My sister and two friends arrive tonight from the East Coast. Let the Alaska summer fun begin.
The death zone…my front yard
Having spent a good deal of my life in the Arctic, I think I come by my spectacular lack of gardening skills honestly. In my 27 years in Barrow, the only thing I successfully grew in my yard was a wonderful little patch of tundra grass that seemed to be fine growing all by itself. All I had to do each spring was look out the window and tell it how pretty it was.
Over the course of the decades, many houseplants came to live with me only to die after a very short visit. The cause of death was
A hint that will save you some grief
When your mouse starts to act funny, try taking the little ball out and cleaning out the accumulated dust that is covering the contact points. This works much better than banging the mouse repeatedly on your desk while screaming, “For what I paid, you damn well better not be broken so soon.”
Can i still claim to revere life if I take pleasure in squashing mosquitoes?
Well, can I? Because if god differentiates between cute and not cute in making that decision, the Paris Hilton’s of this world win.
Pirates of the Carribean thumbnail review
It is worth the price of admission just to watch Johnny Depp run/walk in any given scene. The man is an amazing actor when even his walk has character.
I don’t care how cold it is
I don’t care how cold it is. I don’t care how hard the wind is blowing. I don’t care how hard it’s raining. It’s summer, damn it, and I’m wearing shorts and sandals!
I wonder how poisonous Deet really is
I think I swallowed a mouthful of Deet while spraying mosquito repellent before my walk. Now I feel nauseous and icky. How quick does Deet kill? And why don’t the mosquitoes seem half as scared of it as I do?
The dust is winning
My sister and her friends show up in about ten days and suddenly I’m noticing the dust and cobwebs that seem to never be there when I’m home alone. I take a broom to my shoulder and head into the webs with courage in my heart and the hope that the spiders are all away for the day. If not, please just ignore the screaming you’ll hear emanating from my home.
The legislature should not be meeting in July
I first noticed the odor a few weeks ago. But I was busy getting ready to leave town and figured it would wait for resolution until I returned. The smell was even more obvious upon my return and was clearly emanating from the corner of my bedroom where Mr. T takes his regular 20-hour naps.
At first I thought it was just him smelling like the little old man that he is. So I tried bathing him in banana scented dog shampoo. He was not amused and ultimately it didn’t do much for the odor. So I decided it was
Happy Fourth of July
Today I will miss my aunt’s pickled green tomatoes and the fried bread with some kind of flower in the middle that my family used to make for the July 4 picnic. And I’ll miss all my aunts and uncles and mom and dad who were always part of the day. But mostly, I’ll remember the summer I brought my friend Sandra home to meet my family. Sandra was, at the time, a 15 year old Eskimo girl. Grandpop Rocco met her and in the thickest possible Italian accent said to her, “Welcome to my country!” I think that says