My dad died three months ago. I haven’t found the words to write about it, and I don’t know if I ever will. Some painful things surrounded his death; I’m having trouble sorting through that.
So here are some things that are not entirely related to that loss but not entirely unrelated either.
• I began attending a Death Cafe a few months before my dad died. It’s a place where you can go to talk openly and honestly about death, a topic that’s often taboo. I knew my dad’s life was coming to an end — although I didn’t expect it to happen as quickly as it did — and I wanted to approach it from a healthier place than when my mom died.
I told the group about a picture book my son has, in which a fox is hit by a car and runs into the woods to die, the animal’s body then feeding the earth and other creatures. In this book, death is not an ending but a continuation. It’s a vital part of life.
• Shortly after my father’s death, I climbed Acatenango, a dormant volcano in Guatemala that is joined with Fuego, an active volcano.
My family camped there overnight and sat around a fire as the earth shook, nearby Fuego belching black smoke and fire into the air. Sometimes a rain of ash followed, soft and fine as talcum powder. Other eruptions covered us in soot. I relished that violence, the topsy-turviness of it. Everything seemed upside-down, the black rocks falling from the sky.
Meanwhile, my son saw hearts in the smoke.
• I used to have dreams that my teeth were falling out. Dream interpretation books told me this symbolizes a recent loss or transition. The night I returned from Guatemala, it actually happened in real life. One of my molars crumbled on New Year’s Eve. It was a loss I couldn’t fathom until it happened, a pain I thought I somehow deserved.
• We went to the animal shelter to meet a dog named Milo, but another dog, a mellow, slow-eyed puppy, caught our attention instead. I fell for her immediately. “Let’s wait and think about it,” said my 9-year-old.
That night, my son confessed he was still bereft over the loss of grandpa, and he didn’t want to risk loving anything else that might die. I explained that’s what love is. It’s the everyday bravery of making your heart tender. It’s knowing that you’ll feel pain and loving anyway.
The next day we adopted the dog.
• I had a massage recently and sobbed on the table. The therapist was afraid she had hurt me, but the hurt was already there. She only released it.
When we talked about the upcoming holiday season, there were plenty of activities to put on our calendar: Light parades, breakfast with Santa, baking cookies, ugly sweater parties, touring neighborhoods with decorated houses.
But my 9-year-old wanted to do something entirely different. He wanted to learn how candy canes are made.
It was a humble request, but it seemed about as possible as making reindeer fly. Where in the world would I find a place to make candy canes?
Turns out I didn’t even have to go to the North Pole. Logan’s Candies, a small, family-operated shop in Ontario, California, has been hand-making candy canes since 1933. Tickets to attend a candy-making demo are just $5 per person.
Nearly everything about the process has remained the same since 1933: Same recipe, same stove for boiling sugar, same marble block for pulling and stretching the candy.
Even sweeter than the candy were the kids, pressing their faces against windows to watch the seemingly magical process.
Owner Jerry Rowley stretched and pulled the warm sugar until it turned stark white.
Then he added stripes of color, used to achieve their signature candy cane look.
Afterward, everyone received a warm candy cane to shape however they wanted. We opted to make hearts, since ours were so full.
If you go
Logan’s Candies is located in downtown Ontario, 125 W B St, Ontario, CA. Street parking was free.
When: The shop does candy-making demos year-round. This time of year is more crowded and chaotic, but it would be a fun activity for someone who enjoys Christmas year-round or for celebrating Christmas in July.
Also good to know: The shop sells 31 flavors of homemade ribbon candy, and it’s also home to the world’s largest candy cane!
Planning a family trip to Universal Studios Hollywood felt like a Choose Your Own Adventure where every option was somehow the wrong choice and would lead me toward doom.
To spend hundreds of dollars for one day at the park, but skip the ride lines, turn to page 17.
To spend slightly less and get a nine-month pass to the park, but waste your one wild and precious life waiting in all the lines, turn to page 23.
