Elise Sereni Patkotak

She taught me about guilt with her mother’s milk. And so now when I get up a little later than usual and find my Stellar Jays sitting in the snow covered trees around my porch waiting for their obviously late breakfast, I feel guilty. I pull boots on over my jammies and trudge onto the snow covered porch to put their peanuts out while shivering in my half-awake state. Only Jewish and Italian mothers are capable of instilling that much guilt into you before you can even walk.

President Obama was apparently excoriated by some right wing pundits for not mentioning god in his Thanksgiving day address. Seriously, would all those insulted that god isn’t mentioned in every address made by any American politician living today please move to Iran or some other theocracy. They obviously don’t want to be living in a democracy.

So the story goes that someone posing as a doctor was doing plastic surgery on women than included injecting cement into their buttocks. Well, that would explain that Kardarshian lady’s ass, now wouldn’t it?

As you prepare for your holiday meal with friends and family, the idea that there are people in this town going to sleep hungry is probably not one you want to ponder. It’s understandable. Thanksgiving is a day for football, turkey, pies, family and general groaning at how tight your pants have suddenly gotten. It is also, apparently, the only day in the year when you can put canned onion pieces on top of canned string beans that have been mixed with canned mushroom soup and praise the results.

The reality in Anchorage is there are people of every size,

Tomorrow is my favorite holiday in the whole year. We get to eat ourselves into a coma and don’t have to buy anyone presents or sing any stupid songs.

Just remember, there are people out there who won’t be having a table groaning full of food with which to stuff themselves, and many of those people will be children. So if you haven’t already done so. donate to a food bank or soup kitchen that helps to feed those going to bed hungry at night in a country still pretty much full of plenty.

Here’s what I don’t understand. No matter where he stands in the latest polls, the news media refer to him as the frontrunner.  How does that work? And at what point does he pack up and go home, realizing that his party is willing to tolerate any buffoon on the planet who will run instead of nominating him? 

Finally got to see the Letterman show that I taped with the Herman Cain interview. I can now honestly say that the only thing that could possibly be more embarrassing than a Herman Cain presidency would be… well, I’d say a Rick Perry presidency but since we’ve already had a George Bush presidency, we’ve experienced most of the embarrassment that RIck would bring to the office… god, there really is no one out there who would be more embarrassing… oh wait, yes there is. Newt Gingrich.

I now get to administer nose spray to my dog on a daily basis. Yep, nothing like throwing a headlock on your dog once a day while trying to hold her head still enough to hope that at least a little of the spray… which, may I add, my health insurance refuses to pay for!… up her nose. Now when she sees me coming, she gets that look in her eyes that says, “I know who you are and I know what you plan to do and I promise I will wiggle faster than a slippery eel to thwart your

I am old… I just finished my application for Medicare.

I am young… I did the application online.

I spent the entire time I was watching Harry Potter part 2 wanting to reach over and turn the lights on. There were whole lengths of scenes where all I saw was a dark screen. What’s the deal here? I understand trying to create an atmosphere but shouldn’t the viewer be able to see what’s happening? Or did they decide they were over budget and decided to cut back on lighting?