Fat and Fortune: Fifty Mission Cap

When I heard that Gord Downie had brain cancer my heart sunk. The Hip are the soundtrack to Canada. If you live in this great country, you can't help but know their tunes. The Hip are ubiquitous... their songs play frequently at school dances, small-town bars, and on the radio. Most Canadians have had many opportunities to see them, and I think many have - a handful of times! If you've seen Gord play, you know he's a wild man, contorting on the stage, spewing out nonsensical rants, dancing in the coolest way and making us all wish we could move like that. And his lyrics - jeez, pure poetry, and a lesson in Canadiana. So for someone like Gord to get cancer so young, it feels a bit unfair. Why him? Why his beautiful brain?

The good news for fans is that we got one last shot to see the Hip live. To say goodbye. To celebrate. And for me, I was lucky to attend with two of my best girlfriends, Alissa and Jacqui, both of whom I had seen the Hip with before. I was lucky to get seats, and good ones, directly from Ticketmaster. And the show, well, it did not disappoint. They played a 25-song setlist full of my fave tunes.

My friend Jacqui had the best idea prior to the show. We would honour Gord by going shopping together before the concert and buying ourselves "50 Mission Caps." Our interpretation of 50 Mission Cap was similar to the concept of a friendship cap - we would buy some caps/hats, and then make a promise to go on 50 missions with each other throughout our lives and dedicate it to the Hip and Gord.

So we made a "date night," and headed to Chapel Hats in West Edmonton Mall. We had the best time. We were served by two awesome dudes, Marco and Owen, who indulged our desire to try on every hat we could. We forced them to take pics, and we laughed our asses off at the ridiculousness of some of the hats. Here's a sample of the "caps" we tried:

Fancy!

Animal Instinct

Beauties in Black

Casual

Love the 90's cap on Jacqui :)

Fascinating!

Here are our awesome helpers - Marco and Owen :)

Trying on hats was SO MUCH FUN! After all of that work, we had a hard decision to make - what to choose?

We felt this decision was best made over a drink on Bourbon Street:

After a few cocktails and a discussion of "cap strategy" we determined that our chosen caps must be practical. Many of our missions would likely involve the outdoors and travel, and so an all-purpose cap was needed.

We rushed back to Chapel with minutes to spare... and in the end, this is what we chose:

My mighty blue Bailey hat is awesome - it is made of felt, water-resistant, able to be crushed and packed... everything a girl could want in a Fifty Mission Cap.

When the night of the concert came, we proudly donned our caps and headed to the show:

Once there, the Hip put on an absolutely excellent show, and Gord was courageous and beautiful. It was a concert full of friendship, fifty mission caps, and memories to last a lifetime.