Tag Archives: Travel

A New Year’s Resolution – quite literally

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I was very excited for New Year’s eve this year. Last year, we spent it with Jock’s brother and girlfriend and had an amazing time. See examples below:

So, this year was MY sister’s turn! For Amanda, it had been her first time out on New Year’s for nearly 5 years – being a single mom, and then pregnant last year will do that to you. We also had a fabulous time. See examples below:

During all of this merriment, however, my purse was stolen. Those f&*%ing bastards!!!

Despite the club being a private club where Guillermo (my sister’s fiancé) knew 60% of the people inside, and despite the fact that we had a private table, someone yanked my purse from underneath my coat, and ran off with it. It gets worse – not only was my wallet, new Windows Phone and makeup in there, but Jock’s $200 Hugo Boss wallet with all of his cash and credit cards was in there as well. He never gives me his wallet to put in my purse when we go out out – so this stank even more.

We searched the club up and down for about an hour before we gave up, and decided it was a lost cause. I tried to rationalize – perhaps someone took the purse by accident, thinking it was their own. There was only one problem with that thought – my purse was BRIGHT orange. Jock’s brother had bought it for me for Christmas from Top Shop in London, and I highly doubt there was another purse in that club even remotely similar to it.

So, at 2AM, we went home, and suffice it to say – all that fun we had earlier in the night was sucked out by the fact that neither Jock nor I had a wallet, any money or any credit cards. You start thinking about the little things that you lost in that wallet when you’ve been violated like that – such as the lucky $2 bill that my best friend Courtney gave to Jock, or my USC student ID that never expires, and allows me to get discounts all over Europe, or the one pound coin that we found in our backyard in Bristol that dates back to 1882. The credit cards and ID’s can be replaced, but that kind of stuff can’t.

We called the cops, and I met with them the next day in Baltimore City. At first, they acted as if I were the suspect – asking me questions like, “Well, why didn’t you call us as soon as it happened?” Quenching the urge to cry and yell, “I didn’t steal my own purse, damn it!!”, I simply told them that Guillermo knew the owners of the club, and we decided to wait until the next day to see if it turned up because we didn’t want to waste the police officer’s time.

They liked that answer. We filed the report, they left for ten minutes to “search” for my purse, and came back with no answer.

THANK GOD Jock and I had just been abroad and had our passports in our suitcases, or else there is no way we would have been able to get on that plane the next day back to Chicago. And, as much fun as we’ve had over the last months, we were really ready to get back.

We got back home to Chicago, slightly depressed and really annoyed at what happened. I kept going over and over in my mind how it could have happened – there was always someone by the table, and my sister’s purse was right next to mine, but they didn’t take hers. Then, I decided I would be grateful for what I did still have, and tried to make myself feel better by realizing that it was just a material object.

I kept checking our credit cards, and nothing had been charged. Jock urged me to cancel the cards, but I just had a feeling something might happen. I decided to just carefully monitor them.

Two days later, at 10:15am, I see a call coming in from a number I don’t recognize in Baltimore. My stomach lurches, and I have this feeling…..

MY FEELING IS RIGHT!!! A kind woman and manager of the Professional Arts Building three blocks away from the club (named Charmaine) has found my purse. I should say that the janitor found my purse in the trash chute, and handed it in to her. My business cards were in the purse, and she called me.

I couldn’t believe it!!! She said everything seemed to be in tact, and my ID and credit cards were all in there, as well as Jock’s credit cards. There was even cash in an envelope that my Grandmother had given to Jock as a Christmas present. When we received it two days later (thanks to my incredible sister and mom for picking it up), we saw that everything had been shuffled around, and actually, there was no cash nor any sign of  Windows Phone.

So, clearly, someone had stolen the purse after all. I just can’t believe the janitor found it in the trash! The likelihood of it being buried under something, and never being found is quite high. I feel so lucky. You can laugh all you want, but I truly believe I have a guardian angel watching over me.

My thoughts before the purse being sent back: 2012 is going to be a really shit year.

