Thin mint whore…recycled

AGMA is between trips.

I just got back from a 12 day cruise. For me it was actually a 9 day cruise. 

Damn COVID.

And in a few days, I leave for a trip to Spain with a friend.

AGMA would LOVE to find the time to do a couple of trip reports one of these months…

But until then, because it’s “that” time of the year here in the US, and Valentines Day is next week, I’m recycling a post from 8 years ago about my one, true love.

And not much has changed in the last 8 years. I ate 3 boxes in 4 days last week…

Thin mint whore

“My name is AGMA and I’m a Thin Mint whore.”

I know. Shocking. But I bet I’ll get a lot of views because I used the word whore.

It’s been my dirty little secret. For nearly four weeks every year, for the past 55 years, I have given myself over to a life of Thin Mint lust and passion.

It started innocently enough back in the early 60’s when I did my first stint as a Brownie. That’s how they do it – they get started when you’re young. They let you “sample” the goods, teasing you with things to come, knowing full well that you will want more. Much more. And I did.

Then I started supplying; selling them door to door when I became a Girl Scout. Back in the day, there was no parental unit taking an order sheet to work and getting hundreds of boxes in orders so you could become the Cookie Queen. We were hard core. We walked miles and miles (okay, maybe five blocks) knocking on all the doors. And if we had what you wanted in the little cookie sacks we carried, fine. If not, you were SOL. Life was hard back then…

Thin Mints always sold out first. Duh. The addiction ran deep even way back then. At 50 cents a box, they were kind of expensive. But they could have charged two bucks a pop and people would still have snapped them up. Such was the desire for the Thin Mint.

I’ve never quite gotten over my Thin Mint obsession. It subsided in college and in my mid-20’s due to lack of access. But when I had kids, moved to the suburbs and started to work in a large office, it came back stronger than ever. I was smack dab in the middle of Girl Scout nirvana.

Imagine my delight when I found out that, in the intervening years between 1971 and 1984, the Girl Scouts went to an ordering system! No more door to door sales. Now I could order as many boxes as I wanted and NOBODY had to know.

I could bring two boxes home to the family, and only eat the occasional one or two cookies to make it look like I was in control. In the meantime, I had ten boxes stashed in my desk. In my prime, I could consume 1.5 boxes a day. They tasted good going down, but the sugar high was not pretty…. And there were always the telltale chocolate crumbles all around my mouth and desk. Pathetic.

I even had my own personal supplier. My BFF at work was a troop leader. I was in deep. Really deep.

A couple of times, I gave up Thin Mints for Lent only to devour two of the six boxes I had stashed in the freezer, at sunrise on Easter morning… I felt like such a dirty girl.

But like most of the 1960’s & 70’s head banging rockers who “overindulged” back in the day, I mellowed with age. I’ve come to understand the serious health risks of sending that much sugar and saturated fat coursing through my body. Plus my access is again severely limited. The nest emptied out in 2002. And with our move in 2006, I no longer work in an office or live in the suburbs.

I was adjusting to a Thin Mint-less life. My cholesterol and blood sugar numbers were normalizing. The sugar headaches had stopped. It was all going along great. I started thinking I’d gotten the Thin Mint monkey off my back until…. Until…..

I discovered the Girl Scouts had “pop-up” sales booths in our local grocery store. Right across the street. Oh the humanity!

But I was stronger than I was before. I’d started running and went back to school to become a Massage Therapist. I was eating healthier. I began traveling to countries whose citizens had never heard of Thin Mints.

For a couple of years, Girl Scout cookie time would come and go almost unnoticed. I would purposely avoid going to Kroger on the weekends when the little temptresses would be selling their seemingly innocent wares. Innocent my ass…

But old habits are hard to break. The least little upset in the Feng Shui of life can renew the old passions; latent desires. Like this past Sunday.

I saw a woman at church with some Thin Mints. She was delivering them to people who had ordered GS cookies last month. I wasn’t one of them. But the image of that green box started drilling down into my brain. Down to my very soul. I couldn’t quit thinking about them. Beads of sweat started popping out on my forehead. My palms got moist.

I was still feeling anxious and jumpy when I got home.

“I wonder if the Girl Scouts will be at Kroger today?” I too casually asked my husband. He got a worried look on his face. He saw that smoke of a distant fire in my eyes again.

Then, quite by accident, I discovered it. I couldn’t believe it. As much as I’ve bashed technology in the past, I take it all back. Technology is wonderful. And horrible.

There’s a smartphone app called (get this…) Girl Scout Cookie Finder. Download it, put in your zip code, and it’ll tell you the closest place you can go to get your fix.

Is that legal?

Of course, they were at Kroger. I got two boxes. They’re $4 a box now – I didn’t flinch as I handed over my $8. One’s in the freezer. The other box, minus six cookies, is in my body currently clogging my arteries and probably damaging my pancreas.

FYI, the six left over cookies went down the garbage disposal this morning. When the sugar high cleared, I came back to my senses.

I decided to strike a blow for clean living.

There might be hope for AGMA yet.

(2024 note: I have the sad job of informing you that the Girl Scout Cookie Finder app is no more. Damn COVID!)

Holy sh*te…a decade of AGMA!

Ten years ago, almost to the day, I uploaded my first blog post.

Geez, that’s a long time. 

Like life, AGMA has gone through lots of ups and downs. It started out pretty strong for the first 6 years, but since COVID and our move to Chicago, things have been pretty dismal in terms of posting frequency.

Yeah…I’m gonna need to work on that..

So while I’m doing strategery on the simple task of reprioritizing my entire life for the next decade, enjoy (and/or snicker at) AGMA’s very first post from December 31, 2013!

George Eliot’s 2014 throw down

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”

Chewy, hopeful words penned by Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880), aka George Eliot, British novelist and one of the leading writers of the Victorian Era.  I am all over that Mary Anne, you wild child you!  2014 – no resolutions – just being resolute.

The year to learn how to ride a bicycle.

The year to zip line for the first time.

