Author: admin

What is it about the Boston Pops on the Fourth of July? They play their singalong and I sit in my chair singing at the top of my lungs and tears are rolling down my cheeks. Is it the memory of those songs learned in grade school, taught by nuns with thick Italian accents, whose goal it was to make us worthy of the country our parents and grandparents had adopted? Was it the memory of those who gave their lives so this country could continue to exist? Was it Fess Parker in a coonskin cap or Little Joe Cartwright

May all our young men and women fighting in the mid-east and stationed all over the world protecting our freedom come home safely to their families.

And may Paul Revere never again warn the British that we knew they were coming… talk about a close call!

No, it’s not the sound of your summer visitors beating a path to your door… well, ok, some of it might be. But mostly its presidential candidates whose muffled roars become louder and louder with each passing day. Oh lord! Oh lord! When will the commercials start? When will the sound bites get so deafening we want to rip our ears off and put them away until after election day? When will a female Republican candidate actually have more brains than beauty?

Bird TLC is a wildbird rehab center in Anchorage. It’s almost always busy there because there are almost always birds who have been injured and need help. And now that it’s baby bird season… well, you can’t begin to imagine how many birds get orphaned this time of year. Goslings and ducks of all sorts try to cross the busy roads of Anchorage and inevitably some moms get hit, along with some of the babes. The remainder come to us to feed and care for until they can be released. We also get every kind and variety of other bird

My friend Rob came to visit me with his old lady dog Amy. Amy is big, furry, old and moves with the speed and grace of a crippled hippo. My Blondie is also an old lady, full of fur but no fury. When Amy came in she sniffed Blondie. Blondie then sniffed Amy. Then Blondie and Amy stood there for a minute looking at each other. Then Blondie went to her den in the back of my closet and went back to sleep. Amy went over to Blondie’s food dish, ate what dry dog food was left there and then

As someone raised in an insular Italian neighborhood and educated for 18 years in Catholic school, I did not have a clue growing up about what gay meant, unless you were talking about the state some of my parents’ friends found themselves in after a few drinks. Eventually I figured it out when a dear friend’s father came out after the death of her mother and one of my cousin’s admitted that his roommate was much, much more and that they were, in fact, adopting two little boys.

When I nursed in Brooklyn in the late 1960s and early 1970s,

Now that Michele B has joined the race for Republican nominee for president, I see light in my future as the columns all but write themselves. And dare I hope that the lovely Sarah of Arizona might also jump into the fray so we can watch the two of them slug it out for the most in love with god and country candidate title? My cup would then truly run over.

No, seriously god, what the hell were you thinking?

My office is directly below my living room where the energetic African Gray Parrot Abdul lives. Last week when we had a 5.2 earthquake, I initially thought it was Abdul just banging on his cage and made no move to safety. I have simply got to learn to differentiate those two things.

I just read in the paper that Anchorage actually has an Urban Design Commission slated for elimination in 2013. And all I can think is… we have an urban design commission and we STILL look this way? What the hell has that commission been doing? They shouldn’t be eliminated. They should be jailed.