Elise Sereni Patkotak

Two friends and I were planning a girls’ night out with theater and drinks and maybe even dinner. Only one of us couldn’t make it until just about the time we’d have to leave the restaurant for the play. After attempting a series of elaborate plans for somehow meeting up and at least getting in a little time together before the play, or maybe moving the whole thing to another night, we just ended up planning to meet her there.

What’s the one thing missing from all this that gives our age away? It’s the fact that not one of

I am now going to admit something that will cause my family to scream with horror, amusement and disbelief.  But here it is. Our cousin Joe, the Joe who went to Valley Forge Military Academy and has been a conservative his entire life, the cousin Joe with whom I have agreed about pretty much nothing politically since he was marching at the Academy and I was marching in the streets of the sixties, was right about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I should have listened to him.

Against all that is normal and usual in our universe, my cousin Joe

The Hanging Chad

I wish I could remember what it was like to sleep through the whole night without ever getting up to go to the bathroom. I bet it was nice.

No, not on the ice and snow of an Anchorage winter road. No, I’ll break my leg in my own office scooting my chair up to my desk. Why? Because preparatory to painting and putting down a new floor, the carpet has been removed. So the strength once needed to propel the chair across carpet has now been greatly reduced. Only I keep forgetting that. I turn from one part of the desk to the other and attempt to scoot the chair with the normal force only to find myself teeth first into my computer screen and my knee screaming

I am usually pretty good about dumping stuff. My garage is apparently pretty empty compared to most – at least it seems to be based on the gasps of people who enter and are amazed I could still fit two cars into the two car garage.  I only have one car but you never know when the other side might be needed, right?

Anyhow, my house is being painted and I am now taking stuff off the walls that have been up since I moved in ten years ago and finding it very hard to part with most of it.

I was in a meeting at a youth detention facility here and there was a new participant who said she worked with a group dedicated to getting kids home. Her group is called Bring The Kids Home. Well, she handed me a card and the title was shortened to initials. The initials were BTKH. I commented on how unfortunate that was since the BTK killer case. Everyone looked at me and asked what I was talking about. I blithely said that BTK stood for Bind, Torture, Kill and that was the name given to some church deacon in the midwest

She’s sleeping soundly on her bed at the foot of my bed. TV is over for the night and I call her to go out for one last time. I call again and again, louder and louder, until she finally stirs. She gets up and sleepily heads towards the bedroom doorway. Since the stairs are right outside the bedroom door, I feel confident she’s in gear and head down the stairs with Blondie. I get to the bottom of the stairs and look up. Blue is standing at the top of the stairs looking lost. I call her. I call

My sister and I first traveled to China in 1983. We went from an America of light, noise, vibrancy and life to a China of gray, quiet people, streets and buildings.

There were few stores and those that existed belonged to the government. There were no neon lights flashing to attract shoppers. Most people still wore Mao pajamas and caps. Everyone rode bikes except for the few military and government vehicles in lanes in the middle of the street. Buildings were bland, uninviting hulks.

We went back to China a little over ten years later and again landed in Beijing.

I give Blondie her two biscuit mid-afternoon treat. She races outside with them so that Blue doesn’t get close enough to steal one. Blue, it should be noted, can inhale her biscuits in the time it takes for Blondie to adjust them in her mouth so Blondie has learned to protect them from Blue who is usually looking for more before Blondie has even had one bite. Once Blondie has dropped the biscuits in the fresh fallen snow, she gently nudges them with her nose to cover them up and then barks to come back in. She’s usually not in