However. I do miss the writing practice, only I figured I could use a little more help in terms of structure, focus and deadlines. So to tickle my own fancy, I’ve started a new blog here. I’m hoping I’ll use it to chronicle changes weekly leading up to — and perhaps beyond — my 40th birthday in November of this year. I have no idea if this little experiment will pan out or not, but I figured it’s worth a shot. I hope you’ll find it somewhat entertaining. And if you don’t, I hope you’ll let me know. No, really.

Also, on an administrative note, I’m trying to figure out a way to copy my commenter user registrations over to the new blog, but so far no success. If you’re driven to comment, you may need to re-register. Thanks!

No, that’s precisely my point.

I started this blog four years ago when Chris and I first came to Ann Arbor. I’ve chronicled friends, family, travels, projects, photos and what seems like countless other things one encounters when discovering a new place and building a new life.

But lately? I just haven’t been feeling it. Writing here looms over me like an albatross. I feel all this pressure to come up with interesting stuff and it’s not forthcoming. Maybe it’s because I’m already suffering writer’s block while trying to take a stab at the second draft of this novel-wannabe I’m crafting. Maybe I don’t feel like the little writing energy I have is best spent here. Maybe I’ve just run out of things to say.

I believe a blog should be a couple of things: purposeful and regularly updated. I’m 0 for 2 on that count right now. I don’t think it should feel like a chore and it does. So I’m going to take a break for the next couple of months and reassess in January. I’m not sure how many of you are still out there reading but perhaps if you think of it, you’ll check back here then to see if I’ve reappeared. In the meantime, thanks to the friends and family who have “stopped by” here from time to time the past few years to see what’s up.

One of the projects I’m going to undertake in the next couple of months is — finally! — the rebuilding of the writing samples portion of my site. So look for that coming soon, too!

Oh, Margaret. Dear Margaret. How I’m thinking of you and the horrible poisons they’re pushing through your veins in order to stem an even bigger, horribler affliction. How little you ask for when you hint, very heavily, in your comments that only my blog postings can keep you in good health. What power I have. How important I am.

Thus, for you, this rambling posting, even when there isn’t much to tell. Except this: it’s fall. It’s FALL! My very favorite season. And not the fall it has been, with grey skies and rain for days and weeks and weeks. No, this has been the sunny fall I love, the kind where you slush around in piles of leaves on Sunday walks, everything tinged yellow and orange and red.

The kind where Orangey and I head out for what we know will be one of our last rides of the season. But we try not to talk about it, Orangey and I, pretending instead that there are endless days like this ahead of us. That we will always be able to comment at the spooky pumpkin on this doorstep or the peach-colored Maple leaves on that street. Sure, you could call it denial but Orangey and I, we’re calling it “living in the moment.”

Sometimes on walks or ride, there are strange things to see. A lonely, beat up recliner at a street corner, in full chillaxin’ position, like maybe someone’s invisible Grandpa’s trying to get some shut eye. Or a poster of beer bottles in a scratched acrylic frame with a sign saying “Free.” (And still, no takers? NO TAKERS?) Or this, a box of books, textbooks and novels in Spanish, curious enough to make me think that this might be here for a reason, just for me to find, so that I will finally, finally have the incentive to improve my Spanish.

And then I decided: nah.

Oh! What about this table? This crazy wooden table that sits at the front edge of someone’s yard, under a tree, with this little locked box on top and nearly DRIVES ME TO DISTRACTION wondering what on earth is in there…

Then, coming home, in my very own yard, this beautiful leaf. Which I felt a little sorry for, what with it lying there all by itself, separated from all the other leaves. Only, really, you can only feel so sorry for something so good looking. Just ask Jan Brady.

So how about that? In a week when there hasn’t been too terribly much else to tell, I hope that counts for something, Margaret. Just until I can think up something else.

A month or so ago, I breezed through Mary Roach’s “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.” I’d had it in the back of my mind to check it out for a while now. Yes, it’s exactly as it sounds — an exploration of what happens to bodies after we die. A graphic, often-gruesome explanation, ranging from the grave-diggers of centuries ago, to the human body parts used in auto safety testing to proposed new methods of disposing of human bodies.

I confess to having a gruesome streak in me. I watch more CSI and forensic television programs than is probably considered healthy. I once had a brief period where I devoured everything I could on serial killers and mass murders and lay awake at night absolutely terrified that Richard Ramirez, the freaky-looking satanic serial killer known as the Night Stalker, was coming to get me.

