Sad Memory on a rainy night

This is not ordinary Seattle Rain. Think monsoon. Rivers are on flood alert, or flooding, trees are falling and the landslides have begun. Basements and garages are taking on water. Pumps are in high demand. City crews are out dealing with trees and urban flooding - water pooled on the road carried a car away in one part of the region. Neighbors are vigilant about keeping storm drains clear. A bizzare accident a few years ago is on our minds. It was during a rain like this that Kate Fleming, concerned about water damage, went down to her Seattle Madison Valley basement to check on her recording equipment. There was a flash flood, the storm drains gave way, the water rushed down her hill, smashing the foundation of her home and she was trapped. She drowned in her basement December 14, 2006.

The First time I heard Peggy Sue

Getting old. If you know about Medicare, please leave me a comment. Since I am still working (half time) I have not applied for social security. But I will soon be age- eligible for SS regardless of my work. I have heard that if you take SS, you MUST also have medicare. I have heard that medicare doesn't really cover everything. How does that work if you have other (really good) health insurance? If you know this from experience or can point me to some good clear answers, I would be grateful.

Like Breadcrumbs in a Fairy Tale Forest

A few words of kindness and comfort stopped me in my tracks today. Gentle comforting words from another brought tears to my eyes. Running from place to place, checking things off the list, getting things done I thought I was doing fine. I WAS doing fine. I just hadn't realized that my heart was yearning for connection, recognition, validation. Kind eyes and gentle words, from out of the blue, released tears I didn't know were welling - and lifted my spirits that I hadn't realized were sagging. Today is my day to pay it forward.

Home, where my music's playing

My city stay will be extended until June 30 and then I will be homeward bound. I have mixed feelings about returning. I love my cottage, but there was a reason I wanted to try out the city. Living here has been such a fun adventure. I do like being a city girl, bus pass in hand. I have been blessed with the perfect space in the perfect location at the perfect price. Perfect except for one thing. I miss my washer and dryer! The coin operated machines in the basement here are beautiful, state of the art. Brand new. Clean. They are shared by only six apartments..and the neighbors who live in the other five apartments appear to be clean and responsible launderers. Still I realize that I have taken the whole laundry thing for granted in all of my past lives. The only time I used coin-ops was back in college and at that time it was fun to socialize in the steamy, sudsy, noisy laundry room. Didn't really count. But I have been there, done that - I look forward to returning to the luxury of laundry on demand in my own home. I look forward to the day when I stop searching for quarters. I look forward to being able to forget that I left clothes in the dryer. My dryer.



Just finished: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri ****(I have never liked reading short stories - till now!)

About to start: The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

Maybe I Think Too Much!

Cranberry sauce: Boil up some sugar and water, add some fresh cranberries, heat till they pop. Add other stuff if you want. Cool, serve. Who knew? Yum. Amazing. Years ago when I could still influence my kids, I made sure that they agreed with me that cranberry sauce was meant to be jiggly, and smooth and slip with a satisfying "slurp" from a can. None of that sour grandma stuff with lumps. Not at Thanksgiving, not ever. Well folks, I have been enlightened. Ocean spray go away. Come again another day. Or not.

Just Finished: Room *** A unique and unusual voice, fascinating story!
Currently Reading: Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri

I Love you madly madly

My love for libraries began in junior high when I got my very first job as a "Page" in the Schenectady County Carnegie Library. Wearing a dusty brownish smock that seemed to acknowledge my importance as an "official" of the library, I pushed a heavy cart about, shelving books and answering questions like "where is the restroom?"The job blended my passion for books with my growing need for independence and offered me the opportunity to control and put things in order. The fact that every book had its own perfect and unique place was supremely satisfying to a girl who grew up in a sometimes chaotic house. The pay was eighty cents an hour - an astounding thirty cents more than an hour of babysitting.

Back then folks signed out books on cards bearing the full names and dates of every previous borrower. At check out the circulation librarian filed the card in a long tray and stamped the due date in the back of book. A reference librarian kept a list of questions from patrons and spent her time frowning and looking up answers. Silence was strictly enforced by all senior library staff who regularly walked between the old wooden tables and chairs glaring sternly at anyone whose voice lifted above whisper.

