#YQRDOUGHNUTSCENE

You know what we don't have in Regina? A solid doughnut scene. We have all the other scenes, as far as I know—roller derby, coffee, music, whatever whatever (there are lots of scenes), but if you want a doughnut in the Queen City, you have to eat one of those pretend ones from Tim Hortons aka Canadians Have Bad Taste in Coffee (I'm sure that had to have been one of the names previously considered for the franchise). 

But here's a happy truth, Regina: the doughnut scene is coming. In fact, it may already be upon us. Like Saskatchewan winter in September.

The first I heard of it was on the Instagram feed of a friend: they mentioned that 33 1/3 (a newish coffee shop in my neighbourhood) was getting doughnuts in from Northern Belle Bread every Saturday. I went to check it out for myself last week, along with seven of my enthusiastic doughnut-loving friends and all of our kids (sorry, 33 1/3), and we watched the fresh doughnuts sell out in 35 minutes. 

If that's not proof Regina's due for a doughnut scene, I doughnut know what is.

Yesterday, a stranger contacted me on IG. They said something like but not necessarily: "I'm making doughnuts tomorrow. You want some?" They'd seen my overt enthusiasm for doughnuts on there, I suppose. 

I was like, "Yep, what's your address?" 

The stranger gave me directions, and I went to her house, and she didn't murder me (a legit possibility I'd forgotten to consider). It was fantastic. I think we're even friends now. Plus, she gave me these:

Oh, sorry, the focus seems to be on the sleeping child (in mom language, that means I don't have to share these) in the backseat in that picture. I'll try again:



The (ex)stranger's name is Katie, and she makes sourdough doughnuts out of her house and sells them. I meant to take them all home and share them with Barclay, at least, but I have to tell you; they didn't all make it. I mean, Sullivan was asleep. I had music and doughnuts and a sleeping kid. So obviously, I pulled over on a quiet street and ate the peanut butter one. And it was deadly. I'm not just saying that.

And then Sullivan woke up and I had to share. Rats.

The ones I have left are maple glazed with pecans, and some kind of strawberry cream-filled situation. Guys. Let's have lots of parties. I'll bring the doughnuts. I know people now.

You should check out both women's IG feeds: theeverydaykitchen and northernbellebread
I'm pretty sure they both do orders, and I can personally vouch for the quality.
I have to say, also: neither person put me up to this post. I'm just trying to further the #YQRDOUGHNUTSCENE
Get on board, everybody. It's time.

OH AND: There's apparently a third: Do Si Donuts, who sells their wares at the Farmer's Market. Someone needs to check that out and let me know how it is. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, will be delicious I'm sure.

This Coming Weekend

Well, I've been counting down the seconds to this coming weekend for over a year—or, actually, my whole life—and now it's here: it's the weekend of my first ever book launch party. For a book I'm actually in. With book signings and live readings and live music. It's a dream I've been having since I was in grade 3, when I wrote that book about a girl whose best friend moves away (it took up an entire notebook and oozed with all the pre-pre-teen angst I could squeeze out).

Anyway. The book launch is in Sacramento, California on Sunday, April 2 and, it turns out, I'll be...here. In good old Regina, Saskatchewan. It would be silly for me to pretend I'm not sad about it, so there it is: I'm sad. There's nothing worse than counting down to something for your whole life and then having it evaporate just before you get to it. It's like a mean magic trick.

But!

Mercifully, I will not be spending the weekend crying on my couch. I have plans. SO MANY PLANS. And they're great plans, not just "well, I guess I should make the best of this" plans.

There's a birthday party for a great friend on Friday night.

Saturday morning, I'm going for doughnuts (you should come too, if you're reading this and we're friends. Text me, I'll give you details).

There's an art reception for another friend's grad show at the Mackenzie on Saturday (actually, while I've got you here, you should come to that too, if you're local. Ava Wild's doing the live music and there's going to be a taco pop-up restaurant hosted by Malinche; it's going to be amazing, and I'll introduce you to my artist friend, Beth. She's cool).

