I yelled at the cat. That’s when I knew things had gone too far. It started when I began practicing to sing “Fill the World with Love,” a song from the musical Goodbye Mr. Chips (by Leslie Bricusse). I always get a little choked up when I sing it so I was practicing singing through  Read the Rest…

I used to call “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” the alcoholic’s Christmas carol because of the line about “next year all our troubles will be out of sight.” Pure denial, fantastical thinking. Wasn’t that mean of me? It’s a perfect song for this year and I regret my former attitude.  If you’re not busy  Read the Rest…

I’ve talked about learning to sew for years. I want to be able to make clothes in the colors and styles I like rather than forcing myself into procrustean fashions. This pandemic and the stay-at-home orders (and my lack of work and ensuing free time) has been a boon to me, a self-learner. I’ve been  Read the Rest…

I’ve been trying to get back to writing for six months. Nothing propels me so much as the need to confess a scorching embarrassment or to shapeshift something painful into something funny. So here goes. My story starts about a month ago when I took my octogenarian friend Kay to what I call the Green  Read the Rest…

Entering our third month of Sheltering-in-Place here in Seattle, I locate myself in the week by when I last showered: I showered today, I showered yesterday, I can’t remember when I showered or that’s really a funky smell. My hair has entered a new length division where it now looks reasonably good. I love hearing  Read the Rest…

My garden is keeping me sane. I’ve been out there for several hours a day since the middle of March, grubbing in the dirt and blowing my nose on the inside of my t-shirt. Maybe that doesn’t sound quite sane but without the garden I feel certain I would have gained 100 pounds and would  Read the Rest…

At times when I have been seriously depressed and feeling like nothing short of oblivion is going to help, I have engaged in the homely task of listing anything I could scrape from the quotidian to appreciate. In this surreal time, optimism can be in short supply. So as a public service, I offer the  Read the Rest…

I thought of my mother the other day when I went to the market and realized that planning a meal meant starting with what I could find on the shelves, not with choosing a recipe from a niche cookbook. Women in my mother’s generation cooked whatever was on sale. I’m not being snarky when I  Read the Rest…