Hello friends, It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on the ‘ole blog in part because 2014 was kind of terrible. At the very least, there was a lot of upheaval in my life last year. Anyway, I got an email from wordpress a week ago inviting me to look back on my year in blogging, and it was pretty pathetic — I posted seven times in 2014. Seven. I’m hopeful An Opportune Moment will rise from the ashes of 2014 (see what I did there? You know, because my apartment burned down… was that joke too dark?) and become a fun outlet for my writing again. To help…
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Let’s Talk About My Apartment Fire
On Saturday, August 9th, my apartment burned down. I’m going to tell you the story, but first I need to work through the semantics of what happened. “Burned down” feels wrong because the building is still standing, if structurally unstable and unlivable. I can drive by my former apartment and see one tattered curtain still hanging in the living room window. “Burned up” is the more accurate phrase when we think about how fire actually spreads, but it also seems to imply whatever has been burned is now gone. “My apartment caught fire and burned for several hours” is a truthful description of the events, but it doesn’t convey the…
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Once in a Lifetime
I’ve been home from Senegal for about a month now, and I still haven’t written anything about that trip. Instead, I’ve been helping my mother move, reading novels, running daily, working part-time at the Museum of Science in Boston, and generally trying to be a good and happy person. My 3-week trip to Senegal feels like it was years ago — but isn’t that just the way of it as we grow older? Time speeds up and events slip into the distant past at a horrifying rate? Anyway, it’s about time I wrote something about Senegal. Let’s start with: It was fantastic! I mean, look at this photo of me…
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This Time Next Week…
I’ll be in Senegal! I’m spending three weeks traveling around this West African country and visiting my friend, Kristen, who is volunteering with the Peace Corps there. Kristen and I have been friends since high school, and I’m excited to have her show me around the country she’s called home for the last year and a half. Neither of us speak Senegal’s official language (French), but she’s fluent in Wolof (the language of Senegal’s largest ethnic group) so I’m going to be relying on her quite a bit during this trip. We’re planning to spend some time in the village where she lives and works — I’ll get to meet…
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Underwhelmed by Indian Food
I love to eat. I have a board on pinterest called “The Opposite of a Picky Eater,” because that’s what I am. I will try everything once (or twice) and there is almost nothing I dislike because most everything is agreeable to me. My categories are more or less: 1. this is delicious or 2. this is not delicious, but I will still eat it. Of course, that’s one of the reasons I don’t blog about food very much: I don’t have the most discerning palate. I still manage to be something of a foodie though, because I’m always on the look-out for food experiences that fall into the delicious category.…
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Travel Linkspiration: January 2014
I haven’t done a link round-up in a few months, so, I’m sure you’ve all missed hearing about my excellent taste in internet. When I wasn’t busy curating this list of links last month, I took two trips around New England. One was an overnight to North Conway, New Hampshire with E for our 5-year anniversary, and the other was to Burlington, Vermont to visit my friend, Katie. But enough about me… Early January in the blogosphere includes a lot of reflections on the previous year and hopes for the new one. Although it’s a blog post genre I enjoy (personal stories! pretty photographs!), I’m only including one of these…
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The Obligatory Plitvice Post: A Photo Essay
I can’t NOT write about Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. If there’s a “beaten path” for backpacking Europe, Plitvice is definitely on it. I know many travel bloggers before me have visited and written about this place, but Plitvice is awesome, so I’m going to go ahead and join their ranks. In particular, I feel the need to share my photos because I visited under different circumstances than many travelers. This is the classic Plitvice photo: Beautiful, no? And you can get this shot just by walking along the trail: Well, I visited on a rainy day in November, and this was my experience with the same view: Not…
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A Year of Self-Actualization
2013 didn’t suck. I mean, for God’s sake, I started the year by living in Hawai’i for two months (and it cost less than $1500 — yeah, read that post if you haven’t already) — obviously, 2013 didn’t suck. I’m writing this post from my apartment outside Boston where I live with a wonderful man who loves me and a grumpy cat who also loves me. We sent out Christmas cards that featured this photo: 2013 was not perfect. There were months when I felt unsure of myself and unhappy with myself, and I spent an inordinate amount of time in my pajamas watching tv online and avoiding people. I…
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It’s beginning to look a lot like…
Well, you know how the song goes. The tree is decorated, there’s snow on the ground, and it’s feeling pretty festive at The Beach House lately. This morning I even drank a cup of Winter Delight — the loose leaf black tea that Katie and I bought in Sarajevo last Fall. In order to best preserve their flavor, loose leaf teas should be stored at room temperature in an airtight container and kept away from light, heat, and moisture. I’m not as diligent about this as I ought to be, but I do own a number of tea tins, which are pretty as well as functional. I bought one decorated…
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Namaste, Delhi
(This post picks up where the previous one left off.) After we’d walked through and around and past the beggars, my tour group arrived at the Lotus Temple, which is a Bahá’í House of Worship. It’s open to people of any and all faiths and is meant to be a place for praising God without denominational restrictions. While the outside of the Lotus Temple is a beautiful work of architecture, the inside is almost plain — cavernous and filled with wooden pews, but simple. I realize the irony of pushing past people in need in order to visit a place of spirituality, but at the time, I just sat down,…
