A 1990s Dystopian Novel Having a Moment

A friend of mine read I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated from French to English by Roz Schwartz, posted a cryptic review, and so...I read it. I love when people find books that stick, that haunt, that make you go hmmmm, and then want to share that experience. 

Without giving away too much, this book is about a group of women in a cage in a bunker underground, guarded by men. It's told by a girl who is the youngest, who was a child when the unnamed event happened, and has no memory of before the cage. She is super curious and wants to know EVERYTHING about life before and how things work. She has questions about sexuality, bodies, all kinds of things. Then one day, something happens and the women can leave the cage. What happens next is most of the book. 

It is pretty grim, and definitely leaves you with more questions than answers. What would it be like to be in a community of only women under apocalyptic, disastrous, tragic circumstances? I flew through it in about 24 hours. I couldn't put it down. 

I do have to say that the author was not pronatalist at all. Some of the women have had children, some haven't, some wanted to but it didn't happen. Motherhood isn't really a big part of the book, and the women are not centered as wives or mothers, except for some discussion about women who definitely had kids when everything happened, and have to believe for their own sanity that they are dead. Most of the book is about...what does it mean to be a human? To be alive? What is time? 

When I was in Rhinebeck earlier this week, visiting my best friend, we went to an indie bookstore (always a bookstore), and I found the book. The store had 15 of them on the shelf! That's bonkers. It's esoteric, literary, translated, and currently put out by a nonprofit publisher, Transit Books, that is usually a print-on-demand publisher. Why was it so popular again? 

It was originally published in 1995, and I feel like that is a time of lots of women-centered, dystopian, speculative novels came out (The Handmaid's Tale, The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents), and it definitely fits in. Well, maybe not definitely, I keep thinking about this book and it is not definitely anything. Very hard to classify. Apparently, this is a product of BookTok. I feel like usually BookTok is a lot of highly popular, prolific romance, romantasy, and mysteries (sort of a Court of Sexy Dragons and Housemaids by Colleen Hoover). I was happy to see that Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica had a popularity surge thanks to BookTok, too. (Hey wait, that one is ALSO translated! Fascinating! And WEIRD, like The Jungle if the cows were humans.) I am not actually on BookTok, or TikTok at all (or Instagram! GASP!). But I hear about it, because friends of mine are on it. 

There were a few quotes that made me think, and ruminate, and I thought I'd share them with you. 

"What are we, without a future, without children? The last links in a broken chain." 

Okay, ouch. I think this is less a commentary on not having children and more a commentary on not having children as a society ever again. But that "last links in a broken chain" image stuck with me. I think all the time about how so many things end with me. A lot of them are perfectly fine (um, my knees, my autoimmune disorders, my anxiety/depression/ADHD, all that genetic soup of doom). But other things make me feel like the end of a chain. 

"I think that time must have something to do with the duration of pregnancies, the growth of children, all those things that I haven't experienced. If someone spoke to me, there would be time, the beginning and end of what they said to me, the moment when I answered, their response. The briefest conversation creates time." 

The first part of that stands out to me. Less the duration of pregnancies (I mean, 40 weeks is not a terribly long time in the scheme of things), but the growth of children. Time works differently for my friends with children than it does for me. I think one reason that it doesn't get mushy is because I live my life in school years, so there are milestones at different times each year. Otherwise, we have our birthdays, our anniversaries (which is why I celebrate so many of them), and milestones like PhDs and things like that, but there aren't things every year. 

The second part is fascinating -- if you never talk to anyone, if you are alone in a cabin in the woods forever, would it seem like there was no time? Is time measured in conversations if there is no other way to tally it? 

Lots to think about. Have you read it? Does it sound like something you'd want to read? I'd love to know what you think. 

18 Years of Teaching

And just like that... my 18th year of teaching is complete! That is bonkers to me. I feel like my life is divided into Before Teaching and After Teaching, because that shift also coincided with the end of my first marriage and the beginning of my relationship with Bryce. LOTS of change, all at once. It was terrifying back when everything was a jumble of uncertainty and upheaval, but wow am I glad at how everything turned out. 

I met Bryce while I was finishing up my field work, and we were seriously dating while I was student teaching. We got married the year I had my first probationary position, and started infertility treatments that same year. 

I spent a lot of my early teaching days wondering what it would look like if I did get pregnant, and being a little nervous about it. How much leave could I take while not tenured? How could I balance motherhood and my burgeoning teaching career? That quickly turned to questions of how I could balance teaching and IVF treatments -- scheduling around the school calendar to try to minimize how much time I took off, knowing that I'd need sick time to get full pay during a 6 week maternity leave. 

