A few weeks before my wedding in 2012, a package arrived from my grandmother. She had gifted me something from her collection: a porcelain figurine from the Lladro factory in Valencia, Spain, that showed a lady sitting on a high-backed chair with an embroidery hoop in her lap. I recognized her immediately from the formal living room in my grandmother’s house. When I was a child, the high-ceiling graceful room with windows opening onto Grandma’s garden was designed for family portraits around the large brick fireplace, for receptions and wakes, for Easter brunch and Christmas morning, for cocktails and canapes. It was an elegant, well-appointed room for an elegant, well-appointed lady and her embroidery hoop.

When I was a child, I would sneak on silent bare feet into the room to study at the black and white photos from Cuba, to run my eyes along the spines of leatherbound books on the shelves, to kneel before this queen of Lladro as if I were her peasant. But I wondered who she was, where she came from, and why her embroidery mattered so much to her. In 2012 when I was an adult preparing for marriage and living in my own apartment that always felt like a palace to me but could fit its whole self into Grandma’s grand living room, my childhood questions for the sewing lady came rushing back to me from across the years. As I excavated her from a box of packing peanuts and tape, I realized she had no name, so one came to me immediately:

Jacinta.

Jacinta the Sewing Lady.

And then, after so many audiences where she remained silent, she began to speak to me in Spanish with English over-dubbing:

Hello, it is nice to see you again, the little girl all grown up who used to think of me as a queen ruling a quiet domain of coffee tables, portraits, and brandy snifters. I may not be a queen and a woman sewing is not very glamorous, but I like to think I am a regent of a different kind. Though I may be a gift to you, the roles are reversed: you are the gift to me. If you were to look at me, you would think that I am only interested in my sewing, but that’s far from true. From my vantage point on a bookshelf in a study, a coffee table in a lovely living room, a dresser in a cozy apartment, and now another bookshelf next to the television, I have seen so much. I have witnessed generations of your family from Spain and Cuba and Mexico and New Jersey and Louisiana and New York and everywhere in between, and while people and the way their aliveness moves this world is fascinating, I have had many more quiet moments to myself where I can see the difference from day to day between the sunrise and sunset. How the air thins or thickens, how the light starts to shift and continues shifting past your defining moment of “sunrise” or “sunset,” how a thunderstorm miles away makes the beams of the house grunt, how the ornaments on the Christmas tree sparkle when there is no one to see. How everything leaves an imprint. How the violent sweep of a dusting cloth or the tiny legs of an insect can shock even my cold porcelain carapace.

I thank you for looking at me and thinking of me from time to time. Between the times you slipped quietly into the living room and now, maybe you never thought of me much but as soon as you saw me in the packing box, you remembered me and I you. We remember each other and that is significant. But I feel strongly that just as you are blessed with movement, I am blessed with stillness. I am the queen of stillness and pauses and tiny beats like a moth’s wings at dusk. You do a lot, and I see a lot, more than this embroidery hoop. After this shelf, or that one, or one I haven’t even thought of yet, I will continue to celebrate the gift that you give me, and wherever I go or whoever moves me, I know that there is always still so much to see.

I recently introduced y’all to my version of coffee tourism in this Day Trip where we traveled all the way to Norway to learn that the world’s best coffee shop 2026 is Onyx Coffee Lab in Bentonville, Arkansas.

So, imagine my surprise when I was strolling along 40th Street near Bryant Park in my hometown of NYC with a coffee already in hand and I see this unassuming easel on the sidewalk. See in the photo how incredibly polite this easel is? Large enough to catch my eye but respectively tucked out of the flow of pedestrian traffic so as not to be a hazard. How polite!

Could it be? Has Onyx Coffee Lab come to me? Well, and NYC? According to their official website, no, while Onyx is served at a few NYC establishments, Onyx does not have a location in the 5 boroughs.

The Polite Easel seems to indicate otherwise.

Too bad I already had my coffee and I was on my way to catch a train, so I didn’t have time to stop in or investigate further. But, mark my words, folks, I shall be back and you’ll be the first to know if the world’s best coffee shop has a toeprint in NYC.

Our host in Chiang Mai welcomed us with a big smile. His house was made almost entirely of teak and was raised on stilts to allow cool breezes to flow unhindered from one end of the house to the other. It stood alone in a clearing surrounded by what I thought was a thick jungle.

“Come see my garden,” he said warmly, inviting us to follow him into the dense foliage that reached Tim Burton-eqsue viny tendrils towards his beautiful house on stilts.

The whole scene screamed “ZIKA” so I added an extra layer of bug repellant and mentally reminded myself that I had indeed taken my malaria prevention pills on time that morning. Our host invited us to stop for a moment and take a deep inhale.

The cool breeze instantly whisked away my first-world anxiety and delivered the scents of a fragrant bowl of green curry mixed with something sweet and spicy like nutmeg in Christmas cookies. As our host began to talk about the plants he cultivated to make the spices famous in Northern Thai cuisine, I noticed on the ground tiny plaques identifying the different plants in the curly Khmer writing that had become familiar after one week in Thailand but would never be fully understood by my tiny Western mind.

I thought I was in a jungle, but alongside and within the jungle, our host had cultivated his garden.

It’s an understatement to say that the world has gone mad in the COVID pandemic. I’ve personally experienced a slow escalation of madness from the silly to the downright unbelievable. As an example, in the days before we all were banished to working from home, I was famously late to almost every meeting in the office. It made sense when meetings were booked back to back and I had to navigate a giant office tower. Now I’m working from home and I’m still five minutes late to every meeting.

Then there is my neighbor who wears a full Hazmat suit to walk her dog yet is often seen exchanging sloppy wet kisses with said dog who is a known poop-eater. Then there is another friend who told me and a few other mutual friends on a Zoom call that he taped his roommate into her bedroom with duct tape and asked her to text him when she needed to leave the bedroom so he could remove the tape, sanitize the apartment’s common areas, and disappear safely into his room before she emerged. And he said this in such a matter-of-fact ho-hum way that I’m still shocked that he was shocked when she moved out.

But that seems fairly normal compared to my latest encounter with the downright unbelievable Tatiana.

I met her by chance when, after months of conquering our cabin fever with regular mopping and home improvement projects, my husband and I declared the house “too clean” and decided to leave for a few days. We drove to a quaint town in the hinterlands, a place of local history tours, antiquing, high tea, craft beer, apple picking, Civil War re-enactments, and corn mazes. Coronavirus had transformed it into ghost town overrun with aggressive squirrels and feral cats. Tea parlors were boarded shut. Craft breweries made hand sanitizer. Apples rotted on trees.

Resigned to make the most of it, we checked into a Victorian bed and breakfast where the innkeepers greeted us en masque and invited us to the half-capacity, socially distant wine hour in the library. “Pretend it’s Mardi Gras,” my husband whispered. I sprained something rolling my eyes.

With my wine also at half-capacity in a plastic cup, I left my husband to his seat six feet away from everyone else at the masked ball and I wandered upstairs. Pushing open the French doors, I stepped onto the second floor balcony just as the sun was setting over the cobblestone street. The feral cats emerged from their dens and stretched. I lowered my mask, sipped my spoonful of wine, and wondered, what other epidemics this town had seen? Cholera? Spanish flu? Rabies? Morbid thoughts for morbid times.

Behind me, the French doors squeaked. Clad in one of the inn’s thick terry bathrobes with an actual glass of wine in hand, a petite blonde woman in horn-rimmed glasses stepped onto the balcony. She smiled at me and my brain-short circuited.

She wasn’t wearing a mask. She wasn’t fumbling for it in her pocket. It was not chin-strapped. THERE IS NO MASK AT ALL, shrieked my hysteria.

I swung into self-preservation mode: yanking up my mask, covering my cup with a napkin, leaping backwards as far as I could go until I could visualize Dwayne Johnson lying down on the ground between us – a handy trick I’d adopted for judging social distance. In my haste to protect myself from the unseen viral scourge, I stabbed my calf with the ornate wrought iron railing and barely caught myself from toppling over backwards towards the writhing nest of feral cats on the street below. That should have been a clue that COVID on occasion was the least of my problems.

And she just stood there smiling at me!

Then COVID Mary spoke with a thick accent. “Hello, mind if I join you?”

Not waiting for an answer, she settled herself in a rocking chair on the other side of the balcony. It’s a Dwayne and a half, I said as I eyed the distance between us.

I could easily have left the balcony then and there but I didn’t. I felt as if I were frozen in shock.

COVID Mary continued to smile and asked, “Isn’t this a beautiful inn?”

I nodded.

“I wish I had more time to see the town,” she said with a sweet little shrug. “I’m only here for one night.”

I nodded again.

We sat in silence. We watched the feral cats and sipped wine. Well, she watched and sipped from the actual glass, rocking back and forth gently, head resting against the back of the chair. I unfroze myself enough to squeeze into the farthest corner of the porch swing with my knees tucked up. I was still trying to calm my nerves but my hands gripping my cup of wine shook in a tell tale sign of hysteria.

