Elise Sereni Patkotak

In going through my jewelry box… and I use that term VERY loosely… I realized I have a high school ring, a college ring and a nursing school ring. What, pray tell, is one supposed to do with them when one is clearly much too old to pretend to have been a recent graduate or when one cannot think of the appropriate occasion to put them on. I mean, these are not from Harvard or Yale or Columbia so they’re not exactly status symbols… except, perhaps, in a very small and select circle where the ring is proof of surviving

I feel sorry for any child when they lose a parent. But when Osama Bin Laden’s son laments at the way his father was killed and buried and threatens legal action in the United States for what was done, I have to wonder if he completely understood who his father was and what he stood for. His father oversaw the death of thousands whose families never had a chance to give them a decent burial according to any religious custom. In fact, they never even got the peace of actually knowing how or if their loved one perished because there

I wasn’t born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. But since my parents moved there when I was six months old, it’s the place I call home.  My Atlantic City was BC – before casinos. Even more importantly, it was BT – before Trump. However, since Mr. Trump chose to build his first Atlantic City casino down the block from our family home, I feel an odd sense of repulsive kinship.  I’m hoping there is medication that will help me overcome that.

Soon after Trump put Trump Plaza up, he also planted a bunch of trees going down Mississippi Avenue as

…that I never notice my carpets are dirty or my floors are dingy or my house looks tired until I have guests coming to stay?

Seems like we Americans like to have a visible and easy enemy to vent our anger and frustration on. OBL has filled that role for almost ten years. He’s been retired now with extreme prejudice so there is no chance he’ll be able to regain his title. Which leaves the question of who will we choose next. Used to be that as long as the Soviet Union existed, we didn’t have to do much searching. Cuba has just become a toothless old man who hardly qualifies as public enemy number one. Donald Trump’s hair would fit the bill if all

Waited all day yesterday for my Mother’s Day surprise from the birds and dog. Got nada. Zip. Nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. Abdul did spend most of the afternoon screaming “F**k you!” at the top of his lungs. I guess he didn’t like the music I had on the radio for him.

It’s Mother’s Day. I can’t wait to see what my birds and dog have done for me….

I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that we are cutting the salaries of teachers in this country because of our trillion dollar deficit but we are still sending billions of dollars to Pakistan every year. I mean, really, what does a country have to do to be cut off from our largesse? Maybe our teachers should start protecting terrorists and then the feds would happily pay them.

I was watching tv the other night while sipping a sugar free margarita. The commercial came on and I found myself intensely interested in a car ad. I watched from start to finish with fascination.

I think that says all that needs to be said about why you shouldn’t drink tequila.

My first memory of my mom involves standing in the living room when I was six and asking who the man sleeping with all the flowers in the newspaper picture was. She said he was a bad man who had hurt a lot of people in Russia and now he was dead. I must have said something like “Good” or “Yea!” or given some other sign of happiness at his death. She told me in no uncertain terms that we do not cheer the death of others, no matter how horrible we think they were.

I thought of that last