Elise Sereni Patkotak

My friend Greta’s son Joey loves his Aapa Harris very, very much. Aapa, however, has not been in Anchorage the past week while Joey was visiting because he was working on the Slope. While my friends Jim and Janis Mushovic were here on their way to Dutch Harbor, Joey came up the stairs, saw Jim – whom he’d never met before – and ran to him. He threw his arms around Jim’s legs, buried his face between his knees and then looked up with a big grin… only to find that the face looking down – while quite similar to

According to the US Department of Labor, “Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and wellbeing of our country.” Kind of ironic, if you think about it, since today our workforce is shrinking faster than a politician’s credibility.

America was built on the backs of the working class. And America’s working class was the envy of the world both for its productivity and its working

He’s starting to look more and more attractive as a candidate even if I don’t buy all he says. At least he’s honest and says it.

As the political season descends on us, along with the darkness of winter, I find myself dreading it more than usual.

Where is the credible, moderate, sensible third party and its candidates that we so desperately need now? It’s time to move the Republicans and Democrats out to pasture and start anew.

Happy Labor Day to that shrinking minority of the population that actually still has jobs. Good for you! And for the rest of you… not to worry… the politicians are coming up with a solution.

I’m working away in my office and basically ignoring the sounds coming from behind me. Since the little boy is repeatedly saying “ush, ush”, I figure he’s tortur… I mean playing with my dog. Then I hear the sound of water and notice that my dog is lying half in and half out of the utility room down the hall. I turn to find the boy on his hands and knees attempting to drink from the dog’s bowl the same way the dog drinks. And all I can think is: Don’t make my dog sick!

In a classic sitcom, if you added a two and one half year old boy to a household already full with six parrots, a cockatoo and a dog, hilarity would ensue.  Not so much in reality… though he does make me smile a lot.

It is now my profound observation, after spending a prolonged period of time in contact with a two and a half year old boy, that they have an energy production factory in their bodies that is absolutely awe inspiring. If we could figure out how to channel it to power our earth, global warming would be over in an instant.

Mitt Romney heard we were having a jobless economic recovery and decided to help by tearing down his old beach house in San Diego and putting up a new one to the tune of about $12 million. Thanks goodness we didn’t let his Bush tax break lapse or some of that money might have gone to feed some hungry school kid whose parents were probably wasting their money on heat or rent or some such silliness. Then where would poor Mitt have been? He’d probably only be able to build an $11,995,000 second home and all his friends would have

A belated happy birthday to my sister who spent her birthday fleeing from the hurricane. Never one to let a disaster pass without turning it to some sort of advantage, she spent the day at the King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania looking for just the right outfit and shoes to wear to a natural disaster. I’m happy to announce she found them… and they were on sale. So in the end, she had a great birthday despite Irene’s attempts to cause it to be otherwise.