Jambo from Kenya

When I checked into the hotel they asked, seemingly as a matter of routine, when my next flight was. That’s what happens when you stay at the airport hotel – they assume you are going somewhere else (because no matter how nice it may be, there’s usually not any other good reason to stay at […]

Preparing for the Rains

I bought the ticket for this flight back in November, and only after completing the purchase did I wonder, “Is that a good time to go to Kenya?” As it turns out, this isn’t generally considered a great time to visit East Africa, because April and May are the season of long rains. To be […]

Something to Remember

Well, at last it has happened:I’m back! Butterblogger, my friends, has returned. When last you heard from me I was in Rome headed home. And frankly, I wasn’t doing well. The journey was fine, but my teeth hurt from the fall, I couldn’t properly eat, and I just generally felt terrible. The intervening months have […]

In Which I Try to Control the Things I Can’t

I refreshed the page on my phone incessantly, monitoring where Lisa’s flight was. I mean, I knew it was late, but now every minute counted, and I wanted to know every change and how late it would be. In fact, her flight wasn’t just late – it was extremely late – about 3 hours behind […]

Unpacking from the Trip I Didn’t Take

Greetings, readers! Labor Day is now well behind us and the summer days are winding to a close. This means the rains of fall have returned to Ann Arbor, night is falling quickly, the overnight temperatures are dipping ever further toward winter, and the morning drive is darker. I can feel the seasons pressing forward […]

The Magical Thinking We Do

A trip left unfulfilled leaves an emptiness in its place: a vacuum. And an uncontrolled vacuum is a force of destruction. Look around you at the world today. Look at COVID, which has cost so many lives. Two years ago this week, I was supposed to be in Portugal but there was a great deal […]