Eclecticism

After getting a call from my optometrist letting me know that my new sunglasses were ready to be picked up (I lost my old pair a few weeks ago), I got ready to go. On my way out the door, I looked at my camera sitting on my desk. Should I take it?

I debated back and forth for a couple seconds, then decided not to. As I’m wearing my mocker kilt today, which doesn’t have the big cargo pockets that the original does, I’d have had to strap the little camera case onto my belt, and I didn’t really feel like carrying that with me. Besides, I was just running about a mile away into the International District and back.

I should have known better. It’s some sort of corollary to Murphy’s Law; by leaving the camera at home, I was virtually guaranteeing that I’d later wish I had it with me.

After picking up my shades (so nice to have those again!), I decided to take the long way home, heading down through the International District, up through the Financial District to Westlake Center, up Pine, and then up 8th back to home. It was a nice day, I was in the mood for a walk, and hey — with the sun out, I needed to break in the sunglasses.

As I walked down Jackson through the International District, I noticed that one of the streets was blocked off, and it looked like there were booths set up in the street. Some sort of festival going on? Indeed it was, as I found when I headed over to investigate — I’d blundered right into the Chinatown/International District Summer Festival. Kicking myself for not having my camera, I spent a pleasant few minutes wandering through a marvelous mish-mash of color, culture, and language (one where my fair-skinned, kilt-wearing self was definitely in the minority).

Thankfully, the festival is going on all weekend, so I’m hoping to head that way tomorrow to see what I can get shots of.

After leaving the festival and continuing down Jackson, I hung a right on 4th and started working my way towards downtown. A few blocks up, I noticed police bikes on the street corner, blocking off a section of sidewalk next to a construction site where a building is being demolished. It didn’t look like anything had gone wrong with the demolition, though, as midway down that side of the street were a couple vans, a small crew of people, and what looked to be a fair amount of film camera equipment.

I couldn’t quite puzzle out what was going on, as there didn’t seem to be much activity at that point. There were a couple guys sitting on the corner that looked to be part of the crew, so I asked them if they could tell me what was going on. “Sure,” one of them said. “They’re filming a Chevy commercial.” I didn’t get more details than that — the conversation soon switched to my Utilikilt — but apparently, a Seattle construction site may be featured in a future Chevrolet commercial at some point in the future.

Just across the street from the film crew was a fountain that two teens had stopped to cool off in. As I walked by I looked up, and the guy called to me, “Hey! Good to see you!” Turns out that he’s a guy I’ve seen around town from time to time — I took a shot of him and a friend at the Pride parade — and he was showing a friend from Canada around Seattle. They’d just missed the Underground Tour and were killing time for a while when I came by, so we ended up chatting for a few minutes.

After letting them continue on with their day (which, when I looked back, started with them getting absolutely drenched in the fountain), I continued up 4th, through Westlake Plaza, up Pine, and then up 8th until I got home. All in all almost a four mile walk over the course of just under two hours. Not too bad, and a very pleasant afternoon.

Tomorrow, though — I’m bringing my damn camera.