I seethed inwardly, how could she possibly be acting so normal in the age of coronavirus? How dare she not wear a mask and act like everything is fine? And when did I start acting like a hypochondriac? Why am I treating her like she’s a zombie? Have I become Hazmat dog lady and crazy roommate tape man? When did I start being afraid of my own shadow? Sure, she isn’t wearing a mask but here we are, outside on a balcony in open air separated by a Dwayne-and-a-half. She certainly doesn’t look or sound sick. Neither am I, for that matter. I haven’t even so much as sneezed in months. So this is probably all fine? Right? Maybe? ARGH! This was supposed to be my vacation from this kind of madness! What the hell is wrong with me? After all, SHE is the one socializing in a bathrobe at five o’clock in the afternoon!

I then made a bold choice. Sliding my facemask under my chin, I first gulped some wine, then I loudly inhaled fresh sunset air and loudly exhaled my panic attack.

I realized that COVID Mary was watching me with a polite yet inquisitive smile.

I cleared my throat. “So, where are you from?”

Her eyes practically sparked with glee. “Guess.”

“I’m not good at guessing.” That was true in the age before coronavirus!

She giggled. “You can’t give up that easily!” she chided. Her English was amazing but you could cut the accent with a knife.

“Okay fine… California!” I declared.

She tilted her head in confusion, then giggled. “Ah, no. I will tell you, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I am from…” there was a slight pause “…wait for it…” an index finger raised in the air “… Siberia!” Jazz hands!

HUH?! I thought. “I’ve never met anyone from Siberia before,” I said

“Well, now you have. It’s lovely to make your acquaintance,” she chimed.

Seriously! I screamed inwardly. What is up with the smiling? We are in a pandemic!

“So you had quite a trip to get here,” I said, ignoring the cyclone of my thoughts.

She found this hilarious and waved her hand around. “Oh, I moved to the United States many years ago. Then I met my husband and stayed in Virginia.”

“Do you travel back to Siberia often?”

“No, it’s very far away, and I’m so busy with work.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a spy,” she said flatly and sipped her wine.

I don’t know what came over me but I laughed. “That’s funny.”

“Yes, you’re right, I’m not,” she laughed along with me. “But I work for a CIA contractor.”

“Doesn’t that still make you a spy?” I kicked the porch swing into action and its chains creaked and groaned.

She nodded at the careening swing. “Be careful, I think that is very old and you probably shouldn’t do that.”

I put my feet down to stop the swing. “You’re probably right.” Then I said obnoxiously, “I guess in Siberia things are older?”

She shook her head and answered me seriously. “Just colder.”

She broke out in bright laughter at that, and I laughed along with her. Contagious laughter is the kind of contagion we all need right now! I thought as my heart warmed.

She nodded to my plastic cup. “Let’s have another. I will be right back.”

Before I could say anything, she and the bathrobe whirled off the rocking chair and floated through the French doors. I enjoyed the sunset view over the quaint rooftops and felt normal for a split second. Moments later, my serenity vanished as she swirled onto the balcony with one carafe of wine.

Sharing in the age of coronavirus!

The sweet pixie smile flickered away as she registered my panic. Her eyes took on a steely focus. She poured herself a glass and then marched unapologetically across the Dwayne Johnson safety zone. I fumbled to yank up my mask, twisting it under my nose in the process. She handed me the carafe at arm’s length. As soon as my shaky hand grabbed it, she spun away and returned to her seat. What else was I supposed to do?

After filling my own cup, I stretched as far as I could without leaving the safety of my swing to place the carafe somewhere near imaginary Dwayne’s knees. The entire encounter took less than thirty seconds but it felt like crossing the DMZ under fire.

Okay, I lectured myself as a steely silence descended between us. She didn’t pull a knife on you! She’s not a zombie! But did I just contract the virus from a carafe of wine that she touched? What am I going to do? Maybe I should go wash my hands right now and she can finish the carafe. But what about the doorknobs I have to touch between here and the sink? Why don’t I carry hand sanitizer all the time? If I touch the sanitizer container with infected hands, then how clean are they really? Am I being safe or am I being crazy? HELP!

I gulped my wine. I sized up the situation: the carafe, the Dwayne zone, her rocking chair. One of us - ME! – was having a panic attack and one of us – HER! – was not. What was her secret? I made another bold decision: I was going to stay put and pretend that the weirdest thing about this interaction was her bathrobe and not my persistent panic attacks!

I glanced over at her. She was watching me, the wide grin dimmed just a little, and was that pity for me I saw in her eyes? Yes, this poor crazy lady, I could almost hear her thinking. I resolved to pretend like nothing had happened. I wracked my brain for a new topic of conversation when she beat me to it.

“So now you tell me where you are from,” she said.

“New York City,” I answered.

“Things are very tough there with the virus, yes?” she asked sympathetically.

I nodded. “It’s getting better but it’s been tough.”

“You know, you shouldn’t worry. It’s all temporary,” she said firmly. “This will all be over soon.”

Somewhere in my addled brains, a flare went up. Her tone was authoritative, not wishful. Maybe something was getting lost in translation. “You say that with such confidence,” I said.

“Hmmm…” was that a giggle? “It’s the truth.”

“Not even the medical community can really say how long this will drag out and wreak havoc,” I said, feeling like a cartoon character in an advertisement for an anti-depressant where a thundercloud rains only on my head.

“Maybe I know something you don’t.”

I paused in mid-slurp. This was very strange, especially coming from a Siberian spy-not-spy with sommelier airs in a bathrobe. I was even more disturbed when her Cheshire cat grin melted away and she stopped the rocking chair with both feet.

“If you will listen, I am going to tell you the truth about the coronavirus,” she said in a solemn tone.

The sun was slipping low behind the Victorian homes across the street. A gentle evening breeze fluttered the hem of her bathrobe. I leaned in, almost tipping out of the swing and spilling wine onto Dwayne. “What do you mean?”

“I know something very important, and since you live in New York City, you should know it too.”

Curiosity squelched my hysteria and I nodded. “Yes?”

“The authorities are completely wrong about how the coronavirus is transmitted,” she said. “I know this because I go to a gym near Langley, Virginia. Everyone at this gym is a spy.”

I suddenly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This was going to a very strange place.

She paused to take a sip of wine before placing her glass down on the ground so she could talk with her hands. “There is a Chinese lady who I always see when I go to this gym. She is a spy. Everyone knows that she is a spy. I was coming out of Body Pump one day and she was leaving Zumba. She came right up to me - ” her hands, palms flat, raised up to her face slowly – “And she got this close - ” both palms covered her face – “This close - ” she repeated turning to profile so I clearly see that her palms hovered just in front of the tip of her nose – “And then…” wait for it… “SHE SNEEZED IN MY MOUTH!”

I shrieked in alarm and jolted back onto the swing.

“Oh I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!” She covered her mouth with one hand and giggled.

I gulped the rest of the wine out of my cup as conflicting feelings of embarrassment and abject terror battled in my soul. Only in the age of coronavirus could a sneeze become a monster. “What happened next?” I asked. I was a kid around a campfire and COVID Mary had the flashlight at her chin.

She paused for a moment as the quiet sounds of night descended upon us. I swear, an owl hooted. Then she continued, “Not even twelve hours later, I was so sick. I can’t even tell you.”

I gasped and whispered, “With…”

She nodded solemnly. “With the COVID-19. I had a fever of 102. A terrible cough that you cannot imagine. And I had shortness of breath. I could not taste or smell anything. And…” wait for it… “this was in February.”

Wait, what?! “How did you know it was COVID-19 in February?” I asked.

“I didn’t! My doctor said it was the flu. I stayed home and I was wiped out. I couldn’t do anything except drink soup and sleep. A few days later, I felt better all on my own. In April, I tested for the antibodies and…”

I was not going to wait for it. “You had antibodies.”

“Yes!” An index finger raised triumphantly in the air. “And, let me tell you, when I say I felt better in a few days, I was not sick anymore. But it took months for me to be fully well again.”

“Did you go to the hospital?” I asked.

“No, I went to Florida.”

I failed to stifle a laugh. “And then there was an outbreak in Florida!”

“Yes, but not due to me. I sat on the beach away from everyone and healed my lungs. The salt air is very good for you, remember that. So, let me tell you the lesson of the story.”

“Don’t go to a gym full of spies?” Nothing like a sarcastic quip to make me feel like myself again.

“No, that’s not it,” she said very seriously. The laughter died in my throat as she waited for me to pay attention. “The lesson is that you cannot get the COVID-19 unless a Chinese spy sneezes in your mouth.”

I don’t know if it was the wine or if I’d finally had enough of crazy people, the pandemic, or this story in particular but I burst out laughing uncontrollably.

“You have to get THIS close!” she protested over my laughter. Again she placed her palm right at the tip of her nose. “THIS close! I saw her teeth!”

I took a few breaths to calm by laughter and nodded. “I am glad you got better.”

“So am I!” she said dismissively and waved her hand in the air. “So these masks on the street and people who are afraid to get too close and you will catch it from eating at a restaurant inside… it is a gross overreaction. That is not how you get the COVID-19. THIS close - ” again with the palm – “Who gets that close to any stranger?”

“You’ve never taken the New York City subway, have you?” I wiped tears of laughter from my eyes.

“Has a Chinese spy sneezed in your mouth on the New York City subway?” she shot back.

“If you don’t see their teeth, you won’t get it!” I said raising my cup of wine in a toast.

