Happy holidays! It's one of my favorite times of the year. The house is filled with Christmas jazz, there's a foot of snow icing the neighborhood and I'm ready for vacation and eating mom's cooking. After last year's holiday post, I went out to California to visit the family and a few friends in Palm Springs. It was such a winning formula that I am doing it again this year but Serge is coming too.
Here is the last picture I ever took of George last December before we had to put him down. I miss him so much. Soon after that terrible vet appointment, it was Christmastime and after I got back from California it was so snowy and cold, I couldn't wait to get out again. Snow and cold is fine in December, but after that there is no joy for me.
I headed to Ecuador first this year. It would be my longest visit yet - 10 and a half weeks. I found an amazing little airbnb unit in a great location with a lovely rooftop patio with a view over the city. It was thirteen hundred dollars for the whole stay there. (We booked it again for 2025.) For about a month, I enjoyed the sunny days and hanging with friends that we have down there. Thursday game day was one of the weekly highlights. Also, even though I work a little bit down there, it feels like I am in retirement. Can't wait to go back in January.
Then, as in years past, we went on a cruise with our campcamp.com friends. It was the first time we had gone on a cruise with MSC and it was delightful! I think the ship wasn't full and therefore it was never super busy and one never had to wait long for anything. About an hour after we had gotten on the ship, they announced they were canceling a stop so the remaining ports were Miami and Nassau, yawn. We ended up never getting off the ship and it was wonderful having the pool largely to ourselves during port stops. Of course we had great fun with our camp friends and nightly meetups and dinners. I can't recall what Serge was doing here. Maybe we were talking about When Harry Met Sally but who knows.
After the cruise, Serge flew back to Ecuador with me for about 6 weeks. We did things we had never done there before like visit the zoo (very big on the steep side of a mountain that took us a good three hours to walk through. The pic is from there.) and visit the Amazon (a very long and ardous journey to get there and back, but we saw amazing waterfalls and wildlife) and eat guinea pig (tasted like greasy chicken). The winter vacation formula worked so well that we are doing almost exactly the same thing in 2025. I think we will swap out the Amazon excursion for a beach excursion this year though.
We got back at the end of March and winter was still hanging on but the snow finally quit in April. In May, I joined some campcamp folks to scope out the new location of camp in Maine. What an upgrade! We all had fun planning for the summer and really enjoyed the bowling alley. I now know what the back of the alley looks like and how to get the pins and balls unstuck as they are wont to do.
In June, Serge's mom celebrated her 80th birthday with us. We went out to dinner at 5 thinking we wouldn't need a reservation (though it was Saturday) and the first place we went was completely full and they wouldn't be able to take us until 7:30. Luckily the next choice had room for us. More and more these days I find myself thinking that there are just too many people everywhere. This was one of them.
Finally, summer arrived. Here we are down in Old Montreal for the jet boat ride. I had gotten half-price tickets on black Friday so we took our next-door neighbors who, as I've said before, have become our best buds. We hung out all summer around the fire, at the beach and frequently at each other's house. For the Carnival-like party here, we ordered costumes from the wizard of oz and dressed up. They left for Thailand in October this year for a five-month stay like they did last year. In 2026 though, we are planning to stay more time here in the winter and hang out together.
When a girl's got to go, she's got to go. Serge in his Dorothy costume. He made the ruby "slippers" himself.
Then it was time for campcamp and we got to use the costumes a second time for T-dance. It was a great week but only really the first few days for me. Being in charge of transportation became a headache with campers coming down with covid and needing to be transported out as well as my staff coming down with covid and having to leave. It all worked out as usual, but it was stressful at the end.
In September we had a visit from an acquaintance inquiring if we would like to have a pug (he knew I had a pug in mind for a future pet). The only catch was not to castrate him so that he could continue to make puppies with his two female pugs. Frankly, I don't think either of us were ready to get a dog again, but we took him for a one week trial and of course fell for him. He is really a good dog, very vocal and VERY attached to me. It will be hard to be away from him for so long when I am in Ecuador this year (plane tickets had already been bought when we got him).
The fall has been fun with Freddy. I took him down to the river and he loved splashing around and biting the water. We even took him to Montreal when we went to our friend's birthday party. He did great. There was a kid of about 11 years old there who took to Freddy right away. It was fun seeing them play together and reminded me of the bonds I had with dogs when I was a kid.
Last week, we got to visit our friends in Granby. We had a great time catching up and getting holiday sloshed together.
