One Long Shortcut

Chapter 141: Bavarian Dreams, Buffalo Mac & Cheese Nightmares My first solo group tour. Big moment. Also slightly concerning... me, voluntarily getting into a van with strangers? Growth. I briefly considered renting a car, then remembered two things: I don’t trust myself driving in a new city, and valet parking was $50 a night. Decision made. Tour van it is. There were seven of us plus Slava, our guide. Sitting in a van that wasn’t Don Don Van felt like cheating at first, but within five minutes I was fully converted... staring out the window, not worrying about traffic, living my best passenger princess life. As we drove into the Cascades, it was all rivers, pine trees, and aggressively beautiful scenery. The sun was blazing, which was great, but also slightly disappointing. I had mentally prepared for moody, mysterious Sasquatch vibes. Instead, I got “perfect picnic weather.” We stopped at Mount Index for coffee and photos. Stunning. Also… nothing to do besides take photos and l...

  Chapter 138: The Waiting Game (and the Cooler That Time Forgot) The days before Seattle felt like being stuck in airport mode… without actually being at the airport yet. Not quite living, not quite leaving... just hovering. The big event? The legendary Truma cooler finally showed up. Nine months late. A whole pregnancy later. At this point, I felt like I should name it. This thing had been “shipped” last June, disappeared into the void, and somehow aged out of the UPS tracking system. I had fully accepted that Winnebago just ghosted me, but after some detective work involving maternity leave, email ping-pong, and a guy named Robert playing FBI, it reappeared. Miraculously. Of course, it arrived in winter. A cooler. In winter. Perfect timing. Then came the iPostal1 drama... threatening emails, confusing deadlines, and a surprise $137 charge that felt like a mugging in broad daylight. Thankfully Ted from Bella Vista Pack Ship stepped in like a customer service warrior and got ...

  Chapter 135: Doormen and Tacos The reunion tour continued at full speed. I met James for lunch in Battery Park City at one of our old haunts. He thoughtfully booked us a table by the water. When we arrived we discovered the river view had been replaced by… construction fencing. So instead of watching boats on the Hudson, we watched men in hard hats and a forklift. Still, lunch was great. Gossip flowed freely, as it always does when two former coworkers meet without a conference call looming over them. Afterward I walked across the Financial District to meet Janice for coffee. She had picked a café famous for Malaysian desserts, but the pandan cakes were already sold out. We settled for pandan lattes instead, which felt like the dessert version of compromise. Janice gave me a fancy chocolate shaped like a tiny book. It looked so beautiful I felt morally conflicted about eating it. She joked that she missed our old one-on-one meetings from work.   “I miss them too,...