I met up with a girlfriend, Jami, this last week to attend one of the grand firework shows Vancouver puts on in early August every year. A mere 250,000 to 400,000 of us head to English Bay to watch a stunning 15-minute show. It is quite an event that probably deserves it own post, but not now.
My friend told me a story that raised goosebumps on my arms. There was something going on in California for me, I had so many wonderful interactions and this is a tale about another of them.
I flew into LAX on Friday, July 6 just before my professional conference began. My flight was a very early one so I thought I should find something to do since I had several hours of free time. The play, War Horse, was touring in downtown Los Angeles. Somehow Vancouver is in the backwater when it comes to getting award-winning plays. I saw Lion King, Wicked and Avenue Q long after they had been hits and seen what seemed like everywhere else. So I had no clue when War Horse might show up at home. This was my chance to see this play and I meant to take advantage of the opportunity.
If you don't know anything about it, which was also made into a movie, check out this link. It is worth watching all 2.5 minutes of the video so you get a sense of how great the puppetry is for this stage production. The horse puppets are so big a human can ride them. And having six or eight of them on the stage at one time is breathtaking, at least for me it is. (There's just a tiny sliver of that scene in the video.) It was the hype about both the London and Broadway productions that lead to my interest in seeing it for myself.
So I purchased a ticket at one of the discount vendors on line and thought I'd be able to use public transportation to get from Anaheim to downtown LA; but alas, it would have taken 3-4 hours, more time than I wanted to invest. So I rented a car as I hummed the lyrics of Neil Diamond's song, Do You Know the Way to San Jose? ". . . LA is a great big freeway, put a hundred down and buy (or in my case rent) a car. . ." People had warned me that this trip, which is about 27 miles or 43.5 kilometres, could take up to a couple of hours during rush hour on a Friday afternoon and since I did want dinner before the 8 pm start, I left the motel about 4:30 pm. Well the trip that Friday night took only 45 minutes and even after a leisurely dinner and a glass of sangria, I still had plenty of time before the play began. So being the extrovert I am (and in my haste to get going I left my knitting in the motel), I found a lovely woman to talk to outside the venue.
She told me she lives in Seal Beach, one of the multitude of beaches in the Los Angeles area I had not heard of before our encounter. She had a wonderful British accent and loved the idea I was from Canada; it's a Commonwealth thing I guess. We talked about why I had come to Anaheim and the play, why she moved to California and why she knew so much about the play. She told me that although there are three puppeteers operating each horse, my eyes would soon tune them out after the play began. (I thought she might be wrong, but, no, she was quite right, within minutes I was watching a horse and not puppeteers.) The doors opened into the theatre and I didn't see her again.
So on to the rest of the story Jami told me this week at the fireworks. Her husband, John, was flying on July 10 out of LAX. He, like me, is a bit of an extrovert so as he's waiting he strikes up a conversation with a lovely woman from Seal Beach. He comments about his home in Vancouver and teaching at my university and the woman says she's recently met someone else from Vancouver at War Horse. Sure enough, John had found the one person I spent sometime talking to before the start of the play. She could talk about my job at the university, why I had come to Anaheim and it was obvious to John the two of them knew the same person, me.
Now Metro Vancouver has a population exceeding 2.5 million and Metro Los Angeles' population is pushing 18 million. What are the odds someone I know from Vancouver would bump into someone I had a casual conversation with from greater Los Angeles at the airport? Slim at best. (Some mathematician can give me the real odds, I'm sure.) Words just can't express my shock and awe about this event. It just demonstrates how absolutely small the world can still be. Synchronicity, baby, synchronicity.
My friend told me a story that raised goosebumps on my arms. There was something going on in California for me, I had so many wonderful interactions and this is a tale about another of them.
I flew into LAX on Friday, July 6 just before my professional conference began. My flight was a very early one so I thought I should find something to do since I had several hours of free time. The play, War Horse, was touring in downtown Los Angeles. Somehow Vancouver is in the backwater when it comes to getting award-winning plays. I saw Lion King, Wicked and Avenue Q long after they had been hits and seen what seemed like everywhere else. So I had no clue when War Horse might show up at home. This was my chance to see this play and I meant to take advantage of the opportunity.
If you don't know anything about it, which was also made into a movie, check out this link. It is worth watching all 2.5 minutes of the video so you get a sense of how great the puppetry is for this stage production. The horse puppets are so big a human can ride them. And having six or eight of them on the stage at one time is breathtaking, at least for me it is. (There's just a tiny sliver of that scene in the video.) It was the hype about both the London and Broadway productions that lead to my interest in seeing it for myself.
So I purchased a ticket at one of the discount vendors on line and thought I'd be able to use public transportation to get from Anaheim to downtown LA; but alas, it would have taken 3-4 hours, more time than I wanted to invest. So I rented a car as I hummed the lyrics of Neil Diamond's song, Do You Know the Way to San Jose? ". . . LA is a great big freeway, put a hundred down and buy (or in my case rent) a car. . ." People had warned me that this trip, which is about 27 miles or 43.5 kilometres, could take up to a couple of hours during rush hour on a Friday afternoon and since I did want dinner before the 8 pm start, I left the motel about 4:30 pm. Well the trip that Friday night took only 45 minutes and even after a leisurely dinner and a glass of sangria, I still had plenty of time before the play began. So being the extrovert I am (and in my haste to get going I left my knitting in the motel), I found a lovely woman to talk to outside the venue.
She told me she lives in Seal Beach, one of the multitude of beaches in the Los Angeles area I had not heard of before our encounter. She had a wonderful British accent and loved the idea I was from Canada; it's a Commonwealth thing I guess. We talked about why I had come to Anaheim and the play, why she moved to California and why she knew so much about the play. She told me that although there are three puppeteers operating each horse, my eyes would soon tune them out after the play began. (I thought she might be wrong, but, no, she was quite right, within minutes I was watching a horse and not puppeteers.) The doors opened into the theatre and I didn't see her again.
So on to the rest of the story Jami told me this week at the fireworks. Her husband, John, was flying on July 10 out of LAX. He, like me, is a bit of an extrovert so as he's waiting he strikes up a conversation with a lovely woman from Seal Beach. He comments about his home in Vancouver and teaching at my university and the woman says she's recently met someone else from Vancouver at War Horse. Sure enough, John had found the one person I spent sometime talking to before the start of the play. She could talk about my job at the university, why I had come to Anaheim and it was obvious to John the two of them knew the same person, me.
Now Metro Vancouver has a population exceeding 2.5 million and Metro Los Angeles' population is pushing 18 million. What are the odds someone I know from Vancouver would bump into someone I had a casual conversation with from greater Los Angeles at the airport? Slim at best. (Some mathematician can give me the real odds, I'm sure.) Words just can't express my shock and awe about this event. It just demonstrates how absolutely small the world can still be. Synchronicity, baby, synchronicity.
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