The Seattle Opera House is a beautiful place. As mentioned yesterday, there is a huge park behind it, so there is plenty of stuff to do while you wait for the show to start. And the building itself is modern and elegant:
Much modern…! Much elegant…!
Once again, I was surprised by how there were no people outside. And yet, the house was 80% or so full. In the photographs below, before the show, it’s not 80% full yet; but it’s already far from empty, so… how did these people get here?
After the show, too, it was like… people just disappeared! There was no traffic jam; no traffic consisting of cars, and no traffic consisting of people. People and cars just poof, vanished. I am beginning to think that the people of Seattle are magicians.
Anyway, the crowd was so polite and so generous with its applause. We went to a matinee show. Later, we heard that usually the crowd for matinee shows tend to be more polite and organized, due to older people attending them. Well, older or otherwise, I saw them drinking plenty of pre-show wine. So it seemed that the party people still knew how to party.
And the opera itself was beautiful. D confessed that she cried a little bit at the end, which surprised me. D, my girl, so rich with emotions. 🙂
And here, a picture of me and brother… and D… without the faces!
I know I’m super particular and peculiar with faces in photos. I don’t know why this is. Maybe I should meditate on that. It just feels so weird to leave my face around places. And I know it’s weird that I think of sharing photos of me as “leaving my face around places.” What’s up with me and faces? Why can I leave around my voice in places, and my writing, but not my face? It’s not like I look extremely hideous. I think I’m pretty average. I get no stares or glares. I never have. Well, except in Germany. But that was because I was one of the 4 or so Asian kids in town. I think people sometimes stared, but I don’t remember them glaring. Also, I didn’t think that could have traumatized (!) me, although, these days, while I meditate about other things, it turns out, I did start to think that perhaps I was more affected by growing up there than I had previously thought.
Anyway, the point uploading the above picture despite it being faceless is 1) As a remembrance of how long my hair used to be, from the front, before I shaved it off down to 6mm in May, and 2) As a remembrance of how D is doing her best trying to get bro and me in a nice picture! Hahaha.
And what a challenge it must have been! See, some folks are experts in taking pictures and getting pictures taken. I would say my brother is more used to photographs (taking and being taken) than D and I–but even with him, look, nobody noticing the funny reflections, me carrying all the stuff in my bag (a navy raincoat stuffed in my navy canvas bag) and in my hand, holding… what is that? A hair tie?
By the way, all my hair ties that were lying around my room have now been collected and have been put in the wall cabinet of my bathroom. Hehehe it will be some time before they see the light of day again. There were 5 or 6 or so. It’s like with pens. I know I already have a pen, but it always gets lost so I start using a new pen. And then I can’t find that one either, so I start using yet another pen. The pens start adding up. I know that there are several, I just cannot seem to find more than one at any given moment.
And yet, somehow, at some point, a pen does get used up. And at some point, somehow, a hair tie does get used up (no more elasticity). So, although I have several pens and several hair ties “working” at any given time, I take solace in the fact that at some point, at least some of them will get to retire. (And I have no idea if some of them will never get to retire. It is possible that a pen or a hair tie of mine has been working for years without getting their eternal break.)
Btw, in this photo, I am in high heels. Normally, I would reach my brother somewhere around his chin. I cannot remember when he started being taller than me. It might have been when I was in high school and he was in middle school. So grown-up now, my baby brother. Look at his grown-up clothes!!! 😂
And, after the show:
This was when we finally saw the really very very blue waters and skies of Seattle. The two previous days, they had been so gray. But on this day, it was as if they weren’t the same waters and skies at all.
Oh and look, the streets were as empty as always. Remarkable. Just remarkable.