Weekend Runner 2049
Okay. How did I spend my weekend? Let's see if I remember. Almost every Monday I literally have to look at my calendar, and sometimes my social media posts, to remind myself.
I got paid on Friday, and Shobhit worked noon to five on Saturday, so Friday was when we went grocery shopping. It seemed like it would be a quick trip to PCC but, once we'd had our dinner (which I cooked while waiting for Shobhit to get home from work), the whole endeavor still took about two hours. We went to the Apple Store first. Shobhit got a replacement cord for his iPhone charger. I tried to get store credit for my iPad that mailing it in for a gift card didn't pan out for; they tried to say my device's screen was separating and it clearly wasn't, so I think they got my device confused with someone else's. But, they also said I could exchange it for store credit if I also purchased something new at the same time, so: that should give me a nice discount on the iPhone X coming in November.
We went from there to a pet store to try using a Chinook Book coupon for kitty litter. The coupon was for $5 off $30, and the large bag of litter was $35. It's only $31 at Mud Bay and Shobhit asked them to price match, which they did last time too, but then they told us they wouldn't do both -- price match and accept a coupon. So Shobhit was like, "Okay thanks" and did an about-face. I noted to Shobhit that we'd still get it cheaper if I just used the coupon at their original price. He said he likes Mud Bay better, but I know him: he was just being spiteful, annoyed that they wouldn't do both. In the car I said, "You know that if you were the business owner, you'd never allow customers to combine discounts." He agreed, but then insisted he'd never inflate the regular price to begin with. I think that's bullshit: he would charge what he knew customers would pay, like any business does.
So then we went to PCC. Oh! And I almost forgot about this part, and Shobhit will be pleased that I remembered. Just like the last time we went grocery shopping, he picked out a slice of cake from the bakery, which we sat down to eat in the Deli area at one of the small tables after we purchased our groceries. We did this solely so he'd get a Social Review point. His logic this time was that he wants to stock up on points where he can, since he's going to miss out on 25 days of opportunities while he's in India -- he leaves on Monday next week, and does not get back until November 10.
When we got back, we all watched Ivan's Netflix copy of Ghost. And about an hour into the movie, I noticed these texts from Danielle, who had no idea we were watching it, and which she had sent about an hour earlier -- thus, right around the time we had started the movie:
Dirty Dancing came out in 1987. We were 11
Ghost came out 1990 and I remember seeing that with your mom and brother at the movie theatre
It turns out, Danielle was also watching Ghost that night -- with her kids. And also Dirty Dancing, I guess. It sounds like she's on a bit of a kick with showing her kids older, beloved movies from our childhood. In any case, I was a little bowled over to get that text in the middle of watching the movie ourselves.
Ivan told me he had seen Ghost before but it had been a while, and that he always loved it. The movie is a tad dated now, but Whoopi Goldberg's Oscar-winning performance holds up best. She's great in it. Anyway, I noted to Ivan that I was 14 when it came out, and it occurred to me that at the time he would have been . . . five.
Also, Danielle and I later figured out that I was likely not with her, or with Mom and Christopher, when they all saw it, likely in the summer of 1990. I would have been with Dad and Sherri, and probably saw it with them in Olympia.
In the course of Danielle's and my texting, we wound up deciding to hang out on Saturday. She at first was suggesting Friday but Shobhit's and my shopping, and an apparently mild headache on Danielle's part, precluded that. I told Danielle I was going to see Blade Runner 2049 on Saturday afternoon, and mentioned she probably wasn't all that interested. But she was just like, "I need to get out of the house so I'll join you." Okay then! I decided not to mention that movie is two hours and 43 minutes long.
The movie was in a smaller screening room at the Meridian downtown, and just to double check, about two hours before showtime I got online to find out how many seats had been sold -- more than half. I decided to ride my bike down there real quick to get our tickets. I had initially told Danielle to aim for getting to my place at 12:30; with Shobhit at work, she could park in our garage. Now I was texting her that she didn't need to arrive that early anymore since I had the tickets -- although I still wanted to get to the theatre by 2:00. The plan was for her to drive up from her home in Renton and park in our garage, then we’d walk the mile down to the theatre. So, it was best that she at the very least leave home by 1:00.
I had texted her multiple times and even tried to call once, with no answer until at 12:26 she texted, K. I'm walking my dogs then I'll head up. Then, nothing for a solid hour -- at 1:24 I texted, Close? She called me back minutes after that, saying she had only just headed out. There was no way she'd make it to our garage and then get downtown on time. After I successfully suppressed the urge to get seriously bitchy about this (the worst I got was when she said on the phone that she "was pushing it with time" and I said, "Why do you do that?"), we agreed we'd just meet down there and she'd have to park downtown. So then I walked down.
And then this kind of amazing thing happened. I had just turned off Pine Street onto 7th, with the Meridian at the south end of that block, and I saw what looked like her minivan turning the corner toward me. I thought, no, that can't be her. But it was! She drove into the garage entrance right past me and I told her I'd wait in the lobby. It was 2:00 on the dot when she got to the lobby, so everything worked out perfectly in the end. Well, except Danielle had to pay twelve bucks to park, which she could have avoided with better time management. But, I also just covered her ticket since she covered my dinner before the Janet Jackson concert a week and a half ago so it all evened out anyway.
Incidentally, even though Danielle said "I'm just not that into sci-fi" -- something I even referenced in my review -- she was never bored by the movie, at least. She never complained about how long it was. I think that's a pretty good testament to how good it was -- as in, about as good as could be expected with a movie that had this level of pressure and expectation on it. Being worth anything higher than a B+ would have been a miracle. It's impressive it's even worth a B+. In any case, I'm glad I saw it, and very much look forward to seeing it again, this time with Laney, at Cinerama this Friday.
