For the fourth year in a row, Lolita the fortune teller sat in residence on a bench outside the post office in La Conner during the month of October. “Look in my purse for your fortune,” her sign proclaimed. Joanne, “Jo” Mitchelle, the artist who created Lolita, hand-writes hundreds of uplifting fortunes, placing them in a container inside the seer’s waterproof pocketbook. 

As the Amtrak Empire Builder moseyed up the westernmost side of Seattle, I tried mimicking its sound. Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. My tongue hit the roof of my mouth, closely matching the noise of the slowly moving train. Departing exactly on schedule at 4:55 pm, we glided past the Smith and Columbia Towers, reaching the Olympic Sculpture Park moments after 5:00.

Seattle lost a great man last week, when Chef Thierry Rautureau died on October 29th. Only 64 years old, he succumbed to pulmonary fibrosis, an autoimmune disease that scars the lungs, making breathing difficult.

October 18, 2023

At 6:15 a.m., Avi heard the rat-a-tat of machine gun fire. Residents of Southern Israel are accustomed to sirens warning them of incoming missiles, not gunshots. Something was terribly wrong. Shaking Shula awake, he grabbed their cellphones and ran to their secure room, bolting the door behind them. Their cellphones lit up with messages from other kibbutz members, on a group chat, confirming their fears. They were under attack by Hamas terrorists.

Have you ever noticed that it’s harder to capture something in a few, carefully chosen words than to express yourself without limits?  In April, I took a 3-session class called “How to Review Everything,” with Misha Berson, the former art critic for the Seattle Times.