I have a list of time sensitive stuff I need to be attending to and every time I look at it, I can’t focus.  There they are, swimming in front of me, the soul-destroying articles of an over-scheduled, self-employed life: taxes, emissions, ink cartridges, Easter ham, April billing, water-color classes (Five items, all dependent on  Read the Rest…

I live in an area of Seattle called Crown Hill. When someone isn’t sure where that is, I say Upper Ballard.  That doesn’t really clear anything up.  So then I say Greenwood.  Greenwood sounds very Henry VIII and olde.  That appealed to me until I watched The Tudors, which was creepy. Crown Hill, which now  Read the Rest…

Meal time is an exciting event in the lives of my cats.  When they were kittens, they engaged in extended periods of play, exploration, and swinging on curtains followed by restorative naps, and eating for growth and strength.  Now that they are cats, they engage in extended naps, brief periods of play if I play  Read the Rest…

In this recent spate of late but glorious summer, I did something I haven’t done in years because it hasn’t been warm enough.  I dragged a chair into a shady patch of my yard where the lilac branches meet the tops of the black currant bush and create a cool cavern.  I maneuvered the chair  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…

This blog is not for the squeamish: Recently Freud, the cat, got into some kind of altercation with his analysand across the alley.  It may be time to terminate their professional relationship as it seems to have taken a new direction. (http://www.elenalouiserichmond.com/2010/09/the-post-freudian-cat/) In any case, Freud came in with a bump the size of a  Read the Rest…

Winston and the late Edwina and were five year old cats when Freud and Artemis joined the household.  Just six weeks old, they were stray pieces of fluff, one orange and white, one jet black; with flat baby noses, pink tongues and soft paws.  They pounced on anything that moved and stalked single grains of  Read the Rest…

It’s been pouring rain here in Seattle for about a week.  Not the usual mild Seattle showers and mist, but a New York City kind of rain when you actually use an umbrella which a true Seattleite never does.  People think it rains all the time in Seattle- fine, you go ahead and think that  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…

People always comment on how huge my cats are.  They are rescue cats, mutts, hefty survivors.  Since I work at home, they know how to work me for food and I am the first to admit that I am intimidated by them.  While my cats may be the size of farm animals, there’s a hint  Read the Rest…