Guest Post: 2KoP Writing Challenge Winner

For two years now, I've been telling you all about the two kinds of people who populate my world view. To celebrate the second anniversary of my blog, I issued a writing challenge to my readers to come up with their own Two Kinds of People essay. It was wonderful to read the entries and difficult to choose a winner. Thank you to all who entered and to my panel of judges, who chose a culinary essay by Murray Abramovitch.

The judges felt that Murray's essay best captured the spirit of the 2KoP blog: a solid basic recipe of good writing, seasoned with some interesting facts and quotes, and topped with a great big dollop of humor. (Please note that the opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog or its owner. Also note that Murray is from Canada, and his quirky spellings and those of his countrymen are also not our fault.) Without further ado, please enjoy the winning guest post:

Important Distinction or Just a Truffle?

by Murray Abramovitch

Anything that simplifies life and peels away its many layers of ambiguity has to be a good thing. The two-kinds-of-people exercise, seeing the world in a binary way, is certainly a good thing because it is clarifying; like a rinse, it washes out the grey.

It is important, however, to stick to comparisons that are meaningful and not get caught up in splitting hairs, constantly splicing and dicing and dividing into neat but useless sections the world-at-large.

To this end, I have separated humanity into two very simple but important groups: those who like mushrooms and those who don't. This is a comparison with gravitas.

I am one of the latter group, one who sees a mushroom as a the fleshy, spore-bearing fruity body of a fungus. Mushrooms are part of a noxious family that includes puffballs, stinkhorns and morels. They thrive in the dark, dank and decaying habitats of forest trolls.

The best advice to unsuspecting diners who can't tell a Jack-o-lantern mushroom from a chanterelle is: do not eat a mushroom unless it was collected by a competent mycologist or become a mycologist yourself.

Putting their toxicity aside, mushrooms are fundamentally unattractive, rubbery and without taste unless heavily seasoned or sauteed. Like tofu, they simply take on the flavour of what they are cooked with. Portobello mushrooms in a Madeira wine reduction? Honestly, from where do you think the flavour comes?

Wrote William Alcott, uncle of writer Louisa May: "Strange that mankind should ever have used the mushroom. All the various species of this substance are of a leathery consistence, and contain but little nutriment. The condiments or seasonings which are added are what are chiefly prized. Without these, we should almost as soon eat saw dust as mushrooms."

Voltaire also knew what he was dealing with: "I confess," he wrote, "that my stomach does not take to this style of cooking. I cannot accept calves sweetbreads swimming in a salty sauce … nor the excessive quantity of morels and other mushrooms, pepper, and nutmeg with which (cooks) disguise perfectly good food."

Bottom line: there is no dish containing mushrooms that couldn't be improved by having the mushrooms removed.

At the other end of the gastronomic spectrum is my wife … from a mushroom's lowly perspective, my better half. She positively salivates at the prospect of eating a golden chanterelle, a meaty porcini, an earthy morel. Watching her dine is like seeing the screen debut of Romancing the Funghi. Or better still, a rerun of When Harry Met Sally. You know, the part when Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm to embarrass Billy Crystal in from of the cheap diner crowd and someone says, "I'll have what she's having." I can swear my wife's nostrils flare when she sees mushrooms on her plate … as if someone snuck all that is savory, silk, sexy and decadent into her food.

As for mushrooms being inert ingredients without character, she is one of those who claim that mushrooms "pick up the complexities of other ingredients and add their own meaty, rich and inviting flavour." They add dimension to any dish with their texture and contrast.

I do admit that some of the dishes featuring mushrooms sound enticingly exotic, maybe even Meg Ryan erotic: Morel Fondu; Enoki and Smoked Oysters; Porcini and Eggplant; Truffle Oil and Eggs; Shiitake Fettucini; Crab Imperial Stuffed Portobello; Maitake and Gorgonzola Cheese Penne; Mediterranean Mushroom Brushetta; and for dessert, my favourite sounding concoction — King Trumpet Strudel. But let's face it, any five-star menu will have dishes that are a delight to the ear as their taste is ostensibly to the palate. The truth that gourmands will not admit is that mushrooms are largely interchangeable in recipes.