The year to maybe entertain the notion of training for a marathon.  Did I say that out loud?

The year to keep the promise made when I started massage school in 2008.

The year to add a little bit of sugar to some not-so-sweet relationships – ouch!

The year to visit The Clermont Lounge and Johnnies Hideaway. Yeah – I said it!

The year of long hugs, thank you very much Linda!

The year to climb a bridge and visit Middle Earth.

The year to start blogging.

The year to enter a new decade of life.

Really nothing that would register above a 3 on the “Isn’t my life fabulous?” Richter scale, but the beginnings of throwing off and putting on and continuing to discover what is yet to be.  And you?

The agony and the ecstasy summer, part 3

Steep Creek near the Mendenhall Glacier close to Juneau, AK

Right.

AGMA knows it still isn’t summer. Naturally. But since I decided to take almost a 2 month break from posting, there is still a little bit more of the summer of 2023 to whine…eh…talk about.

Parts 1 & 2 almost totally glossed over my incredible solo 3 week trip to Spain and France following those incredible young men in spandex. I think I posted 1 picture. There are YouTube videos as evidence, but AGMA realizes that that’s not everybody’s thing. I really do have to get around to posting about my trip.

One of these days.

I spent most of the time in parts 1 & 2 talking about my MILs dementia, and our trip to AZ in August attempting to try to get her relocated someplace where she would be safe, clean, given nutritious food, and well cared for. That 10 day trip to AZ was a complete disaster that ended with her still living alone and her disowning us as the “bad guys”.

Six days after we got home from AZ, we left for Seattle to go on a 7 night Alaska cruise on the Eurodam, part of Holland American Line’s (HAL) cruise fleet. Now that should have been loads of fun right? Even though Hubs still had to wear his huge back brace from where he fell and fractured 2 vertebra in late July, and I had to do all the heavy lifting on the trip. It should have been ‘barrel of monkeys’ fun.

Right?

I’m pretty sure that Hubs and I had (still have??) lingering PTSD from our AZ trip. So we weren’t really that enthusiastic about going, which was kind of a downer. Then, 3 days into the cruise, Hubs tested positive for COVID.

Sh*t.

AGMA has had COVID twice (Feb of 2022, and this past May.) We were/are both vaxxed and boosted to the max, so neither bout with it was very bad – kinda like a bad cold. I didn’t isolate from him either time, and, miraculously, he never got COVID. Either time. We thought he was one of those folks who had natural immunity.

Nah baby nah.

Of course he had to wait until we were starting a vacation to get it. At least I had the decency to wait until AFTER the vacations were over to get mine!

Needless to say, our Alaskan cruise won’t rank up there on AGMA’s “Top 10 Vacations of the 21st Century” list.

But it IS a beautiful state and I would love to go back and do more exploring. COVID free of course…

So here is AGMA in Alaska in no particular order!

Docking in Juneau

Welcome to Juneau

Oh la la!

Loved the bear in front of the AK capitol

The Mendenhall Glacier

The salmon were running (and dying!)

Sockeye salmon turn bright red when they spawn. Then they die. Dead salmon where everywhere in this creek.

We had US Park Rangers on board when we sailed int Glacier Bay Natl Park.

Sunrise going into the Park

The Park Ranger said she didn’t know the names of the mountains because you rarely see them!

We were etremely lucky to see the Margerie Glacier calve a small piece (but it made a loud sound!) I can’t believe I got a picture of it! It’s the dirty gray spot at the bottom right side of the Glacier.

Went to the Fortress of the Bear in Sitka. They adopt orphan bears and raise them.

This guy needs some caffeine!

I did love learning about the Tlingit (pronounced Kling-it) indigenous people of the area.

Cloudy, but no rain in Sitka when we were there.

Russian nesting dolls were all over Sitka due to the Russian heritage of the area.

The old Russian Orthodox Church in Sitka.

If a salmon was hatched in a hatchery, they come back to that hatchery to spawn!

These folks at the fish hatchery were getting ready to beat the daylights out of the salmon who came back to spawn with little baseball bats. Then they strip the eggs & sperm, and a new general of salmon gets underway. Brutal!

AGMA says welcome to Sitka! Actually, we were leaving but who cares…

Total tourist schtick, but the Great Alaskan Lumberjack show was fun!

The lumberjack with the long hair reminded me of one of the Hanson Brothers from Slap Shot!

This scened (which I loved!) was right next to another salmon stream that had 100s of dying salmon in it. A bit depressing!

Dang, those salmon are persistant!

My only wild bear sighting!

A local totem pole

Old time Kechikan. Creek Street is where the ladies of the night plied their trade.

I just loved this picture!

Sunset

Moonrise

And for the record, we could NOT see Russia from ANY front porch!

The agony and the ecstasy summer, part 2

Another summer ecstasy moment from France! Bastille Day fireworks at the Eiffel Tower on 7/14/2023 as seen from Pont Neuf!

(Continued from part 1…)

She was far worse than we anticipated.

AGMA won’t go into detail – it would take pages and pages to describe.  Here are some of the ‘highlights’:

• Non-existent personal hygiene.  She couldn’t remember when she had a shower last.
• The house was horribly dirty, barely navigable due to the stacks and stacks of junk piled up in every room, and had a terrible odor.  It hits you in the face when you open the front door.
• Due to poor eyesight, she doesn’t drive anymore. This is a good thing, but she has no way of getting around.
• She keeps her daughter’s dog and 4 cats in a bedroom that has no light, and hasn’t been cleaned in months. AGMA’ll let your imagination take it from there. Ugh.
• There are stacks and stacks of papers, letters, magazines, brochures everywhere. Imagine if you kept every piece of mail for the last 5 years then 2X it! Nothing is sorted – we found important papers and bills in amoung the junk mail..
• She can’t remember to take her meds. 
• She’s not been to a dentist in over 3 years. We made an appointment and took her. Two abscessed teeth along with another tooth needing a crown. Yikes!
• Uber paranoid. She thinks everybody is out to steal from her.  She’s also having delusions of people coming into her house and stealing things of no consequence (energy drinks, dog bones, cat food).
• Hubs had been paying an RN to visit her 4X a week just to check in on her.  She “fired” the nurse and said she doesn’t need a babysitter.  The nurse got her a life alert necklace before she got “fired”, but my MIL can’t remember to put it on.  And she can’t remember to charge it.
• Her short term memory is completely gone.  She will ask the same question 6X in a 10 minute period and not remember that you answered it 6X.

