Category: Oh the Places I’ll Go (Or Already Went)

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Where is Your Happy Place?

Okay, I admit, I read books mostly via electronic devices these days. And, by electronic devices, I mean my phone.  It’s just so convenient to have a book with you, even when you don’t have a book with you.  (You know what I mean.)

But I still prefer “real” books.  In fact, I just ventured to the bookstore and bought four hardcovers to lug on spring break.  And I was reminded all over again how much I LOVE bookstores.

Bookstores are great places to visit old friends.

And new friends. 


Book friends are the best kind of friends, because you don’t even have to talk to them. 

Magic resides in bookstores. Look at all those adventures crammed onto shelves, all those stories just waiting for us readers to bring them to life.

And that smell.  Oh, how I wish they made a perfume called “bookstore.” 

We all have a happy place.  When I was a kid, you could give me a room full of books, and maybe a box a JELL-O Pudding Pops, and I was set. In fact, come to think of it, not much has changed. Except I have to make my own pudding pops now.

Where is your happy place, friends?

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About Me Oh the Places I'll Go (Or Already Went)

Nowhere to Go But Everywhere

A couple/eighteen years ago, I graduated from a Big Ten University with Distinction (whatever that means) and a degree in journalism.  And I had no idea what to do with myself.  Thanks to several unpaid internships, I had garnered experience in magazines, newspapers and television news, but I didn’t feel especially called to pursue a career in any of them at the time.  I loved books and possessed a vague sort of idea about working for a book publisher.  I did not know, and no one told me (or maybe I just didn’t ask), that I didn’t have a chance in heck of landing a job in publishing unless I moved to New York.  Unsurprisingly, the sad little unsolicited cover letters I sent to the major publishing houses went unanswered.  And graduation had the nerve to come anyway.

So I did what any sensible person would do and embarked on a three-month cross-country road trip with my Shih Tzu.  I had a plan of sorts.  If by “plan” you mean I intended to roughly outline the borders of our great country and try to hit some national parks along the way.

I was directionless, in every sense of the word.

But that didn’t stop me. I packed my Saturn with a 2-man tent, a sleeping bag, some dog food, a bag of clothes, a journal and a Rand McNally road atlas, and off I went.  Yes, you read that right.  A road atlas.  This was before GPS came standard, before phones were smart. When I wanted to figure out where to go, I looked at a map. In a book.  For real. (Side Note: I feel like sending folks off on a road trip without electronic devices would make for a great reality game show  in 2019. You don’t have to compete in any challenges, but you do have to read a map! Hilarity would surely ensue.)

I took off from Wisconsin and headed west.  I drove 8 hours that first day, eager to put enough distance between myself and my starting point that I would feel as though my trip had officially started.  Eight hours happened to land me in Fargo, North Dakota.  Now, folks, I don’t have anything against Fargo.  But, at the same time, I couldn’t help wondering…what in the hell was I doing there?  Why hadn’t I tried a little harder to secure a post-graduation job and just get started with my life?  Why was I about to wander around the country aimlessly?  What was I thinking?!?!

I spent most of my trip camping, but I occasionally stayed in a cheap motel, when the weather or circumstances warranted.  That first night, due to the long drive and my impending breakdown, I chose the cheap motel. So I spent the first evening of my road trip crying into my gas-station nachos at a $29 dump in Fargo.  Not the most auspicious start.

It was all uphill from there, though.  I moved on to Mount Rushmore and then Big Sky Country.  I found my groove. I explored Washington State.  I enjoyed a leisurely trip down the West Coast, stopping to take pictures of my 8-pound dog next to the Giant Redwoods.

Little dog, big tree.

Sometimes I stayed with family.  Sometimes I met interesting characters at campgrounds.  Sometimes it was just me and Cricket (the dog).  I oohed and awed at the Grand Canyon.  I looked up an old friend who spontaneously decided to join me for part of my trip.  Together, we checked out the Big Easy and traveled the Florida Panhandle. We rode scooters in the Keys and made a stop in Daytona to get tattoos.  Mine was supposedly a tribal symbol for humility and learning.  Somehow I doubt that is the case.  Oh well.  Live and learn – and learn to live with the black ink blob on your ankle.

We continued our adventure on the East Coast, finally making it to Maine and the easternmost point of the contiguous United States.