She toasted me back. “Now you understand! And you can go back and tell everyone in New York the truth.”

Yeah, I’ll get right on that. I nodded and stood up. I’d exhausted my polite social interaction quota, and the wine had gone straight to my bladder. “I’m going to turn in for the night. It was nice to - ”

“Before you go,” she interrupted me, “I have one more thing to tell you. And that is this - ” …hurry it up!… “Be very careful about what the government tells you.”

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to respond with a sarcastic quip. But something in her manner was suddenly very ninja assassin. She is Russian, after all.

Then suddenly the Cheshire cat grin returned and she kicked off the ground to start the rocking chair going again. “You’re so lucky you met me!”

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL -

“My name is Tatiana. What’s yours?”

I struggled to unlock my voice. “I’m… Kate. It was nice to meet you. Have a good evening.”

“You too, Kate! And remember... THIS close.”

I dashed off the balcony, yanking up my mask as I went, with the echoes of her giggles ringing in my ears.

We emerged from the crypt tour of Edinburgh excited, spooked, and hungry. Maybe it was the creepy way that the tour guide in her impressive black cape and not-too-thick brogue told some of Scotland’s famous ghost stories, like the bag piper lost under the Royal Mile or the religious rebel buried under a parking spot. Maybe it was the journey into the crypt, where we encountered not ghosts and bones but the sounds of a wedding reception in the next chamber. Maybe it was the way the stomach expands on trips, but we needed an after-dinner snack.

Strolling back to our hotel near the university, I noticed that things were getting a little desperate. Night was falling and restaurants were closing. Pubs were open, but the kitchens were closed. And we were hangry.

“We still have dessert for you,” said the bartender at the pub next to the 7-11 a block from our hotel, which we decided to visit as a last resort. “It’s sticky toffee pudding.”

They could have served us boiled tartan in whipped cream but instead what showed up was a rich spice cake swimming in thick toffee sauce and real custard. Like all proper Scottish fare, it warmed us up and filled us up. We slept like gargoyles who had hit the whisky hard and had an easier time understanding our Scots hosts the for the rest of the trip.

“We have sticky toffee pudding all the time!” said the bartender on our third night at the same pub. That night, she served us an extra large portion.

Upon returning home, we discovered that New York does many things right but sticky toffee pudding is not one of them. Throughout the UK and parts of Europe, you can get a pre-made STP (as the cool kids call it) at any local grocery freezer, but I had to find a recipe that matched the mystical dessert that saved us from near-starvation one cool September night. I’d love to tell you it’s the bartender’s family recipe, scribbled on a napkin and carefully smuggled in my carry-on back across the pond, but my STP recipe can be found here.

For one day, pretend you’re a wizard. Or a spy. Or a person of interest.

Is that your gym bag you’re carrying onto the subway, or your superhero cape?

Are you going to the coffee shop, or is this where you meet your informant?

Is it time to walk the dog, or have you unleashed the hellhound on the wicked?

Is that spaghetti sauce on your shirt, or the blood of thine vanquished enemies?

Is that your boss calling, or is that the extraction team letting you know the rendezvous point?

Are you cleaning the bathroom, or thwarting alien attacks with nuclear scrub brush?

The possibilities are endless when you really let your imagination loose…

The washing machine in the basement had been running for about fifteen minutes when the power went out. Upstairs at the kitchen table where I was enjoying afternoon coffee with my parents, my mom grinned.

“They’ve shut off the power in Boulder,” she said. “The winds are coming.” Her tone was both ominous and excited.

Outside the blue sky was brilliant. A gentle breeze swayed the trees. It was hard to believe that gale-force winds were minutes away from kicking into high gear to rip across the plains and crash into the Flatiron Mountains. But my mother had been talking about the winds all morning.

“Like a hurricane,” she had said at breakfast. “But without rain.”

Growing up in South Carolina, I understood hurricanes and how to prepare for them. My dad, who carries a rope in his car for rescue purposes, sprang into action soon as the clock on the microwave blinked and went dark.

“The good thing is that the water doesn’t depend on electricity so if the power goes out, we can still flush the toilet,” he said as he descended to the basement. Fill up the bathtubs was step one, but since that was not necessary in Boulder, he was obviously onto step two, check the flashlight batteries.

I wondered why the power was already out when the trees were barely twitching as my mom gazed out the window and said, “There’s also no eye.” It took me a second to recall our breakfast weather lesson. “There is no calm in this storm. Not until it’s all over.”

My mother has always been a weather witch, rescheduling activities when the sun was shining only to be smug hours later when the rain had ruined a Saturday afternoon, getting us out of the pool a full ten minutes before the thunder rolled, and knowing exactly what time she had to start her tennis match to win before getting rained out. It was no surprised she had tuned into the weather of Colorado too and more than a little creepy that she seemed to be enjoying it so much.

“We have beer but we do need ice cream,” my dad announced. He sported a headlamp as he emerged from the basement with a camping lantern and an assortment of flashlights. This completed the third and final step of hurricane prep (buy beer and ice cream).

My mom, both a storm oracle and a practical wife, said to him, “We can get ice cream after dinner. We’ll have to go out since there’s no power here.” Then she looked out the window again, studying the calm blue sky as her inner weather vane spun wildly. Checking her watch, she grinned broadly and sang out, “The power should be back on in about three hours. Just in time for happy hour!”

Exactly three hours later, the winds had dramatically stopped but the power was still out. We were in the car on a quest for food and ice cream, and after my first encounter with this eyeless hurricane nowhere near an ocean, I needed something stronger than beer. My husband who had been browsing the shops on Pearl Street when the winds started was nearly blown off his feet and rescued by the city bus. The sliding glass door that opened onto the second-floor deck had blown off its track and landed on my parents’ bed. The last thing on my mind was my load of laundry soaking in the machine as the winds pushed the trees horizontal and day faded to night, leaving us in near total darkness.

“That way,” my mom’s extended arm rose from the back seat to the front between my dad in the driver’s seat and me in shotgun. Her hand pointed to streaks of light in the valley below, “go towards the lights.”

My father angled the car in the direction my mom was pointing, and off we went like pioneers to explore uncharted lands. We drove fifteen minutes to a lovely Thai restaurant with full power and great wine in the half of Boulder that wasn’t still plunged into darkness. With my belly full of bison kao soi and chardonnay, I followed my dad across the parking lot to Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, one of his favorites.

“The winds broke our door and the power was out so the ice cream in that front freezer has to go,” said the college kid working behind the counter. My mom, my husband and I stared aghast at the shattered door hastily taped door while my dad checked his pulse to ensure he had not died and gone to heaven. We scurried back to the car with several pints each like raccoons on a trash heist.

“The power will be back on when we get home,” intoned Nostradamus from the back seat as the image of my dad’s grey SUV in dark windows looked not unlike a covered wagon rolling through the plains.

The power was not on at my parents’ house when we got back. By the light of my dad’s headlamp, we stumbled our way into the living room and finished off the ice cream in a massive mercy killing.

When the power roared back to life around midnight and the washing machine spun into motion, I realized I had been deep asleep, cocooned in darkness, sunk into a silence that can only come after the gale-force winds have stopped and the lights are a little too far away to impress upon the dark.

Two crones, one more crone-y than the other, dressed in sunflower yellow with ruffles and sensible walking sneakers take the 7 train west on a Monday morning. No one notices them except me, a crone-to-be dressed in standard issue light weight NYC office black with zero ruffles.

With a note of awe in her voice, the younger crone turns to the older and says, “Mom, here we are at Hudson Yards.”

Mom. Daughter. On their way to Hudson Yards, a ruffles-free glass-and-steel office, restaurant and shopping block hovering over the Penn Station train tracks on Manhattan’s western flank.

Mom Crone says to Daughter, “I haven’t been on the subway in years,” as she takes her daughter’s arm to exit the subway train. “With your father,” she adds.

“That must have been hard with Daddy,” says the daughter. I strain my ears and steal a glance their way, hoping to catch the mother’s response but I miss it.

The daughter speaks again but all I hear is, “You were always so much stronger than he was.”

Suddenly I’m a toddler, not an almost-crone, because I am bursting with questions:

When did you start wearing ruffles again?

Why is Hudson Yards so interesting to you?

What happened to Daddy?

How did Mom develop her strength?

What is your story, two crones in yellow?

I want to drop everything and spelunk into the holes in the story. Once I’m there, I want to run around and explore, getting my heart rate and curiosity up like I do at the gym.

Instead they take the escalator one way, and I the other.

As self proclaimed coffee snobs, my husband Todd and I do love our coffee and the ritual around it. Our coffee making devices at home outnumber us 4:1 and we source beans nationwide.

An afternoon visit to Oslo’s trendy Grunerlokken neighborhood presented us with our first coffee-tourism opportunity with a stop at Tim Wendelboe’s cafe. All I knew was that this cafe was famous and the coffee outstanding. I ordered a cappuccino al freddo (pictured) and Todd ordered a regular cappuccino (not pictured but beautiful). Both fulfilled the hype promise - this was the best coffee in the world. Most of all, the coffee stop at Tim Wendelboe provided an excuse to rest tired feet and recharge weary bodies after a long morning of sightseeing around Oslo in uncharacteristic summer heat.

