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Vanuatu, a Country with no COVID-19
Vanuatu, a Country with no COVID-19
I haven’t lived in Vanuatu since 1993. Most of my friends have also moved away. But now and then, I do like to check in on the country and see how things are going.
Good news! As of September 7, there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in all of Vanuatu. The country has a natural advantage. It’s protected by its remoteness. So all they had to do was close its doors. And that’s…
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My Grandpa, the Assistant Postmaster
My Grandpa, the Assistant Postmaster
My sister and I called him Poppy. Our grandma was Nan. From our vantage point, he was the mild, dependable one (reliable like the post office). Nan was the lively, bold one.
When they got married right out of high school in 1916, they were both eighteen years old. Poppy found a job, a starter job. And every Saturday night, he played clarinet and sax with his jazz band at the local public…
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A New Cover for Tiger Tail Soup
A New Cover for Tiger Tail Soup
My novel, Tiger Tail Soup, was first published in 2014. (How time flies!) People bought it and read it and wrote reviews. And then–surprise, surprise–the publisher went out of business.
What to do?
I could do nothing and allow it to disappear from the marketplace.
I could search for a new publisher.
Or I could choose the middle course and self-publish on Amazon. And that’s what I…
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Sounds
I live in a quiet neighborhood. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I can sometimes hear my heart beating. During the daytime, though, there are always some sounds.
Today I woke up early enough to hear lawn mowers. The gardening crew our neighborhood association hires comes on Mondays. When I was a kid, I did most of our lawn mowing—a sweaty, noisy job that wasn’t my favorite. And yet,…
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Goin' Out of Business
Goin’ Out of Business
This week one of the restaurants in town announced that they’re going out of business. We were warned this would happen, which doesn’t make it any less sad. It is less surprising, though.
About fifteen years ago, my favorite Edmonds Tex-Mex restaurant, Quintana Roo, not only closed. It totally disappeared. When I wasn’t looking, the converted house with a view of Puget Sound was sold and torn…
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Flags & Roses
On a misty Memorial Day, I parked a few blocks back from the Edmonds waterfront and walked down Sunset Avenue. I knew the roses would be blooming, but I wasn’t expecting the flags. They’d been placed all along the way, each one marked with the name and rank of what I assume to be an Edmonds resident who died during one of the wars.
Most of us walkers glanced at the tags and continued walking.…
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Need Something Fun to Read?
Need Something Fun to Read?
The news is really a downer these days, right? If you’re tired of what you’ve been reading in the newspaper and hearing on the radio and TV, here’s a suggestion: Jennifer J. Chow’s cozy mystery, Mimi Lee Gets a Clue. It’s perfect for COVID-19 times.
To quote from the back cover:
“Mimi Lee is in over her head. She has her new Los Angeles pet grooming shop to run; her matchmaking mother…
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On My Walk: Thinking about Robinson Crusoe
On My Walk: Thinking about Robinson Crusoe
Sometimes I listen to music on my walks, maybe a podcast: Hidden Brain or The Moth. Mostly, though, I simply walk, looking at the flowers and trees and waving at other walkers and their dogs. (And yes, we keep six feet away from each other.)
If I did take longer walks, maybe I’d dream up ideas for new stories or novels as I go. Even on shorter walks, though, various subjects do flit though my…
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Like a Mask Dancing
I have a treat for you today: an interview with Sally Stiles.
Sally and I met in the early 1990s in the beautiful little New England town of Montpelier, VT, where we studied at Vermont College of Fine Arts. After two years of classes and critiques, reading and writing, both of us earned our Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degrees. And then we went our separate ways. We’ve kept in…
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Silence in the Park
An afternoon in April in the time of COVID-19
The swings aren’t swinging.
The children aren’t sliding or climbing or crawling into whatever that gray thing is.
Softball games will have to wait.
Picnic tables are silent and alone, waiting for warmer days and a taming of the virus.
English daisies, those beloved little weeds in the grass, wait only for the sunshine of spring and…
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Social Distancing and the People We Miss
Stay at home? No problem. I like staying home. I’m a writer. I can always write. I have books, computer, TV, phone, plenty of food and enough toilet paper to last a while.
People call me–my daughters and my sister call every day. Friends and relatives call and send emails. My granddaughter sends me daily texts. In fact, I hear from people more frequently than usual. (They’re home too.)
So…
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The Paradox of Doing by Not Doing When the Enemy Is a Virus
After the United States declared war on Japan (December 8, 1941) and then on Germany (December 11, 1941), there was a lot to do, and people did it. They enlisted and shipped off to fight overseas. They bought war bonds. Women who had never worked outside the home went to work in factories. It was a whirlwind of activity. People were proud to serve their country.
Today if you go into any…
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Epidemics, Pandemics, and My Family History
Epidemics, Pandemics, and My Family History
Great Aunt Gladys
I don’t know if I’d ever heard of my dad’s sister, Norah Mary. If so, I must have forgotten all about her.
A few years ago, though, my sister and cousin fell into what some people call the genealogy rabbit hole. They put together detailed family trees. My sister even gave me a birthday gift of a DNA kit from ancestry.com.
Now, although I haven’t fallen down the…
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Surprises and a Custom Village on the Island of Tanna
Surprises and a Custom Village on the Island of Tanna
Surprises are a part of life. They’re what keep us from boredom and excessive routine, and for the most part, we welcome them.
Authors and film writers take advantage of our love of surprises by leaving us in suspense until a plot twist catches us unawares, and the more surprising the twist is, the better.
Do you remember some of these famous classical stories with surprise endings?
The…
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Mom's Trip to Yasur Volcano - Part 2
Mom’s Trip to Yasur Volcano – Part 2
Having lived all our lives on the Pacific Ring of Fire, my mom and I were comfortable with volcanoes. You might even say we were fans.
Mt. Baker, photo by Sue Cromarty
Mt. Baker, an active volcano, was our hometown mountain, and we loved it. Can you blame us?
Mt. Rainier, photo courtesy of Sue Cromarty
Now I live in the shadow of Mt. Rainier, another active volcano. And around here,…
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Mom's Trip to Yasur Volcano, Part 1
Mom’s Trip to Yasur Volcano, Part 1
When your mom comes to visit you in a small developing country, you don’t take her to museums and cathedrals. You take her to the beach or for a walk around town. You arrange an all-day cruise, and even though she’s in her seventies and never been snorkeling before, you encourage her to strap on a snorkel and jump off a small boat into the Pacific Ocean.
Does Mom look scared?
Might as well…
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2020, a Year of Preparation
2020, a Year of Preparation
If I’d acted faster, my second novel would be coming out in the fall of 2020. I was slow in deciding, though.
So here I am, nothing to do but wait all the way through the year.
That’s what I thought until I got a couple of emails from my project manager. One was an Excel spreadsheet of my editorial schedule. The other had two attachments containing forms I’d need to fill out and return by…
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