Let us take a moment to mourn the death of the  Seattle Post-Intelligencer, another print victim of not only the economy, but also the fools who think reading news on line is equal to or better than the sensual experience of feeling the soft yet crisp newspaper in your hands, wrinkling/… Read full post »

            Last night I attended an increasingly rare event in Seattle—a gathering of writers and academics at a person’s home. Although many had been invited, surprisingly few were there to meet a best-selling science writer and eac/… Read full post »

The ancient Greeks knew hell. They make the Christians look like a bunch of childish amateurs with their eternal fire and pokes with a pitchfork.

Take Sisyphus, condemned to roll a huge boulder up a hill, almost reaching the top, only to see it roll back down to where he'd have… Read full post »

I started signing up with Tippem. If you sign up, you get a $10 bonus that you can then give to others. Great idea! I can give someone money without squeezing my own thin wallet.

 Then I got to page 2 where my social security number is requested and I thought,… Read full post »

My New Year’s does not take place in the dull dead of winter, marked by fireworks set off by idiot neighbors while dogs pace and pant in fear from the noise. Although I am not an observant Jew, I do mark the new year that starts in September or October, according… Read full post »

My new custom-designed banner is courtesy of Ric Tresa. Thanks, Ric!

Since the Big Storm started, I’ve been reading all the news about it. The news told me to worry about pipes freezing, so I went downstairs and looked at pipes. Some were covered, some not. Are they all water pipes? Who knows? The article said that I should keep all the… Read full post »

Another Anniversary Poem for J.

 Our nasturtiums begin to climb the fence,

cutting bright shapes as Matisse did

in his last years. They invent colors:

a deep pink-red, an orange-striped yellow.

Since my first planting in a window box

I have gathered seeds in fall, planted in spring,

constant to… Read full post »

My sugar snap peas, purchased from Trader Joe's, came from Peru. Oh, the pain of guilt. Against all my principles, I was contributing to global warming by buying food flown here from thousands of miles away, grown with who knows what pesticides and picked by underpaid third-world… Read full post »

 A long time ago when there was money from a grant to send me on a poetry book tour, I took my son along to a photo studio in Spokane (loyal spouse stayed home taking care of the animals).  We chose our costumes and posed without being told to smile.

Yesterday's… Read full post »

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A few years back I decided to take my formerly-alive spouse’s advice and quit arguing with my mother. “She’s not going to change,” he said when she was the age I am now and we were in our twenties. Now she was over eighty and I didn’t want to be arguing… Read full post »

 Kodiak Moment

Today a bear will rise from the dead.

From a pile of bones, baked dry as dust

and disinfected, protected with

preservative and reconnected

she will emerge as large as life,

one paw with every finger bone

perfected, reaching to pluck a plastic

salmon off its plinth, the… Read full post »

 I'd like to see what people add to the list.

When there is no dog in the house

the house is silent when you walk inside

you can set your shopping bag on the floor and leave the room

there are no muddy footprints

you do not find nose prints… Read full post »

Where I live, we know slugs. We know the properties of slug slime: thick, sticky, clingy. Get it on your hands by accident and you feel like rats are playing basketball up and down your spine. That's how I felt when picking up a piece of mail that said WANTED: JOB… Read full post »

The friend of a friend gave this guy my phone number and he called and we agreed to meet for coffee. Since he has a real job, I disguise myself in black slacks instead of my usual jeans so I look like part of the normal world. He wears jeans. I feel overdressed… Read full post »

I like the way non-human animals get to complain and grump without losing friends over it. This morning, late letting the chickens out of the coop, I approached to the sound of loud whining and screeching until I got the door open. I could claim they gave me reproachful looks on… Read full post »

A few weeks ago I met with my mother, one  brother and a social worker in the rehab. institution where my mother had been for six weeks, recovering her ability to walk. Because she could now get from bed to bathroom with a walker, my mother was deemed able to go home; the… Read full post »

I am a generalist. My retiring boss,  also a generalist, told me that when she informed me that my job was over. She said that if she were applying for her job now, she would not be hired, either. It's not easy being a generalist, a person who knows and can… Read full post »