When you read that headline, isn’t that exactly what you envision for your anniversary?  No?  Well it wasn’t what I envisioned either…but that’s what happened.  And still happening.

Let me set the scene for you.  We decided to take a trip to Napa for our anniversary with the kiddo in tow.  I had even found a local nanny service with terrific reviews so that the hubs and I could have some alone time.  He found a restaurant with great reviews, and booked us a reservation on our anniversary.  He even went so far as to let the restaurant know it was our anniversary too!  (Bonus points for him on this….I believe I owe him a quality BJ at some point for this good work.)

We got to the restaurant early and enjoyed this scenic view.

We sampled different Napa wines from their extensive list.  We had a delicious three course meal, with the chef even sending out two additional small plates for us, free of charge.  Seriously, the food was divine!  At one point, I had even said to the hubs, “I think I may have just come a little…” because the food was THAT good.

 

Our dinner was so good for a number of reasons.  We got the opportunity to talk about plans for the future, about things in our marriage we should keep doing, things we should start doing, things we should stop doing.  We had the rare opportunity to spend time with each other, without one of us being distracted with one eye trying to pay attention to our spouse and one eye watching our kiddo.

On our ride home, my stomach began to rumble very deeply.  I remember commenting that I didn’t feel so hot.  We get back to our hotel, pay the nanny, got the report on how V was, and then I exited to the bathroom where I shit the entire contents of my dinner out.  I was also feeling sick to my stomach, and I was praying to the porcelain god and any other god that would listen, that puking wouldn’t follow the diarrhea.  To be sick from one end is bad enough, but to have it coming out of both ends is truly awful.

We racked our brains trying to figure out what the offending dish may have been, as we both were pretty sure I had a case of food poisoning.  I think it was my 3rd course, which was squab.

It was supposed to be medium rare, but I think it was mostly rare.  I didn’t ask for them to cook it more, and in hindsight, I really should have.  Because I looked at it and thought “That’s too pink to eat” but ate it anyway.  And am now paying the consequences for my dumbass move.

 

And for those of you that may want to judge me for eating squab.  Please don’t as I’ve already beaten myself up enough over this.  You see, when I ordered, I thought squab was a type of pheasant.  Because we were in a fancy schmancy restaurant, I wasn’t going to be the unsophisticated type to ask “What is squab?” Growing up in the Midwest, I came from a hunting and fishing family, so we regularly ate wild game, including rabbit, squirrel, pheasant, deer, fish we caught, etc.  It was only later on that I googled and discovered that squab was pigeon.  Young pigeon. And I felt morally conflicted for having eaten a young pigeon.  The hubs didn’t help when he was jutting his neck in and out like pigeons do when they walk.

I’m writing this post 5 days after the dinner in question, and I’m still shitting my life away.  I’ve felt truly awful since Monday evening.  In addition to the diarrhea, I’ve felt bloated, gassy, nauseated, and just icky in general.  I dropped off the kiddo at daycare this morning, and as I walked to my car, I started crying, muttering to myself, “I just want to stop feeling like shit!”

Sigh.  At least was a memorable anniversary.  How about that for a positive spin?

P.S.  Had to post this real life pic from our trip.

Hubs was trying to get some nice pics of me and the kiddo together, because it’s almost always her and him in photos, with me behind the camera.  He managed to snap a pic of her pitching a fit, and me trying to protect her melon from making contact with the pavement.  I love the contrast of this beautiful scenery behind me, with a flailing child in front of me.  Ah, the joys of parenthood.

Wrapping this up so I can go shit my life away.  Again.