Claire Gebben’s blog

On top of the world (well, o.k., Washington State)

nobody@vox.com(Claire Gebben) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:05:23 -0700

With any true adventure, there are as many different ways to tell the story as there are participants. Here you see George and me setting out on our Mt. Rainier climb. Let's start with George's take (or Mom's take on George's take, since I'm tryi...

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Mt. Rainier Summit Climb

nobody@vox.com(Claire Gebben) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 09:43:42 -0700

"Day One!" My 18-year-old son George said to me last Monday as we hopped back in the car. For him, it actually was Day One. We'd just climbed Wilderness Peak, elevation 1,595, with 35 lb. packs on our backs, training for our summit attempt on M...

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It's a mad, had world

nobody@vox.com(Claire Gebben) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:56:01 -0700

I read an article in the Sunday New York Times, (May, 2007), about a publishing house that plans to pare down the literary classics into succinct, easy-to-chew morsels, editing out all the 'boring' parts. To celebrate the occasion, well-known aut...

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Breakthrough

nobody@vox.com(Claire Gebben) — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:21:44 -0700

Hey, guess what!? I got published! Mercer Island Reporter article, May 7, 2008 Mercer Island Reporter article, May 21, 2008 Mercer Island Reporter article, July 23, 2008

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MLK day, January 21, 2008

nobody@vox.com(Claire Gebben) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:56:43 -0800

I went on the MLK Day march this January. I loved the mix of skin colors--all shades of brown, red, yellow, white. I wondered what Dr. King himself would have thought about the cacophony of signs: ****** Buddhists for Peace Let Freedom Rin...

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A Teatime Treat

nobody@vox.com(Claire Gebben) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:34:43 -0800

Her house was a zoo--the birds started it. Two little birds in a cage--parakeets, they were--and they sang such pretty songs. There was a bit of mess about the birds--some seed spilling from the cage, the vague smell of molting feathers and dropp...

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Almost 50

nobody@vox.com(Claire Gebben) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:35:31 -0800

It's fall, and the birds are flying north outside my bedroom window. Lying in bed, I can see the sky, a sliver of it beneath the Venetian blind. As I open and close my eyes, the birds keep coming. It is a large assembly, a flock gathered for migr...

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Wood waiting

nobody@vox.com(Claire Gebben) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 09:49:08 -0700

The Douglas fir in our rockery died. A man knocked on our door to tell us so--but we had known before he called. I'd liked the tree. It stood tall and proud, ramrod straight from bottom to top; I was sorry when it had turned brown, then dropped i...

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Extinction Event

nobody@vox.com(Claire Gebben) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:11:38 -0700

I have a brachiopod on my dresser from the last time I visited Ohio. It's not a prime specimen--both its wingtips are broken off--but still, I love to hold it in the palm of my hand and remember "Fossil Hill," an eroding creekbank along the ravin...

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Dreamland

nobody@vox.com(Claire Gebben) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 09:11:46 -0700

"It was really hard for me to wake up this morning." "Me, too. When the alarm went off, I was so fast asleep. I don't know what I was dreaming, exactly, but I know I was solving the world's ills. That's where I do that kind of thing best--in a re...

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