Scribblings

Is there anything more fun than watching one of your dogs chew on and swallow a treat he really doesn’t like just so his housemate can’t have it? The reluctance with which he is chewing is hysterical. But for so long as his buddy is sitting next to him watching every bite, he’s not giving it up. He will eat it no matter how much it makes him want to gag. Because it’s his and the other guy isn’t getting any of it. And it is this mentality that has led the male of our species to start just about

Please go to Birdtlc.net and buy your tickets for our annual fundraiser. It’s on April 11 at the Sheraton here in Anchorage and we will have loads and loads of our education birds there for you to meet. Kodi the Cache Crow will delight you with his ability to take your money while still looking his beak down at you as though you are a lesser being. What more could you possible want? There will be food, liquor, a live and silent auction and wonderful volunteers to meet who give their time, energy and love to these birds on a

Crazy as family is, they are the first to surround you and comfort you, even if they don’t understand the extremely close bond you have with your animal. So I guess the insanity is worth it for the buffer they provide from the knocks of life. Or maybe I am just very lucky. Between friends and family and friends who are like family and friends who are family, my life is filled with both insanity and love. And the combination makes my life richer than my bank book will ever be.

I apparently woke up without my normal brilliance today.

Without my family, I don’t know where I’d get my daily dose of insanity.

Since little Bubba passed I have received sympathy cards from people with the kind of personal note in it that tells you they truly do understand what a well-loved pet can mean to your life. And one wonderful couple… thank you Joanie and Paul… even made donations in her honor to animal charities. And then, out of the clear blue comes a package from my cousin with a giant Hershey’s bar in it to comfort me in my loss and remind me of the amazing aunts and uncles who surrounded us as we grew up. My heart is still sad

Every time a WalMart employee gets public assistance or food stamps, we are subsidizing the profits made by the Walton family. They pay their employees a non-living wage, the government has to subsidize it so they can survive, and the Waltons can buy a few more yachts thanks to your tax dollars. Talk about federal welfare going to the wrong people!

How much of a life do you have to NOT have if you plan to actually read 55,000 pages of e-mails from Hillary Clinton? The very thought makes my head ache. My sympathy to the reporters, print and otherwise, who will actually have to plow through them. I’m guessing that the majority will be about such mundane matters that within hours of starting to review them, you’ll want to run screaming from the room. But you can’t. You must persist. Such is the way democracies survive.