You tl;dr summary: I tried on various routes to get to Seattle, made it and promptly almost got into a huge accident but then was impressed by the defensive driving chops of our road-companions (go Seattle); I HIRL-ed at Araya's Thai Restaurant; I studied Andrew while he studied; he was weirded by my loss of two of my four eyes; I saw an opera and it was good!
1. The Bolt Bus... was a bust. I can only suppose it gets it name from the fact that it is bolted to the ground in some service garage and thus arrives at stops only in a symbolic metaphysical sort of way. At least it did not appear to possess physical qualities required to, say, be seen or utilized in any fashion when I was waiting late Friday night for such an occurrence. A large troupe of us, in fact, were unable to exercise our quantum physics observational magic and make the quark bus be where we observed... yeah, I went to law school, so don't start correcting my crappy science (I will sue you for intentional infliction of emotional distress!) It was an interesting experience, a bit of a taste of what it must be like to be an illegal immigrant attempting to traverse distances under the radar. Our listed departure location was the Cordata bus station - a satellite station that's mostly outside and a bit post-apocalyptic that hour of the evening. It was scheduled for 7:30 pm (but be sure to be there at 7:15).
Once we arrived, it was clear that there was no separate Bolt area and no ticket takers or signs. Instead we found a gaggle of confused Bolt-customers and a couple who apparently were affiliated with the Bolt venture. They herded us into a central spot and then mostly vanished. Seven-thirty came and went, as did all sorts of variations of seven-something-after-thirty. By eight, people were starting to be concerned. The Bolt bus people reappeared briefly to tell us that the bus left Vancouver 2.5 hours ago and hadn't been heard from since...The Bolt Bus going North showed up a bit past that just to taunt us. The driver also knew nothing about his companion bus, but helpfully said if we wanted to wait a day he knew that he'd be sure to pick us up. I wanted to warn him that he'd best turn back, as the Canadian border appeared to present unknown terrors to Bolt Bus drivers, but fool-hardy and brave man that he was, he carried on... and I gave up. It was, by this point, somewhat past 8:00 p.m. It was raining. It was, as one would expect, also cold.
My mom, blessed saint that she is, drove me back to her house and offered to take me to the Amtrak the next morning. The price on the Amtrak was nearly four times the price of the Bolt Bus. However, it somewhat earned this price differential. Setting aside the comfortable seating, the on-car coffee service, the exquisite view right over the water, and the sheer efficiency... Amtrak beat Bolt Bus hands-down by the sheer fact that it showed up! I'm sure there's a life lesson in there somewhere about hard work and determination and maybe it involves a poster of a baby kitty hanging in there from a tree limb... Maybe it just means that the train is a really nice form of transportation and deserves more public support.
2. Seattle itself was a little feisty, having experienced its first rain in some time and undergoing the perpetual construction that plagues our fair Athens of the Pacific Northwest. The Amtrak station itself had been repurposed into a human sized version of those mazes they run lab rats through, and the surrounding streets weren't much clearer. Once Andrew and I managed to reconnect, we escaped just barely with our lives... and the streets had their revenge on us as we mounted the free way. As I've said, it was the first rain in some time and the road was not particularly grippy. As we were talking about how the car seemed to be handling just a little differently since Andrew took it for service, it obliged with a demonstration. A turn too sharp and suddenly we were stunt pilots on the on-ramp, doing a 380 in one direction after a 180 in the other and may I just say Seattle drivers, I have maligned you in the past for your irresponsible driving, but damn did you do an amazing job with the defensive driving as we did our little ice skating performance in front of you!! We ended facing the wrong way with a cautious cavalcade of cars slowly treacling past in a quite civilized manner (confirming we could not have really been in Seattle), and managed even to re-align ourselves for the trek home. Andrew seemed a bit concerned, but I thought it was kind of fun and sort of awesome that nobody crashed. And adrenaline is good for a relationship I hear. I have no doubt it heightened our love.
3. HIRLing! No, that's not code for a nasty flu symptom; nor is it code for some athletic event done by burly Scots in kilts. It's an acronym for something I imagine will strike those of the pre-internet generation as sort of funny in a sick way: Hang-out in real life. Now lemme explain. As some know, I've more or less abandoned the claws of Facebook and all those bizarre social interactions with exes and highschool frenemies to take out my obsessions on Google+, which is kind of a cool place and maybe has the advantage of being used by people I've not met but with whom I share similar quirky little interests. Hang-Out refers to a blend of skype and chat and G+ events that Google has integrated into the service by which a number of users can video chat with each other via computer. HIRL-ing is kind of a tongue and cheek combination of the recognized divide between our virtual selves and our actions IRL (in real life) and is kind of a little bit like internet dating, except less awkward, more populated, and generally with people who are not desperately trying to deceive you while sussing out your deceits.
