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…

My neighbor Gwen read my previous blog The Solstice Zone, which ended with the teaser to stayed tuned for part two. She wrote me “I look forward to your next post to find out What Actually Happened at the Ocean.” This alarmed me because nothing actually Happened at the Ocean. I thought about 1) making  Read the Rest…

The summer solstice can be a fuddling time, what with the veil between the worlds and all.  It’s really mid-summer, you know, not the beginning. But I don’t need to rock on that horse for this post. Much better to just relate the adventures of the past few days. My birthday is solstice adjacent, which  Read the Rest…

I had a lovely birthday, thank you. I am now 64. There’s no more “when I’m.”  My friend and college roommate, The Very Miss Mary-Ellis Lacey who is actually now a Mrs. Adams, sent me a birthday card just before she and her husband left on a Rhenish cruise. (Yeah, look that one up.) Mary-Ellis  Read the Rest…