All of this proved moot, of course.

I remember my first year split between my current middle school and the 9th grade building, and having to start a week into the year due to my ectopic pregnancy and surgical recovery (and boatloads of grief). I remember being nervous about that falling on my tenure year, until my principal at the middle school shared that he and his wife had endured an ectopic pregnancy as well once upon a time, and he understood. 

I remember years and years of painful beginning-of-the-year slideshows with everyone's family pictures and baby pictures and the feeling that we had a big hole where that should be for us. 

I also remember starting to make sure that my slideshow picture was silly, funny, and otherwise ridiculous to make up for that feeling of being less-than. 

One of my favorites

Thankfully, current administration doesn't do that godawful slideshow. Although, I feel like I no longer feel like there's a hole in my existence. Progress! 

I remember my school baby shower. I remember getting phone calls about adoption opportunities and being declined at school, and trying real hard to pretend to be a normal humanlike substance while feeling like this process was a vampire, sucking the life from me and leaving me a husk of myself. 

I remember telling everyone we were done. 

And now, I work with a whole lot of people who have NO IDEA that this was so entwined with my teaching existence. There are so many newer teachers (or new to our building) who don't at all know that I survived all that while being a new teacher, and as my teaching experience grew, so did my infertility and adoption trauma. 

I am immensely proud of my teaching career. I love my students, and I love finding ways to make learning challenging AND fun. I enjoy very much being the weird teacher. 

T-shirt to prove it!

I love that I can put my mothering energy into helping young humans become critical thinkers and better humans than when they first came through my door (most of the time). I also love that I can come home and recuperate from the stresses of the day, from the vicarious trauma that is a solid part of teaching (special education in particular), from the exhaustion of being "on" all day long. I have no one who depends on me for homework help, or who needs me to drive them to sports or dance. I also don't have the positives of raising my own children, but good gracious I am grateful that I can give everything in my school day and then come home to the couch, a book, a glass of wine, and decompress. 

I love that every school year is a little microcosm and I get to start over and do it again year after year after year. 

I love summers and having time to wind down and then gear up for that new year (and that, since I don't have children, summers are entirely for me and Bryce).

I have 12 more years of teaching ahead of me. I have more years in than I have left, which is a weird feeling. But also, I love that I've grown along with my teaching career. 18 years is a long time, and my life has changed significantly since the beginning. I love what I do. I love where my life has taken me so far, even if it is completely different than what I thought it was going to be at the very beginning of all the change.

Vacation Anxiety

Bryce and I were late planning our vacation this year. As in, we booked our August trip this past weekend. 

We are such creatures of habit. We are going to Maine, but this time we were like, "let's try something different!" 

We searched tiny houses and cottages. We looked at cabins on lakes. The things we saw that we liked were mostly, so shocking, booked up. The cabins looked fun but the words "family friendly" came up A LOT and that isn't really what we want out of a vacation. 

Then Bryce found a cottage that's on its own tiny island in a lake. The cottage looked lovely and it definitely hit the "rustic" and "quiet" buttons. However...
   - you have to paddle your things in on a canoe for 5 minutes to get there

   - there is no electricity, just a small generator to run a small refrigerator

   - you are on an island in the middle of the lake with no electricity and YOU HAVE TO PADDLE IN ON A CANOE. 

To Bryce, this sounded amazing. To me, it sounded absolutely BONKERS. I wanted to be adventurous, really I did. But this, given that I am accident prone and tend to be in the worst kind of 1 percent, sounded like a very, very bad idea. 

I tried to imagine it. All I saw was blood poisoning and serial killers. I tried to say why it was scary, but it sounded so silly as the words left my mouth. I was getting more and more worked up and started crying and then said/yelled "I NEED AN INTERMEDIARY STEP BEFORE THIS LEVEL OF ADVENTURE! THIS IS LIKE ME SAYING 'LET'S GO CAMPING IN THE SUBWAY IN BROOKLYN' TO YOU!" (Bryce grew up in the wilds of Maine, I grew up with streetlights and public transit and sidewalks. Our comfort levels tend to be...different.)

