Walking with my son, aka Younger Brother, on this mid-November day, I was startled to see snow on the top of Sunnahae Mountain. I immediately felt cold! Younger Brother kindly pointed out that the cold sensation might have been augmented by any number of other factors, including the wintery-flavored wind, my lack of a hat, […]
Author: Evelyn J. Willburn
I double-dog dare you
For a raging introvert, I am remarkably likely to accept a dare. One of the arenas in which I will rise to the occasion is for cultural exchanges. I’ll be the first to join the friendship dance at an Alaska Native potlatch; and be right up front to put on the Korean ceremonial dress or […]
Right as Rain T-shirts
Boy howdy, I am new at this! I think I have designed a line of T-shirts that readers can purchase through spring.com. Here, I remain ever hopeful, is the link for this! https://right-as-rain-online.creator-spring.com/listing/right-as-rain-custom-t-shirt I would be most grateful for any feedback you might have to offer me about my set up.
Facial recognition software
Take a good look at this picture of my bathroom sink faucet, and tell me it doesn’t look just like Jar-Jar Binks: Human brains go out of their way to construct faces where there are none. (Read more on this phenomenon on the link below.) This house is looking at something surprising on its right: […]
As common as violets. . .
One Christmas some years ago, during a visit to Virginia, I sat drinking wine with five women I had grown up with. I hadn’t had as much of the libation as the rest of them, but I was always a cheap date, and I was feeling blurty. “Hey!” I shouted. “Raise your hand if you […]
Writer’s block
Dear friends and loved ones: It seems that, after writing this blog with ferocious intensity for almost a year, I have hit my first real dry spell. Since I leaned so heavily on my dear old cat Socks for material, her passing away last week may have something to do with it. Rest in peace, […]
“Very friendly, but crying and walking funny”
Ever have a day like that? This was the descriptor that Ansley, my new social media friend and ally, posted after encountering my dear, old, mostly blind, cat Socks on the day she (Socks, that is) had decided that this day was as good as any to take a walk all the way across the […]
A retrospective on running
In 1976 I spent what my mother termed a “young fortune” (i.e., $17.00) on a pair of Nike running shoes, and thus was born a 40-year, on-again-off-again, “It’s complicated” relationship between me and this activity. I gave it up numerous times, but always went back until about five years ago when my left foot and […]
October
Author’s note: I have been looking for this bit for a while now! Evidently, I wrote it in the late nineties because I couldn’t find it on any of my computers, and the printed copy that I eventually discovered is in dot matrix. Here it is, verbatim, except for one parenthetical insert in the last […]
The changing of the (feline) guard
It has certainly been no secret that I have two cats, one very old and one very young. The old one, Socks, came to us as a half-grown starveling during the summer of 2001, and is the last survivor of the heyday of our pets: three large dogs and two cats. These days she is […]