Elise Sereni Patkotak

The East Coast, as always, has been fun. But I’m heading home today and happy to be going there. I want cold and snow and darkness and no humidity so my hands crack open and cleats on my boots when I walk and snow tires….wait, where was I?  Oh yeah, why I’m happy to be going home.  Hmmm…maybe I’ll have to get back to you on that one.

It’s Tuesday morning and I’m not at Bird TLC feeding eagles, owls and swans. It just doesn’t seem right when my Tuesdays don’t involve smelly salmon, reconstituted rodents and red meat from hell.  I can’t wait to get back to Alaska and into my routine.  Am I the only one who gets this way by the end of a trip? 

I am apparently following my sister and her friend to Delaware today to some shopping mecca. I’m going because I get to ride a ferry to Delaware and I’ve never done that before.  Once there, Judy and I will revert to our old method of shopping. I sit in a central location reading a book. She shops and periodically returns with purchases that she puts down around my feet. I protect her purchases while she continues to shop and I continue to read.  It’s that special sister bonding time that I’ve come to love so much.

I don’t know why people get upset when they lose money gambling in casinos. They act as though they are surprised that the gods did not smile on their choice of a red number seven or a hit at 16.  Me, I play the penny slots.  They are fun, I get to play all kinds of games, I’m amused for a few hours and mostly, I don’t expect to win so I’m not upset when I don’t. I go in figuring my $20 is my donation to the Gods of Chance and with that attitude, I’m never disappointed. 

I was reading in bed last night, holding the book up to my face, when I suddenly caught a close glimpse of my arms. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but someone stole my original pair and replaced them with an old wrinkled pair. So whoever has them, I would appreciate them back.

I love New York City. I love that I could walk around the Met and travel from Impressionist France to First Dynasty Egypt and take a break for a lovely lunch in between.  But seriously, I realize I am WAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY too much of an Alaskan to ever spend more than a day or two on the sidewalks of New York. As we were walking back from the Met to Port Authority, I wanted to scream, “Everybody off the sidewalks. Go away.  I can’t breathe”.  I have never in my life seen such a constant press of people in the same

New York was a great place to be young. I don’t think I could live there again though. Too many people, too much noise…you have to have years to grow use to that. But oh what a magical city it still is to visit. There is no place else I would rather spend a day than in Manhattan, walking from midtown to the Metropolitan Museum, along Fifth Avenue and Central Park. It simply doesn’t get much better than that.  The people walking by you are living street theater, the air smells…well, let’s just leave it at that..the air smells, and

We played a game called Finish This Line or something like that. Frighteningly, the lines that we could all finish without even blinking were all the lines to old TV show themes. If we want to conquer civilizations that hate us, we just need to export our culture to them. They’ll still hate us for doing it, but they’ll look just like us when they do. Once you know the words to Gilligan’s Island, there is no going back.