Elise Sereni Patkotak

Who the hell had the bright idea that not only should we do daylight savings time, but it should happen at 2 AM? Was that deliberate to make it inconvenient for everyone?

If you want a small glimpse into the world I grew up in, go to:http://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/atlantic_city/article_21d99f64-2d70-11df-abe8-001cc4c002e0.html

One of the small grocery stores that surrounded the one in the story was my father’s. I could almost smell the cheese as I read the story.

I love it when a bird decides to hitch hike up to Alaska on a freighter. We’ve had owls who’ve done it in the past and then had to find them a ride home to where they belonged. A few days ago, a very nice man came to Bird TLC carrying a towel with what initially looked like some kind of duck inside. It was a scoter. The gentleman had been at the freighter as it was being unloaded and someone handed the bird to him and told him it had been on the ship since it left Washington State.

I am somewhat amazed that my column about the positive effect of having an entire community vested in the healthy upbringing of its children raised such a creative uproar from people who feel that a village raising a child is a liberal plot to destroy the nuclear family.  I have only two words for those who think that raising a family in isolation from a larger community is a good idea… Papa Pilgrim.

The objections, if I understood them correctly, seemed to stem from the idea that a community’s interest in the rearing of its children takes away the responsibility

It was the evening feed time here at Animal House North. That means feeding six (soon to be seven) birds and two dogs, both of whom are also on medication. In order to do this without losing my mind on a regular basis – and yes, I still do have some of my mind left to lose! – I have a routine I try to stick to as closely as possible. First I feed the dogs so they stop standing directly in front of me so that I’ll trip over them every time I move. I think they do this

You know what the scariest words in the world are? They are your doctor’s office calling you after your mammogram and saying that you need to come back in because they need to “check on something”. From the time of that call until the time you find out what that something is are possibly the longest and most frightening hours of your life.

Did you ever have one of those ideas that seemed simple enough when conceived but turned into a mini-nightmare in execution? All I wanted from the start was a spare pair of glasses. I had one pair that worked for me since my cataract surgery significantly improved my prior vision causing me to give away the glasses I’d been hording for thirty years. I waited for the two years to pass so my insurance would pay for at least some of the cost of a spare pair. I apparently waited two days too long. When I tried to get another

So just after I thought I’d learned everything there was to learn about what I am now told is not TiVo but, in fact, DVR or something like that…. anyway, just when I thought I knew all about how to work it, a delightful young woman from Barrow shows up on my doorstep for a visit and introduces me to a whole new world of possibilities available to me if I hit one of those buttons on the remote that I was too frightened to touch because I didn’t know what it did.

Now I don’t have the end of