Point. Shoot. And gorgeous.

This is past due, but such is life ... Better later than not at all, I guess. 

Again, I live in a world of a fragmented mind, one which most days is not my own. It’s occupied by work, dark thoughts of having lost dad, endlessly trying to find him in everything; and even darker thoughts about mom and where she is in her life, will she ever be “mom” again ... 

The world as it is seems to blow up with every breath ... We lose more rights, we lose more people to guns, to suicide, to hunger and thirst, to diseases, we lose whole countries to despots, we lose ourselves, we lose hope. Especially hope. Some days I feel like every headline is an April Fool’s joke! And I need to double and triple check every sentence. And then I sigh. It’s all true. All disappointingly, gut-wrenchingly true ... It’s the world as we see it now - shitty, abject, unfair, gaunt, non-common-sensical. It is no joke! 

And among all these thoughts, among it all, a faint desire to live on, to travel, to seek beauty, to push through it because we never know which day is our last. And when that day will come - do we really want to say “I wish I did”? I know I don’t. So, drained of hope and energy, I push through, I bite down and make travel arrangements, buy plane tickets (now, we’re in the world of “where can we fly direct?” to save as much time as possible through not too many airports and to minimize the exposure to too many people for too many hours on end), rent cars and hotels, and charge my camera to prepare for our next destination. 

So, in February-March we took a trip to Arizona. We booked a hotel in Tempe, then spent almost equal amounts of time between it, Phoenix, Scottsdale. One day, we spent most of the time in Saguaro (pronounced “sah-war-oh.”) National Park, less than 2 hours from Scottsdale, and the rest of the same day we took a brief tour of Tucson. 

Our first stop in the desert was at Papago Park, between Tempe and Scottsdale

I read somewhere a short description of these cities like this: “Tempe is a college town. Scottsdale is touristy. They know tourism and do it well. Phoenix is just a big metropolis.” (did you know that Phoenix is the 5th most populous city in the US, even before Philadelphia and way before San Francisco?! Neither did I!). I could not have put it better myself. 

These are the random thoughts and a couple of images from that journey ...

• If this trip won awards in any category it was for the amazing food everywhere. Not just good, but diverse - the variety and the many options for this vegan pescatarian were almost endless.  Flavor galore, diversity - Phoenix has it all. One thing that stuck out was that most places serve three meals every day and “Benes” were on almost every menu. Translation: “benes” are eggs Benedict done 100 ways. I am still puzzled as to why in the middle of the American Southwest an egg dish is so popular?! Or breakfast for that matter?! 

The Phoenix Saute at The Daily Jam in Tempe - a perfectly complete and completely vegan breakfast

• There was a huge bottle of lotion in the bathroom, anchored to the wall. This thing was like 1lb of lotion:  a clear reminder that you’re in the desert now and your skin will crack. So, lather up! 

• It was nice to see “letter mountains” again: is it a custom? A tradition? Don’t know, but in the American West where they post huge letters on some of the most prominent mountains in the middle or on the side of a city: there was a T for Tempe, an A for Arizona State University in Tempe and another one yet for University of Arizona in Tucson.

• A billboard showed ‘Straight into the mountain we head. Just like we like it!’. And I could not have agreed more ... 

• So. Many. Cacti. I grew up with cactus plants in my house: they were small, maybe 8 inch pots. My grandma had about 10 green thumbs, not just one! She did so well with all the plants, but she did the best with cacti, I think. Growing up I heard about it from her that it is easy to grow cacti but that it is hard to make them bloom or make them grow - they grow slowly, they bloom once in a hundred years - is what grandma said although later on in my life I lived in the desert and I think they bloom more often than that. She had all these types of cactus plants - the ones that looked like flattened footballs (the prickly pears), the ones that looked like cucumbers, and these ones that looked like leafless twigs with millions of long, poky thorns on them. She made them all grow and bloom. It seemed like every year.  Well, now, in the desert during this trip, I saw all of these and then some, about 1000 or more times bigger than I could have ever imagined as a kid. My childhood cacti were mere molecules compared to these plants we saw in Arizona.
  The saguaro cactus (the one that looks like a person with arms) is on every postcard and license plate in Arizona. You think you’ve seen them all till you’re standing next to one of them and then you’re asking yourself: what the heck is this creature?! They could be a power pole? A frozen human being? A tree? Definitely not a mere plant. They are enormous! The height of your house or bigger. And then you learn about their age - they don’t even get an arm till they are 100 or 150 years old. You drive down the road and you’re thinking: these cacti lining up the dusty roads have been here longer than any of the houses and maybe even longer than the whole state of Arizona. 

