Early Birthday

I am turning 40 November 22 so my mother this past March proposed a weeklong celebration in the Berkshires for the summer. I said hell yes. Sunday August 7 began our week in North Adams/Williamstown. My brother stayed Sunday and Monday with us and we had a great time driving out.  We saw an improv musical, checked out Bright Ideas Brewing, went to Mass MoCA


and the Clark museum Sunday and Monday. My brother asked me the funniest question over breakfast Monday morning. He asked me if I spend time curling my hair in the morning because he remembers my hair being stick straight and flat while we grew up. I have absolutely no idea what happened to my hair as I got older but it is a wavy/curly mop now which varies from looking like mentally ill Einstein to Dragonball Z anime. The fact that my brother thought I worked for this look had me howling with laughter as I gasped out, "I have no idea what is going on with this mess."

We checked into our weeklong hotel in Lee Monday afternoon. My brother drove back home after a picnic lunch. Tueday, we scoped out the Lee outlets in the morning and rest of the day was recovery "low energy Chokmah" mode. Wednesday morning we drove out to Great Barrington stopping in my favorite hippie dippy store, Crystal Essence and grabbing coffee at Fuel. We headed to Pittsfield for the afternoon and  I got 3 text messages from Super Boss letting me know about big changes at work. He isn't my boss anymore. Mom and I had a delicious lunch at Eat on North where I cried and tried to process the work changes. Then we toured Herman Melville's house, Arrowhead, and I felt a lot better. Nothing perks me up more than hearing about a depressive author who died thinking he was a failure apparently.

Thursday in the oppressive heat and humidity, we toured The Mount

The garden

The dining room

The library

We grabbed lunch at Cakewalk. Then, we went back to the hotel to cool down and hydrate afterwards. 

Friday, mom and I had a four hour spa package at Body and Soul spa. It was pure bliss. My toes are now gorgeous painted with a deep purple. Torrential thunderstorms blew through. We had a delicious dinner at Mazzeos where I discovered this delicious red wine. 

Saturday was still evilly hot and humid. We had 7 hours to kills between check out and the concert at Tanglewood so we grabbed a delicious lunch at the Great Barrington Brewery. 

Then we drove to Lenox to bum around town. Sweaty, exhausted and cranky we decided to skip Tanglewood and head home. The best part was my mom giving away our tickets. The group we gave them to were so happy and thankful.

I am home now rested, rejuvenated, and pretty broke. I am not looking forward to returning to work but I think I have refilled my coping reserves. I know my new boss and he seems decent. I still have sad pangs about Super Boss - I even picked him up a a little gift on our travels! My room-mate even got into the early birthday celebration. She got us tickets to this.