Happy New Year from Me at Home

Welp, it's New Year's Eve and I'm coming to you live from not a New Year's Eve party. Again.

Womp, womp, womp... (My computer tried to autocorrect that to "Womb, womb, womb." Because that makes more sense.)

Want to hear tales of New Year's Eve Pasts where I also wasn't at a New Year's Eve party?

I remember this one NYE where I wasn't invited to The Party (I lived in a small town, so there was usually only One Party to go to). I sat on my futon and wrote in my diary about what a loser I was while The Party raged on just a few miles from my house (I lived on a farm, actually, beside the small town).

Another year, The Party was at my house, and, much to my surprise, the cool kids came!

But then.

They informed me upon arrival that they were only there because their moms made them come and that they were going to stay for half an hour and then go to their own The Party. My party got demoted to lower case p in front of everyone. So I sat on my futon and wrote a letter to my best friend about what a loser I was.

Another year, I went to The Party and nothing really happened; it was a very boring party.

Which basically brings us to the present. I'm not sure right now if I'm sad that I don't have New Year's plans tonight (for maybe the third year in a row?) or relieved that I'm in my pyjamas already... Maybe I'm mostly worried that this has some kind of negative effect on my cool rating. But probably lots of other people aren't at parties tonight (please tell me this is true) for whatever reason and, when you're almost 30, your cool really isn't determined by whether you're at a party or not. Your cool is determined by how many different kinds of Pinterest Popcorn you can make and consume in one evening and how many episodes of Freaks and Geeks you watched while eating said popcorn. Right?

So I'll just be over here working on that cool and not writing anywhere about what a loser I am. 

Suzy's ABCs of 2016

I miss Myspace sometimes. I feel like I might be the only person in the world who misses Myspace. It's nostalgia more than anything.

Nostalgia is probably my number one emotion. One of my number one emotions. Maybe all of the emotions are my number one emotion? I tried to think of a number two and a number three but I just kept promoting everything up alongside nostalgia. What a discovery! I have no secondary emotions. No wonder I'm so exhausted in my brain all the time.

The point is that I'm just constantly walking around in a nostalgia smog; it's, like, visceral. And, anyway, I was on Instagram today and saw that my friend Courtney had done this post called Courtney's ABCs of 2016. I felt a familiar twinge as my little heart filing cabinet opened and my brain remembered Myspace surveys and how much I loved them. There was a rush of nostalgia and I immediately felt the burning desire to do my own ABC post. I guess there's a fine line between public self-reflection and blatant narcissism, but...I've been blogging for almost a decade so that line's probably way back in 2008.

That said, here's my 2016 alphabet:

A - Austin, Texas, with Barclay and Sully for a weekend.

B - Bought my first ever new couch? It's green. I bought it with money that I made teaching a writing workshop, so I guess it's maybe a little more special to me than it would've been otherwise.

C - Ceese, my little sister, got engaged to Daniel(!).

D - Drank so much coffee: at the Bean, Fix, Drip, Country Corner, Brewedney, Starbucks, Artful Dodger, 33 1/3, French Press, Stone's Throw, both Atlantises, Cafe Francais...good grief. Other ones too. McDonald's, sometimes.

E - Evanescence didn't make it onto any of my playlists, which shouldn't really surprise anyone, but I made lots of them (playlists) and discovered a whole bunch of new favourite bands and songs. You can follow me on Spotify to hear them, and you should tell me if you're on Spotify so I can follow you back.

F - Funeral for my sweet little cousin, Jordan, who passed away at 23. I don't know what more to say about it so that I don't sound like I'm being flippant, but it was an important and terrible part of the year so I didn't want to leave him out.

G - Got out into the city a little more, learned about and met some of the amazing and selfless people who are doing so much to help others in Regina.

H - Hung out with some exceptional friends - made some great new ones too.

I - Interviewed a couple of interesting folks for Fellow Magazine articles. I'm pretty rusty at interviewing, but will hopefully get better at it.

J - Joined a writer's club.

Or! Could be

J - Job - as in, Barclay got a new job at the Rusty Shovel.

