Seattle

The last week and a half Robert and I had the amazing joy of exploring Seattle.  We got back last night, and Robert picked up the dogs this morning.

I am in the throes of doing way too much laundry but also reveling in all the good memories.  It was just about a perfect trip.  The only thing missing was family.  I found myself thinking of a loved one just about every other minute.  I could not bring myself to eat raw oysters for my brother, Scott, however.  There is a line, and eating ocean boogers is well on the other side of the line.

In our down time, mostly while driving, Robert and I talked endlessly about our favorite moments, foods, and places, constantly rearranging the lists as we went.  Seattle is a treasure.

Lists!

Coffee (we saw the first Starbucks and kept walking 😆😂):

1. Anchorhead. Check out this adorable cup:

2. Bri's Beans.  We stayed in Kent and had a good morning routine.  I would do my daily workout and get my work stuff done while Robert got coffee (and sometimes breakfast!).  Not sure how he got his work done too, but that man is a marvel.  Bri's Beans was solid and had a great dirty chai.

3. Cafe Flora.  Everything was excellent there, so it was no surprise their coffee stood out.

4. Anchor House.  Robert said he watched them roast the coffee while he waited.

5. PHIN vietnamese coffee. They make a special dairy-free condensed oat milk!

Books:

1. Arundel - I saw several titles I hadn't heard of before, and the staff were incredibly friendly.  This makes the number one spot, because I found the most books here.  Though I wanted to support the heck out of this bookstore, most of their books, maybe all, were brand spanking new, and I have a soft spot in my heart for art and coffee table books.  I had to put most on my library list.

2. Open Books.  A poetry bookstore!  Everything you could want relating to poetry - poetry itself, books about poets, poetry criticism/manuals/anthologies etc.  They also had both used and new books.  The person there was SO passionate.  They nearly lost their shit when another customer asked a question about a poet.  It was heaven on earth.

3. The Central Library and its bookstore.  The bookstore was just like every other library bookstore.  A treat for the soul.  I am a sucker for literary journals, especially ones I haven't heard of.  One of my goals during each major vacation we take is to subscribe to a new journal.  Just like most people, I love getting presents in the mail.  Getting a handful of literary journals monthly/quarterly is a great way of finding new poets to worship.  At a smaller Seattle library branch I already found a journal to look into, Pontoon, and to my extreme delight, it was on the shelf with other books to checkout.  The small library's poetry section only had about 30 books, and in that mix was a few issues of Pontoon.  It's one of the best feelings in the world to find literary journals within a library's poetry collection.  I'm getting a little sidetracked here, but I can't help it!  

Back to the Central Library bookstore.  I found a few literary journals on the dollar cart before I even stepped into the store.  While I was browsing the dollar cart, Robert was inside buying every adorable book thing they had.  I walked away with some handmade book earrings among other gifts he gave me after we toured the library.  An INCREDIBLE library.  Their poetry section went on and on.  The nonfiction section has this unique architecture where it spiraled around and around (see second picture).  Up and up we went through the Dewey Decimal system.  Such a treat!  I found books I've never heard of and smelled book smells that were so rich with history.  I can't tell you how many times I opened a book and saw checkout slips from the forties (see last picture).  It was paradise on earth.

This was a staff area we accidentally found ourselves in.  Sorry not sorry!

  

4. Lamplight Books in Pike Place Market.  This is where I found the Stanley Kunitz book!

5. Seattle Art Museum.  Robert and I were just kind of meh about the museum, but like any art gift shop, they had piles and piles of beautiful books.  Once again, lots of books to find at the library later.

Food:

1. Cafe Flora (also in Robert's top 5).  This just became my new favorite restaurant.  It beat out Guerilla Bizkit in Nashville, Genghis Khan/Blue Koi here in KC, and Tumerico in Tucson.  Everything we ate at Cafe Flora was complete bliss, incredibly thoughtful, and classic.  They served breakfast, lunch, and dinner and have both vegan and vegetarian food.  I had something that I didn't realize was the vegan version of chicken and waffles or I wouldn't have gotten it.  It was oyster mushrooms, pakora, and the best waffle I've ever eaten in my life (and it was both vegan and gluten-free).  We ate at Cafe Flora three times, tried their bakery (which was just ok), and even ate at their Floret location in the airport before heading home.  Best food I've ever had.  Sorry Grandma!

