Columns 2006

The birds are leaving

I remember going down a river in China back in 1983 and turning to my sister and saying, “What’s missing here?” Something seemed odd or wrong.

It took a few minutes for me to figure it out. There were no birds flying, no sounds echoing from their songs and conversations. It was eerily silent.  Unfortunately, the birds came later on a plate.  Little song birds roasted whole and eaten whole, bones and all.  My sister spent a lot of time in China being a vegetarian.

The kind of silence I found on that river in China is a large part

Continue reading →
Uncategorized

The pope is sorry?

The pope has “sincere regrets” about the remarks he made that seemed to insult Islam? How about having sincere regrets for all the lives lost because he leads a church that considers condoms a way to hell in a world of AIDS?

Continue reading →
Uncategorized

No, really, I don’t have an eating disorder

I buy two packages of sugar free hard candy to suck on in my office on those days when life just deserves a good suck.  I buy Werther’s Originals and Lifesavers. I know I like the former. I’m trying the latter for the first time.

I put the Lifesavers out and taste one. I don’t like them half as much as I like the others.  But I’ve already put them out in the dish.  And I paid for them.  And if I don’t eat them first and now, I’ll end up never eating them and they’ll be wasted.  So I

Continue reading →
Uncategorized

How pathetic is this?

When I play bridge on my computer, I rotate all the little computer generated players so no one’s feelings will be hurt and everyone gets a chance to play. 

Continue reading →
Uncategorized

Brad Pitt

Wow. Brad Pitt is getting a lot of votes for the “People who seriously annoy me” hall of fame.  And all those votes come from me so they count double.

Continue reading →
Uncategorized

Dog poop in the morning

On Tuesday morning I got out of bed, put on my slippers (thank god!) and headed out to the kitchen to turn the coffee on.  At my bedroonm doorway, I stepped into something soft, squishy and smelly. My dog had left me a gift. After depositing it, he then went to sleep downstairs since the smell apparently bothered him. I haven’t written about this till today because it has taken this long for my eyeballs to not bleed every time I think about it.

Oh yeah…Happy anniversary, Sandra and Harris.  May no dogs ever poop in your bedroom doorway.

Continue reading →
Uncategorized

Another Alaska fishing tale

There seems to be a mind set among people in the lower 48, especially those people who show up on your front doorstep in the summer, that every Alaskan is a tried and true outdoor person with intimate knowledge of wildlife, firearms, bear avoidance and – perhaps more than all else – fishing in Alaska waters.

Let me set their minds straight once and for all.

I am an outdoor person only if your idea of the outdoors is the tundra at 40 below in the winter.  My idea of firearms is confined to my attempt to hide their various

Continue reading →
Uncategorized

Another entry in the old file

Happened to be in a bar with live music last night.  I’d either forgotten how loud that can be or it just sounds louder because I’m so old. Either way, I found myself wishing they would put the table out in the parking lot for me so I could enjoy the music without feeling as though my eardrums were going to start bleeding.

Continue reading →