So, needless to say, we didn't book that one. Instead, we are going back to the inn in Boothbay Harbor that we have thoroughly enjoyed, and stayed at last summer for a few nights. It is familiar. There are no kids in the inn. We can avoid "family friendly" places and find a deserted spot on the rocks at Ocean Point to read and sit and enjoy. We know where the gluten free options are (and there are a zillion!). We can walk into town. We can walk to a park with a little cove that we found on our last day last year. 

It is familiar. It feels safe. Maybe it's the way the world is right now, or the stress of figuring out safe food (even if a cabin has cookware, I have to bring my own, thank you Celiac), or the need for some things to be predictable because so much in our life has been so uncertain. I feel so lame saying that I would love to do an adventure (albeit with plumbing and at least some electricity and the ability to be in civilization if needed), but I would need time to plan it properly. Which sort of takes "adventure" out of it. 

Or, we can just embrace that we love to find cozy home-away-from-homes and once we find a spot we like, we go back and explore but ultimately feel like we're in a familiar place, with familiar faces, and a certain level of predictability. I guess I'm more of a "dip my toes into adventure" person.

What do you like? Adventure, or familiarity? 

Urgent Care vs Specialist

Early in May, I had that "severely abnormal" mole and surrounding area cut out with a dermatological excision. Next to and sort of in my bellybutton. Why my body is making these crazy, homicidal cells is beyond me, but what my body did with the wound is really annoying. 

My bellybutton is not an area where I care about cosmetic concerns. It is, however, always in the dark. Always a bit of a cave situation. And so, it's not an ideal place to have a wound with internal and external stitches (ouch). 

Week before last, I decided to put a hydrocolloid Band-Aid on the wound because a) it was just NOT healing and I thought it would help, and b) I needed a barrier because wearing adulting clothes was irritating it. Going back to work has been challenging from a comfort perspective! 

Well, that was a mistake. You leave hydrocolloid bandages on for a couple of days, because they are supposed to be breathable. I took the Band-Aid off after school on Tuesday. I was assaulted with an absolutely HORRIFIC stench. Like, demons from hell were streaming out from my navel. It looked gross. It smelled gross. It hurt. I went to Urgent Care. 

They were like, "oh yeah, that's definitely infected. And it looks like a stitch popped at some point, it's a little open. (ew) You need to go on antibiotics, and we're doing a wound culture. Keep it covered but change the bandage frequently to keep it dry and keep an eye on it." I left, started the antibiotics that night, and the next day called my dermatologist's office to let them know it was funky. They could see me later that day, so I went to get checked out. 

My derm said, "nope, that's not infected. It's regular pus. Regular pus doesn't smell so good either. You have a spitting/spinning (not sure which) stitch, and your internal stitches are trying to come out. Don't cover it, and stop those antibiotics. They're a rough one that kills your gut biome and leaves you with horrible diarrhea. You're good." 

Bryce was like, "WHO DO WE TRUST?" And my answer was, the specialist. The person who sees excisions all day long. 

Whelp, I should have said URGENT CARE. 

We went on an impromptu overnight to Vermont weekend before last, and it was lovely. We went to a kickass bookstore (The Northshire), we ate yummy food, and we walked around. We read in our room. It was a good reset after our loss of Lucky. Sunday morning though, I got a call from "HEALTHCARE." I answered. 

IT WAS A DOCTOR FROM URGENT CARE. He was like, "your wound culture came back positive for staph lugdenensis." WHAT THE FUCK? He said I could stop the other antibiotic because it WASN'T STRONG ENOUGH, and go on a 7 day course of doxycycline. 

Of course. My body is tricksy, and often not in a good way. I took the antibiotics, and it's no longer tender or goopy (although to me, it still looks gross), but HOW FRUSTRATING? I called my dermatologist on Monday to tell her all about this development, and her office was a bit concerningly blasé about the whole thing. Said, "everyone has a tiny amount of staph on their skin, it's probably not a big deal." Argh. I just wanted them to say they were wrong (famously not a strength of most doctors). 

So, the lesson is... the specialist is not always right. The thing that doesn't make a mistake? DATA. Microscope slides full of goo revealing gross infections that could also turn homicidal (but thankfully didn't). 

On a good note, while in Vermont my new knee walked 8.5 miles IN ONE DAY! I hiked! I walked on hard sidewalks! It was amazing. So, at least one part of my body was doing right by me. 

Hiking at the Equinox Preserve

Not gonna lie, I'm a little nervous about having the second excision done where the other dangerous mole was on my back done in June. Although that area is not a cave of doom, so maybe it will be okay? 

