Elise Sereni Patkotak

What is it about Dean Martin singing That’s Amore that shoots me back to my childhood in an instant. Suddenly I hear all the voices of my grandparents and every old Italian person from the neighborhood speaking with that thick Italian accent while my parents and aunts and uncles all laugh and visit together. It really was a nice place to be. I miss it.

My mother Marian spent most of her life hating… ok, intensely disliking… the home my father brought her to in Atlantic City. On Thursday, after 61 years of ownership of that property by my family, it was sold. In honor of Marian, I plan to use some of the proceeds to paint and fix my house so it looks more like the place she always dreamed of having. Of course, my sister Judy already has Marian’s perfect house but I am not letting that, Marian’s death, or my old age stop me from repeating my endless cycle of trying and

I’ve been getting requests to comment on the recent elections. I think I had to wait a few days because I was so friggin’ tired of all the ranting and raving and Monday morning quarterbacking.

So here’s my take. This country did exactly what this country does best. It split the balance of power so that no one ideology can run roughshod over us. Republicans say they won’t compromise. But without compromise, nothing will get done given that they only control one house. So… wait… I do see a light at the end of the tunnel…. maybe Washington will deadlock

Listen quickly. That sound you don’t hear is silence, the absence of political ads, the lull before Christmas music becomes a 24 hour a day drone in your subconscious. But listen quickly because… oops! It’s already gone. The first strains of White Christmas are worming their way into my brain, replacing the cacophony of ads telling me how each and every candidate for office in our recent election was the spawn of a misbegotten mating between Satan and Hitler.

Even when I was young I appreciated the sounds of silence. Although music was supposedly my generation’s anthem to rebellion, given

My cousin Marina, a lovely lady herself, has raised a daughter who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite people in the whole world. Her daughter Toni not only printed my picture from the Internet, put it on cardboard, stuck that cardboard to a stick and then brought me in spirit to the Rally to Restore Sanity and Keep Fear Alive, but she had the cutest young man in the whole world feeding brie to my picture. Oh god how long will it now take to get rid of the lustful urge to teach that young man what a cougar

Right now! Go vote. Don’t tell me you’re too tired or too busy or too anything. Go vote. It’s the greatest privilege we have as Americans and we risk losing it if we don’t use it.

And for those of you who feel voting is just too much of a bother because you don’t like the people who are running, you are not allowed to say one word EVER about the politicians who run this country or the direction the country is taking. Either get involved or shut up.

One more day and we will be free of the incessant ads and polls…. at least, we’ll be free for about ten minutes and then it will be time for the next presidential campaign to start. The good/bad news is that Christmas music will drown out the presidential campaign for a couple of months.

Wouldn’t Sarah Palin running for president in 2012 be a good thing for the Dems? I mean, unless they have recently learned even better ways to screw up success, it would almost guarantee their candidate would take the race. Right?

Today is the day for the Restore Sanity and Keep Fear Alive rallies. My heart is broken that I’m not there. But thank god my cousin Marina raised some good kids because one of them is carrying my picture on a stick to the rally so that I can say I’ve been there if only in spirit. Thanks, Toni 3.

As I ponder the vast array of colors, hues and types of paint, I think to myself, “White works”.