Tuesday Evening in the Park

On Tuesday evening, after hurriedly eating our spaghetti and meatball dinner, we drove up to Kirkland for an outdoor concert with a local community orchestra. I know what you are thinking. Either we need to just move to Kirkland and get it over with, or we need to get a calendar of events for our own city already. But in this case, Jim's coworker is a member of the orchestra, we saw them play last summer as well, and the venue is a grass-surrounded gazebo on the shore of Lake Washington- really lovely.

First, let me comment on the awesomeness of community orchestra programs. No one on the planning committee feels any motivation to go any deeper than the absolute surface of pop classical music. So most of these concerts are greatest hits concerts, and this one was like the greatest hits of all. "Skater's Waltz"? Check. "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik"? Check. "Carmen," "Camelot," "Stars and Stripes Forever," "William Tell Overture"??? Quadruple check.The weather was great, too. It has been a cloudy, gloomy couple of days (or, let's face it, entire summer, on which I would totally like my money back, Seattle area, you big cheater), and the clouds seemed to break up a bit just in time for the sunset.

We found a seat on the wall of a big planter, and also immediately bumped into the daughter of Jim's coworker. She shared her blanket with Naomi, and tried to share her snacks, but Naomi could not be convinced to eat a cool ranch Dorito, for some reason. Then Naomi began her starring role as cute little lunatic, becoming obsessed with the idea that she needed to see Brad (the coworker) up on stage, and dragging the helpful daughter closer and closer to the stage, at one point almost going up onto the stage, and finally, narrating to all around, for the rest of the night, with great dramatic sweeping gestures, the saga of how she really wanted to see Brad, and looked and looked, and couldn't see him because there were other people all around him. Wacky little girl.

For myself, I got confirmation of what I already know- that I am lonely. I clung to every scrap of conversation offered by Brad's wife, by Jim's other coworker and his girlfriend, by the high-school and college age daughters who patiently listened to Naomi's endless oral tradition. It's not as though work is some kind of social whirl- I can go for four or five hours at a stretch without speaking a word out loud when I'm in my office. But something about being in the house so much, and offering a constant stream of supportive chatter to the afore-mentioned kooky toddler, results in acute adult-conversation starvation.

I also got confirmation that Muriel is a super cutie, when two women and their daughters came from across the park to admire her. At least that's what I thought was happening, until one of the daughters, a camera-ready 13 year old, gave me her contact information, including the fact that she had taken a babysitting class and her mother was always close by for backup. Heh. Maybe if Muriel were six years old instead of six weeks. I didn't get a picture of Muriel that night (a shame!), but I just took one before her current nap (with a nice unflattering flash), so here it is.