I started the OK Chorale as a University of Washington Experimental College class in 1992.  I remember the year because one rehearsal fell on Election night.  My best friend had instructions to call and let the phone ring twice when Bill Clinton went over the top of the Electoral College vote. Back then, the class  Read the Rest…

My neighbor Gwen who knows something about just about everything, says she admires the way I speak out without worrying about what others might think of me.  Actually, I’m not sure she said admire.  She might have just said she noticed.  As for me not worrying about what others might think of me, that’s entirely  Read the Rest…

It finally happened:  After ten years, my springerli is a success.  I was missing an ingredient, the same one apparently that my mother missed for, I don’t know, 45 years. There’s a deep psychological truth in there but I don’t know that I have the energy to go looking for it.  Maybe it will surface  Read the Rest…

I love yard sales but when the weather turns wet, some of us yard sailors go through a dry period that is refreshed only by the appearance of holiday bazaars in the middle of November.  When my British friends read about the U.S. and our stupid, interminable election brouhahas, or when they hear a quote  Read the Rest…

How are we all doing?  When it gets like this, I can’t decide if I feel like watching Dr. Zhivago or Body Heat. In any case, I’ve had a quiet 20 hours without phone, TV or internet connection.  Since I got rid of TV cable a month ago–by choice—I rather expected to still be without  Read the Rest…

When I was growing up, my mother was a force majeure at the dinner table and nowhere was that more evident than at Thanksgiving.  She created a huge meal for the immediate family, supplemented by people pulled in from the highways and byways, members of the church, and occasionally, some of my father’s cousins.  She  Read the Rest…

Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold. Do you remember singing that song in grade school or in Girls Scouts?  Pigtailed little girls holding hands in a circle, ensconced in a swirl of harmonies.  I, for one, didn’t know what the hell the song was about.  I still  Read the Rest…

The first week after we all “fall back” is always hard for me even though I love the morning light because I get up early.  Just wait until we “spring forward.”  If I am still writing this blog (and I hope to be), you will never hear such ferocious whining as I will do in  Read the Rest…

My Ukrainian wheat charm is about to fall off my car’s rear view mirror. On the day after the 2010 elections, even its precarious dangle is welcome. This charm has power to make stuck joints glide, to soothe pain and to turn a pessimist inside out. Here is how it came into my possession: I  Read the Rest…

Here’s a poem I wrote January 22, 2009 Inauguration Day, 2009 Seattle A dark, frigid January morning, Our pilot lights barely flickering, We’ve been cold with fear, Frozen with shame, For a long time. We shivered our way thro the fog To Starbucks, to neighbor’s homes, To be with each other And to join The  Read the Rest…