Palm Fronds & Nom Noms

At the beginning of the movie Couple's Retreat Jason Bateman's character attempts to woo his friends on a tropical vacation with a power point proposal detailing the eponymous location - "it would play like gangbusters in the conference room..."  For about 2 weeks I have puttered along building a spreadsheet of logistics, options, and arguments to present Adam with a proposal for a river cruise on the Rhine to experience the European Christmas Markets.  While I was already taken with the romance of it all, I anticipated Adam would be a bit tougher to sell:   A) It would be a cruise (but not an ocean cruise, eliminating concerns of sharks, ship wrecks, seasickness, and not being able to swim to shore if something catastrophic happened). B) It would be colder weather (but we have our Iceland trip as a successful precedent for a wintry travel destination AND this would be sandwiched between our February 2024 trip to the Maldives and a winter 2025 trip to somewhere warm)...

~BOAT BUDDIES~ Sometimes you really have to consider serendipity.  How else, for example, would you happen to be poking around to see if the river cruise you are taking in a year has sold out yet?  How else would your happen to think, "hmmm, might be nice to have dinner companions... there are only 3 couples I could think of that  A) we would likely enjoy for that long and would be fine balancing together time and couple time and B) would potentially have the requisite funds and time available to even consider joining us.   Now usually I would have had a conversation with Adam before sending out a message saying "Adam and I have booked a Rhine River cruise for next December.  I thought they had sold out, but today I'm seeing one cabin still available.  Want to play in Europe for a week next year?"   The first responder said it sounded like fun, but unfortunately didn't line up with their travel plans next year.  The second asked for the ...

  The most meaningful coin flip of our lives to date happened a little over 2 months after Adam's mom passed away.   (SPOILER! It involved this dining room set that now lives in our house... )  

It started with a social media post, which of course I can no longer find to screenshot and include here. Adam and I were sitting on the couch at home on the day before my 49th birthday and I said, "I saw this post online today that said something to the effect of "I don't feel bad for any of you complaining about your work hours and cost of living when you could be living on a beach in South America somewhere for $500 a month!"   Adam didn't really respond at first, but had a look that said he was processing what I had just said and was likely pausing to choose his next words wisely.  I braced for snarky, so was all the more surprised when he said, "maybe once we pay off the house here in the next few months we should be looking at an investment property on an island somewhere..."  Wait.  WHAT?!?  Had I just been handed a research project requiring detailed spreadsheets to determine feasibility of a semi-retirement plan?  This could very well be the B...

  Not quite coffee on the couch, but it was a Sunday morning and we were bumping our way into town for a quick stop at Sylvia's house:  "Can you add some soda for Noah on your grocery list today?" "Yup." "We need to remember to cut my hair today too." "If you come up with anything else you're going to need to make a list." Pause for about a minute of quiet "I need to shave today too." "That's it, that's three, you need to write it down." "What?  It's two things? "Nope, three.  Grocery list, haircut and shave." "Yeah but I passed off groceries to you so that doesn't count."  "You need me for the haircut too, so now my list has two things, am I shaving your face too?" "Oh my God, THAT would not go well!" "Hey!  I'd just need you to tell me if I'm move the razor up or down. I'd be fine." "I mean I sure you COULD do it, but we may end u...

  The phrase "Getting there is half the fun" was birthed as an advertising slogan for the Cunard Cruise line in the 1950's.  In that context, it was probably true!   In the ensuing decades, however, "getting there" has morphed into being nothing more than a means to an end - at least for the casual traveler with a healthy, but not unlimited, budget.   The pendulum has swung making most transit experiences a necessary evil wrought with shrinking seats, added fees, longer waits, more restrictions, and a painful absence of anything remotely resembling "fun".  We painstakingly look to balance efficiency of transit with the best  value our budget can withstand. For example, paying a bit more for a direct flight than less for a 2 stop itinerary with far greater risks of plans going sideways.  In short, "travel" has become much more about the destination and "getting there" the required inconvenience that can make the end of an otherwise ...