2.  I ate a lot of seafood.  Every time I saw cioppino on a menu, I had to have it.  Picking the meat out of mussels is not something I get to do in Kansas City.  It's both a stew and treasure hunt.  The best one was at Duke's Seafood (also in Robert's top 5) because it had vegetables in it too.  The other cioppinos I tried would have beat Duke's, but no veggies!  We ate a lot of sourdough in Seattle.  Duke's also had a stellar sourdough.  We ate at Duke's twice, so we had the opportunity to try several things.  They had a seasonal salad that had both salmon and shrimp plus dried coconut, pineapple, and the first purple cabbage in a salad I didn't pick out.  It was weirdly delicious, super thick with its own flavor.

3.  Vegan mac and cheese from Bang Bang Cafe, but the mac and cheese I make at home is better.  Even though my mac and cheese is better, I always learn something from trying other mac and cheeses.  After trying Bang Bang's, I plan on dumping in some chilies or jalapeños in my next batch.  

4. Japonessa Sushi Cocina (also in Robert's top 5).  Though we saw it on other menus later, this place introduced me to what is now the holy grail of sushi - the salmon sampler.  Unlike other sushi places, their sushi sampler did not include seared salmon, which I think is an atrocity.

5. Frankie & Jos/Yonder Cider.  Frankie & Jos was one of the few places on my list prior to learning we were going to Seattle.  It deserves the hype.  It's a vegan ice cream place with only a handful of rotating flavors, some a little out of the norm like chocolate tahini.  The strawberry was the best strawberry I've had in a long time, and they had vegan waffle cones too!  I tried a few hard ciders here and there.  Yonder came up a couple times, so we decided to check out their taproom.  I love a good flight (or two)!  We may have bought a few six packs to share with our employees.

 

Robert and I have a tendency to cram a lot into a vacation.  When we were in the habit of taking a couple vacations a year, we did both relaxing vacations and vacations that were completely packed.  Sometimes we did a mixture of both.  This was our first vacation in a year, and we chose one of the coolest places to visit.  I did a lot of research and planning the last few months to make sure we weren't missing too much.  We did a lot of things, and honestly the only place we were just meh about was the Seattle Art Museum, but even then we were glad we went.  Tara Donovan has an exhibit there right now, and her exhibit is totally worth it.  There's even a spot to touch and feel the materials she uses and also for visitors to try their hands at making something out of those materials.

We went to the top of the Space Needle (pictures 1, 2, and baby space needle 3), oohed and ahhed our way through the Chihuly Garden and Glass (pics 4-7), took a Boeing factory tour (In Robert's top 5), walked through lots of planes at The Museum of Flight (In Robert's top 5), hung out at Ballard Locks, shopped at several places (bead store, gift stores, even the Microsoft store), hiked Mt. Ranier, spent some time on the water, hung out with whales (though they probably didn't know this), and saw as much as we could, but we know we there is much more to do and can't wait to go back.

Here are some pictures of my treasures (minus gifts, no peeksies).  The first pic is our haul from our first visit to Pike Place Market.  Pic #2 is mostly from Greenwood's Seattle Recreative (more in a bit).  Pic #3 is from our second trip to Pike Place Market and our book crawl to multiple bookstores.  Pic #4 is our goodies from the Space Needle, Chihuly Garden and Glass, and the Microsoft store.  I found a delightful excel mug that says, "Making Sheet Happen Since 1985."  Though we're both Excel fans, we had no idea it came out the year I was born.  We had a little fun looking into Microsoft programs one of the times we got stuck in traffic.  The last pic is our haul from Georgetown's Seattle Recreative (didn't even make a dent in their beads!) and The Library Bookstore.  They probably had to restock after Robert came through.  He got me earrings, a necklace, notebook, and coaster.  😂  Can't tell you what all the love languages are, but buying me many gifts from a library bookstore is one of mine.

