It Never Rains in Seattle

Have you ever met anyone from Seattle? If so, you probably noticed they had moss growing on them. Of course, I jest. As everyone from Seattle knows, it never rains there. It only rains when we're there . . . and we only go a couple times a year. Like this past weekend for instance. And even this weekend, it didn't rain the whole time we were there; some of the time we were there, it snowed instead.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Thursday night, I went out to Lawn Guy Land and stayed with Famous Actor, Justin Vetrano. He and I got up before God and headed for the airport. It had been raining for about 48 hours in New York, so my sneakers were completely soaked when I got on the plane to Seattle (which, of course, was perfect). Justin and I flew to Seattle, where Michael was waiting for us, having got up before God in the Pacific time zone, 3 hours after God got up on the east coast. (I'm assuming God has to get up in every time zone.) Then, with Michael, Justin, God and I all awake and ready, we met up with our friends Gretchen and Rachel, and headed off in search of food and coffee. Finding those, we headed to the church, for the first installment of the 10th annual Lost And Found Christmas Show.

As it turns out, we got there really early. So Justin dug around in the sacristy and found a costume that he tried on. He's thinking of maybe doing a monologue from the point of view of the Christmas Squirrel, but I told him I'm not so sure that's really in the Bible.




Not to be outdone, Michael thought he might do a brief presentation of the Christmas story from the point of view of the guy who worked in the restaurant where Mary and Joseph stopped on their way to Bethlehem.



Anyway, after all the shenanigans, we did in fact play a Christmas concert. And it went well, as a matter of fact. But beforehand, there was the little matter of drying off the keyboard.



I'm not saying it rains in Seattle, believe me. I mean, we all know that's just a myth. The keyboard got soaked in the five-foot trek from the car, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was raining. There could have been llamas in the parking lot for all you know, right?

Anyway, as I was saying, the concert was great. Justin was great. Rachel was great. Gretchen's opening band was really great. And all the people who braved the not-rain snow were beyond great.

Afterward, we packed it all up, and headed for a hotel near the airport, from which we all flew home to our respective towns where it was not raining. The next day, at my field parish, I knocked all four huge candles off the Advent wreath, and made a very noisy room go absolutely silent. I resisted the temptation to throw my fist in the air and yell "STRIKE!!!" (Mainly, because no one in New York City would get that it was a bowling reference, baseball fans that they all are.)

Oh, I almost forgot. If you have been to a concert in the past few months and we played "Slide Girl," there is probably a recording of it, which you can get for free by e-mailing troy@speedwood.com.