The Clingers: Best of 2021

2021! What a year! Without further ado, in no particular order, here the best things from our 2021:

Favorite Kitchen Item

Okay - so it's been another year of a pandemic, and the retreat into the kitchen for treats is a real coping mechanism. This year's MVP in the kitchen (behind the stalwart-and-sturdy-but-much-too-humble-for-this-type-of-list cast iron skillet) is this beautiful enameled grill pan we were gifted last Christmas. Many a beautiful piece of meat was cooked to perfection on its gracefully undulating surface.

Best Mansion

This summer some of the Wild Clingers came to visit us in Boston! We had a wonderful time showing them the sights in our neck of the woods. One of the highlights was a pit stop in Providence, RI, where we toured the Breakers (one of the Vanderbilt mansions.) It was so fun to watch the kids looking for all of the "scavenger hunt" items in the architectural details, like the secret dolphins and little acorn motifs. After this we drove to NYC and met up with the rest of the crew!

Can you believe the Vanderbilts called this house a "cottage"? The audacity!

Same Best Mansion (With Different People)

A couple of weeks later we went to Providence again and toured the Breakers to celebrate our good friend Bryce's birthday (happy birthday, Bryce!) Unfortunately for the Wendts we already know where all of the secret dolphins were, so sorry to them if that took away from their Breakers experience. A tour guide did tell Bryce and Braden that she was keeping an eye on them, so clearly we still had plenty of fun! Afterward we had one of our favorite meals of the year, a perfect lobster dinner.

(For any readers who are feeling left out because they didn't go to the Breakers with us this year, you can take your very own virtual tour here!)

We didn't snag a photo with all four of us with the mansion, but this is the view from just behind it with the namesake waves breaking on the shore.

Best Brunch Crawl

It's no secret that we love a good meal. Our friends Alex and Katie were the architects of a plan that allowed us to enjoy 3 brunches in one morning: The Harvard Ave. Brunch Crawl. We met on a cold, frigid Saturday morning in front of Kupel's Bagels, where we enjoyed the best bagels Braden has had outside of NYC. Then we walked down to Zaftig's (Est. 5757!) and enjoyed their "Zaftig Combo": cheese blintzes, latkes, potato knishes, and a noodle kugel. (To die for. Especially the kugel.) Abby still fantasizes about that kugel. We then crossed Beacon to get Ruebens (and Rachels) at Michael's Deli, which we highly recommend (just remember to bring cash - we're looking at you, Alex). As we ate our Ruebens and Rachels we realized that we still had room for dessert. So we drove down to the North End to get some cannoli at Bova's. The perfect brunch crawl does exist, and we did it.

Best Brunch Birthday Edition

To all of our Massachusetts friends: if you haven't been to The Neighborhood Restaurant in Somerville's Union Square yet, go now. (And take us with you!) We went for Abby's birthday and everything tasted amazing, but honestly, the cream of wheat was the highlight. We don't care if that makes us sound like senior citizens. We would eat that cream of wheat every day if we could.

This is Braden's "Oh dang, this cream of wheat is for real" face

Most Sporting Sports Events

It's a three way tie between the Rays at the Red Sox, the Phillies at the Bruins and the Rockets at the Celtics. All beautiful wins. You sure get a good leg workout climbing the stairs to the nosebleeds at TD Garden.

Selfie before singing a rousing round of "Sweet Caroline".

Best Snowshoeing Excursion

Guys, we are going to level with you. 2021 was long. We could have sworn this happened years ago, but it was just back in February. We snowshoed around the Arnold Arboretum with Cleo and it was magical and it was in February. That can't be right. It really can't be. Oh, we just checked the metadata on the photos --- it was February. Unbelievable.

Best Stand-Up Show

There were a few weeks there in July/August when we were fully vaxxed and we thought we were in the clear to go back to living our normal lives. The naiveté! We will cherish those weeks of blissful ignorance through these cold, dark Omicron months. One of the fun things we did during Hot Vax Summer was attending a stand-up comedy show in an intimate bar downtown. The openers were so-so, but the headliner, Josh Gondelman, was great! We love a funny bald guy in a cardigan.