K - Kissed Barclay. Don't tell anyone. (K was a really hard letter to think of something for)

L - Live music: Death Cab, Metric, Leisure Cruise, Honeymoon Suite, BreakOut West, City and Colour, Summer Invasion, Folk Fest, Trifecta Festival, Jon Bryant, The Lay Awakes, and others.

M - Made wedding invitations for one of my oldest friends (yay, Leah!).

N - Never did get around to making a detailed cleaning schedule and sticking to it. Whatevs.

O - Owe Kate Evenson two or three bucks. Anyone else? I hate thinking that I have unpaid debt. I think I owe Julia a coffee as well. Seriously tell me if you're reading this and you're fuming over something I owe you. I just sold a picture frame on Varage Sale and have a tiny bit of loose change now, so...

P - Prepared a sandwich at some point, I'm sure.

Q - Quit writing for Coffee + Crumbs.

R - Renovations! (My grandma accidentally bought an old farmhouse at an auction sale and my parents are completely renovating it and moving in this year.)

S - Sullivan turned two, and we had a really, really fun year together.

T - Tourism Regina made me one of their Tourism Ambassadors and sent me to BreakOut West, Agribition, the Hotel Sask, Culture Days, Pulse Week, and a Rider game.

U - Upset over an abnormally high number of news stories this year.

V - Vegas with Barclay and Sully for a work trip. Explored the crap out of that place and met a blog friend.

W - Wrote a book with the C+C girls - due out this spring. (Wrote other things too, published and not.)

X - XXIX (Turned 29 what is happening.)

Y - Yes, I sort of grew a garden. In pots. Sort of.

Z - Zzzz....got more sleep this year than the past two combined, I am fairly dang sure. Thank you, Sullivan. Finally.

Thanks, Courtney. That was fun. 

Christmas Songs That Are Not All I Want for Christmas is You

"Large coffee, hold the spit." I looked up. It was a guy with a white moustache, and he looked pleased with himself. I smiled. "And what's this music? You picking this music?"

The barista nodded. He had a Macbook behind the counter.

"It's not Christmas music," observed the man.

"Nope. You need some Christmas music?" asked the barista.

"Well, yeah. Christmas is in four days," said the man.

"Okay," said the barista, whose musical taste I'd been thoroughly appreciating for two hours straight already, "I'll queue one up for you. Let's see..." He scrolled through his collection and smiled. "This one. No one hates this one." I leaned forward in my seat in anticipation...

...and then he played Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You, and my brain melted.

I don't mean to be such a critic, it's just that I've heard That One at least fifty times since December 1. I'm like, "Actually, all I want for Christmas is not That One."

Anyway. The experience inspired your Christmas present for this year: a whole entire playlist of Christmas songs that are not All I Want for Christmas is You. That was literally the only criteria I used to put it together. I protected this playlist from Mariah Carey like she was Marv and I was Kevin Mcallister.

Suitable for Christmas morning present opening, Christmas afternoon supper prep, Christmas evening dinner music, or Christmas night Christmas parties.

Merry Christmas.
I love you. Or, like, the ones of you that I actually know.

Austin: Day 3

Day 3 began and ended with potential disasters. 

The first: On Monday morning, we woke up to find we were out of diapers. I don't know how it happened, honestly, because I'm usually on it, but it happened. 

At first, I was pretty lackadaisical  about it, because we were in a city and there were, like, three grocery stores within a five minute radius of us. Here's the thing though: We were, apparently, staying in the hipster heart of Austin, where the grocery stores carry things like kombucha and fancy cheese and all manner of pet care products - but absolutely nothing in the way of baby junk. After a thorough search, we began to worry that babies don't exist in Austin, that maybe baby making and growing is outsourced to, I don't know, Houston or someplace. 

We finally asked at the front desk of our hotel, where we found out we'd have to walk alllllll the way to the very south end of South Congress before we would find the kind of grocery store that carries normal grocery store things. In Las Vegas, I'd bought diapers in the CVS right next to our hotel. Isn't it weird that it's easier to find diapers in Vegas than Austin? Maybe it's not weird. I don't know. 

The walk took us about an hour, I think, and the disaster ended up not being a disaster. Thank goodness. I was actually starting to worry we'd have to potty train that kid on the spot. 