• Tucson was clearly poor: barred windows, homeless people in empty deserted mall squares - in contrast to the new almost posh campus of ASU in Tempe and the hopping, happening Biltmore fashion mall in Phoenix. 

• Tucson felt like the place where all ideas or dreams came to die. It was almost like a depressing, ghost town where humans have not been convinced yet that the town is truly over. It was at the exact opposite end of the liveliness of Tempe and Scottsdale. 

• Scottsdale Old Town is a must-see - yes, a bit touristy but done well, with minimum kitsch. Clean, inviting, and the people are welcoming, knowledgeable, and bend over backwards to accommodate. Just inviting! 

Some snaps of Old Town Scottsdale

• A reminder that you’re in the high-desert and in big-sky country: you must wear sunglasses even on cloudy days.

I have no idea how many hundreds of years this saguaro is for as many branches as it shows, but ... many ...

• Tempe - more than just a backdrop,  a mountain in the middle of the city is just another bump in the skyline.

• Street names and people remind you you’re on borrowed land here and must walk carefully: Talking Stick Way; Indian Bend Road. A rich Native American and hispanic majority of people live here. Their influence in everything from architecture to menu items; we had avocado in some shape or form with every meal, just like I had olives with every meal in Turkey.

• We visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West compound (home and architecture school). There, where human ingenuity meets and gets lost in nature, we got the best advice: if you hear a rattle, don’t investigate! If you see something, don’t take a picture of it. Just walk away! - this could be the motto for just about every stop anywhere in Arizona.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West compound - Scottsdale, AZ

• While driving through Saguaro National Park, or hiking at the Javelina Rocks, or taking in the hundreds of cactus species at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Scottdale, or chasing quail and so many other birds making homes inside the saguaros, you can easily see that you are clearly  back in the land of point-shoot-and-gorgeous. No special training or qualities required for amazing pictures. Every single picture is a winner! 

The many aspects of Saguaro National Park outside Tucson, AZ

• More modern architecture than I expected - I would have expected this modern vibe somewhere like L.A. or something, but not in the middle of the desert. I also know now where all the ranch homes of America have settled: in the Phoenix-Scottsdale-Tempe area is where they all went! You are hard-pressed to find anything but a ranch anywhere. They must be easier to keep cool in the torrid summers.  

One of the modern apartment buildings in Scottsdale, AZ

• You can say that this trip started with a beer. Several years back (2012), we went to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO. There, we tasted many beers but one in particular stood out for us and one of Aa’s friends: the Orange Blossom (a lager) of the Papago Brewery in Scottsdale, AZ. Ever since 2012, I have wanted to find a way to visit Scottsdale and get all the beer I wanted. Coming here, I was hoping that the beer is local enough and good enough (it won a medal in its category at the beer festival) that every restaurant would carry it on their menu. Not the case. We finally did find one of the two beer joints (Huss Brewing)  that carry it on tap and it was every drop as good as I remembered it. 

Orange blossom lager (right) at Hussing Brewing in Scottsdale, AZ

• Food and service won everywhere in Phoenix except the airport. If you want a piece of white bread (when you actually ordered a slice of sourdough) with a side of attitude at 7AM - go to the airport and order it first thing in the morning. Not a lie! 

So. Many. Birds. We saw such great diversity of birds and hundreds of wild quail.

Just a glimpse of the Desert Botanical garden in Scottsdale which was amazing. One of the most beautiful botanical gardens I have seen. You think that desert vegetation is sparse and poor, but it offers such diversity and surprise. Life is truly miraculous and it springs everywhere ...

As we were making our way out of the botanical gardens, we caught a glimpse of the iconic Arizona sunset. It was as breathtaking as you always hear about ...

Amintiri de Pret, ca Niște Bijuterii ...