There’s much more, but you get the picture. 

I guess this explains why Hubs didn’t get a call about his sister’s passing?

She absolutely should not be living alone in a house that’s a health hazard with all of her medical issues and no family in town. 

We tried, unsuccessfully, to intervene and get her admitted to a geriatric psych unit through a hospital ER to get her stabilized with some anti-anxiety meds.  Once she was more stable, we wanted to move her into a memory care facility that would keep her safe, clean, fed, and worry free.

Did AGMA mention that my MIL is violently opposed to moving anywhere, and thinks she’s just fine?   She has no clue as to how cognitively impaired she is and what a life threatening situation she’s in. 

We got to the ER at 6:45 PM last Friday.  The doctor finally saw her around 9 PM.  Because she knew the day of the week, the month and year, he said he wasn’t qualified to diagnose her with any cognitive issues, so said she had to see a behavioral specialist.  Huh?? That happened at 12:05ish AM Saturday morning.  They interviewed her and us.  At this point, she was incredibly hostile towards Hubs and I – she was verbally abusive and swearing at us.  At 2:30 AM, I tracked the behavior specialists down (they went missing for 90 minutes). They said they were going to admit her.

We were incredibly relived…

But when they came back to the room around 3 AM to tell her, she went ballistic and said she would not go.  They tried to reason with her, but she is well beyond trying to be reasoned with.  The person who is her POA was there (not Hubs – she doesn’t trust him), and he indicated that he wanted her admitted.  Plus, we have a letter from the state Protective Services agency saying that, after a visit with her, they verified that she is self-neglecting.

We assumed that they were getting all the ducks in a row to have her admitted.  But at 6:00 AM, the doc and behavior specialists came in and said they were going to send her home.

WTF??????

They simply didn’t want to deal with her because she was so belligerent.  It didn’t matter that she’s not taking her meds or that she is self neglecting or that she lives in a house that is a trip/fall hazard.  It didn’t matter that she lives in filth that is incredibly unhealhty for her.  It didn’t matter that she has no family in town to help her do grocery shopping, take her to doctors appointments, or be there in case there is an emergency, and the help we did arrange for her was rejected.  

So after 12 hours (all night Friday night) in the ER, the doctor and behavioral therapists sent her home.  They said she was just fine to live alone.

Again, WTF????

She told us (it was the disease talking) she was disowning us.  She just wanted to go back to her house and never see us again.

At this point, there wasn’t much we could do there, so we flew back to Chicago.

She is still in a very perilous situation.  She called 2 nights and is not remembering how to use her phone to call people who aren’t preprogrammed for a 1 touch button..  She doesn’t remember that she has to go back to the dentist for the other abscess.  She has no idea how to call and make an appointment.  Hubs set her up for Meals on Wheels 3X a week, and AGMA bets she isn’t going to remember when they will be delivered.

Yeah – she’s doing just great.

So here we sit in Chicago, waiting for the call to come that she has either been taken to the emergency room due to an accident or a rampant infection or a stroke, or worse.

Growing old in the American medical system is an ugly, dangerous mess.

The agony…on multiple levels.

The agony and the ecstasy summer, part 1

An ecstasy moment on the Col du Tourmalet in the French Pyrenees!

Didya ever have one of those summers?

A summer with giggly, giddy highs and depressingly low lows?

Welcome to AGMA’s summer 2023!

June started out with what was supposed to be a fun week on Lake Michigan, courtesy of Son#1 & family.  Son#2 flew up from Atlanta, my DIL’s sister’s family drove up from Texas, and her parents and other sister drove down from northern MI.  It was a proper crowd of 14!  

However, the morning we were supposed to leave Chicago to drive to MI, Hubs got a phone call from his cousin.

And it was bad news…

Hub’s sister, who had been diagnosed with cancer just 2 months before, died several days earlier.  She had been in hospice for a few days before she passed away.

We were stunned.  Nobody (meaning my MIL who lived in the same house with his sister) called us to let us know when she went into hospice or when she passed.  Until his cousin called.

Hub’s mom called his cousin first, 3 days after her daughter’s death. 

Huh???

When Hubs finally got in touch with her later in the day, she said that she thought we were on vacation. 

What???

We were home the whole time his sister was in hospice.  But seriously, even if we were on vacation, you’d think that my MIL would tried to call us or have the people at hospice call us????

Keep this in mind….  More, much more about my MIL later.

We did go up to the lake house and had a nice week (but the weather was mostly chilly & rainy) with family, but there was definitely a shadow over the week.

While Hubs and his sister weren’t close over the years, they talked more the last 5 years than they ever had.  So AGMA would venture to guess that they were as close as they had ever been when she passed.  

He had no opportunity to fly out to see her.  No chance to say goodbye.  My MIL had her cremated with no plans for any sort of memorial or celebration of life. Her ashes are in a box next to her father’s ashes (he died in 2005).

It was if she had never existed.

I find that tragic, and incredibly sad.

11 days after we got back from the lake house, AGMA left for my 3 week bucket list trip to see my men in spandex!

Tour de France baby!!!  Definitely part of the summer ‘ecstasy’!

Other than a few ‘glitches’, it was every bit as fantasmagorical as I had anticipated!  More about that on another post…

Oh, and just a reminder… I documented my trip on my very primitive YouTube channel – AGMA TV!!  I did 20 videos, and honestly, they are kind of a hoot!  I am NOT technically astute, and learned just enough to put up a semi-coherent channel.  I have 20 videos of just a regular person (me!) following the 1st twelve stages of the Tour (plus some of my Bilbao, Clermont Ferrand, and Paris sightseeing).  

