Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Umbrella

It was trying to snow as I waited for the bus this morning.  Off to the west, the sight lines were obscured, alas the snow melted on contact.  Here at work, it is only rain.  It's Leap Day, but Mother Nature has her own calendar, it's very blustery, like March should be. A woman at the bus stop had one of those deep, clear plastic umbrellas, I think I called them "bubble-lators" when I was in grade school, you can almost stand inside of it, and still see out, since it's plastic.  The bubble-lator made me think of the old elevator in the Center House at the Seattle Center. I think it was a remnant from the World's Fair.  Anyway, at some point during my elementary-school career, I rode in it, but it's long since been replaced with a solid box of an elevator.  And all this led me to remember singing "the bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle, " in 2nd grade music class, and being the clueless individual that I was, I thought the word was "seettle" like "beetle," and was confused by how everyone else knew it had the extra syllable. As a family, we never went there, it wasn't far, but my dad didn't like driving in cities.  I can probably count on 2 hands how many times we went there before I was 18.  I think I grew up on a separate planet from everyone else, I think we were 2nd and 3rd generation in the US, and not living in any particular culture in this generation.  It's amusing looking back, how clueless I must've been growing up.