Hello hello! This past week I had the opportunity to drive down to Vancouver, Washington to visit Rebecca, someone I’ve been friends with since before college. We’ve been friends for twelve years to be exact. We’ve been in each other’s lives since elementary school and it’s crazy to look back on all that time now. She ended up in Washington before me. She started an AmeriCorp position at a food bank around June or so, whereas I didn’t come out here until September. It seems such a coincidence that we’d both end up in the same state after having gone our separate ways after high school. I appreciate this coincidence so much. Having a familiar face, in the same time zone too, does a lot to make one feel less alone.

If you’re wondering why this week of all weeks I decided to visit, it’s because of Rebecca’s birthday! She was turning twenty-three and I haven’t been able to celebrate a birthday with her in a while and thought it would be a fun opportunity. Unfortunately, a snowstorm pushed back my plans by a day, so I wasn’t able to see her ON her birthday. We still had a fun week though. I worked from her apartment during the day while she was at the food bank, and we did a lot of small fun things during the evenings and on the weekend. We visited Goodwill a couple of times (I was able to find some awesome shirts and Rebecca got a fun sweater). We had a game night with her roommates where we played the Royal Game of Ur and Codenames. We went hiking on a trail along a gorge (snowshoes would have been helpful). We worked through a decent chunk of Designated Survivor (a show that we are watching together weekly) and tried Pita Pit for the first time (I was highly impressed with their falafel pita, would recommend). The morning before my drive back we went cat hunting. Unsuccessfully, I might add, because after walking around Target for forty-five minutes and visiting three pet stores we only saw two cats.

One especially neat interaction I had this past week was with Sarah, one of Rebecca’s roommates. Sarah knows so much about insects and she also catches and collects them. She showed us one of her frames with all the different insects she’s caught and pinned in Washington. She also demonstrated how she arranges them on the pinboard for her collection. It was such a fascinating and unexpected conversation, I loved every second of it.

Fair warning, bug pictures to follow.

It’s crazy how February has absolutely flown by. I am excited for what March is going to bring. I hope you have a great day, and see you next week!