May 11, 2020
While it’s important to stay up-to-date on the pandemic news (and you can do so here), it’s also mentally important to take some time away. Here we offer some updated interesting and amusing diversions for all ages, from videos and podcasts to recipes and book suggestions. And we invite you to join us in spreading […]
The following books might fit in some ways in the same category as “comfort food,” and have been around for awhile, but their authors have some special insights of their own to offer and “spin a good yarn.” If you like a mystery with appealing detectives, try Tony Hillerman and Donna Leon (and of course, […]
October 25, 2018
Spring 2019 This list will be updated when the mood strikes. Please feel free to send in your own suggestions to the email link at the bottom. Take slow, deep breaths. Listen to “Eroica” (Symphony No. 3) by Ludwig van Beethoven, “Become Ocean” by Luther Adams or choral music by Morten Lauridsen. Take a warm […]
October 15, 2017
I had always thought that when I died, my children would scatter my ashes under the pines beside Davis Lake, where we have camped for twenty years. But it’s all ashes there now. Wildfire flared up along the road behind the east campground. Driven by 25-mile-an-hour winds, the firestorm charged across the road and ran […]
April 16, 2017
Can anyone tell me the names of some famous bears?” A pause. “Yogi?” a woman in a halter top asked. I nodded, “That’s right.” “Smokey Bear,” came from a nine-year old in a ball cap. “Yes, that’s a good one. Any others?” I waited for an answer, as a good naturalist should, but when much […]
When I was growing up in Seattle, my father, who’d come from Maine, one day asked whether I expected to live in Seattle as an adult. “Of course!” I replied, surprised he’d ask. “Then you should consider going east for school,” Dad said. “Easterners have a lot of influence in society. They make the rules. […]
I once met a bumper sticker that read, “Life is a mountain, not a beach.” For much of mine, mountains have been among other things, my favorite metaphor. But sometimes you can get too much, even of a good metaphor. Take, for example, the tragic events that unfolded high on the highest place on Earth […]
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