Elise Sereni Patkotak

She sat at the front of the room, poised and looking sophisticated beyond her obvious years.  She was young, beautiful, and dressed for success in Bush Alaska. She faced a semi-circle of people who sat behind tables with the debris of their catered breakfast scattered amid the papers, pens and agendas.

Anyone popping his or her head in the door to look at this scene would think it was nothing extraordinary. A conference of legal, educational, counseling and social services professionals waiting for a presentation from one of their peers on the issues faced by foster children in getting their

… in my mind, nothing quite measures up to the lasagna noodle that doesn’t have to be boiled first. Alleluia!

When the snow first falls and the trees are full of white and everything is clean, it feels like the world must have been at the beginning, before we made it so dirty.

Today is the day we in Alaska get a chance to say goodbye to Ken Petersen.  If you didn’t know Ken, it would be hard to explain how great a loss this is for those of us privileged to have known him.  Suffice to say that somewhere in heaven, god is grinning broadly because she has one of her favorite sons close by her side again.

If they can send us to the moon, why can’t they invent a TV camera that makes me look young and beautiful? Or at least not bald?

I don’t know why the political parties any longer pretend they are different. Each seems to be owned by its own group of outside interests and what the general public wants seems to come last on their list. How sad. There has been a Democratic congress for almost a year now…or is it over a year? Time flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t it?  At any rate, maybe I’m just reading the wrong papers but I can’t find a single damn thing they’ve actually done where they stood up to the emperor in chief and weren’t the first to blink.

I loved being back in Barrow for a visit. But I must admit that I miss the restaurants of Anchorage and my latte stand.  Oh dear, I’ve become citified!

It was nice to be back up there seeing old friends. But I think Anchorage is finally home because it felt even better to get back here where there’s a Costco just a few blocks away.

I’m ashamed to say I fell victim to Mac’s advertising and bought the new Leopard OS.  Now I have a million new things on my desktop that I don’t know how to use to add to the thousands that I didn’t know how to use from the last time.  But it’s a Leopard. Who could resist?