Elise Sereni Patkotak

I finally got the meringue to whip up into peaks and made a gorgeous sugar free lemon meringue pie. Unfortunately, I’ll never know if it was also tasty because the tin pie plate folded in half as I took it out of the oven and it smashed to my floor and splatter into crevices I didn’t even know existed in my kitchen until I had to figure out how to clean them. I cleaned it up for the better part of 45 minutes and was proud that I’d managed to get the whole sticky mess taken care of and then

Am I the only person in the world incapable of whipping egg whites into stiff peaks? Hell, I’ll even take soft peaks. I’ll take anything that even slightly resembles what the picture looks like.

How can you not like a movie whose main song is titled, “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus”. While I realize this may not be for everyone, I highly recommend Hamlet 2 to whoever can take a religious joke without taking offense and wants to laugh a lot.

…and our country will once again be free.

Here’s the difference between 16 and 60. When I was 16 and heard Jay and the Americans singing “She Cried” and it got to the line where he kissed her, a kiss that only meant goodbye, my eyes would tear up with romance and emotion. It was just too sad and heartbreaking.  Now when I hear it at 60, all I can think is, “I hope it comes back and bites you in the butt, asshole.”

That blessed sound is silence. No campaign ads. No Christmas music. No hard sales pitches to get us to buy something we didn’t even know existed until very recently.  Enjoy this brief respite. The after Christmas sales are about to hit. But at least they don’t come with annoying music.

Once again I misread sentiment. It’s the story of my love life…such as it was when I had one. And now it even extends to birds. Yesterday, a Great Horned Owl that I have been feeding at Bird TLC for at least a year flew into my face talons first, making me even more attractive now than ever before with little holes around my eye. It wasn’t her fault. She was hungry and I was holding six very tasty mice so you can understand how she lost her patience and thought she’d urge me to put them down quicker by

The following top ten fashion rules for Los Angeles women comes from a reader down in Homer, Barbara Landi. After reading my column on how you can tell you’re getting closer to Alaska by the fashions women are wearing at the airport gates, she sent me the following based on her observations of women at LAX.

1. Let there be gold in your outfit somewhere, preferably everywhere.

2. Thy shoes shall have no backs and be the least comfortable footware on the rack. (Too bad if you have to run to make a connection.  You will never make it anyway.)