My thoughts after receiving purse in the mail: 2012 is going to be the best freaking year of all time – I’ll get a book deal, a movie deal, and SocialKaty will become the best social media marketing company in the country! I’ll get engaged, grow my hair really long, and get in kick-ass shape. Hell yeah – bring on 2012!!!

Clearly, I was very excited. I know it seems crazy, but this has made me truly remember how good people can be (and how bad), but mostly how good they are. What a whirlwind of a week.

What are your goals for 2012? And do you have any crazy stories from the holidays??

Back in England

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Did I mention I was back in England?

I am! It’s our good friends, Gemma and Liam’s, wedding in a small town at the very West of Wales called Pembrokeshire. We’re stopping off in Portsmouth back at Jock’s parents house before picking up Tommo and Greg in Bristol, and then heading off to the wedding.

I don’t remember everything being so small. I mean, I do, but I think I thought I had imagined it. But no, the houses and cars and streets and buildings all remain very small, and dare I say it? Quaint…

The past months have been a learning time for me – learning to readjust to working life, learning how to live in the midwest, and almost re-learning a bit of my independence. When we lived in England, I was very reliant on Jock for most everything – directions, money, car, friends, social life and support.

Now that we’re back in the states, a lot of that has changed. We’re both working, I am making my own friends, as is he, and we don’t have a car, so directions aren’t needed. It feels good to reclaim that, and now that I’m back in England, I feel like I’m looking at it all with fresh eyes – the past, England, his family and what it was like to live here. I could certainly live here again…

I don’t often admit this, but I think there was a bit of shame in me living off someone almost completely. Granted, I was writing my novel, and tending to my running, etc…but in the back of your mind, you can’t help but feel a bit useless for not bringing in money or contributing in that way. Jock, at this point, would shrug and say ‘it was what it was,’ and we had to make ends meet, and I would have done the same, etc. All very true, but as much as you tell yourself that, it still feels (for lack of a better word) icky.

I look forward to seeing all of our old friends and reconnecting.

I can’t say what it is yet, but there are more changes to come in the next year. Everything feels so exciting.

I was watching the movie, “The Adjustment Bureau” on the plane ride over here (while the woman next to me rested her baby on my lap and took a nap, and her other son screamed in my other ear…and did I mention the 50 Americans all wearing purple shirts that literally had a big crown on it with the words “What Makes a Man a King?” – embarrassing) -

ANYwho…the movie, “The Adjustment Bureau,” is mostly about these “angels” or “men in suits” who tinker with a human’s free will. They adjust events so that everything goes “according to plan.” I’ve often felt this throughout my life, why I dropped my bottle of water on the way to the plane, or bigger events – like walking down a back alley in Amsterdam only to run into old friends from LA, or  in September walking into LaGuardia just at the moment that my 2005 roommate from Paris was flying out – but I really do feel like there are angels who have my back, and steering me down the right course.

But more on that later…(and why my plans are coming together)

Now, it’s time for some tea.

P.S. I got into the country safely, obviously. I was questioned by the guard, but he said I would probably have to be detained each time because of the Visa that got denied a few years back. Such silly legal advice we got. But he was very nice, and said that the more often I come into the country, the better it will be.

New Orleans: A psychic, a drummer and a bachelorette party

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The humidity swept me up in its dewy splendor; the cobble stones threw me off balance just enough to let me surrender to it’s Cajun ways; the Franco-bluesy music beguiled me to put my red lips on.

New Orleans was everything I thought it was going to be.

Beyond the drunken frat boys and middle American families were the deeply romantic denizens stubbornly residing in NOLA to live life as they want to live it.

I can’t pretend to understand what everyday life is like there, but I got hints from the waiter who recommended an oyster restaurant that had gone out of business, from the Captain of our swamp tour whose accent I mistook for a Bostonian only because I had never heard a true Cajun accent before, and from the midget body builder cab driver who proudly showed me his Call sheet from the New Orleans-based film “The Courier” where he had a couple of lines.

The heart of New Orleans poured out from our last night in the Apple Barrel Bar on Frenchmen Street. I had heard drumming before but this knocked me off my heels.

Granted, the group of 10 girls were now down to 7, and soon to be down to 4 – I didn’t stay nearly as long as I would have liked.