Check it out (and be prepared to snort out your coffee through your nose!)…

youtube.com/channel/UCDOehm-2svYAZyvZKNEHmhw?sub_confirmation=1 

I felt kinda bad leaving Hubs at home alone for 3 weeks, especially since he has a pretty severe mobility issue because of his PLS (primary lateral sclerosis), but he did great!

And he waited until I was home for 36 hours before he fell.

Ugh.

He normally uses a walker to get around, but he was just running into a local coffee ship for a cuppa Joe, so just used his cane.

Big mistake.

He had one of the stabbing pains in his leg that he gets occasionally, and down he went.  Ouch!

After a few days, when the pain continued to get worse, I had to take him to an emergency room.  Diagnosis: 1 (possibly 2) compression fracture to a lumbar vertebra.  No bending, twisting, or lifting anything over 15 lbs.  And he has to wear a big old back brace until he’s healed.

So AGMA became the chief cook, bottle washer, shopper, housekeeper, laundry lady, and pack mule, along with chauffeuring duties.  He needed help bathing, dressing, and getting him and his 18 lb walker in and out of the car.

But the most significant ramification of his injury was that we had to turn his 10 day solo trip to AZ to help his mom out into a couples trip.  So, 34,000 more Skymiles and a $900 Airb&b later, we flew out to AZ on August 9th.

I don’t know how many of you have had experience with a friend or family member who had/has dementia.  My sweet step-mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers in 1991, and passed away in 2001, so we understand this horrible disease.

However NO amount of understanding prepared us for my MIL’s situation.

YIKES!

This is turning out to be a really looooonnnng post, so AGMA’s going to break it into 2 installments.

Stay tuned…

AGMA TV – it’s a thing!

Oh boy…do I have some exciting news!

AGMA has officially entered the ‘influencer’ universe. Now that’s funny (and more than scary) to think of me as an influencer…

More like a ‘bad influencer’.

Good or bad, I decided to start my own YouTube channel called (what else?) AGMA TV!

There are 2 other channels called agma tv, but it looks as if they were started by 13 year old gamers like 5 years ago. Skip by those guys.

If you want to be part of the nonsense, click here…

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDOehm-2svYAZyvZKNEHmhw?sub_confirmation=1

As I write this, I’m in Madrid waiting for a bus to take me to Bilboa. The Tour de France Grand Depart takes place in Bilbao starting on Saturday.

Be still my beating heart…

As of 6:30 pm last night, I was flying to Bilbao today.

Nah, baby, nah.

I started to check in last night and was having trouble getting a seat assignment. It’s a short flight, so AGMA was just going to take whatever seat they assigned me. But I kept getting the message that I would have to buy a seat if I tried to check-in more than 24 hours before the flight.

Odd.

“Dang, I hate it when the airlines have system issues.” I thought.

After trying several more times with the same result, I had a thought that turned my blood cold…

“No…I couldn’t have…”

But yes. Sadly, yes. Yes, I did.

I’d made my flight reservation for JULY 28, not June 28. Sometimes, AGMA has too many balls in the air regarding travel planning, and I screw up.

And this was a pretty big screw up.

Oh sh*t – now what do I do??

I tried to change my flight reservation (like that would really work 16 hours before the flight I wanted.) But since AGMA buys el-cheapo airline tickets, nope.

Not changeable. Not refundable.

So then I found a flight for 90 Euros. But it left at 6 AM, and that just wasn’t going to work for this jet-lagged body. The later flights were like $350. One way.

Nope.

A bus. I can take a bus…

But I hated the thought of having to go to downtown Madrid from my hotel (very close to the Madrid airport.) I could have taken the train, but it would have been sort of $$ and I still would have had to go to downtown Madrid to catch it.

But glory be! I found a bus that leaves from the bus terminal at the Madrid airport. Did you know there is a bus terminal at the Madrid airport?

Ya do now…

So for 39 Euros, I’m off to Bilbao!

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor dark of night, nor eff-ed up travel plans will keep me from my boys in latex!

Stuff happens (and so does AGMA TV!)

ANTS

From the medieval city walls of Bergheim, France. A picture (or carving) is truly worth 1000 words! Don’t we all feel like this guy some days?!?!

As we left our adventures, they had just taken a train to Pairs. Let’s pick up the action there…

And trust me, there WAS action!  Sort of…

Hubs and I had planned to visit the Alsace on the last week of our trip.  Being the free spirits that we are, a rental car was required.  But we were taking the train to Gare du Nord in the middle of Paris.  What to do?

“No,” I can hear you say.  “You didn’t, did you?”

Yup – we did.

We picked up our rental car from the train station.  In the middle of Paris.  With AGMA driving.

Holy hell…I’ll never do that again!  Harrowing is putting It mildly…

But we made it out alive (barely) and headed to our first AirB&B in the charming Alsatian town of Obernai.  Honestly, all those Alsatian villages are ADORABLE.  They freakin’ look like a Disney set.

Travel tip:  Don’t get sick in the Alsace on a Sunday. Or a holiday.

Hubs felt a cold coming on the day we got to Obernai.  He awakened on Sunday feeling pretty puny.   And THAT is when we found out that there were no pharmacies or grocery stores open in a 25 mile radius.

But he soldiered on that day as we did the tourist thing visited one cute village after another.

Bright and early Monday morning, we headed out for breakfast.  Odd…why were the streets so quiet and only one place Obernai was open for coffee?  And why were the streets so empty?  It was Monday and people should be going to work, right?

Not on V-E Day…

Yes – we were in France on May 8th, which is Victory in Europe Day.  Everything was closed down and locked up, so no cold meds for Hubs on Monday.

We did the next best thing…  We decided to go to a WWII memorial, The Battle of Alsace Memorial, to see if there would be any ceremonies in observance of V-E Day.  It’s near the village of Sigolsheim, up a one of the foothills of the Vosges Mountains.   Lots of cars were coming down from the top, so we were pretty sure we had just missed a ceremony.

