Holiday [Express] in the Park - 2018
Well, would you look at that -- last night's visit to Holiday in the Park at Volunteer Park, now my fifth such visit over seven years (since starting in 2012, I only skipped 2014 and 2015, and one of those times not by choice, as I arrived only to find they canceled the annual event in anticipation of a forecast huge wind storm that never really materialized), yielded a record number of photos. And this was after last year's visit yielded its own record of 30 shots -- this year I managed 35.
The full photo album for the event last night includes eight shots of the model "Holiday Express Train" (that's nearly a quarter of the photos) alone, some of the best I've ever taken. I have to give Shobhit some credit here, as he suggested several angles that worked out really well. He can be useful with that at times.
It was a pretty eventful evening overall, and that was after my last-minute decision to postpone plans to see a movie at 5:00. Not seeing it last night, I will not have another chance to until next weekend, but I'm sure it will still be playing. It's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, and even though I avoid superhero movies as a rule, there are always exceptions which often for me have sociopolitical motivation: in this case, the protagonist is a teenage black boy. And, as I had done with both Wonder Woman and Black Panther, I tend to go out of my way to support film projects by and/or about women or minorities. Even if they happen to be superhero movies. This Spider-Man project is also different in that it's an animated feature, which kind of puts it into a separate category in that context as well.
I figured it would work out okay to see the 5:00 show, get out at 6:30, and make it to Volunteer Park by about 7:00, halfway through the two-hour block of the Holiday in the Park event. But, I also needed to get coolers and a suitcase out of the storage unit in our condo building for our trip to Idaho this weekend, and get started on packing, and other things besides -- not to mention time needed to edit and upload and tag the evening's photos (I didn't even get to captioning them until this morning). It just helped overall for me to skip the movie, go home first to feed the cats and grab the luggage, and then walk on my own to Volunteer Park. Shobhit still met me there, but I was able to get started earlier than usual.
The event is not all that elaborate, and really has very little variation year to year, but hey -- they offer free cookies and hot chocolate! Why would I pass that up? And, even if the Conservatory's holiday display with the "Holiday Express" model train is always the same, I still love going to look at it and never tire of it.
Shobhit actually arrived only a few minutes after I did, since it took me about 20 minutes to walk to Volunteer Park -- it's about a mile north of our place on 15th. I stopped at Walgreens on the way to get a bottle of Resolve Carpet Cleaner, feeling a little dirty when I did so because I try not to shop there for anything ever, thanks to their conservative, anti-choice, anti-woman, anti-health bullshit. I did try QFC first, but they didn't have it; I had no chance to go to Target; and not getting it now, I might not have a chance before we leave, and the bottle at home is almost done -- and I am certain Alexia, who will look after the cats, will need it.
Every time I go into that 15th Avenue Walgreens on Capitol Hill, it seems notably queer -- both the staff and the clientele, curiously even more so than the one now on Broadway and Pine, which is much more in the heart of the neighborhood. Then again, maybe it makes more sense that this would be the case at the 15th Avenue location, deeper into the bowels of old-school Capitol Hill, an area relatively untouched by the gentrification that completely transformed Broadway in more recent years.
Anyway! I had to carry a small paper sack with a bottle of Resolve in it to the park, and while I snagged little cups of free hot chocolate and two or three free cookies. I had both peanut butter and chocolate chip; Shobhit was all about the one cookie that is a crime against humanity, oatmeal raisin. Any other year I might have stayed for more of the choral performances, especially given how fun The Beaconettes, with their Christmas-light beehive hairdos, are, but they usually come on later in the program and we didn't have time to dawdle. The chorus singing when we were there wasn't all that good, to be honest.
We then went to the Conservatory to look around, after dropping my stuff in the car, and after that we drove home. No wait, we drove to Whole Foods first. They're having this great "12 Days of Cheese" promotion, with one cheese per day on sale at 50% off, which is luring us back every day that we are in town. We've got two cheeses so far. And they are cheeses we've not necessarily heard of, so we're learning new things! The cheese we got last night, called exquirrou, is a blend of cow's milk and cheese milk cheese, and it is delicious -- there were samples of it out in their Deli at the new Broadway and Madison location, and we probably ate at least half of what was there.
Then we drove home, and in the garage, after some convoluted searches for video tutorials (which I had to go out to the lobby to load on my phone because I get no signal in the garage), we managed to replace only one of the windshield wipers with the new pair Shobhit just bought. He's seriously over-preparing for this trip this weekend, because we're going for the first time in December without flying, and actually driving over Snoqualmie Pass. But again, the forecast suggests we'll be fine. We still want to practice attaching the tire chains tonight, which I'm now certain we won't need, but it still can't hurt to have some practice with that.
Once back in the condo, I was finally able to pass off the spare key to Alexia; we made omelets for dinner; I processed my photos. It was bedtime once all that was done (excluding captioning, which had to wait until this morning), pretty much proving that skipping the movie last night was a good idea.
[posted 12:32 pm]