We opted for the latter. Instead of trying to cram everything into one day, I figured we could go a few times and focus on a different area each visit. Even though this meant we’d have to wait in line for the rides, it wouldn’t matter as much, since we wouldn’t be on a tight timeline. And who knows? I thought. Maybe we’d luck out and there wouldn’t be any lines.
Alas, that was the strategy of a much more naive version of myself — the Maggie I was before I waited 2.5 hours to get on Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge.
Here’s how the day went, where we went wrong, and what I’ll do next time.
What it costs
That’s not so easy to answer. Regular tickets start at $109, two-day general admission tickets start at $159, express passes start at $209, and various other passes go from $179 to $639.
Why do I keep qualifying that with “start at”? Because the price varies wildly by day. Peak times, like weekends, holiday breaks, and more desirable days are significantly more expensive. So while I tried to find that elusive $109 ticket price, it never aligned with our work/school schedule.
Instead, I found a discount on the nine-month California Neighbor Pass, bringing it down to $150/per person. That is still expensive, but I can justify the cost by making multiple visits.
Note: I don’t want to tell you how expensive parking is. I can barely admit it to myself. But you should know that parking is my second-least favorite thing to pay for, because it’s just GROUND that my car is borrowing. Stupid.
Food and beverages
That brings me to my least favorite thing to pay for: Water.
Thank goodness Universal Studios allows you to bring in refillable water bottles. (Maximum of two liters).
The regulations also say you can bring snacks and small food items, and I did that too. But I didn’t bring enough. Later I saw people pulling hoagies the size of Buicks out of their backpacks, so I could’ve packed more substantial items. Next time.
Instead, we ate at Three Broomsticks in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I had the vegan shepherd’s pie, which was food. It kind of looked like someone started to make shepherd’s pie, then got tired of it halfway through.
Everest plowed through whatever he ordered — a platter of cabbage and mashed potatoes and tomatoes and sausage and peas and some spare change, I think. Jason had a salad, which he regretted because he hates salad, so I’m not sure why that order was ever made.
The real winner was butterbeer, something I’ve wanted to try ever since I first read Harry Potter. It was delicious, like a butterscotch cream soda, and I think I could happily live on a butterbeer-only diet. It would be a short life, but a satisfying one.
The rides
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to an amusement park, so I had forgotten what it feels like to wait in line for a ride. And everything in the new Super Nintendo World required a wait. We waited in line to enter that section of the park (sometimes there’s a virtual queue, but it wasn’t an option when we visited). Then we waited 2.5 hours for the Bowser’s Challenge ride. We waited for the interactive games. We were about to wait in line for photos with Mario, but Mario went on a break. Bless you, tiny plumber.
There was another ride in the Super Nintendo World area, but I could actually feel my soul leaving my body, so at that point we left.
Then we waited 45 minutes to ride Revenge of The Mummy.
Later, we waited for the Flight of the Hippogriff ride.
That’s it. THREE RIDES. But those three experiences topped our priority list for the day, and we accomplished that.
The other stuff
Yes, I visited Ollivanders Wand Shop. I was curious how it would compare with what I imagined long ago, when I first read the Harry Potter series. And it was, in fact, pretty darn magical.
The whole point
A few months ago, Everest said he wanted to ride his first roller coaster, and I wanted E to love roller coasters the way I do.
I remember going to King’s Island with my family when I was growing up — devouring hot, greasy funnel cakes, posing for keychain photos in front of a fake Eiffel Tower, riding the Beast and then hurrying to get back in line — those are some of my most treasured memories.
That was the impetus for this Universal Studios trip. The exhilaration of being THIS TALL TO RIDE, the lap restraint pressed a little too tight, the click-clack of cars chugging up a steep hill, and finally, taking flight.
I wanted to give that to my child.