So maybe I’m the ideal reader for this book, although I think it also appeals to anyone who has a curiosity about how we, as a culture, value our vessels after life passes away. The real draw here is Roach’s writing. It takes a skilled scribe to make a subject like this not only riveting, but also laugh-out-loud funny at times.  Her own squeamishness and reluctance sort of gives us permission to tag along for the ride and be thoroughly entertained as we go.

It’s definitely food for thought and, at times, food for worms. (Oh, yes, I did!)

I know. It’s a weird glitch I have. I’ll talk to my therapist about it. Maybe.

Anyhoo, you can see where this is headed, right? I read the book and I did really enjoy it. I have to sheepishly confess that I’d never read any of O’Nan’s previous books. In fact, I’d never even heard of him, but he has a number of titles to his name and, quite frankly, as someone struggling to finish one book, I think anyone who has finished more than one should somehow automatically become a household name.

“Songs for the Missing” is the story of a family coping in the aftermath of the disappearance of their eldest daughter Kim, a high-school senior. It’s not quite “Lovely Bones” territory, as there’s no narration from beyond the grave, but there’s a spareness, a sadness that reminded me of Alice Sebold’s work. I’m not sure it’s a book that will change your life, but there’s a compelling, harrowing sense to the prose that I found really seductive.

Make no mistake: this isn’t a detective tale or your typical mystery. It’s more of a character study of the people left behind — Kim’s parents, her sister, her friends — and the ways they cope with her disappearance. I read some reviewers’ complaints that not enough happens, and while that may be true for some readers, it was enough for me to walk their path for a while. Just don’t tell Chris I liked it.

Her short story “How to Become A Writer” has been anthologized a gabazillion times and is one of the best-received examples of second-person prose. Its first line has stayed with me for more than 20 years and pops into my head whenever I find myself at my desk trying desperately to squeeze blood from the proverbial literary stone: “First, try to be something, anything else. ” It makes me smile every time. It makes me do what Lorrie Moore always does. It makes me think, “This chick gets it.”

But I digress. We were talking about “A Gate at the Stairs,” right? It’s lovely. So lovely. I may be in lovely with it. It’s Lorrie Moore, only better than ever. The same wit and sense of irony. The same ability to observe the human condition in the small ways most likely to bring you to your knees.

Yet there’s also an even greater sophistication, a greater skill to the way the words build sentences, and sentences make paragraphs and all of it just winds together in a way that makes you do crazy things. Like remember this is how you want to write when you grow up. It’s enough to send a person back to her own manuscript after two week’s absence with a greater sense of clarity about what it is she wants to accomplish, who her main character is and what needs to matter most.

The story? Oh, that. Yes. It’s about Tassie, a Midwestern college student who goes to work as a caregiver for a disaffected couple who are in the process of adopting a mixed-race child. The backdrop is America post-9/11, as the country prepares itself for war in the Middle East and Tassie’s own aimless younger brother considers enlisting in the military. It’s a year of strange encounters, unlikely bonds and strange secrets that threaten to unravel everything.

Did I mention I liked it? ‘Cause I did. Lorrie Moore, please do not take 15 years before your next novel. I know you have groceries to get and probably other things to do, but if it speeds up the process, I will help you. On the other hand, if this is what time produces, I’ll wait.

I have a history with Edelman, which is not nearly as impressive and/or insidious as it sounds. I read her New York Times best-seller “Motherless Daughters” right after my mother died in 2003. The following year, when I decided to take a class at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop Summer Writing Festival, it seemed serendipitous that Edelman was teaching a memoir workshop. Then I discovered that she had also roommates in college with a friend of ours and it all seemed like it was meant to be.

A couple of years ago, I took a fiction course in Iowa while another friend took a class with Edelman where she discussed the project she was working on then: a memoir about taking her three-year-old daughter to Belize to be healed by a shaman. In-ter-esting, I thought. And when I saw it was being published last month, I jumped right on it.

In 2000, Edelman’s daughter developed a new imaginary friend, whose emergence touched off some behavior in Maya that Edelman found increasingly disturbing. With a husband working long, hard hours and disengaged from the day-to-day parenting, Edelman’s sense of isolation and concern grew. When the family decided a vacation was just the thing they needed — and Belize the perfect destination — they also decide to take Maya to see a shaman to “heal” her.