A sign hanging above the charming counter awarded Tim Wendelboe the honor of “The World’s Second Best Coffee Shop.” As we sipped our beverages, we wondered, Second best? This was pretty damn good for second best! So what’s the first best?

It’s Onyx Coffee Lab in Bentonville, Arkansas. Arkansas beating Norway in the coffee World Cup was not on my bingo card, but this made us more than curious about Onyx.

A coffee snob/tourist can leave no brew unsipped…

Twenty-seven year old Lucy stumbles out of the Franklin Street subway stop amid a flood of early Monday morning Manhattan foot traffic. She shoulders a large purse, drags a rolling carry-on suitcase, and sports a coffee stain on her coat.

Stopped at a red light, Lucy fishes her cell phone from her shoulder bag and punches a number. As it dials, the light changes and pedestrians surge forward.

Over in Brooklyn, her best friend Alex waters his plants and sips coffee. He checks the caller ID on his cell phone and grins. “Yes, ma’am?”

Lucy totters across Broadway where she is suddenly clocked by a hurried office lady in a dowdy tweed suit and sneakers. “Bitch!” Lucy screams.

“Speaking!” Alex shouts back into the phone. He holds the phone at arm’s length as morning traffic squeals by.

Lucy survives her trek across West Broadway and sighs into her phone. “Sorry. Hi, it’s me. The LAX-JFK red-eye is no place for sleep.”

“No, in fact, I’m sure it was designed by the same monsters who torture people at Gitmo,” Alex replies. “Tell me all about LA. How bronze are you?”

“I’m all about the SPF. By the way, who takes a baby on a red-eye?” she asks.

“Masochists, that’s who,” Alex responds.

“And I now have a cup of coffee on my shirt instead of in my system.”

“Tragedy. Should I bring you a chemise sans caffeine? I have to teach Sweat’n’Sculpt at 10:30am. I could swing by after and we could grab a hot dog since that’s all you can afford and you can tell me all about Lala land!”

“The Beast might hold me hostage all day, chemise be damned,” Lucy says as she drags her suitcase and herself into the offices of Miramax Film Company. Commotion behind her causes her to turn around. “Aw shit, Alex, here comes the Weinstein Assistant Army.”

Emily, Lucas, and Steven, all in their early twenties, stride through the lobby. Emily is on the phone, Steven sports a Starbucks coffee carrier with four tall cups nestled inside, and Lucas nods to the security guards as they are waved through the turnstiles. Collectively, they are a commanding presence, but as they spot Lucy, the WAA shift into full-on bully mode.

“Oh look, it’s Lucy, executive assistant from Marketing,” Steven sings out and nods at her suitcase. “Homeless again, are we?”

“What’s on your shirt?” Lucas snarls. “Spit up again, did we?”

“Oh, kill the Yoda syntax, bitches!” Alex bellows into the phone.

Emily rolls her eyes at Lucy without missing a beat of her call. Lucy pulls over to the side and the WAA sweeps past her into the elevator.

Far away in Brooklyn, Alex flips them off. “The Wicked Assistants of Weinstein! Don’t they melt in daylight?”

“I have to go in before the tardy chip in my head explodes,” Lucy says to Alex. “But, let me give you the headline.”

“Quick like bunnies! Go!” Alex chimes.

“All of my meetings about the screenplay were canceled or taken by some third string assistant from the development department.”

“Oh boo!”

“And, just when I decide to abandon hope and go to the beach for some vitamin D and real tacos, guess who I see crossing Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica?”

“I’m assuming you don’t mean the Risen Christ. SHIT, Lucy! You saw Bastard Matt the Ex-boyfriend from hell? Why didn’t you call me pronto?”

“I blacked out.”

“I thought he was a press tour for his indie film from Sundance? He shouldn’t have been in Santa Monica!”

“Clearly I’m not as good of an internet stalker as I thought I was!”

“Did he see you?”

“No, I hid behind a bodybuilder.”

“Thank the stars.”

“But, that was one hundred percent the last thing I needed! I’m single, I work a dead end marketing assistant job at Miramax, I can’t afford to dry clean this blouse, and only assistants pretend to read my screenplays.”

Alex pauses for a moment with the phone at his chest. He shakes his head and picks it back up. “Honey, I’ll see you around noon with a clean shirt and I’ll treat you to one of New York’s finest hot dogs and a coffee with skim milk.”

“Sure. Hey, maybe I’ll get luck and wind up with food poisoning?” Lucy quips as she drags herself and her suitcase into the elevator.

“That’s the spirit! Love you, see you later.”

Lucy hangs up with Alex as the elevator deposits her on the eleventh floor. She rolls to the cubicle in front of a corner office where a frosted glass door sports her boss’ name and title Executive Vice President of Global Marketing. An incomprehensible ROAR blows out of the office as a gust of wind knocks Lucy’s hair askew and strews papers across her desk.

“Coming!” Lucy shouts back as she stashes her suitcase under her desk. Under her breath she mutters, “Fuck me. Fuck you. Fuck everybody.”

Another ROAR and blasting wind send Lucy scurrying for a notepad in the tornado of office supplies blowing across her desk. Seizing the notepad and adjusting a scarf to hide the coffee stain, Lucy stumbles into the office.

A second or two later, a huge gust of wind and a big ROAR blow Lucy backwards out of the office. Covered in post-it notes, Lucy holds an empty Starbucks cup under her arm, a menu in one hand, and a memo in the other. A binder clip dangles from an earlobe.

“Okay, focus,” Lucy mutters to herself. She stacks the memo and the menu neatly on her desk. “Memo to Scorsese. Menu to Shun Lee Palace for the lunch meeting. Call the staff together and -”

The phone rings. Lucy dives for it. Her answer is buried as a stream of co-workers rush past her desk.

“Important... ASAP... conference room today... fax... on his calendar... need stapler... fax... borrow your highlighter...scan then fax… very important... fax this... ASAP... notes from last week... scan… staple… fax… meeting tomorrow... receipts… very important fax... now...copy this... yesterday’s grosses...fax... to Harvey ASAP but first need five minutes NOW…”

Papers shower down over Lucy. She fights them off and shouts into her boss’s office. “I have Terri!”

ROAR.

Lucy ducks the gust of wind. “I’ll have him return,” she says into the phone and hangs up.

ROAR.

Lucy jumps up and runs to the fax machine in the next cubicle. “Yes, right now! Faxing to Mr. Scorsese right now!” She punches a thirteen digit number on the fax machine and tosses the menu through.

Lucy sits back down at her desk and clears off the new mountain of papers. She picks up the top page and gasps. It’s the memo that was supposed to go to Scorsese, while the beeping fax machine indicates that the Chinese menu has been successfully received.

ROAR. WIND.

With impossible speed, Lucy faxes the memo and dials the number to the Chinese restaurant. As her boss ROARS from the office, Lucy relays the lunch order as the fax machine beeps. She breathes a sigh of relief at the “send successful” message and hangs up with the Chinese restaurant.

“LUCY!”

She turns and gasps as a herd of marketing managers and assistants stomp her way. They all brandish sheaves of papers and glossy press kits. Lucy lets out a withering cry, turns away from them, and runs down the hall into the women’s room as a blast of WIND up-ends the papers on her desk again.

Seconds later, Lucy emerges from the bathroom and leans over a cubicle wall. “Sorry, do you have a tampon?” A hand bearing a tampon emerges from the cubicle. “Thank you, thing,” she mutters.

A hysterical cacophony of “LUCY!” from the marketing team mixes with earsplitting ROARs from her boss’ office. Lucy stuffs the tampon behind her ear and races back to her desk.

She holds up a finger to the marketing team and ducks another blast of WIND from the office. She unearths the phone from the mountain of papers and dials a number.

The marketing team surrounds her and she fends them off by smacking them with rolled up memos and press kits.

“Go” SMACK “the fuck” SMACK “away!” SMACK. Into the phone she says, “Yes, Steven! Hello.” Pause. “Yes, this is Lucy. My shirt is fine. I have –” ROAR WIND “- calling for Harvey.”

Lucy punches the speaker button. “Hail to the Chief” squawks out. She then punches the mute button and shouts into the office, “You’re holding for Harvey!”

Glancing up over the cubicle wall as the tinny “Hail to the Chief” plays from the speaker, Lucy realizes that the marketing team has vanished. She breathes a sigh of relief and slowly sinks back into her chair.

She’s jolted awake as a chorus of voices shriek across the line. “Harvey’s on the line! Harvey’s on the line! Where are you? Where are you? Harvey’s waiting! Harvey’s waiting!”

Lucy punches a series of buttons on the phone while shouting to her boss. “HARVEY! LINE ONE!!!”

The ROAR dissolves into a buttery male voice that fades away as Lucy closes the office door for privacy. “Good morning, Harvey. Checking in with the weekend grosses…”

“Gross is the operative word,” Lucy mutters, reaching behind her ear. The tampon has vanished. Lucy puts her head on her desk, narrowly missing a clock that reads “9:08 AM.”

The clock flips to 12:18 PM and Lucy builds an intricate sculpture of paperclips, whiteout strips, and post-its at her desk. Her boss leaves the office and passes by her desk with a whoosh and a ROAR. The whole thing collapses. With a sigh, Lucy sweeps the sculpture debris into the trash.

