we are travelers together

I spent the first half of yesterday in airports and on airplanes on my way to Colorado. I kind of love airports. There’s just something unspoken-ly great about a place designed totally the passing-through. The airport feels like a portal.

There’s something else I’ve inherited from my mom (besides her incredible good looks and sense of humor). The ability to talk to strangers.

Yesterday, I met Joe.


Joe is 80 years-old and a Korean War veteran who served on an aircraft carrier in the Navy for three years. While on board ship, he survived a typhoon but told me he only got seasick once. His wife was a professional exhibition and ballroom dancer who performed at famous supper clubs in the 1960’s (places like the exclusive Friars Club in New York City) and he tells me with great pride, that she was “the prettiest girl in town” and that they had danced together in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. “I’m not much of a partier anymore,” he laughs, “But I do love to ballroom dance.” Joe was a dance teacher, and later an EMT. One of his good friends wrote songs for country star Tammy Wynette. He has two daughters in California. And these days, he tries to keep doing new things. He’s learning how to play the piano and reading a biography on Charles Lindbergh. “I’m a jack of all trades and a master of none,” he tells me. When we get off the plane in Denver, I ask if I can take his picture and he says, “Sure.”

“I hope you have a good time with your family,” he tells me as I walk away.

“Safe travels,” I say.

“You’re a sweet girl.”

You never know who you’re traveling with…
Who’s the most interesting person you’ve met on a trip?

love, elizabeth

I Interrupt Your Stories Because I Love You

Alright, serious relationship talk. I need to know if I am the only person who does this.

We spent last night with our young marrieds small group from church. And towards the end of the night, the youth pastor started teasing me about the way I constantly interject in Kyle’s stories.

Here’s an example:

Kyle: I grew up in Colorado.

Elizabeth: Steamboat Springs.

Kyle: Yeah, Steamboat Springs. So I like winter sports and stuff.

Elizabeth: He’s been snowboarding for ten years.

Kyle: I used to do a lot more dangerous things…probably gave my mom a heart attack.

Elizabeth: He skateboarded off a roof one time.

Kyle: Yeah, I broke some toes.

Elizabeth: All of his toes.

Kyle: All of my toes.

And while that’s like…hopefully exaggerated slightly, I know I do that.

Here’s the thing – I don’t do it because I want to talk more. I just want people to really know all the cool details of Kyle’s stories. And sometimes…well, sometimes I just think, HE’S TELLING IT WRONG!!

Part of me thinks I should just learn to shut up. Part of me thinks it’s part of our relationship dynamic. I definitely notice that I do it more in situations where I really, really want other people to like Kyle, to think he’s as great as I do (which, in all fairness, is probably impossible). That doesn’t mean it isn’t incredibly annoying. And while Kyle has repeatedly said he doesn’t mind…I’m still pondering my need to control the situation.

So now I want to know…any other spouses or partners out there find it really hard not to want to ‘help’ tell a story?  Anyone have the opposite problem? Is YOUR spouse extra ‘helpful’? If you do this in your relationship, where does that motivation come from?

Ugh. Marriage.

love, elizabeth

I am such an old lady…

I was in Barnes and Noble a couple days ago exchanging a book I had purchased and the following conversation occurred…

Sales associate: You know, if you had a Nook, you could just do this online. It would be super convenient!

Me: Oh, I know. But I will never own an e-reader. I will cling to the printed page until the day that I die (Yes. I literally said this).

SA: Well…okay…I mean, IF there are still bookstores around then.
Me: (gritting my teeth) There will be.

SA: I don’t know…lots and lots of bookstores are going out of business.

Me: (a little louder than necessary) There will always be books.

SA: Well, Half-Price Books will be probably still be around.

Me: (trying not to shoot lasers into this woman’s head with my eyeballs) If it’s just me, stock-piling books in my basement, there will still be books.

SA: That’s so funny. It’s usually not the younger ones that say that – it’s usually the older people!

Me: …..

Okay. So I think she just called me an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud fuddy-duddy. Which is fine. I mean, I’m mostly an eighty-five year-old lady trapped in the body of a twenty-four year-old. I’m aware.

But I think I’m pretty hip. Pretty with it. Pretty down with the kidz. I mean, I listen to my iPod. I use a cell phone. I have a Facebook profile and a Twitter. I have a BLOG, okay? But I just…I just can’t get behind this.

    is not the same as


Honestly, if I didn’t think one was going to try and eradicate the other, I wouldn’t be so annoyed.

I do not think ill of the many, many Nook and Kindle readers of the world. Some of you I even call my friends and my family. I do not begrudge you your life choice. You have your free downloadable classics and your lower book costs and smaller carbon footprint and compact library and chic e-Reader covers. Get on with your bad selves! Not that you needed my permission.

I’ll just be over dog-earing pages and bending book spines and writing notes in the margins. Oh, yeah, and if I spill my coffee? My book probably won’t die.

Here’s what I’m reading now. I love Ree Drummond. If I had been born with an older sister around, this is what I imagine she would be like. Her love story, though…sigh. A city girl and a rancher. So good. Oh, yeah, and I'm aware of the irony of insisting on a printed book written by a blogger.



What about you? What thing are you sad to see being replaced by new technology?

love, elizabeth