This past weekend was a busy one for me. I had a few life-maintenance tasks that I need to complete in order to fool my parents into believing that I live a well ordered and adult life in Seattle when they come to visit this next weekend.

I also wanted to read Eleanor and Park. Loved it.

I went to work on Sunday from 9:15-6pm and ended up walking 5.25 miles while I was there and it wasn’t even a busy day. Thanks pedometer. That’s when I realized I am basically getting paid to sell clothes and get a workout. Five miles of walking without even trying?! That’s pretty good.

Saturday morning I got dressed up, curled my hair, threw on some lipstick and recruited my sister C. to film me wandering around Ballard in my Bulgarian national costume for a charity event called Faculty Follies at my old high school the American College of Sofia. Now I did more than just wander but I don’t want to ruin the surprise for any of my old students at ACS.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/13407549484/" title="All dressed up by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7157/13407549484_f1dd72fb38_z.jpg" width="100%" alt="All dressed up"></a>
Here’s the thing that surprised me: nobody really even blinked at me wandering around town in this elaborate costume. Sure there was a little staring but no one mentioned the fact that I was wearing a fancy dress and filming clips on a cell phone. Not even when I bought two coffees at my local coffee shop did anyone say a thing. I thought for sure that the girl at the counter would say something—but not a word.

I expected a nod, a cat-call, a comment of some sort, some recognition if even just a look or a raised eyebrow that I was dressed up in a costume on a random Saturday morning in March.

But nope. Nothing.  

What is going on in this city?!

Is Seattle really this nice, this polite and this accepting that no one says a word? Or is there so much weird stuff going on in this city all of the time, that no one blinks and no one has any energy or interest left to do double take anymore? Have we reached a saturation point where no one <i>really</i> looks at anything?

I realize there’s a flip side to this whole thing and it’s this: maybe I am not as interesting as I’d like to think that I am even in Bulgarian national costume. Alternately, maybe no one wanted to engage me because they thought I was a crazy person. Maybe though, I was just too beautiful in my national costume and I left people speechless. <i>Ha!</i>