I cannot be swayed. I am like Diderot who, in L'Encyclopedie wrote: "Whatever dressing on gives to mushrooms, to whatever sauces our Apiciuses put them, they are not really good but to be sent back to the dungheap where they are born."

So there you go: two kinds of people, one destination.

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Murry Abramovitch's short biography, in his own words: "After some 30 years as a marketing and strategic planning executive, I retired to focus on writing, sharing what wit I can muster and what meager wisdom I have gleaned over time. I have two blogs, one literary — The Literarian — and one business — View from the Corner Office. I invite you to visit the sites and trust you will find them both enlightening and entertaining."

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I invite you to leave your comments for Murray by clicking here. Have a mushroom to pick? Pick it with him. If you agree that he falls on the right side of the dung heap in this argument, let him know that, too. Thank you again to those who entered the first ever 2KoP writing challenge and, as always, thanks to my readers.

Longing for an Italian Renaissance

ren • ais • sance

a revival or renewed interest in something;

origin FR, meaning "rebirth"

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love Italy and those who have never been there. If this sounds vaguely familiar, that's because it's a slightly revised version of the introduction I used for this post — a renaissance of the topic, if you will.

In case you haven't noticed, it's January and 23°F here in Chicago. January wouldn't be so bad if it didn't end in February. Everyone knows that God made February the shortest month of the year because we just couldn't take it for more than 28 days (29 tops).

At this time of year, I never feel warm. All I want to do is take a steaming hot bath and crawl under the covers to hibernate. But winter lasts forever in Chicago and then crashes directly into summer, so I've decided it would be far better to start my rebirth in Italy now, rather than wait for an unlikely spring awakening here at home.

Don't get me wrong — I don't want to become an expat. I love my country and my city, for at least half the year. If only I could live in Italy between, say, November 1 and June 1 — oh, wait, that means I only want to be here five months a year. Well, so be it.

Why Italy and not, for example, France? Well, I've never been to France. I'm sure it's very nice — lovely, in fact. But in Italy, blue is azure, lemons make limoncello, architecture is old, fashion is new, and life is dolce.

I don't want to do the whole Under the Tuscan Sun thing, where I dump all my (nonexistent) savings into a dilapidated villa. I have a hard enough time maintaining our 117-year-old Victorian.

No, I want a little pied a terre (it's the same in Italian as in French, only without the hyphens; I looked it up), and I want it here, at the Hotel San Pietro in Positano. Today, it was 54°F in Positano, not exactly tropical, but way above freezing. Seriously, look at these pictures and tell me you couldn't be reborn in such a setting:

Think of the writing those views would inspire. One small problem. The current rate (and this is the "low" season) for a standard single/double room with a sea view (the "cheap" one) is Euro 420, or $591.57. Per night. I'm accepting donations. Look for a button to appear on my sidebar soon.

I had the pleasure of staying at Hotel Il San Pietro one night, 20 years ago. I don't remember the room number, but if you examine the door jambs carefully, you can tell which one it was by the deep fingernail marks I left behind as my new husband dragged me kicking and screaming back to reality.

The bathroom was generous, but not huge, and all marble. The tub, which could comfortably accommodate you and four or five of your closest friends, was a square affair that butted up against a floor-to-ceiling glass wall that gave you the illusion of bathing in the Mediterranean. The entire hotel was all clean and cool and tiled. Sitting in the lobby, I expected to see Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman step out from behind the palms at any moment. Or maybe Spencer and Kate. Sigh.

This is presenting such a dilemma. Do I stay here, in the frozen wasteland, performing my chosen role of mother/wife/wannebe writer? Or … do I run away from it all and devote myself to a life of creativity and hedonism? To help me make my decision, I've created a classic pro/con list. Wikipedia, that fount of all knowledge, claims that pro/con lists oversimplify and are never complete, "thus inviting biased contributions." Look over my list, and leave your votes, contributions (biased or otherwise) and comments here:

Pro:

• It's Italy.
  
• Great food.
  
• Better weather.
  
• Compari and orange juice.
  
• Inspiration.
  
• Rebirth.
• Could maybe hang with George Clooney.

Con:

• Room too small for a family of six, so I would have to leave five of them at home (wait, this may belong on the "pro" side).
  