Am prieteni și membri ai familiei (părinții mei, de pildă) care au crescut cu cate 10+ mătuși. Noi am avut doar una - pe sora tatei. 

Ca multe  alte relații din familia noastră, am fost mereu apropiată de ea - suntem o familie unită, care nu se lasă intimidată de depărtarea fizică, oricât de mare ar fi aceasta. 

Mătușa noastră, singura sora a tatei, a fost mereu o parte integrantă din familia noastră. Mereu alături de noi, la nevoi, la bucurii, la petreceri și ocazii mai puțin vesele - nu-mi pot imagina familia noastră fără ea! 

Amintirile sunt multe din cei 47+ de ani de viață alături de ea. Una din cele mai frumoase amintiri este atunci când, în copilărie, mergeam la ziua ei, în martie. Casa era plina de flori, cei mari se adunau în sufragerie în jurul mesei pline de bunătăți, iar eu și sora mea ne refugiam în dormitor. Acolo, într-un dulap care părea ca un seif secret, plin de comori ascunse, descopeream colecția mătușii de bijuterii! Alese tot una și una, cu pietre prețioase de care nu auzisem niciodată, una mai frumoasă și mai speciala ca alta, descopeream pandantive, lanțuri, coliere, brățări, inele de tot felul de mărimi și modele - pungute si cutii care păreau ca nu se mai termină. Le admiram și le încercam - ele părând enorm de imense pe mâinile noastre de copii - ore întregi, pierzând cu totul trecerea timpului. 

Peste ani, ne trezeam cu câte un cadou de ziua noastră care semăna teribil de mult cu vreo bijuterie din colecția neprețuită pe care o cunoșteam așa de bine. În fiecare an, cu fiecare vizită, colecția parcă arată altfel. Și astăzi, după mulți ani de zile, și după multe daruri, mă-ntreb oare câte din aceste comori le mai are?! 

Fiecare piesă din colectia ei care mi-a revenit spune câte o poveste și îmi amintește de zilele de odinioară în care eram cu toții împreună, prinși în coconul cald și plin de siguranță al unei familii unite. 

Există o istorie a fiecărei piese de bijuterii - fie ca e legată de zodia noastră, de culorile  preferate a celor pentru care este cumparată, fie ca e o piesă “care se asorteaza cu brățara pe care mi-a dat-o anul trecut”, aceste mici comori au viața lor, unică și plină de farmec, și încorporează până la ultimul detaliu eleganța și gustul mătușii mele pentru ceea ce se numește frumos și artă. 

De ziua ei, îi doresc din suflet o zi frumoasă așa ca o bijuterie de pret: plină de înțeles și de istorie, bogată și darnică așa cum este și ea. 

La multi ani, Rodi! Te iubim mult și îți dorim mulți, mulți ani sănătoși în continuare! 

Câteva din micile comori dăruite de mătușa mea, peste ani și ani. Aș vrea să îi dea viața comori însutite, mai mult sau mai puțin materiale, în anii care vor urma ... 

The Past?! No. More: the Future!

Dad used to say that birthdays and New Years are great times to "draw the line" and remember how far you've come.

So, today, as I celebrate you, I am also celebrating all the memorable, sometimes hilarious, sometimes scary times we have shared. I can't help but feel grateful and blessed that you were born to share all these times with me!

I look back at all the years that have gone by since that fateful day when we glanced at each other in the newspaper hallway. I would have lost good money if someone would have told me we'd be where we are today on that day. And I am glad I would have lost!

Do you remember ...

