DEC 28, 22 (1/2) .. A GUEST POST FROM OUR FRIEND AND ALLY .. FRANK FROM ALASKA

To this point in time, unlike our dotnet website where I have had guest contributors in the past, this is a first here on blogspot.

Frostbite Frank, our guest contributor, is an Alaska friend of many years who has lived a full life. Frank recently returned to Alaska from a trip of several months to Portugal and neighboring countries. When he texted me details of what his return to Alaska entailed, I asked him if I could post his text here on blogspot.

Before I turn this post over to Frank, I will post some photos of the Anchorage winter that Frank writes about below.

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Hi Cap and Patti!

I'm in Anchorage - I have been meaning to call you since I returned on December 9 , but the exigencies of winter have preoccupied me.  

I got back 2 days after the big snow and spent the first day I was back digging my car out.  The GFCI outlet had tripped so my trickle charger didn't work and the battery was frozen.  I had to call AAA for a jump, then I loaded my studded snow tires from the shed and slid my way across town to get a new battery and change my tires.  Next time I leave in mid-summer I'm going to mount my snow tires first!

Also, Aer Lingus had only shipped my bags to LA (huh??). They even asked me if I wanted to retrieve them in LA or Anchorage and I said Anchorage! My first official act after returning and getting my car drivable was to pick them up. TSA had examined everything. To their credit, they were able to get it all back into the suitcases.  Unfortunately they repacked my ceramic coffee mug right next to my Corningware French press coffeemaker, so suitcase #1 was full of glass shards from the coffeemaker.  It was my clothes suitcase, so I just picked out the big pieces of glass I could see and threw the clothes in the washing machine. If you find my body with a thousand tiny cuts, you'll know that I'm wearing clean clothes but that the washer didn't get out all the little slivers.

Suitcase #2 was packed to the gills with Christmas presents for my daughter and son and their families.  My sponsor is an aficionado of exotic honeys, so I also had five 400ml jars of honey: 1 each from Kauai, Hawaii ; Cromeleque dos Almendres, Portugal (a megalithic structure in the Portuguese highlands that predates Stonehenge by about 2,000 years, in a cork oak forest); the Algarve, Portugal (the southern, floral, subtropical coast); Las Cabezas de San Juan, Spain. What? He had 2 heads?  3 heads? and finally honey from the Rock of Gibraltar.  They were each in a different part of the suitcase and separately wrapped in socks and tee shirts, but after the TSA inspection they were all packed together in a plastic bag.  The jars from Spain and Gibraltar broke in transit and managed to get honey on, and in, every single Christmas gift, plus a brand-new sport coat that I had purchased to attend La Traviata in Lisbon.  I'm sure it also leaked out through the zipper onto other people's adjacent luggage in the plane.

Once I got home it leaked onto my landlady's carpet and onto my bed, where I had opened it to discover the mess.  I've been cleaning honey off of Christmas gifts ever since.  I was supposed to pick up my sport coat from the dry cleaner today, but he says give him another week. The honey is really locked into the wool fibers and 2 cycles wasn't enough.  At least I got to send 3 jars to my sponsor well-packed in an oversized box, far from each other, with lots of padding.

Anyway, I was completely worn out after digging my way out during my debut for Winter 2022-23.  I could hardly move due to back pain, my left knee is screaming at me, and both of my shoulders still ache. I have a torn left rotator cuff and an artificial right shoulder.  

I wasn't particularly enthralled when the 18-inch snowfall hit 2 days later on Sunday, December the 11th. I wasn't going to dig out again.  I called every plowing service I could find, but by December they are all booked up with regular subscribers and no one could fit me in.  

I took an Uber to an appointment with my attorney on Monday morning. Then on the ride back, I helped the Uber driver get unstuck, about a block from my house.  Once he was back on packed ruts he said he was done for the day, so I limped the rest of the way home.

I finally complained to my daughter about my plowing problem and she set me up with her plow guy.  He plowed me out about 9:30pm on Tuesday, about an hour after I had missed attending my home group meeting for my 24th Anniversary.  At least I got to Zoom in.  I brought treats on Friday instead. You can't have an anniversary without providing diabetic-coma levels of sugar, you know.

The rest of the week continued in similar form. I got stuck in my own driveway the next day with the little 12-inch dump we got on Wednesday, December 14th, but I really had no place to go anyway because they closed the courthouse due to snow.   

The reason I mention the courthouse is that I had a court date. My divorce trial had been rescheduled to December 15 & 16 last August, so this time the Judge postponed the trial from December 15th until April 10, 2023.  I get to be married another 5 months!  This was the 4th postponement since we separated in March 2021.  Someday I will be able to budget for my retirement, just not this year.  Maybe I should just spend it all on fast women and slow horses, and declare bankruptcy.