Her cell phone rings. She jumps. “Shit!” She answers quickly. “Alex!”

Nearby, Alex scurries out of the Chambers Street subway stop. “Lucy? Hey! I am SO sorry, I should be skinned alive. Is Mercury in Retrograde? Can they unleash you for a hot dog?”

Popping up over the cubicle farm like Whack-a-Mole, Lucy surveys the office. She sits back down and whispers, “Well, maybe. The Beast just went to rape and pillage, so if another stooge can cover my phones, I can sneak out for five minutes.”

“Great, see you in five on the corner of Greenwich and North Moore,” Alex hangs up.

“Where else?” says Lucy out loud and she shrugs on her coat.

One of the marketing team strolls by and drops Variety Gotham on her desk. “That’s for him,” the team member says, nodding at the Boss’ door.

“Well, duh,” says Lucy. They exchange smirks as the marketing team member saunters away. Lucy glances at the cover and gasps.

Moments later, Alex juggles two hot dogs and two coffee cups while Lucy shoves the Variety cover in his face.

“ALEX! LOOK!” Lucy wails.

Alex shakes his head in disgust. “Bastard Matt, you evil Rasputin. Mustard?”

“It was bad enough when he made IMDB! The fucking internet movie database!”

“Oh, I told you not to overreact to that. The Pope is on IMDB.”

“But THIS. IS. DIFFERENT.”

“Yes, yes, it is. Please take your dirty water dog and eat it.”

Lucy chomps down half the hot dog, chokes, coughs, chews some more, and wails with her mouthful.

“But, Alex, do you SEE this?? He’s playing Goldie Hawn’s son in a Christmas movie! Oscar season. Race you to the bridge. If I get there first, I’m jumping.”

Alex takes the remaining third of Lucy’s hot dog. “Okay, Lucy, sweets, no, no, no. I don’t think so, hot stuff. And you need to chew, honey. Chew. Swallow. I have a coffee for you.”

Lucy puts her head in her hands and sits down on a fire hydrant. “This is just too much! I can’t take it.”

Alex shrugs. “This might be the sleep deprivation talking. You also OD’d on Vitamin D, I think. Lucy, come on, don’t go there. Don’t let that fuckface win! ”

People walking by completely ignore Lucy as she takes the coffee from Alex’s hand and rips off the lid. It sloshes down her blouse again. “Don’t you see? He’s already won, Alex! He’s running lines with Goldie Hawn and I’m conferencing calls for Cerberus. Harvey Weinstein’s assistants pee in my Coke! I’m lower than rat turds.”

Alex hands her a stack of tiny paper napkins. “No, honey, that makes THEM lower than rat turds. Don’t compare yourself to the Weinstein Assistant Army, for fuck’s sake. Don’t insult me like that.”

“Well, Harvey Weinstein is SOMEBODY. My ex is Goldie Hawn’s son, he’s SOMEBODY. Who the hell am I? And how the hell do I become somebody? Once I’m somebody, I could call him up and say, “You’ll never work in this town again.”

“Do you still have his cell number?”

“No.”

“How long is your fucking nose right now?”

“Alex! Please! Why don’t I have MY three picture deal?”

“Because Harvey Weinstein hasn’t read your script, Lucy! Because it sounds like no one has read your script, except me, and I fucking love it but I’m not a studio mogul with an expense account for Shun Lee Palace!”

“But, how do I get him to read it?”

“Bastard Matt?”

“No! Forget that asshole. Harvey! How can I get him to read it? Soon? So the movie can be made in time for it to beat Bastard Matt’s movie at the box office this Christmas?

Alex takes Lucy’s coffee away from her. He polishes off his hot dog, her hot dog, and sips from both coffee cups. “I don’t know, sweets, maybe kill Harvey Weinstein and conquer Miracrax?

Lucy’s head snaps up from its wallowing position in her hands. “Kill Harvey Weinstein. That would work.”

Alex laughs and tosses out one coffee cup. “No, that would put you in jail. Here, have a sip.”

Lucy waves away the proffered coffee and leaps to her feet. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Alex, stunned, stares after her. “Lucy! Where are you going? What the fuck?”

As she walks away from Alex, Lucy starts to laugh. Her laugh grows louder and louder. It echoes across lower Manhattan. Lucy breaks into a run and turns onto Canal Street. Panicked, Alex follows but loses her in the crowd. He starts calling her again and again but only the voicemail picks up.

The lunchtime crowd bustles past a strange plant shop off Canal street. Large smile on her face, Lucy leaves the store. She is carrying a large paper wrapped plant and a small orange plastic bag.

A few blocks away from the office, a hurried group of office workers smack into Lucy. She quickly gains her footing but the paper slips away from the plant. A large Venus flytrap attempts to take a chunk out of the nearest woman’s neck. Screaming and pushing, the crowd retreats from Lucy.

Pulling the paper back around the plant and gently making shushing noises, Lucy strides confidently across West Broadway towards the office.

At her desk, Lucy pops a disk into her computer, opens a file entitled “SILHOUETTE” and clicks the print button. Marketing team members race by, but Lucy positions the Venus flytrap at the edge of her cubicle wall. The plant lunges and snarls at everyone who passes by. Lucy dabs at her stained blouse with a cotton ball. Ninety pages later, Lucy and the Venus flytrap stand up and stride to the elevators.

A loud DING announces their presence on the thirteenth floor. A large frosted glass window nearby proclaims the location Office of Harvey and Bob Weinstein.

Carrying her script in one hand and the Venus flytrap in the other, Lucy pushes open the door. The three assistants stand up one by one: first Emily, then Steven, then Lucas.

Emily laughs and sits down again. “Oh, it’s just What’s Her Face from Marketing.” Lucas mimics Emily with a laugh before sitting down again. Steven sips a cup of tea and nibbles on a scone. He disdainfully places tea and scone on the edge of his cubicle before sitting down again.

Lucy leans casually on the wall of Emily’s cubicle. “Hi, Emily. How are you today?”

Leaning over the wall, Lucy can see that Emily folds a large pair of boxers with HW’s stamped on them and places them on a stack of identical folded boxers.

Lucy places the plant on Emily’s desk. The plant yawns. “I have a delivery for Harvey,” Lucy says.

Lucas and Steven look up and laugh. Emily looks at the plant and scowls. “That?” The plant clearly takes offense and rears its head back.

Reaching into her pocket, Lucy nods and gazes lovingly at the plant. “Yes. That.”

Suddenly, Lucy tosses a jar full of dead flies at Emily. The Venus Fly trap snaps open and attacks Emily. Steven leaps up, but Lucy is too quick. She tosses the scone at his head. It shatters into crumbs. Steven keeps coming, so Lucy picks up the cup of tea and tosses it into his face. Temporarily blinded, a screaming Steven stumbles out of the office.

Lucas rises up to his full height. He towers over Lucy. She looks around panicked. Lucas backs Lucy against Steven’s desk. “This was a bad idea,” he intones.

Lucy’s hands fumble on Steven’s desk. Seizing the stapler, Lucy hits Lucas in the balls with the stapler. He doubles over. Script tucked under her arm, Lucy runs into Harvey’s office.

Harvey turns in alarm as Lucy approaches him with her screenplay. “Hi, Harvey. I’m Lucy McCabe. I work in Marketing. I sent you my script to read a few months ago. I just wondered when you wanted to start production. I was thinking it would be a good Christmas film this year.”

Just as Lucy gets close enough to hand him the script, Lucy rolls it into a cyclinder and blows through it. White powder billows into Harvey’s face as he coughs and his eyes well up with tears.

Lucy whips out a surgical mask to cover her mouth and nose as white powder billows around the room. Harvey collapses to the floor as he turns blue and asphyxiates.

Lucy leaves Harvey’s office and picks up Emily’s phone. She hits one button. “Security! Hurry! This is Lucy McCabe from Marketing. I think someone killed Harvey Weinstein!”

In his apartment in Brooklyn later that evening, Alex pours a glass of white wine. The TV drones in the background. The picture suddenly changes to…

“…coming to you from lower Manhattan where the body of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was found today…” a reporter intones.

Alex drops his wine glass and stumbles over to the TV. “WHAT?!”

The news report shows EMTs as they carry out a large figure on a stretcher from the office building. The lights from ambulances illuminate a large crowd. The three Weinstein assistants are escorted from the building in handcuffs.

Alex runs to the kitchen, grabs the wine bottle and his cell phone, and hurtles over the couch to the TV. “OH MY HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS!” he shrieks. A neighbor bangs on the wall. “SHUT UP!” he shrieks back at the wall.

“Weinstein is a victim of an alleged poisoning,” the news report continues. “His three assistants have been taken into custody and charged with the murder. We are going to play a statement now from Lucy McCabe, eyewitness to the event. Ms. McCabe is a screenwriter in the Miramax family.”

Alex guzzles his wine as Lucy, shaken, appears on camera. “I can’t believe what happened! I had an appointment today with Harvey about my screenplay Silhouette which he read months ago. His assistant Emily followed me into his office. Suddenly, there was white powder everywhere and Mr. Weinstein was coughing and I started to feel sick. Mr. Weinstein coughed and his eyes were streaming. He was turning purple and … I ran out, it was too awful. The entire time, the three assistants were laughing. I had to call 9-1-1 myself. It was too, too terrible.”