• I don't actually speak Italian.
• Distressing reports of rising racism and anti-semitism in Italy.
• Lack of funds.
• No money.
• Senza soldi.

Before you go, I wanted to offer a final bit of encouragement for you to enter my Guest Blogger Writing Contest. It's easy. It's fun. You have until February 1st to write up a post about your idea of Two Kinds of People. Then simply email it to me. What can I win, you ask? Oh, baby. The first place winner will earn a guest post right here on Two Kinds of People (and now I know how to Twitter, so I can tell lots of people to read it). Wait, there's more. Don't forget about the exclusive 2KoP logo baseball/golf cap, pictured below. With prizes like these, you can't afford not to enter.

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Reanaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

— Orson Welles, The Third Man, 1949

Help for Haiti

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have lived through a natural disaster and those who have been lucky.

I'm looking around for a piece of wood; I need to knock on it loudly, because I have been very lucky, natural disaster-wise (unless, of course, you count children. Can we count children as natural disasters?)

Oh, our basement has flooded a couple of times, but all that really did was make us clean up and do a little culling. (I'm thinking maybe we should schedule one periodically.)

A tornado touched down in our town sometime in the '90s. I don't think anyone was hurt, but the astounding force of nature could be seen in the felled trees and overturned cars just a few blocks from my house. You don't forget seeing the bared roots of a giant elm ripped from the earth, vulnerable and exposed against now clear skies. But we were spared.

A much more devastating storm ripped through The Villages, FL in February 2007, shortly after my parents moved into their new home. It was eerie to tour the area, even two months later when we visited. Their block was untouched, but houses just a block or two away were torn open — roofs and outside walls completely gone — revealing pots and pans left untouched in the kitchens inside. Again, we were lucky.

We get our fair share of crappy weather here in Chicagoland ("that frozen wasteland", my brother calls it). Sometimes we get too much rain, or snow, or cold. Our winters can be brutal, our springs all but nonexistent, our summers often lacking … but our autumns will break your heart with their glory and, overall, we're pretty lucky. Natural disasters don't seem to like our climate well enough to visit. (Time to knock on wood again.)

On August 28, 2005, we watched, helpless, the broadcasts of Hurricane Katrina as it approached, landed and virtually destroyed New Orleans. Then we watched and worried and complained that not enough was being done fast enough to help the survivors. It's a shameful chapter in American history, when we as a nation failed some of our most vulnerable citizens right here at home.

To be sure, many people offered help — funds, goods and elbow grease flowed and continue to flow into the region — but not enough, and not fast enough. More than four years later, the areas affected by Katrina are still far from full recovery.

According to the Brookings Institution: "… the region still faces major challenges due to blight, unaffordable housing, and vulnerable flood protection. New federal leadership must commit and sustain its partnership with state and local leaders … to help greater New Orleans move past 'disaster recovery' and boldly build a more prosperous future."

And now Haiti has suffered an earthquake of devastating proportions. Hurricane Katrina resulted in 1,836 deaths, a tremendous human toll. Early reports from Haiti mention 45,000-50,000 deaths, with the final toll possibly reaching as high as 200,000. The devastation is staggering for this poor nation where 55% of its people were living below the poverty line of $1 (US) a day before the earthquake.

"It is a denial of justice not to 
stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; 

that is the common right of humanity." 

— Seneca (the Younger) , 3[ish] BC – 65 AD

Have we learned anything since Katrina? I have hopes that we have. As of January 15, more than $10M had been raised through text donations alone. The blogosphere is bursting with posts about the disaster and ways to help and the American Red Cross is reporting such tremendous response that it is has necessitated a 10-12 hour lag time in donation processing (but don't let that stop you).

