Let me say up front that a sonnet is nothing to be afraid of.  Sonnets were the Sudoku and the crossword puzzles of their day, that is to say, of the late 16th century.  People enjoyed writing them and figuring them out at whatever level they were capable. If sonnets were featured in the New  Read the Rest…

In which I begin to cobble together what literary flotsam I do possess and attempt to read the entire works of William Shakespeare. It’s summer.  People are talking about their summer reading lists.  Here’s what happened to me: I loved Stephen Greenblatt’s book The Swerve.( https://www.elenalouiserichmond.com/2012/05/swerving-and-centering/) It  led me to dust off his Will in  Read the Rest…

I sealed up the last Christmas card this afternoon to be delivered at tonight’s Lessons and Carols service which begins an hour past my bed-time.  I voted against this schedule because not only do I have to be there, I have to be alert.  I direct the choir for one song and I play the  Read the Rest…

My blog topics are a result of little frissons I get in my solar plexus.  Something funny happens and it laughs down there.  Or something thrills when I feel passionate about an idea.  Or I get triggered by something that upsets me so much I want to pretend it doesn’t. I got one of those  Read the Rest…

This week I finished a painting inspired by a photograph of a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins, and Eugene, my first little soul-mate cat.  He’s the cat who liked raisins, broccoli and ear wax –I don’t need to get into how that came about—and who played my answering machine when he was bored. I wanted riots  Read the Rest…

Here’s a cheap trick: I’ve learned that traffic on my blog shoots up when I have a titillating title.   Now you’re here, you might as well hear what I have to say about Sigmund Freud because his birthday was May 6, 1856.  He no longer has that much to do with the way analysis is  Read the Rest…

A few years ago I spent two inert hours sitting at the duck pond on the Whitman College campus in Walla Walla.  It was 109 degrees which is why I was inert.  The two hours produced a poem. The poem was printed in this quarter’s Whitman College alumni magazine. Lakem Duckem gets its name from  Read the Rest…

I was browsing at the library when I heard a distinctive voice I hadn’t heard in 35 years.  It sounded exactly like someone I had known at college.  I followed the sound and sure enough it was Pat.  Then I ducked my head.  I didn’t have a thing against her.  I had liked her well  Read the Rest…

  When I was at Whitman College in Walla Walla (not Spokane, that’s Whitworth) I was part of a recurring act called the Temperance Union.  Four of us donned the frumpiest outfits we could put together and performed “Away with Rum” to whoever would listen: We’re coming, we’re coming, our brave little band, On the  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…