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Am I really that different

One of my birds, Kenya the Senegal with a big boy attitude, got hysterical when I first showed up without my glasses.  Didn’t recognize me at all. Went to the corner of his cage and just glared at me with his little red eyes pinning.  I thought he’d eventually figure it out after the first few meals and cage cleanings. Apparently not. He still acts like an unknown monster has entered his space every time I get near his cage. I wonder how he’s going to feel when I have glasses again this week but they have a different frame.

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Wet vegetables

What in the hell is it with this new trend of keeping vegetables soaking wet at the store? I bring home a bag of little carrots for the birds and the carrots are dripping wet inside the bag. I try to dry them out so they won’t rot before I use them and they grow a slimy something all over them. I nuke them in the microwave in an attempt to then kill the slime and I end up with slimy, nuked carrots that the birds won’t go near with a ten foot pole. Who was it decided we needed

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Sweeping by instinct

Since I have to wait a week now that I’ve had the second eye surgery before I can be refracted for glasses, I find myself in the interesting position of sweeping by instinct since the world is so fuzzy. When you have birds, you have to sweep every day.  I sweep where I remember they drop seeds the most and then go over the part of the floor that the dogs seem most interested in a lot. I figure I can’t see, but the dogs can still smell. And Blue can sniff out one uneaten sunflower seed from three rooms

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Will no one rid us….

Will no one be the first to say, “No more. Not now. Not ever. We will never print Brittany Spears’ name in our paper/weblog/magazine or any other place its appearance might sully optherwise civilized surroundings”.  Is there no one out there who will finally shut the door on this most annoying ever personality of all time. Bring back Don Imus.  Bring back Tom Cruise.  For god’s sakes, bring back Madonna and her metal tits. But spare us another word about this sad, pathetic creature.

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Columns 2007

Dream big, Alaska!

I don’t want to get all huffy and possessive about this scandal stuff, but I do feel obliged to point out to those people weeping, wailing and wringing their hands over what has befallen our pristine state that this is not the first corruption scandal ever in Alaska. So we should stop acting like a virgin on her wedding night.

And, may I add, our previous corruption scandal involved people who couldn’t be bought for anything that didn’t have six to seven figures before the decimal point. They would have scorned the amounts being cited in current indictments.

I’m speaking,

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pictures

You know you’re in trouble when…

image

You know you’re in trouble when you come home to find your house looking like an earthquake might have happened that you just didn’t feel. You’re in worse trouble when you look around and realize the earthquake only happened in a few rooms and there are two VERY guilty looking dogs plastered up against the back door trying to get out before you notice. Could they look more guilty?

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Sun basking dog and friend

The sun finally came out in Anchorage this weekend. Blondie, my happy retriever/lab/ridgeback/mutt sat in the back yard in bliss, basking in it. Blue, my wannabee blue-heeler mix, on the other hand, doesn’t like to be cut off for even five minutes from her favorite food source…the bottom of the bird cages. She chooses to stay inside where she can detect the sound of a crumb falling to the bottom of the cage from four rooms away and catch it before it bounces twice.

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GRRRRRRRRRRR

I am less than a month away from leaving for the East Coast for a wedding and birth and the woman who said she would house sit for me has casually announced she won’t be able to do it and has been meaning to call me. Wonderful. I have a non-refundable ticket, six birds and two dogs and no house sitter.  I wish I were rich enough to have a full time live in housekeeper. Life would be so much simpler.

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Taking one for the country

Anyone who doubts the courage and bravery of our military need only look to that poor three star general who has just become the war czar to know that love of country can cause you to give up all sense of self to serve.  Seriously, is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that this man is taking a job that already has a target painted on it and in the center of that target is the blame for our almost inevitable failure in Iraq. This man had to know this going into the situation but he did it because he

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