Here is my top five list of favorite things we did:

5. Hot tub boating (Also in Robert's top 5).  After stumbling upon this unique type of boating in a pamphlet, I jokingly mentioned it to Robert.  He immediately booked us a boat.  It was a little toasty but gave us an entirely different perspective of Seattle.  We saw so many types of boats while we were out on the water, we ended up making a top five list of boats we would like to try when we visit the next time.  At the top of my list is a donut boat, which was the most adorable boat.  The hot tub boat had some space to sit outside of the hot tub.  It was the most delicious thing to have one foot in the cold water and the other in the hot tub.  This made both of our top five list, and we both highly recommend it.

  

4.  Pike Place Market.  This is a giant tourist trap, and it's SO worth it.  Fish throwing, shops of every kind, people watching, and wonderful food.  We only had a couple of musts on the Pike Place Market, so we attempted to go once and cross them off the list.  We ended up going back again!  Prior to taking the trip to Seattle I had only a few things on the list: whales, Mt. Rainier, a vegan ice cream place, many hiking places around Seattle, and a psychic chicken in Pike Place Market.  Seriously!  We found the chicken and so much more! Robert got to try chowder from Pike's Place Chowder (which also had a vegan chowder), there was a tarot store with about a hundred OPEN decks where you could actually touch and look at all the cards, a bookstore where I found a Stanley Kunitz book I've never heard of, a chocolate covered cherries mecca, and a cider place with about 15 ciders to try.  We had such a blast trying foods and shopping.  I found a fair amount of gifts for family and friends.  We actually had to mail a box of goodies home!  Sadly, the psychic chicken couldn't go home with me. 

3.  Seattle Recreative.  Seattle and the surrounding area has a few craft recycling places, including Seattle Recreative, which has two locations.  I enjoyed both and was really impressed with how much junk they saved, even shoulder and bra pads!  That's a new one for me.  I thought the Greenwood location was fun, but Georgetown was epic.  I found so many charms and beads I will be set for a really long time.  I can't wait to dig through and sort them all.

2.  Mt. Rainier (Also in Robert's top five).  We were a little bummed that some of the all-day excursions we planned were just not doable.  There are a handful of places that will need to be entire trips for each place.  Traffic is no joke and not predictable.  We've traveled to a few places with heavy traffic.  Los Angeles and Dallas come to mind.  I remember being completely absorbed in wandering the garment district in Los Angles, Robert nowhere in sight.  Suddenly he appeared and said, "We have to leave now."  Sounds like the beginning of a horror movie, right?  Nope, just LA traffic, which was fairly predictable.  Another five minutes in the garment district would put us back at the Airbnb an hour or even two hours later.  Seattle had no predictability.  The map would say 20 minutes to go 8 or 9 miles but then change before our very eyes to 40, back to 20, up to 40 again.  It was wild.

Thankfully, Mt. Rainier was attainable.  It does deserve more than a day and is back on our list with a note to stay closer.  I've been before but it lived at the far reaches of memory.  It's a beautiful area, even during the haze from surrounding fires.  We took the gondola, which is a must.  It was so dang peaceful and magnificent.  We also hiked a few of the Sunrise trails, which were perfect for my FIRST TIME HIKING since the achilles injury.  They were steep but either dirt packed or paved, and Robert and I just took our sweet time doing the hills.  It was incredibly beautiful.  I can't wait to go back and tackle some of the crazier trails.  I also can't wait to hike again.  Mt. Rainier lit a fire in me to put some bucket list items back on the list.  I've been so cautious and exploring Mt. Rainier reminded me the risk is worth it.

1. Whales! Robert's #1 too! We did a whale tour through Blue Kingdom, and they are exceptional people.  Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable and passionate, and the person driving the boat did a wonderful job making the ride as smooth as possible.  They provided coveralls, coats, binoculars, goggles, and gloves for the boat ride.  We did not see other tours doing this.  Our tour was on a small, open boat, and Robert and I had the luck and great pleasure of sitting at the very front.  We were great wind blockers for the rest of the passengers!  After much research and talking to others, we were hopeful we would get to see whales, but we knew it was more likely we would not.  

We not only saw whales, we got to see three orca whale families, hang out with each family for a while, learn their ancestry, what made them unique, and even their names and nicknames!  The first family we saw really spoke to me.  It was a brother and sister duo.  The brother, Sequoia, was born in 1986!  We also saw a mother and three of her kids and a mother and son duo.  