Well, he hated it. On the two coasters, Everest clutched my hand until my fingers turned blue. He murmured, “No. No. NO.” His eyes were as big as saucers, and those saucers were full of terror.
So he’s not a roller coaster kid. At least not right now, and that’s fine. It just means that when we return to Universal, we’ll be the folks enjoying the shows instead.
After one night resting up in paradise, it was time to leave the tranquil Pongwe area for my next stop on Zanzibar, the livelier village of Paje.
But first, a massage.
I’ve said before that I don’t take time to relax when I travel, and that goes for spa treatments too. Even though I love massages, unless I can squeeze it into something I’m already doing, (like getting a massage during the night markets in Thailand), it’s not a priority.
So that goes to show just how wrecked I was after climbing Kilimanjaro: Relaxation became top priority.
The massage therapist, Margaret, gave me a few minutes to undress, and I folded my clothes onto a nearby chair before I eased myself onto the table. At this point, my calf muscles seemed permanently clenched. There were knots in my back. My body was speckled with bruises and sunburn.
The moment Margaret pulled my hair away from my neck and put her hands on me, I audibly groaned with relief.
She paused for a moment and touched the chain around my neck. “May I remove this?”
I had totally forgotten about the necklace. I wear it every day and never remove it, so it hadn’t even crossed my mind. Nodding, I told Margaret to go ahead. She unlatched the chain and showed me where she was placing it, atop my pile of clothes.
As the massage proceeded, my mind wandered to other things. Like, wow, this woman works miracles and I hope my toenails don’t fall off in her hands. And finally, I have to pee.
I had to pee so bad. This is why I am bad at relaxing. Because I cannot regulate my beverage intake well enough to go 90 minutes without a bathroom break. Suddenly a toilet was all I could think about, and I willed the massage to be over as fast as possible.
Relief
The moment Margaret left the room, I yanked my clothes off the chair and dashed for the restroom, which was connected to the massage room. Afterward, relieved, I got dressed, walked out the door, tipped Margaret, and left.
I didn’t even remember the necklace until I was in Paje, more than an hour and a $50 taxi ride away.
Any stress that had dissipated during the massage returned and hit me with a wallop.
My necklace. I couldn’t think of anything else in my life that was at once so worthless but also so precious. I’d purchased the necklace in Greece, just a few nights after my emergency surgery in Athens. It was a tiny evil eye, smaller than my pinky fingernail, and it hung on the most delicate silver chain.
Fresh off a medical issue, I wanted an evil eye for protection. A talisman. But it also served as a beautiful reminder of Greece, the place that lives in my heart. I’d worn it every day since.
Maybe I could find something close, I thought, and scoured the internet. Somehow there were approximately 78 million evil eye necklaces on the world wide web, and none of them were similar to mine. I remembered how my family and I walked through dozens of tourist shops until I found the perfect one — and when we found this necklace, it was just 15 Euros. It was the only one like it.
Even if I could find another, this one was irreplaceable.
Lost and found
I messaged the hotel on WhatsApp, but I didn’t have much hope, because I didn’t even know if my necklace was there.
I assumed that when I yanked the clothes off the chair, I launched the necklace somewhere. But where? What if it fell behind something? Or what if another client picked it up? What if they threw it away?
“We have located your necklace!” someone from the hotel replied.
Next we had to figure out how to get it to me.
I’d hoped that Pongwe to Paje was a well-traveled route. Perhaps another hotel guest was coming this way?
They weren’t.
The hotel employee suggested I take a taxi back to Pongwe, pick it up, and return to Paje. But I couldn’t stomach the thought of paying $100+ to go back and forth.
I was still weighing the cost when I received a message with good news: There was a taxi driver who was headed my direction, and he could bring me the necklace. I’d have to pay for the trip and for his time, but it would be far less than $100.
The lesson
I remember hearing a story once about how Cher hired a separate limo just for her wigs. It sounded like the height of decadence — not only did Cher have these exquisite wigs, but the wigs had their own driver, and they traveled without her. Think of all the adventures Cher’s wigs must have!
