Elise Sereni Patkotak

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

There are some people who think Hillary Clinton is solely responsible for the phrase, “It takes a village”. They blame her for the whole touchy-feely, new age-ist concept that children are not raised in a nuclear family but in some hippie commune sixties environment. I’m sorry to inform them that this concept cannot be laid at Hillary’s feet. It should be laid at my mother’s feet.

Growing up I thought of this as being raised by committee. My mother did little with her children that didn’t start off with a phone call to her sisters and sisters-in-law.  Great discussions were

Apparently our Juneau legislators are finding it difficult to get a good meal from a lobbyist for $15.  They want the lobbyist to be able to spend at least $50 per meal on them before it has to be reported or… gasp of horror… they might have to order the most boring thing on the menu.  Poor babies! Maybe they should have the lobbyists take them to Bean’s Cafe for lunch. Then they wouldn’t have to report anything and they might actually reconnect with the reality far too many of their constituents face on a daily basis.

And may I

I went out the other night. Got back late… well, what passes for late now in my life which is about 11 PM. Had a piece of delicious sugar free cheese cake I’d picked up on my way home. Took two bites. It was delicious. Realized that if I ate the whole piece before going to bed that I’d never be able to sleep.  Yet another indignity in the pantheon of indignities that bedevil old age. 

Am I the only one horrified by the message that pervaded the Olympics about McDonald’s somehow being the official food of Olympians? Here we are worried about an obesity epidemic among out children and the message from the Olympics is that you can have an Olympian body AND regularly eat at McDonald’s because that was the Olympians “favorite” food. This is true only if you are cross country skiing ten miles a day at an Olympic race pace. And even then you’d be doing your arteries no good.

What a horrible message to send to our kids as we try