The Christmas cards have given way to thank you notes.  The transition is easy when one uses blank cards.  Now I am on to the subject of gifts which I described to my friend Nancy who can tell every time I have deconstructed a thought, as fraught.   Gifts can be a mine-field and I’m sure  Read the Rest…

Mai La was 18 years old when she got off the plane at SeaTac wearing her little Chinese pajamas.  I was 27 and waiting with Nghiep, a Chinese friend, and a photograph of Mai, courtesy of World Relief Refugee Services. It was 1981.  The “boat people” from Viet Nam were flooding the U.S. west coast.  Read the Rest…

When I was growing up, my mother was a force majeure at the dinner table and nowhere was that more evident than at Thanksgiving.  She created a huge meal for the immediate family, supplemented by people pulled in from the highways and byways, members of the church, and occasionally, some of my father’s cousins.  She  Read the Rest…