I’ve just published my first novel. I began it in 1997. I was part of a “spirituality group” that imploded from suppressed resentment, unbearable competitiveness and hurt feelings. One evening everyone popped off like a batch of homemade root beer in the basement, one at a time like a series of timed explosions. One woman  Read the Rest…

I never visited my friend Louise when she lived two miles from my house. She was my singing student before we became friends. Then she moved to Oregon City and I spent five hours travel time to visit her there. I’ll get to that in a minute. First there were the books. Or rather, The  Read the Rest…

My friend Karla is from Holland, land of liquorice. Black liquorice. If you consider red vines to be liquorice you can stop reading right now even though this post isn’t about liquorice at all. Karla told me they have a saying in Holland “liquorice poisoning.” That’s when you spend all evening (or days) with your  Read the Rest…

At Christmas I told my friend Mary-Ellis that I had gotten rid of all my cookbooks and was devoting the rest of my life to Joshua McFadden’s new one.  She wanted to hear more about that and here is my answer to her: I have not been a good cook since the 1970s. When I  Read the Rest…

Nina (rhymes with Dinah) and I went out to dinner a few evenings ago. After the how-was-your-day conversation, Nina quoted a friend (who was quoting Woody Allen) saying that if this election turns out badly, she’ll be in the basement in a pool of blood. It’s come to that. There’s nothing to do but that  Read the Rest…

My new Little Free Library is open for business! I’ve wanted one of these charming things forever and I finally sprung for one. I got the least expensive preassembled one I could find. I painted it the same color as my house and did as much of the hardware as I could figure out. I  Read the Rest…

I am making this a news free weekend because I am exhausted after the heart wrenching testimony on Thursday of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and the ensuing pissing match between Lindsey Graham Cracker and Brat Kavanaugh to see which could spew their putrid stream of testosterone the farthest in service to their own egos. So.   Read the Rest…

The framework to this post is that here in the Pacific Northwest there is unrelenting heat. We’ve had no rain. Temperatures are in the high 80s and low 90s, which for some of us is unbearable. We are not an air-conditioner culture. The most we have is an AC sticking out of a bedroom window.  Read the Rest…

When you are in the middle of certain milestones of life, people around you aren’t so much interested in what you are going through as they are in telling you the story of what happened to them. Labor comes to mind. Weddings. Menopause. Death of a parent. I’ve been through a few of these. I  Read the Rest…

Most of you are used to me writing about my neighbor Gwen who knows something about just about everything. Just to recap, Gwen knows how to take apart and put back together a computer, a Porshe, a dress, a suit and the upholstery of a sofa.  She can figure out a solution to nearly any  Read the Rest…