That is a basic recap of the year's highlights. I'm still working part time teaching and Serge is still working part-time at the local hardware store. Although I'm a bit of a news junky, I feel like the holiday letter is not the place to weigh in on current events. Suffice it to say, there is plenty to fret about. But at this time of year, I just like to feel grateful for all the good in the world, our friends and families and good health and happiness. I wish the same for all of you. Merry merry!
But I'm not sixty yet! Yet it dawned on me that I AM in my sixtieth year of life since at 59, one has completed all of those years. Turning sixty can't be all that different than turning 59 after all. But here I am going through my life and suddenly the reality of my age is like that bad devil on your shoulder commenting darkly on everything about it. It's not all bad though, it seems more like this is my year of resignation, that no one escapes old age. No one. Resignation might be the wrong word, it's more like letting go. Letting go of the notion that I can get rid of those wrinkles, that sag, those brain farts. (They'll be increasing forever more.) Letting go of the idea that I'm still going to make something of myself, that I'll be well-off (bwahahahaha). This is liberating. One tiny shred of light on the overriding fact: I'm dying. The point is we all are, I just keep dwelling on it these days. Might as well share some of my observations today.
I have started to put cream on my face. Those who know me know I loathe to put any type of cream on my skin. I just hate the feel of it. But when I was in Ecuador this year, they sold Retinol (the good strength) over the counter, so the devil on my shoulder told me to get it. Its application is now a daily ritual.
I can't say it's my favorite station, but Apple Music's "Easy listening" essentials is the station I play most frequently. I bet my grandparents would like it, if they were still alive.
Serge and I both forgot our anniversary this year. We realized it ELEVEN days later, a record. The fact that this made us both giggle helplessly mitigates the horror of the memory loss it implies.
I had a follow-up scan this week about a little thingy they found on my lung last year. I'm still waiting to hear from the doctor. I figure it can go two ways, either I'll need some treatment, or I won't. I'll die or I won't. Wait, I will die, just possibly not from the little thingy on my lung.
My ass looks like a plastic grocery bag with just a little bit of water at the bottom of it. If you're sixty, yours probably does too. (At least that's what I tell myself.)
I haven't written here since we lost Georgie, the two of which may be related. I grieved hard, but then something weird happened, the grief became like a testament to my love for him, and then it was easier. The grief has died down greatly, which in a way almost saddens me, because when will I get to feel such an expression of love again? Not that I'm wishing for more grief, that will surely come, that is, if I don't die first.
Last night we sat in a room full of people where old men sang karaoke songs on stage. We were not one of them. Serge asked me, " Does it feel like we are in a retirement home?" I had to shush him.
Paying attention. Why did I not do this so much before? Like I can sit and watch the birds at the bird feeder for an hour. It's all happening so fast when you pay attention. I make stories up about the bird squabbles and try to figure out the pecking order between species. Fascinating.
We have a commercial-sized recycle container at our house. When Serge brought it home, I thought it was a great idea. We do go through a lot of cans after all. Perfectly normal, right?
Finally for today, I feel much less inclined these days to share, to create, to DO, and more inclined to observe, consume, and BE. So cliched I know. But it's true and lest you think some of my observations are too dark, rest assured that I am just fine and will keep trying to pay attention. I'll do a year review blog by Christmas. Until then, thanks for stopping by. 😊
Greetings, friends. As I did last year, I thought I would write a recap of the year to close it out (and at least have two blog entries for the year). It has been a year of mostly ups and few downs and here are the highlights, snippets meets holiday letter style.
* It has certainly been a big travel year. I started things out by going down to Ecuador in January for a few weeks and collecting the accumulated interest (8%) from our CD. As always the friends, food and temps were perfect and it felt so short that I scouted out and found an apartment to rent for 10 and half weeks this upcoming January for a total of $1300 USD. This will be the longest period we will have escaped winter and I suspect this trend will continue. Ten blissful weeks with no freezing nor shoveling. And one-dollar tacos and twenty-five-cent cokes.
* Shorty after returning from Ecuador, we went on the camp camper cruise which I organized and got about 20 people to go on from Camp. It was a big success, everyone had a great time and it was fun seeing the first-time cruisers' reactions. I got roped into organizing another one this year which we weren't going to go on, but after going to Camp and being ground down by our friends, we are going to fly back from Ecuador for a week this Feb to go on another camper cruise out of Brooklyn and then fly back to Ecuador. (I'm exhausted just writing that sentence, let alone living it.) The things we do for our friends. (wink)
* A few weeks after the Caribbean cruise, we embarked on the trip of our lifetime, a six-week cruise out of Auckland, New Zealand. This was to celebrate our 30 years together. And celebrate we did. We gathered another crop of Facebook friends from the trip and also decided that six weeks is too long for us to cruise. If you are connected to us on FB, you've seen more than enough on this trip since we both posted lots of pics along the way.
