When you’re just a drop in the ocean, just small change in a billionaire’s pocket, only a pittance, a trifle, what can you do? You can’t do anything. Can you? You’ve probably heard this poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller. It begins like this: First they came for the...
Finally Something Fun in My Inbox
March 2021, man and dog and the Edmonds ferry. I don’t hate clearing out my inbox, but I don't love it either. How about you? Do you let it pile up until you have dozens or hundreds of messages you haven’t looked at yet? Or are you the conscientious type who finishes...
Asian Art on a Rainy Afternoon
looking at a bodhisattva It was raining. A light rain, but cold. I had my hood up. My sister was wearing a knit cap. A woman walked past us wearinng nothing on her head. We all smiled, and I said something stupid about the rain and her bare hair. “Oh!” she said,...
Neighbors, Good and Bad
painting by Nicki Chen I understood why my kids liked Sesame Street when they were young. Sesame Street was fun. But why were they so entranced with “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood”? Why did they sit for thirty minutes five days a week watching a soft-spoken man in a...
A Little Story about Dogs, and Cats … and Bombs
They wake up to the sound of bombs. Jump out of bed. They should huddle inside the bathtub, right? Or in the hallway. But, no. The bombs are close, and they’re enormous, large enough to destroy the entire building. We'll go into the subway tunnels, they decide. We can...
Cats and Feng Shui, a Guest Post by Ruth Silbermayr
batik by Nicki Chen Ruth Silbermayr started her blog chinaelevatorstories after moving to China in 2012. Currently she lives and writes in Austria. Below you can read an example of one of her recent posts: Chinese Feng Shui and Cats by Ruth Silbermayr I am not very...
Hearing again from Ruth
I’m talking about Ruth Silbermayr of the blog, China Elevator Stories. She’s a writer and blogger I met online in about 2014. I started my blog in August of 2013 when I was getting ready to publish my first novel, Tiger Tail Soup, a novel of China at War. My blog...
Courage–A Virtue for 2025
"Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others."- Robert Louis Stevenson climbing wall I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions this year. I didn’t resolve to eat fewer sweets and more veggies or to exercise more or clean out the cupboard--although...