I realize that on the surface this sounds like crazy talk. Children have imaginary friends all the time and it doesn’t mean that they’re possessed by evil spirits. But that’s precisely what makes this book interesting. Edelman is fiercely honest about her own skepticism and how it interplays with her maternal instincts that something is very wrong with her child — and the willingness to be open to anything, things she never would have thought possible, to make Maya okay.

Set against the magical, mysterious backdrop of Belize and its ancient Mayan culture, a disconnected family finds ways to heal. Edelman gamely and gracefully shares her own reluctance to try on ideas about faith and grace that she finds both confusing and embarrassing. There’s something really endearing about Edelman’s willingness to talk about something she’s perfectly aware many people will find nutty. And I think that’s ultimately what makes the book such a good read.

And that’s you all up to date on my reading. Luck you!

The first piece of news is that Daisy is no more. No, don’t panic! Not the bike. Just the name. I don’t know how it happened. Maybe it’ll still say Daisy on her birth certificate, but Chris kept referring to her as “Orangey” and another friend or two asked about “Orangey” and I realized that somehow it just seemed more…fitting. Maybe because she’s all orange and whatnot. I’m very scientific like that.

The second piece of news is that I have become an almost daily bike rider, although I am writing this after three whole days of non-riding. (Two I blame on a family visit and one on today’s lousy rain.) The third piece of information I wish to impart — and I refer to this not as “news” because it most certainly won’t surprise anyone — I’m still not particularly good at it.

The fibromyalgia continues to be a humbling factor in it all. I find my leg strength wildly inconsistent, so one day I feel like I could go for miles (until my ass cries otherwise) and other days a perfunctory ride around the neighborhood is the very best I can do and I have to ease up even small inclines at the lowest of gears.

That said, progress is still being made. While I can’t always feel it during a bike ride, I can feel it at other times — my knee no longer hurts nearly as much when I’m hoisting myself out of the bath tub or rising off the couch after a dormant spell. I can feel it at yoga, when my legs can hold the lunges just a little bit longer.

How I feel it most, though, isn’t physical. At the risk of sounding pretty darn cheesy, it’s in how it feels just to be that sort of free, unencumbered, moving through space and still feeling so much a part of your surroundings. Maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but I predict this whole “bicycle” concept could really catch on. Before you know it, kids’ll be asking for them for Christmas. You mark my words. Buy your stock now!

I’ve had a couple of emails from other owners of Electra Townies who came across my blog entries after Googling their brand, so to them I share just a few additional thoughts. I’m still looking for some info about a bike rack that’ll fit the Townie. I haven’t done much because I’m lazy and highly unfocused but from what I understand, the longer length of the Townie’s body and the forward-placement of the wheel means the frame doesn’t fit easily into many models. If anyone out there has specific makes or models that’ll work, please let me know!

Also, while the jury’s still out on whether it’s strictly a matter of user error, I’m beginning to see why some people online have complained that the forward pedal placement means the Townie’s not great on hills. You can’t stand and pedal, which is probably just as well for me right now as I’d likely just fall over. So I’m hoping if I continue to gain strength hills will at least get a little easier. Especially since you can’t really go anywhere from my house without hitting one.

Lastly, my butt hurts. Apparently, the Townie’s upright seating technology is great for posture, easing the neck, back and shoulder strain that can come from traditional hunched-over cycling form. However, the flip side is that the bulk of your weight is distributed squarely on the seat, not mitigated by balancing some front-body weight on the handlebars. I’m not saying this is a deal-breaker by any means, but I’d be interested at some point down the line to know if a seat with shocks helps at all or if it would just be more fancy window-dressing. Which I am also not opposed to by any means.

So while it rained all day long today, I’m hoping tomorrow’s forecast for only intermittent showers means I can at least find a small window just to get back on and, as some of us in the business say, claim my seat. The weather’s turning chillier here, fall rolling in, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I love the crisp breeze on me as I whiz down the streets, tires crunching through the first fallen leaves. I may only have a couple of months left on Orangey before the cold really takes hold, but I am on it, baby. I’m on it!

Due to the aforementioned weather issues, I’ve only had a few days riding since I last posted and, to be honest, not much riding in those days, distance- or time-wise. I’d blame it all on my hectic social schedule, but I think we all know that’s not the case. Mostly, I just tooled around the neighborhood, and I seem to be mastering one of what I presume to be the key elements of bicycling — keeping my balance. It seems to me that not falling off is probably a pretty important skill to have and the more I ride, even little jaunts around the ‘hood, the less likely it seems that I will lose control of my bike and veer into a parked car. Or a moving car. Or a small child. This is all good progress.