There were still a few people lingering near the Memorial which, to our surprise, has an American flag flying above it. 

Turns out, this is a memorial dedicated to the US Units (12 of them) who fought with the French army for 4 months in late 1944, early 1945 to liberate the Alsace.

And who should be one of the people lingering there, but the US Consulate General of both the Alsace and Mosel regions, based in Strasbourg, Darragh Paradiso.  She was very gracious and greeted us warmly as we were the only Americans to show up that day!  It was a thrill to meet her…

After 3 nights in Obernai, we headed off to Zurich, Switzerland.  I’d met a young lady from South Africa who works in Zurich when I was in Italy in January.  Got that?

When she found out we were going to be so close (less than a 3 hr drive), she invited us to stay with her for a night and do some touring of Zurich.  She didn’t have to ask twice!

She’s an amazing young woman & a gracious hostess, and we had so much fun exploring Zurich with her.

And we ate fondue for dinner along with some other Swiss specialities at a lovely restaurant in the Old Town section of the city.

So.So.So.Much.Cheese!

On the way back to the Alsace the next day, we stopped just outside of Zurich at what has to be the most amazing highway rest stop ever created! 

 And that’s when the trouble started.

ANTS!  Lots of ants.

Ants somehow invaded our car.  We have no idea where they came from since we were parked on blacktop, but a whole family of ants decided to make our car their new home.

So for our entire trip to Strasbourg, we were battling ants on the dashboard. 

It was disgusting.

The plan when we got to Strasbourg was to park the car for the entire duration of our visit.  We had a great Airb&B connected to a large shopping mall about a 10 minute easy walk away from Strasbourg Cathedral.  The shopping mall was connect to a parking garage so it was easy peasy.

Surely, the ants would find another car to invade in the 3 nights it was going to be parked, right?

Strasbourg is a lovely city.  The old town is on an island, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in the middle of the Ill River.  It’s a lovely setting.  

Strasbourg was founded in the 12th century BC by the Romans.  Of course.   It’s is also the home of the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and the European Court of Human Rights, plus several universities.  So it’s a lively besides being lovely!

Our final stop on this multi-stop trip was in one of my favorite regions of France – CHAMPAGNE!

But, damn, some of the ants were hold outs.  WTF?   We spent a good deal of the drive to Champagne continuing the Great Ant War of 2023. By the time we got to Epernay, this car was clean!  

Epernay is considered the ‘Capital of Champagne’, and we’ve been fortunate enough have visited twice before.  But we never strolled along the famous Avenue de Champagne before, where some of the top champagne producers in the world are located, so we did that in the short time we were there. And it was delightful!

Ahhhh…

The Champagne region is close to Paris and CDG airport, so it was an easy drive to catch our flight the next morning.

AGMA’s gotta say that Hubs and I were tired pups when we got home.  And of course I came home with COVID. But It was a wonderful trip, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. However, 18 days in the air, on the sea, on a train, and in a car (with ants) will tucker a gal out!

So of course I am leaving on Monday for a 3 week trip to Spain and France to follow my boys in spandex!!

YES!!

I’m going to the Tour de France!

Here we go again…

Oo-ee, oo-ee baby

(Warning: This is really long! You may want to pack a lunch before you start. Sorry…)

I can count the number of times I’ve been on a cruise on one hand. And I don’t even need 5 fingers.

Cruising just has not be a part of AGMA’s travel toolkit.

Until now.

As Hubs mobility issues get more challenging, and my back continues to act funky, I’ve been looking for alternatives to tours and independent travel.

Unless it is a tour company that caters to wheelchair travelers (which usually is 2X the price of a ‘regular’ tour company), most will not allow folks with any mobility device beyond a cane to book.

Since Hub’s mobility needs have taken us out of the realm of going on organized tours, we’ve done all of our travel as independent travelers. It’s great to have the freedom to make your own itinerary, be able to book into lovely, quaint airb&bs, shop when you want & where you want, stay as long as you want to at a lovely site, be able to sleep in a bit in the morning… It’s been a wonderful way to travel.

Until recently.

Now, in addition to his mobility scooter, Hubs needs to have a walker to get around in our hotel room or Airb&b. We have a travel walker that folds up and is pretty light, but I need to carry it when we are moving from place to place.

AGMA’s also in charge of transporting all of our luggage from our rental car into our hotel/airb&b and then back to the car as we travel from place to place. Plus I lift his scooter in and out of the trunk of the car as needed. It’s very light for a mobility scooter, but…

AGMA has a wonky back that, I suspect, won’t be getting better as I age ungracefully.

Oh – and I am now the full time driver whenever we are gallivanting around France or England or Switzerland. For now. I’m about to hit the golden age where rental car companies might start refusing to rent to me or add a charge for aged-out driver.

I hate it when that happens!

Plus, independent accessible travel requires a whole lot of time and energy for trip planning. Especially if you are on a budget.

Are you getting the drift?

Enter…the cruise ship!

Our trip to the fjords of Norway on Holland American LIne’s (HAL) Rotterdam was like a dream! Aside from the incredibly beautiful scenery, wonderful food and interesting ports, it was sooooo easy for AGMA and Hubs. No schlepping bags in and out of the trunk, and into the hotel every 2 or 3 days. We unpacked only once for a whole week! No hoisting Hubs scooter in and out of the trunk several times a day. No worrying about steps or barriers to mobility (on the Rotterdam at least!) There were elevators everywhere and it seemed like there was no place that Hubs couldn’t go on the ship using his scooter. He could even ride right up to the stationary bicycles in the fitness center and get some exercise in.

It was one of the most carefree travel weeks we’ve had in a long time!

Catching the ship in Amsterdam was super easy – just the way AGMA likes to travel. We took the train from our hotel at Sloterdijk Station into Amsterdam Central station and then walked (and scooted) to the cruise terminal less than a mile away. Embarkation was easy and quick, and our luggage (1 carry on sized bag each!) was delivered about 10 minutes after we got to our room.

