Happy two-dozen

It struck me Friday that this is the third birthday in four years I’ve celebrated abroad.  Albeit a bit strange de fêter far from family and many dear friends, there are elements of un anniversaire à l’étranger that I admittedly relish: the multilingual birthday song, the exotic cuisine, the amazing phenomenon in which people you know only tangentially gather to make you feel special and loved even far from home.  

Now, on the abroad birthday spectrum, of course it’s difficult to top the big twenty-one in Oxford, thanks to Bob Withycomb, Beth, Annika, and mint chocolate cake.  Twenty-three ran a close second, with wonderful friends, the Filao family, and a next-day departure to Mayotte in La Réunion.  Twenty-four was notable not only for Erik’s extraordinary culinary feat of wheatberry salad and a magical leek-potato-concoction (and an artfully engraved non-concave cake), but also for the realization that I’m truly getting up in years.  I been already feeling like an old lady for going to bed so early these days (early to bed, early to rise in Rwanda).  And I’ve now officially surpassed the greatest benchmark of adulthood:

I bought furniture.  

Thanks for the birthday wishes.  Hoping to celebrate at home next year.