Paparazzi? No.

There are quite a few celebrities from Pugetopolis, and some of them live here. Some were born and raised here, and some settled here to get away from it all. Some have even settled on Vashon Island. I used to enjoy running into John Ratzenberger at the hardware store, but he went back to LA years ago.

I don’t see many celebrities when I’m in Seattle. I’m not there that often, and tend to be in doctor’s offices when I am. Doctor’s offices are not celebrity hangouts, at least around here.

A couple of weeks ago, in between doctor’s appointments, my grandson and I went to lunch at Ivar’s Salmon House on Lake Union, probably my favorite place to eat out if I’m not in my usual Taco Time mode.

As we approached the door, a group of five or six people walked in front of us and into the restaurant, and I noticed that one of them was Dale Chihuly. He’s pretty unmistakable – a dumpling of a man, with a curly gray halo of hair, and a black patch over his left eye.

Yo ho ho.

As he and his companions walked ahead of us into the restaurant I leaned over and whispered to my grandson, “One of those people is Dale Chihuly!”

“Who’s Dale Chihuly?” my grandson asked.

Okay, fair enough. I tried to give a thumbnail account: famous glass artist. Museum in Tacoma, another at Seattle Center.

This is not the sort of art that my grandson finds of interest.

We went inside and were seated in a far corner of the restaurant, where flies buzzed against the windows, but the view of the water was good. I looked around and realized that half a restaurant away I was looking at Dale Chihuly again, this time seated in a chair in the aisle at the end of a table.

“Ooh!” I said. “I’m going to take a picture!”

“Don’t!” my grandson said, his teenage mortification bristling.

I pulled out my not-so-smart phone, with its not-so-great camera, aimed, and shot.

The kid hung his head in shame.

The picture was mostly of the inside of the restaurant. In the middle was a small dark rectangle, and in that rectangle was the tiny profile of a seated Dale Chihuly.

And it is sideways!

I emailed the picture to myself, put the phone away, and we had lunch without my further embarrassing my grandson.

When I got home I downloaded the picture on my computer, and when I blew it up to screen size, I could actually see a person sitting there, and even the tiny sliver of his black eye patch in profile.

Yo ho ho!

I emailed the picture to a friend, saying, “Here’s my paparazzi picture of Dale Chihuly. You can see why I’m not a paparazzi.”

Truly. It’s a barely distinguishable picture, and what tabloid is paying for unrecognizable pictures of Dale Chihuly eating lunch?

So I have definitely crossed that off as a career option, or would have if I’d ever had it on a list of career options. No paparazzi here.

Singing and writing, those are the things I can do, and embarrassing my children and grandchildren. These are my gifts. I shall stick with them.