Glenn and I recently made a run for the Canadian border. We were still reeling from having to cancel yet another overseas trip due to COVID and were looking for an adventure to sooth our wanderlust. Canada had recently opened their land borders to vaccinated Americans and were no longer requiring a 14-day quarantine upon […]
“Because I am an entitled, self-centered American.” That was the only legitimate response I could imagine giving the immigration officer when they asked me why I traveled to a country the U.S. State Department said I shouldn’t travel to because of the ongoing surge of the Delta variant. Two years ago, Glenn and I decided […]
Glenn and I recently became the proud owners of a campervan. Her name is Laverne, after the character “Laverne DeFazio” from Happy Days and later the Laverne & Shirley show…as well as Mork & Mindy for the trivia buffs out there. She’s adorned with a monogrammed “L” on her front lapel (which is a fascinating […]
I’ll admit it. I live a charmed life. Or, as a good friend of mine once lovingly told me, I live a life where “rainbows and unicorns tend to shoot out of my ass.” I once did a past-life regression for fun (don’t knock it till you try it!) and asked my higher-self why things […]
I have been contemplating the notion of the “new normal” a fair bit lately, reflecting on my own journey during these difficult times.
I’m at a loss for words when it comes to this blog post. Usually, my posts linger in the back of my mind as my subconscious thinks and ponders on things. When I’ve mulled things over enough my thoughts suddenly pop to the surface. I sit down to write and a blog post comes flooding […]
Glenn and I went on a quick vacation to Hawaii last week and while we were away our world turned upside down. At the time we boarded the plane the coronavirus was definitely dominating the news, but still felt like a far-off hypothetical – a bit like previews for an upcoming paranoid disaster movie if […]
“Is it safe to do a walking safari?” That is what I Googled…after I had already booked and paid for my trip to do just that. Doh! The answer from the faceless hordes of internet opiners was a resounding “no, it isn’t safe to do a walking safari” because most of the wild animals are […]
I watched a lot of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom when I was young, and I think as a result I’m quite drawn to the idea of seeing wild animals up close. The bigger and the more dangerous, the better. The mountain gorillas are no exception.
Glenn and I have been apart for 37 days, which included one birthday, one wedding anniversary and one past life regression (as one does.) That is by far the longest time, and the longest distance, we’ve ever been separated since we started dating many, many moons ago. When we made the decision to experiment with […]
Glenn has left me. He’s been building up to it for well over a year, and finally the day has come where he said goodbye. About six years ago Glenn and I went to see a documentary called Six Ways to Santiago. Our dear friend Kim (of The Yellow Envelope book, in which Glenn and I […]
If someone says they’re “on top of the world” it generally means that everything is going great and they are happy. As it turns out, I found myself contemplating “happiness” as I was, quite literally, on top of the world. I had traveled to Scandinavia as part of a work trip which culminated in some […]
I’ve been pondering endings and beginnings lately, both of which can be bittersweet. Seneca (the Roman philosopher) said “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” I find myself sifting through things that have happened in this past year and parsing them into exactly that…1) new beginnings, or 2) some other beginning’s end.
Note to self: Visiting touristy locations to see touristy things during the peak of tourist season is not your happy place. I recently had the opportunity to go to Italy for work, with the bulk of the travel costs covered by a third party—pretty much a dream situation. As is the case with most European […]
One year ago my mother died. Anniversaries are often meant to be momentous occasions. A milepost in the march of time when one is supposed to pause and take stock of how far they’ve come over the past year. Progress…decline…stagnation. All best measured against one’s status exactly 365 days prior, or so I’m led to […]
