Columns 2014

Death on the street

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It’s hard to read the news about street people found dead in Anchorage. Anyone with the slightest bit of humanity is bound to feel bad when another human being suffers such a sad fate. Inevitably you find yourself wondering if there is simply not much more we can do for a certain segment of the homeless population. For them, the pull of addiction is greater than the pull of a warm room, a square meal or a death with dignity.

It is not mere coincidence that the majority of people found dead outside have intoxication as a contributing factor. Successfully

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Scribblings

A phone that rings in the night

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It is a universal that any phone that rings in the middle of the night is bringing bad news.  Unless, of course, you’re an Alaskan. Then it’s probably some relative who still hasn’t figure out the time difference and which way it goes.

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Scribblings

En Guard!

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Snowy perches on the arm of the couch as I sit watching reruns of BBT. He is alert and poised, ears up listening to the distant barking of a neighbor’s dog. Clearly he is guarding his food source with great courage and bravado. Nothing will stir him from his post… except if you rub his belly while he sits there. Then his head starts to bob down, his eyes glaze over and before you can stop it from happening, he falls off the arm of the couch onto the floor. He quickly picks himself up, shakes himself off and resumes

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Scribblings

It’s my eye’s fault

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I would have had something up on the blog earlier but being blind in one eye has seemingly put half my brain to sleep. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Until the clot dissolves and I can see again out of that eye, expect this excuse to crop up time and time again. 

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Columns 2014

Good riddance to a horrible year

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It’s hard to write a humorous, satiric or even vaguely amusing column about the year that was just tossed into history’s garbage bin. 2013 truly was a time when many of us felt the need to shower multiple times a day – after listening to the news, after watching what passes for music and dancing on TV, after hearing an explanation from a politician about anything.  All these things made me want to scrub myself with steel wool to get the stench off.

Recently, one of TV’s highest rated shows was a rerun of two I Love Lucy episodes that

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Scribblings

Happy 2014

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Let’s hope humanity does not act as stupidly in 2014 as it did in 2013 or someone might just choose to pull the plug on this grand experiment we call life. So the ones making it bad for the rest of us – you know who you are – get with the program and stop being such assholes.

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Scribblings

Ah dogs!

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Is there anything better than waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of your dog trying to barf on your bed? God forbid he should get down and barf on the floor. No, better to just barf on the quilt over mom’s legs and then move to a different part of the bed to sleep for the rest of the night. Even better, growl when mom physically picks you up and tosses you off the bed while muttering words she never learned at St. Michael’s.

Funny, in all the dreams of my youth, this was not

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