• Our first camping trip on Kerr Lake (2008) - I could not believe it that Mr. “Comfort Man” agreed not only to a tent-camping trip with me on Kerr Lake, but also agreed to it in the middle of Bug Season, North Carolina. This was back when we were just “work friends” and not even dating. I guess a man does a lot when he’s (somewhat secretly) in love. You worked tirelessly for days to prepare to make sure we'd have everything, but still forgot your newly-bought, much-talked-about lantern at home. Maybe that was a good omen since our life together has been just that: a mix of well-planned years as well as feeling in the dark. Who knows?!
• That hot July 4th in the Moab desert, when we rented a hot-red Jeep Wrangler to drive around Canyonlands, totally off-grid, when it was so hot that our ice melted in the hard-top cooler inside the car with the A/C blasting? We had no cell-signal, our water boiling hot, 30 miles away from any paved roads, and truly I thought we will just die in the middle of nothing and they’ll find our bare bones, meat shriveled up from heat, maybe a week later, we'd cook that fast!
• The “big proposal” in a poetic and friendly spot called “The Devil’s Kitchen”, in the middle of nothing, atop a mountain desert in Utah?
• Our wedding day when the wind picked up so strongly it was impossible to light our unity candle. Our minister said “it’s mostly symbolic” and everyone laughed, as in "isn't it all?!". Two people had to hold the screen behind the "unity table" so as not to be blown away by the wind. In the nervousness of it all, I had to also drop your ring and scratch it before I could put it on your finger. Should we say "ominous" again?! Hmm ...
• That time when we drove to Bryce Canyon for our first anniversary, having booked a hotel and paid for it and everything, and arrived around 11PM (after work, tired, and weary, driving through the desert with no soul around) and finding that the hotel is “closed for the winter” (April is “winter” in Utah, I guess!). Good thing that another, smaller, local hotel was open right across the street, and almost empty and could put us up for a couple of nights. That "luck" followed us years later, when we tried checking into another hotel we thought we made reservations for in Boone, NC, only to be told they have no record of us. Again, we were lucky that we found another room nearby, despite it being Labor Day weekend. Life is just fussy enough for us to make us remember it, isn't it?!
• Why is it that our weirdest memories are hotel-related mishaps?! Hmm ... Like that time when we were haunted in our hotel room in Blowing Rock, NC.
• The time when we flew to Europe and we almost got stuck there in the middle of the French airline workers’ strike. We got rerouted through Germany on our way back, only to have me detained and patted down three times before allowing me to book the flight to the US.
• The first time you took me to a casino in Mesquite, NV, the day I got laid off and on my first try, the first time in my life when I touched a slot machine, I won $20. I reckon life knew I needed it that day ... 
• We have all the luck with the snow, too - especially hitting us at the least expected times: on top of Grandfather Mountain in early November (early for North Carolina for sure), when the snowstorm wind got us locked out of the car, we got snowed in in Deer Valley, UT one year and then again in Jackson Hole, WY the following year both on Memorial Day weekend (end of May). Someone up there must know you’re from Michigan and that you of all people can take it. Little do they know that 20+ years of The South melted you up.
• That time when we rode the motorcycle on the Alpine Loop in Utah (25 miles away from home) and our battery died in Lehi (50 miles away from home), on our way back in the middle of a scorching hot July summer day!  We had to walk our cycle to the nearest grocery store to get into some A/C for comfort, and wait for a tow truck. But how available is a tow truck on July 4th?! I have never in my life spent that many hours in a grocery store without buying a thing, let’s just say that. 
• That time when we took your mom for her 70th birthday to Niagara Falls and the only restaurant open for dinner was in a ... discount t-shirt store?! Yeah, classy all right! 
• That time you walked into my parents’ kitchen for the very first time, at night, famished from a 24 hour trip across the world, grabbed your first morsel of meat sitting on the table and said “I love this! What is it?!” We all answered: “Cow tongue!”
• The time when we ended up in a shipping container in Bucharest, in the middle of a foggy, wet, November night, trying to rent a car on the black market from these kids who declared the container their very legit and very official “office”. 
• Do you remember the wind- and sand-storm in Sulphur Springs, Montana, in the middle of the prairie, waiting for Donna the Buffalo to start playing at the very originally named “Red Ants Pants Music Festival”? I have never eaten that much dust in my life! I swear, 10 years later, I am still dusting off my camera and my backpack, 10 years later!
• That time you volunteered to slice lemons for a friend’s wedding and you sliced your finger instead, bad enough to require stitches?! You never touched a mandoline again, but I can't remember if you even ever attempted to slice lemons either! If life hands them to us, we eat them whole nowadays, it seems.
• You remember how you did not die, despite all your protests and refusal to advance, when I made you climb up to Timpanogos Cave (6700 feet) in Utah, nor to the end of the South Mountains Park trail in North Carolina?! I love when you just trust me ...
• That time we saw the black bears hang out in the trees off a trail in Georgia?! 
• That time when you fed the iguanas in Honduras? 
• That time we thought we bought a turkey breast and all we got was turkey nuggets in a bundle and we had a house (almost) full of people to feed for Christmas? Hmm... yeah - good times! 
• That time we were so excited to see Willie Nelson in concert and he walked off the stage and never returned?! 
• That time when we lobbied together in the halls of Congress in DC for FH Awareness (serious) and made fun of the Ben & Jerry's cow decal outside Senator Bernie Sanders' office (not so serious)?! And that is so you: a mix of stern elegance and casual comedian all rolled-up into one!
• That time when we had our first Thanksgiving dinner in our brand-new house in North Carolina with an unboxed, newly-delivered but uninstalled yet dishwasher in the middle of the dining room? 
• Our big trek in our camper, The Pup, across America?! Boy, how I want to do that again soon!
• That time when we judged the beers at the Athens Beer Festival in Ohio and actually felt like we knew what we were doing? I guess everyone thinks this after a few sips of craft beer?!

