Seattle Report

[marcusmarcusrc]

I have sung the praises of weddings in this livejournal before. I am always impressed by how my friends who get married are able to craft ceremonies that are so well suited to their own personalities, and so uniquely different from the other weddings I’ve been to. It was a wonderful event, touching and beautiful and fun, with much tea and music and neat people and happiness permeating throughout. And I absolutely love the Seattle rainforest. I need to visit the Pacific Northwest more often…

I also found time for a little contra dancing at Folklife (the festival is huge! Not that I saw much of it outside of the dance…). I found four people I knew at the dance: Tiffany (not a surprise, as it makes sense that an Oregonian who is dance addict enough to come out to Boston to go to dancing would take the short hop to Seattle), Karen (flying out from New Hampshire), Vadim, and the surprise out of nowhere, Dirk, Epsilon Theta PC '87. Dirk's paraphrased quote: "It is a pity I didn’t find out about this kind of dancing when I used to live in New England, home of the best contra in the world"

One of the women I danced with had never contra danced before, but as a jazz + ballroom dancer she picked it all up quickly and I quite enjoyed our dance. Later in the evening, I bumped into her and a friend of hers. Her friend had a camera, and before I knew what was going on, had taken a picture of me, while my former dance partner elbowed her and said “See? Didn’t I tell you he was cute?” Let me tell you that this is not a common occurrence in my life. Pity I'll probably never meet her again, unless I find my way back to Folklife...

Other notes: I bumped into realsupergirl in the Seattle airport, a pleasant surprise. Seeing katybeth for a brief wander about the Space Needle was also nice. And on the plane flights out and back, in between reading papers about methane, I read Her Majesty’s Dragon and Throne of Jade (loaned to me by unequilibrated and also highly recommended by schnerf), and I highly recommend these to other readers of my livejournal (about dragons in the time of Napoleon). And the Floating Leaves Teahouse is well worth going too for yummy tea and a very loquacious and friendly owner (it is apparently one of aaltair’s favorite places to relax)