Here's a book that should probably be required reading for those of us, ahem, older folks: Get What's Yours for Medicare: Maximize Your Coverage, Minimize Your Costs, by Philip Moeller. It's a recommendation from Kiwi, who did the necessary homework and determined this was one of the better publications on this subject. It's confusing, to say the least, and rather scary (I considered putting it with other scary books) but the author does a decent job of trying to make a convoluted system more understandable.

Washington may be 'the Evergreen State', but a lot of it is actually bare of trees. (I've sometimes wondered what newcomers think when entering the state from Idaho) (!) For a glorious look at part of the eastern side of the state, check out singing grass, Burning Sage: Discovering Washington's Shrub Steppe (a Nature Conservancy of Washington Book), with text by Jack Nisbet. There are chapters (and photos) of the plants, animals, insects, reptiles, etc. to be found, as well as a nice section on the human history of the area. It's beautiful country, and much different than the west coast of Washington.

To learn about things that live closer to home read Passionate Slugs & Hollywood Frogs which is part of the series An Uncommon Field Guide to (other areas in the northwest), by Patricia K. Lichen and illustrations by Linda M. Feltner. This came to me as a used copy (but in great shape!) so I'm hoping you can find it ... it is wonderful! Those frogs you hear in movies and on TV? Chances are they are a local tree frog (which, incidentally, don't sit in trees). Seems they have the best 'froggy' song. A sow bug is actually a crustacean and so is more closely related to a lobster than a bug. The daddy long legs is not a spider (wrong number of legs), and (drum roll), the blackberry is not a berry!

Reading Hermit With Dog