A few of my favorite stories

Ericka Frodsham scrapes the last of the soup from an enormous stockpot into a yogurt container without a lid. It is after 9 p.m. and Aurora Commons is technically closed. But without a home, Frodsham is loath to leave. 

By the time they boarded the bus, the woman’s anger had given way to inconsolable sorrow, the man’s guilty anguish to resignation. 

The worst part of chemo is losing my hair.

One enters the 826 Seattle writing center through the front door of Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co., a business that advertises rooftop parking for rocket ships. 

Nestled within the North Cascades at the north end of Lake Chelan is the Stehekin Valley, where outdoor enthusiasts like me and my husband have come to unwind. 

Eight people crowded into a clinic room at UW Medical Center, expectantly watching Steven Gilbert.

Adults and kids alike can take workshops with artists at the funky Sou’wester Historic Lodge & Vintage Travel Trailer Resort in Seaview, Washington, and with that kind of magic - it's the perfect getaway. 

“Bahini,” I hear again, this time more insistent, purposeful. I’m certain now it is meant for me, even though several women inside the tempo could be classified as “younger sister.” Family, strangers, even a foreigner like me is a “sister” in Nepal.

The second graders at Berney Elementary School can barely sit still. They are teeming with enthusiasm, riveted to their individual Chromebooks by an online game called Candy Quest.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 38, the last thing on my mind was a lifelong condition like lymphoedema (lim-fo-dee-ma). I was focused on beating cancer. But nine months into my treatment my left arm and hand started to swell, and I soon learned that there was no beating it. 

A single computer on James Boeckstiegel’s desk controls the majority of irrigation systems for the UW’s 650-acre Seattle campus.

That’s how UW Oceanography Professor Deborah Kelley describes the cabled suite of instruments tracking the inner workings of the ocean and streaming real-time, nonstop data to shore at the speed of light.