Josh Gondelman stood right there in front of us! Right there!

Rainiest Day on the Slopes

On March 18th, Braden had just taken a big exam and needed to blow off some steam. So he went to the local ski hill. March skiing can be a gamble, but the good thing about a rainy day on the mountain is that not everyone is brave (or stupid) enough to ski in it, so Braden had a usually overrun mountain all to himself.

Weirdest Basement Dining Situation

Our dear friends Kate and Joe came to visit us for Kate's birthday and the July 4th holiday. We watched the fireworks and went to the ICA and did some of our favorite Boston things, which of course included a trip to the North End for a nice dinner. What we expected was a loud, tightly packed Italian restaurant. What we didn't expect was to be led straight through the tightly packed Italian restaurant and down the back stairs, where we were then sat in a blue-lit basement, painted floor to ceiling to look (the maître d' assured us) like Capri. We were in our own private dining room, complete with mysterious, labyrinthine hallways to the basements of the neighboring restaurants. It kind of felt like we had passed into some alternate reality, but at least we were in that bluish, low-ceilinged reality with our friends and some passable Italian food.

Unicorn fish ice cream as a palate cleanser from all the weird blue

Most Meaningful Empty Plate Photo

Before he died, my brother Matt ran an Instagram page (@meals.i.enjoyed) where he posted photos of the empty plates of food he enjoyed eating. He used to joke that he was too excited about the food to get a photo before he started eating. This year, as a family, the Clingers decided that we would each have a new dining experience on his birthday and share photos of our plates afterward. Abby and I went to the East Boston side of the harbor and got some Australian pies for lunch. They were delicious (Abby says, "except for the mushy peas"), and it was a great way to celebrate one aspect of Matt's life.

Best Antiquing Finds

I want to start this off with a disclaimer that this antique fair was HUGE - we spent a good 4 hours there and we only saw about 1/3 of the antiques it had to offer. So there may have been better antiquing finds available to us, we just didn't have the stamina to search for them. That being said, Abby got a lovely stained glass lamp, Braden got a sweet turquoise ring, and we saw some very *interesting* items that still haunt our dreams. (I'm looking at you, doll-head lamp!)

Least and Most Favorite Green Fizzy Drink

We bought this anis and thyme-flavored drink on a lark one night when we were in Allston getting Nashville-style hot chicken with friends. One of us really liked it, the other did not care for it.

Best New England Treat

This year was the year we finally ate apple cider donuts the way they are meant to be eaten: hot out of the fryer, from a paper bag, in the parking lot of a farm stand. They were amazing and they tasted like fall!

Favorite New Study Spot - The Back Porch

So really this is the second runner up, but nobody wants to see a picture of Braden studying in the tub. This year we moved the bookshelf that was covering the access to our back porch which meant a lot of pleasant summer mornings with yerba mate and pleasant afternoons with a glass of agua de jamaica and a book. Also one of our neighbors keeps a water bong on his balcony and he tokes it every 20 minutes; you can mark the passage of time based on his trips to the balcony. Three tokes and I knew it was time to take a long break. It's like the pomodoro method, but in a recreational state.

Most Anticlimactic Graduation Ceremony

Abby's graduation ceremony (like many others this year) took place over Zoom. Each graduate got to have their camera on for about 10 seconds while the names of everyone on screen was read, and the hardest part was knowing what to do with your hands when they said your name (Abby chose to high-five Braden). Was it weird to graduate from the living room couch, where she also attended classes and did most of the work to earn the degree? Yes. Was it awesome to eat waffles barefoot during the commencement ceremony? Also yes.

Best New Job

After what felt like a lot of applications and interviews at libraries throughout the Minuteman Library Network, Abby landed her first "real" job as a Generalist Librarian at the Somerville Public Library! As a Generalist, she does a little bit of everything: some marketing and PR, some collection development, some programming, and some covering lunches at the reference desk, and some social media (look for her on TikTok, kids!)