We had an accessible veranda room that was really large. It was perfect for Ed, Hub’s scooter.

The Rotterdam has only been in service since 2021, so everything looked practically new. The interior decorating (walls, furniture, art) has a very understated elegance about it.

Perfect for the elegantly understated AGMA.

HAL has a reputation for having ‘more mature’ passengers (i.e. old farts) cruise with them. They don’t have waterparks or bungie jumping or rollercoasters or zip lines on them. There’s no karaoke (that I knew of) or drinking contests or naked pool parties (I may have made that activity up…).

Fine with OF’s AGMA & Hubs!

However we did see a number of multi-generational families with kids which was great.

The ship has some fun music venues – a blues one, a rock one, a billboard top hits with 2 pianists. I think there was a classical one as well, maybe. Plus there were shows on the BIG stage nightly.

The Rotterdam also has adult beverage venues (otherwise known as bars). Lots of bars. Since AGMA barely drinks anymore, I didn’t hang out in those.

P-A-R-T-Y P-O-O-P-E-R!

There is a great fitness center, an outdoor walking track, a basketball court, a pool (maybe more than one?) and hot tubs, a game room, and a nice spa area. I got a massage. Ahhhhh…

They had a daily program that was full of ‘stuff’ you could do on the ship when you weren’t exploring a port. It could get exhausting.

But the real winner in AGMA’s mind was the food.

Somehow I don’t think you’re surprised that I focused on the food!

We had some fantastic meals in the dining room in the evenings. Not everything was incredible, but there was enough great food that AGMA abandoned (yet again) her low fat, few sweets regime I had been on.

*sigh*

And the buffet area was YUGE! I am not normally a buffet fan, but this won me over. Aside from an incredible variety – I mean if you couldn’t find something liked, you wouldn’t be happy eating anywhere – everything tasted freshly made and was yummy. But you couldn’t help yourself (and get you cooties on all the food in the buffet), they had servers who served you what you want and the amount you wanted.

Brilliant!

We stopped in 4 ports on the western coast of Norway – Eidfjord, Geiranger, Alesund and Bergen.

Eidfjord is a charming small town with 1000 residents. We booked an excursion through HAL to go up onto the Hardanger Plateau to see the spectacular views, visit Vøringsfossen Waterfall, and tour the Hardangervidda Nature and Wildlife Center.

But, the weather didn’t cooperate.

Our visit to the Norwegian fjords was very early in the season, so we were still in a bit of a winter weather pattern. Thank goodness for merino wool long underwear!

We were good to go with the nature center which was really interesting. BUT, it was snowing up on the Hardanger Plateau with about 5 inches already on the ground. Our guide informed us that she couldn’t take us to the waterfall overlook because of the snowy, dangerous conditions. Total bummer…

However, we could walk there ourselves at our own risk.

So whaddaya think AGMA did? Of course I walked to the overlook. In the snow. In my running shoes.

Here’s what it’s supposed to look like ‘in season’…

Vøringfossen waterfall in Norway, Scandinavia

Here’s what it looked like when I visited…

But no snow in the actual town, which was lovely!

Next stop was Alesund. The ‘A’ has a little circle over it, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that on my keyboard. It’s pronounce O-lee-sund. Some say it’s Norway’s most beautiful city. Most of the city (constructed of mostly wood) burned to the ground in 1904. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany (THAT Kaiser Wilhelm…) loved to vacation in Alesund, and was shocked to hear it had been nearly destroyed. He was so upset that he sent 4 ships with supplies and craftsmen to rebuild Alesund in the style of the time – Art Nouveau. And it’s spectacular!

It was interesting to find out that, although Norway was neutral in WWII, Germany still invaded them. The Germans wanted to establish naval bases to protect against the British fleet in the North Sea and guarantee iron-ore shipments from Sweden. So, a strong resistance movement in Norway was organized due to the invasion and occupation. They carried out acts of sabotage against the Nazi’s as well as passing top secretmessages to England using fishing boats on the North Sea. They also smuggled Norwegian government officials to England before the Nazi’s could kill them. There were many Germans living in Alesund because of Kaiser Wilmelm’s affection for it in the early 1900’s, but after WWII, most moved away because of strong anti-German sentiment due to the invasion and occupation.

Our third port was Geiranger. It’s a very small town on Geirangerfjord. Geirangerfjord, considered one of the most beautiful fjords in Norway, was added in 2005 to UNESCO’s list of world heritage site. And it was beautiful.

And cold. I mean really cold.

Ah ohhhh – AGMA had booked a RIB boat tour for us of the fjord. Brrrrr! But our tour operator was prepared! Here’s the ourtfits we wore for our ride…

We were covered from head to toe in coziness!

The famous waterfall in Geirangerfjord is the Seven Sisters. Here’s what it’s supposed to look like…

Because it had been a very cold spring, here’s what we saw…

Wha wha waaaaa… I hate it when that happens!

But it was fun tooling around on the the RIB boat, and our guide was a lovely young man who grew up on one of the few fjord farms left in the area.

The scenery sailing out of Geirangerfjord was stunning!

Our last port was Bergen, former capital of Norway. We hit the jackpot with the weather – it was sunny most of the day. We went up the funicular to Mount Fløyen and were greeted with spectacular views of the greater Bergen area. And AGMA made friends with some goats!

I hired a private guide (very reasonable cost for 4 of us!) to show us some of the famous sites of Bergen like the World Heritage Bryggen area and the Rosenkrantz Tower.

After Bergen & a rough North Sea (back & forth and back & forth and repeat!), we got back to Amsterdam a week after we left. We said “buh bye” to our friends who were heading back to KC, and hoped on a train for Paris.

Now the REAL adventure started….

(Stay tuned for Part 3!)

C is for “Crap, AGMA’s got COVID again!”

On May 9th, the US Dept of Health & Human Services declared that COVID-19 was no longer a public health emergency.

And promptly, on May 16, I tested positive for COVID.

Again.

Clearly my immune system was telling HHS, “You’re not the boss of me!” 

