I have an editor from The Seattle Times who still calls me "Chihuly" when I call him to catch up a bit.It all stemmed from a night when I was an intern at The Seattle Times newsroom, when political reporter David Postman was stuck in traffic, and then-First Lady Hillary Clinton was supposed to come to Dale Chihuly's house on the north end of Lake Union for dinner one evening after a day of campaigning during an off-season election in the summer/fall of 1998.
My editor, who will remain nameless, thought it would be wise to send me in rush hour traffic to Dale Chihuly's house, where I would wait for Hillary or David, or both, and if David showed up, then I was off the hook, and if Hillary showed up, I would go in so that there was SOME representation from The Times, if not the best one.
So I went to Dale Chihuly's house, and there I sat, chatting with the Secret Service agents whose job it was to make sure Hillary was safe.
One of them said their first introduction to the job when they were out of the Marines was to park them at a door and say "Make sure no one comes through that door. We'll be back in 6 hours."
I was glad to not have their job that night.
David Postman showed up, and so I didn't get to see the inside of Dale's house, or meet him, or Hillary either.
But I got to appreciate his art more, and I got the nickname of "Julie Chihuly" from my editor, who said that he thought I should marry the rather eccentric artist for no other reason than my name would make the fine rhyme that it does with Chihuly on the end of it.
So last Saturday, when I went to The Portland Art Museum and saw this piece, I took a picture of it, which was against the rules...and thought: Yeah, sure, I could have married Dale Chihuly, if he was shopping for a wife..."
But instead I'm at the PAM stealing pictures of his work with my beautiful kid and the man I really love with all my heart, whose name doesn't rhyme with my first, but that's quite fine by me.
Life is Good.
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