Scribblings

Do not put your phone down the garbage disposal. Do not put it on your driveway and run over it. Just keep repeating… only two more weeks, only two more weeks. Then you can safely pick up your ringing phone and hear nothing more annoying than a charity trying to hit you up at the holidays for a donation. And at this point, that sounds like sweet relief from the taped messages from politicians and their cohorts telling me not only why they are so wonderful and why their opponent eats little children alive and should not be in elected

Clinic and Office Volunteers Wanted:

Bird Treatment and Learning Center (Bird TLC) is looking for clinic and office volunteers! Clinic volunteers provide rehabilitation and care for sick and injured birds, from chickadees to bald eagles. Office volunteers will be involved in a variety of activities, including helping with intake procedures, answering phones, preparing mailings, word processing, database entry, etc. If you’re interested, please email [email protected] or call us at 907-562-4852. We look forward to working with you – Thanks!

Board Members Wanted:

Bird Treatment and Learning Center (Bird TLC) is seeking interested, dynamic volunteers to join our Board of Directors!

I’ll be heading east this November for my 50th high school reunion… don’t know how that happened, I’m not nearly old enough, certainly not as old as those old people claiming to be my classmates.

All the annoying, loud, insulting half truths passed off as political ads by groups that have no obligation to even reveal who funds them. And let’s not even talk about the crap put out by candidates actually willing to put their names on the ads. Will this noise never stop?

Bird TLC today. Missed being there while I was out. Being up close with eagles and hawks and falcons, to say nothing of Kodi my crow, is addictive. I need my fix.

Officially back and at my desk striving once again to write like my heroes wrote. Or at least to make some money at it. Meanwhile, I forgot to note that Oct. 1 marked the 42nd anniversary of the day I arrived in Alaska and Oct. 3 marked the 42nd anniversary of the day I arrived in Barrow. Best decision of my life. Gave me adventures, friends and memories beyond my wildest imagination. And taught me that without a doubt, the arctic is the climate, land and sea that most soothes my soul.

I am rereading the entire Harry Potter series while traveling in Europe and flying to and from the U.S. What a wonderful world to fall into while elbows jab you and seats hurt your butt and your legs feel like size ten feet trying to fit into size two shoes. Your mind flies away from it all and you are safely back at Hogwarts battling the Dark Lord, which quite frankly seems easier than flying nowadays. Oh Harry, where’s my flying broomstick when I need it?

I sit on my balcony listening to the Mediterranean Sea crashing on the beach in front of the hotel and its soothing roar is broken by the sounds of wild parrots squawking and calling to each other. Our guide says they are not indigenous but escapees from an outdoor market that have successfully established themselves in their new environment. He adds that they are being aggressive towards local birds and something will have to be done about them.

We humans forcibly bring new life to a foreign land and then punish that life for adapting and thriving.

The view outside my hotel window in Lisbon is a medieval castle high on a hill.  If only I were a princess… and I wouldn’t need a prince, just my puppies and birds.

I listened to Sean Hannity on Fox News last week talk about how his father not only disciplined him with a belt but also once punched him in the face when he was doing something wrong. Hannity claimed that he was just fine, grew up great, doesn’t need therapy, and is happy with the way he was disciplined. I’m betting the child he once was would have a different take on that. Mostly I wish he could have met my father.

Neither my father nor my mother ever really hit us. Oh we got the occasional swat across the bottom