Becky (a bestie who moved away last fall) is coming into town for that, and I'm so excited to see her. She's my +1 for the reception. Or I'm hers. Or we're each others'. Or whatever.

On Sunday afternoon, Robyn and I are taking our kids to see the Regina Symphony Orchestra perform Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf(!!).

And then Sunday night, I'm going to see Vanilla Ice and Salt-n-Pepa with Kaeli, who is one of my most enthusiastic people, and who will not let me not dance. I'm so thankful for friends like that.

These things all just kind of came up, one by one, over the course of this past month, and typing it all out like this is really getting to me right now. Like, how awesome to be able to spend this weekend, which would've otherwise been a little hard, with a bunch of the best people I know, celebrating them and having fun with them and enjoying music with them, all that.

When I started writing this, I was feeling grouchy and sad, but now I'm feeling thankful and nothing else. It's going to be a great weekend. I'll just keep right on counting down to it.

Oh, Child

I'm alone in the kitchen right now. It's nice. Sully and Barclay are in the basement playing music—Barclay on electric, Sully on drums. I just went down there to see when they wanted supper, and as soon as Sully heard my feet on the stairs I heard him yell, "Oh no! Mom's coming!"

Ooh, the anticipation.

I poked my head around the corner and smiled at them. Sully did not smile back. He pointed behind me, back up the stairs and said patronizingly, "Mom, this is gonna be really loud. You need to go back to the kitchen."

Oh, child. 
Child of mine, child I birthed, 
Who do you think gave you your thirst for noise?
Your appetite for volume, 
Your hunger for bass in your spine 
And the high-pitched scream in your ears 
Long after the last note has died away?

IT WAS IIIIIIIII!

I, your mother,
Whom you have sent to the kitchen
To mash potatoes
And grate cheese
And also my knuckles
Accidentally.

(Also, yeah, we're working on the whole respect and manners thing. Three year olds are super condescending, has anyone else noticed this?)

The Spring of Nostalgia

I discovered recently that I have a superpower, and it's the best superpower, besides flight and mind reading and shapeshifting and superhuman strength:

I can summon music. I'm the Music Summoner. My cape has the Bandsintown app symbol on it, and I only use my powers for the good of all humankind (but only the humankind that dwells in my immediate vicinity).

So, okay, I was on Twitter one day and I said something like (but not necessarily): "I love 90s music so much, it's so great, I'd marry it, etc."

That was all it took. It was like the magic horn (like a bugle, but richer) in the Narnia series that Father Christmas gave to Susan, with the instruction that she should blow it in emergencies and some kind of help would come to her. Twitter is my magic horn, and musical emergencies are a real thing. Don't call me crazy behind my back; I have evidence. 

Concerts coming to Saskatchewan this spring, all announced around the time I sent my Tweet off:

The Tea Party   (Casino Regina, March 18)

Weezer   (Sasktel Centre, March 31)

Vanilla Ice, Color Me Badd, Young MC, Rob Base, Salt-N-Pepa   (Brandt Centre, April 1/Sasktel Centre, April 2)

Prozzak   (Saskatoon Event Centre, April 6)

Jimmy Eat World   (O'Brians, April 30)

Everclear, Vertical Horizon, Fastball   (O'Brians, May 17/Casino Regina, May 18)

And those are just the ones I can think of right now. Are you crazy impressed? 

This is going to be the best spring ever. For someone who hated my high school years, I sure am pumped about reliving the musical part of them—maybe because music is often the best part of anything? Probably.

