O right yes. Never did circle back. Sorry if there's been anxiety.

Definitely NOT intending to be brutal with myself in the near/foreseeable future. That voice is completely silenced now not prodding at me under the surface. And also, genuinely, the bond has been so fucking strong now, especially at night like when heading to bed o'clock would be. So there's literally nothing at all whatsoever inside my head/heart/soul in a contrary space or even the slightest bit questioning or pulling away -- nothing fractious or stubborn going on in me since the other night. Not even under the surface.

The "5 glasses of wine" ended up being more like 8+ glasses of wine because while waiting for the stragglers at the multi-course dinner, they just kept refilling our glasses with the French rosé greeting glass. Luckily I had a hunch about that so I suggested that my da (who didn't join us) should drive us and pick us up rather than me driving.  Funnily enough, my parents did NOT do their normal walk through service to check if things were off because my papa was going to come back to work to get stuff done before their trip out westward and thus they accidentally locked John (an employee) in and set the alarm so we had to circle back about halfway to downtown after the security company called us because they apparently couldn't just rest it/turn it off on their end. Whoops! We still got there about 5:50 (for a 6pm start and a "may arrive as early as 5:30" and then as mentioned got delayed by late comers and "forced" to drink extra glasses of French rosé from Bordeaux, lol.) It was really good -- and genuinely the artichoke dip course was probably the best artichoke dip I've had in my life! They used fresh artichokes (not canned or pickled) that they then simmer in garlic and white wine (as opposed to just mixing direct from can/glass into cream cheese) before mixing with cream cheese, topping with Gruyère and fresh parmesan and panko breadcrumbs then baking the terrines. It was so good!!! 

And then, I was talking to the owner who also attends and helps serve and chat with guests at their wine dinners at Porta Bella's (this was the first of theirs we've attended -- but their price point is $65 for 4 courses and 5 glasses of wine, so very reasonable) to ask about when he thought they'd have a menu for their next multi course wine paired dinner dinner which is June 16th and mentioned my pork allergy to him. And he reassured me that they RARELY have pork in their paired dinners and that even in the regular menu, they actually only have pork in the porta salad, the 3 meat cannelloni, and their house bolognese sauce (all of which I'd assumed and/or previously asked about) but that if they ever DO have pork in it if we call and talk to him he can make certain to sub out for me or anyone for dietary restrictions. Which was good to know. Also learned that he grew up on an Irish farm, then went to culinary school in Louisiana (thus why the mid-summer meal they do is a family style seafood bake) then came back up here and had to tease his mam about her food being bland and has been married into the Italian family and in charge of Porta Bella's for over 45 years and was their head chef under his wife's nana overseeing the recipes for like 10 years before then -- and so long as we always make sure to mention the pork allergy, he can make sure that the kitchen/staff takes it seriously for me if there ever does happen to be any in the wine dinner menus. But again, he said that's rare -- he tends to stick to seafood or beef for them. (this one was seafood cannelloni with shrimp, scallops, and crab.) 

Also, he took a voluntary hands raised poll to ask "how many people here tonight are vaccinated?" and everyone raised their hands including all his staff (there was a huge push and private vax clinics setup by Food Fight and other local restaurant owners/chefs to try to get everyone within the restaurant industry in town vaccinated as a priority as soon as they were allowed by the group/tier system.) and then he asked "who isn't yet vaccinated?" and only 2 girls at the same table left their hands up but then their friends laughed and said, "No but you are" and it turned out they were just drunk (this was after the main course, before the triple chocolate cheesecake and glass of branchetto) so they misheard but were fully vaxxed. Which doesn't surprise me, Dane County is like at 60% of the county has had full doses/course of vax and Madison is at like 92% of eligible have had at least one dose and like 78% have had both (we actually were one of the places approved for the testing of 12-15 yo to fast track the approval because of how many 16+ yo were already vaccinated and not wanting to waste doses.  So even our numbers for 12-15 year olds are ridiculously high.)  This obvs will fluctuate again in the fall when students return and wherever the latest crop of freshmen are from, but the data in Madison is actually very good as far as nearly everyone is vaccinated. And most of our covid hospitalization cases are actually brought in to the hospitals here from more rural areas and it's been that way for most of the last year so we've had inflated numbers of hospitalized cases in Madison hospitals versus cases of Dane County residents in hospital. Which is statistically confusing, but makes sense as this is where godo hospital care and beds are compared to the rural hospitals in Wisconsin.

