Bali Rice Terraces --Nicki Chen The salon where I get my hair cut hosts a couple new artists each month. I see their paintings in the mirror and next to the coffee machines, by the desk when I pay, and on a wall facing the sinks. Getting a haircut is like entering an...
A Long Forgotten Book of Aphorisms
That evening I’d come down to change the furnace filter and found the furnace room dark. In fact, the light socket was empty. Hmm. How’d that happen? No worry. I keep light bulbs of all description in a large plastic container in the hallway closet nearby. It’s on a...
The Serenity of Kubota Garden in Spring
On the first day of spring, two of my daughters, my son-in-law, grandson and I visited Kubota Garden in Rainier Beach, Seattle. It’s a big garden, 20 acres, so we had a nice walk. Japanese gardens have their own style and philosophy. You shouldn’t expect them to wow...
An Anti-War Grandma Reads Sun Tsu’s The Art of War
The Return Herald, Wikimedia Commons I may be an anti-war grandma, but The Art of War is a classic. So, I figured I should read it. Not because we were at war, which we weren’t when I bought it a year ago, but because I was curious. I wondered why this little Chinese...
Fragments from the Past: Dad’s WWII Letters
Photo by Brandie Robbins on Pexels.com My sister has been the keeper of Dad’s WWII letters. I didn't read them until a few weeks ago when we were driving north through Skagit Valley on our way to Chuckanut Manor for lunch. On a straight stretch along I-5, Sue reached...
Olympic Athletes, Why Do They Do It?
Photo by Federico Tomasoni on Pexels.com We’d just finished lunch—a big bowl of chili, a green salad, and homemade bread—when my cousin, MM, leaned forward with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “If you were an Olympic athlete,” she asked, “what kind would you want to...
My Mom Didn’t Nurse Me
I was born in 1943, during the Second World War. No ultrasounds in those days, so my dad didn't know whether to expect a son or a daughter. I imagine him sitting in a tent in Italy reading the telegram that announced my birth. Or maybe it was a foxhole in France. For...
Generation Gap at Edmonds Rally
“The Protest at the Dock” was scheduled for noon on a Tuesday, so it wasn’t surprising to see mostly retired people out there waving their signs. My sister and I among them. Our “audience” was people in their cars and trucks lining up to drive onto the...