Then the leaves started to change and the money ran out, signaling the end of the road for the road trip.

These days, if I tell people about my epic journey, they look at me in disbelief.  It’s actually a tad insulting – have I really become that dull and predictable? But, in all fairness, I can hardly even picture myself traipsing around the country in a plastic car with a tiny dog – and I was there. It was somewhat nuts. Yet, despite my initial doubts, the trip turned out to be one of the most pivotal and significant times of my life, and I’m eternally grateful that I didn’t turn around and hightail it home after that first night in Fargo.  After all, when would I ever be so unencumbered again? When would I ever get another chance to travel so freely? I ended up with some great memories, and the road trip affected the trajectory of my life.  If I hadn’t gone on the trip, I might never have ended up living in San Diego afterwards (another story, for another time). If I hadn’t hated San Diego so much, I never would have aimed to get as far away as possible from it when I applied to law school. If I hadn’t chosen NYU for law school, the hiring partner at my first law firm, who was also an NYU alum, might not have brought me on.  And if I hadn’t gotten that first job in Milwaukee, I might never have been re-introduced to Dan.  And that, my friends, is the end game.  No Dan, no Baylor and no Ryan.  No current life as I know it at all.

(Plus, thanks to separate vacations to Alaska and Hawaii, I can now say I have visited all 50 states.  That little tidbit comes in quite useful when I am forced to offer an interesting fact about myself at corporate retreats. Bonus.)

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Oh the Places I'll Go (Or Already Went) Summer of Fun II

i(Phone) Hate Myself For Loving You

(I bet you have Joan Jett in your head right about now, don’t you? Sorry, friend.  Sort of.  🙂 )

So Dan and I went on a date a couple of weeks ago.  We try to make this a semi-regular occurrence.  After all, it would be good if my husband and I still recognize each other when the kids are grown, right? It had been awhile since we had snuck a date night in, though, because the back-to-school time of year is busy for us all.

I put on heels.  Dan put on the shirt I laid out for him. We climbed into his truck and headed off to dinner.  Burgers were on the agenda.  I dug in my purse as he took off in the direction of town, and then disaster struck.

I couldn’t find my phone.  No smooth teal case met my fingers as I plunged the mysterious recesses of my “mom purse.” How was I supposed to send a text? Or check the weather?  Or Instagram? So I panicked.  You all know that moment of panic when you can’t find your phone, right?  Or maybe you don’t.  Maybe you are mentally healthier than I am, and you and your phone are not virtual Siamese twins.

Dan’s parents were watching the kids at our house, so we called them to see if they could find the missing phone.  They could. Apparently, I had left it sitting on the kitchen table as I rushed out of the house before my 6-year-old’s guilt trip could derail our date night. “Oh no,” my mother-in-law said sympathetically, after she located the phone for me.  “Forgetting your phone. That’s the worst.”  But, I realized, it actually wasn’t.

Turns out, forgetting my phone on date night is something to be thankful for. Dan and I often make fun of the groups or couples who are sitting around a table together, each separately engaged in their own phone world.  They look ridiculous.  The only problem is, more often than not, we are them.  We are guilty, too.

But that night, because I wasn’t on my phone, Dan didn’t use his, either.  This forced us to speak to each other. (Well, when we weren’t watching the Brewers game, anyway.)

And I was reminded that we can survive without our devices.  After all, our family just proved this for nearly two device-free weeks before the school year started.  (More on that here.) Sure, my kids staged a near-revolt, but we made it through. And it was even enjoyable.  We played games, got outside, went to ball games, waterskied, visited museums, built giant towers out of plastic cups…

 

Hey, whatever it takes. We emerged on the other side closer as a family, and without that lovely claw hand that comes from permanently grasping your phone. The one that Dan thinks humans may soon be born with.  Gotta love evolution.

Insert phone here.

Next up is girls weekend.  Every year, we head up north for a girlfriend getaway at my friend Peg’s family cottage.  It is one of the most anticipated weekends of the year.  Even for me, a self-declared introvert (Read about my introversion here.), it is a can’t-miss event. We pack our cars full of warm (yet cute, of course) clothes, drinks and ridiculous amounts of food, and we invade the Northwoods, leaving our husbands to hold down our respective forts.