I’m still a little skittish around cars because, it seems to me that all the belly-aching my bikier friends have been doing for years about drivers being boorish and discourteous to riders might actually be true. (If I’d known I’d wind up with a bike one day, I might have listened with greater compassion and an ear towards a solution. Probably not, but maybe.) And I still haven’t mastered what feels to me like a Cirque du Soleil-level trick of steering with one paw on the handles so that I can signal my turning intentions to drivers. Thus, I’ve been known to pass up a turn or two just to keep both hands in play. I’m discovering that a person could get lost this way.

Yesterday, I waited for the rain to stop then caught what I thought was a primo late-afternoon chance to zip around a bit. I will say this: my legs are getting stronger. The hills aren’t quite so torturous. And, let’s face it, by hills I mean slight inclines. We all know where this story’s heading. So when the rain returned, rather suddenly, I learned first hand that one gets considerably wetter on a bike than when driving in a car. I’m not saying one is better than the other, I’m just stating facts. In a three-quarter mile distance back to my house, I got soaked to the bone, but I will confess this: it felt kinda awesome.

Two things I learned about cycling in the rain, besides the obvious “getting wet” bit, which I will share with you now:

1. My brakes squeal in the rain. Is that supposed to happen?
2. Your pretty bike gets dirty. Dirty!

Today I ventured out for an extremely long and arduous journey. By which I mean about 3.75 miles. WHICH IS A VERY LONG WAY IF YOU ARE SEVERELY OUT OF SHAPE AND GENERALLY LAZY! I probably taxed my knee a little too much, not to mention my legs — all of which were pretty mad at me already after being dragged out to yoga last night. Apart from the times when I thought my knee would snap in half and my thighs might catch fire, it actually felt good. I went places, man! I went to the CVS (or near it). And Kroger (or near it.) I could have, ostensibly, gotten out and run actual errands if a) I had bought a lock yet and/or b) my basket had arrived and I had any way to carry anything home.

One last observation — for now, at least: I noticed that people smile at me a lot when I’m riding past them. People on the sidewalk, postal carriers, old ladies driving their cars. Since they don’t actually know me, I don’t suppose it can simply be chalked up to the irony of my being on a bike in the first place. No, I figure it must be my jaunty orange Townie, spreading love and sunshine everywhere it goes.

Yeah. ‘Cause that’s so me.

I strongly recommend not taking a drink for 13 years. Because if you do, it turns out your husband might knock your socks off with perhaps the most awesome present of all time: an Electra Townie Original 7D bicycle in glorious, citrus-y orange pearl. At least that’s how it worked for me. (Disclaimer: This may not be true of all husbands.) Please meet my new bike, Daisy.

I should start by noting (somewhat sheepishly) that this is actually the first bicycle I’ve ever owned. I know how to ride one, thank goodness, and I’m not exactly sure why or how I made it this far in life without ever getting one, but there you have it. Good things do come to those who wait. I have the proof.

Since moving to Ann Arbor, a very bike-y town of exceedingly manageable size, I’ve been toying with becoming a bike owner, getting something used off Craig’s List. From time to time, I browse what’s available, realize I don’t really know what I’m looking for (or, usually, at) and put it off for another season. Every once in a while, as I drive by one of A2’s many, many bike shops, I think about stopping in and asking for help figuring out what I need. But the stores are full of bike-y people and their bike-y knowledge and I get intimidated, so I keep on driving past. Fortunately, I have a husband who is vastly more diligent than I, particularly when it comes to research — and it seems he has managed to find the absolute perfect bike for someone like me. And not just because it’s retro-cool and super-adorable.

Turns out the Townie is also the ideal bike for someone like me — a novice who doesn’t need a fancy racing dealio, a million gears she would never use, and who has a number of physical ailments that often render other bikes an exercise in sheer torture. The Townie’s designed with flat-foot technology, meaning your feet can rest comfortably on the ground when stopped, so you don’t feel like you’re going to fall over. The pedals are placed further forward make for a fuller leg extension (more akin to the recumbent bike at the gym), and that’s great for someone (like me) with knee pain . It also features a nifty upright riding position — as opposed to the hunched-over posture on most regular bikes — which reduces back, neck and arm fatigue. For someone with chronic pain issues (like moi), this is just dandy.

