Elise Sereni Patkotak

What is it about a karaoke machine?  When you turn one on, normally quiet, dignified people suddenly act as though they are in the privacy of their own shower and start emoting like Little Richard on acid.  I think a survey of any karaoke bar would quickly show that most people should barely be allowed to sing at all, let alone in public.  Carrying a tune, it turns out, is a lot harder than it looks. Hitting the right notes is, for some of us, downright impossible.

I can still remember the days of my choir singing at St. Michael’s,

I am a rabid animal lover.  Since I bought my first parrot in a department store in Brooklyn in 1970 till now, my life has never been without pets.  I lavish love, care and attention on them out of all proportion to what rational human beings think of as normal.  Which makes it twice as puzzling to figure out why I once let my dog wander around my house with a broken leg for over a week before I figured she wasn’t just being lazy and something might really be wrong.

In my defense, let me say that anyone who

As always with the really important news, the news that will actually affect your life, it was buried on the third or fourth page in a small paragraph of a small article. The story detailed the attempt by the US Army to create a peanut butter and jelly pocket sandwich that will last without refrigeration for at least three years – every child’s dream come true.  Here’s what a gentleman named Jerry Darsch, who directs the Defense Department’s feeding program, had to say.

“Darsch said his sandwiches are designed to be as resilient as the troops they feed. �This bad

Some people are lucky in love. Some people aren’t. Some people have their romantic fantasies come true.  Others of us watch it on the screen or read about it in books and know it will never happen to us.

Do I really have to tell you which group I belong to?  Let me just say that the first love of my life left me for someone named Pedro. My engagement to that man was the highpoint of my romantic life. He proposed by looking at me one day while we were at a party and saying, “Well, I always figured

When I saw the name in the paper after the Glalaxy went down I hoped it wasn’t the George Karn I knew. Then I saw the picture.  George was a cook at UIC-NARL in Barrow during the 90s. He was a true Alaskan character at a time when this state seems to be slipping towards the banality we all fled in the lower ‘48.  My friend K.C. tells the best story about George. Here’s what she wrote:

“Remember that stupid little plastic bloody hatchet he had that when swung and hit on something would play this tinny little recording of

Anyone who watched the Cosby Show during its successful run in the 80s, or who watches the endless reruns on Nick at Nite, is familiar with the sub sandwiches that the Cosby character frequently ate to his wife’s despair as she worried about his cholesterol.  In the early years, he even gave a name to the shop where he got those subs. He called it the White House Sub Shop. And in actual fact, that’s where those subs came from.  Only the shop isn’t in Brooklyn.  It’s in Atlantic City.  And he used to have those subs specially driven up

I like to think of my dog as The Mad Ratter.  Since he is not especially effective as a guard dog, I figure his ratting ability justifies the gazillion dollars in treats, toys and grooming I spend on him each year.

I guess, to be perfectly fair to him, he is somewhat effective as a watchdog in that he will bark at every leaf as it falls off the trees. But his bark is such that all but the truly dense immediately know the sound is being made by a little ankle nipper.

I’d like to give him credit for

It was one of those messages you live for as a GAL. Kids whose lives seemed destined to be lives of sadness and neglect getting a second chance, living with a family that allows them to dream and creates a world for them in which their dreams just may come true.

The message said, “The kids are growing like weeds!  They’re both about 40 inches tall.  They don’t look anything like toddlers at all anymore.  Mikey has decided he wants us all to live in Kentucky with my mom and youngest sister.  He wants to have 5 black horses and

In a recent letter to the editor in this section of the newspaper, one of our readers complained about the trains in Anchorage.  He ended his letter with the question, “Aren’t the rest of you in west and southwest Anchorage getting tired of this noise by the trains through out the night?” The noise he was referring to was the train whistle.

As one resident of south Anchorage who lives very near a train crossing, I can only respond, no.  I am not at all tired of those train whistles. I don’t think I will ever tire of them.

Train

For those of you who still don’t believe the rich inhabit a different world, from you and me, let me try to persuade you with a list of some of the things that Tyco former chief executive officer L. Dennis Kozlowski had the company buy him.

For starts, there was the $17,000 traveling toilet box.  Now, I’m not even sure what this is.  Is it a toilette box for women’s skin care products?  Or is it really a travelling toilet box? Perhaps they bought this for him to use at long board meetings so he would not have to mingle