But when you see a man who has soaked through his traditional African Dashiki and the white girl banging along right in line – you know you are in a special place. When a white girl can play drums with the best of the black men – they are onto something.

It moved me like nowhere else we had been that weekend. Well, maybe there was one more thing…

The psychic in the square had something to offer as well. We all thought it would be fun to meet with a psychic since New Orleans is kind of known for them…

This is what she told me:

Three gifts I’ve received from a dead relative, the young dark-haired psychic told me. These three gifts all allowed me to see what was happening in my life – 1. vivid dreams told me the future, 2. goose bumps alerted me when something was going right or wrong and 3. deja vu to keep me on track.

She’s right – I get all three often, and I have a feeling it was from my Tia Juanita who died when I was 8. (Believe what you will – I do).

The mystical kicker was when she said I would be pregnant by the end of the year. I laughed and tossed my short blonde hair, (that’s hard to do) and told her “I have an IUD, that’s not possible.”

She stared me down, squinted her eyes and said, “Birth control doesn’t work in your family.”

Taken aback and kicked in the pit of my future baby’s resting place, I gulped. In fact, both my sister and my mother have gotten pregnant while on birth control. How did she know that?? And why am I getting goose pimples now?

Premonitions aside, the rest of the weekend wasn’t nearly so deep. Hurricanes (the drink, not the weather pattern), swamp tours, scavenger hunts and bachelorette parties will do that to you.

This was truly the best Bachelorette party I had ever attended. I’d like to say it was just the place, but it wasn’t. It was also the company.

I hadn’t laughed like that in ages. Rachel has some incredible girlfriends, and I am so proud to be one of her bridesmaids.

Bring on Austin, Texas!!

Below is a video of the last day I was there. I randomly walked down the street, and this was happening.

Vive New Orleans! (Click here if you don’t see the video below).

Reality Strikes, Now What?

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We’re back in Baltimore, Maryland.

Our month long escapade across the roads of America is over. My month long escape from monetary, artistic and logical goals has quickly caught up to me. And here we are.

Here we are in the spare bedroom in the house of my wonderful sister, her boyfriend and my nephew on their blow-up bed. Their very comfortable and hospitable blow-up bed, I hasten to add – but it is nevertheless their blow up bed.

As many travelers know, the traveling is wonderful (if not a bit tiring), the seeing beautiful places is the best and the adventures are what you write home about and never forget – but it’s the getting home afterward that is the killer, and is the part that you forget about. The part that when you’re planning all the incredible things to do in the world that you don’t want to even worry about.

Because what is the point? Of worrying. It will all work out. It always does. (Read this blog post by Alisha if you want to hear her take on it – Bird by Bird. Have I already linked to that in a previous post? My mind is frazzled.)

And here we are back at The starting over. From square one. With three suitcases holding all of our possessions in the world, and our bank account aching for us to make it fatter.

So… I need to find a job.

After nearly two years of working on my own terms, under my own auspices (I just had to look up that word to make sure I was using it correctly – see what a month of driving around America does to the mind!) and making my own hours, it is time to find something to bring in the cash.

Don’t get me wrong, I will still be writing, selling my book and eventually finding a job that I love to do….but in the meantime, hard and cold, and even a little bit pretty, cash is what I need. And I’m not afraid to get my hands grimy.

This lady who lunches is not afraid to hang up her dainty lunching hat and pull up her dirty knickers to get this couple a place to live. (Although before I start getting charitable contributions or letters of sympathy, I want to clarify that we are in no way poor or starving or lacking in funds – we will be if I don’t get a job soon, but we have enough for the general down payments, moving expenditures, food, etc. Don’t want anyone to worry for no reason ;)

Tomorrow I will outline my plan and have something more inspiring to say – or contemplative – or philosophical – or observant….

In the meantime, time to catch up on that much needed sleep. 28 years old catches up to a gal!

Whitewater Rafting with the Grandparents

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This is a shorter post that will precede a longer post. There’s just too much to talk about – Rib Country restaurant with BBQ pulled pork, ribs, roast beef, BBQ chicken and the two ten year old boys who were so fat they needed their own table, Cora and Grampy’s log house in the mountains, Contra dancing at the Folk School (yes, Jock participated!), driving to Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina in a matter of twenty minutes.

