Today is my birthday and I slept like crap and have been awake since 1:30! On a Saturday!

Got some birthday texts and emails, yay. Opened Jackie's gifts--mostly food, but stuff such as a crazy light -up wreath, shirt, fanny pack as well. Opened birthday cards as well, yay.

Much to my surprise, Jess said something about "gift yourself with a visit to a psychic to figure out the direction of your life" and I was all, wait, WHAT, you've been? Yes, she went years ago and enjoyed the experience and all the finances worked out. Welp, I don't feel so weird there.

The day went great, it wasn't all that "pandemic" at all, HUZZAH. Mom and Roger came by around 11:45-ish, Mom brought a lot of presents and especially books I wanted, YAY. Roger was all "you do that all the time?" Um, yes.... Anyway, he dropped us off to have a very fancy lunch at The Preserve with Evan and then do a tour of Evan's new job (still working at GiantOrg, just another office) with nobody in there.

Mom and I did the Gold Country Bookstore Tour: you get a prize/stamp per spending $10 at each store, and if you make it to four stores, you get in a drawing for the giant prize. Normally I would probably not have been as into this, but THIS IS MY FIRST SHOPPING SPREE IN OVER A YEAR, Y'ALL, and I was determined to MAKE IT TO ALL FOUR, GD IT!

I will note that Mom did ah...criticize my driving....fairly frequently, though occasionally she had legit reason to, i.e. when I got a bit lost, and had to make a few suddenish stops in traffic she didn't like much. I didn't pull over and make her drive, so go me there. I asked if she does this to Roger too and she said, "Well, sometimes he drives too fast," and I said, "do you say anything?" and she said she holds onto the car handle.

The stores we hit were: (a) Face in a Book, El Dorado Hills. I got one book, and Mom picked out one and then asked for it for her birthday (I asked her what she wanted and she was all "I dunno"), so we went for it, and then each got free ARC's for buying. (b) Ruby's Books, Folsom. This is new and came in during the pandemic in old town Folsom, which I love. I admit I did a bit of buzzing through stores here and there, and I ended up buying a rainbow Koosh ball in the toy shop, and getting my picture taken with a giant bear (named "Rowly."). That's my birthday picture for 2021, hahah. I got a book on corgis there. We also got some kind of fruit slushie drinks with ice cream at Snooks. I will note that other than mask use and more people outside, old town Folsom was pretty much like usual with the crowds. (And we drove by my town's Farmers Market today and good lord, it has tons and tons of people at it again.) (c) Crawford's, Sacramento. This was a used bookstore, so we probably spent the most time in that one getting enough books for $10. Mom spent $70, holy cow. There was one lady in there repeatedly coughing, but she had a mask on, at least. (d) Avid Reader, which I managed to talk Roger into running me by for 5-10 minutes right before closing so I could make the fourth store. I literally did it that fast because I saw a book in there I wanted to get Mom anyway ("Disney's Land"), and then went through my wallet and was all "Oh HEEEEEEEEY I have this gift certificate I had to use in person here!" Score, so I only spent $1.98 there and made the drawing. I asked how many people made it to four and he said "a few."

Looks like I spent...under a hundred dollars, anyway. But this is my first spree in over a year! I think the last time I spent a bunch of money IRL was Stitches West in late February. (Though I will note that somehow my $1400 stimulus money came in, so I got that as well. Ka-CHING.)

In between (c) and (d) we went to the Putah Creek Cafe for dinner, which Roger ended up loving. I got fried chicken for the first time in over a year and it was crispy gloriousness. Our waitress was adorable, gave me free cake, and Roger gave her an enormous tip. Go Roger!

(So I have now eaten indoors at a restaurant and used a public toilet again. I am SO breaking bad. Though at least I did mask up when not eating. Also, my mom was in my apartment and used my toilet and I did not lose my shit about "toilet plumes.")

We parked over by the theater, and I checked: my yarn bombs that I left in the area in early 2020 are still there, albeit kinda raggedy at this point.

I got to hug people! It was almost like normal out there! To quote Kelly later, "Isn't it awesome to be out in the world again?"

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