long time no blog.

not the photo i wanted at the top. the blog changes how it configures things at times. it's been nearly a month since i posted. lazy. busy with kittens. 

the kittens do give me a schedule to work with and distract me from the insanity that is my country imploding. he wants to go after and even deport people who are citizens who speak out against him. how much mayhem will he cause before he is removed/dies...clearly, it's screw the constitution and the shared powers. the tariff crap is all over the place. I've lost like 200,000 from my retirement.  those who act all whatever are clearly orange lovers. they selected him for this or that and then he just moves the plan/goalposts, and they just change their culty narrative. 

he's basically kidnapped a bunch or people and sent them off without any due process. forget the just going after criminals.  of course, a criminal would not go after criminals.  hes had gold pins made of his face and now the gop will wear those...like a tramp stamp.  used to be the flag, then it was an ak-47, now the orange fools face. fall in line, that is what they do best. 

he tariffs all but the russians, including penguins. so many just live in a bubble, like this is all just normal stuff.  there is so much that i can't even begin to cover it in the blog. there was a large protest nation wide. over 5 million. of course, they lie about everything and said that all the protesters were paid. 

here we've had an odd spring.  snow returned but as it falls it mostly melts. 

the bear trees have been very active.  loads of photographers. i stop by coming/going from walks. the first tree has a nursing mom, no babies seen yet. hope that doesn't mean they are sickly, like that one year.  the further tree has a mom and one healthy cub. the cub comes out from time to time.  a few times i've stopped briefly and the one bear was at the base of the tree.  when i show up she seems to head back up. people are dumb though.  she's super tolerant but it just takes that one time.  once there were camera all around the tree pretty much. they left her no exit.  today after she'd crossed the road people set up their cameras between her and the den in the tree with cubs.  dumb.  a few people walked their dogs under the trees with bears out.  dumb.  kids playing under the tree with a bear out.  

it's not just that the bear can come down that tree super fast.  the area around the tree is a creek covered in ice/snow with snow bridges. those could give way at any moment with this warm weather. still fun to see the bears and the only time she was really stressed was when someone drove by honking and yelling for the people to leave the bear alone. mostly she is pretty chill, digging up roots and grass to eat while she is out. 

this second litter of kittens got hit hard with this cold bug.  weight loss, bad conjunctivitis.  i am on a second eye medication and they do seem to be responding well and gaining weight.  the littlest ones are beginning to play which is a good sign.  my kitten weights are from 1 pound 8 ounces to 14-15 ounces.  thinking they will be able to return to the shelter at the end of this week. i have Tonsina cabin on the 27/28 and HOmer the 29/30. kittens will be gone before then.  

it was a bit stressful with this group.  a few days i worried i'd come into the room to find a dead kitten.  it can happen. things you don't really think about when you take on a litter. i did ask at one point what do i do after hours if i have an emergency.  i was worried about the mom getting eclampsia with so many kittens and being so unwell herself.  i have a cell phone number to contact. they said if i didn't get permission from them i may be responsible for the cost. that is absurd. 

i just have the kittens. i took them in for a visit since they were doing poorly.  they kept mom. she is spayed now and looking for a home. i actually just looked and she is no longer on the list so she must have gotten adopted.  good for her. they did a sweet write up about her. she was really sweet.  

work hasn't been too bad. i'm for sure less stressed there now. a bit ago i told picu i did not want the sickest patients and pretty much told adult icu that as well. not having those patients has for sure been good for me. 

these are from the first litter. they all got adopted as did their mom

the open water is getting larger out at the dog park.  Sunny Boy got to close to the edge once and i had to go rescue him. have hit the dog park quite a bit this past month. no bears and the moose haven't been too bad.  n bivy I was having a lot of moose sightings. sunny will have to be on leash more and more.  yesterday and today I was in the car by the bear tree when the bear got fairly close. i just get right in car rather than risk it. i thought i may get a video of her charging a few of those photographers.

i think i just learned years ago that it was just a fun hobby for me.  i wasn't going to make money at it and i think you have to just enjoy nature and not be consumed with getting that perfect shot. i'd guess most of those folks out there have thousands of photos of that bear and will never sell one.  

i hit the beach a few times, perfect days for probably the last of the ice.  i've not gone too far these past few weeks worried about these kittens.  still a few tiny's but overall, i'm feeling better about their survival. 

was doing steam sessions 2-3x day. Ivy has loved giving the kittens love.  i took them all out on the front deck for a second time today. the first time it was sunny, breezy but i wanted to give them a reason to live. one's eyes were basically shut but he just sat in my lap listening to the birds and feeling the breeze. i think it did help 

i keep informed, i play games, i escape to the kitten room. 

it's a lot of kittens, even with mom gone.  3 litter boxes, 4 meals a day. eye drops 3 x daily.

it's been good emotionally for me.  all hell is breaking loose in our nation and i'm helping kittens. 

the hearts are done for the year.  those were a great distraction.  once at the dog park a lady recognized me or the dogs and asked if i was the one putting out the hearts.  