But much, much more than the many times we have spent together, I love the possibilities of what is coming ahead of us! There will be hard times but I am sure as I am of these two hands typing this that there will be good times too. I just pray for health and peace and strength and cannot wait to see the future. With you, hand in hand.

Whether we are climbing a mountain, shooting birds, making dinner, or buying a car, a house, or a camper, I know we’ll have a good time and live to tell the stories for whoever is there to listen. Even if it's just us, recollecting.

Whether I am mourning a friend, a parent, or a pet, or I am going through some near-death health scares, I know you’ll be there, stronger than the Rock of Gibraltar to support me.

I love you with all my stitched up heart. I would be lost, scared, confused and adrift without you.

Thanks for being you.

And thanks for being mine.  

Happy birthday, my love! Can't wait for the next 50+ years ... 

Memories on your birthday ...

A hotter than hot wedding in Romania one August 20+ years ago. Yours. Your insistence that you must remain in your groom’s suit-and-tie, even at 114F. Hottest day in Romania in something like 40 years! Commitment. 

Learning how to drive together and passing our exams almost at the same. All encouraged if not forced by dad. 

Living in the off-the-beach house in Costinesti all together  - piled up together in one room like hippies in a commune. So young - both you and me, my sister and your brother ... Long nights in clubs - loud music and tons of vermouth.

Traveling over the years - watching each other travel and sharing impressions. Almost missing trains and planes and living to tell the tales. Oh, the stories!

Discovering Canada and sharing the acutest, sharpest pain of a 40-degree-below day ... The inability to breathe. The frost-bite-like symptoms of simply walking outside to see what the air “feels like”. It doesn’t. It just paralyzes you. The howling wind of a Quebec winter night. The insulating of the windows, taping them shut to keep the frosty air out. 

Your first Canadian car with wires coming out of the dashboard. The lessons. Slow and steady till you came into your own adulthood. Then, head of a beautiful family. Becoming a dad. And me, an aunt. And then again, times two. 

Both of us - watching our hair gray and our forehead wrinkles deepen. Learning, discovering. Together. And through it all sewing this long thread that unites us through the decades ...

Walking up the steep, gruesome, penance-like stairs of Mont Royal. Riding the mountain cable car in Mont Tremblant. Walking across the swinging bridge of Ste. Anne and Montmorency waterfalls. Sharing with us your favorite spots in Quebec City and Vieux Port in Montreal. Discovering Canada through your naturalized eyes. Your adoptive country. And then again, sharing my new home country back...

Riding the ferry to Toronto Island Park on Lake Ontario. Bracing the sharp, cutting wind of the Great Lakes in November.

Always enjoying delicious food along the way - everywhere. This family is nothing if not a bunch of indulging gourmands and you fit in it well. Thank goodness! 

Traveling together to dad’s last birthday. The unbounded joy of togetherness, right alongside a deep sadness of the inevitable end possibly coming - the old age, the wear and tear, the loss of function in those we left behind in Romania ... Shared joys and sadness, just the same. 

Winery hopping and wine and beer tastings. Indulging some more. Enjoying the simple and complex things of life. Food. Drinks. Good movies. 

Discussing politics and wondering what the heck went wrong in the world. Respecting. Each other and wondering where the respect of the world was lost and how. Growing old. Together. Side by side. Our families becoming one. Our destinies united ...

