On Mystery Dates and Dates of Mystery (slightly edited.)

On Thursday, Ivan took me on the 2nd Seekrit Mystery Date! We walked downtown again with me peppering him with questions: Are we going to SAM? Are we going to ACT? Are we going to the Fishthrowers Ball? But the boy was as closed mouth as a clam during red tide.

We reached Benaroya Hall at 7:00 - our destination!- and I still had no idea what we were seeing challenged as I was by my date to figure it out myself. Lot's of people, but it's the Symphony so it's hard to define the crowd much more than 'mixed age groups'. With time to kill, we sought out a source of coffee that was not Starbucks. Walking toward 3rd Ave I read the posters on display while Ivan fielded a work call. Suddenly, it jumped out at me: Great Sci-Fi themes with special guest George "Mr. Sulu" Takei!


We had kick-ass seats 6 rows from the stage and they started the evening in the best possible way with the Theme from Star Wars. Readers of Ivan's Bike to the Burn blog will recall that this song holds a special place in his journey, but I have to tell you that for me listening to it live with a full orchestra brought up the most amazing visceral reactions and memories: I was ten years old again in the summer of 1977 watching "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." scroll up the screen and I was so freaking happy I was almost in tears. Sigh...

So, anyway, George "Mr. Sulu" Takei! came out about half-way thru the first half, dapper in his black tuxedo and cheesiliciously acting the part of Mr. Sulu having just beamed down from the Enterprise to introduce one of their musically talented crew members, Lieutenant Plumley, who sang the wordless aria of the Theme From Star Trek. It was pretty cool and George "Mr. Sulu" Takei! has a fabulously sonorous voice. Overall, the evening was great. Benaroya Hall has amazing acoustics and the Seattle Symphony was in great form. The only dud in the program was that they insisted on performing the much-hated Theme from Star Trek: Enterprise. Seriously, Worst.Theme.Song.Ever. Unlike, Ivan, who is Best.Boyfriend.Ever.

So, to thank him for this bounty of Mystery Dates (#3 is happening in October), I decided to arrange a Date of Mystery! Very much like a Seekrit Mystery Date, except that I would arrange it and not tell him what it was. I hope you all appreciate the HOURS I spent with a patent lawyer hammering out that distinction. Anyway, based on an experience we had on our last full day at Burning Man and things he said afterward, I started to look for blimp/zeppelin rides. Turns out that it is impossible to arrange one unless you own your own blimp/zeppelin. But what I found was pretty freaking cool: a powered parachute ride!


Simplest explanation is that it's kind of like a go-cart with a propeller on the back and, of course, a parachute.

So this past Sunday morning, after going to bed around at midnight the evening before (damn you on-line Scrabble!), we got up at 5:30am to be on the road by 6:00. Calm winds are more common in the morning, so I needed to get him on the airfield by 7:00am

I managed to not reveal my surprise until we reached a McDonald's in Arlington near the airfield we needed to get to. Perhaps it was the leather wearing Christian bikers that inspired me to do so, but I think I was just too darn excited to hold it back any longer. As it turns out, he found out what we were doing a mere 15 minutes before he was strapped in and taking off into the misty horizon.

I went up about 30 minutes later with Mike, a former Marine helicopter pilot, and I must say there were some serious tug-of-warring going on in my mind. Reptile mind was screaming: What the fuck are you doing? Get out of the sky!!!, while rational mind was calmly observing: Oh, look! Cows! I stayed aloft (500 feet, 30 mph) for only about 15 minutes because it was overcast and really cold, otherwise I could have stayed up much longer. It's not a naturally occurring instinct for me to be up in the air (especially exposed as we were), but I can see myself getting accustomed to it with time and experience. Maybe I'll even learn to fly one myself!

The only downside to the whole thing is that, in terms of Dates of Mystery, I think I've blown my wad on this. I'm not sure I can come up with something to top it. But it sure will be fun to try...