of course, have pissed off a few people on the trails these past months with dogs off leash. one ran up from behind us but didn't let us know she was there. that would have helped. when she got to us she yelled at us to get our dogs.  as she passed, she yelled, nice training, to which i responded, nice attitude.  people are just more pissy these days.  she turned around and ran back at us once we'd hit the woods.  that time we heard someone coming and had all 7 dogs off trail. she yelled at us again. something about people like us ruin the trail experience.  i yelled back, back at ya. 

i'm tired of being nice.  I'm old i guess. 

so many people have accepted so much that i just can't look past. 

i should be more careful on the trails though, i guess. i may run across one of those people in the ER, haha, that could be awkward. when you yell at people in Alaska you have to realize that those very same people may be the ones saving your life on the trails if you get attacked by a bear or something.  best to just be civil. i am not perfect and i will occasionally give what i get. 

schedule tomorrow morning. i slowly get things accomplished on the to do list.  got my taxes done this stretch. hated paying taxes this year knowing what bull this idiot and his idiots are doing with the money.  keeping it.  sending legal citizens to concentration camps in other countries.  he apparently wants a military parade for his birthday golfing.....

tried to charge the battery on the element but it's dead so I'll probably call AAA to get a new one. i have the tire change over scheduled for this week as well for the CRV.  i also got the annual heater check. so far, it's ok.  it's at the end of its life apparently. 

I've got one more kitten run tonight and then I'll crash.  gotta get my calendar out as well so i can do the schedule tomorrow. these kittens have had a few visitors.  

they do steal your heart a bit.  each litter

bear sightings

i was looking at a few photos from the big camera. with this new computer I'm not clear on editing. still too new.  also, not sure if i ever looked at Iditarod photos, i don't think i did.  

these are the more distant tree. i don't recall seeing bears in there before.  

maybe it's less roomy so  it's usually just a single bear that just takes off.  this year there is a mom and her one cub from last year

these are just cell phone snaps

waving goodbye

mom and cub climbing

i have tons to say but i can't get sucked into the orange vortex. 

off to feed kittens and plod along with life. 

the animals are the best distraction

 grateful for A.  bear sightings.  always fun, from a safe distance or from inside the car. B. kittens and my pets as a great distraction C. that there are many out there who view this orange idiot just as he is, a criminal and a Russian asset no doubt. 

winter has returned for the moment

 

it's snowing today and a little the last few days.  the good news is that the snow has now mostly bonded with the ice below making walking less scary. the dogs are good. did the airstrip yesterday and today just the dog park since I was meeting a Ketchikan friend for lunch. the dogs just want to get outside. they love their walks. I do miss them on occasion but not that often really.  their doggles arrived. we have a volcano that is predicted to blow ash in the next weeks to months. the ash can be like tiny shards of glass. hopefully, the wind is blowing away from Anchorage when Mt Spurr erupts. it's about 75 miles away. 

not cold enough to make ice hearts these days, yesterday I carried my heart shaped snowball maker though and put some little snow hearts out there. not as pretty. was at the dog park last week and someone recognized the dogs from posts with ice hearts on fb. one post went fairly viral. sadly, I had to leave the group and delete my posts since it appeared to be hacked. suddenly different names were showing up on a photo with Ivy and a heart. just my name was cut off. fb password changed as well. any hint of strangeness, change those passwords. 

sounds like Elonia and Krasnov have collected all our information and probably handed it over to Rus anyway. we are so far gone at this point. still fighting. according to the Simpsons they will all get theirs, sooner than later.  it's sad that we all grasp for whatever positive thing we can find. someone flipping coins or reading tarot cards...I'll take it. I need good news.  if someone were to, I'm not suggesting they do and I can't really condone it but if they did....wine would be drank and dancing would happen

my work run was ER and ICU. one patient, clearly right leaning started going off on science and scientists.  when he was at a lull in his rant, I just looked at him and said that everything in the hospital that was helping him was based on science and scientists. I then asked if there was anything else he needed and left the room. these folks are not always hateful people they are just stuck on a terrible track with no clue at times that they are the victims or horrible disinformation. still, enough real information has gotten to them that they have denied or called fake news that I don't believe they can ever really be let of the hook. you allow yourself to be taken down the path of a cult or of disinformation, because you want the truth to not be true and the lies to be truth. for many at the age they are it would be a massive devastation to discover they were fooled so easily and so completely.... what else in their lives might they have been fooled by. 

I started to work on a poem. I've always found poetry to be a great outlet.  felt it may be time to release the words again

you say you aren't racist, 

but you voted with the racists,

with the white supremacists, the KKK.

you say you are Christian, 

but you voted against the least of these,

voted against the poor and the needy.

you are a parent,

but you voted against education,

you voted against gun safety,

you voted against healthcare.

you say you love everyone,

but you voted against the immigrants,

the refugees, the lgbqt.

you say you support women,

but you voted against their rights,

their bodily autonomy,

their protection from violence.

you say you support freedom,

but you voted against free speech,

you voted against voter rights, 

you voted against religious freedom if it wasn't your religion.

you say you support veterans,

but you voted to gut their healthcare,

you voted them out of jobs.

you say you support officers,

but you voted to allow those who violently attacked officers go free,

you rooted for those who were violent on January 6. 

you claim to be against big government,

but you voted in a wanna be dictator, a king.

and now,

you remain silent as he destroys our laws, our freedoms and our government.

you are not who you claim to be, 

it's not possible.

that is a first draft, i guess. 

these are some of the hearts I left out there. 

this was a sunset downtown. I went to see the snow sculptures. dirtiest ones I've ever seen due to our low snow year. the artists used that to their advantage in some cases, I think. the dirty snow used in the design. 