I believe that the COVID virus was a generous gift from one of the hundreds of people who were on our flight back from Paris on May 14th.

“Paris,” you say. “Didn’t you just go Italy in January and Mexico in March,” you ask.

Indeed I did!  And I’m leaving in a little over 3 weeks for another trip to Europe.  But more on that in another post.

Let’s just say it involves spandex and young men…

(Don’t you love how AGMA is ignoring the fact that I haven’t posted on WP for months and months?)

Rewind back to this last trip…

Hubs and I embrace the Clark Howard idea of ‘value’ travel.  Clark Howard is a consumer advocate who lives in Atlanta, and is all about saving his listeners/readers money.  Check out clark.com for tons of money saving, useful hints and tips on everything from cars, banks, restaurant deals, travel, etc.  

Clark believes the best way to travel is, if you find a killer airfare deal to someplace fun, book the airfare, then figure out what you’re going to do after that.  It’s especially great advice in this post-COVID era of rapidly rising travel costs.

So last fall, AGMA booked a round trip fare to Paris for nearly 3 weeks starting in April using Capital One points converted to Air France miles.  It was 30,000 miles RT to Paris per person which is crazy low!  It was another $170 per person in taxes, fees, etc, but still…

Then, AGMA found a great cruise deal to the Norwegian fjords on Holland American Lines through Costco Travel. I’ve used Costco for car rentals before, but never booked a vacation through them.

It was one of those deals that was too amazing to pass up.  By the time you deducted all of the promos from the cost (Costco shop card, bonus Costco shop card, stateroom credit, wifi, drink package, excursion credit, speciality dining package), we ended up paying about $1000 per person for a wheelchair accessible stateroom that was huge with a very large balcony.

But the cruise left from Amsterdam.

No problem.  I booked us a cheap (relatively) flight from Paris to Amsterdam.

Easy peasy!

The timing was perfect.  We got to spend 3 nights in Amsterdam before the cruise.  AMGA was in Amsterdam for 2 nights in 1976, but I’m not sure that counts.  I basically remember nothing about it other than going to the Red Light district.  Of course. Hubs had never been there.

And as AGMA’s luck runs when traveling (as opposed to the rest of her life!), our time in Amsterdam coincided with three incredible events:

1. Kings Day

Kings Day is basically an excuse for the entire country of the Netherlands to party, with the biggest party happening in Amsterdam.  Imagine Mardi Gras condensed into 1 day with everybody wearing orange, and partying in the streets and on boats in the canals.  Crazy fun!  

2.  Tulips

The Kuekenhof Gardens in Lisse, Netherlands are world famous for their tulip displays.  They are only open a bit less than 2 months out of the year (basically the end of March to mid May). Since we got to Amsterdam on April 26th, we were able to visit these gorgeous, mind-blowing gardens.

3.  Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer, the famous Dutch painter from Delft, completed only about 50 paintings in his life time (1632 – 1675), 37 of which have survived to this day (34 depending on who is counting.)  If an art museum has one of these 37 (or 34) paintings, it’s a really big whoop in the art world. Really big.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has 4 Vermeers in its regular collection.  I mean, he was Dutch after all, so you might expect that.  But for the past 3 years, the Rijksmuseum has been wheeling and dealing with other art museums to loan them their Vermeers for a once in a lifetime exhibit.  They ended up with 28 of Vermeer’s works for the exhibit.

And, of course, it was happening when we were in Amsterdam.

I first heard about exhibit on February 12 from our Kansas City friends who were going to join us in Amsterdam and on the cruise. The exhibit started on February 10th and runs through June 4th. I Googled it and it seemed like a ‘not to miss’ pretty big deal, so tried to buy tickets online. Sadly, all of the time slots were sold out for the 3 days we were going to be in Amsterdam.  

Dang!

But AGMA, not one to give up easily, found out (l love Reddit!) that if you buy a year long Friends of the Rijksmuseum pass, you could visit the exhibition anytime you wanted, as many times as you wanted – no timed ticket required.  It was only about $15 more per person than the normal cost for a timed ticket, so I bought a pass (good for 2 people).  

The demand to see these Vermeers was incredible – the exhibition sold out ALL 450,000 tickets by February 14!  And since I wasn’t the only one who consulted Reddit and figured out the Friends of the Rijksmuseum angle, they discontinued selling those as well.  In an attempt to meet some of the overwhelming, unmet demand to see this exhibition, the Rijksmuseum selected certain nights to keep the exhibit open until 2 AM.

Yawn.

So, the morning of April 27th, Hubs and I waltzed into the Rijksmuseum to see the Vermeers clutching our Friends of the Rijksmuseum pass, no problem. And AGMA has say that the paintings took my breath away.  His use of color and light, and the details he put in each work was like nothing I’d even seen before. The pictures are a poor representation of what they actually looked like up close and personal.

Simply stunning.

I confess AGMA didn’t know that much about Vermeer before our trip.  Ten years ago, when we were living in Atlanta, his most famous work, The Girl with a Pearl Earring, was loaned to the High Art Museum for several months.  I honestly didn’t know what all the fuss was about, and didn’t go see it.

Duh…. 

Now, I so regret not going to see her, because The Girl was only at the Rijksmuseum exhibition until March 31st.  Then she went back to her home in The Hague.  

Looks like I’ll have to head back over to the Netherlands one of these days to see her!

Oh…and the day I tested positive for COVID, I started taking Paxlovid.  What a foul, icky taste it leaves in your mouth the entire time you are taking it, BUT it got rid of my nasty symptoms (fever, chills, headache, raw throat) within 24 hours.  And I tested negative exactly 1 week after my positive test.

AGMA’s back in business!

Next up…won’t you let me take you on a sea cruise?

Crazy

I’ve been hitting the road again.

Is anybody surprised?

AGMA would like to say that this is the reason I haven’t posted in a hot minute.  But no…

I’ve just been in a Chicago winter malaise.   Why didn’t anybody tell me winter lasts through the beginning of April here?? 