* After we got back from our amazing journey across the globe, we flew out to Grant's Pass, Oregon for a family gathering to say farewell to my grandmother who had died during the lockdowns of COVID. I honestly have no idea what I said at the memorial, but I'm sure Serge got it on tape. (wait, can we say that anymore?) It had been a long time (too long) since we had a gathering, but as is the nature with families, it was like little time had passed. What better thing is there in life than to have those who are always glad to see you, and you feel the same way?
* To continue with that vibe, our next door neighbors, as I know I've mentioned, have become a really important element in our lives. I don't know if I've ever had relationships where we arrive at each other's house unannounced, any time, to bring treats or ask favors or because the dog feels like getting a cookie. Sometimes family shows up in the most unexpected places. It feels like we have always been friends but we only moved here in 2021. It's like that. Would we dress up ridiculously like this for ourselves? Reasonably questionable.
* This is the title page to my master's thesis paper. It is done. I finished it. I can actually type those words. In the University system that I log into, it shows that I am diploma-ed, so it's really true. I started that journey in 2012 and although there were a couple years off in there to deal with mid-life crises, I plugged away at it and finished. The maximum grade point average you can get is 4.3 (A+) and I finished with 4.2. Not that I'm bragging. (I'm bragging.) Now that that task has been eliminated, I've got time to read again and I am really enjoying Libby, the app that lets me check out books from the library on my ipad. The app says it will be my turn for Britney Spear's memoir in 8 months. I just finished All Grown Up. I checked it out this morning and finished it this afternoon. It made me want to write a blog post. (Reading always makes me want to write.)
* This photo has special meaning for me. It was taken at this year's Campcamp. Earlier in the week I had choked on a banana in front of hundreds of people and had to be heimlicked. It was terrifying. I didn't announce that on social media, but all the secrets come out on the blog. I can't watch it anymore, but you can. I will never look at bananas the same way again. Nor eat them while alone.
* Finally, we have to say goodbye to George, our best friend. We have already taken the appointment, which we made four weeks in advance but has not arrived yet. Each day is a mixture of sadness, love and quiet confirmation that we are making the right decision. But it is so hard. It is also hard to watch him decline, slowly but surely. We will always, always have him in our hearts like we still do Sara.
* This holiday season, Serge will stay here in Quebec and visit with his family while I go to California to visit mine. I will also make a quick trip to Palm Springs for a few days to see friends (it seems like everyone is moving to Palm Springs these days). I'm sure you will see all that play out on social media. Here is wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season and health and happiness in the new year. Thanks for stopping by :)
Greetings to the tribe. It's been a long journey from the holidays to June that included a three-week visit to Cuenca Ecuador in January and a 5-night Caribbean cruise at the end of February. If we are connected on Facebook, you've surely seen some pictures from those trips as well as the subject of today's post: Our six-week trip down under and back. It all started on March 21st as we flew to Newark, then San Francisco where we circled the skies for an hour and a half before getting permission to land. The pilot was 5 minutes from diverting the flight to San Jose, which would have made getting to New Zealand in time for the cruise problematic. As it was, we made our flight to Auckland but many others didn't as economy class was only about half full, which the flight attendant said never happens.
We arrived at 6am in Auckland and familiarised ourselves with the area around our hotel and downtown. Jet lag was not really that bad even though it was a 9-hour time difference. By the next day, we were pretty much on New Zealand time and spent the day hiking up three old volcano mounts that dot the city. This picture is from the highest one with downtown in the background. We were immediately impressed with how friendly everyone seemed.
The next day was embarkation day for Holland America's 39-day transpacific cruise. The weather was spectacular as we sailed away. There were exactly three children on board and I'd say the average age was over 70.
On the first and third nights of the cruise, the ship had an LGBTQ meetup. As you can see there was a pretty good turnout on the first night. We ended up meeting for happy hour most days with 6-10 of us then heading to the dining room to eat dinner.
The next day was our first port of call and we had an excursion to ride the luge in Rotorua. We enjoyed a bloody mary waiting for our group to be called. What? It made the bus ride easier.
Here we are on the chairlift to go up to the luges. In the background, you can see a very large lake which is actually a volcano caldera. There were various hot spots around town with steam rising into the air.