Saying Goodbye to Our Lucky Buddy

On Friday, we said goodbye to our cat, Lucky. Lucky was just shy of 19, so he was definitely elderly, and he'd been struggling a bit more in the past month. We noticed some muscle atrophy, boniness, but he was still eating, jumping up on things, playing, and coming to sit on our blanketed laps. We figured if he couldn't do those things anymore, we'd take him in, because if it was more than old age chances are there wasn't much we could do. 

It was more than old age. He had liver cancer, and the day before we took him in to the vet he went to jump up on a stool in the kitchen, and missed entirely. He stopped eating his food (but we bought a rotisserie chicken and chopped it up for him, which he gobbled right up). He started finding places to hide. I was terrified I was going to come down to go to school and find him, curled up and cold, in an odd hiding place. 

But Friday I was at school, in the library for a social studies research project, and the librarian brought me the phone. Bryce had called the office to let me know that he was taking Lucky in at 11:30, that he was completely lethargic and acting weird and it was time. I left to meet him, thinking maybe it would be okay, but more realistically thinking I HAD to be there because it could be the end. 

The vet was amazing. She did a full exam, even an ultrasound (which he didn't need to be sedated for since he was so lethargic), and let us know that he had cancer in his liver and possibly elsewhere in his belly, that that kind of cancer accelerates like mad, and that if we weren't ready they could push fluids but it would gain us maybe a few days. That didn't seem fair to Lucky, to pump him full of things so we could spend more time with him even though he was miserable and things were shutting down. So, we made the decision. 

He was already mostly asleep when the process began, and we pet him and told him how much we loved him and thanked him for being a part of our lives for 13-14 years. And he fell asleep, and then he was gone. It was the most peaceful passing I've ever been a part of. 

We are a mess. He was so special, and there is such a hole where he was. I keep thinking I hear him meowing. People on meetings with Bryce used to think he was a baby because he was so loud. It was sad to open the fridge and see the chopped chicken, and to open the freezer and see the cubes of "jiggly" Bryce made for him (seriously reduced onion-free chicken stock that he'd microwave for him). Having just one station for cat food for Eggi. Having a lap that is bereft, as he was the ultimate lap cat and now I put a blanket on me and...that cozy weight on my thighs just doesn't come. Giving treats to Eggi and realizing I don't have to turn in a different direction to throw Lucky his so he didn't pig out and knock Eggi out of the way (he was kind of an asshole about food). 

Lucky was the last of our Infertility/Adoption Cats. We got him after my buddy Rocky passed in the least peaceful way ever (never went back to THAT vet again), in the 2 week wait for a frozen cycle after our ectopic, right around Christmas. I cried so hard when I lost Rocky that I was sure I dislodged our little embryos (I know better now). It didn't work, so there was extra sadness. We went relatively quickly to the ASPCA shelter and looked at a few cats, but none seemed right. Then they brought us Lucky, a five year old black cat they'd gotten around Halloween with a shortened tail who they'd kept in a different room with other cats and we hadn't seen. They told us he was their favorite. He immediately climbed into Bryce's lap and fell asleep. We were the lucky ones, so we kept his name. 

The shelter gave us a picture of Lucky with Santa, which was our first picture of him: 

He really was so special. He let me hold him like a baby. He let me smother him with love when our world was falling spectacularly apart: cycle after cycle not working, our summer miscarriage, deciding to stop treatment, starting the adoption process, time after time of not being chosen...and the end of our pursuit of parenthood in general. He lay on the floor next to me. He was my only baby to ever grace our crib: 

He loved sitting on top of whatever it was we were doing: 

On coloring books.

On books (guess which is Bryce's)

On grading.

On puzzles.

On things being assembled.

On prep for September.

On me trying to do schoolwork.

On professional development reading.

On my desk, asleep.

On my lap as I read a really good book days before surgery.

He also loved to be ON things:

On the stairs

On my office bookshelf

ON TOP OF THE FRIDGE, totally busted eating cornsilk, his weird favorite

On an herb planter

On the kitchen stools (which are counter height), with Miss Eggi

ON ME

On a giant box of mailorder bamboo toilet paper, living up to the slogan

He wanted to be wherever his people were. He wasn't shy around new people. He let you know when he wanted pets. He made sure to roll belly-up and make his front paws all cute if you had the audacity to ignore him (or just not snap to it right away). He would eat literally anything that fell on the floor, like a dog. Most recent weird item: a chickpea. Bryce's lap was his special lap. Until his last couple of weeks, given the choice between my blanketed lap and Bryce's crossed 4 legs, he picked the hole in Bryce's leg bend. Lucky is the cat who made Bryce a cat person. 

