Elise Sereni Patkotak

The sun finally came out in Anchorage this weekend. Blondie, my happy retriever/lab/ridgeback/mutt sat in the back yard in bliss, basking in it. Blue, my wannabee blue-heeler mix, on the other hand, doesn’t like to be cut off for even five minutes from her favorite food source…the bottom of the bird cages. She chooses to stay inside where she can detect the sound of a crumb falling to the bottom of the cage from four rooms away and catch it before it bounces twice.

I am less than a month away from leaving for the East Coast for a wedding and birth and the woman who said she would house sit for me has casually announced she won’t be able to do it and has been meaning to call me. Wonderful. I have a non-refundable ticket, six birds and two dogs and no house sitter.  I wish I were rich enough to have a full time live in housekeeper. Life would be so much simpler.

Anyone who doubts the courage and bravery of our military need only look to that poor three star general who has just become the war czar to know that love of country can cause you to give up all sense of self to serve.  Seriously, is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that this man is taking a job that already has a target painted on it and in the center of that target is the blame for our almost inevitable failure in Iraq. This man had to know this going into the situation but he did it because he

I made chicken on the grill last night. First I had it too high, then I had it too low.  First I had chicken burnt to death on the outside and raw on the inside. Then I had chicken that most closely resembled formed cardboard because it was so cooked.  Even the bones were edible.  I tried to palm the remnants off on my dog who will eat anything including bird poop and she looked at it, looked at me and then walked away.  I think that pretty much sums the whole experience up.

I thought when I had my cataracts removed that the scariest thing would be to look in the mirror and see all the wrinkles on my face that I hadn’t been able to see before. But no. The scariest thing was actually seeing the details of my hair.  Dear God!

So there I am on Sunday afternoon thinking that there is nothing in my house I want to eat for dinner and having no desire to cook something up. So, I decide it’s time to treat myself to that wonderful spicy rice cake appetizer I’ve been thinking about ever since I had it at the Korean VIP restaurant here in town. But I can’t remember what it’s called. I go online and they have no menu there. I check the phone book and they have no menu there. I decide to grab a magazine and drive there and order dinner

Have you heard a test of the emergency alert system on TV recently? Doesn’t it seem as though in this day and age of modern communications that the guy who comes on to announce it’s only a test should come through loud and clear and not sound as though he’s trying to talk through an ancient CB radio system?