I've booked a few Homer trips for April and May. nice low tides. one will come right after Tonsina. I'll just head there from Seward. 

even though the kittens all got homes as did the mom cat, I still stalk them, just in case they get returned. so far it looks good for them. you know I'd run down there and scoop them up if they returned. 

the Iditarod is still ongoing. less than 35 teams this year. I opted out of the long drive to Fairbanks. I'm sure I would have enjoyed the trip to Fairbanks, but it is a long drive. Jessie Holmes won this year. I admit I haven't followed it all as intensely as I have some years. the downtown excitement just isn't the same. less of the big names. I still suspect the admission of gps changed the sport. change can be good and safer for sure, but it also can change the spirit of the sport. it's just a different event now. in some ways less of a challenge because you can just push a rescue button. it's good, I get that but it's also a dramatic change from a person and their team in remote Alaska on their own. the risk is what added the excitement level and the stories.

it's still snowing but it's also still fairly light. love the longer days. summer is coming. we have our gathering planned at REI. need to try to find folks interested in coming. fill the room. the other night at work, it came up and my brain could not remember our new web page name. just went blank. walrusadvocates.org.  that is it. it was the wee hours after doing holds. one guy looked like he was going to deck me, life in the ER. he was soon put right with a drip that calmed his arse down.

hearing about people being detained at airports who have legal documentation. they are treated cruelty in an attempt to get them to give up their visa or green cards. a college student attended a rally in support of Palestine and was picked up. he is legal but being held and called a terrorist on faux news. they just twist everything and turn hateful on individuals in order to make it fit their bull

he tosses out so many orders and decrees. sadly, the ICE folks are showing signs of a willingness to take things to a scary level. seems to welcome those with racist tendencies more than other authority driven positions. are they our gestapo in the making? it's all about hate and cruelty. 

below is one of those dirty snow sculptures.

still getting used to this new computer and new keyboard.  sticky at times. haven't set up my printer and I haven't gone back to the old computer to download the files I thought were saved to the external drive. 

mentally, things are still tough at times.  I sleep longer than I should, linger in bed, slow to start my days. I plug along.  stuff eventually gets done. focus is not always clear.  there is just so much bad news coming at us all.  how do we keep up. it's what the plan is. to overwhelm us all into just relenting.  we can't do that though.  we must continue to fight, call them out. it's exhausting. sad that so many relationships are damaged and destroyed in the name of these idiots, but it's hard to talk about trivialities when you know people are being harmed and harassed. we have empathy. the right is actually trying to trash the concept of empathy.  they hate woke, they hate liberals, they hate education, they hate science, they hate, that is what they do but they can't even see that. 

anxiety can come randomly. I've found better ways to cope with it but it's still there. I speak less and less to those who I know support this buffoon. how can you respect this cruelty, even if they do not intend to be cruel or hateful, those they support do intend it and as long as they remain silent, they bear that responsibility. 

the dogs are amazing motivation. I know I need to get them outside and outside is very good for me. even if it's icy out there. fresh air is good. have to find positive distractions more and more to get through this. 

decided to watch an old Rom-Com last night. "two weeks notice". then Krasnov's name is mentioned, then he shows up in a cameo. he destroys everything.

not at all happy watching my retirement account decrease, nor am I happy hearing how badly these jerks want to destroy Medicare and social security just as I'm about to try to retire. 

some of the resistance is working. tesla is doing poorly, and the fragile egos do very poorly with criticism. they can dish it out but can't take it. the world is against krasnov and this entire mess.  they do seem to realize that many of us are trying and not in support of all this. we support Canada and Mexico and Greenland and Panama and Europe and Ukraine....the buffoon supports putin. that is what it all rolls up to be. putin owns him. we all know it but so far nobody has come out with the connections needed to roll him.

this strange, warm winter will be over soon. wonder if the flowers will bloom early this year. hoping we don't have fires this summer

as you can see from reading this, my brain is all over the place.  was doing so great until this fool was put back in power to destroy all our peace. jerks.

my sweet kittens will always be this small in my mind.  had a dream the other night. was at a beach I think and one by one the kittens came out of the woods to me and I scooped them all up. 

having a kind heart can be a difficult thing. preferred over what the alternative is. I'll take the pain that arises from having empathy over the coldness of these jerks. 

come on Simpsons, be right. 

grateful for: a. each day i survive and the moments i thrive. B. that all the kitties found homes.  hope they are being loved and spoiled. C. the fresh snow. the place looks so pretty covered in snow