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LEVIA: my travel agent and navigation system
Here’s another guest post from Lee. I swear I didn’t pay him to write this! For most trips that we take as a couple, I contribute a good amount of time in planning, picking kosher hotels and booking the flights. If it’s a sports trip then I’m also in charge of picking the venues and getting those tickets. This last trip the only thing I did was get the plane tickets based on the dates provided from MeLinda. I knew where we were going but the details beyond that were pretty unknown to me. MeLinda did put together an impressive agenda but I only took a quick look. So I…
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On the anniversary of my mom’s death
Recently, I started reading Cheryl Strayed’s book Tiny Beautiful Things, which is a collection of questions and answers on love and life from the advice column called Dear Sugar. The very first question and answer in the book made me cry. Hard. It still gets to me when I think of it. The actual question is irrelevant here, what is important is Dear Sugar’s answer in which she talks about the last word her mother ever said to her and her pain over not being present when her mother died from cancer. The last word my mother ever said to me was “love” … The last thing that happened between…
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I found a time capsule in my basement
I opened a time capsule today. It wasn’t an intended one, but it sure took me back in time about 12 years. The capsule was in the form of a cheap, white plastic bag that was buried inside a cardboard box that once crated a microwave. I was looking for a camera lens box that had important warranty information on the lens. I opened the large microwave box, sitting atop a wardrobe that my grandparents once owned, thinking maybe it contained a bunch of smaller boxes. Instead, I found a hodge-podge of decorative tins and other reusable containers, and the plastic bag. For some unknown reason, I’d stashed the cards…
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The wildest animals we saw at the Grand Canyon: French girls
So there we are, taking our first looks at the majestic Grand Canyon from its north rim. It’s 9 a.m. and we’ve brought our breakfast with us to eat as we gaze at the colors and shadows on the formations in the morning light. We are in the main lodge building of the Grand Canyon Lodge, which is the centerpiece of the National Historic Landmark lodge and cabins on the edge of the rim. I’m taking photos of Lee looking out into the canyons from the three large floor-to-ceiling windows in a cavernous recreation room filled with leather couches and chairs. “What are those girls doing?” I hear a nearby…
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Remembering that I forget my birthdays
Birthdays make me stop and really think about how I’m spending my time. That’s why I quit my job just a few weeks after turning 30 … and quit another job a few months after turning 40. Both times I didn’t have another job lined up yet. The milestone birthdays seem to move me beyond thinking and into taking action. They put me in the whole life-is-too-short-to-not-be-doing-something-you-really-enjoy mindset. Today I’m just turning 42, so there won’t be any monumental announcements. Plus, I couldn’t just up and quit on my current boss {I can’t quit myself!}. Overall, though, my memories of birthdays are lacking and this bothers me. I recall very…