Today I walked to my neighborhood library to return books and pick up one that I had reserved on line. On line! In the space of a few minutes I can hear about a book on NPR, go to my home computer and reserve it at the library. My computer tells me how many copies there are in the system, how many people are also waiting and what my place in line is. I can decide which of the many library branches will be most convenient for pick up and then know that my email box will light up with a message when my turn comes. Soon the book is waiting on the shelf just for me. I type in my card number at the desk and the computer tells me to place books for sign out on the scan tablet. Amazingly the tablet quickly reads the bar codes of up to four books at a time and prints me a date due slip. Incredible!
I love my library!
Another change with the times - My local library is NOT a quiet brown smock frowny kind of place - It is a cheerfully respectful inviting space with quiet nooks and comfortable easy chairs, window seats and bright tables. It is a bustling active place of great community, tutoring corners, adult classes, computers, children's story hours, and author readings. The librarians smile and speak in a voice you can hear.
Tax dollars doing some of their best work.

Currently reading: Room

After Winter's Silence

Every school in the area is on weather closure.


Yesterday was a silent day in my corner of the city as Metro buses gave up and cars stayed parked. Families with kids used the streets for great sledding adventures. Lots of walkers about and more than a few have dusted off their cross country skis for street travel. The silence was quite lovely.

This morning the main roads seemed a bit better (I even saw a brave biker negotiating the ice and snow - Seattle has a powerful biking community - we will soon have bike lanes on all major streets - and by the way did you ever notice how "real" bikers look like insects?)


Just noticed - the buses are running again! This is a very good sign in a city that was silenced and paralyzed by three inches of snow and freezing winds. Though I loved the quiet, i am glad that my beloved city is valiantly returning to its noisy on-the-move self.



Time to bundle up my temporarily housebound self and bus to Trader Joe's for a pound of butter. What would Thanksgiving be without enough butter?

Snow Place Like Home!

Brr...it's freezing in the Northwest! The snow that looked so pretty this morning is now blowing in all directions. Up north in my cottage, my tenant has not been able to get out to go to work. Here, the few cars on the road are limping along, or going too fast and spinning their wheels. I am huddled in my city home glad to have heat and a couple of good books. I ventured out earlier for a walk to the coffee shop. It was yummy to be on the inside of the steamy windows sipping Starbucks with other hearty coffee city neighbors. I loved watching people walk in, stomp off the snow, embracing the warm chatter and community of this lively gathering place. Later, walking home, the wind came up, the footing became slick, the flakes became chunks and my face began to sting. I could feel the temperature drop with each step. Tonight will be icey and windy. So glad I don't have a reason to go anywhere. Seattle is not a snow city. Everyone knows we are experts at RAIN. We are a city of Rain Dears. Tonight I am red-nosed and snow weary, I am ready for warmer temperatures and rain. Not until Thursday they say.

UPDATE 11PM - serious wind and freezing temperatures - the freeways have been blocked for up to six hours - people who left work early are still not home! They must be so cold! I vividly remember the nightmare winter driving in my years of commuting to work. This is one day I am very very glad to be retired.

Just finished: Cutting For Stone ***** (Five stars!! Best book of my reading year)
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand *** (A good read with charming characters)

Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose

A year or two after my husband died I realized I really didn't mind being single. My kids, my job and my friends were enough. I loved solitary walks, the freedom to choose how I would spend my days off and the opportunity to just "BE." That was then. This is now. BEing semi-retired and single, is, well, lonely. My friends say their retired husbands drive them crazy. Sounds really good to me.

Like Emptiness In Harmony

My cooking gene kicks in with daylight savings time. When the fall fog rolls in I want to chop, saute, stew and roast things while listening to NPR. Is it the early darkness? Maybe the cooler weather? Who knows what makes me absolutely NEED to cook something savory, bake something pumpkiny, and sip something cidery? When I was a kid I hated the chore of starting dinner for the family before my mother got home from work. When I was a young wife, I was filled with anxiety and dread whenever I had to cook for anyone with the title "in-law." When my kids were at home, cooking dinner was what I had to do after I had worked all day. In the autumn of my life I cook because I want to.