Alex calls Lucy. Her phone rings and just before the voicemail answers, she picks up.

“Why, hello sir,” Lucy sits at a fancy banquette with a dozen oysters, a bottle of champagne on ice, and the Venus flytrap on the table before her. She feeds the plant steak tartare on toast.

“Tell me one thing,” Alex says, “Have I ever, EVER pissed you off to this degree? Because if so, I’m going into witness protection.”

Lucy laughs. “You? Never! Hey, guess where I am?”

“I dunno. Mexico?”

Lucy waves a toast heaped with raw steak in front of the plant and it opens its jaws wide into a huge freakish grin. “No, silly,” Lucy says as she tosses the meat down the plant’s gullet. The jaws snap shut gleefully. “I’m at Monkey Bar. Get in a cab and join me. We’re celebrating!”

“We?”

“Well, me, Gladys, and hopefully you.”

“Who the hell is Gladys?”

The plant opens its jaws wide again as Lucy spreads more steak on toast. She tosses an oyster. The plant stretches up for it and swallows it whole. “You’ll see,” Lucy grins.

Alex pulls on his shoes and balances the phone between jaw and shoulder. “And what are you and Gladys celebrating?”

“Miramax greenlit my screenplay!” Lucy beams. “Turns out that the agreement was buried under some papers on Harvey’s desk. Luckily it was found after he died!”

“Luckily!” Alex laughs. “I’ll be right there.”

“See you soon,” Lucy hands up and waves over the waiter.

Dumplings are the diplomats of the international palate. A universal comfort food that takes many shapes and forms, dumplings can be found in many cultures across the world. Off the top of my head, I can name:

Dumplings (such a perfect word, sometimes it doesn’t need a translation)

Himalayan Momo

Pierogis

Ravioli

Khinkali

Chicken & dumplings

Gyoza

Samosa

Calzone

Empanadas

Croquetas

Wontons

Knishes

Now it’s your turn. I’m off to get a snack.

The wooden farmhouse was a bright spot of white in the lush green slope that gave way to a sheer rocky face. Waves from our sightseeing boat crashed into the rock wall at a ninety degree angle. There had been no other signs of human habitation for miles.

As I looked up to take a photo that would never match the majesty of seeing Norway’s fjords with my own eyes, I noticed a woman with light curly hair, maybe blonde or gray, emerge from the white farmhouse with its green shutters high up the slope. She carried a broom - not a Swiffer, not an electric blower thingy, an old-fashioned broom with bristles that a witch might use for transport. She began to sweep the porch.

Behind her, a large black and gray dog bounded out of the house and down the steps. The dog ran along the circle of green grass that served as the farmhouse’s front yard. The dog stayed back from the blue gray stones that marked the edge between solid green land and salty gray airy void above the fjord.

Who are you, Lady Norway who lives on the slope above the fjord with your dog and your impressive broom? How do you start your day? Is it with coffee or tea? Do you always sweep the porch when the tourist cruises come by? What did you have for lunch? Do you go to work by foot, by ski, by car, by bus, by boat, by any one of these depending on the season? What is your dog’s name? And if I wanted to send you a thank you note, what address would I use, Lady Who Lives Above the Fjord?

We watched the “9” appear on the departure board at Oslo Central Station, finished our hot dogs, shouldered our backpacks, and pointed the wheels of our carry-ons that way.

“Nine and three quarters!” I sang out, and my husband Todd pretended not to hear me so I wouldn’t get mad at him for rolling his eyes.

10:45pm in Oslo. The midnight sun filtered through the glass roof over Platform 9. The dark green train would carry us overnight to Bergen on the western coast of Norway. I had booked us a sleeper cabin for two on board the Bergen Night Train because romance! Sure, it’s a two-hour flight but an eight hour night train? Sign me up, and Todd too.

As it often goes with us, Todd agreed to this night train caper without knowing anything about it. So as the trip approached, naturally he got curious.

“So, we are sleeping on the train?”

“Yes, Captain Obvious.”

“There are beds?”

“Yes, bunk beds.”

“Bunk beds?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Like sleepaway camp?”

“I call top bunk.”

“That’s fine,” Todd agreed amiably, as if he would ever have entertained the alternative. He would have slept strapped to the roof of the train or on the floor of the cabin before he climbed up to the top bunk.

His questions continued, “Do we have a sofa or chairs to sit on?”

“I don’t think so. Just the bunk beds and a sink.”

“Where do we sit when we aren’t sleeping? In the sink?”

“Husband,” which is how I address him when he deserves it, “the train leaves Oslo at 11:03pm and gets in to Bergen at 6:40am. You get in your bunk and go to sleep.”

It couldn’t possibly be that simple, said the expression on his face.

A split second later, the questions continued, “Is there a bathroom on the train?”

“Of course! I’m sure there is a WC at the end of the car.”

“With a shower?”

Shower? Are you fucking kidding me, Princess Lockwood? I started to say but then I realized I didn’t know the answer and hell, maybe there was a shower on the train. There was a lovely shower barely big enough for my 5’1” self on the junk boat in Vietnam so anything was possible.

But what I said to manage expectations was, “I think it would be really hard to shower on a train moving at two hundred kilometers per hour in the middle of the night in Norway.”

Todd nodded, satisfied. For now.

Then the curiosity leapt off him and landed on me and I wondered out loud, “I hope there is an electric kettle so I can make hot coffee in the AeroPress.”

“And where will you drink the hot coffee? Seated on the top bunk?” he asked me with the exact same tone that I use when I address him as Husband.

I wanted to say, “Listen, Princess, you can bring me the hot water for my AeroPress coffee from your hot shower,” but I grinned the grin that told him I was thinking something very different from what I was about to say, which was, “As long as you hand me the cup after I get settled.”

“It will be an adventure!” he declared with a big ol’ fake grin of his own.

As we approached the long green train on Platform 9 that was to be our home-on-wheels for the night, I repeated the same phrase to him.

My anticipation bubbled for the new experience of an overnight train with bunk beds and (please, please, please!) an electric kettle for my morning coffee. I visualized myself reclined like a Greek goddess on the top bunk sipping a fresh AeroPress coffee while majestic fjords and royal blue sky filled the train window behind me, but Todd looked at the train the same way he looks at cats to which he is violently allergic. The thought bubble over his head was a special character cloud of expletives.

We hoisted our luggage and selves into Vogn 2, the sleeper cabin car, and he waited with the luggage at our cabin No. 65 while I went to the conductor’s station in the café car to scan our tickets and retrieve our key card.

“Just like a five-star hotel!” I sang out to Todd as I hopped back onto the train platform. I hoped the glare he gave me wouldn’t melt the train.

The Norwegian conductor nodded politely to my overly cheery American hello, scanned my QR code off the NO train app, and handed me the card. Moments later I was back at cabin No. 65 making drumroll noises while the key card reader on the door flashed green. The door popped open to reveal the interior of No. 65. I turned to Todd with a giggle as I pushed my rollerboard into the cabin.

“Here we go!” I smiled broadly. Then I said “Oof” as my rollerboard slammed into the sink across from the door.

“Oh, shit,” he declared in response.

The two sleeper bunks were prepared with clean sheets, comforters, and pillows. A ladder folded out from the wall for me to reach my top bunk. The sink was roughly larger than the one you find next to the chair at most dentist offices in the States. Complimentary bottled water was strapped into a shelf on the wall above the sink, just over a sign that clearly indicated the sink water was not for drinking. A picture window with a blackout shade occupied the opposite end from the door that shut with a soft touch. The window showed not Norwegian majesty but the golden arches of a McDonalds kiosk on the next track.

Once we were inside with our luggage, No. 65 was full. And we travel light! Only one of us could be standing in the cabin at a time, unless we faced one another or stood side by side shoulder to shoulder and didn’t move at all. Todd sat down on his lower bunk with a dramatic sigh.

“Well, this is going to be fun!” I chimed as I pulled down the ladder, kicked off my shoes, and scurried up to my bunk.

“This is a fucking submarine,” Todd declared, pushing his rollerboard up against the door. I wondered why he felt that barricading us in was a good idea, and then I realized there was no place else for his rollerboard to go since mine was shoved up against the sink.

He was completely wrong, of course. Submarines were far more luxurious. No. 65 was giving shipping-container-with-a-porthole, and it was so fucking hot that I immediately started to worry if we were going to suffocate. Maybe suffocating on an overnight train in Norway was a good way to go? Better than dying in a twenty-car pile-up on the Taconic or in a subway conflagration after eating a salad.

Something metallic stabbed me in the side as I rolled over on my top bunk. I unearthed a seat belt clasp from my mattress and noticed the buckle hanging from a strap on the ceiling overhead. Connecting the two raised a thick vinyl barrier from the side of the mattress, the kind of vinyl that hospital stretchers are made of. It rose up to build a little wall to prevent falls from the top bunk, just like a toddler’s bed.

My bed had a seatbelt! Yes! Now we’re living right.

Suffocation was still a possibility but at least I wasn’t going to die by tumbling out of the top bunk in the middle of the night. Starting to sweat profusely, I army-crawled to the window and looked for a way to open it.

