We have been in Milwaukee for 11 days. It has actually—

considering that I am currently sleeping in the same room as all three of my children—

considering the coffee—

considering that 8.5 days of the 10 were spent eating nothing but gut-rot inducing Passover food—

considering the weather was mostly crappy—

considering that last night I had a vomiting child—

considering I was a single parent for most of it—

been a really great trip.

We visited the zoo and made friends with a penguin and almost gotten eaten by an angry gorilla and held cute baby twin girls (and even had a photoshoot!) and saw a movie (Mirror Mirror) and played many, many games of Catan and had this lovely lady come for a visit and we made about a billion melty bead creations to the point where I’m ready to add “professional melty bead creator” to my Twitter bio and we tried a Milwaukee institution—root beer floats at Kopp’s Frozen Custard—and we completed five 400-piece puzzles and we went for walks and bought three boxes of Chocolate Chex and went to Target twice and shopped for a new SUV and then last night

Mom: Hey Ali, wanna go out for dinner and go with me to see a performance of Othello done by biker gangs?

Me: I don’t understand how this is even a question. WHEN DO WE LEAVE?

Mom: It might not be all that good, but it will be nice for you to get out of the house and have a child-free minute.

Me: Are you kidding? I probably could not be more excited. Shakespeare meets Sons of Anarchy meets West Side Story? BEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO THE LAND OF BEER AND CHEESE!

Let the record show that I know more about Shakespeare than Harley Davidsons, and Othello is, by far, my favorite work of the old Bard of Avon. But, you know, I was the one person on earth who saw O in the theater and loved the heck out it. But, then again, 10 Things I Hate About You as Taming of the Shrew worked for me too. So, what I’m saying is that I kind of dig the loose interpretation thing. And, also, I dig when the dude playing Iago looks like a cross between Jon Krasinski and Andrew Garfield and knocks his many, many soliloquies out of the midwestern park. Impressed, I was.

But perhaps I shouldn’t have allowed the kids the go with their Zaydie for an all-you-can-stuff-down-your-gullet movie + pizza + pop + candy + popcorn night.

Because it never ends well. Ever. (O! now, for ever. Farewell the tranquil mind; farewell content!) Which should be super fun for our drive to Chicago and flight to Toronto today.

But at least I didn’t have to see The Three Stooges.

So there’s that.