We didn't want to ever say goodbye, but we knew we'd have to, someday. 19 years is pretty old for a cat, but we were hoping for a crazy 20 or 22. 25! We loved Lucky so much, and he loved us back just as much. He was snuggly, and playful, and nimble up until maybe two weeks before he passed. He could jump 4 feet to the top of a tall bookcase. He regularly jumped up on the 3 foot stools. He was naughty with food and we had to make sure everything was put away before eating in another room, because he'd get up there and eat or lick just about anything that was in the kitchen where he could reach it. 

I had to take a break from writing this post because it made me so sad. But also, it makes me happy to remember him. Lucky was a hugely special part of our life. He was there for most of our marriage to date. To find that I had 526 photos of Lucky in my Google Photos made me happy. 

Rest in peace, Lucky. We miss you so much. 

Sunshine was his favorite. Sunpuddles, the deck, and here...in a raised planter like a wild beastie

Just Another Day

Yesterday was the first Mother's Day where I really didn't think about it. I stayed off social media. I had dinner with my mom, sister, and assorted husbands on Saturday. We went to see a movie at noon, Sinners. If you haven't seen it, and you can handle supernatural horror (and historical horror), it is well worth it! No one at the movies wished me a Happy Mother's Day, which was lovely. I was wearing my Mother Of Cats shirt, but I didn't hear it offered to anyone. I did leave the movies with a raging migraine, which put a damper on the rest of the day. I still managed to suit up against the blackflies and plant some Snow In Summer and put half of a border fence up in my birdbath/Jizo garden. Always feels good to nurture the nature on this particular day. 

No blackflies shall pass!!!

Two more arches to go... MAYBE it will deter the deer from what I plant next?

The upper part of the garden, through the screen of my office window. Bluebells, lungwort, daffodils, Japanese Forest Grass, and other fun things

Bleeding heart and brunnera (different garden but so pretty)

Same different garden, creeping phlox

It is delightful to have this day be...just another day. Admittedly, we stacked the deck -- celebrations on another day, no restaurants, and the like. Just blueberry pancakes, movie, gardening, and quality time with my migraine ice hat. 

I hope your Mother's Day was what you needed it to be. 

Magical Mystery Birthday Bookshop Tour

Today, I am 49. A perfect square. I'm out for the gold in these here hills -- I'm a 49er! It's the last year of my 40s... and I'm okay with that. My birthday used to be such a difficult day because it was tied to my biological expiration date, and then my attractiveness as an adoptive parent. Now, it's tied to none of that, and it's celebrating another trip around the sun, without strings. 

Bryce did an AMAZING job with my birthday this year. He asked me what I wanted, and I said, "I don't really want any things, I would love something related to an experience." 

Oh no. I set myself up for surprises! I hate surprises, they stress me out. But, Bryce knows this, and so he made sure that I knew I wasn't going to suddenly be suited up for skydiving. 

On Thursday, we did Part One: 

A few birthdays ago, he got me this Thule bike rack and a trailer hitch for my beautiful pumpkin orange car. Thankfully, the bike rack wasn't attached when I was rearended and my pretty pumpkin was totaled. When I got the new bluebird (which is okay but I loved the orange SO MUCH MORE), I had the trailer hitch installed from the get-go. Our bikes have languished in the garage though. Because... knees. 

BUT, we installed the rack and then loaded our cobwebby bikes up onto it (weirdly because mine is a "girl bike" and so the cross bar is lower, and it didn't fit right, but flipped it was fine). Then we drove to a pro bike shop nearby, and both bikes have an extended stay for service and tune-up, and then we will be able to go for bike rides! And bring our bikes to Vermont! And take interesting trails we drive to! So amazing. 

Saturday was a magical mystery tour. Bryce originally said we'd want to leave at 9 or 10, and we wouldn't be back until 9 or 10. We probably would have made one more destination had we actually left the house "on time," but we had a very lazy morning with delicious cheesy waffle breakfast sandwiches, and left at 11ish. Whoops. 

I am so sad that I forgot to take a picture at our first stop, The Dog Eared Book in Palmyra, NY. Bryce had to use GPS to get there, which threw me off (I could get there in my sleep, but also I go a LOT more frequently than he does!). Then we went in, and he got me three books that he'd ordered ahead, and I got one book that was highly recommended by the bookseller. 

