I had only been at my Stanford job for 2.5 weeks at this point so, upon walking into our little documentation room that morning, I was completely blown away to find a small celebration waiting for me.
My lovely co-workers had put together an adorable breakfast parfait buffet with yogurt, granola, fruit, and coffee. I was just so touched that they went to all that trouble. OT, PT, and SLP (speech language pathology) are all considered 'helping' professions and they tend to attract genuinely 'good' people. This works out beautifully for me as a travel therapist, because it means that I encounter kind, caring, and compassionate people everywhere I go. (I can't say the same for all of my patients- but that is a different story!)
Since my birthday fell on a Wednesday, there weren't any extracurricular celebrations, but I did manage a few phone calls with family and friends and I ended the day with a lovely restorative yoga class.
For my birthday weekend, however, a fellow traveler named Sommer invited me to join her and a couple of her friends for a weekend in wine country. (Napa and Sonoma are both just a couple of hours drive from San Francisco). We first drove to Bodega Bay for a clam chowder festival. After sampling half a dozen chowders around town, we did a wine tasting at Sonoma Coast Vineyards, and finished the day off with deliciously greasy pizza at Russian River Brewery in Santa Rosa.
The next day, we drove a windy road to Calistoga, a delightfully charming little spa town at the north end of Napa Valley. We had a delicious brunch at a French bistro, tasted more wine, and then wrapped up the weekend with a dip in the local hot springs (funneled into a swimming pool) AND- a mud bath! This was a first for me- they use peat imported from Canada, local mud, and water from the hot springs. I felt like I was climbing into a cow trough but I'm sure it did all sorts of good things for my skin (!) and it was an experience I will not soon forget.
I could not have asked for a better birthday celebration!!