The boat ride itself was everything.  Nothing beats being on a boat that's not going too fast, gracefully riding the waves, the wind sloughing off months, maybe years of stress.  But we saw whales!  We could hear them exhaling through their blow holes and learned what made each of their dorsal fins unique!  We even smelled one of their kills, not something I ever thought about prior to that day.  We saw seals, including a mother nursing her pup and sea lions jumping on and off a buoy.  Stalwart folks take a note.  2400 pounds of braggart sea lion leaping and hauling itself up on a buoy six feet out of the water like it's nothing.  Brawn and grace.  Beautiful.

After the tour we all headed back inside the shop to take off our many layers and look at the genealogy of the three orca families we saw.  The guide also shared a map of where we went and some items she had collected on her journey - baleen from a whale's mouth, a seal whisker, and elephant seal fur.  

And that's not all!  The guide took pictures the entire trip and told us she would send us the pictures later.  She not only sent the pictures, which I'll share a couple here, she also sent us the nicknames of the whales again along with their formal names.

It was a once in a lifetime experience I'll be carrying with me for the rest of my days.

When I opened this picture just now I realized the guy behind us wasn't wearing any gear at all.  There were a couple passengers who had just done whale watching in Iceland this past February, and despite much encouragement from the guide, they did not suit up because they did not suit up in Iceland.  But I was very glad for the gear.  Nice and toasty the whole time and the goggles saved my contacts from drying out.

Here is one of the genealogy charts plus the map of where we went:

Like that beautiful, confident sea lion who threw himself on the buoy, I'm ready to throw myself back into my life.  I've got enough good energy and joy to get me by for quite some time.  I'm ready to kill it at PT.  Ready to get our CRM launched at work.  Ready to work with the designers to get more of their magic creeping through our showroom (they held the fort down like nobody's business while I was gone and already started making a few samples).  Ready to jog like there's no tomorrow.  Put a new twist on my mac and cheese.  Turn some memories into art.  Listen to the whales in those quiet moments before sleep.  Swim with the dogs before summer is over.  Plan the next trip with my nerd.  Read everything once all our treasures come in the mail.  Hike again!  Try some new things and be ready for tennis when it comes.

Soaking up their sunshine

It has been a whirlwind here.  I flew to Tucson at the end of February and spent a few days with my brother, Scott and his family, and before I got back Robert left for a week to do a couple jobs in Colorado.  We are both back home and getting caught up on life.

Getting to see my brother and his crew was much-needed balm for my soul.  I adore them all, and it's tough to be an aunt and sister form afar.

I finally got to meet my nephew, Grant, who is just over a year old.  It was a wild time, and we lived it up like we always do when we get together.  

Here are a few moments from our time together:

My first day there we went to Tohono Chul, which is one of my favorite places on earth.  It's this magical botanical garden filled with incredible art, more desert beauty than you can possibly see in one go, and passionate docents who are eager to share their knowledge.  Tohono Chul also has an art gallery, a crested saguaro who is one of my soul mates, and a lovely children's area.

Savannah, who is four, has that same sideways look and smile Scott wore in so many of his childhood pictures.  Grant, who is just over a year old, is ready to drive!

Here is Gumby, the crested saguaro.  I met him in 2021 on a visit out there, and he's become a presence in my dreams.  I've had some great conversations with docents about this saguaro and have been working on a poem about him for a few years.

We also visited the Children's Museum, which is another Tucson treasure.  We had a lot of fun pretending to shop, playing with blocks, making bats zip across the room, and pretending to drive things like a real fire truck!

We went swimming, moseyed around aimlessly, and spent a lot of time just enjoying each other.  Autumn, who is twelve, and I worked on her journal, which is a Wreck This Journal.  We painted pages and then destroyed them.  We sewed some things into her journal using the most haphazard stitches so it would be perfectly ugly.  The journal is barely in one piece at this point and would never be something I would enjoy but I love that Autumn is so into it, and I was happy to wreck it with her after watching her wreck it over FaceTime the last few months.  I also got to see the last few minutes of one her rehearsals at the musical company she's a part of.  Savannah and I spent plenty of time playing outside on her slide and swing, and we even drew chalk creatures together.  I held Grant every chance I got, because I'm sure he'll be walking next time I see him!