Got a minute, few bucks and a cell phone? Here's a list of text-based donation sites (the donations will be charged to your cell phone bill):

• Text QUAKE to 20222 donate $10 to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
  
• Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross
  
• Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to the International Rescue Committee
  
• Text HAITI to 52000 to donate $10 to the Salvation Army
  
• Text YELE to 501501 to donate $5 to Yele
  
• Text RELIEF to 30644 to connect to Catholic Relief Services  to donate by credit card
  
• Text HAITI to 864833 to donate $10 to The United Way
  
• Text CERF to 90999 to donate $5 to The United Nations Foundation
  
• Text DISASTER to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion International 
  

Donate easily online to:

• the Jewish Federation Haitian Earthquake Relief Fund 
  
• ShelterBox (see awesome video below)
  

At this point, the American Red Cross reports that it is meeting any requests for blood due to this tragedy through current supplies" and does not anticipate the need for a special donor appeal. While goods and services may be needed further into recovery, right now the best way to help is to donate cash to the organization of your choice. Shelterbox is an interesting group that provides immediate, practical help for victims of natural disasters:



Please beware that disasters spawn fraud and the Internet is rife with scams in the name of helping Haiti. Protect yourself by donating to well-known organizations; click on the image at the top of this post or check out sites like this one for vetted agencies.

Though most of my posts are snark-ridden, allegedly humorous observations of everyday life (and I don't apologize for the snark), you'll forgive me if this one is on the earnest side. There was nothing everyday about the disaster in Haiti. Our collective attention span seems to have dwindled to the length of a (much shorter) blog post, so I think a little repetition is not amiss in service to such a worthy cause. And if Bill Clinton and George W. Bush can work together to help Haiti (I kid you not — snark intended), then so can we. Your regularly scheduled snark will return next time. Feel free to leave your comments or suggestions for other places to donate help for Haiti by clicking here.

(P.S. The deadline for the 2KoP Guest Post Writing Contest  is February 1. I know you are just polishing up your entries, but I thought I'd post this little reminder. Pardon the plug.)

Irresolute

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who make New Year's resolutions, and those who don't.

I've never been a fan of the New Year, that big transition that's supposed to herald a fresh start. First, it's January — grey and cold, the air thick with resolutions made in the glow of holiday champagne, but now hanging low and heavy, like over-burdened winter clouds waiting to bury us in a blizzard of good intentions.

"I myself am made entirely of flaws 

stitched together with good intentions."

— Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking

Most of us who don't make public resolves still formulate them in our secret thoughts, telling ourselves that the guilt won't come if no one else knows. Pure folly, of course, because each New Year's resolution, whether publicly proclaimed or silently sworn, comes prepackaged with it's own, ready-made guilt. One little slip, and the guilt is unleashed.

The trick to a truly successful New Year's resolution is to make one that can be accomplished in the short term — in that burst of energy and resolve that seems to accompany new beginnings. (If you happen to find my burst of energy and resolve, please return it to me promptly. I seem to have mislaid it.)

Cleaning your office, for example, is a reasonable New Year's resolution. Ending world hunger, while a laudable goal, is not exactly something you are likely to do on your own before New Year's Eve 2010 rolls around (unless you play a lot of FreeRice).

It's the long-term goals that will get you. These resolutions are layered with guilt, shellacked anew each January first when we promise, again and again, to:

• lose weight
  
• exercise every day
  
• be a better ______ (son, communicator, parent … you fill in the blank)
  
• stop _______ (smoking, overeating, swearing … you fill in the blank)
  
• finish your _______ (novel, graduate degree, last will and testament … you fill in the blank)

Nope, this year I have resolved to avoid these resolutions at all costs. Instead, I am sticking to simple, doable, short-term goals. And along those lines, I am happy to report that I have already, just 10 days into the New Year, had some success.

First, and this will seem to contradict my previous paragraph, I have started a new blog. It's a creative writing blog along the lines of Anne Lamott's famous shitty first draft (SFD). It's a blog for free writing, a kind of on-line journal, where I can explore writing prompts and inspirations in 10-minute bursts of uncensored creativity. Or, to be more precise, in a shitty first draft. My first inclination was to keep it private, like a real journal, but since it's a resolution, I decided that making it public would make me accountable. Even if no one reads it, I know someone could — and that will keep me honest.

For the month of January, I am lucky to be receiving daily writing prompts in my email box from Lisa Romeo, who writes my favorite blog on writing (so much great information and inspiration). Once January is over, I will turn to another wonderful blog, Sandy Ackers' Strangling My Muse, for further prompts. Feel free to leave your own writing-prompt ideas in a comment here, and if you're interested or want to see if I'm keeping up with my resolution, this is the link to SFD @ 2KoP).

