Elise Sereni Patkotak

So I’m watching the Oscars and the first few notes of Memories play, the curtain rises, Barbra Streisand comes out and by the time she’s finished singing the second note, I am sobbing like a baby who’s had the teat ripped from my mouth and I’m still hungry. Cried through the whole song. What the hell?

Quite honestly, the best part about the Oscars is looking at the outfits and wondering what Joan Rivers will say about them on Fashion Police. The amazing part is that someone with my vision problems can look at those outfits and understand completely why Joan trashes them. Once again, as my mother used to say, don’t you have a mirror in your house to look in before you go out?

Are you ready? For the Oscars, of course. I’m shinning up my tiara and washing my bathrobe so we are all ready for the festivities. Let the boobs pop where the may. I’m ready.

Oh yeah – best drinking game ever…. take a gulp every time a winner thanks their god (as opposed to your god) for making them beautiful and talented. It’s what god lives for.

You know you’re tuning in to too much ID channel programming when you’re watching a seemingly very nice male contestant on Wheel of Fortune and you find yourself wondering if he’s a secret pervert or killer.

Since my late teens, the Democratic Party has been the party of disarray and confusion. It was the party that self-immolated at every turn. It gave new meaning to the phrase, “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory”. So you can imagine how upside down my world seems right now given that the Republican Party has decided to emulate the Democrats and, at the rate they’re going, planning to be the all time champs in the dysfunctional political party world of America.

Think about it. How dysfunctional do you have to be to give more money to the man who

Without a doubt, The Price is Right. When they call a contestant and the audience starts to scream, Abdul, my African Grey, goes nuts. He screams and laughs and screams some more. Which gets Captain (Amazon parrot) screaming too. At this point, CB (Bare-eyed Cockatoo) climbs into her sleep box and pretends she doesn’t know them. She has such class for a bird willing to copulate in public every morning.

If someone gave me millions of dollars and I blew it with no discernible results, I highly doubt if a few months later they’d turn around and give me more. The fact that the money men are giving Rove more cash for his new PAC is proof that the Republican Party has reached that stage of crazed where they keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result. Someone get them golf pants and Metamucil and send them to Florida.

Having rediscovered it in the cabinet above the stove, I am attempting to work my way through the recipes, some vaguely familiar, some leaving me to wonder if I’d ever actually tasted it before. I just wish the recipes did not contain the phrases, “Put enough in to taste right. You’ll know.”, or “Add as much as needed”, or “Use you’re head! You’ll know when it’s enough”. Yep, you’ve got to love family recipes based on measurements that include, “a small hand full”, “a large hand full”, and “about the size of your fingernail”. What could possibly go wrong.

If I could see what they see, then I wouldn’t worry so much about my dogs barking at a blank wall in the living room. I’m sure in their eyes, something is visible. At least, that’s what I have to believe.

The MIss America Pageant is returning to the Boardwalk Convention Hall in Atlantic City this year after its multi year exile in Vegas. I grew up down the block from Convention Hall. I remember watching the Miss America Pageant and feeling so inadequate I wanted to die. I just knew I’d never be pretty enough or thin enough or talented enough. I mean, once you’ve had a one armed baton twirler, there is no up to go.

So I’m glad Miss America is returning to Atlantic City so that other girls growing up there have a chance to have an