Now my necklace was the broke girl’s version of Cher’s wigs, traveling around Zanzibar before returning to me. I loved thinking about that, imagining all the places it might go.
Here’s the other gift I received.
The hotel couldn’t tell me what time to expect the driver, and I didn’t want to miss him, so I agreed to hang out at my place in Paje and wait. Luckily, I was staying at Mr. Kahawa Waterfront Suites, a stylish and comfortable boutique hotel that also happens to be located on the most picturesque, pristine stretch of beach. When I tired of watching the kitesurfers, I could take a cool dip in the pool.
Hours into my wait, as I lounged by the water, read a book, and luxuriated in solitude, I realized that my necklace was forcing me to stay in relaxation mode. So maybe that evil eye gave me some protection after all, and protected me from myself.
I couldn’t go all the way to Tanzania without making a side trip to Zanzibar, an archipelago boasting white sugar-sand beaches, lush forests, and turquoise water.
So after I summited Mount Kilimanjaro, I made the quick hop from mainland Arusha to Unguja Island, Zanzibar, a zippy flight that took about 90 minutes.
Zanzibar instantly did something to me. You know the sensation of wearing tightly tied hiking boots for a long time — and them taking them off? The loosened laces, the heaviness falling away, the blood rushing back. That’s what landing in Zanzibar felt like. An unbinding.
On arrival
I wasn’t interested in staying at a party hostel or bustling town, which why my first stop was Pongwe Bay Resort, perched along a shimmery teal bay near sleepy fishing villages and seaweed farms. My goal here was to unwind, which I find difficult to do when I travel. I’m usually the person who will try every activity a hotel offers, wander the area for miles, and have a long list to sights to see.
This trip, however, I knew I needed rest and recovery. The steep descent on Kilimanjaro left my feet battered and bruised. My bones ached from sleeping on the mountain. I had been cold for days; a mere 48 hours earlier, my tears were frozen to my cheeks. What I needed was comfort and quiet.
Pongwe promised nothing but sunshine, flowers, gentle ocean waves. The most popular sightseeing spot is a small, fine-dining restaurant located on its own teensy island. It sounded perfect.
I had been so focused on Kili, though, that I was ill-prepared for the Zanzibar part of my trip. I hadn’t packed any beachwear or footwear beyond hiking boots. And while I assumed I could pick up some budget-friendly flip flops and sundresses along the way, I didn’t have a chance to stop anywhere between the airport and hotel.
Was I going to be miserable?
So this is heaven
When I saw the remote location of the resort, I imagined myself clunking around a tropical paradise in my stinky boots. Then the proprietor of the place intervened.
“Just so you know, this is a no-shoes resort,” said the owner, a handsome Italian man. “All of our paths are made of soft sand or cool stone, so please do not wear shoes anywhere.”
As if that wasn’t amazing enough, I arrived at 9 a.m., well before the 3 p.m. check-in. However, my room was already ready.
“Unless you want breakfast …?” the owner said.
I did want breakfast, because I had to leave my other hotel at 4 a.m. and hadn’t had time to eat. But I don’t like spending money on a hotel breakfast, which tends to be overpriced and underwhelming.
“You know you booked a room that includes food, right?” the owner said. My stomach rumbled in response. He gestured to a room adjacent to the dining area, filled with buffet tables covered with luscious fruits and homemade dishes.
I was already about to weep with joy when he added, “We’re running a special right now on massages. Seventy-five minutes for $40. Let me know if you’d like to book anything.”
Yes. Yes, I would be booking something.
The owner confirmed that I was only staying one night and asked what time I’d be checking out.
“Checkout is usually at 10, but nobody has the room booked after you, so you can stay as long as you’d like,” he smiled. I thanked the man profusely, and I apologized that I’d only booked one night.
He shrugged, “So you must live this one day to the very fullest.”
