Friday, October 15, 2010

What I would be doing if I wasn't in New West


"I have to start making a list of stuff I haven't done or gone to because of shopping only in New West," I say to my husband, while we're packing to go to Kamloops for Thanksgiving.*

"I'm not going to Gogol Bordello, I'm not going to Ghostland Observatory, we haven't given money to KEXP . . ."

At this last one, my husband give me a guilty smile, looks away and starts staring assiduously at our bookcase.

"What are you staring at?"

"I'm seeing if there's any books I want to take with me," he says.

Yeah, right. I start haranguing him, in between laughing, and use what is becoming my favourite threat: "It's going in the blog."

"YOU didn't give any money to KEXP," he says defensively, "I did."

True enough, but we had discussed making a donation during their annual fall membership drive this year and I thought we had agreed not too, because of the blog and because of the money. I knew it was bugging him though.

My husband listens to KEXP every day online. Notions of "community" and "local" are much more elastic with the Internet and I know KEXP is important to him. At any rate, it was only $20, much less than we have given in previous years.

Here's the list of what this blog is keeping me, if not my husband, from doing this year. At some point I'll figure out how to put the list into a sidebar and make it a standing feature that I update throughout the year.

Please understand, this is not a list of complaint. It's a list of potential. Money I didn't spend outside New West that I now, potentially, could spend inside New West. The odd thing is, I've bought almost nothing this past week. But more on that in my next weekly spend report.

Things I haven't done or bought and places I haven't gone that I usually probably would:

No Smaller donation to KEXP
No snacks or coffee on the way up to Kamloops
No Cowboy Coffee in Kamloops
No Senor Froggy in Kamloops
No Gogol Bordello
No Ghostland Observatory (They gave the best live show I've ever seen ** and they're coming back to Seattle in November. This one is a little complain-y. Just a little.)
No dollar-almost-at-par shopping trip to Bellingham/Seattle
No Priceline hotel for trip to Ghostland Observatory and/or shopping trip
No crazy expensive Halloween costume for my son from BuyCostumes.com when it turns out he is just as happy with the $24 one from Wal-mart.

* No, I didn't buy anything in Kamloops, other than gas. And food on the way home. We weren't going to, but traffic was really bad. I'm committed to this blog, but I draw the line at letting my son go hungry. Okay, to be honest, I draw the line at listening to my son say, "I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm soo-ooo-ooo hungry," over and over and over again in the close confines of our Hyundai.

** See video at top of the post, which may look like nonsense to some, but trust me, the show was epic. It included getting tickets for the Saturday show, figuring out three days before the show that it would really be better to have Friday tickets, posting a ticket trade on Craigslist, arranging to meet with Dave from Texas in Seattle to trade tickets before the show, while making sure Dave wasn't a scammer or crazy, jumping up and down for two hours at the show even when standing still because the sprung-wood floor was bouncing so hard, staying up until 3 a.m. after the show and getting up at 9 a.m. Saturday morning to drive back to New Westminster and familial obligations. Epic.