The next day we stopped in Napier, New Zealand. We didn't have an excursion planned, so we walked around town and shopped for souvenirs.
The next day we arrived in Picton, a very small coastal town with one main street. We looked up a trail on AllTrails and went for a hike. You can see our ship docked in the background. The weather turned rainy in the afternoon but we were already back on board by then.
The next stop was supposed to be in Wellington, but due to the rain and high winds, we were not permitted to dock. The captain decided to go to Christchurch one day early for an overnight stop. The storm ushered in some cooler weather as fall was starting.
We didn't get off the boat in the evening, but the next day we had an excursion to go wine tasting in the Waipara Valley. At the included lunch, we were the last to arrive in the dining area and took the last two seats. Wouldn't you know it, the guy next to us was from Quebec and he happened to be texting his friend at the table, who, wait for it, lives on our street. Small world!
The next day we stopped in Dunedin but again had no excursion planned so we walked around the charming town. New Zealand seemed kind of expensive but they had a version of Target there where Serge was able to get some new sneakers for under $30. Everywhere we went, people seemed super friendly. But it's a small place, only five million people, half of whom live in the Capital area. Quebec alone has nearly 9 million people by comparison. Dunedin was our last stop in New Zealand.
The next day was a sea day. Finally. We cruised the fiords and saw dramatic scenery. This area is so remote, it takes a week to hike in. Put another way, it's a week's hike to civilization. It reminded us of Chile at the southern end of the South American continent. Largely uninhabited.
The weather grew stormy when we entered one of the fiords and waterfalls were cascading down the sides of the steep cliffs. It felt like we were in National Geographic. There was narration on board which is how we knew how far from civilization we were.
If that link works, it's the third stop on the Holland America bar hop. They really put on a show. And stuffed us full of drinks for $35. It all started with wang wangs.
The next stop was in Hobart, Tasmania. We didn't have an excursion planned but kicked ourselves for not doing the animal rescue visit. We would have seen kangaroos and wallabies which we never ended up seeing. That night, Lindsey took us out for dinner and we had wallaby steak. It was DELICIOUS! Incidentally, a group of wallabies is called a mob.
The next day was a stop in Melbourne, Australia where we had an electric bike excursion in the morning. The guide took us on a stretch of the sparsely populated pedestrian walkway to get to a lookout point. We were a dozen people and when we passed by one lady, she screamed "CYCLE PATH" where the "path" sounds like "poth". It was hilarious, at first I thought she was screaming "Psychopath". Then later on she caught up with us to scream at the guide. Finally, as we headed back to the starting point, we passed her and she was SCREAMING with her cell phone out, "I'm sending this to the police!" as she filmed us passing by. The guide said he'd been doing this same excursion for 15 years and had never encountered anyone like her. We amused ourselves the rest of the cruise saying "cycle path" like Donald Sutherland shrieking in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
In the afternoon we walked around the city looking for souvenirs and having a beer along the river. We felt the visit to be too short as we wanted to explore more but we had to get back on board to go to Sydney the next day.
On the way to Sydney, we had a two-hour electrical storm. It was so cool and I finally got one on video.
I was up in time the next morning to see the sun rise over the opera house. We had a tour of Sydney planned with a private tour of the opera house. We got a nice taste of the city but wished we had overnighted there. In Sydney, the 14-day cruise people got off (about 500) and the 25-day cruise people got on (about 800). About 1200 of us stayed aboard for the 39-day cruise.
We danced almost every night on the cruise. For the first two weeks, Lynn would often break the ice and be the first one on the dance floor. The band was REALLY good and talented. Once Lynn left in Sydney, I took the baton and was then frequently the first one on the dance floor. Serge says why don't you dance at the discotheque where we live? I said because it starts at 11pm. On the boat, the dancing finished at 11pm.
After two sea days, we arrived in Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia. New Caledonia is a French territory and it was so refreshing to walk around understanding everything. Their French was very easy to understand. It was really hot, but we still went on a hike to the zoo hoping to see Kangaroos, but no, they mostly just had birds.
Since the cruise was split into two, they had a couple more LGBTQ meetups and the group morphed a bit as some got off in Sydney while others got on. This is in the Crow's Nest, where we met every day for happy hour.
The next day we visited Lifou Island which is still New Caledonia and took an excursion to a beach on the other side of the island. It was a gorgeous day but we only had a little over an hour to go swimming before having to get on the rustic bus. I thought it would be the most rustic, but that was still to come in American Samoa.
