Susan took mass transit all the way down to Coney Island, USA to stand in the rain and watch the Mermaid Parade.

Weeks ago Susan innocently said yes when the daughter asked if they could go, then immediately regretted it. Susan is not a fan of crowds, heat, no place to pee & limited escape routes. The closer the date of departure came, the more Susan dreaded her poorly thought out commitment. How could she deny her fatherless daughter the joy of seeing gay men and half naked women strut their painted and sequined stuff?

She couldn't, that's how.

Mercifully, Susan's little sister agreed to go which afforded Susan some level of comfort. She now had someone onto whom she could pawn off the transportational logistics.

That morning Susan packed her bag with sunscreen, Advil, baby wipes, black bean brownies and cash. She wisely chose her outfit which consisted of layers, although too few to keep her warm after being rained on, and white shorts onto which she would later drop a calamari hot dog.

Coney Island was the last stop on the Q train and pulled in high above the park. Susan felt like Dorothy first glimpsing the Emerald City when she saw the Wonder Wheel and beyond that the Atlantic Ocean. It was quite a sight.

Twelve inch platform shoes, three foot wide headgear, bejeweled eyelashes, and head to toe body paint was in evidence as soon as they hit the street:

Susan was delighted to see the ridiculous amount of creativity and dedication that went into all the costumes. They were home made with odds and ends, bound together with glitter, fishnets, shells, pearls, streamers, feathers, leather straps, topped with balloons and finished off with pasties.
Like this:

 

Susan liked the full body commitment of this fellow:

Pirates, sharks and paper mache were also represented:

Most of all Susan was happy to see all the unrestrained boobs, jiggly bellies, plump round asses and rolls of fat that every woman over the age of 25 has.

Hooray for mermaids and real ladies everywhere!

*Susan would like to give artistic credit to her Little Sister, the professional photographer, for allowing Susan to pinch these photos from her FB page.

Susan personally witnessed Spring busting out all over the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens on Sunday!
She saw fields of daffodils, forsythia, plump and perfumed magnolias, Japanese flowering cherry trees and all manner of little green buds awaiting their turn to pop open and make a spectacle of themselves.
She even saw a bride or two.

 
During their visit Susan established a few guidelines for casual travel;
Don't rely soley on GPS. Susan would have benefited from a teeny bit of prep work to know exactly where she wanted to end up.
Don't make fear-based decisions. She doesn't have to jump into the first available on-street parking space.
Bring snacks. She knows this, she just got lazy.

On her way home Susan's daughter suggested they stop by an awesome seventies vintage store where Susan purchased a super fab tie dyed wrap skirt* that was representative of what may have hung in her own closet circa 1977.

 
*Editor's note: Susan's closet did not contain tie dyed anything, ever, but she did own a number of long, Indian printed wrap skirts which she wore into the early eighties.

Susan and her family went to the Brooklyn Museum to observe the daughter's 16th birthday. Originally the kid didn't want to do anything but she changed her mind because she's been there before and "they have a good gift shop".

They had some pretty neat stuff in there, like Kara Walker's silhouettes:

Susan was delighted to find some paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe:

Both she and her kids liked this installation by Swoon:

How about this cheeky painting of The Sculptor :

And his neighbor, this lady:

And this fella:

And then she liked all this stuff too:

 

And lastly, this thing which was made entirely from corn kernels and corn byproducts:

Susan drove into Brooklyn, USA to visit her girlfriend, GP.
A week earlier GP had driven to Brooklyn from South Dakota to visit her son's family; six people and a mother in law in a narrow apartment.

Susan loves driving in to Brooklyn because she gets to see the Manhattan skyline, bridges, the Statue of Liberty and some inner city graffiti. She also has a history of snagging great parking spots; like directly across the street from her destination or a short one block walk from a very well attended street fair. And it's not like Brooklyn isn't crawling with bearded hipster men in ill fitting clothes with full color back tattoos and infants swaddled against their chest in hippie slings taking up parking spots. Because they are.

Susan and GP ate Indian food, fried dough covered in powdered sugar, ducked into cute little over priced Park Slope shops and had to enjoy each other's company enough to hold them till the next trip.

Susan scored this awesome leather patchwork jacket on Sunday's outing to the Urban Jungle. She can't believe that it escaped being snatched up by some fashionable gentleman on his way to mess up a few prostitutes.
But, it wasn't...so now it's hers!

Susan had to drive all the way to Brooklyn, USA for a decent cup of coffee.

She chose the lowest echelon of small-batch-roasted-in-house coffees offered; brewed. For another dollar she could have had it French pressed, but opted not to.

Susan squeezed herself into a too small space surrounded by people with laptops and caught up with her girlfriend, GP. They discussed all manner of important topics; dogs, personal growth, anxiety, the great chicken massacre and annoying people they know.

The drive home afforded Susan a glittering night time view of Manhattan and complete control over what she listened to on the radio.

Susan spent a sunny Sunday in Brooklyn, USA with all her cousins, and her cousins' cousins, and a few people she didn't know celebrating at a surprise birthday party.

Here's the birthday boy with his old ball & chain:
Here's some youthful guests spelling out the name of a garden tool:
Here's someone demonstrating how to press the police button:
Seriously though.
Cousin Lisa threw a wonderfully simple and happy party in a little neighborhood joint filled with hugging, flowers, pumpkins, gratitude, fettucine served from a Parmesan wheel, open windows, wine, a duo of well behaved babies, cheesecake and a big bowl of fresh whipped cream.

Cousins Susie and Sue discussed the heartbreak of raising under-communicative boys who eventually move away to college as well as how to position one's head so that a turkey neck is minimized in photographs.

Susan's eldest niece described being lectured on how to lock a door by the person who walked in on her sitting on the toilet.

Afterward, everyone put on their flats and went down to look at the Brooklyn Bridge:

It was a good day.