We spent the morning out at the Bisti Badlands, which is like hanging out on the moon. K’s husband advised that we turn around and take a picture of the horizon as we started out so we could find our way back to the car. We wandered around, did more “butt sliding” than we will ever admit to our respective menfolk, and clocked about four miles. We absolutely did not get lost.

We came back to town, passing a field of pumpkins and a burnt-down rig on the highway, and went for lunch at Mikasa. We both had sushi and I ordered poke too. K had recently learned that liking pumpkin spice made her basic, which cracked me up, so I tried to get her to enjoy a PSL from Starbucks, but in the end, it was me who was basic. We then lounged around the house, barking at Alexa to play songs from our misspent youth: “Alexa, play ‘Flavor of the Weak’ by American Hi-Fi.”

Some of K’s friends came over that night for drinks and pizza, and one of them assessed her Navajo rug as authentic, including the one intentional flaw, which I always thought was done so as not to offend the gods for being too perfect, but might also be to allow malevolent spirits an escape route. The rug was a gift/payment from a client, and I also received a purse and wallet from K’s collection of gifts/payments. The red rum shot glass was christened with apple Crown Royal, since we couldn’t find the salted caramel flavor for the candy apple drink recipe we wanted to try.