Happy Birthday To Me

I know it's not "cool" to congratulate yourself on your own birthday. You're supposed to wait until somebody brings it up, smile demurely, blush, thank them, or, if you're a woman over 30, explain that "I HATE my birthday."

Unfortunately, I just can't do it. Never could. I LOVE my birthdays - el oh vee ee them. I start counting down about a month in advance and as it gets closer, drive everyone crazy with the following exchange:

Me: Guess what?
Them: What?
Me: It's ____ days 'til my birthday!

Rinse and repeat the following day.

Why do I love my birthday so? Oh, let me count the reasons.

1. It's a day that's uniquely yours. Unlike Christmas, Hanukkah, or Labor Day, this day is for you and you alone. Even the people who share the same date of birth can't rain on this individual parade. Their birthday is theirs. Yours is yours.

2. Everyone has to be nice to you that day. And if they're not nice, you can tell them so. It is, after all, your birthday.

3. It's an excuse to gather your friends around you, eat and drink too much.

4. The aforementioned friends generally bring presents.

5. There's cake. And cake is good.

6. The alternative to having birthdays is, well, rather bleak.

7. You've gained an extra year of knowledge, memories, joy, sorrow, wisdom. You've lived.

Oh, were you expecting 10 reasons? Or some other, even, logical number? Well, you'll have to live with 7. That's all I feel like writing. And I can quit any time I like. It is my birthday, after all.

Color Wheel

Image by Incase Designs


We've decided to paint, do all those home touch-ups that we put off when we're working because we're "too busy." Since I love paint and color, this is not the chore some may think, but a chance to change the mood, the very fabric of our room.

It began when we put the new knobs we bought in Paris on our closet door. Suddenly, the shiny, white walls that had been merely annoying became unbearably shiny, what with antique looking, clay and brass handles. So we'd repaint the closet, no big deal, right? But the closet takes up a whole wall - so if we're creating mess in prepping one wall, moving all the furniture out of the room, sleeping on the living room floor to avoid the fumes, what's three more walls? And trim? And maybe the doors? And we should DEFINITELY fix that little crack before we repaint.

So we've taken on "the Project," with the capital "P" that it now earns. But far from being discouraged, I'm in a frenzy of picking colors and finishes, and noticing that the living room can use an accent wall, and the patio needs repainting. For as much as we love sage walls, a house full of sage walls is just...boring.

So we're bringing our travels, and our dreams of future travels home, as we select a Moorish, breezy palette, with names like River Valley, Saltwater and Orange Peel. Can a new journey be too far in the future?

10 Things We Learned in Europe

Image by Madalena Pestana

And so, our trip has come to an end. We're back in the US, back to the daily grind, the job, the dog (who is all too happy to see us), the Responsibility. But we've come back different, rested, inspired, and, to coin a cliché, more worldly. Here's what we learned...

10. There are no squirrels on the European mainland. We're not sure what happened to them, but they don't seem to exist.

9. Pigeons, on the other hand, abound. And they're all fat.

8. The French have a much healthier attitude towards dogs than the Americans - they neither coddle them, nor assume they're in imminent danger if one enters a café.

7. Similarly, the Europeans have a much more laid-back attitude towards food. Nothing is pumped full of preservatives, cheese isn't pasteurized, eggs sit on non-refrigerated shelves. Yet, miraculously, no one dies.

6. French washing machines are diabolical. Even the French don't know how to operate them.

5. Maps aren't infallible.

4. It pays to learn the team’s fight song when going to a sporting event.

3. The worst moments of your journey will sometimes make for the best stories.

2. You can have meaningful interactions with people, form instantaneous relationships, without speaking a word of each other's language. All you have to do is offer them some bread, or some wine, or simply a smile.

1. Travel makes one thirst for more travel.

An Ode to Maps

I love maps. Those of you who have known me longer and have heard me talk about maps may actually call it more of an obcession. Not the kind that gets people thrown into padded rooms but a healthy love. I have been asked what I think this stems from and the best explanation I could come up with is that no matter where you are, with a map, you know where you are.

Not that I need to always know where I am. I'm perfectly happy wandering and getting lost. As long as I know that I CAN know where I am at the flip of a page. But I digress...

Today we left the Luberon. We were going to drive to Montpellier, where we were catching a train to Barcelona. The drive was going to be beautiful and relaxing, we would meander through villages and gaze at vinyards and poppy fields. We were going to avoid the main, impersonal multi-lane highways.

We'd heard about the trecherous paths woven by Provencal roads. But we weren't worried - we had map #113 to lead us. It was detailed. Very, very detailed. And it worked like gangbusters until we got to Cavaillon.

Once we got there, things became a bit less clear. There was the map, which had detailed drawing of the road we were on, complete with numbers. Then there was the road we were on. Which had nothing to do with the very clear and detailed map. The numbers on the map didn't exist in real life. Neither did the curves of the road. Or the road itself. So we did what any person with a map that no longer works does - we drove on, and hoped to see something, anything that would resemble reality.

There was once a theory where I lived in New Jersey, that if you were lost, all you had to do is keep driving and you would eventually hit a highway that would lead you to your destination. We applied it here, in the south of France and, like all good theories, it worked. In Cavaillon, and again on a round-about somewhere near Nimes, and a third time as we neared Montpellier, where construction had made a the road, mapped or otherwise, inaccessible.

Arriving in Montpellier we congratulated ourselves on our stellar navigational skills. We got some lunch and relaxed, eased in the thought that we had 2 hours before our train, and nowhere to go. We were scott free. We had had been tested and had persevered. We were optimistic. We decided to get some gas for the car. We were idiots.

I won't hurt you, or myself, by reliving what happened next. Suffice it to say, it involved a gas station some 10 miles outside of town, automated pumps that didn't work, automated credit card pads that didn't read our credit cards, a wrong turn down a one-way street, and a 180 turn which involved Bree driving backwards out of an unattended parking garage, "The French Connection"-style. The map, with its well demarkated roads that didn't exist, was tossed on the floor. We had reached the end of the line...

Fast forward (spoiler alert)...

But…we made it. After a LONG train ride to Barcelona, we decided not to tempt fate with more map reading. We caught a cab, the 1000 feet to our hotel.