Coal Creek Trail is awesome. Here's my column about it: Oct. 28, 2009 Mercer Island Reporter
book lung: a saccular breathing organ in many arachnids containing thin folds of membrane arranged like the leaves of a book. (Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary)
My most recent column, published Wednesday, September 30 in the MI Reporter.
Here's my recent article about the Ice Caves Trail.
Boerner has stopped to talk in the narrow passageway between the sick bay and the officers’ quarters, where a framed display about the Turner Joy’s involvement in the Gulf of Tonkin incident (August 1964) — the ship was present on that fateful day which prompted U.S. escalated involvement in the Vietnam conflict — hangs on the wall.
“On the Gulf of Tonkin, I hear both ‘yeas’ and ‘nays’ about what happened. This is from guys who were there. Some say they were attacked. Others say they weren’t.”
We both pause as the weight of history sinks in.
My most recent article in the MI Reporter: Blown Away by Glass
I get nervous as I watch the pole guy swing the sculpture into the cooker--what if it accidentally nicked another artist? Would he go up in flames?
Sonya and Fran pushed through Indonesian throngs in the outdoor market. Sonya had only just learned Fran had family -- a sister and brother-in-law with kids -- back in the States.
"My sister's children run wild," Fran was saying. "They're like wood nymphs, not able to spell their own names, let alone speak civilly to adults."
"The doll is for your niece, then?" Sonya thought Fran seemed on edge during this outing for Christmas presents, more jumpy than she'd ever been. That is, until she'd come across the doll seller. Fran's constant impatience bubbled up again in her reply.
"Yes. My only niece. I have two nephews. I have to say it's painful to watch, the way my brother-in-law dotes on those boys, completely ignores the girl. There's no point talking to my sister about it. She's loyal to a fault."
As Americans abroad and roommates, Fran and Sonya shared almost every minute of every day. In the six months they'd been roommates in Jakharta, their conversations had centered around world news of the day, political maneuverings in the Foreign Affairs Department, the general stupidity of their male superiors. All this time, Sonya had imagined Fran as a woman completely unencumbered, dropped on this earth like a prickly pine cone from a sharp-needled, long extinct tree. That she had a family shed a whole new light.
"So, he's a traditional father, then?"
"Terrible!" Fran erupted, her fierce eyes flashing, her large nose larger. "Just awful! You know, there's no point in having children if you're going to raise them as stereotypes." She came to a complete standstill in the milling market crowd and waved her just-purchased doll in the air. "Just awful!"
Amidst the press of saris, the smells of cooking and spices, the clamor of foreign hawkers and buyers, Fran's outburst went unnoticed.
"But you're just as guilty of stereotyping," Sonya said.
Fran brought her hand down and glared. "Whatever can you mean by that!?"
Fran might actually be pretty, if not for that pitbull expression she so often wore.
"My dear, you're buying your niece a doll. What could be more stereotypical than that?"
"Ah," Fran said, a sly twinkle in her eyes. She looked down at her recent purchase, turned the doll over in her hand, tugged on its tunic. "But it's a man doll."
It started with fear. No, that's not right. It started with FEAR. Of Santa Claus with that huge white beard, of the life-sized Berenstain Bears who accosted us in the mall one day, but most of all, of PUMPKINHEAD MAN. For the past four years our son George built more and more elaborate haunted rooms to battle his demons. Bwa ah ah ah ah.
Tonight, Halloween night 2008, there is no Frankenstein's laboratory on our lower level, no haunted horror to strike FEAR in the hearts of our neighborhood kids. You know, I actually miss it. So here's a haunted room of sorts. Long live the spirit of HAUNTED ROOMS!!!