Best New Commute

While Abby started a new commute through the bumpy, traffic-light-infested streets of Somerville, Braden decided to start using a bike share to get to his job. It's fabulous because he's no longer afraid of his bike being stolen, he doesn't have to carry anything down the stairs, and if he doesn't want to ride his bike back up the hill to his apartment he can just take the green line home (which, let's face it, he does 98% of the time).

Best Bike Ride, Island Edition

We had a great time biking around Martha's Vineyard with Abby's parents! The beauty of the cape islands is that they are mostly flat. We saw the Gingerbread Houses, the Jaws Bridge, and finished up our ride at the Edgartown Harbor Lighthouse before heading back to Oak Bluffs.

Jaws bridge! 🦈

Most Watched Whale

Cape Cod wasn't the only cape we visited with Abby's parents. We took advantage of a little trip to Cape Ann to go on a Whale Watching trip (thanks Groupon!). We launched from Gloucester and enjoyed views of the historic harbor before heading towards the Stellwagen Bank. After about an hour an excitement spread through the boat. A whale had been spotted. We followed one female humpback whale for several miles, ooh-ing and ahh-ing every time she came up for air. She had a really cool name that started with an S, but we can't remember what it was. Shannon? Sfera? Spaghetti Strap? Stracciatella? Whatever her name was, she was majestic.

Sorry, mom. This is still my favorite picture from our trip.

Best Dam Sunday Drive

As it turns out, we are a short (okay, 50 minute) drive from the largest hand-built dam in the world, Wachusett Dam! It makes for a lovely drive. As a couple with roots in a dam town we appreciate dam destinations where we can take some dam pictures and appreciate some good dam views.

Surprisingly good dam posture!

Most Shakespeare-Filled Park Date

We've always wanted to be the kind of couple that went to Shakespeare in the Park, and this year we finally made it happen! We stopped at Gene's Chinese Flatbread Cafe for some hand-pulled noodles and set up our picnic blanket. Then when the sun went down, the show began. It was awesome! This will become a yearly tradition for sure.

Best Summit

At some point Braden decided to make a goal to hike to the highest summits all six New England states. We made our first summit excursion to the highest peak in Massachusetts, Mt. Greylock, during the first weekend in October. It was not quite peak leaf peeping in the Berkshires yet, but it was peak peak peeping, and it was definitely worth the sore legs!

Not a red leaf in sight.

Best Trip to Idaho that Wasn't Expressly for the Purpose of Attending a Funeral (But we Attended one Anyway)

The title says it all. We headed to Idaho in October for an Awesome Party Weekend that happened to coincide with Braden's birthday. He won points with the nieces and nephews by asking for a funfetti birthday cake. We soaked in the hot pools, we played many rounds of Sequence, and we ate some very good lamb stew that brought Braden to tears. We are just thankful for our families and the opportunities we had to spend time with them this year. We cried together, but we also laughed a lot.

Bonus Best Thing from the Idaho trip:

Best New Friend

One of the best things about the Idaho trip was finally meeting our new niece, Ella! She is a very wiggly, very happy baby, and she is growing up way too quickly!

Best Girl

Cleo wins by a landslide! A full investigation has been launched, and you will be unsurprised to learn that, as it turns out, the jury for this particular prize is totally rigged. Unfortunately, no other jury members are available, so it looks like Cleo will be the best girl for many years to come.

2021 will go down in our personal histories as one of the most difficult years we've had so far. There was a pandemic. Some people close to us, including our brother Matt, passed away. Abby went through a stressful job search. Braden had to take some stressful exams (okay, those were kind of fun) and some health problems. But through it all, we have been incredibly blessed. We hope this list of superlatives has allowed you to reflect on the blessings in your life; it certainly was fun for us to put it together. With that said, we know you all just read this for the traditional final section...

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