Bird TLC is the wild bird rehab center where I volunteer. It is one of the best things about my life. The owls and eagles and magpies and ravens and robins and…well, you get the picture. Who could not love working with these critters and helping them survive illness and injury. Especially when the injury is so often caused by humans who cut down trees with nests or let their cats go loose or hunt with lead shot that poisons birds who eat from the area or think the earth is their garbage can so they can drop all the
Lest there be any doubt….
Lest there be any doubt about which is the more intelligent species, let me explain to you how Blue trained me without my ever noticing. I put Blue out in the yard. Blue barks at someone or something threatening that’s going by…oh, say a butterfly or a baby carriage…and I jump up and make her come in because she forgets to stop barking and it quickly gets annoying. I mean, it’s one thing to alert me to danger. But it’s just pathetic when ten minutes later she’s still barking, the initial cause of her barking having long past. She seems
Let’s be real about our expectations
For all us seniors groaning about the fiasco that is medicare payments, due to be cut because of the seemingly total incompetence of our current congress, I can only say, please give the poor bastards a break. They did manage to finally pass a bill that provides our military and veterans with what they have the right to expect after putting their lives on the line for our country. You can’t expect a group with such a limited interest in our welfare (as opposed, say, to their re-election) to actually be able to pass TWO sensible bills in the same
Inupiaq Art – a great gift, an awesome website
Treat yourself to something unique and beautiful and save the hassle of shopping during the Christmas rush. Go to http://www.nuna-inua.com and check out the amazing Native art shown there. This site was created by a student at Ilisagvik College in Barrow, Alaska. It doesn’t get more authentic than this.
Phone books
ACS contacted me in response to my rant about the number of phone books delivered to Anchorage homes each year to let me know that their phone book is available on disk if you ask for it. They still haven’t answered my question as to why this information is not widely promulgated or why a consumer couldn’t opt out of the paper version and just have a disk mailed to them. This disk would be a lot more environmentally friendly if it meant not finding a stack of phone books on your porch. Getting them both seems to be over
In honor of America
In honor of America and everything she has stood for up until the Current Occupiers took office, I think everyone should take a moment today to face towards Washington, DC and extend their middle finger. Now THAT’S American!
Drowning in phone books
I came home one day last week and found yet another plastic bag on my porch filled with the latest overload of telephone books. I took the package, put it in my car and off loaded it at the phone book recycling bins the first chance I got. As I did so, I wondered once again how companies could be so environmentally insensitive as to continue this practice despite the cries from consumers to stop it.
Let’s look at some basic facts. One, I only have so much room on my desk. I am not about to fill it with
What’s that bright yellow thing in the sky?
Why is must be that sun that everyone talks about. We haven’t seen it in Anchorage for so long that when it first appeared it scared me. I figured it was a giant spy satellite set up by DickieC to make sure I adhered to his definition of America.
Old person’s teeth?
So I’m bringing my trash cans out a few days ago when one of the little urchins from a house nearby peddles his trike over, looks at me intently and then asks if I have any teeth. So I open my mouth, point in and allow as how I do. To which he replies something about old people not having teeth. To which I respond that not only do I have teeth, but they are all mine (he’s too young to understand implants!). I then smile at him and give him a full view of my pearly yellowish whites. At
What did she think she saw
So we’re on our daily walk when Blondie suddenly goes into full alert status, staring straight ahead, straining to keep something in sight. Only she’s the only one who seems to see it. She continues on full alert as we approach the spot where the invisible seems to be. We get to the spot. She stands there a moment. Looks around. Then casually wanders off. And I have to wonder what she saw…what she thought she saw…whether she has finally lost her grip on that small portion of her mind that wasn’t addled already.