day ten

i just realized i never posted my final memory leading up to the anniversary. it is a few days past, but better late than never? without further ado: our trip to seattle.

one lovely day in the fall, i was scrolling through my twitter feed aimlessly, likely avoiding something much more meaningful and rewarding. i ran across a tweet from asthmatic kitty (record label) announcing a limited christmas tour for sufjan stevens. seeing as sufjan is like MY FAVORITE EVER, i decided i should probably do what i could to get to a show. zomg! he will be in dallas on november 30! wait a sec... why does that look familiar? damn. mom's wedding. what else is on a weekend? ...seattle? hmmm.

*takatakataka* (that's the sound of sending a text)

"hey honey. want to go see sufjan stevens?"
"that sounds amazing! where?"
"it's in december."
"okay. do we have anything going on? where is it?"
"you love sufjan as much as i do, right?"
"yeah, but where is the concert mal?"
"k we got tickets!" (actually seth ordered tickets for me while i was at work... thanks, man!)

i have always been drawn to the west coast, and seattle is right on the top of my list of places i'd rather be. i had never had a chance to visit, so this really seemed like the perfect opportunity. i know you're thinking "wow. what a waste of money to fly to a city like that for a concert," but we have a southwest credit card (responsibly) and had earned quite a few miles. so, i found us some flights and voila! off to seattle we go!

as i have stated time and time again, our places of employment will really only allow us so many days off work. since they had been so graceful and flexible up to this point, we really didn't want to push it. the concert was on a saturday night so we left little rock early that morning and made our way west!

pre-take off breakfast at LIT

whoever scheduled our flight route has obviously never seen a map because we flew to albuquerque, new mexico, before we headed up. we had one of those weird layovers where you never actually get to  leave the plane, but you're stuck on the tarmac for an hour and a half. we gathered up our belongings and meticulously chose our seat for the next flight while the flight attendants cleaned up and made their rounds. if you have ever met my jett, you know that he was quickly engaged in conversation with everyone. the new pilots boarded the plane, so we decided we should probably bombard them and ask a bunch of dumb questions you've always wanted to ask a pilot. we got one poor guy to answer everything (is it hard to fly? do you get leg cramps? is it fun? do you ever fall asleep? can you do a barrel roll?). he then preceded to offer for us to sit in the cockpit and push some buttons. we had our asses in the seats before he finished asking. i asked if i could potentially crash the plane by pushing the amount of buttons i was pushing, and he just laughed nervously so i stopped. he offered to take our picture and seemed like he'd done it before. i asked him if he let a lot of people in the cockpit and he said "...well, i've never been asked by an adult..." and that, my friends, is why i love being a ricks.

isn't that a scary sight?

the plane eventually made its way to seattle and we flew over mt. ranier into the city. man! that was a sight! a picture wouldn't do it justice, so i'll just have to recommend that you visit it yourself one day. our dear sweet friend lilli picked us up at the airport and drove us to her place in west (i think?) seattle. jett and lilli went to high school together and we just absolutely adored seeing her! she was so kind as to let us into her home during her finals week AND to take us to dinner that night AAAAND to let us borrow her car when our taxi didn't show up after an hour. lilli walker: savior of the seattle shenanigans. we went to dinner at a terrible beauty, which is a local irish pub, where we had irish food and local beer and got to catch up with lil.

outside a terrible beauty

and then (after some taxi driver stood us up, the jerk!) we headed downtown to the neptune to go see sufjan play. i have often been referred to as a "hipster" by my sweet arkansan friends, to which i would say, hahahahaha. ahahha. ha. you have never been to seattle. you don't even know what a hipster is until you have been to see sufjan stevens play a christmas show in seattle. i have never seen more ugly christmas sweaters (nor will i ever) in all my days.

swoon

the venue itself was pretty small, which we have learned is something i adore. i love actually feeling like i am in the same room as the artist i am seeing. it looked like an old theater stage with a cathedral-style ceiling, only it had been completely decked out in tacky christmas paraphernalia. the name of the tour was "surfjohn stevens christmas sing-a-long: seasonal affective disorder yuletide disaster pageant on ice" and the show was about as bizarre and ridiculous as the name. i hope you know i mean that in the best way possible. there was a large "wheel of christmas!" on the back of the stage that determined which songs would be played next in the setlist while everyone had their own "hymnal" with the lyrics of the choices. they would spin the wheel, start singing, and we were fully expected to sing along. at first everyone seemed a little apprehensive, but as the night wore on (and the bar stayed busy), we were all a bit more comfortable with belting out our favorite christmas tunes. there was a guy behind us who was particularly proud of his vibrato (not an earned pride, just sayin').

wheel! of! christmas!

the set ranged from crazy, wacky, borderline obnoxious sufjan original christmas songs to peaceful hymns that we all know and love performed beautifully by sufjan, rosie, and the band. if you have never listened to sufjan stevens, please do so right meow. you are really missing out on one of the most talented musicians. his voice is nothing short of enchanting. he has the ability to completely silence a room full of loud, drunk hipsters yelling pretentious things at each other just by clearing his throat backstage. the man sings liquid gold. just throwing that out there. i would love to post a ton of amazing videos but a) you are not interested in that and b) my phone died mid-concert so jett has most of the videos on his computer. also youtube won't let me upload the one i keep trying to upload.

there were plenty of wacky songs as well as several traditional songs, as mentioned above. the best (and most silent) parts of the show where when he would declare a "break from christmas," pick up his banjo, and bring peace to the universe (aka sing) by singing "vito's ordination song" and "for the widows in paradise..." i didn't get any pictures from those moments because i stood there watching him play, with my phone and camera both probably on the ground because i had dropped them and not realized it. hell i'll be lucky if i find out i wasn't drooling.

the show was a delight. and it ended with a magical production of "christmas unicorn," the twelve-minute shitshow featuring one of sufjan's newest christmas originals. jett has a really cool video of this one so if you want to see it you'll have to hunt him down and remind him that he even went to seattle in december and then explain to him who sufjan stevens is again and THEN maybe he'll show you. just close your eyes and imagine lasers, glitter, silly string, balloon hats, streamers, christmas-themed inflatables, etc and voila! there you have it.

sufjan the magnificent

we spent the night at lilli's apartment then woke up and took a taxi to pike place to do a little bit of exploring before we had to go to the airport. it really was the shortest trip of all time. seeing the market was so cool! it was chilly and drizzly out that morning, rather perfect for seattle.

seattle at its finest

we wandered around the market for an hour or so, stopping at fruit and vegetable stands, fresh fish stands (they yell a lot at those), and through a bunch of hand-crafted well... crap. we picked up an ornament with the needle on it from an old hippie that couldn't make change (it was $7 and we gave him a $10...) and then stopped at the FIRST STARBUCKS EVER WHICH IS JUST SO APPROPRIATE AND FANTASTIC. i was obviously much more enthusiastic here than jett was, but that just makes him sound normal. i ordered my regular and felt like a n00b (even though i used all the correct technical terms taught to me by my best friend/ex-barista hannah). it was a dream.

first starbucks store ever at pike place

a souvenir coffee mug and several dollars later, we hailed a taxi and headed to the airport to make our way back home. we made it through security (which is a challenge with carry-on only bags if you ask me...) and had ivan's fish & chips in the airport before we boarded the plane to head home. i realize that's not the best place to get the iconic fish & chips, but we were limited on time, people.

that wraps up our final adventure! sorry it's a week late. even more sorry that none of you noticed.

xo.