Autumn is as tall as me!

It's tough to be so far away from my family - I have an Arizona brother, Texas brother, and Florida brother.  Leaving any one of them and their families completely wipes me out.  Scott is the brother closest in age to me, and I've pretty much spent my entire life looking up to him.  I wish we could live closer to each other, but life has taken us to different places.  I cherish every moment I get to spend with him.  Watching him be a dad is a whole new side of him that I treasure, and I'm so stinking proud of him.  I'm so thrilled I have a handful of pictures and videos to tide me over until I see him and his crew again. 

this journey is my own

It's been a wild couple weeks.  On December 5th I officially started walking again.  It was a lot of lurching at first!  Monday, December 7th we took the last wedge out of my boot.  And then, after a week of walking and lurching, Robert and I took off for Minnesota for the third time this year.

This time had nothing to do with the Mayo Clinic though!  After twenty years of trying, Robert managed to score us tickets to see Sara Groves, who is one of my favorite artists and someone whose music has literally changed my life.  When I started college in the spring of 2004 I was alone in a new town.  I started playing tennis with another student, Scott through a tennis club, and we became tennis buddies.  We didn't talk much but at one point mentioned the schools we were going to and discovered we both attended church alone.  We started taking turns going to each other's churches each Sunday and sometimes going to both.  We played tennis and we went to church together but were very much painfully alone.  Loneliness nearly ate me up as a kid and going to college was not a magical cure.  I recognized he had his own issues with loneliness, but we did not talk about how alone we were or really anything of any substance.  We were tennis buddies and provided each other company when going to church.

One day he lent a CD to me.  It was Conversations by Sara Groves.  Naturally the CD got stuck in the CD player in my car, and I was so mortified!  Even though the CD was stuck in my car, it still played, and I listened to it nonstop.  There were a handful of songs that were very reassuring at that time in my life and helped me feel less alone.  Eventually I was able to get the CD back to Scott.  Shortly after that he said he was going to Russia after his graduation to bring a bride home.  Seriously!  It was his decision, and I didn't feel it was my place to say anything.  I didn't even really consider us friends.  Outside of church and tennis we led different lives and didn't talk much about those lives.  So I didn't say anything.  And he disappeared.  We sent emails initially, but his emails stopped suddenly, and I never heard from him again.  I didn't think we were friends at the time, but he let me borrow a CD that very much gave me the strength I needed to survive a tough but soul-shaping couple years of my life.  

One Sara Groves CD led to another and another, and with every new album there are a handful of songs that help me feel less like a stranger to myself.  

Robert knows all this, understands how much her music means to me, and has tried to get tickets the past twenty years.  Sara Groves sings at churches, women's conferences, and other semi-private events.  The closest Robert got to getting tickets one year was by pretending to know someone in the church's congregation, which was the requirement for that particular concert.

The concert we finally scored tickets to was at Art House North, which is owned by Sara and her husband and located in their St. Paul neighborhood.  It's a place that supports artists of all kinds and is appropriately in an old church.  Robert bought the VIP tickets which included a Q&A with Sara Groves while enjoying pie and cider all while sitting together in pews.  The Q&A was incredibly personal and also sad due to Sara Groves losing her father a week prior to the concert.  One person in the audience asked Sara Groves if she was writing a song about her father, and she played us what she had composed thus far.  Because this concert was a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Conversations, Sara Groves had forgotten some of the music.  She even ran home to get some of the music!  She played piano, had her fabulous band backing her up, and shared her vocals with her daughter and two friends.  She played the entire album, made a few mistakes, told stories behind the songs, and even invited the audience to sing one of the songs with her, which is a moment so precious I will take it with me for as long as I live and even past the grave.  