Hawaii Five OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Six days in Hawaii. Five of the six days the hotel workers were on strike. Five nights at $300 per night and do it yourself housekeeping - "the sheets are on a cart in the hall." Five days with no on-site restaurants, no pool service, no sweet ukulele music playing throughout the resort and no refund, no offer to move us to another hotel, no perks whatsoever. Five days and nights of exhausted managers listening to thousands of complaints. Day two cookies and juice in the lobby, small consolation for being awakened (each of the five days) at six am by strikers on bullhorns, picketers banging drums, pots and pans and chanting at the top of their voices. Two days of listening to ugly yelling every hour - "We're Local Five.Go home! Go home!" - Day five finally becoming crazed and joining the thousands of complainers. Day six, the strike is over. Clean sheets, sweet music, all restaurants open, silence in the morning. Alas our day to go home. I don't think I will ever stay at a Hilton again. The tired managers credited our bill with a token $250 - for the inconvenience of staying in a luxury resort without even the basics. Today I made my own bed in my non-luxurious home, put on a CD and danced the Hula.

Ya Can't Win for Losing

I've been trying to help a young man who has made just about every mistake a guy could make. I am stunned by the incredible obstacles the "system" puts in the path of a person who wants to change his life. I am embarrassed by judges who sit in their robes and insult young people with their sarcasm and jibes. I am incensed by probation officers so jaded by their clients that they believe nothing, acknowledge nothing, offer no hope, no encouragement and no support. I am enraged by landlords who charge outrageous rents for roach infested rooms - because folks with records can't get anything else. I am dumbfounded by courts that impose fines that people can't pay and then send them to collections who compound them with maximum interest. I am dumbfounded by a jail sentence for not paying fines. I am furious with a system that asks a guy with no drivers license and no money to travel 200 miles from his home twice a month to "report" and then return 200 miles within 24 hours to "report" again to his probation officer in his home city. You can't win for losing.

Loves You Like a Rock

I am sorry I have been away. I am still reading your blogs if we have connected in the past, just haven't had a chance to write much.
The Northwest Summer has arrived (and disappeared momentarily ) I almost missed it. They say it will return.
This week I made several trips back and forth to Portland to help out my son and his family. Each trip I quietly blessed my ten year old Honda Civic. You may remember that I have never felt any affection for this reliable but unremarkable car. For the very first time in our long relationship I felt some respect and admiration for this little vehicle who in car years must be nearly as old as I am. Though we have traveled together for 125,000 miles it has definitely been a love/hate relationship and I have very much been looking forward to saying good-bye for good as I purchase a new car. Each trip up and down the highway this week I wondered whether the two of us could do it again - And after each round trip I was stiff and tired, silver civic just old and worn. Neither of us complained too much, but by Thursday night at 11:27 PM both of us were glad to be off the road after hundreds of miles of togetherness over the past four days. Yesterday I had a massage and then slept sixteen hours. SC just sat, quietly resting by the curb. Today I will treat her to some lovely high grade oil and a carwash. I guess I should admit publicly that we have become friends.

Sit Down, Shut Up, Think about God

So today I was attacked by a crow. There he was: sitting all black and shiny and huge and evil on a fence as I walked by ON THE WAY OUT OF CHURCH!!!! I swear we made eye contact. HE (aren't all crow's male?) snarled something at me in badbird vocabulary. Really, I mean it, the critter snarled and curled his lips before screeching a menacing crowish growl...well it looked like curled lips. He flew straight up and away all nonchalant. I sputtered a silent message of gratitude. A few seconds passed. Without warning crowmonster popped a sly and speedy turn back and dive-bombed my head. What's that about? I said more than a few non church words. A dark rainbow reason to stay home on a Sunday morning.