“I guess there is no sofa,” I said from my perch on the top bunk where I tried to discern Norwegian instructions for opening the window versus breaking the glass in case of emergency.

“And no fucking electric kettle,” Todd growled from belowdecks where he was digging for solace at the bottom of his backpack. As the reclined Greek goddess sipping coffee vision faded, I decided it was not a good time to ask about his shower.

I unlatched the window as the train left central Oslo and picked up speed. A WHOOSH of cold Norwegian night air blasted me and I exhaled loudly in relief.

“That’s better!” yelled the troll under my bunk.

“This is awesome!” I shouted back as I started to shiver in the blasting cold wind. Now I was glad that the Norwegian train folk had included thick comforters on the bunks.

The blasting night air cooled us and No. 65 off instantly, though the noise from the open window of the train as it accelerated to two hundred kilometers per hour was deafening. It would make communication tough, but after nearly fourteen years married, a few hours not speaking to one another might do us some good.

I reached across No. 65 to release the ladder from its latch and climb back down to troll territory. Immediately I recognized the smile on Todd’s face from our wedding photos. The “what the fuck have I gotten myself into with this woman?” smile. I thought about offering a condolence but giggled instead.

He said nothing and was being a good sport, taking his medication, brushing his teeth, stripping down to his boxers, all the usual things he does before sleeping in a real bed and not in a freshly opened tin can with a dentist’s sink and a down comforter. I followed suit; changing into pajamas, brushing my teeth in the dentist’s sink, washing my face with a prepacked cloth, and putting on my moisturizer. Then we kissed good night and I climbed the ladder to my bunk bed and fastened my seat belt.

Over four cups of freshly brewed American coffee and breakfast the next morning at our hotel in Bergen, we compared notes from our night on board the Bergen Night Train:

“The beds were comfortable!”

“And warm. It got really cold with the window open.”

“I didn’t fall out of the top bunk.”

“I didn’t bump my head.”

“Now I know what two hundred kilometers per hour sounds like.”

“I think we stopped a few times.”

“My ears popped a lot.”

“Yeah, I think we were going over mountains.”

“But did you sleep okay?” I asked once our chatter had flamed out.

“Not as bad as I thought I would,” he answered, taking another sip of hotel coffee.

“Do you want to take a nap or rest a bit before we start touring around Bergen?” I asked.

“No,” Todd answered and pushed his chair back. “Let’s get lunch at the harbor and sign up for one of those fjord cruises.”

He walked outside, leaving me to smirk alone. I get violently seasick on boats and I knew instantly that a three-hour fjord cruise was his revenge for the midnight train to Bergen. I looked in my bag to confirm that an extra strength dose of non-drowsy Dramamine was at the ready, as it almost always is, and followed Todd into the cool Norwegian morning air.

It would be an adventure.

When we went to Cuba, we entered a communication black hole. Our fancy new iPhones were reduced to being as useful for travel as an actual brick. For five solid days, our connection to New York and American life was completely severed.

It was one of the best experiences of my life.

Cuba reminded me of a lesson learned long ago: the iPhone has an off switch, and I am the one with the power to use it. When the tiny electronic tyrant starts to drive me crazy, I say to myself, “I’m going to Cuba,” and I shut it off. Five minutes, an hour, or a whole day, that bit of space and time between me and the iPhone is necessary to remember that our world is flesh and bone, not circuits and wires.

The next time you find yourself in a dead zone, flip the phone over, put it in your pocket, lower the screen away from your face and enjoy your trip to Cuba.

The most important thing to do when traveling is often the easiest to forget, and for me, it’s the gift to be present in a new place, out of my comfort zone where new sights and sounds shake me awake and make me remember not to take this world for granted. Here’s my favorite trick to ground me in the present when I travel.

On the morning of a travel day, when I wake up but before I get out of bed, I take a moment to sink myself into the pillow and the mattress. I say to myself, “Last night I slept (________). And where is my next sleep?” Then I take a moment to imagine the bed I’m leaving behind and the one awaiting me, once the journey has been completed and the miles have been crossed.

It was a dark and stormy night, the kind of dark equidistant from sunrise and sunset. On the horizon sat the lion ruled by the sun. Born under the sign of the scales with crooked feet and a skeptical arch to my eyebrow, I am very pink.

From rolling red clay hills in Georgia to the fine grain sand hills of central South Carolina to the heights of western Long Island, my whole life has been spent on high ground. Maybe that is because I am short, always on the lookout for a storm.

In my house, food teems with spices because I am from a place where food has flavor. The sauce has a mustard base, tangy and bright and viscous as it runs down my fingers. Garlic should be measured by the fuck-ton. What’s a fuck-ton, exactly? It’s more garlic. Turmeric and saffron, whatever those are, add more. Coriander and six kinds of onions and ginger, yes please. Peppers, green and yellow and red and orange and mild and face-melting hot. I travel the world in search of new tastes and bring them home like spoils of war.

There are things I don’t admit to my friend who became a mom three days after I stopped coloring my hair. She hovers over her son as if he is a porcelain doll. It’s not polite to say he is a test tube baby but I can’t think of the new correct word. She doesn’t want to know that my mother tossed me in the pool when I was six months old and watched me flail until I broke through the surface. My father says I emerged with a giggle and loved to float on my back in the pool. He says as soon as I could walk, I could jump in the waves at the beach. When they plucked me from the water and toweled me off, I protested with loud pink shrieks. My friend doesn’t want to know that I was nine when I started drinking coffee and sixteen when I learned how Grandma takes her scotch.

I come from a place so hot that the heat shows itself in mirages over the blacktop and pulls up water in heavy droplets from oceans, rivers, and puddles to weight the air. I learned to hide in cold pockets. 68 degrees, read the thermostat in the box office of the community theater on matinee afternoons.

Under my bed I am the monster who commands the shadows thrown across my bedroom’s orange carpet from the large tree on the front lawn. Under my bed it was always cold and dark, even at midday in the middle of the week in the middle of summer. I lay in Sphinx pose before I knew what Sphinx pose was but after I knew enough about the Sphinx to ace a history test. My writing notebook yawned open, colored pencils organized by ROY G. BIV ready for duty. My stuffy Marmaduke lies face up in savasana. Marmaduke was my first toy that I remember, and he could clarify all the details of my birth story if he hadn’t lost his tongue in the washing machine years ago. The real-life family dog Hilda, a full grown Doberman pinscher terrified of squirrels, dust bunnies, and thunderstorms shivers under the bed, nosing my shoulder nervously as the thunder booms grow closer. I scratch behind her ears to assure her that we’re safe under the bed.

“Don’t worry, that’s just St. Barbara making the lightning go boom,” I say, thinking the explanation provides reassurance. Hilda raises a skeptical light brown doggy eyebrow back at me which tells me she won’t believe me unless we live to see dawn.

The shadows of the tree branches shake wildly as the sky dumps buckets of rain and the lightning flashes illuminate my page as I pick up the green pencil and scribble down my first great novel.

The next time a foe crosses you, feel free to use any one, all, or a selection of Barb’s Pocket Curses for vengeance and effective expression of rage without much karmic blowback:

May you step barefoot on a Lego

May your water bottle leak in your favorite bag

May the person sitting next to you on your next flight enjoy lots of onions on their salad

May that next flight be slightly turbulent

May you not be heard on Zoom even though all your audio settings say you’re not on mute

May Starbucks always spell your name wrong “Brab”

May your “check engine” light never go off even after the engine has been checked

May you never find the hair that’s tickling your elbow

May your bridesmaids dress always be gray

May your dog only experience explosive diarrhea when you have friends visiting

Or when you’re late for work

May the bartender pass you by again and again

May your chip bag be only crumbs

May your standing desk always have a slight tilt

May karma, when it hits you, be swift and leave no lasting marks.

All Good Books didn’t exist when I was growing up in Columbia, the capital city of South Carolina, and when I walked into my book signing last December, I wracked my brain to try to remember what was in its spot when I graduated high school and moved to New York in 1997. A bar? A lunch spot? A record store? Shrug. I remember Five Points, the neighborhood bordered by Harden, Devine, Blossom, and Gervais Streets not for the book stores but for the pimento cheese from the Gourmet Shop, the famous flounder at Garibaldi’s on Christmas Eve with my family, the St. Patrick’s Day fun that went from green face paint to green beer as I grew up, and the boho clothing at Loose Lucy’s that my theater friends and I sported with pride.

This new-to-me indie bookstore knows its roots, fits Five Points and Columbia well, and celebrates all local authors. My book shared the local author shelf with none other than Dawn Staley, and my book event felt like a casual party with drinks and mingling at a friend’s home. We embodied the store’s slogan, “Read. Sip. Gather,” to a tee.

All Good Books recently attained B-corp status, making it the first independent bookstore in South Carolina to do so. The B-corporation status acknowledges All Good Books’ mission to balance profit with a broader social purpose. And in our fast paced world, I think we could do well to follow All Good Book’s lead with a little “Read. Sip. Gather.”

I settle into my seat for the thirteen-hour flight from Istanbul back home to New York after ten days far, far away. Two seats on each side of the plane and a row of five seats in the middle, this plane is huge yet painfully small at the same time. But I have exactly the kind of seat I like: the far right seat in the middle row of five, on the aisle, two rows up from the bathroom, with a view of the window if I just turn my head to one side.