I mean, the rest of WI has pockets of anti-vaxxing trumpies so there are plenty of other places (even the western burbs of Milwaukee) that I still consider problematic wouldn't want to eat in a crowded space around even with our state numbers being over 54% having both doses -- but Madison is as always a weird bubble of progressivism and hippies and students/profs so my concerns in Madison are far lower than my concerns at airports or in rural areas or in a lot of other cities/states.

So that was fun and good and I enjoyed sharing a meal and sharing the joie de vivre of good meal and wine in the company of strangers all sharing the same multi course meal with wine pairings (or beer pairiings or whiskey pairings.) There is a particular joy in that shared experience of multi course dining... When the menu is okay for me with my pork allergy, lol. 

And then today I came in at lunchish and then got my parents to the airport. And now I have both dogs sleeping on either side of me, lol. Eventually we'll head to my parents house. And then my plan is to leave them there while I Farmer's Market then pickup dog food and cat food (the local store I typically buy from, tabby & Jack's, is having a sidewalk sale event and it includes $3 off every bag of Fromm dog and cat food and since that's what I buy, I decided they could wait til Friday and save me the $6. Also need to schedule my dog's summer cut while I'm there.  And her summer cut will definitely cost me more than the $6 saved -- but also is necessary as she overheats when it gets toooo hot for her long hair, even without an undercoat.)  Then home to change and spend some time with my lonely cat before picking up the dogs and back at work to get some plants in the front bed, thin the peas in the raised box, and get some weeding/mulching done in the front bed between the rain/thunderstorm spells. I thought about doing some of my needed gardening today, but then I thought better about it because I didn't dress for the amount of muddy I would get after more rains on the third day of rains (next 2-3 days also intermittently rainy/stormy).... Because, as you can see below, bright white sparkly unicorn would be a TERRIBLE idea when combined with super muddy gardening tasks. I mean, I've work white while gardening before, but I really didn't feel the need to destroy this one -- it's one of my favorite kids section of target tees, lol.

Yeah, my curls are extra crazy and frizzy and full of ringlets right now -- multiple days of rain in the upper 70s/low 80s will do that. And also, trying to get angles that aren't just all boobs or cleavage to show off a shirt is pretty much impossible to selfie when you have tiny shoulders and a 28G bra size.... Because, like, the boobs ARE ridiculous, but underneath them I actually have a very tiny ribcage and am small across my shoulder blades so trying to get things to fit (especially dresses -- and we don't even consider button downs or buttoning up my cardigans across the boobs sort because there's no way NOT to get gapes between the buttons where my boobs are, no matter how oversized it is) without any type of custom tailoring (which I can't afford) is really really fucking hard. We're not even going to talk about how low cut anything but crew necks is or how much cleavage even a v cut or boat neck ends up showing and a lot of times I just don't want to deal with the unsolicited unwanted attention that my cleavage gets, lol.  And also, then you put very cartoonishly large boobs on that short waisted small ribcage with tiny shoulders and trying to get pictures of the cool design on your shirt is really ridiculously hard. Much harder than you'd guess if you've never tried it. because some part of the design is ALWAYS in boob shadow..... But, it does make me laugh whenever I decide to try it, so at least there's laughter in the attempts even if my overly large anime eyes always turn into little moons whenever I laugh, y'know?

Sunday I also have some more gardening tasks to do (weather dependent) and will be juggling dogs and visiting my cat.  But throughout the week it's relatively easy as I can drop the dogs off to be at work with the humans while i give my cat attention and then figure out work v house for evenings/night. I may also come in to work some during the day if they need extra humans for lunch o'clock.  Weekends are when the juggling is hardest when my parents go away and usually just means me leaving the dogs together without human supervision for several hours.  And likely while I'm at APT, the dogs will be left alone for several hours at the house rather than go to Sarah's overnight as she's said Audrey's fine but Sophie chases the cat in the middle of the night and so is NOT fine as an overnight house guest. Mais on verra. Also, though, it's The Mountaintop which is at 7:30 (Crissy told me 6, but it's 7:30) with a 1hr 45mins runtime with no intermissions and then the 45mins drive.

Also, my parents get back the 31st, so this isn't so bad except that it's across 2 weekends which is when it's hardest for me to carve out time with my cat without leaving the dogs alone.....but whatevs.