It’s the birthday of Colette (1873-1954), one of the 20th century’s most important French writers. Colette is known for her outstanding evocation of sensory details, sexual and otherwise. (Ooh-la-la.)

It’s also a K-12 Conference Day in certain fine school districts (such as ours), leaving children wild and free at home and many parents hard-pressed to achieve the briefest moments of concentration. (They’re playing Magic and are constantly asking me to shuffle the decks. It’s nice to feel useful.)

Colette was born in a village called Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, France, and at 20 married the writer Henri Gauthier-Villars, a man 15 years older who locked her in a room and forced her to write novels for which he took full credit, like you do. (Men are beasts. Or maybe desperate writers are beasts. Or possibly it’s just guys named Henri.) After four novels, known as the “Claudine” novels, Colette got smart and left Henri in 1906 but of course made no money from those novels, so she started performing in music halls. In 1910 she divorced Henri-with-an-i and in 1912 married Henry-with-a-y (de Jouvenel), but not before having a long affair with a wealthy woman who dressed as a man. In 1907 she finally published a novel under her own name, Retreat from Love.

(You know, I also made them breakfast, but somehow I don’t think they view that as useful. You know what? These children need some chores.)

Colette had a daughter and wrote more novels about sensual love—things with Chéri in the title—and also wrote about her beloved childhood in My Mother’s House (1922). In 1934 she ditched Henry and the next year married another writer, Maurice Goudeket. In 1944 she wrote Gigi, which was adapted into the extremely successful eponymous play and movie (but which kind of gives me the willies). She spent her final years as a kind of wealthy and successful version of “the old lady with the cats,” which is probably not a bad way to go.

Have a splendid Monday, shuffle those decks and get those groceries, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.