I *love* my life.  In fact, I’m nuts about it.  I have a wonderful life.  A 4-day-a-week day-job that rocks.  A boss that empowers & inspires me to be my best…while making me laugh, every day.  A long weekend every week to follow my passions & grow in any other direction I choose.  A home that I feel at peace in, in a city that I adore.  The opportunity to take crazy-long road-trips 2 or 3 or 4 times a year…to photograph, to think, to write, to dream, to discover.  And there’s so much more I could tell you, so many things I love about my life.  I get to live the life I created.  Yes, it’s a {ridiculously} busy life, but it’s busy with the things that I put there, the things that give me joy, that make me happiest, the things that matter most to me.  There is nothing missing.  And perhaps best of all…I get to be me, the real me, every day, all day.

So it was fitting indeed, while I was perusing Citizen’s menu this morning, that my eyes fell upon something that made me think “Thanksgiving”.  Yes, I know this is Labor Day.  I never could keep all these American holidays straight.  They’ve been confusing me for 10 years now.

I stumbled upon Citizen while I was searching for creperies to add to my growing list. Citizen couldn’t look less like a creperie if it tried, but as we all know, looks can be deceiving.  Citizen also have a hefty menu of other dishes, but there’s certainly a multitude of crepes to chose from.

It was this that caught my eye:  Turkey, raspbery jam, apple smoked bacon & brie. Topped with house made crème fraiche – $7.95

I asked the delightful young lady serving me if it was really Thanksgiving in a crepe.  “Yes!”, she said, “That’s it!  Thanksgiving!”

 Citizen isn’t a *very* popular place on a sunny weekend, now is it?  C-r-a-y-z-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!!!  The whole place was heaving.  Those servers were earning every single cent of their tips today.  It’s an eclectic place – tables squeezed in every nook & cranny, upstairs, downstairs, on the patio, on the sidewalk, on long benches under the huge windows that swung open to make it feel like you were almost outside.  No particular style, but every style all at once.  Exposed brick wall here, beautifully written chalkboard there.  Charming & industrial simultaneously.  Rustic and modern.  All of that, all at once.  And a really great vibe.  Except for the {very} fierce-looking lady in the kitchen.  I mean, really fierce.  Yikes.   

So let me tell you about the crepe real quick.  Not good.  SOOooo not good.  Thin & dry like a huge potato chip.  Stiff, crunchy & zero flavor.  The filling did taste like Thanksgiving, although they really should put cranberry sauce in there instead of raspberry jam.  Raspberry jam?  Who thought THAT one up??  And if you’re going to keep on using raspberry jam – use seedless, & one that is less sweet.  Please.  Thank you.

The Sweet Special: Fresh nectarines & peaches with nutmeg & cinnamon, in a crepe topped with almond whipped cream & amaretti crumbles – $8.95

The crepe?  You can see from the shot above that it was a repeat performance of the first one.  Rats.  I was so hoping that the first had the excuse of being the first crepe of the day – you know – the one that you’re supposed to throw away before you start making the proper ones.  Alas.  Plus, the amaretti cookies were stale.  Ugh.

In Citizen’s defence – everything else looked great.  And the staff were great.  It’s a hang out for hipsters looking for an affordable, affable place to knock back a glass of wine & a plate of home-cooked nosh.  I almost asked my neighbor if I could shoot his breakfast sandwich.  Yeah.  The one that I wished I was eating instead of this crepe.  Given all the glowing reviews about their crepes & given that this is a seriously popular place, I am wondering if they were just having a crepe fail day.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I will go back to Citizen again, probably several times.  What I also know, for sure, is that I won’t order a crepe while I am there.  Right now, Citizen crepes are slap bang at the bottom of the Seattle crepe pile.  Now, how about one of those Citizen Breakfast Sandwiches…

Another glorious day saw me heading west from Citizen to sit atop Kerry Park in the sunshine.  It was beautiful.  I thought about my life & how thankful I am.  I really do just *love* my life.