(I know, we probably could've taken a bus but, like I said before, South Congress is a really nice street and where's your sense of adventure? Besides, we were watching the weather app like crazy and it said that it was -40 with the windchill back home, where we'd be heading the very next day, and Texas was a balmy 19. You don't pass up a walk when you have a chance to breathe outside air without fear of frostbite for one more day.)

Crisis averted. And! We found a really amazing little place to eat breakfast: the South Congress Cafe. It has its own busker, and the most amazing steak and eggs benedict thing I've ever experienced in all of my life. I was introduced to Migas there too, and breakfast will never be the same. Plus, our waitress was a complete peach. 

(Sometimes you get a waitress so great that you kind of want to throw your tip in the air so it flutters down around her celebratorily as she walks up to the table. Dear SoCo Cafe: Give that Jenny girl a raise.)

We spent the rest of the morning 'shopping' on South Congress, in and out of all these crazy little stores and art galleries. A favourite was a place called Uncommon Objects, which I can't explain any better than its name does. It was right next to a sweet little art store called Yard Dog - you'd love both places, I think. Knowing you.

There was a music club that elicited a dramatic sigh (not really, but I sensed it) from Barclay every time we walked past it. It was the Continental, and he seemed very drawn to it and kept saying that he wished we could go into it (the shows would've been too late at night for Sullivan, of course). We talked to a guy in the airport later who said that Robert Plant frequents that place and has even been known to do a little karaoke there. So, you know. I guess Barclay has a sixth sense for these kinds of things.

Seeing Robert Plant sing karaoke would've definitely been the highlight of the trip, had we been lucky enough to stumble across that. Rats, hey?

(Side-story about that guy in the airport: When he found out we were Canadian, he said, "Oh! I have a couple of good old Canadian friends! We golf together. You've probably heard of them; I think they're kind of well known in Canada - Wayne Gretzky and Alan Thicke?" He talked about them for a little bit - not in a name-droppy way, just in an old-friend way - and then we all boarded our plane to LA and that was that. And when we deplaned a few hours later, Alan Thicke was trending all over Twitter because he'd died while we were in the air. I thought about how strange it must be to be friends with a celebrity and to possibly find out about their death from the Internet as your plane is coasting to the gate. Sad.)

We got coffees from Apanas again and took the bridge back across the lake and to our hotel, stopping a few times so Sullivan could throw rocks in the water. Mornings like that are what vacation is all about, I think.

After Sullivan's nap: tacos again. A Rainey Street food truck, again. And then the three of us split a Mexican Coke and walked downtown to jump on the monorail in search of a particular music store.

Cue Disaster 2.

The guitar store was so far north as to be seemingly out of the city. We rode the monorail for over an hour until the buildings around us turned into trees and country-side. And then a kind woman leaned over to Barclay and asked him if he knew the monorail would not be returning back downtown that night.

Wait. What?

It was 4 something in the afternoon, not exactly evening. There was no schedule posted anywhere, no notice of the service being discontinued. She told us that they sometimes made announcements so out-of-towners like us wouldn't be stranded in the middle of nowhere when the train stopped at the end of the line until the next morning, but that day, they didn't bother.

Thankfully, the woman, who was on her way home from work, gave us a bus map (we didn't have data on our cell phones, even) and told us how to get to a bus stop, and that the next bus would be leaving in a few minutes and then there wouldn't be another along for an hour and that one would be our last chance. If it wasn't for her, we would've just been...stuck, I guess. What a strange city you are, Austin. We saw her help out a few other people in our exact situation. No one really expects the monorail to call it quits at 4:30 pm, do they?

So we didn't make it to the music store, which was sad, but we did make it back to our neck of the woods, which was relieving. Disaster 2 averted. Sort of. I mean, we spent quite a bit of time on public transit for no good reason, but hey. We'd had a good long walk that morning to make up for it.

And when we made it back downtown, we had the most Texan dining experience possible: Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken. It was a place we'd walked past earlier, and when I peeked in the window I was like, "Well, obviously we have to eat there at some point." Checkered tablecloths, mac'n cheese in styrofoam containers, big hunks of crispy chicken, deep-fried pickles...? It felt right.

We flew out the next morning, made it home by midnight.

Austin: 10/10, would go again. But would try a lot harder to run into Robert Plant next time.