My new plow guy plowed the driveway on Saturday. All was well after that, right up until Monday.  

Monday night December 19th,  it got down to -20°F here at my house and my hot water pipes froze.  I took showers at my daughter’s house every 3 days, and bird baths in between, using water I had heated on the stove. I reminded myself that this was the way people had bathed for the 10,000 years preceding 1950. What did I have to complain about?

They were still frozen Thursday, after an unsuccessful $100 visit from Libbey Thawing.  Libbey told me to call Victor the Plumber, who will heat the crawlspace under the house.  He's the same guy I hired last year when the pipes froze. It  took him 3 days to thaw the pipes with a little electric heater. This house is a manufactured home built in Arizona, with 2x3 walls and 2x8 roof joists - it really doesn't like cold weather.  He was going to "try to get to me tomorrow."  “Tomorrow” devolved into Saturday, and Sunday was Christmas.  Monday was a Federal holiday, so I accepted the likelihood that I’d be taking bird baths well into this week.

Monday I was awakened at 5:44am by hot water gushing from the bathtub faucet - the water had fixed itself!  The blockage was thawed and all the faucets work!  

I was wide awake after checking all the faucets, so I made “Merry Christmas” calls to people in more Eastern locations (later time zones). Then I took a real shower in my own home, for the first time in a week(!!). 

I needed some groceries so I walked out to start my car, and was surprised to discover that my car was coated with about 1/4 inch of clear ice! It must have warmed to above freezing, then rained during the night while I was sleeping. The ice on the car was thick enough that I couldn’t open the passenger-side doors, or the rear hatch. It was 25°F at 11am, so the rain had re-frozen and the snow was glazed with slippery clear ice too.

The whole driveway has 2 to 6 inches of packed snow, now with a nice wet glaze on top. I chipped ice from the porch steps to the gate while I let the car warm up and thaw the windows, but the thick snowpack around the car wouldn’t plow, wouldn’t chip, and wouldn’t shovel. I wish there was some local high school football player around who needed money for a date!

I did my grocery shopping, then I took the car to Laser Wash before going home and let the power cleaner brushes try to remove the ice. They removed a little of it, but they mostly did what they were designed to do, they polished the ice.

I beat on the ice with my scraper-broom tool after exiting the car wash and left a pretty fair-sized pile of 6-inch thick chunks. I then called their complaint line and got a free wash on Wednesday. The car is still very dirty where it was under ice.

Other than that it was a slow, restful day !

(Hahahahahahahaha!)

I was able to beg and guilt-trip a medical scheduler into letting me see a doctor for tramadol + acetaminophen for my inflamed sacroiliac joint. Anchorage Neurosurgical Associates were able to fit me in with a surgeon on July 18, 2023, for an exam to evaluate it.  I'll just have to  live with it until then.  According to the Doc who has been giving me knee injections, the problem is that the 12 inches or so of lumbar spine that is fused into an inflexible rod is putting extreme stress on the sacroiliac joint the last flexible joint in my lower back. The surgeon who did the fusion has retired, so I'm a new patient at the clinic even though I have spent a half- million dollars with them. Insurance money - my personal share was $36 for a  brace that my insurance didn't approve.  Oh, well - I'll just go to Europe or South America after my knee is functional, and bide my time until the appointment.

I leave 1/12/2023 for La Jolla to get my knee replaced.  I'll be in physical therapy there for about 6-8 weeks after the surgery.  

You might say I'm burning bridges by going - my best friend Jeff (since 1959) and his wife Judy have insisted that I stay with them, in spite of the old adage that "after 4 days, fish and guests start to stink."  It will be a test to see if they're still speaking to me after a month or two.  

I have another friend from 1959, Scott, who wants me to stay with him. All my other close buddies there are latecomers, whom I didn't meet until '60 or '61, but they too have offered me places to stay.  I'll probably divide my time between Jeff & Judy and Scott, once I'm able to walk. 

I was best man, plus I gave away the bride, at Scott's wedding to Camille 40 years ago - a busy evening!  I'm still close to both of them, closer, in fact, than they are to each other.  They divorced about 20 years ago.

Other than the above, it has been a quiet, uneventful return home.  <:-o

I have been meaning to call you but somehow I keep getting distracted.  I'll try to call tomorrow unless we have another magnitude 9 earthquake, or Jesus calls for the Rapture.  After the last 2 weeks, nothing would surprise me.  I'll probably get left behind anyway and the phones won't work.

I wish you a loving Christmas full of peace, fulfillment, and comfort - I'm saying this now in advance of whatever disaster tomorrow brings.

<:-o  ...  <;-D

Love, Frank

PS: This message is yours, if you want to post it.  It will keep winter tourism to a minimum.

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Thanks so very much Frostbite Frank !!