Next stop was in Lautoka, Fiji where we took a catamaran to a tiny island for a day at the beach with drinks and lunch. We saw sea tortoises and baby sharks swimming around. I also got to try Kava which made my mouth go numb. The Fijians were SO smiley and everywhere we went folks shouted "BULA!" at us which is a catchall word for Welcome or Hello. We could definitely see coming back for an extended Fiji vacation.
Enough with the couples shots, right? We had another stop in Fiji in SavuSavu. There we had an excursion to go on a hike to a waterfall. It was very hot, and I swam in the pools under the waterfall. Back in town, we went to look for souvenirs and noticed how inexpensive clothing was. We got Hawaiian-style shirts for six bucks US. We wished we had bought more because when we got to Hawaii, they were all $40 and higher.
We had another sea day and then arrived in American Samoa (pronounced SAM-wah) where we had an excursion on a bus with wooden boards for seats driving on terribly potholed roads. In the picture, you see Camel Rock. That was about the most exciting thing we saw there.
The next five days were at sea. We passed the time playing games, taking mixology classes and learning how to tie a sarong and make Hawaiian bracelets.
We made friends with the Hawaiian Ambassadors who led a bunch of activities on the way to Hawaii.
One of the guys in our group was stuck in the infirmary all the way to Hawaii. He had gotten bitten by a spider in New Caledonia and his leg blew up like double size, angry and red. When we got to Hilo, he went to the hospital for 11 days before being able to fly home to Florida. Talk about bad luck! He's on the mend now which we are all thankful for.
On the way to Hawaii, Holland America had their 150th anniversary, so of course they threw a party. We also crossed the date line and lived April 15th twice. That was weird.
We didn't have an excursion planned in Hilo. This was not a stop on the original itinerary. We were supposed to go to Maui. We've done the big island before so we walked around town and went to the tsunami museum.
The next stop was Honolulu for 2 days. We took an all-day circle island tour. One of the stops was the Dole Plantation - an insane place, like Disney threw up on pineapples. But they had these really cool trees called rainbow eucalyptus. We saw where they filmed Jurassic Park and toured the Valley of the Temples. We realized we could have done it cheaper and with more freedom if we had simply rented a car for the day. Just getting on and off the bus was a 15-minute ordeal each time.
The next day we walked all around Honolulu and Waikiki. I bought a bunch of macadamia nuts and t-shirts. Serge let us have Mexican food for lunch.
Our last stop on the cruise was in Kauai. We walked down to the beach and swam several times. We knew it would only get colder and colder as we made our way back to Vancouver.
It was a full six sea days before getting to Vancouver. The third day turned stormy and boy did the boat rock and roll. They had to close the outside decks as it was too dangerous. In the picture, we are experiencing a particularly big rocking of the boat.
The last sunset of the cruise before arriving in Vancouver. We spent the day taking group pictures with all the friends we made on the boat. A lot of us have connected on Facebook and Whatsapp.
So there you have the map of our trip. We had mugs made with this on it and good shots of us. We also had coasters made with some pictures from the trip. It was actually cheaper to buy a mug or a coaster than to buy the picture.
I took hundreds of pictures. This is just a smattering. What else can I say? A few trippets:
* We ate like kings every day. When you are on the boat for so long, patterns emerge. It turned out my preferred breakfast was french toast and sausage. The perfect sweet and salty.
* Serge sometimes ordered two entrees. When he did, he ate them all.
* The Italian restaurant on board had the most amazingly delicious lamb chops.
* We drank Victoria Bitter beer the whole trip. The bartenders were awesome and all knew our names.
* At about the 30 day point, we started itching for home. We decided to limit any future cruises to less than that.
* We had an inside cabin for the first time. We really don't spend much time in the cabin, so it was okay. Serge insists though that we at least have a window in the future.
* Everyone was wealthier than us. The only way we were able to go on this trip was because when we sold all our real estate, we put money away in retirement accounts which saved us a ton on taxes. So we used that to fund the trip.
* There was no smoking in the casino. That was a first. It was also always really dead in the casino. Maybe those two things are related.
* We were allowed 15 drinks each per day with our package (alcoholic and non-alcoholic). We exceeded the limit 4 times. OMG.
* Possibly related, I gained about a third of a pound per day on the cruise.
I'm sure there is more, but this has gone on long enough. Hopefully, Serge will make a video of the trip and put it up. I bought the one on the ship which you can see here. Until next time peeps, peace out!
