I’m sitting here trying to finish up some work. The dogs want to walk. Blue keeps jumping up and down and heading towards the door in case there is any doubt in my mind about what she wants. And she is doing this with a sunflower seed from the bottom of the bird cage plastered on her nose. She apparently can’t feel it because she clearly is unaware of just how silly she looks. And i find myself feeling very loving and protective all at the same time because it’s clear that her intellect will not keep her safe in
It’s a small world after all
Alaska’s former chief medical examiner Franc Fallico died last week. This would normally be of only passing interest to me since I didn’t really know him. Except I kind of did. Soon after I arrived in Alaska in the early 70s, back when I was still under the mistaken impression that I liked nursing, I helped medivac a patient from Barrow to Providence Hospital. As I walked down the hall after the patient was admitted, this doctor passed me by and I had one of those out of body experiences. I knew the guy. He had been dating a nurse,
My taste has not improved with age
I had to buy a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt for a young man in Barrow who was turning 14. Because I knew if I did this alone I’d buy something only a dorky old lady would buy, I brought my buddy Page along who is 16 and very in tune with what should be worn. You could tell how bad my choices would have been from the look on her face every time I picked something up and asked her what she thought. After a while, I just shut up and walked behind her until she handed
The dead zone
The dead zone in front of my house seems to be supporting some ferns and a bleeding heart. So walk softly when you come to visit. The least vibration and the ground there may notice something is growing and kill it again. And don’t worry about that little aborted dead tree that’s there. I’m leaving it to fool the ground into thinking it won.
Why I’m on the train till the last stop
So in the end, history this year will be written by an African-American, not a woman. For a lot of women, not just Hillary Clinton, this is a huge disappointment. For those of us of a certain age, Hillary seemed to represent the only chance to see a female president in our lifetime.
There is a reason why this is such an issue for some women, a reason we tend to forget until we watch one of the Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies in which she prances around in pearls and high heels making him dinner while he laughs at the
We have finally gone too far
As I stood in my kitchen preparing dinner and listening to the umpteenth million rerun of CSI, a commercial for male enhancement drugs came on. I’ve somewhat gotten used to that with dinner. But this had a special offer. If you called now, you could get two free tubes of a special male enhancement pleasure cream absolutely free. And while I agree that it was silly in the early days of TV that Rob and Laura couldn’t push their beds together, I can’t help but think we have perhaps moved just a tad too far the other way. Shouldn’t we
Has Zyrtec not heard about pollution?
I went to pick up some Zyrtec and found that one option was to buy a pack in which each individual pill was packed inside it’s own totally separate piece of plastic and cardboard, lined up one behind the other, all inside another pack of plastic and cardboard. Have these idiots not heard about pollution? Why the hell would you need each pill packaged separately? Not only would I be ready to put a gun to my head trying to get the damn pill out each time I needed one, but I would be horrified at how much waste I
It was now or never
I finally made the hard decision that this is as good as summer is going to get in Anchorage and I should no longer wait for sunshine and warmth before planting flowers in the planters on my porch. So in total defiance of the gods of weather who have absolutely crapped on Anchorage this summer, I planted flowers. I fully expect a blizzard anytime this week to punish me for my chutzpah.
What’s wrong with this picture?
It’s June 12. I am walking my dogs. Coming down the street towards me is a woman taking a walk. She is wearing fur ear muffs. What is wrong with this picture? And where the hell is our summer?
Speaking of birds
On Tuesday I got nailed by an osprey. What a wild looking bird. Never had one before at Bird TLC. We were trying to tube feed it and one of the feet got loose and it sunk its talons into my right forefinger. Damn they’re fast! Then came the joy of trying to pull the talons out without doing further damage. It’s a good thing I love birds.