Category: friendship
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The Best Wedding I Ever Attended
Twelve years ago, I attended the best wedding of my life—apart from my own wedding—and I neglected to blog about it because the task seemed too daunting. “But Jenny, you wondrous wordsmith, how could such an event that made your ‘top list of all time’ be too daunting to write about,” you ask? Well, my…
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Getting Lost in Arcadia with banjo-playing cannibals
It was supposed to be a Day of Fun. We were planning to throw our blankets down at Scarborough beach, drink some sort of summery orange-infused beer, soak up the sun, and relish in our last few days of freedom before work starts again. But after an interminable string of 90-degree days, the temperature suddenly…
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Leap Day with a Dash of Hocus Pocus
I heard that someone was getting married today, and my first reaction was, “That’s so special!” but then I thought of how unusual it is, in a practical sense. When do you celebrate your anniversary? Is your spouse going to make lame jokes after eight years that it’s only your “second anniversary, har har”? What…
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A Writer’s Secret Santa: Most Amazing Gift Ever
In May of 2017 I began leading a writing workshop within the Providence Writers Guild, a group that had been meeting for years, and we needed a name to differentiate ourselves from the original group. Since we meet on Tuesdays, we decided to call ourselves The Tuesday Tipplers. (We intended to incorporate the word “writer/writing”…
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Blog from a Taverna Patio
Kalimera, fili mou! (Good morning, friends!) As I write from this taverna overlooking the ocean, on the northwest corner of the island of Ikaria, I am overcome with gratitude–not only for being here in this moment, but also for arriving to a place that felt immediately familiar even though it’s not my Thassian home; it’s not Archodissa, or…
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Joyful Resurrected: Reasons for Gratitude on My 32nd Birthday
In 2017 I undertook a project called The Joyfulness Project in which I blogged every day, for an entire year, my moments of gratitude. It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to pen down my joyful moments, but last week was so full of joy that I need to spend a moment to…
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My Birthday on Thassos
I have to explain something about me and birthdays. The first thing I want to say is that I love the idea of birthdays, of having one day a year where it’s your day, where friends and family and retail businesses acknowledge: “Hey, we’re glad you’re alive and with us. Here’s a discount code.” And obviously, it’s…
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An Unlikely Reason to Give Thanks
I had wanted to be on Thassos today. I don’t mean that in the “I want to be on Thassos every day” way, though that’s also true, but today has special significance. As some of you may recall, I struggled with visa issues when trying to stay in Greece at the end of summer. I thought it…
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Kavala for a Day
It felt more like three days, in the same sense that Jesus died and rose in three days, departing on Friday evening and returning on Sunday morning*. But it was really one day spent away. *death is not exactly a vacation, but try to follow the logic I was a somewhat unwilling candidate to leave Thassos. I’ve been…
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The Donkey Bridge
The Donkey Bridge Otherwise titled: Something That Isn’t Depressing I realize my last few blogs have been a touch on the melancholic side, and I suppose that’s because nothing is funny when you know you have to leave Thassos. Even thinking about the possibility of leaving makes a person stare deep into the distant nothing…
Travel & Food Writer 