I barely learned the tune....

Lonely Rivers was almost retired.
That was last week. Returning from a professional conference on the east coast, I was asked to consider an "interim" - with a nice pay check. With guarantees that the search and selection of the perfect real and permanent director will be swift, I've agreed to help out. The plan is to re-tire in a few months, maybe less.

We'd like to help you learn about yourself.......

From my senior citizen perspective looking back through the haze of decades, I am suddenly wondering what was real and what has been romanticized. Stories over years of telling take on a life of their own. For example, Camp Kowaunkami. Though I say I loved camp - I am now remembering a piteous week of punishment and humiliation when the counselors forced me to sit on the beach and "watch but not participate" because as a clumsy camper I had steered my rowboat into a canoe full of counselors (mature women of 17 and 18)) who screamed insults at me once they came up, recovered from the dunk and got the canoe righted. Looking back, hazy or not, they were cruel. Still I say I loved camp. I think I did. I guess I wasn't scarred for life - I went back the next year without incident (that I can remember!) and lived all these years thinking I loved camp.

I hear the drizzle of the rain...like a memory it falls

Walking to work in spring rain is pure joy! I love stepping out, pulling up my hood, opening my umbrella and inhaling the sweetness of the neighborhood gardens. Raindrops on my umbrella chant a delicate meditation carrying me back to my childhood GS camping experiences when I loved the rain on the tent while drifting off to sleep. Picture this old lady yesterday blissfully dancing in the rain singing "K-O-W-A-U-N-K-A-M-I - we're girl scouts at Kowaunkami!" - thumbing her nose at the years and years of driving white knuckled down greasy rainy freeways.

Gonna Paint A Sign...So You'll Always Know

My sister gets the cool award in the department of MOM. When her kids were little she let them choose the new color for the shutters on their stately home. The boys argued and couldn't agree on the color. Wise as the ancient Solomon, sis bought the paint and the grumbly painter grimly followed her directions and grumbled and grunted, sputtered and spat. For the next decade the neighbors to the south enjoyed the red shutters - while the neighbors to the north had their own view: blue shutters. Every kid need needs a mom like my sister.

Like a Window In Your Heart

Life Choices.


J. is leaving Seattle to return to the Northeast. The Northeast of cold blustery winters, hot sticky mosquitos and grandchildren. At sixty-seven and after fifteen years of loving everything Northwest she has chosen to head east to spend her remaining years getting to know the grandchildren she has only seen three or four times a year since they were born. She chose a vibrant college town - two hours in different directions from each of her three kids and six grandchildren. Her kids lead busy lives. She doesn't want to be on top of them - just in the same time zone.


Life Choices. J is leaving her life partner whose Northwest business is thriving, who can't justify leaving this timezone to be near J's children and grandchildren who leads a busy life and likes this timezone just fine. They say it will be a long distance relationship.

Or not.
Life Choices.

And Follow Your Memory Upstream.....

A quick trip from Seattle to DC to spend Mother's Day with my siblings and my mom. Since she fell in October, mom has been wheelchair bound and less able to fully track some conversations. She is still bright and alert and sooo gracious. At ninety she is tiny and frail and needs the assistance of a caregiver eighteen hours a day. We three - her "kids" 2/3 of us gray, 1/3 of us about to retire ourselves, 3/3 of us confronting the reality of aging - took her on a memory tour which included a drive by Hickory Hill, the Bobby Kennedy compound, and then all of the DC sights by car - with the addition of Hillary's DC digs - ending our tour at the hotel that used to be the Sheraton Park.
This still beautiful and luxurious hotel is a treasured family memory - It was 1962. My young father had died after a long illness. My mom even in her own grief understood that her three kids needed something fresh in our minds - something wonderful and happy. We traveled to DC and spent a week together at the Sheraton Park - our twelve year old cousin Steve came along too because he was always funny and she said he would make us laugh. He did. Yesterday on our Mother's Day tour we called Cousin Steve (in Alaska) from the SP to remember together. It was day to say a very special thank you to our Mom.