! A joy!

I hardly knew where to begin. I hope it never ends........

They grew up without my permission.....

It seems strange to sit in a living room, in bright light beside the TV. My fella sits beside me holding the dog who owns him. Somehow we are closer here than I am in an open doorway a few feet away. I am more a part of his life sitting here on a slow computer he paid ten bucks for at a yard sale. More and more as I listen to him fight for air when he has a bad day, I need to be a part of their lives . Here I set on my prehistoric Compaq, waiting for it to load, when I could be a few feet away on my lovely Dell computer. I could be just a few steps away. Perhaps a lifetime away....My son bought the Dell for several hundred dollars a few years ago at Christmas!I have Great kids, even though they tricked me by growing UP while I was not looking.

Just when was it they became adults? Was it 15 ? I know that was when they were sure they were smarter than either of us? Was it at 18 when the law said they could go where they wanted and do as they please?

I'm not really sure WHEN they grew up? One day I opened my eyes! I saw them packing out all the things we'd bought them and they had treasured over the years. They were on their way to live "on their own!"...They took all their favorite things. They packed them into cars and into homes. They each left a box. I don't know what is in those boxes? I think it is just something" for seed." They left just enough of themselves behind so they could always call this home. They KNEW it was home cause they had a box of things there waiting for THEM. A box of "Stuff" they knew I could never bare to throw out;because it was a part of them and a part of our lives, before they grew up and away from our home....

Now my eldest is nearly in her forties. She is well on her way. I find bits and pieces of her things occasionally, a picture of her teen aged years and her friends. Something to make me think of her as a little girl! Something to remind me of her childhood. Now she has Children of her own. I find things that belong to them, to remind me they too lived in my home. They too were children here, a part of our lives, growing more important in our hearts. One will soon be a teen, where did his child hood go? Where is that little boy who played havoc with our heart strings, brought dust and dandelions to his grandmother on a long ago spring day in Idaho??? Back to where we started, when is it they GROW UP????

I enjoy them NOW, probably, not as much as I enjoyed them as children, I knew at the time I was raising strong, hard working adults. I knew I was not raising children!....Perhaps they were mostly adults at the time. They were growing into what I wanted them to be all along...

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Happy New Year from Frozen Idaho!

There is something quite warming about sitting on a cold night reading Robert Service
poetry.Specially when you have friends and a few beloved roots in Alaska...Suffice to say it is warmer in Idaho tonight than in Fairbanks last week....was -10 here and -30 there.

In Fairbanks they planned better for the snow time than they did in Idaho. In Fairbanks you can go from one business to the one on the back block through adjoining doors! You could leave the old drugstore and go into another building simply by walking out a back door...It was the easiest way to get to my Aunt's beauty school...That wasn't the better part of town. Fact is, it was kind of a seedy district. It was HER town. From the end of the war till she passed in the fifties she loved Alaska..I loved it when she introduced me to it and the many characters she knew there...

I remember standing in a crowd of people in a bar where a woman played "Honky Tonk" piano. I was in love. I think I was also 14 and it was a big bar in a very small town. I'm not sure any more. I think it was Chicken Alaska. At midnight a man sat on the back of the tall piano and recited" The Ballad of Dan McGee" I knew the poem well. I'd always loved his poetry because he had a sense of humor that actually had rhyme and Meter!

How cool was THAT! It was as if I had never heard or read the poem before. The hair on my arms stood on end. I could actually feel the bone chilling cold, and the heat of the fires as he stood in the door way to hell, and watched Dan and listen to him tell his friend it was the first time he had been warm since he got to Alaska!

The cold of Alaska never bothered me a whole lot. I couldn't stand the darkness. I knew that with out even trying. I adored the idea that it was Daylight at midnight. cause I am a night person by nature. I watched on the twenty first of June the Midnight son, go down, and come up again. It happened in a matter of minutes that made it seem as though one was looking at two suns at the same moment!

I can't tell you the beauty of Alaska, I haven't got the words. I can tell you of the mosquito! They are the State bird! There was a story went around a mosquito landed at Edwards air force base,and they dumped in 200 gallon of jet fuel before they noticed it was not an airplane.....In order to take a good picture you had to stand in front of your subject for a while and wave a towel. That kept the mosquitoes from spoiling the picture!

I remember talking with a Native in the Yukon. He paid no mind to the mosquito except to put his hand on his forehead occasionally and dragging it down, then shaking the little beggars off his hand as though his hand was full of some smelly ointment, or cow manure. This is no joke. You would be driving down the AL-CAN "highway"....NOW it is paved...when I went up in the sixties...it was dirt all the way! you could drive for miles and miles, all you would see was a moose on occasion, and more miles and miles of trees and mountains. One would think there was no one for WELL....Miles and Miles! You had no idea where in the world he was coming from, or where he was going.

This was the sixties when a good pair of my favorite white tennis shoes were less than five bucks in the "lower 48" I've always had a frugal soul. You can imagine my distress when I found a pair in Alaska was a resounding 8 bucks! Then I went walking in the tundra. I walked off the road and into the bush only to sink waaay deep till I got through the mud and reached the permafrost down below. The Tennis Shoes were brand new. They were White as a sheet, till I took the walk!

In order for this to be any fun for you. you have to realize I was fanatic about my WHITE tennis shoes being BRIGHT white. I liked to spray them with spray starch, and then put on white liquid polish!They left Alaska a color that can best described with the afore mentioned manure!

The seasoned sled dogs of Alaska were both a mystifying and startling to me. They were beautiful animals. The Working dogs walked like a "muscle man!" You could watch every muscle in their bodies ripple as they walked across the road at leisure. It was no surprise to any when you realized that they thought they owned the world! Probably from where they stood, they DID!

I can NOT imagine a poodle sled dog! BUT, A poodle will pull till he literally bursts his heart. I don't mean the itty- bitty kind that people think are so cute. Mine is a snarling little gray mutt who knows who he owns. I mean the big aggressive kind of Poodle who will take on a bear. Poodles know no fear, a bitty little guy like Mine of twenty pounds..fat old man that he is would fight a wolverine if he thought his human was in trouble. They do not allow poodles in dog races. No it is not cause they look stupid in harness...people actually give them that stupid hair cut! It is because when they lay down on the frozen tundra their curling hair freezes to the ground!

So much for dog lore.....Have a wonderful New Year,

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