My Reading Nook

House goals as a 10-year-old: 

- A reading nook

- ...in a library (not a little library; I mean one with a ladder and several floors)

- Secret passageways and rooms

- A turret

- A slide somewhere

- An elevator

- A windy staircase

- Skeleton keys for all the door locks

- Secret passageways that anyone who knows about the other secret passageways doesn't know about

- trampoline floors

- swimming pool right off (pretty much inside) the bedroom (so I could jump out of bed into the pool)

House goals as a 29-year-old:

- Like, the same, but now I have common sense and know I can't have almost any of those things. Except the reading nook and a massively scaled-back library.

All this to say: I finally got my reading nook. *Jazz hands*

Here's a picture of what our living room looked like about three years ago (come to think of it, I took this picture the day Sully was born). Since that time, most of this stuff has been sold on Varage Sale.

We hit up Ikea for cheap book and CD cases, and Barclay made a fake wall so they would appear to be built in (does that count as a secret room? There's space back there enough for, like, five people). I got that green bench for cheap from the Sears outlet store (it opens up; we keep Sully's toys in there) and the window mirrors off Varage. The twinkle lights are bright enough to read by at night. 

Voila: the reading nook of my 10-year-old dreams, surrounded by the library of my 29-year-old dreams (all of my CDs fit too!), arranged by genre, but not by the Dewey Decimal System. I've already logged many hours of reading time in there. It's cozy. It looks tiny, but it's not—Barclay and I can both fit in there comfortably.

This is my thrilled face (I'm smiling, I promise).

The Blonde Girl in the Business Suit

I'm sitting in a coffee shop right now—the Brewed Awakening on Dewdney, the one they [the cool people] call Brewedney. It's 2:01, which is normally not a time I'd usually find myself in a coffee shop all alone, but Barclay has the day off (as soon as Sullivan found out his dad wasn't going to work today, he asked if the two of them could go to the guitar store together this afternoon, and why would I discourage that?).

I got here about fifteen minutes ago. I snagged the last available table, which felt lucky, and as I sat down and opened my laptop, I glanced over and noticed the woman at the table next to me—a blonde in a business suit and thick-rimmed glasses sitting with a group of men in business suits and thick-rimmed glasses. At first I thought she caught my eye because she bears a striking resemblance to Scarlett Johansson, but suddenly I realized that I recognized her from real life, too. I only had to think for a few seconds more before I came up with it: she was one of the actual PR students from that time I pretended to be a PR student so I could get backstage at the Junos. I was running the media room and she was driving the winners around backstage in a go-cart. We both had arm injuries (I'd sustained mine the night before, when two drunk men were hugging each other and fell on top of me—please tell me you remember all of this?*) and we were both stressed to the max because the whole thing was a lot more intense than we'd anticipated (especially me, being a complete and total imposter—I wonder if she knew?). We bonded over our shared stress, our shared injuries, and our shared Michael Buble experiences (he was the host that year). I haven't seen her since. I should go over and say hi. I probably won't.

Seeing her makes me feel all happy and wistful and nostalgic. That weekend was funny. I used to think about it all the time, but now it feels like it happened to someone else, in a TV show I saw once a long time ago. Probably because it happened pre-Sullivan, when I was living in the Village and getting up to all kinds of shenanigans, things I have neither time nor energy nor babysitting money for these days.

But there she is. She still exists in this city. She's gotten a little older (about four years older, by my estimation), and she looks very professional and happy. She's, like...I'm trying to put my finger on it...proof that that other version of myself still exists too. Does that make sense? (I don't make sense, sometimes.)

I really should say hi. But it'll be weird if she doesn't remember me. A compromise: if I catch her eye, I'll smile at her.

Nevermind, she's gone now. Left while I had my head down.

Oh well, she's still out there. Maybe I'll see her again in another four years, and maybe then she'll remind me of this quiet afternoon, writing in a coffee shop, and I'll feel all happy and wistful and nostalgic over it.



PS: Right as I hit Publish, another familiar person walked in: my manager from when I was a cashier at Staples. I do not feel any level of nostalgia or wistfulness over that.

*In case you don't, click here.