Katie Botkin

Flour sacks

So here’s my question: what’s wrong with sliding into another Depression and recycling our flour sacks as underware, as our grandmothers did? The flour sacks are already emblazoned with helpful and ironic curve-enhancing phrases like “white flour,” “whole wheat,” and “cracked rye.” Juicy, watch out.

On Stuff

“Keep your life free from live of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never fail you nor forsake you.’ Hence we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid; what can man do to me?’ … for it is well that theContinue reading “On Stuff”

America, the Workable

A semi-recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “Want More Growth in China? Have Faith,” reports that Peter Zhao, a Communist party member/advisor to the Chinese Central Committee, is arguing that Christianity is the key to the West’s prosperity. “He claims that Christianity produces greater wealth than other religions or no religion. His view isContinue reading “America, the Workable”

Eating Chapstick

My little sister used to eat my cherry-flavored Chapstick when I wasn’t looking. Once she ate the whole tube, and fearful of incurring my wrath, stole another tube from the store to replace it. My brother, also, would apparently swipe his girlfriend’s chapstick and chomp a bite or two out of it. She must haveContinue reading “Eating Chapstick”

Work-related

You know how those savvy lifestyle gurus write nice little forwards to their magazine content every issue? Now it’s my turn. I feel like Martha Stewart crossed with Noam Chomsky crossed with a hillbilly.

France (Rouen)

Being in France, particularly Rouen, again was weird. C’etait chez moi et pas chez moi; j’etais la mais j’etais entre deux mondes. I walked the same streets and saw the same people… at least a few of them… and spoke French as was my wont, but it had to be short-lived because Scott was thereContinue reading “France (Rouen)”

Europe 2008

I became violently ill this trip to Europe, but I forced myself to get up at sunrise to take photos of Prague anyway. Then, in Berlin, I lay in a hotel room for several days until it was over.

Oregonians

I have always loved Oregon. It’s gray, but green; rainy, but mild, and I grew up here. When the sun comes out over the windy gravel backroads, lined with wild irises or blooming wild apple trees or dense blackberry thickets, it’s homey in a way that mountains and oceans can never be to me. EveryoneContinue reading “Oregonians”

The skinny

I went shopping this last weekend in Boise, our fair state’s capital (Boise, from boisé, or wooded, supposedly first named by a Frenchman in the Lewis and Clark expedition, after a long period of traveling over the desolate southern Idaho high desert). There was an Urban Outfitters just across the street from our hotel, soContinue reading “The skinny”

Heralding

I went home this weekend and discovered that I have been editing mutlilingual publications for, not one month, but 12 years. Sorting through an old box, I came across a collection of Botkinville Heralds, designed, paginated, hand-written and hand-illustrated by a youngish me, detailing small vignettes in the life of our family. They came outContinue reading “Heralding”