2016 recap

I like the rhythm of asking myself the same questions over and over again, so here's the survey I usually do at EOY. 1. What did you do in 2016 that you’d never done before? The two biggest newnesses were: a.) Starting a new job in marketing at a private school. b.) Spending Thanksgiving at Tybee.

Also memorable this past year were: Surprising my old man upon his reception of the Bellarmine Award. Watching Loverpants get sworn in as an American citizen Watching my brother-in-law get remarried in a beautiful garden wedding. Taking a couple of weeks to see my parents this summer, just the kids and I. Reconnecting with my cousin Carrie and sharing in the joy of her pregnancy.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I tried so hard to focus on nutrition and staying injury free. I fully embraced cold-pressed juice as part of my lifestyle and I did pretty well to stay injury free. I ran 2 5ks (one in TN, one in GA). I am still overweight but I can't let myself get too sad about it.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Congrazzles to Carrie on welcoming Murphy Sloane! #birfmurph Totally enamored of little Nika Joy, too, the daughter of my friend Kessia Reyne.

4. Did anyone close to you die? I'm extra grateful to answer no this year.

5. What would you like to have in 2017 that you lacked in 2016? Time to write, write, write for pleasure.

6. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Opening my Etsy shop. It has connected me meaningfully to a craft that I enjoy and to a community that uplifts me + other makers.

7. What was your biggest failure? My book deal fell apart after a year of working and waiting. I see it as a failure of a small publisher that bit off more than it could chew. I suppose I failed to pursue other avenues but I can't change what I didn't know.

8. Did you suffer illness or injury? Earlier in the year, I spent a lot of time at the acupuncturist for a foot injury. Good times.

9. What was the best thing you bought? I purchased a student membership to the Modern Calligraphy Summit. Game changer.

10. What did you get really excited about? I thought the DNC was a remarkable showcase of the Democratic party's strength. Loved speeches by my future BFF Michelle Obama, former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm. Also was surprised by "Stranger Things" on Netflix.

11. What was the best book you read this year? Fiction: Peace Like a River, Eligible: A modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice Non-Fiction: Loitering: New and Collected Essays, Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted

12. Compared to this time last year, are you: – happier or sadder? I have a lot to be happy about – thinner or fatter? Fatter – richer or poorer? Paid down some debt, so...woop!

13. What was your favorite TV program? This is Us Stranger Things

14. What was your favorite music from this year? https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/home/productlinks/customize?asin=B00U0YD5L2&request_source=quicklinks&subflow=sp_ The Hamilton Mixtape (Edited) CAN'T STOP THE FEELING! (Original Song From DreamWorks Animation's ''Trolls'')

15. What were your favorite films of the year? Really wasn't able to catch as many films as we would have liked. I know we saw "Race" in the theater. I think "13th" on Netflix should be required viewing for every American. Zootopia was important.

16. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? On my 36th birthday, I had a great weekend. My hubby got me some wonderful books and took the kids and me to a new favorite for brunch.

17. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2016. The depths to which people are capable of furthering evil are staggering, but not as great as they are able to achieve reconciliation. And that's beautiful to me.

Conquest Cupcake

I read the Yelp reviews and decided after the fourth 5 star rating to pick up my mat and go, find, seize the Salted Cupcake. I had some unclaimed time at the conference, and who knew when I would make it back to these parts. With the brazen confidence that Siri inspires, I set out with a heavy bag on my journey. The spring sunshine of western Michigan beat down on me as I traversed subdivision after 1960s-era subdivision. This was not quite the Grand Rapids I had expected.  Did an indie cupcake shop not imply that this was to be the cool hipster zone of commerce? Where were the bike couriers with ill-fitting pants? Where was the independent coffee house? Where were the artisanal everythings?

I finally came to the main drag which was like one of those repeating cartoon backgrounds where the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote keep passing the same set of cacti and canyons. Only instead of cacti and canyons, this backdrop was a neverending concourse of plazas. Generic, segmented plazas full of big box chains where you have to drive and park and drive and park and consume. Everything wrong with America.

I walked past an Infiniti dealership for crying out loud. When does one ever walk past an Infiniti dealership?

I was into the second hour of my journey, feeling all kinds of guilt that a pastry had derailed me this far. I came upon the street where I was to find the oft-desired cupcake of all of my sugar-coated dreams, except something was awry. This street was decidedly residential. I neared the location that GPS had confirmed. This was the house that would have made Hansel and Gretel stumble and fall hard.

A sign outside of a little white boutique in the midst of a line of bungalows read:

I went in, expecting a cozy cottage with some tables and chairs where a grandmother in a gingham apron would pour me some milk with the famed Salted Cupcake upon which her Midwestern fame rested.

Instead, there was no bakery case. There was a chalkboard wall with displays of individual cupcakes. There was a table but it was covered in the accoutrements of a cupcake caterer working on a huge order on a frantic deadline. There was a cashier who did not know of my unlikely pedestrian-hood and how far I had come for my Salted Cupcake.

"That'll be $3.50," she said, boxing up my cupcake.

I waited for my Uber which would take me to the decidedly more hipster den of Grand Rapids where I would sit in a public space with homeless people and tourists and happy corporate lunch-eaters and I would devour my cupcake sans fork or napkin. And I would do so with relish. It was easily one of the best cupcakes I've ever eaten in my entire life: cake was moist, icing was thick, fluffy, flavorful. Nearly divine.

***

There is no grand metaphor at work here. Maybe Antoine de Saint Exupery would say that it was the time I had wasted for my cupcake that made my cupcake so important. Maybe Bob Goff would say that I should have shared the cupcake with the homeless, maybe Anne Lamott would say that the cupcake was like my spiritual WD-40, loosening up some of the stiffness about schedules and gotta-dos in order to enjoy the serendipity of a sweet confection.

But they didn't taste this cupcake. Nor did they walk the hour and a half (I hope they didn't) through suburban wasteland to the cupcake cottage. There was not much joy in my journey nor in the sunburn I earned en route. The destination wasn't what I expected, but the cupcake exceeded all of them.

Sometimes it's just about the cupcake, the reward, the trophy, the oversized teddy bear at the fair. Sometimes you just have to carpe the cupcake and have no regrets.

The kids' maiden Uber voyage

The other day, the kids rode in their first Uber. Baby Girl had a scrape on her foot and James, the Uber driver, had OH MY STARS MOM A FIRST AID KIT WAITING JUST FOR ME!!! Little Man whispered to me, "Mom, he voted," as James the Driver had stuck an "I Voted" sticker on his dash. I told James that my son saluted his civic practice, and Little Man asked for whom he voted and then I was all, Don't ask that, Son, because secret ballot, and James said, "I can tell you who I voted for...Bernie Sanders." James drove an Outback Subaru with a moon roof that was cranked all the way open on a perfect day with a perfect breeze. I can see the future, taking the kids to Banff and drinking glacier water, scaling Kilmonjaro, maybe even getting Little Man to eat a vegetable and I know what it all amounts to.

"That was cool, Mom. But it will never be better than our first Uber ride. Never."

You, too, can take $15 off your first Uber ride. Download the Uber app use this code: kendras589ue

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— Kendra Stanton Lee (@Kendraspondence) March 27, 2016

Happy Ubering