It was brutally cold with piles of snow everywhere in St. Paul.  Plus the church had stairs.  I went from barely walking to tackling icy sidewalks, snow drifts, and stairs all in the matter of 24 hours.  I walked into PT Monday and was not at all surprised to learn I was officially transitioning to a tennis shoe and wearing the boot only at night.  My physical therapist said I may need a crutch the first few days of transitioning to a shoe, and I was like, "Dude I got this!"  I had no issues the first day but the next day I was in the worst pain I've been in thus far on the achilles tear journey.  I didn't use a crutch though and made it through a ten hour day at work.  It's been tough but doable since then.  I broke down and bought yet another pair of shoes though.  I am wearing heel cups for the moment, so the tennis shoes I wore prior to the injury are way too tight with the heel cups in them.  I bought a wide in my size, and the pain is better now.  I hope nobody I know ever goes through an achilles tear, but I've been taking notes for ways to make it better if anyone asks.  

I feel buoyed from the concert and ready to finish out the rest of the holiday rush at work while amping up my physical therapy.  I've been told this next part is going to be difficult, but I think I'm in a good place to do the hard work.  I also finally received confirmation that I graduated on Friday, which is a relief.  I think I can finally heal from the library trauma now that I'm not constantly peeling back the bandaid so to speak.  I chose not to go to the graduation ceremony.  I really only have Robert to celebrate this small achievement with, and we haven't done the cap and gown thing at our other graduations.  Also, the night of the commencement ceremony Robert I were on our way to Minnesota!  I can't think of a better way to celebrate than seeing Sara Groves and hearing the songs that convinced me to keep trying.

I also made it back up to my office this weekend.  I still need a chauffeur AKA Robert to climb the stairs, but I was thrilled to finally be in my special place where I can continue to sort, reflect, celebrate, accept, and unwind.  Whatever art happens moving forward is going to have a lot of extra joy, hard work, intention, and striving going into it.  

bun puns

Several years ago I started the journey to figure out what the heck was up with my GI issues.  I was embarrassed, impatient, and felt like surely I could fix it.  I should be able to fix it right?  Why couldn't I fix it?  I soon gave up.  

In 2021 I started having trouble with incontinence of varying kinds, and I admitted defeat.  I talked to my doctor and told her I was ready to get to the bottom of my GI issues once and for all (pun totally intended).  I spent the next four years doing lots of tests, various diets, pelvic floor therapy, and even counseling.  Apparently stress can kill you in different ways, including via your gut.  Who knew? 

Thankfully, at the beginning of the journey I was working from home due to the pandemic.  Things definitely got worse for a while as I went through the hoops.  As I transitioned back to working in-person I didn't bring up the utter hell my GI issues were giving me.  At that time I worked with super supportive people.  I was just incredibly embarrassed.  Incontinence is a pretty taboo thing to talk about.  In addition to that taboo problem, I was often experiencing extraordinary fatigue, bloating, and pain.  Weirdly enough, 2022-2023 were my two favorite years working at the library.  I think all the library happiness balanced out the tummy troubles and gave me something positive to focus on.  The library job and people I worked with (99.9% of them) for sure saved my butt (again, pun intended) during the time I needed it most.

The first GI doctor I had was excellent, but he had settled on this cycle of periodically wiping out the bacteria in my gut a couple times a year.  It was expensive and the symptoms always came back, sometimes in just a few weeks!  I've had a few colonoscopies over the past few years, and for a couple weeks after each of them, I felt the best I've ever felt.  I was so desperate for relief I even brought up the idea of doing a colonoscopy prep every so often!  

So then I asked my primary doctor if I could be referred to a different GI doctor, and she was 100% on board with it.  I immediately clicked with this new GI doctor, and he started me on a very rocky path to some relief.  He tried a few things, one of which was a medication that drastically improved my discomfort and pain, but the other symptoms were persistently hanging on.  As we all know one of those symptoms makes living a normal life very challenging.  This doctor didn't give up on me though.  He referred me to the Mayo clinic, and at the beginning of July I got the call to come on up.  

I have spent the majority of the summer figuring out my gut issues, and I feel like I have an excellent plan that I understand.  The first thing I had to do was put away my feelings about taking medication for possibly the rest of my life (even something small and harmless like the one I'm taking was tripping me up).  I really wanted the fix to be solely related to diet or something I could fix.  The second thing I had to do was be open to anything and surrender my embarrassment.  Lastly, it's a lot of hard work and I'm still trying to understand it all, but I feel like I have some hope for a future that doesn't involve always making sure there's a restroom nearby.  I am willing to put in the hard work and ask uncomfortable questions.