My second resolution is more along the lines of that whole short-term burst of energy concept I mentioned earlier. For years now, I have been wanting to create a Website to promote my freelance work, and I have finally developed enough skills to put it all together. I'm so excited to announce the launch of my writing site, www.bearman.us. You can see my little logo at the top of this page on the sidebar to the right. Check it out and let me know what you think. Pass it on if you know anyone in need of my services. Thanks.

Now, about your resolutions. Of course, I look forward to hearing what you have resolved to resolve this year. Just click here to leave it in a comment. I have also created, just for you, a special short-term, fun and easy New Year's resolution in the form of my 2KoP writing contest. Read all about it here, then enter — you could win a guest post on this very blog AND a 2KoP baseball/golf cap. Hey, there's an idea for you — there are two kinds of people in the world: those who wear baseball caps and those who wear golf caps. See, it's not so hard. Enter today to win!

Finally, thank you to Angela for Friday noons, which I have concluded are not resolutions, just further inspiration.

New Year's Challenge

There are two kinds of people in the world. Are you one of them? 

It's hard for me to believe, but I've been telling you about two kinds of people for nearly two years now on this blog. When I started Two Kinds of People, I named it intentionally to give me a kind of structure on which to hang my essays. It has turned out to be a useful literary device, allowing great flexibility, yet preventing my blog from turning into a brain dump. 

Two Kinds of People is a kind of philosophy — not a way to divide the world exactly, but more of a means for looking at it through a specific lens for the length of a blog post. I have yet to write my own archetypal Two Kinds of People post, the one on which my entire life philosophy is based, but I promise it's coming — this blogging year.

Every time I turn around, someone is suggesting another "Two Kinds of People" topic. "You should write about how there are dog people and cat people," someone suggested. Or "You should write about people who vote and people who don't vote, and then bitch about it." While these are great suggestions, they are not my two kinds of people (unless, of course, I choose to "borrow" one of these ideas some day, in which case, I will give proper attribution — if I remember who suggested it).

So, here's the proverbial deal — the challenge, the contest, the gauntlet, if you will. I am offering you — yes, you — the opportunity to win a guest post here on Two Kinds of People. That's right, you too can be a published author. All you have to do is email me your own Two Kinds of People essay. Come on. You know you want to do it. Use your imagination. Test your creative mettle. Vent your spleen. Expound, explain, expatiate. Teach us something. Make us laugh. Make us cry. Make us understand your Two Kinds of People as only you can.

And, if seeing your essay published right here on this blog is not enough to entice you, the winner will also get one of my groovy new 2KoP logo baseball/golf caps (pictured above). Several experts (including my dad and my brother) will attest that these are the smartest, most comfortable, best looking caps they have seen in many a year. And that's not just because they're related to me or because that was what they got as their gift from me this holiday season. No sirree Bob. They really, really mean it.

The rules are simple: write an original Two Kinds of People essay and email it to me by February 1, 2010. The publisher of this blog (moi) will choose the winning entry and post it for the world to read. And don't forget, you'll also win the cap. 

In the meantime, you can check out my farewell to 2009 in my latest Chicago Moms Blog post and, as always, I look forward to your comments. Just click here. I can't wait to read your winning post, so enter today.

"We improve ourselves by victories over ourself. 

There must be contests, and you must win."

— Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

author, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Update 2/9/10: Read the winning guest post here. 

It's Not Easy Being Green

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who send holiday cards and those who don't. 

I've sent my own holiday cards every year since I left for college. Last year, I chronicled our ridiculous photo odyssey in a post that showed all 23 "oops" photos that we had to take before we finally got one that was holiday-card worthy. The good news is that this year it only took four shots. Maybe that's because we didn't try to include the dog. (That's the best one up there; don't they look cute?)

We've been doing the stairway shot every year since we moved into this house, nearly 12 years ago. The youngest guy, on the lower right, was just an infant when we started. It's a great stairway, a perfect backdrop, and even though the kids keep getting bigger (despite my threats), they all still fit. It's a tradition I love.

