I’m not sure if I can attribute it to being too fond of books, as the Lainie’s Lady sent to me from Brisbane, Australia, by a friend says, quoting Louisa May Alcott, but today my brain has been addled by sickness and general aching malaise…
That Wonderful Smell of Baking Solved?
It started as a single event. One day I went outside and the air in our neighborhood here in Northeast Portland was filled with the wonderful smell of baking! At first, I assumed someone in the neighborhood wasn’t as calorie-phobic as I am and had decided to make a batch of cookies or pastries or donuts. Then I smelled it a second time. And a third…
Back from the Friendly Skies
I arrived back to sane, springing-ahead Portland last night, weary from my sojourn to home turf in northeastern Pennsylvania and a pilgrimage to icy, snow-drift and dreary Ithaca for a friend’s memorial service on March 1st. It was a grueling trip. Lots of down time, time to observe the shabby, broken-down weariness of that part of the east
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Blogging through the Blues
Finally today, the clouds over my psyche, my perception of what is now my life, lift for a host of reasons—hormones shifting, new allergy drugs working, sun returning even if only for fifteen minutes to light up this morning in my life. The weekend is an artist’s date of sorts—heading to Medford/Ashland with a friend and the matinee of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival on Saturday. A break most welcome, a cultural outing sorely needed…
Soup for Brunch
While most of Saturday was consumed by periodic searches for the missing car key—I’d driven myself and the car home on Thursday, it had to be here somewhere—I made time to whip up a batch of Moosewood’s Cream of Broccoli soup, updated by Mollie K.
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Winter Rain, Winter Light
Medieval holiday music on the radio, Trio Medieval, singing Norwegian Christmas music, three women’s a cappella voices, the rain on the roof, the ground outside becomes an accompaniment, quiet drumbeat rhythm rather than the bleak…
Time-Out: Dusk, Wednesday, Mid-November
The day’s light disappears white and almost icy blue below the hills I can see from this upstairs window. It’s already darker behind me, the side of the house that faces east. Can a mood lift, a day be better simply because it isn’t raining? Because I accomplished something like setting my web site up…
Wednesday, Fog, Blue Sky
Photo by Brocken Inaglory Colder out there today. Winter in western Oregon. The light becomes lyrical. I go out to empty the woodstove ashes in …
Big Smile Sunflowers
Whoever has the job of naming new hybrids of flowers got it right with this one. How can you not grin when you know you are going to have not one but two Big Smile sunflowers vying for sun along with the chard, pole beans, heirloom tomatoes, callas, zinnas, dahlias…
Order from Chaos
It has taken me all damn day to get the room of my own, the one in which I write, returned to a modicum of order so I can begin to focus on writing again. Piles of books, piles of random newspaper clippings, and newsletters and mail and receipts
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