Last year, though, I looked around the cottage as we all sat in a big circle in the living room.  The fire was roaring in the fireplace.  Ten of us were cozied up in front of it.  All. On. Our. Phones.  Online shopping, reading the news, posting photos of all the fun we were having to Facebook. Whatever. It was pathetic.

So this year, I am bringing a little gift to girls’ weekend.  Ladies and gentlemen, the Phone Bed.  The very one pictured at the top of this post. We can set the basket by the front door for folks to deposit their phones into upon entering the cottage.  And then, every time you remove your phone from the bed, you have to put an extra dollar in the “kitty,” so that your friends might profit off your addiction in the form of cheese curds and beer from the local establishments.  I don’t know if I will be invited back next year.  Heck, if the girls read this before I get there, I might not be allowed in this year. But I’m going to give it a shot anyway. Wish me luck.

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About Me Oh the Places I'll Go (Or Already Went)

There’s No Place Like Home

This week I am thankful for the ground.  Or, more specifically, I am thankful to be on the ground.  And for home.  I am so, so thankful to be home.

I am a homebody, that much is true.  And, as I learned from the personality assessment I completed at the work retreat from which I just returned, I am a solid introvert.  Actually, that’s not true.  Well, I am an introvert. But I didn’t just discover that. I was already well aware of that tidbit about myself.  The fact that I find an excuse to turn down 99% of the invitations I receive was a pretty good clue.

I mean, people are exhausting.  I love them, I do, but I can only handle so much of them.  I can deal with them one-on-one. Or I can deal with them in short bursts.  Or I can barely/almost/hardly/sort of/maybe handle 188 of my colleagues for two days, after which I must rush home and immediately bury my head.

When you couple all of the people-ness with air travel, you basically have my worst nightmare.  I am not a good flyer.  In fact, I am always slightly shocked to be alive when the plane lands. I have thought about asking for a Valium prescription for use when flying.  But I hesitate.  We all travel for a purpose, right? For me, I am usually taking my kids on vacation or heading to a professional conference.  Either way, I can’t exactly show up in a drug-induced haze, and I just don’t know how the sedative would affect me.  So I guess irrational fear is preferable.  Of course, I try to camouflage this fear from my colleagues, and certainly from my kids. I don’t want to pass on my peccadilloes. Even though I doubt my fellow lawyers would be susceptible to my phobia, I know my kids would be.

I haven’t always been this way.  I remember flying as an unaccompanied minor back when I was 9, on my merry way to visit a friend.  Flying didn’t bother me at all back then. Heck, skydiving wouldn’t have bothered me back then. But I think, as we get older, we understand that the stakes are higher.  And so we harbor more fears.  It’s only because we recognize what we have to lose.  Or, more accurately, we recognize those who would be lost without us.

I think my fear stems from something else, though.  I noticed that I became a far more tense flier after 9/11/01.

 We all have a personal September 11 story. I had just moved to NYC to attend law school three weeks previously.  I was a newbie.  And for me, that date is forever tied to black ash accumulating on the wall of my dorm room until I came to my senses enough to close the window.  Wearing a disposable face mask on my walk to the bodega to stock up on water. Standing on the roof of my building and watching the towers fall to the ground. I never knew what normal was for Manhattan.  Really, it never had a chance for me. My new home was an ashy ghost town until they reopened Manhattan below 14th Street and classes resumed.  I think it was over a week later, maybe two.

Like I said, anyone could tell you where they were on the morning of September 11. Just as anyone from my generation could pinpoint their location when the Challenger exploded.  For others, it’s the assassination of JFK. Pick your tragedy. I don’t mean to sound callous at all, but I wonder: Why don’t we remember where we were when the good things happen? Our minds always fixate on the horrific.

But this.  This was the worst terror attack in American history. And it doesn’t belong to me.  It belongs to those nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives.  The workers. The first responders. I remember when the city was wallpapered with photographs of the people missing in the wake of September 11.  And I remember the dawning of absolute horror as we came to understand that we had stood in line to give blood for no reason.  Because none of those people were missing. They weren’t going to show up in need of blood. They were gone. Just…gone.

I have friends who can’t look at the footage from that day.  And I have friends who couldn’t look away.  Either way, we were all affected.

