Author: admin

Thank god winter finally arrived here. I’ve been on the East Coast for three weeks and it was getting downright embarrassing to answer people’s questions about the weather in Anchorage. As the northwest endured snowstorms and ice storms, Anchorage basked in 50-degree weather.  People were starting to look at me funny and muttering about how I brought it all down from Alaska with me.

Just the threat of a snowstorm caused my sister to check us out of a perfectly lovely casino in Connecticut called Foxwoods – where we had free accommodations thanks to friends in high places – a

What is it about a karaoke machine?  When you turn one on, normally quiet, dignified people suddenly act as though they are in the privacy of their own shower and start emoting like Little Richard on acid.  I think a survey of any karaoke bar would quickly show that most people should barely be allowed to sing at all, let alone in public.  Carrying a tune, it turns out, is a lot harder than it looks. Hitting the right notes is, for some of us, downright impossible.

I can still remember the days of my choir singing at St. Michael’s,

What is it about a karaoke machine?  When you turn one on, normally quiet, dignified people suddenly act as though they are in the privacy of their own shower and start emoting like Little Richard on acid.  I think a survey of any karaoke bar would quickly show that most people should barely be allowed to sing at all, let alone in public.  Carrying a tune, it turns out, is a lot harder than it looks. Hitting the right notes is, for some of us, downright impossible.

I can still remember the days of my choir singing at St. Michael’s,

I am a rabid animal lover.  Since I bought my first parrot in a department store in Brooklyn in 1970 till now, my life has never been without pets.  I lavish love, care and attention on them out of all proportion to what rational human beings think of as normal.  Which makes it twice as puzzling to figure out why I once let my dog wander around my house with a broken leg for over a week before I figured she wasn’t just being lazy and something might really be wrong.

In my defense, let me say that anyone who

As always with the really important news, the news that will actually affect your life, it was buried on the third or fourth page in a small paragraph of a small article. The story detailed the attempt by the US Army to create a peanut butter and jelly pocket sandwich that will last without refrigeration for at least three years – every child’s dream come true.  Here’s what a gentleman named Jerry Darsch, who directs the Defense Department’s feeding program, had to say.

“Darsch said his sandwiches are designed to be as resilient as the troops they feed. �This bad

Some people are lucky in love. Some people aren’t. Some people have their romantic fantasies come true.  Others of us watch it on the screen or read about it in books and know it will never happen to us.

Do I really have to tell you which group I belong to?  Let me just say that the first love of my life left me for someone named Pedro. My engagement to that man was the highpoint of my romantic life. He proposed by looking at me one day while we were at a party and saying, “Well, I always figured

When I saw the name in the paper after the Glalaxy went down I hoped it wasn’t the George Karn I knew. Then I saw the picture.  George was a cook at UIC-NARL in Barrow during the 90s. He was a true Alaskan character at a time when this state seems to be slipping towards the banality we all fled in the lower ‘48.  My friend K.C. tells the best story about George. Here’s what she wrote:

“Remember that stupid little plastic bloody hatchet he had that when swung and hit on something would play this tinny little recording of

Anyone who watched the Cosby Show during its successful run in the 80s, or who watches the endless reruns on Nick at Nite, is familiar with the sub sandwiches that the Cosby character frequently ate to his wife’s despair as she worried about his cholesterol.  In the early years, he even gave a name to the shop where he got those subs. He called it the White House Sub Shop. And in actual fact, that’s where those subs came from.  Only the shop isn’t in Brooklyn.  It’s in Atlantic City.  And he used to have those subs specially driven up

I like to think of my dog as The Mad Ratter.  Since he is not especially effective as a guard dog, I figure his ratting ability justifies the gazillion dollars in treats, toys and grooming I spend on him each year.

I guess, to be perfectly fair to him, he is somewhat effective as a watchdog in that he will bark at every leaf as it falls off the trees. But his bark is such that all but the truly dense immediately know the sound is being made by a little ankle nipper.

I’d like to give him credit for

It was one of those messages you live for as a GAL. Kids whose lives seemed destined to be lives of sadness and neglect getting a second chance, living with a family that allows them to dream and creates a world for them in which their dreams just may come true.

The message said, “The kids are growing like weeds!  They’re both about 40 inches tall.  They don’t look anything like toddlers at all anymore.  Mikey has decided he wants us all to live in Kentucky with my mom and youngest sister.  He wants to have 5 black horses and