In addition to my usual tardiness at getting this holiday project started, I'm struggling with the whole idea of sending cards. On the one hand, I love getting real mail — snail mail, if you will — with stamps and envelopes, delivered to my IRL mailbox. I love seeing the cards our friends and family have chosen, the photos they send and the stories they share.

On the other hand, the idea of sending cards this year doesn't feel very green. Plus, at 44¢ per stamp, it doesn't feel very economically sound, either. 

So, after weighing my options, I am (for the most part) going with this e-version of our holiday card this year. Know that my warm wishes for a happy, healthy, peaceful New Year are still sincere. Know that I love and miss you and hope we can make time to get together soon. Know that this is not just laziness on my part (OK, it's partly laziness — but not 100%).

I'm also going to make it easy for you to send your holiday greetings to us. All you have to do is click here and leave a comment.

May your holidays, however you celebrate at this time of year, be joyful and bright. Best wishes for 2010.

Love,

The Bearmans

P.S. Over on The Animal Store blog, Kenn is giving away a $100 gift card. Just click here and leave a comment for your chance to win on December 22. Pass it on.

Fog Produced the Compass

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have a good sense of direction and those who don't.

In 1993, technology gifted the directionally impaired with the 24th Navistar Satellite, completing the network now known as the Global Positioning System, or GPS. My girlfriend calls her GPS "Jill" and wouldn't leave home without her. My husband loves his GPS (affectionately known as "Gypsy"). "Take next slip road left," Gypsy says in her calm British accent. It took several months before we figured out that a "slip road" was an exit ramp. Who knew? Gypsy is now several years old and a bit past her prime, so, like every other man in the world, he would love to trade her in for a younger model. 

Personally, I have enough people telling me that I'm headed the wrong way, so I don't need to invite an electronic nag into my car. Plus, I've always had a pretty good internal compass. Of course, it helps that we live in the Chicago area, where the lake is always east, you can see one of the world's tallest landmarks (still and always the Sears Tower to me) from many miles away, and the whole city is organized according to numbered grid.

But I maneuver well even beyond Daniel Burnham's brilliant organizational plan for the Windy City. Sure, I print out my Mapquest route before heading someplace unfamiliar, but I'm not afraid to veer off the beaten path. Nor am I afraid to stop and ask for directions when things get a little confusing (you try finding the Comfort Inn in Mt. Vernon, Ohio at 3:00 in the morning). 

My kids and I are intrepid road trippers, tackling the 1,200-mile trek to visit my parents in Florida at least twice a year for at least six years now. Our greatest dread is getting stuck in traffic on the Interstate, so we often take the next available "slip road" in search of an alternate route. With our trusty compass, we know that as long as we are heading mostly south and a little east, we can't go too far wrong. You have plenty of time to correct course over 1,200 miles, and it always feels better to be moving — even meandering slowly on surface roads — than just sitting. 

If only the metaphorical road of life were as easy to navigate. Lately I feel like my life compass is completely out of whack — like someone tied a blindfold on me, spun me around for a couple of years, and has now shoved me away, shaken and dizzy, to find my way.

I don't think I'm unusual feeling a little turned around at this particular stage in life. My twins are high school seniors now, and getting ready to begin their own journeys. The "little" boys are in junior high, and while they may still need me to drive them around, they have definite ideas about where they want to go.

I feel like I've reached a kind of crossroads, a place where I need to choose the right direction or I could get seriously lost. So, here I sit, stuck in the traffic of inertia, waiting for a sign to point me in the right direction. I hope I don't need to follow Chicago's example and burn the city of my life to ground before I can develop a workable plan. Perhaps I can rely on our current state of financial emergency for the necessary inspiration. Victor Hugo said:

"Emergencies have always been necessary for progress. It was darkness which produced the lamp. It was fog that produced the compass. It was hunger that drove us to exploration. And it took a depression to teach us the real value of a job."

The depression Hugo referred to took place in the 1800s. I guess not much has changed in the intervening 200 years. 

If along your life path, you've discovered a successful short cut, please share it in a comment here. If you know anyone who needs a good freelance writer, please point him or her in my direction. And if you travel over the holidays, may your trip be easy, your journey rewarding, and your return safe and sound.

Photo credit: Compass by Ivan Prole.