Entries from 'Planning'
Make your own passport or visa photos
Before we left to travel, Her and I used a Photoshop template to create our own photos for our Indian visa applications. CVS wanted to charge us $9.99 each for two passport photos, and although they would have done all the work, I am a real cheapskate and was sure I could find a way…
Free to a good home: 15-year-old halter top and “mature” capris
We’ve spent the last few days frantically packing up the house to make room for Him’s parents, my parents and other family members generously planning to stay in our home to take care of our three cats while we’re gallivanting across the globe. Throughout this process, I’ve noticed Him has taken to holding up random…
Before Babies Bucketlist
- Aperture: f/2.4
- ISO: 125
- Shutter Speed: 1/20 s
- Focal Length: 4.28mm
- Camera: iPhone 4S
My mom’s version of “The Talk” was sharing terrifying anecdotes about the dire consequences of sex: death from AIDS, ostracization from respectable society and – worst of all – pregnancy. Having a baby, she said, will completely scramble your life. It’s the end of all fun as you currently know it. “And if you get…
DIY passport photos
- Aperture: f/2.4
- ISO: 64
- Shutter Speed: 1/20 s
- Focal Length: 4.28mm
- Camera: iPhone 4S
Ironically, one of my most vivid memories from our trip to Spain – the one during which Him ultimately proposed to me – is from our hours-long layover in Newark. I remember absently gazing across the vast international terminal and ultimately settling my eyes on the gate adjacent to ours where cocoa-skinned women in colorful…
Ensuring we’re insured
This week I made another step in the process towards our escape from reality and purchased travel insurance that covers medical emergencies while we’re abroad. When I was a twenty-something rebel, travel medical insurance wouldn’t have really been a major concern. I would have been too focused on how to have the most fun. But…
Blowing the ole tin sandwich
My harmonica arrived today. Proud of his purchase, Him conspicuously placed the instrument on the kitchen counter so I would be sure to see it as soon as I arrived home. Conjuring up every image of Bob Dylan I could, I cupped my hands around the Hohner Special 20 and blew my first reedy shriek….
Notice…given.
- Aperture: f/7.1
- ISO: 80
- Shutter Speed: 1/200 s
- Focal Length: 7.889mm
- Camera: Canon PowerShot A550
At 9AM this morning I approached my manager with what would otherwise be a trivial invitation to chat, “Do you have a minute?” I was holding an innocuous white sheet of paper in my hand. No threat on a normal day. But today was special. The paper I was holding had a simple message typed…
Calming the Voices of Reason
My mom is one of those “60 Minutes” mothers: She tunes into primetime news magazine shows, and I tune her out the next morning when she calls to warn me against plastic water bottles causing brain cancer and Nigerian princes maliciously soliciting bank account numbers. But in 2003, just after U.S. troops invaded Iraq, she…
Third wheel
- Aperture: f/13
- ISO: 400
- Shutter Speed: 1/640 s
- Focal Length: 42mm
- Camera: Canon EOS 7D
When prompted as a young child, my little sister would consider only two options for her future husband: “Daddy or Barkley.” Our father, of course, was spoken for thanks to Mom, and Barkley, well, Barkley was the family dog. Twenty or so years later, Barkley has passed along, and my sister has been forced to…
On full alert for the best-dressed collection of cockroach corpses
During the past few years, I’ve developed a habit of obsessively researching our vacation destinations before we depart. If the world’s best ceviche or even the best-dressed collection of cockroach corpses just so happens to be nearby, I want to know about it and experience it before I leave. My failure to recognize Barcelona as…
