Janine Donoho's Blog

Consider me a ‘dura mater’. That’s Latin for ‘tough mother’; you can look it up. Yet when the brilliant Dr. Ma called to let me know that random choice placed me in his de-escalation study, I danced a wild happy salsa. Yes, those virulent dandelion seeds of squamous cell carcinoma could be circulating through my […]

It started with nightmares about toxic caves, luminescent with sickening colors of putrescence that I didn’t dare touch or… Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself, but this does give cred to listening to your subconscious. Also, I debated whether to go into a blog approach at all, since this cancer could be here and gone […]

‘Wow’ or ワウ(wao)! if you read or speak Japanese. Sadly, my skills are rudimentary at best. Yet we all have those ‘aha’ moments in life and, for me, travel amplifies that effect. In Japan, most visitors embrace the delectable, yet classic fare of sushi, spiritual Mt. Fuji, edgy Manga, sumptuous kimonos/obis, and breathtaking gardens. Now you’re invited to […]

  Hard infrastructure’s sexy. That includes our skeletal system. After all, our bones support us against external forces like gravity, manufacture major elements of our immune system, protect the squishy stuff, and offer a great framework for those ligaments and tendons that allow us to move. Sexy, indeed. Yet the hard infrastructure I’m excited about, especially […]

During the time that our home was under construction, we stuffed a whippet, a greyhound, two cats, and two humans into a 27-foot 5th wheel. That was over a decade ago. Our home now sustains a whippet, an Italian greyhound, one cat, and two humans, although on the animal front, only the cat and we […]

Like a lobster in a pot of cold water, over this last decade the water heated to boiling, yet I’ve been unaware. High desert sun initiated a progressive slide toward dwindling eyesight long before sunglasses offered more than a fashion statement. All that sunshine led to cataracts, which combined with extreme nearsightedness, ended in a debilitating cartoon […]

Because I really can see British Columbia, Canada, from my uplands home in Washington state, sometimes I yield to the lure and drive along the glorious Okanagan River valley that takes me to Penticton. It’s noteworthy to mention that the Okanogan River, a tributary of the Columbia River, shifts to ‘Okanagan‘ in neighboring Canada, although the river’s […]

When our stunning blue globe shrinks around us in sadness and horror at what harm humans can do to each other, we need to go big. For me, big doesn’t make me feel smaller, but more connected. I hope this stunning photography from Insight Astronomy Photographers brings you joy and fosters a relationship both to […]

When this website launched, I introduced myself via firsts, and a giddy lift-off it was. Never fear, the navel gazing implicit in attempts at age 7 to write about planets (of which Pluto no longer qualifies), my angst-riddled teen poetry, and my first produced play at 16? Omitted. In fact, I didn’t want to write […]

Following a first cataract surgery with another scheduled in mid-March, I’m literally bumping my way through a 3-D kaleidoscopic life over the next month and a half. Once healed, my eyes will see the world in HD panorama. High density plastic lenses? Recycled and swapped for standard reading glasses. Yes, cool science has come through for […]