Thursday, October 1, 2026
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Typically, I am sort of a homebody on New Year’s Eve, and I spend most of the day watching my collection of traditional films (contact me if you ...
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By Rachel Benton
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12/22/25
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As the classic 1963 Andy Williams song, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” says, telling scary ghost stories during ...
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Sunday the 21st is the solstice — the shortest day and longest night of the year. Then the days start getting longer, but slowly — about three ...
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Several readers have asked about what the participants in the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) do. They want more specifics beyond ...
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As the world transforms each day and breaking news breaks our sense of normality, we need traditions that regulate us and ...
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By Rachel Benton
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12/18/25
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The longer I live in Thurston County, the more I understand how our little corner of the world encompasses so many cultures as it ...
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By Rachel Benton
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12/17/25
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While our gardens rest, we should not. We have an immigration problem to grapple ...
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I still remember the first time I went to a Capital City Chorus (CCC) ...
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By Rachel Benton
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12/12/25
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About seven years ago, my mom gifted me a compilation DVD filled with old television Christmas episodes. To this day, I cherish this ...
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By Rachel Benton
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12/11/25
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In this brisk chilly world, we are given a few options: we could go outside and complain, we could stay inside but always feel lonesome ...
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By Rachel Benton
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12/10/25
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This column is a little different than the type of columns we usually produce, but it’s something that is on my mind a lot and we thought other ...
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By Trish Lynn and Thom Donitz
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12/9/25
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Nodding to the ghosts of Christmas past, Theater Artists Olympia (TAO), for one night only on Dec. 19, will engage in the immortal 16th century ...
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By Rachel Benton
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12/8/25
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The day after Thanksgiving, a dandelion bloomed in the front yard. On the first of December, a charming but invasive flower called ...
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December heralds the darkest season of the year. When I get home from work, it’s so dark that the local great-horned owls have already begun ...
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Prior to attending this performance, I reached out to my friends to see who among them has either never attended the ballet, or attended so ...
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By Rachel Benton
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12/3/25
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"Saving the Nisqually Delta," by Olympia-based journalist Janine Gates, tells how one of Washington state’s most fragile and ecologically ...
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“It's coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees. They're putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace. Oh, I wish I had a ...
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By Rachel Benton
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12/2/25
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In 1970, when the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created, William Ruckelshaus, its founding administrator, said ...
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This is the final of a series of three columns about bird feeders, for readers who are considering putting one up, and for those who want to ...
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As we approach Thanksgiving and all the other holidays that follow, society wants us to join the hustle and bustle of commercialism and rush to buy ...
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By Rachel Benton
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11/26/25
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