WHEN LIFE MEETS ART Saturday, I went to a baby shower I’d been anticipating (Blog 9/1/2010). I was met by a butler in a dark suit, a pink satin tie and with the requisite tea towel slung over his left arm. His left hand held a bottle of bubbly which he poured freely. He turned out t

A LIFE LIVED IN TOOTHBRUSH TIME My electric toothbrush has a two minute timer on it. I try to be disciplined and stay the course, but sometimes standing for two minutes with a brush humming in my mouth is just too-o-o long. All in all it requires six minutes a day to keep my dentist h

A RECIPE TO LIVE BY I hate to cook. To me, cooking for one person is an absolute bore. Mark, my publicist, feels otherwise and looked askance when I confessed I ate a lot of frozen dinners [editor’s note: But in a nice way!]. We were on the book tour to eastern Oregon at the tim

A BOOK OF LIFE CLOSES I never read my local newspaper as I have no wish to spend my life being misinformed. As I may have mentioned before, I don’t feel deprived. My home town is a major city but has a grapevine for gossip that gives it the feel of a small town. If anything of conse

ON THE SUBJECT OF LEAVES Tomorrow is the last official day of summer and already the leaves are turning yellow and dropping from the birch tree in my garden. It is the first tree to start shedding and the last to finish. This tall, hulking specimen of 35-40 feet began as a weed which

A LESSON FROM MY BLUEBERRIES With just one more day of summer left, I decided to walk to the nearby gardening shop, a distance of about 50 blocks round trip. The day was cool and dry but the forecast was for rain, so I left home at 9 in the morning. I had a question I wanted to ask th

SHUCKING OYSTERS On Tuesday, I went to my first book club gathering. 14 women were in attendance, all of them clutching copies of Heart Land. The moment I came through the door, one of the attendees approached me. “I laughed. I cried. I loved the book,” she said. Well, what writer

PUTTING TRUST IN PICASSO I came back from my book tour to discover a hydrangea in my garden had given me a single puff ball blossom. It had been transplanted in my garden by a friend nearly 4 years ago and till now, had never bloomed. At last, I’ve discovered what it looks like: a w

IF EINSTEIN HAD BEEN A HOPI A dear friend of mine has had a stroke. It’s not the first time for him and each event has left its mark. This stroke created a disconnect between what he wants to say and what he sometimes does say. The prognosis is good for his recovery but he’ll need

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY Today marks my 100th blog posting to the web community. What I really want to celebrate, however, are my readers, a silent bunch but loyal. Last month, I had 143 visitors to this site and 70% were repeat readers with new people trickling in all the time. I don’t kn