All 3 of Bryce's books have red (all spines are red too), and mine was a tomato orange-red. weird!

Bryce handed me a $20 bill that I could spend at the store, but alas, hardcovers are closer to $25-30, so I used a card and pocketed the cash, ha. 

We hopped in the car and headed further east, landing in the picturesque town of Clifton Springs. Fun fact: we walked a little first, and went over a creek/culvert/aqueduct thing of running water, and immediately our noses were assaulted with the smell of sewage, of rotting eggs, of sulfur. GOOD GOD WHAT IS THAT SMELL??? We said, and then realized upon reading the sign by the old sanitarium that this was a well-marketed boon as a doctor advertised a "sulfur cure" using the sulfur water from the spring to help people somehow. The spa/sanitarium is now apartments and parts of a hospital. 

But, we ended up here: 

 I really wish I had taken a photo of the inside. It had recently moved and was GORGEOUS, with floating shelves (the bookseller built them with her husband, she hated the shelves that went to the floor because you basically had to be on your hands and knees to look through things) and a mix of new and used books. Actually, all three bookshops had a mix of new and used, which was lovely. Bryce handed me another $20, and I got these three: 

Kid Activists is for school, and that was the new one. The other two are used -- All the Little Liars I'd never heard of before but it looked fun and twisty, and Migrations came highly recommended from the bookseller. It's by the same author as Wild Dark Shore, which was amazing. That one took place on a fictional island called Shearwater, between Australia and Antarctica, and Migrations takes place in Greenland. So exciting! 

We then headed further east, to have our picnic lunch. Bryce's original plan was to go to a park in Geneva at the top of Seneca Lake, but GPS did us dirty and sent us on a wild goose chase that ended with us partway down the lake and parking on the side of the driveway to a church camp. It was raining, so we ate in the car, but we were right by the lake, it was quiet, and an oriole ate his lunch on the tree next to our car! 

We went to the actual park at the top of the lake, and unfortunately missed the bookstore in Geneva because it closed at 3:00, on a Saturday. Bryce was worried we wouldn't make the next store, but he called and the bookseller there said she'd stay open if we got there close to 5, so we took a quick walk at the park. 

From there, we headed a bit north and east, and landed in the small town of Marcellus. There we visited That's What She Read, a delightfully shabby chic new and used bookshop in a Victorian house. Each room was a different genre. It was FLOOR TO CEILING books, very overwhelming! But great for the hunt. 

She also let us use her bathroom to change for dinner. I got quite a lot of books for a very reasonable price, however I did exceed my $20 bill. BUT, what bargains! Also, she gave me a discount for my birthday and wrapped up my books, which she does for every first timer: 

I bought 6 books there, one of which I'd had before and put on my Special Shelf, but then it was a casualty of lending it out. Tell the Wolves I'm Home is a beautiful book and super nostalgic for me because it's set where I grew up, at around the same time. The rest are new to me:

They range from hilarious (oddly, I'm Glad My Mom Died is that one) to books I've meant to read/pick up but haven't, to two nonfiction books to aide in happiness and badassery. 

We headed out for dinner, which was 15 minutes away in Skaneateles, pronounced bizarrely close to "skinny atlas", another finger lake. We went to Mirbeau, a spa, hotel, and bistro that I have never been to before, but is VERY fancypants. They have a very Monet courtyard, very "you are not in Central New York, non! You are in FRRRAAHNCE!": 

They were, however, EXCELLENT with celiac. I had insanely good, hot, gluten free bread (almost like a flaky, soft biscuit!), and when I couldn't have the steak frites with the truffle parmesan fries (shared fryer, boooo), they made me fingerling potatoes with the truffle parmesan treatment! It was very yummy. 

Why oh why do we keep forgetting to take pictures of us, TOGETHER? 

It was a lovely, lovely day. Adventure, a little bit of surprise (I really didn't know where we were going), tons of books, new places, and delicious food and wine. It was absolutely delightful. 

Sunday I got my hair done, blending the silver and making it work a little less two-tone as I grow it out with the purple (there will always be purple): 

Before haha

After!

            

Then today, my actual birthday, I opened my presents in the afternoon (from others, not Bryce, as he outdid himself in experiences), and we had pizza and cupcakes with my dad. I am beat, fighting a migraine and allergies all at once. 

But, I am also happy. And loved. And grateful. I absolutely love my life. Here's to the last 364 days of my 40s!