Deborah Chan

Recent stories by Deborah

• ‘Good friends’ key to library sales

  April 28, 2012 in Washington Voices on Page V1 The first library book sale I went to was in the early 1990s, on a rainy spring morning. At the downtown Spokane Public Library Friends of the Library sale, I …

• Front Porch: Bottom line: Americans love sales

  February 25, 2012 in Washington Voices on Page V1 I love it when retail companies get real. In past year or so, a national chain has been using a lingerie model who is older than 30, and who has …

• Unsticking the things that bind us

  December 31, 2011 in Washington Voices on Page V1 In the Harry Potter books, a good Sticking Charm is like wizarding Superglue; what’s stuck stays stuck. Sticking Charms, however, aren’t restricted to the magical world.

• Scarce sun could be alien plot

  June 25, 2011 in Washington Voices on Page V1 On June 9, Stefanie Pettit wrote a column in this space, in which she touted her enjoyment of our continuing rainy weather. As I read it, while sullenly noting the … 1

• Angry Birds is a fowl pleasure

  May 28, 2011 in Washington Voices on Page V1 Sometimes I am the bird and sometimes I get the bird. Lately I’ve been playing Angry Birds on my iPod, having discovered this challenging physics game while examining the new …

• Theater of the absurd? We can hope

  April 16, 2011 in Washington Voices on Page V1 It’s been a tough week, but it’s finally Friday, and Richard and I are going to a movie. Maybe we’ll see “The King’s Speech” again. As I put a frozen …

• Love is a many-faceted experience

  February 12, 2011 in Washington Voices on Page V1 Love stinks. Once upon a time in the second grade I had a big crush on a classmate named Frank. When the teacher reassigned seating and placed us at the …

• Front Porch: Encounter with paramedics puts moms’ warning to the test

  February 5, 2011 in Washington Voices on Page V1 Mom didn’t tell us the truth. You don’t need to have on clean underwear when the paramedics come. They couldn’t care less about the state of your tighty whities. 1

• Time has revealed real holiday joy

  December 25, 2010 in Washington Voices on Page V1 Back in the day when perfectionism was a driving force in my life, I had great expectations for holidays, wanting them to somehow make up for unhappy ones in my …

• Love affair with region still growing

  October 23, 2010 in Washington Voices on Page V1 Autumn had some nerve showing up in early September. It gave my husband Richard and me a jolt of deja vu as we marked the silver anniversary of our moving …

• Young adult books beat downer lit

  October 9, 2010 in Washington Voices on Page V1 How did reading for pleasure become a test of endurance?

• Heroes for the put-upon do-nothings

  August 28, 2010 in Washington Voices on Page V1 I am a folk hero. I’m a folk hero because I hung up on every annoying, pestiferous, political candidate robo-call I received in this summer’s primary season. And, as I …