Last weekend was my 47th birthday. Our air conditioner broke and the price of replacing it is shockingly high, so we aren’t going out much or buying anything too expensive for a while. Still, we already had tickets to an Edgar Allen Poe speakeasy event so we went out and enjoyed that. The tickets included themed cocktails, which were weak but tasty and had campy names like the Cat’s Meow and the Nevermore to go with the stories being told. It was really exciting watching Poe’s stories out loud, with fog and costumes and dramatic lighting, and a lot of the audience dressed up in darkly inclined cocktail dresses and suits.

Myself, I was only a bit dressed up. I’ve lost a lot of weight and most of my fancy clothes are too big for me now. My goal is about 20 pounds (9 kilos) away, and I’m putting off buying any new nice stuff until then.

Mr. Robot got me some nice speakers for my record player and my siblings sent me a fun book and a cauldron tea cup in the mail.

As per tradition, we also took the kids out for Indian food. This time I picked a restaurant near a shopping plaza and did some wandering and shopping after we ate. I bought a few used records, browsed through a yarn shop I’d never seen, and bought a new Dungeons and Dragons book at a game shop. (Candlekeep Mysteries, if you care to know. As kids get older and busier it’s hard to finish a long, involved campaign so the series of shorter mysteries in Candlekeep seems perfect for us right now.)

According to the internet, I’m well into my midlife crisis years, and the exhaustion of raising teenagers is definitely taking its toll. But this was a good birthday and I have high hopes that as I close out my 40s things might just get better and better.