I got Daisy on Wednesday evening, so I didn’t have time to ride around much that day. Mostly in the house, which only served to frighten the cats and didn’t give me a real feel for the bike. So I had to wait until Thursday to really take her out for a spin. And by spin, I mean a relatively short ‘n shaky tool around our neighborhood which, thankfully, is mostly flat. (However, not nearly as flat as you one might be fooled into thinking whilst driving around.)

Mostly, I found Daisy to be a delight right out of the gate. We had good times, she and I, sailing past cute houses and trying to avoid getting run over by various vehicles and, at one point, a pirate invasion by three young boys who looked to mean business. I did have some trouble on the hills, which was humbling, considering they’re not very steep around here. I think part of that is because I was still figuring out what gears I needed when, but also because, you know, I have fibromyalgia and sometimes it feels like my thighs are on fire. There’s also a remote possibility that being really out of shape played a role too, but I’m not rushing to conclusions.

In particular, taking the hills even at the lowest gear (or would it be highest? hell, I don’t know. It was one. Gear 1!) was causing me a remarkable amount of knee pain. Which didn’t seem right, what with all of the hoity-toity design features that went into this bike. I was also a little discouraged that I wasn’t instantly able to effortlessly ride for tens of hundreds of miles at a stretch and not feel the least bit of effort. And, in the interest of full disclosure, my butt hurt a bit but not nearly as much as it does on the upright bike at the Y.

All of that aside, oh, how I was thrilled to have an orange bike! I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking of all the things I’d need — a decent lock so I could actually ride it to the gym or to Kroger or into town for coffee, a water bottle cage, a basket or bag for holding crap, a bell. Would I need a light for riding at night? So many questions! Turns out that you have to order some of these accessories directly from Electra as a lot of aftermarket equipment doesn’t fit this bike. For example, most water bottle cages don’t fit, so you have to order an Electra water cage mount adapter  and then buy a cage to put on that. The mount adapter is $9.99, which isn’t that steep, but shipping is the same again, so that’s where it starts to look a little annoying.

Anyway, I decided a lock was the first order of business in case I ever made it out of the neighborhood. This morning, I went in search of one at Target, but didn’t find any U-Locks, which a couple of people had mentioned was better than the cord kind you can cut through. At the bike store, their U-lock was nearly $50 and I wasn’t quite ready to shell that out without doing a little look-see around to find out what’s what in the field of bike locks. (It should be noted that this sort of restraint from instant gratification is highly unusual for me.)

So today it was just another day of local explorin’ for me and my bike. Before I got on for Daisy: Day II in the ‘Hood, I decided to register my bike with Electra. I opened the folder that Chris had given me and, lo and behold, was a manual. Huh. Who’d have thought? The very first thing they suggest is adjusting the seat height, which seems like a sensible thing to do and probably the kind of thing a person who’d previously owned a bike would know. So I adjusted the seat height, then it told me to adjust the stem tilt and handlebar tilt accordingly. Only, it didn’t really say how to do those things. It looks like I need a specific kind of hex wrench and even then, I wondered if it wasn’t something best left to a professional or, say, anyone who wasn’t me. Thus, it seemed to me the most logical approach was to ignore the matter completely and go on about my riding.

The conclusions from Day II’s rudimentary spin are as follows:

1. raising the seat completely took the pressure off my knee on the hills
2. not adjusting the stem and handlebar tilt means the new seat position makes my back hurt
3. there’s a possibility I may one day become strong enough to make it to Kroger without dying
4. helmets are no friend of the head sweater

Now I need to talk to some of my more bike-y friends to find out if the new adjustments are something I can do myself or if I need to take it back to the bike store and get help with it. Either way, we’re getting there, baby! We’re getting there! And once we’re there, I’ll be everywhere! Watch out!

Can you tell it’s Friday and rainy and I’m trying to avoid work by rambling inanely about whatever’s on my mind? Like pickles. For some reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about pickles lately. Making my own. I love a good pickle, the garlicky-er and sour-er the better. And when I see cute little trays of baby cukes at the farmer’s market, it inspires me. It doesn’t actually inspire me to do anything, just to think about doing it.

It speaks to something sort of inherent in me. I’m much more a fan of the idea of doing things than I am the actual doing of things. Pickles seem like the simplest thing, for examples, but then you start reading supply lists and recipes and how you’re supposed to boil the jars and seal them for sanitary purposes and it begins to sound akin to prepping a surgical suite. Which isn’t really that delicious.

