Saturday, November 07, 2009

The Night of the Parking Garage

Last night's theme was none other than a cement parking garage.

Everything we did, said, or thought about always pointed back to the big monstrosity!

What an odd thing, really. I don't think either one of us expected our night to be so dominated by such a creature.

My cool artist friend James had come down from New York City for a visit, and we went to First Friday to promote his work on Gallery Row.

We got there late 'cuz we had spent too much time here at my house, and the streets were dark yet packed with people bustling in and out of all the art galleries.

So, rather than begin the never-ending quest to find a parking spot on the street, we opted to enter the huge, multi-leveled parking garage. That's when it all began.

We parked on Level 5, mostly because 5 is a great prime number and also because the two other primes before it were already filled up. I posed for a pic next to the huge number, figuring this might be a nice addition to my math teacher website. :)

Once on the street, we decided to try his vintage Polaroid camera -- or, rather, decided to let a stranger figure it out, since we were busy dancing to the live Celtic music. :)

Polaroids are such a tease because you don't know what you've captured until the moment has long passed, and we walked for the next 10 minutes with dejection, certain that the gray blur on the film was the result of a bad aim with no flash.

But, shortly before we entered the gallery in which my friend Jack Myers was featuring his work, the gray blob had morphed itself into a fuzzy but recognizable image of us! And behind us in the photograph (although you can't see it very well here) was none other than the mighty parking garage. :)

On the wall before us now was Jack's beautiful photography, most of it being local architecture, and--in particular and quiet ironically--most of it was of the parking garage in which we parked and danced in front of!!

Here again was our large friend, smiling back at us with all his strength and cement. Indeed, he was everywhere we turned!! Almost the whole gallery wall was full of him, and Jack's ability to use lighting and angle made him look magnificent.

On our way to have dinner, we passed the garage again (and waved!), ran into my friend Jen, and somehow started talking about The Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift, wondering if we could pull off any of the drifting moves after-hours up on the top floor.

Once there, I spotted my 9th grade boyfriend (who I was pretty sure was on a date), then felt guilty about the fact that just the night before I had finally parted with the thick silver necklace he had given me that year (1993) for Christmas.

Yes, I had dutifully held onto it for 16 years but--on Thursday night when I was unpacking all my jewelry--I encountered it and offered it to my friend who was visiting. So funny!

Indeed, I will have to tell Tony about this silliness the next time I see him when he hopefully isn't on a date. I'm sure he won't even remember the necklace and will find it funny. :)

When the evening drew to a close and our car went down the spiral ramp, our beloved cement parking garage just did NOT want the night to end.

In fact, he was so stubborn that he REFUSED to lift any of his white-and-orange striped arms, and so we found ourselves STUCK inside him.

Perhaps there was no way out of him except to force our exit.

So James got out held up the orange-and-white arm with one of his, and I drove his car through -- both of us hoping the video feed would show us in a merciful light! If I never post on this blog again, then you know that they hunted us down and took me away!!