Almost a whole week of Christmas cooped up in one house. Eating. Drinking. Watching too much tv. Talking. Remembering. Bonding. 

How we (almost) share a birthday. Today.

All of these and more ... Memories we both made together. Adventures of the mind and body. Reminders of where we’ve been and tracing a map of what happened. 

More than our shared history and memories, I love our honesty. Nothing fake. No pretense. Even when it’s hard. We speak the truth, you and I. The most precious gift! Knowing you, knowing me ... I know it will persevere in the years to come! 

On your special day, I wish for more memories and more journeys. I wish that the special bond we forged over these 25+ years will continue to remind us where we’re from, where we’re going and that we’re family. And more than anything: I wish every happiness you wish for yourself!

Happy birthday, G.!

Montreal 2015: I love when you light up around your boys. You do 'dad' well! 

Small Guy. Big Personality.

Yeah, you are “the Small Guy” because in my eyes, at least for another year or two, you are still “small” in every way. You are not as small as a year ago, or even as yesterday, sure, but in the general scheme of things you are small. And "perfect in every way", as you would say about polar bears. Or cats. Or owls.  

When people ask me to describe you, I just sigh a deep sigh. How can I fit such a huge (physically small) personality into just a few words? There are no words ... 

I say things like: Kevin is amazingly ... his own person. He is 12 going on 50! Before anything, he is wise beyond his years, self-possessed and he has a deep sense of who he is and where his life is going. Before anything, it takes loads of effort to impress him. Even at 12, he will tell you in no ambiguous terms how lame you are, or how sexist, or blind you are at the diversity of the world around you. How careless and messy you are when you can’t pick up after yourself. 

He’ll tell you how much you still have to learn about the world around you. He will scold you like you’re the child and he’s the grown-up. He is cool and collected as well as passionate and irate. He frowns upon your every lame move and breaks into song and cheer completely unprompted and unannounced. He is not one thing or another. He is never one-note and boring. He is a constant wonder and a constant guess ... 

He knows what he likes (books, animals, food, comfort, among too many other things to enumerate), he knows what he is about (serious, punctual, reliable, hard working, more responsible than the adults around him sometimes), and he also knows what he’s not about and what he hates (being told what to do, waking up too early in the morning, boiled broccoli, people talking too much around him when all he wants is quiet time). 

And that, dear Kev, is where you lose me: I wonder whether our blood is truly flowing through your  little veins when you complain about people talking too much around you. But it must be, because you’re the spitting image of your grandfather, so I know better. 

I also tell people about your incredible talent to carry on interesting conversations about anything, your amazing knowledge about animals, plants, anything that lives. Your interest in understanding the living world around you, your maturity, about your being kind and caring and protecting towards our planet and our environment ... 

Discovering you every year, seeing you grow and explore the world, watching you sift through everything that the world throws at you and choosing what it makes sense to you, choosing what gives you pleasure, what grounds you, what makes you whole is a privilege I will be forever grateful for. I love all your discoveries, from your new axolotl pet, to the fact that you love coffee so much (you’re definitely in the right family there!), to the fact that you read more than I ever do and that you can carry on a conversation with the vocabulary of a college student already. 

Just like you noticed a couple of months back, the past year “tried you” with all sorts of bad happenings. I wish you a much, much better year ahead, full of happiness, joy, and overflowing with beauty, kindness and every good wish you have for yourself. And never forget your strength!

When I am at my saddest, I will always remember Christmas morning at my house last year: when you slipped on your PJ’s and your flannel robe, you poured your coffee and made a half-serious and stern face, half-goofball and joker (just like your grandpa) and demanded a picture by the tree, saying something like: “Let’s get into my robe and take a picture looking like a retired old dad.” 

Thank you for giving me a front-row seat at this wonderful journey you call your life. I know it will never be boring ... Love you, sweet Kevs! 

December 2022: My small "retired old dad"

Wrightsville Beach, NC

My mind is very fragmented lately. I have struggled to write complete sentences and the truth comes to me in snippets, much like a bulleted list. Without numbers. Without a specific order of events. 

These are my random thoughts on our recent trip to Wrightsville Beach, NC. 