Where am I going with this? No idea. Perhaps an existential reflection on what I am or am not doing with my life, now that Mad Men has started a new season and glum navel-gazing is in vogue. Or, more likely, just a diversion to see how much time I can waste before I have to get back and put in at least a couple good hours editing and rewriting. (Hint: if you are placing money on this, I would strongly suggest betting on the latter.)

Okay. Fine. You win. Back to work it is. Only because it’s less hassle than boiling pickle jars.

Because sometimes in life it is the simplest things that keep me going.

It probably surprises some people that someone as heat-adverse as me would venture to Puerto Rico in summer. Or any time, really. I understand. It surprises me, too. But one of the mitigating factors is that my favorite place in Puerto Rico is El Yunque, the rainforest in the northeastern part of the island. For years now, we’ve been staying at Casa Cubuy (see Chris & Denise below) , an ecolodge on the edge of the rainforest, located at the very top of the mountain on the non-touristy side. (It’s the opposite side from the National Park entrance.) It’s generally quite a bit cooler up there than down among mere mortals, even in summer.

People have asked me in the past what there is to do on “our” side of the mountain. The answer is a very calculated “nothing.” There are no TVs or phones in the rooms and, until recently, no internet access. (Although on this last trip, service was spotty enough to dissuade us from using it too much.) The reason I go is to plant myself in a chair on the balcony of an upstairs room and stare out at El Yunque, listening to the roar of the waterfall below and the chorus of the coqui frogs, and watching the rain clouds approach and burst open in front of me. Some books get read, a little hiking gets done, especially the easy hike down to the waterfall and swimming hole in Casa Cubuy’s backyard.

If you’ll forgive the foray into cheesiness, the truth is that I tend to feel at peace and calm in the rainforest. In a way I don’t anywhere else. Casa Cubuy is not a luxury resort and, as much as I hate to admit it, has probably seen better days — although it deserves mention that it’s difficult to keep any place rust- and mold-free in that climate. The furniture is simple and mismatched. The sheets and bedding are nothing to write home about. But if you go there knowing that the place is merely a backdrop for the rainforest, then you probably won’t mind a bit.

Puerto Rico’s native Indians, the Tainos, believed that the peak of El Yunque was where their god of creation, Yuquiyu, dwelled and even today it’s not hard to see why. When you watch the rain clouds approach, traveling without rhyme or reason across thousands of acres of rainforest, and open up and release a thunderous burst of rain, it’s pretty apparent that something bigger than me is going on. Maybe not Yuquiyu, but something that keeps me feeling right-sized and humbled in the best of ways.

We spent four nights in El Yunque this time around, doing a little hiking, a lot of reading (see if you can spot Denise, reading in a hammock by the waterfall in the photo above), a fair amount of napping. We headed down to Fajardo one evening and took a kayaking trip into the bioluminescent bay. When Chris and I took our trip with the same tour operator a few years ago, it was just us in a two-person kayak and our guide  leading us through a narrow path of mangrove trees to the bay. This time, we were a large group, trying to wind our way in to the bay in an orderly fashion, along with a number of other groups. It was still magnificent when it got dark and our oars starting making bright green trails in the water. Just a little less peaceful and a little more hectic logistically. You should have seen us trying to find our way back out in the pitch dark as new groups were making their way in. Chaos!

It’s also relatively easy to get to the beach from where we were perched in El Yunque, and we did spend one afternoon at Luquillo Beach, one of the better public beaches on that side of the island. (Although it doesn’t hold a candle to the beaches on the islands of Vieques and, Denise now tells me, Culebra.) Still, we had fun, dipping in the ocean, which was the perfect temperature, hanging with the natives. It takes about 40 minutes from Casa Cubuy to the beach, but much of that is spent winding your way down off the mountain on the narrow pathway you share with chickens, dogs and fearless locals barreling up and down the mountain in their junkers.

And that was that. Five days, four nights, gone in a snap. Too little, too fast. But I think the important thing was a reminder that this is something that’s been important to Chris and me over the years. For some reason, it’s a place that allows us to reset ourselves and we just haven’t been making that a priority. Suffice to say we’re already eyeing fares for a return trip in January. By winter they’ll be up to about $500 – $700 per person and right now they’re hovering at an enticing book-now-or-miss-it $220 from Detroit. I’m just sayin’.