But the pressing story is the one where my grandparents took us on a non-guided white water rafting trip with “8 Miles of Fun on the Nantahala River” with the Rolling Thunder River Company Since 1977! with Grade III rapids.

When the guides did a roll call before the rafts took off, I noticed that we were the only ones without a guide – out of the 85 people there. I looked around at our group – Grampy (78), Cora (a few years younger than Grampy) – not that age really has anything to do with this, but bones do become slightly more fragile at a certain point (apparently, not where Cora’s concerned though)- Jock (had done one guided tour in Africa on Grade VII rapids where he got thrown out of his raft 9 out of the 15 rapids they went through, trudging water) and me (had one experience in Aspen, CO – again, with a guide). Let’s put it this way – none of us were qualified to steer the raft.

However, we were assured that we’d be fine and once we got our brief lesson and decided that Jock would be our captain, we began to feel more confident. Within the first five minutes, Cora and my head nearly got knocked off by a large branch jutting out into the river, but besides that and getting stuck on a rock for a few minutes, we sailed clear for a good two hours, through many rapids and passing many other boats. Jock proved to be a stable and commanding leader and although there were times when his British quietness rang deaf on older ears, the other raft guides complimented our seemingly learned expertise.

Then, the group leaders pulled every raft to the side of the bank. It was the last five minutes of the trip. This was the big one, the big rapid, kahuna, so we were instructed exactly how to go forward – keep raft facing straight ahead, secure feet under seats in front and if we happen to fall out in the 48 degree F water, look immediately for a rope and keep your nose and toes above water.

Surely we wouldn’t need that!

We follow closely behind the raft that we’ve been following the entire trip before a blue boat sneaks in front of us. They aren’t with our company and I quickly point out that they don’t have a guide on their boat either. I instruct our leader – whether he wanted it or not – to watch out for that boat, they seemed to be all over the show, and the guy steering in the back doesn’t have the patented steering motion down at all.

 The first big bump approaches and we pass over it with flying colors, except Jock nearly gets thrown overboard (but I didn’t feel a thing) - this is NOTHING!

 The second part comes up, we watch as three rafts go over roughly, but intact. Then, the fourth one – the blue one – starts to go over. And they STOP. They don’t go over the rapids, but get stuck on one of the rocks directly over where we’re headed. I look back at Jock, he shrugs his shoulders indicating there’s no where for us to go. I look forward and that’s the last thing I remember seeing.

The boat tips, I get flung off and submerge headfirst into the freezing water. The only thought of mine that I remember is: Of course. Of course I am the one who gets flung out of the boat. Here we go. 

The cold knocks the wind out of me, my head bumps the boat and it seems like hours before I come up for air. The water is swirling and pushing me fastly forward. I can’t regain my composure. Finally, I hear “ROPE! ROPE!! GET HER THE ROPE!!” I fling my arms around, forgetting about the toes up part of it and splash around like butter on a frying pan until I feel a rope, then the rope goes taut, and I hear “GET OFF THE ROPE!! YOU’RE IN A BOAT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET THE F*&% OFF THE ROPE!!!”

Apparently, the blue boat that we were able to push off the rock, grabbed the rope intended for me…or CORA. I suddenly see Jock and Grampy pass by me in the boat and no sign of Cora. I feel like crying. I’m fine being thrown out, but CORA? Finally, I grab a rope intended for me, get pulled to the shore. One of the guides says to me in her southern drawl, “M’aam, please move to the side of the shore.” But I can’t move. I am frozen and in shock. “M’aam, it doesn’t do you any good standing there, please move on over to the side.” My legs aren’t moving, and I notice Cora is still floating down the river – she remembered her nose and toes!

When she finally got pulled out and we are reunited, all we can do is look at each other soaked from head to toe and laugh. We laugh and laugh and laugh. We might shake a little still, but we laugh. Poor Grampy and Jock – they lose their birds to the white waters and here we are just peeling over in laughter. Cora is definitely a tough lady!

Here are some pictures to better describe or click here for a slide show