Elise Sereni Patkotak

I may have ceded too much power to the stellar jays that come by for food on my back porch. I saw one of my regulars chowing down at the bird feeder on the mixed seeds and realized that the magpies had gotten all the peanuts already. So I went out onto the porch with a bag of peanuts to put some out for the jay.  Not only did he not back away from the feeder, he thoroughly scolded me for interrupting him. I quietly backed away into the house, waited till he’d had his fill at the feeder and

Did you know that springform pans have a top and bottom? And that if you put the top on the bottom, when you lift it up full of batter, the bottom will fall out. Merry friggin holidays!

Teen pregnancy rates are up for the first time in almost a generation. Which leaves me wondering how that abstinence only program our idiot Chief Decider is promoting might figure into the equation. 

Today, my childhood friend Grace officially turns older than dirt.  I don’t know how she did it but she’s managed to age at least two years for every year I did. Because I know I can’t possibly be as old as she is now. 

As the temperatures dipped towards zero this week, I found myself clicking into the Maggie cam a lot more often and wishing I was there with her where no parkas, gloves, boots and ice grippers are needed for something as simple as a walk.

When I lived in Barrow, I walked my dog until the weather got below 30 below and thought it was invigorating. The temperature dipped to almost zero this week in Anchorage and all I could do was add more clothes to my body and explain to my dogs that they did not have a snowball’s chance in hell that I was going to walk them. Age has made me a complete wimp.

Blue, my food addicted diabetic pooch, found a piece of dried, frozen apple in our very frozen yard. Apparently under the impression that this piece of food stood between her and winter starvation, she frantically tried to bury it. Only the ground is frozen and no amount of nose pushing was working to cover the apple. I watched her frantically push it all over the yard with her nose trying to cover it up, all the time watching out of the corner of her eye for Blondie, the non-food addicted dog, to make sure she didn’t try to sneak in

Unlike snow, ice is a bitch to walk the dogs in. If Anchorage doesn’t get snow soon, I may just lose all interest in walking since it has become such a treacherous adventure. Are you listening, God? Do you really want me to stop exercising and end up dying young and having to put up with me in the hereafter sooner rather than later? If not, let’s get with the snow.