Just when I think civilization has reached its nadir, cable TV comes along with a program that proves we have even farther to fall. In this case, it’s a show called The Jersey Shore. I’ve never actually watched the show and wouldn’t have known of its existence were it not for the fact that one of the people in it punched a woman out on camera. I know this because the cable channel… showing the good taste for which cable is known… pulled the spot before it showed. But not before making sure every sleazy entertainment news show had the
Family calls
Calling family over the holidays is one of the ways to be very strongly reminded that no matter how far you go, you can never escape your genes. Sigh….
I find this amazing
Even as most people lie spent and exhausted due to their frenzied shopping over-indulgence on Christmas, the paper arrives already full of after Christmas sales. We have truly sold our souls to commerce.
I can only hope they weren’t looking
My contribution to the Christmas feasts to which I was invited consisted of making an antipasto and making my nonna’s sweet bread.
Since it’s hard to find all the stuff to make an antipasto from scratch here in Alaska, I went to a store and bought everything from their antipasto bar. I can only pray my father was not looking down from heaven and watching me because I know I’ve shamed him by my actions.
While making my nonna’s sweetbread, I had a brilliant impulse to put pecans in it. It wasn’t until the bread was rising that I realized
Happy Holidays
I wished someone a happy holiday a few days ago. She looked at me and said, “No, not happy holidays. Merry Christmas”.
Well, no. Not Merry Christmas unless you are Christian. So let me reiterate my wish to ALL my friends whether they celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Kwaanza or Saturnalia….
Happy Holidays.
A Christmas memory
When you’re young, you think your holidays will go on forever in the old familiar way. But they won’t. Eventually, what you’ll have is memories. Hopefully they will be wonderful.
For me, Christmas will always mean my Aunt Ida’s house on Sylvania Street in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. My family would start the day in Atlantic City, opening presents and getting dressed in our new winter clothes. My brother and I were allowed to pick one gift we could bring in the car for bragging rights with all the cousins we’d soon be seeing. We would have gone to
Our gal Temporary Sal’s visor problem
I can understand Sarah Palin blacking out McCain’s name on her visor in order to achieve some privacy on vacation. What I can’t understand is why someone who just made millions on a book she almost wrote didn’t just buy a new visor. Seriously, how much would that have set her back?
As I pondered this dilemma, it occurred to me that the problem here was not any stinginess on the part of our gal Temporary Sal. No, the problem here is that Sal lived in Alaska too long to throw anything out. And I’m not sure there is anyway
I look out my window
Outside I see cold. I see snow. I see ice. I see red polls and chickadees, magpies and the occasional robin and stellar jay. I look down at my feet and I see two dogs snoring peacefully, their lives clearly filled with all things that make them content. From upstairs and down I hear the sounds of my little flock of parrots, senegals, cockatoo and conure. I get ready to go to Bird TLC to cut up smelly salmon for deserving eagles and ospreys and to defrost little mice for the owls.
All is right with my world as another
The real question is….
… how I could possibly be related to the woman in this picture. Her idea of heaven – heat and a beach, even if she has to travel all the way to Laguna Nigel to find her bliss. My idea of hell – heat and a beach and so I hunker down in Anchorage with the temperature a balmy 3 degrees above zero. And yet our mother insisted we were actual siblings. And we won’t even go into what my brother is muttering under his breath about the snow storm that hit the East Coast this weekend. To say he
Who is really responsible for Randy’s death?
So Randy Beaver’s dad Vincent is suing the state over his son’s death. He apparently feels they were negligent when they placed him in foster care with a young female relative.
According to the report in Alaska Dispatch, Randy and his four siblings lived with a variety of relatives in multiple communities but at no point do they seem to have been living with either their mother or father. So one must ask, where were mom and dad and what were they doing that was more important than raising their children in a safe and sober home?
A quick check