Carpe Diem

Our friend Tom died suddenly this week. Heart attack. He’d recently opened his own wine store here in Anchorage after years of working for others. No matter where Tom worked that’s where we preferred to shop. His knowledge of wine was broad and his taste preference matched mine. That’s as important as it is rare. Whenever Tom recommended a wine I’d try it without hesitation. Can’t recall a time when I thought, “Nope, not my style, Tom, you missed on this one.” Not once. Tom was polite, witty, always eager to extend us a “good guy” discount, and I’d come to learn he was pretty well read too. Lately, when I’d stop by his store we’d talk about the latest book his book club was reading, or the merits of this or that author’s short story collection. Frequently, his dog Bolly was in the store at rest on a soft blanket Tom had placed near the cash register.

You’re never prepared for the suddenness of sadness. We will miss Tom. A lot.

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Happy Wife crust skiing on Portage Lake last weekend. Pardon the low quality. This is a screen capture of a photograph she sent me as an attachment to a text message. Think Xerox of a re-sized Xerox.

See those people back there, near the base of Portage glacier? Moments earlier they’d been touching the columns of ice, posing, I suppose, for a “cool” selfie. Foolish if you ask me. Just one week earlier this video was taken. Recognize the place?

Note near the end the videographer’s recognition of the pressure wave, if I recall correctly from my days as a geophysicist, also known as a standing P-wave.