Ugh…

AGMA jetted down to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico at the beginning of March for a week.

OMG – the sun still really does continue to shine during the winter!!

This was my 3rd visit to PV in the last 6 years courtesy of my wonderful friend Lisa.  Lisa, who lives in northern climes in the US, rents an oceanfront condo for 2 months in the Romantic Zone.  Then, she invites friends and family to come down for a week at a time, at no cost to them (other than airfare & food).

Lisa likes to spread the love!

I met Lisa in St. Louis when I lived there.  Every time AGMA has gone to PV, our friend, Mary, comes down too.  Mary used to live in St. Louis as well, and she and I have been on several international trips together.  We’re pretty good traveling buds.

Lisa is the friend that I traveled with to Ireland in the fall of 2021 – right after Ireland opened up for tourism (COVID, don’t you know?). I was her chauffeur & tour guide for 2 weeks and, other than my airfare and misc expenses, she paid for everything.

AGMA told you, she likes to spread the love!

The last time I was in PV with these ladies was 2019.  4 years ago.  Seems like a lifetime ago.

And things have changed.  Or I have changed.  Or both.

I don’t think I mentioned that both Lisa and Mary are 82.

But before AGMA says anything else, I need to say that I truly hope and pray:

1.  I live to 82

2.  I’m as engaged in life as they are at 82

3.  I’m as adventurous as they are at 82 (Mary left for a tour of Egypt & Jordan 6 days after getting back from PV.  Lisa is leaving next week for Main, Prague, Paris, Vienna & London to listen to opera!)

4.  I am mentally as sharp as they are at 82.

I also need to add that I love both of them like older sisters.  I honor their wisdom and life experience that they have shared with me.  And I am probably (sadly) closer to them than AGMA is to my biological siblings (81 & 75).

Sometimes family has nothing to do with shared DNA.

But (and AGMA can’t believe I’m saying this…), I don’t think I will be going to PV with them again.  At this point, it’s just too much work.  Even for a free week in an oceanfront condo.

They’re both hard of hearing, which isn’t, by itself, a big deal.  But… Lisa has hearing aids, however she rarely wears them. She says they make her ears itchy. But ya can’t hear if you don’t wear your hearing aids, right?  

And Mary doesn’t believe she’s hard of hearing.  But she is.

Consequently, there was a lot of repeating things in loud voices.

A lot.

Then there were the memory issues.  Neither one of them are having any serious cognitive issues, but they are experiencing the normal memory decline with aging.  Hell, AGMA is experiencing the normal memory decline because of aging. 

“Why did I come into this room again?”

But after reminding them 10 times when we were going out during the week (we had some tickets to some shows and a food tour) and what my schedule was (I did some things on my own that didn’t interest them), AGMA got a bit flustered.

So I did the reasonable, kind, caring, thing and wrote out a schedule of the week that they could check periodically.

Neither one of them checked it.

Then Mary & I had a bit of a dispute about our room.  It was uncharacteristically coolish in PV while we were there. I usually wore a light long sleeved top other than in the middle of the day.  Mary’s internal thermostat runs hot so she wanted to have the fan above our beds turned on high at night.  AGMA hates coolish air blasting down on me.  Hate it!  So I suggested we use the AC unit in the room (which would not blow directly on me.)

She said no, but continued to kind of complain about me not wanting the fan on high.

*sigh*

But I think the final straw was the memorial concert for Patsy Cline.

Did you know that this past March 5th was the 60th anniversary of her death in a plane crash at the tender age of 30?

Well, if you didn’t know it before the “performance”, you sure did about 5 minutes into it.

Words fail me in trying to describe it…

The sweet woman who performed was OBVIOUSLY an incredible Patsy Cline fan, although she must have been a child or early teen when Patsy died (1963).  She wore red for the 1st half of the show (Patsy’s favorite color), and then after the intermission, she wore a dress that she had had made.  It was an exact copy of the dress Patsy wore during her last performance.  

She struggled with holding back tears several times as she recounted some of the sad events of Patsy’s life.  She flashed pictures on the large screen behind her of Patsy’s grave, and her hand touching it.

Her song set was the same set of songs that Patsy sang during her last performance.  And she gave us the history of every song.  Plus more information about Patsy’s life than you would ever want to know.

AGMA is not really a Patsy Cline fan, but I do love her song Crazy.  And the sweet woman performing was obviously very sincere in her total devotion to & love for Patsy.  

But I have a feeling that Patsy was turning in her grave when she broke into Patsy’s most famous song.  

It kind of hurt to listen.

Honestly, the best part of the show was a Canadian gentleman whom the sweet woman met on the street and invited to the show (with free tickets.)  He told her he was an amateur stand up comic, so he performed during intermission. He was hysterical!

And we actually almost missed the show (darned…)  Lisa got confused about the dates. Of course – she didn’t check the schedule!

AGMA knows that I sound ungrateful for my friend’s generosity.  I am not.  I appreciate her and her giving spirit.  It’s just that, if I spend that much for airfare, food & misc., I honestly don’t want to have to be the companion who takes care of everybody else.

I take care of Hubs on every trip we take because of his disability, and I’m happy to do it so he is still able to travel and see the world.  But when I am on vacation by myself, AGMA kind of wants to not have worry about taking care of my traveling companions to the level I had to on this trip.

Does that sound really selfish and horrible and entitled?  Kinda does…

We’ll see if I can keep my resolve next year when the invite comes, and the weather is cold and gray in Chicago, and AGMA is starting to doubt the existence of the sun.

NOTE:  I wrote this post last week, but have hesitated in posting it because I am struggling in that it really makes AGMA sound petty, ungrateful, self-centered, & entitled.  Which I definitely CAN be at times, but generally not all at the same time.   I’m not normally public about my faults. AGMA has this deep seated need to be liked (from experiences when I was a young girl, and the negative impact it had on my self-esteem.)  To risk showing a negative trait goes against the grain.  But I think we’ve known each other long enough that I can risk me being me – warts and all. I hope…