Elise Sereni Patkotak

Oh get your minds out of the gutter.  I was refering to a good handyman and a good mechanic.  And once again, get your mind out of the gutter over the term “handyman”.  I have both and yet I still find myself with a headlight bulb for my car that I’m afraid to touch. I’m afraid to throw it away and I’m afraid to touch it.  I bought a new bulb for the one that had burned out. But my mechanic put both in that came in the package on the theory that the other would probably burn out in

I was visiting one of my kids at an institution here in town and brought him a taste of home – whale flipper.  Staff came in to try it. They asked questions about the food and the customs surrounding it.  My young friend knew little because his family had, to put it mildly, not been engaged in a subsistence lifestyle while he was growing up. I, on the other hand, was spewing out information like a frigging dictionary of whaling customs and habits. And I realized that I know more about Inupiaq whaling traditions and bowhead whales than I do

Sleeping in is impossible in an Alaskan summer when you have birds and a dog.  The sun is always there and they feel that life should be active for so long as it is. So about 6 AM, the birds start calling out. By 7, my dog who in the winter I have to physically remove from his bed at 10 AM and insist he has to go pee, is pacing the floor by my bed wondering if I died and so won’t be getting up to let him out.  My floor is fake wood. He has toenails.  The tap,

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Am I just too dumb to live or do other people need a cheat sheet to follow CSI? Why is it that every time they have an “AHA!” moment, I’m having a “WHAT THE…???” moment?

It’s rainy and cold.  I’ve actually had to turn the heat on at least once a day because the downstairs birds have their little parkas on which I take as a hint that they’re cold.  This is the coldest summer I’ve encountered since I moved here. Much more of what I was looking for than those wimp warm summers of the past few years.  Of course, when my sister and her friends arrive, they might have a different attitude about that.

Meanwhile, will the person who put all the halibut in my freezer while I was out please identify themselves. 

The bad news is that Mr. T is really quite senile.  The good news is that because of the senility he never did realize I was gone for a week. He just thought he’d had a very long nap.

No one, absolutely no one, can make lattes like we get here in Alaska at every roadside stand in town.  Even the worse beat the best that Starbucks can do.  Starbucks is the McDonald’s fast food of coffee compared to the gourmet delights we drive up to every day. After a week spent in Southern California looking for even one latte that is anywhere as good as my sugar free White Chocolate Wedding Cake from Cafe Loco, I find myself longing for tomorrow to come so I can return there and finally get a really good cup of coffee.