I have been reading this excellent book: The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, and just this morning there was a passage I read that stood out:

"Embracing our common humanity is understanding that we all encounter pain, we all get lost, we all have drama in our family – we all have so much happening behind the scenes. The more you see your problems as uncommon, unrelatable, and unnatural, the closer you move towards self-pity, not self compassion." 

During this whole process I learned just how common my stomach issues are.  Unfortunately, I was totally mortified about them for such a long time, I made them 1000 times worse.  There are so many people with similar issues, there are two floors devoted to them at the Mayo in Rochester!  If anyone reading this or anyone you know has chronic constipation/diarrhea (or both!), it is not normal or ok.  Ask for help!

There's a lot of hard work ahead, but I'm ever so grateful for the help and also for Robert taking off the time to be with me for all the weird, exhausting, hopeful, gross, powerful, life-changing stuff I've been a part of this summer.  I'm also grateful that my gut issues are not life-threatening.  We have officially knocked out all the super serious things, and the relief I feel about that is immense.

Such a serious post, I think it's time for a few pictures.  All appropriate, only some poo!

Rochester has this incredibly long pedestrian bridge on the Douglas Trail.  Robert and I walked the lake loop to access it, and then he walked back to the car while I explored the bridge.  Robert said to call him when I reached the end of it, and he would come pick me up.  

Well I never found the end because the darn thing led to a brewery - Little Thistle.  There may not be pots of gold at the end of every rainbow, but apparently there's at least one brewery at the end of a trail (at least that's where the trail ended for me).  I'm pretty much ruined now.  When I called Robert he was not at all surprised by my find.  

Speaking of being completely ruined - when I popped into the main Rochester library and asked for a library card for my collection, the person working there librarian gave me not only the current colors, they also went into the back for a couple old ones lying around.  

Books like this were everywhere, including this board book.  Rochester definitely had the most positive poop culture I've ever been a part of.

We had Chinese one night.  I don't remember the food, but I did keep this.  How many mighty forces have been there for me?  Too many to count.  

Speaking of food, we did find the best places, because that's what we do!

Brussels Sprouts from First Meeting Noodle in Rochester:

Borscht (the best I've ever had) from Kramarczuk's Sausage Co. in Minneapolis, MN:

The Mayo Clinic is connected to many shops and restaurants in a crazy indoor maze.  Someone mentioned that they moved there in the winter and only spent a few minutes outside.  She was able to walk mostly from her home to her job at the Mayo clinic without venturing outside!  We did a lot of walking while we waited for appointments.  The best place to eat was Saladworks, which was a build your own salad place with roasted vegetable options.

This coffee place, Qamaria, had something called pistachio sauce.  Here's the difference between pistachio syrup and sauce.  It's very simple.  If it's sauce, you will want to bathe in it.  It was an otherworldly experience.  Each sip you decide if you want straight up latte or latte after you drag your straw through the sauce.  Basically, it's the best drink on the planet.

When we traveled to Des Moines for vacation in June we didn't find any restaurants we would visit again.  Naturally, just passing through Des Moines we found a stellar place - Centro.  They had a vegan tofu gnocchi with broccoli pesto and a salad with a pile of fresh tomatoes.  Robert thought my pasta was slightly better than his!

We had one weekend to fiddle fart around, and we stopped by an amazing craft recycling place, ArtStart and one of the best bookstores I've ever been to, Against the Current, both in St. Paul.  I kept picking up one treasure after another.  ArtStart sold their papers by the inch!

We got back just this past Thursday, and the dogs were both overjoyed and exhausted.  I immediately took Margo into work on Friday in the hopes she would forgive me for keeping her from J and her customers.  This weekend has been a lot of catchup, relaxation, and tennis.  

Tennis has been brutal this summer with the crazy humidity.  My average heart rate when I play is usually 140s-150s.  With the humidity the average has been near-death - 💀.  But it's the best place to lay down all my burdens (or smack the shit out of them).

I am ready to dive into my last semester of school, do all the hard work to get my gut all spruced up and happy (and not tear myself down if I make a mistake), and really soak up all the joy of my job, art, family, and the pauses when I write it all down.