Grand Canyon

Make hay while the sun shines

~ MaryG ~ 11 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Are you seeking security or adventure?
View all responses

Oh my god…why do I keep answering these silly prompts? I can’t help myself. It’s like WordPress actually wants to get to know me or something, lol. To my WP/blogging friends who keep reading my answers, THANK YOU! I’m sure you have better things to do.

If you haven’t deduced this by now, I’m a privileged, white, married, American woman, living in a safe and secure home in Greater Boston. I like marijuana. We have a landline and an electric car. We get nearly all of the streaming channels. We subscribe to the NYT, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and the Atlantic. We worked hard for what we have, but we were also raised with many advantages, including excellent public schools.

Knock on wood, my family and I are all safe and well at the moment. At this point, my biggest medical problem is a persistent ringing (tinnitus) in my right ear. I know this will not always be the case. Disease comes for all of us – eventually.

All this to say, I want to make hay while the sun shines, and seek “adventure” in my sixties. And by adventure, I mean travel. In the past two years, I took a helipcopter tour over the Grand Canyon and a hot air balloon in upstate New York. We also had dinner in the Eiffel Tower! I want to do more stuff like that–see new places and have new experiences.

Here we are in front of our chopper in Arizona.
A snippet from our flight over the Grand Canyon. It was amazing!

Related:

Hot air balloon flight

Bucket List trip: Grand Canyon

Experiences over stuff

Art History 102

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

What’s your definition of romantic?

This prompt is giving me flashbacks to my college art history survey: the darkened auditorium, the slides of painting, sculpture, and architecture from the Renaissance to the 20th century, the occasional nap. I got a B in that class. Not bad.

The Romantic Period in art (late 18th century to mid 19th century) was characterized by “a focus on emotion, individualism, and the sublime. Artists of this period often emphasized intense feelings, dramatic compositions, and the beauty and power of nature.”

The first example of Romanticism in Wikipedia: “Wanderer above the Sea Fog” by Caspar David Friedrich, 1818

Based on that definition, I’m going to have to say that the Grand Canyon is the most Romantic place I’ve ever been.

My best Romantic photo from the Grand Canyon. It needs a title.
Here’s another one. Note the bird.

Pretty darn sublime, right?

Bucket List trip: Grand Canyon

~ MaryG ~ 15 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Who do you spend the most time with?
View all responses

A year ago this week, we were in Grand Canyon National Park.

Selfies are hard. This is one of our better ones.
We stayed right in Grand Canyon Village. This was taken just outside our hotel—Thunderbird Lodge.
Shoshone Point—a wild and gorgeous spot in Grand Canyon National Park
Shoshone Point
We even took a helicopter tour—scary at first, but spectacular and worth the price.

This trip was motivated by the death of my close friend Carla who loved the Grand Canyon and whose ashes are spread there. (Carla is the person who set me up with my husband more than 33 years ago.) I would consider it my first “bucket list” trip of retirement, even though I didn’t retire until six months later.

I’m lucky to have a kind and hardworking husband who is willing to travel with me (within reason). He doesn’t love it like I do, but he usually ends up liking the trip a lot more than he thought he would.

Thirty-one years of marriage—that’s a whole lot of time together!

The Grand Canyon lives up to the hype. Go, if you can.

Related posts:

Experiences over stuff

Hot air balloon flight

Decision made

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments

OK guys, a series of events at work this week has led me to a realization.

The unhinged woman I’ve had to report to since the merger six years ago (let’s call her Suzanne) scolded me like a child in front of a colleague for doing something she specifically asked me to do two weeks ago. Actually, she scolded me for interrupting her while she was berating me for doing something she specifically asked me to do two weeks ago. “I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN OVER IN A MEETING. WE WILL TALK ABOUT THIS ON THURSDAY.”

Following the meeting in which Suzanne wigged, the other colleague (let’s call her Kathy) and I requested a meeting with Suzanne’s boss (let’s call her Laura). Laura is new.

Kathy and I gave Laura the full rundown on Suzanne. Unhinged, irrational, disorganized. Other departments have started to avoid us because of her. Laura listened. I don’t think she was totally surprised, but I also don’t think she understood the extent of Suzanne’s shortcomings. She said she would “give it a think.” The organization is a bit of a mess right now, so I’m not sure if Laura will know what to do with this information, but she seems like she’ll try to do something.

But here’s the realization. I’m done reporting to Suzanne. For me, her latest outburst was the last straw, not the first offense. No matter what course of action upper management proposes, I’m not interested in any type of apology, or meeting of the minds, or negotiated peace. I’ve already been through that with her. I’m too old for this shit. She’s not good for my mental health.

I do love the organization and the job. I’ve been with them 18 years in all – consultant, part-time and now full-time. I’m going to tell Laura I’d love to stay, if I can report to someone else. If Laura can’t make that happen, I’m going to wrap-up my time there. I’m done with Suzanne as a supervisor. I don’t want the job badly enough to deal with her any longer.

We’ll see what happens next week. I think there’s a decent chance they’ll comply with my wishes, but who knows? They’re all new.

Early retirement here I come?

View from in front of our hotel in Grand Canyon Village, June 2023