Author: Elise Patkotak

Nov. 22, 1963 I was in the fall of my senior year in high school. I went to a small Catholic high school in an old building that was shared with a grade school. We had our school play in the same gym/auditorium/whatever room as the grade school. The day my class graduated, the buildings were condemned and the next year the school was in a new facility with it’s own gym and cafeteria and football practice field – something you don’t tend to have when your highs school is in the middle of the city.

We were in final Continue reading →

Except for my Mr. T, I have never really known a lot of history on the rescue dogs I’ve adopted. But their attitude and actions can often speak volumes. With Rizley, though, I’m still trying to figure out if someone once hurt him or if he’s just a prick at times.

Rizley periodically goes through a mood in which he goes to the hallway downstairs and pees and poops at night. He doesn’t do it most of the time. But when he does, it’s three or four days in a row and then he usually stops.

Just to be clear, Continue reading →

I can’t drive in the dark. Hell, I can barely drive in the dusk. And ever since Johnson’s Tires closed down with my studded snow tires, I’ve been very leery of driving on icy roads with my all weather tires.

So why, as my family and friends from outside often wonder, do I stay here. And the answer is very simple.

Every morning I wake up to the sight of the Chugach Mountains out my bedroom window. When I wake up early, which is sadly becoming more and more common as the pains persist through the night, I see those Continue reading →

So Orange Peel admits he made the call, releases a transcript that corroborates the whistle blower and now numerous respected diplomats have confirmed it. So what the hell? Why are we still holding hearings in which witness after witness admits that Orange Peel was strong arming Ukraine’s president? Why is not the simple fact of racketeering and bullying threats that put our allies in danger enough to declare that Orange Peel is not fit to be president?

Funny, in a sick kinda way. We always knew he wasn’t capable. He can’t read. He can’t pay bills. He can’t reason. And, Continue reading →

Every once in awhile I get a craving for something called Scrapple – not Scrabble the word game but scrapple the product made of all the disgusting leftovers after an animal has been butchered. Disgusting though the ingredients might be, the result is a wonderful breakfast meat that just needs the right cook to know how to crisp it on the outside and keep it soft on the inside – and that cook, thanks to my dad, is me.

So I ordered some. And FedEx delivered it. They delivered it in a package so well wrapped that it was impossible Continue reading →

Today, my friend Sandra Stuermer became the first woman to be appointed as the Director of Administration and Finance for the North Slope Borough. Perhaps even more importantly, she is the first Alaska Native woman to hold this position.

Sandra earned her degree (in business administration or something like that – it had lots to do with business and math) from UAA. As a working mother, she used the proximity of the university to pursue her degree, taking what courses she could each semester until she achieved that four year degree. Without UAA, she would not bring the credibility to Continue reading →

I needed a new bathrobe. The one I was using was twenty years old and I had bought it second hand so there’s a good chance it was a lot older. But I loved it – right up until it simply started falling apart piece by piece in the wash.

So I did what all good Americans do who go shopping nowadays. I went to Amazon and typed in bathrobes. Quite a variety showed up. Some as expensive as $80 and some as cheap as $34. My nona’s cheap genes jump in when I least expect them to. I bought Continue reading →