I, apparently, came away with a brand new fear of flying.  And it sucks.  It sucks to want to go on spring break with your kids but to dread the vacation as it approaches.  It sucks to grip the armrests in terror at the first sign of turbulence. Especially when your sweet hubby can’t be there to distract you with a calming squeeze of his hand.

But (of course there is a “but,” because this is where I come to be grateful, after all), I came home to said husband.  And to my two sweet babies.  And our two darling pups. Plus two borderline-neglected goldfish who have still managed to hang on, against all odds. I love them all, perhaps even more so after I have been gone, if that is possible.

And, for a super-extra-special bonus, no one beyond that is around.  Ahhh. Be still, my little introverted heart.

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Oh the Places I'll Go (Or Already Went) The Happy Jar

Jamaican Me Grateful

First off, sorry for the title of this blog post, but I had to do it. How could I not, right?

So, I have been trying to focus each post on just one thing for which I am thankful, and that is still my intent.  But this week, coming off of an anniversary trip to Jamaica, I am grateful for so many things that I cannot confine it to one, or even to a handful.

First off, I am grateful for in-flight entertainment.  I am not a good flyer.  Haven’t been since 9/11.  My knuckles turn white at the slightest hint of turbulence.  So if I can distract myself with some mile-high “Dirty Dancing,” I’m all for it.

I am thankful for quirky resorts with room names, instead of room numbers.  The Caves, in Negril, is such a cool little place.  I didn’t count the rooms, but it surely has fewer than 15.  Each room is its own standalone (or duplex) building, complete with a stocked fridge and a free library (Yay, I read 3 books while there!), but no TVs. The grounds are full of little nooks and crannies carved out of the cliffs facing the ocean. Before arriving, I was afraid I might miss the beach, the TV, or the convenience of the anytime buffets you find at “super resorts,” but I did not.  Not at all.

Here’s a biggie.  I am thankful for this man.

My cribbage opponent, my partner in crime, my husband of 10 years.  We collected so many inside jokes over the week, played countless games of cards, explored the grounds and found our own little favorite spots.  Honestly, I have no doubt we could have amused ourselves at a Super 8 in Podunk, but Jamaica was so much better.  We had such fun together, we just about forgot to partake of any Red Stripe (pictorial evidence aside!).  Full disclosure, we did discover a little drink called a Ting-aling-aling, though, and it was pretty darn tasty.  And at The Caves, when their bartender is off duty, they encourage you to step behind the bar and just help yourself!

These snorkel masks.  Oh, my.  These things are amazing, and we took full advantage of them.  (Thanks, Steve and Mary Ellen!) You could just hop right off your perch anywhere in the resort and snorkel away.  One day, the resort’s guide, Paul, showed us the ropes.  He led us into a labyrinth of caves, where we swam under rock walls to navigate to connecting spaces; he pointed out stingrays and sea snakes and a huge variety of fish.  He retrieved sea urchins and starfish from the ocean floor for us to hold.  Dan did get stung by a jellyfish, but that didn’t stop us from jumping back in the water each of the next several days with no further incidents.

The sunsets.  Appreciating the sunrise and sunset each day is a big thing for Dan, and now for me.  In Negril, though, it’s really all about the sunset.  And it was reliably beautiful.  We did both say that the Negril sunsets didn’t have anything on our sunset views at home.  But, then again…Negril did have about 50 degrees Fahrenheit on Wisconsin.  So there is that.

We didn’t make it down to Rick’s for a sunset, although we could see the bar from our resort.  I was just way too relaxed to force myself to leave my cozy tropical enclave and go party it up Spring Break style down the road.  Or maybe I am just getting old.  Probably both.

Here’s another biggie.  I am so thankful for my family.  Specifically, I am thankful for my parents.  Without them moving in for the week to take care of the kids and Pearl, there is no way we could have gone on this trip. I know my folks and my kids had a great time while we were away, and I had zero worries about Baylor and Ryan, knowing they were in good hands.

Last, but certainly not least, I am so grateful that I get to be Mama to my two beautiful kiddos.  Dan and I had never been away from them for such a long stretch, and we were both missing them mightily by the time we got home (aaaand, maybe also for a few days before that). It’s nice to go away sometimes, but there is nothing better than coming home.