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TBT: Tacoma version
Because I’ll be in Tacoma this weekend, I thought my Throwback Thursday ought to show me when I lived there, Back In The Day, when I was still Laurie Richardson. And this is one photo where you should be glad for both washout and fading, because the color of that dress was truly blinding: This was…
Read MoreThrowback Thursday: hippies rule!
It may be entirely redundant, considering I live in Santa Cruz, to point out that I used to be a hippie. However, I thought you might like to see how very long that has been the case. This taken in 1971, when I was taking my first classes in religious studies at West Valley College…
Read MoreMatters Unspoken? (My blushes!)
In the twenty years since The Beekeeper’s Apprentice introduced Mary Russell to the world, many questions have been raised about the good lady, and about her relationship with Sherlock Holmes, her religious beliefs, her Oxford college, what kind of car she drives—and just where on the Sussex Downs is that house of hers, anyway? In a fervent…
Read MoreOne Writer’s Home
In my early writing days, I produced scenes, chapters, whole books with my legal pad propped on the wheel of a (stationary) car, while one child or another was involved in soccer practice or a piano lesson. Later, when the kids were in school longer hours and this odd hobby of mine began (to the astonishment of…
Read MoreOdd housemates
I love odd plants. I’ve posted about my various odd housemates, of the vegetable variety, from time to time.Now another long-time inhabitant of a sunny window has sprouted some peculiar and quite unexpected blossoms. Who’d have guessed that something like this— would sprout into this— Life is full of such delightful surprises. (And in case…
Read MoreThat was the year that was 2013
Looking at the family letter I always write during the Christmas season, I found myself trying to remember: what did I do this year, anyway? I know I had a book out, but… So I looked back at my calendar, and found that yes, I was a bit busy: In January, I was still wielding…
Read MoreRoom with a view
When I went house-shopping almost two years ago now, my only requirement was that it be closer to family than where I was. However, before long I had to admit to my real estate agent that I’d been spoiled, and I didn’t think I could bear to live any place but on top of a…
Read MoreLaurie’s List
(Two weeks is plenty of time for Christmas shopping, right? Right??) Want to know some things I’ve fallen in love with this year, that now I’m giving to a lot of people on my list? Pre-reader book: Journey, by Aaron Becker. This is a gift of time as well, and self, since there are no…
Read MoreInterfering with Nature
Hummingbirds are not supposed to stick around when the weather gets cold enough to freeze them out of the trees at night. Really not. But when there’s an endless source of high-calorie goo, they stay in the neighborhood, leaving the idiot who put the hanger up with the hard realization that the thing now…
Read MoreLetting in the day
In the Dick Francis novel Decider, the protagonist is an architect with many sons and a difficult marriage. At one point he reflects on the unlikely things that make people buy one house over another—in his case, a large tree that he can envision his boys climbing. I bought a house last year. My decider…
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