Bone tired already from the journey, yet knowing I have to stay awake on a westbound flight or pay an arm and a leg to the jet lag gods later, I finish the iced coffee I had purchased in the terminal and adjust the trusted earplugs that keep my ears clear as the altitude changes. Armed with a book to read and an unfinished novel of my own to write, I inhale my nasal spray to ward off airplane colds, adjust my neck pillow, and quietly psych myself up for the long-haul flight. Then I feel a heavy BUMP against my seat from behind.

My inner monologue fires right up: Okay, that’s normal, everyone is settling in, getting to their seats, doing their pre-flight rituals, just – BUMP – try to relax and know that it will pass – BUMP BUMP – oh for pete’s sake STOP IT!

I lift myself out of my seat and turn around to glare at the perpetrator. I come face to face with a real-life, child version of Alfred E. Neuman.

Of course it’s a kid.

About nine years old with wild red hair and big eyes that widened in a freckled pudgy face, this kid looks just as pissed to see me as I was to see him. His worn-in sneakers BUMP the back of my seat as he swings his legs back and forth because they couldn’t touch the floor.

Well, that makes two of us, but ONE of us is an adult capable of self-control!

As if he can hear my thoughts, he stops his feet mid-swing. That’s when I notice he is all alone in a row of five seats smack dab in the middle of a huge transoceanic jet, fifteen minutes away from hurtling halfway around the globe. All by himself?

Curiosity and compassion melt the scowl off my face as he slowly lowers his legs to let them dangle off the edge of his seat. Just as I am about to ask him his name, a woman who was clearly Neuman’s mother – WHEW! - emerges from the bathroom on the opposite side of the plane.

I do not understand why people board the plane early to use the bathroom. Why?

She immediately addresses him, “No, Freddy, that’s not your seat.” She steps up to my row and reaches into an overhead bin to pull down a bag that she had just put away. Why, people, why?

Freddy, meanwhile, is studying his printed boarding pass. Then, as if it spoke to him, he gets to his feet, pulls on a bright yellow backpack half his size out from under the seat behind me, and walks to the opposite aisle where his mother wrestles a powder pink Away case back into the overhead bin. He walks like a baby drunk, bumping all five seats with either the backpack or himself.

Good lord, the plane hasn’t even moved yet.

He doesn’t wait for his mother to finish closing the overhead bin but squeezes around her. To the horror that must have been showing on my face – people tell me I have a “loud” face – he steps into my row and plops the yellow backpack on the seat just one over from me. He’s exactly in the middle, I’m on the aisle, and there is a seat between us but both of us are clearly thinking that it is TOO DAMN CLOSE.

We have a Western gunfight style stand off again as I think loud enough for him to hear, And that is one seat you do not cross, dude.

He nods and sits. I do the same. Detente. For now.

We buckle our seat belts. We ensure our tray tables are in the upright and locked position. We lean back as the G forces build. We reach cruising altitude in total silence completely ignoring one another.

As soon as the wheels go up, Freddy’s mother closes her eyes and lets her head roll back. Right after we reach cruising altitude and the seatbelt sign is turned off, she lets loose the biggest snore. I fail to stifle a laugh and Freddy’s eyes cut my way. I prepare an apologetic look as I roll my eyes to my left, and I meet his. They are full of mischief and he too is turning red holding in a laugh. He nods his head at his loudly snoring mother and hides a giggle behind a freckled paw.

Suddenly, without warning, he takes off his seat belt and stands up. What, is there a fire on the plane? I start to ask if he’s okay but he turns towards his zonked mother and proceeds to climb over her and into the aisle. He hauls it towards the bathroom like he is about to win a medal and his mother’s snores never miss a beat. Upon his return to the row, he spider-monkeys over her again and tumbles into his seat. I want to give him a 9/10 as a score. He then makes a lot of commotion while he yeets the large yellow backpack out from under the seat to rummage through it until a pair of cartoonish noise cancelling headphones emerge.

This kid has zero chill. I lean over to him and say, “Next time you need the bathroom, I can let you out on my side so you don’t bother your mom.”

He stares at me for a long time, clearly shocked that not disturbing one’s comatose mother is something a person can do. He stares so long that I start to feel like an animal in a zoo.

He finally says, “My dad says she sleeps like the dead,” and busies himself with plugging the headphones into the monitor on the back of the seat in front of him and plops the headphones on his head. The headphones divide his messy hair into fiery peaks. He taps away on the touch screen with his nail bitten index finger while his legs, clearly moved by unknown forces, BUMP against the seat in front of him.

He catches my eye and points at the screen to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. “Have you seen this?”

“No,” I say slowly. Is he too young for that movie? But, what do I know? I haven’t seen this one because, as a self-proclaimed Indiana Jones expert who can recite the entire movie of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade from start to finish with sound effects and score and once identified the movie when I heard the sounds of the rats in the catacombs under Venice from a room away, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is not canon Plus, my mother took me to see Last Crusade when I was nine and this kid is at least nine. Maybe older. But, again, what do I know?

The movie sucks him in and acts as a paralytic. Freddy sits still for so long that once I confirm signs of breathing, I am able to open my book and read to the white noise of the airplane engines. I almost forget completely about him until the drink cart comes by before dinner and he asks the flight attendant for two chocolate milks and a Sprite.

Not a day older than nine. I sip my canned red wine.

Dinner is served and both of us have asked for the cheese ravioli. Freddy hits pause on his movie, removes his headphones, kicks one knee up, and forks a whole ravioli into his mouth. Out of absolutely nowhere, he turns to me and says,

“So, what are you reading?”

My book is in the pocket of the seat in front of me, completely unreachable thanks to my dinner tray, water bottle, and canned wine. “It’s called Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia,” I answer.

“That sounds cool,” Freddy says without missing a beat.

I nod. “It’s a great book.”

He’s yeeting ravioli down his piehole at an astonishing rate. Does he know it’s okay to chew it? The flight attendants come by with a basket of warm bread rolls and give Freddy two, at his request. I ask for a second roll myself and they oblige. He swallows his whole.

I nod at his screen. “How is the movie?”

“It’s great!” he exclaims with a grin. “They have more, look!”

He flips back to the movie selections and shows me that they have all five Indiana Jones films.

“Watch Raiders of the Lost Ark next,” I tell him. “Then Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That one is my favorite movie ever.”

“Okay!” he nearly shouts and attacks his dessert.

I look at the round piece of blueberry cheesecake in its frosted plastic container on my tray and say to Freddy. “Do you want mine?”

He looks up with such joy that it reminds me of the moment in my favorite movie when Indiana Jones chooses the Holy Grail – he has chosen wisely – and says, “Yeah! Thanks!” I hand it over with glee as the flight attendant raises an eyebrow and drops another can of red wine on my tray.

For the next thirteen hours, while I read, write, and watch half of the Newport season of The Gilded Age, Freddy is glued to Raiders and Crusade, as we cool kids call them. He sleeps through Doom because chilled monkey brains are nothing compared to airplane cheesecake. He gives up on Crystal Skull. “It’s stupid!” he declares, as the flight attendants announce that we’re making our descent into the greater New York City area. It’s not until the wheels bump against JFK tarmac that Freddy’s mom wakes up.

WOW. Sleeping upright in an airplane seat for thirteen hours. How much ambien did you take, lady? Or is it the hardcore parenting flying with an active nine year old halfway around the world and back that makes you so tired?

Freddy’s mom moves like an Olympian when the seatbelt light goes off. The Away case is down and she’s jockeying her way to the front of the plane.

“Freddy, come on,” she says as the line begins to move.

Freddy waves a cheery goodbye to me as he and the yellow backpack BUMP their way down the aisle to exit the plane. Right before he disappears out of sight and into the Global Entry line, he turns around and tips an imaginary fedora at me. Like the Grail Knight from the First Crusade, I raise one hand to bid my seatmate Freddy godspeed on his next great adventure.

“Michelle Obama launched her book here in this very room,” my cousin told me as the event room at the Coral Gables flagship of Books & Books filled up with people coming to buy my book and listen to me read. Certainly the event room with its weighty tomes, dark wood stacks, and creaky hardwood floors was giving Ivy League lecture hall vibes, but the boisterous arrival of my extended Cuban family brought a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. The handful of strangers interested in me and my book wandered in and found themselves swiftly adopted.

Books & Books is an institution with five locations spanning the greater Miami-Dade area and a foundation with a mission of promoting free speech and literacy access, so I was both shocked and excited to receive a swift YES to my request for an author event one Sunday in January earlier this year. My cousins from Miami span quite an age range, but more than one told me how much they loved coming to Books & Books as children with their parents - my Tias and Tios - desperate to entertain school-aged children on stormy summer afternoons. The next day, my husband and I decompressed from the busy weekend by spending quiet few hours enjoying lunch in the outdoor cafe at Books & Books and soaking up some winter sunshine before flying back to the blizzards of New York City.

Books & Books welcomes the likes of Michelle Obama and me into their author community, and with my book opening up connections to my Cuban family in Miami, a launch there felt like the most fun, most festive family reunion ever.