*

Last evening was our final PhilaOrch concert of the season. We arrived at the Kimmel with plenty of time to spare. Himself went off on an urgent and necessary errand, and I saw down on that orange bench next to Door B of Marian Anderson Hall to people watch. A family caught my eye: there was a wife, a husband, another adult woman, a boy who was about 13 and a girl in a pink dress who must have been 5. Maybe 6. No, prolly 5. After a bit, she left the rest of the family and wandered over. Noticing there was still space on the orange bench, up she climbed.

After making herself comfortable and putting down the Hello Kitty book she'd brought along in case the concert was boring, she reached into her pink plastic handbag, withdrew a hair clip with a tiny bow and fixed it into her hair on the left side of her face. After swinging her head a big to assess stability, she put a matching clip on the right side. Again the head swing. And a smile.

She turned to me and asked, "Do you like my hair?" I assured her that I liked her hair very much indeed.

"Do you like my dress?" was the next question, and I told her that I liked her dress almost as much as I liked her hair.

She smiled happily and then offered, "I like your necklace."

"Thank you," I said, adding "Isn't it nice to have a friend who likes how you look?"

"Oh, yes," she told me and then her mother came and whisked her off.



*Please note this is a photo downloaded via Google, not a photo of the star of my story.