• Hotel beds are the worst. Why do they make them so back-breaking soft? 

• Off-season beach season should be the most popular. Who needs the heat, the noise, the sand when you can have the beach to yourself to roam and any restaurant open with no waiting time? But I guess if this would be the peak season, this all would change?! Hmmm ... 

• Falling asleep to the sound of the waves. Who needs a noise machine? 

• I still love the cheap t-shirt beach stores where everything is always on sale. You can never have too many cheesy painted t-shirts (for the days when you decide you’re bored enough you want to start painting your cabinets) and too many $1 thong flip-flops. Summer is long in North Carolina. 

• Overheard in a coffee shop (paraphrase): “All I have left is to prepare for class this semester. Which is basically a lot of reading. But it’s kinda odd because all I have to read are heavy books. Like, you never thought you’d ever say ‘boy, I am really pumped about reading this book on ... suffering!’, ya know?!” Laughter follows. (Drift restaurant in Wrightsville Beach)

• The best seafood gumbo vegan outside of the fish is at The Oceanic at the Crystal Pier. Best view in town too, right on the ocean.

• It’s a mystery to me where birds go when we go to the beach. You see all these gorgeous waterfowl photography everywhere from the fancy hotels to your dentist’s office and you’re thinking: “sure, I can do that! Just get out there on the marsh, point and shoot.” Only you can’t. Nope. Not birds at any rate. I watched the sunrise from my 7th story hotel room and there were hundreds of water birds on the beach. I get dressed and get out there to “shoot them up close” ... not a one! Ridiculous! And that curse followed us everywhere else all weekend. Almost. A small pond in the middle of the Airlie Gardens saved the weekend. 

  Finally birds! At Airlie Gardens.

• I have never found so many absolutely perfectly whole sea-shells in a 20 minute walk on the beach. And I didn’t even pick up all the ones we spotted.

• When coming out of The Oceanic, a random gentleman with a zoomy-zoom camera propped up on the railing told us he is waiting to see the launch of a SpaceX rocket somewhere South from where we were standing. Now, we were about 600 miles (more than 8 hours) away from where the rocket was launching, so this sounded highly dubitable, but we decided to wait for the rocket. 

And oh, wow!, were we in for an experience! The rocket, like a crisp white beam of light, came out from low on the Southern horizon and ascended so incredibly fast, leaving behind a thick and luminous train, so long that given the distance we were aware it was from us, might have been hundreds of miles long in the sky.
At one point, we could see it drop its boosters that had propelled it into space, and then the two boosters, like mini-rockets themselves, made their own train of light from the dropping point all the way back towards Florida where they eventually landed.
At some point, it looked like the rocket stopped “writing” on the sky with its white, luminous train, and it kept only a short “tail”, almost like a comet flying high above the water. Although we could not hear the launch nor feel the earth shake, it was still breathtaking. Definitely the highlight of this weekend, regardless of however many successful pictures of birds we might have gotten. 

Sometimes what you get out is not what you go there for. 

When we left our house, we were not too eager to be on this trip, for various reasons. But once seeing this miracle of human engineering, just a token of what is possible once you venture out beyond your front door, you realize that no matter how sad or poorly you feel, as long as your body is still able, you should get out and take in the amazement that the world still has in store for you. 

The synchronicity was moving:

We saw the SpaceX Falcon Heavy on January 15 - a Sunday - outside The Oceanic Restaurant in Wrightsville Beach, NC. The rocket launch had been scheduled for January 14th (the day before) and it had gotten delayed till the following day, for “reasons not immediately disclosed” (if you follow the SpaceX launches, they have a good record of punctuality). We knew absolutely nothing of this, as we don’t follow rocket launches. 

We had come to The Oceanic the day before, but we could not get in because they were too busy, so we decided to come the following day a bit earlier to have a chance at eating dinner there. And a place we picked totally randomly, and a day and time we picked totally by accident paid off in a big, big way. We took the experience as a reminder to stop making plans (or hiding from them) and get out there and embrace life and wonder just as they are: always there, always waiting, always in need of nothing but eyeballs to enjoy it.

The rocket and the two boosters putting on a spectacle as seen from Wrightsville Beach, NC on January 15, 2023. Who needs New Year's fireworks when you can have this?!