When I was up on Whidbey, one of the wildlife issues was field mice.  In the city we deal with rats.  I know they are everywhere and lord knows I’ve had my adventures with them but I hated those adventures. On Sunday I went up to my local Fed-Ex to do some printing.  I like  Read the Rest…

(This the eleventh in a series that begins with A Night in Steerage.) London is my favorite city in the whole world but I ached on the way to the train station.  I had loved not feeling (completely) like a tourist.  Wendy, Sue and I had gotten on well together and I felt a lot  Read the Rest…

(This is 9th in a series that begin with A Night in Steerage.) After my experience in Wells, I wasn’t eager to try new bus adventures.  I wanted to go to Nether Stowey to see the Coleridge Cottage.  Sue looked into it for me and said that the bus would only get me to within  Read the Rest…

(This is 8th in a series that begin with A Night in Steerage.) On my way to the Old Pier to catch the bus to Wells I chatted with a man who ascertained for what felt like the hundredth time which side of the street I wanted.  It’s funny: there aren’t that many buses in  Read the Rest…

Gwen (my neighbor who knows something about just about everything) and I went to Costco last week.  We go twice a year and the spring trip is the most important one to me because it’s when I get my cheap vodka to make my raspberry liqueur. I’ll get to that in a moment but first  Read the Rest…

“I’m Wonder Woman!” Susan held out her arms and we hugged. “Yes, you are!” I enthused.  “What are we talking about?” I hadn’t seen Susan in three weeks. She’s a longtime friend, indispensable assistant and librarian for All Present; copy editor of my memoir and occasionally of something particularly egregious in one of my blog  Read the Rest…

On the corner of NW 95th and 6th NW in Seattle is a duck pond. I’ve known about it since 1987 when I bought my first house in the Greenwood area of Seattle, not too far from where I live now. Back in the 80s, three of my piano students –known by the child whose  Read the Rest…

Eighty eight degrees in Seattle in mid April.  This is an unremembered occurrence, if not unheard of.  I was out wallowing in the earth during the weekend, trying to get ahead of weeding the garden outside the front fence and tending to the peas that I am training up the fence.  It took me years  Read the Rest…

“The garden is a lovesome thing, God wot.” Thomas Edward Brown As I walk around my own garden in early April, I feel like I do when I unpack the Christmas tree ornaments and see my old friends: Sweet violets in the spring.  I have a lot of them this year: patches of sweetness all  Read the Rest…

I’m on Whidbey Island for four days at Windhorse, the retreat center I visit every year when the Buddha House is available because the meditation cabins don’t have toilets and I’m sorry, I don’t leave the house to use the toilet. I need a modicum of comfort and the cabins, though lovely inside, don’t leave  Read the Rest…