Austin: Day 2

On the morning of day 2, we walked the bridge across Lady Bird Lake to Travis Heights in search of breakfast. We were looking for tacos, but were hungry enough to eat whatever.

Well.

Sullivan wanted french fries. I was like, 'No, we don't eat french fries for breakfast,' and he was like, 'They do in Austin! In Austin they always eat french fries for breakfast!'

Just so you know.

The weather was gorgeous - foggy and drizzly, but warm and humid (my favourite). My hair freaked out. I took a picture, but then I deleted because I looked weird and old. Is 29 the age where you start to look weird and old in selfies? It's looking that way. Prepare for a sharp decline in selfies around here. 

Anyway, we found a little place, got some breakfast tacos, and ate outside on the deck so my hair could continue to freak out without bothering the other patrons. Here's a picture of Sullivan checking for french fries:

After breakfast, we wound our way around to South Congress, where we window-shopped and graffiti-pondered, as it was early Sunday morning and nothing was open. Made note of a few places we wanted to come back to later. Got coffee at Apanas and crossed the bridge back to "our side" of the lake. 

I like the way Austin's set up: In the picture above, you can see the downtown area. If you were to look behind the camera, behind me, you'd see South Congress, which is a really sweet little street full of interesting shops and restaurants. And if you were to take a right at the end of the bridge, which is what we did, you'd be on a little trail beside the river that winds right back to our hotel, and also to Rainey Street. 

(When we travel, we don't bring a stroller or a car seat or any of that stuff - who wants to lug that around? We don't check baggage [we do one backpack each] and we rely on public transportation. So it's cool when you find a city that has enough stuff within a short walking distance that you don't even really need to figure out the buses or metro or whatever. I get that this isn't a lot of peoples' cup of tea, but it's how we do it, and we really like it.)

On the trail beside the lake, we found an art installation called Hurlyburly - a giant sculpture made out of recycled lobster rope. We sat on it and climbed the little blue hills and Sully thought it was the best ever. 

The next day, as we were walking past it again, I overheard an old local guy remark, "I wonder how many tarantulas and snakes are in that mess." When we got back to the hotel that night, I Googled TARANTULAS AUSTIN, and fell down an absolutely grotesque internet rabbit hole, wherein I learned about tarantula hawks and 12-inch centipedes and read a story about a scorpion climbing up into a toilet bowl that haunted me for the rest of our stay. 

Dear me: don't use Google on vacation.

After nap time, we headed to Rainey Street once again, for Indian food at the G'Raj Mahal (I think you could eat anywhere on Rainey Street and feel like you made a good decision, but this was exceptional).

A couple doors down, there was a gourmet mini doughnut food truck, so of course, dessert.

And then we wandered downtown. Downtown Austin is great in the evening, because there's live music pouring out of every doorway and even tucked into back alleys. We stopped for a bit to listen to a guy who could've been (but decidedly wasn't) Dave Matthews singing Crash. What a dream city. I think it'd be fun to go back without Sullivan (no offence, Sullivan) to better take advantage of the nightly music, but this was magical in its own ways. 

Then we got on a school bus. A school bus! A big, old, clunky yellow school bus. I hadn't been on one of those in years, and it was exactly as glamorous as I remembered. 

It was a hot tip we'd picked up from the barista in Apanas - the bus was bound for the Trail of Lights, an Austin Christmas tradition, and he said we should go.

So we did.

As we were bumping along the trail into the depths of Zilker Park, though, I couldn't help but think about this book I'd read as a kid, based on a true story, about a whole school bus of people who were abducted and then buried. In the school bus. Like, the abductors buried the school bus. With the people in it. 

(The people escaped in the end, which was nice.)

I read that book at least five times. Maybe more. I think it was my grandma's. 

Good news! Our school bus just went to this lights thing and then took us right back home again after, with no underground detours.

A note or two about Barclay's face: 

1. Isn't it nice?

2. If it looks like he wasn't having a great time because he's not laughing and grinning in every photo, that's because I never warn him when I'm taking a picture and he often doesn't even notice it's happened. He's usually concentrating on something or eating or whatever. He did, however, have a great time. He even said that, yes, he'd consider moving to Austin if some imaginary situation ever presented itself in which we had to move somewhere tomorrow in the vacation exit interview. So.