Now, those interests I mentioned... you may have noticed (I am assuming now that you are not blind and your brain does process memories for longer than ten seconds) that I have a bit of a footwear obsession, particularly around nifty socks and tights. As it would turn out I'm not the only one! Last year, I became a G+ warrior in a posting game called #sockwars. There are rules. I've never quite understood them, but I do understand that according to the founder, a very funny and foot-fashion-forward bloke from across the pond, I am now a Field Marshall. Hey, it's a lot funner and cheaper than playing World of Warcraft. And while most of the participants are far-afield (Greenwich Meant Time seems to be the heaviest time zone represented), I have my very own Seattle-based cell. We had lunch at Araraya's (mmmm). After a year of shared sock posts and other conversations, we more or less knew each other, but it was really neat adding those intangible quirks of tone, mien and motion to the package. And beautifully integrated into my picture, as if adding hues to a half-done coloring book page. It naturally ended with a photo of our socks.
4. Down time meant study time. When we finally escaped our on-the-way home hellish encounter with the U-District Safeway (by far my least favorite Safeway in the Universe, despite a fairly upscale remodel since our first acquaintance).
Down time also meant the punctuated hourly comment from Andrew about how odd it was to see me without glasses while I was not sleeping (yeah he stays up all night staring at me while I doze... it's why he's always so sleepy in the mornings!). I understand. I do recall that discombobulated feeling of seeing a familiar face without an assumed component of said face. For the record, the absence of a nose is slightly more jarring than absence of glasses, but only just. I may, in fact, begin a support group for my friends dealing with how weird I look. Yes, I have blue eyes; yes, they're a bit bigger than you thought; yes, I also have a forehead and an oval shaped face that are far more prominent without the immediate visual draw of glasses.
I need a haircut.
5. Sunday Lunch - Sunday also meant some study time for Andrew, and some conversation time for me with Andrew's very-early-twenties frat boy graduate roommate. His newer roommate was still hungover at about 11 and lamenting that he had been too "stupid" to close the deal on a girl he'd been hitting on. We discussed such erudite topics as beer pong, the other roommate's 21st birthday binge, and appropriate stalking etiquette for tracking down hot girls you met at a bar via Facebook. Oddly entertaining to me as a crusty old thirty year old. Straight from there to lunch at another Vegan Asian Restaurant (nummy times ten!) with my godparents, Howard and Liz. I see them maybe once every two or three years, but they are just the down comforter of family friends. I always feel warm and cozy and totally at ease around them. And Andrew got to meet them. He may not have the fully engaged "here's fifty people I've known all my life" experience of last week's party, but dammit he will eventually get through all the special people in my life one meal at a time!
6. Fidelio - Fidelio is not my Dad's favorite opera. And I can understand. It's heavily Beethoven. This is not really a pejorative, but I am not sure that he was ever quite the composer that integrated story-drama-libretto-and-action together in a way that lends to opera. His music is exquisite, but Fidelio has left me feeling emotionally disconnected. Taking place in a prison, where a woman poses as a young boy to find her husband who has been imprisoned by an evil jailer for two years, Fidelio sets up a nearly classical Mexican stand-up that would predictably end in opera's favorite everybody dies!! trope, but then inserts a deus ex machina and nobody dies and everything ends happily. So, already, not quite an opera, but lacking the tongue in cheek levity of an operetta.
Seattle Opera did it well, though and brought the entire experience to life in a way I would not have predicted - it affected me! I felt intrigued and entertained by the confluence of set design, beautiful singing, and exquisite music in the First Act, but I would not have anticipated how the Second Act would grab me. The Deus ex Machina comes in the form of an envoy of the enlightened leader.
And this was what really got me and totally unexpectedly at that. Seattle Opera wisely placed Fidelio in the modern time and at no point is this more poignant than the moment when the dank industrial prison sees the light of day. As the singing and action proceeds, droves of townspeople who have flooded the prison - people every ethnicity and socioeconomic class - wander through their own personal reunion stories. It takes longer and shorter periods for fathers to find their children, grandparents to find their grown grandchildren... some don't appear to ever find their loved ones. Other people fall down on their knees praying in completely different ways, while other continue to search... there was a freshly vivid familiarity due to the how recognizable the villagers were. While the opera was always clearly industrial - flocked with spot lights and security cameras - it lingered obstinately in a timeless crepuscular drear with only a small spot of flowers in the opening scene. The burst of recognizable fashions and colors - little girls in polka socks and men in jeans.. I really can't articulate how or why, but it was incredibly powerful.
As a cool side note, the role of the husband was played by the understudy not because of any malady of the leading man, but because he had done such an amazing job during dress rehearsal that they decided he deserved one day of performance. And he was really amazing. Definitely an up and comer.
7. Epilogue - and then I killed the suitors who were harassing my wife and Athena helped negotiate the truce terms with all the countries who might have been annoyed that I killed their Kings. She didn't really hold it against me that I'd strewn my wild oats all over the known world while she chastely weaved and unweaved. She's cool that way...
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