Danielle then gave me a ride home, and now she parked in the garage. She was still with us for much of the rest of the evening.
I made us drinks (Moscow Mules), and we waited for Shobhit to get home from work, and he had a drink too (whiskey), and soon thereafter we all walked to dinner. Shobhit wanted Thai food. I looked up coupons in the Chinook Book app and found one for a place called Soi, over on 10th and Union -- all of six and a half blocks away. I ordered a drink there that both Danielle and Shobhit took sips from while I was I the bathroom and when I returned they declared it disgusting. I will freely admit it was not worth $11 and I could have spent that much less on dinner without it, but it wasn't that bad.
Shobhit wanted dessert, and declared we would go to Cupcake Royale to use another Chinook Book coupon: two-for-one ice cream sandwiches. We basically all three shared the two ice cream sandwiches, although I didn't touch the half of the one Shobhit ordered with coffee ice cream. The other half was red velvet cupcake ice cream though and that went well with the cinnamon gingersnap cookie. The one I ordered was salted caramel cupcake with salted chocolate chip cookies.
I thought Danielle might hang out longer, but she was getting tired and decided to head home. We walked Danielle down to the garage to let her out, then Shobhit and I went to get his car from the street parking and bring it back to the garage. Shobhit and I went back upstairs and attempted the New York Times crossword puzzle, but I was completely zonking out by 9:30 and went to bed. I then woke up maybe three hours later and proceeded to have a terrible night's sleep, I don't know why. The ironic thing was that I was still fine all day yesterday; I slept like a log for a solid seven hours last night; and today I'm weirdly tired and struggling not to nod off at my desk.
No Social Review point for Shobhit yesterday, though! That one goes to Ivan: we walked to Broadway to have lunch at The Pho', the place with cheap tasty pho' and service so reliably terrible that this time when we were ready to go we just walked to the counter to pay.
That'll be the last Social Review-qualifying time with Ivan for at least another couple of weeks, as he's taking a weekend trip to Portland next weekend. It's just as well, since that's the last weekend with Shobhit before he leaves for India. I should spend at least a little more quality time with him on those days. I do have plans with Laney Saturday evening but Shobhit is also free to join us.
Anyway, Ivan gave me a bit of a scare the other day, on Thursday, honestly rather pointlessly in the end. Although he was officially switched to "on-call" a few months ago because he hated his boss so much he technically quit but kept higher-paying "on-call" hours until he could find a new job, he's still had regular scheduling in the meantime -- and also in the meantime, said horrible boss quit, making him hope to get the permanent position they still had not refilled back. But, according to him, their communication has been terrible, and he was so frustrated with it that he messaged me to say "This probably will not happen, but I feel I should tell you now there is a possibility that I will be moving out within the next month" -- he wants badly to take his trip to the Balkans before moving to Vancouver as always planned, etc. This was always the plan, actually; we just had an understanding it would not be for another year.
My initial reaction was, What! And then, as we exchanged texts in which I attempted to commiserate and be understanding, I realized how unrealistic it was that he'd actually be gone in a month. That kind of logistical planning would really need more time, I think. So, I didn't text anything about it to Shobhit, as I didn't want to worry him needlessly about losing rent revenue. And, by the time I saw him Friday evening (the one day between last weekend and next weekend he's gotten off work -- he works swing shift and yesterday's lunch was before he left for work), he came out of his bedroom as I was making dinner to say, "Well, I'm staying!" It was literally later that very same night he had messaged me about this -- Thursday -- that someone finally came to talk to him and offer him the permanent position back officially. I guess they had told Ivan they were interviewing several people and he was one they were considering, but when he said if he can't have the position back then he's quitting (even to be on-call, I guess), then they offered it to him.
So. We dodged that bullet for now, I guess. But it does underscore something Shobhit and I should probably keep in mind: the possibility that, for whatever reason, Ivan could wind up leaving earlier than expected, at shorter notice than expected. I still feel like in all probability, Ivan will be with us until fall 2018 as originally stated, but Ivan does change his mind about things frequently. On the plus side, the change is usually more on the side of postponing decisions, rather than making rash ones. He could very well wind up staying even longer than through the end of next year -- something I would have mixed feelings about. I love having him around and as a roommate, but it really doesn't matter who the roommate is, Shobhit and I really need to move on from the roommate scenario and finally get back to having the place to ourselves sooner than later. We literally haven't lived in the condo just the two of us since early 2010. That's seven and a half years, and by fall of 2018 will be eight and a half years.
Not long after Ivan and I returned from lunch and he went off to work, I took the fifty-minute walk to meet Shobhit at Starbucks, and from there we drove to my office so I could pick up my sample 12-pack of toilet paper I've had here for months, waiting for us to work through the Costco pack we'd just purchased when I got the sample at work (which has been in my desk drawer all this time). We also went to both Metropolitan Market and Safeway to use up the last three of my "free 12-pack of La Croix" sparkling water coupons a broker gave me some months ago. You can only use one coupon at a time, so Shobhit and I each used one at different registers at Metropolitan Market. Then we went to Safeway on Capitol Hill to use the third. I've got a lot of sparkling water at home now.
Shobhit asked if I wanted a pumpkin spice chai tea latte when I got to Starbucks, and I was like, yeah! It didn't occur to me that he'd want some, or much, of it -- and I sucked that thing down like my life depended on it. Shobhit was annoyed and I suppose in that instance he was justified. I had it in my mind that it was mine and he didn't want any, because he had asked if I wanted one.
This is a fundamental difference between Shobhit and me (among many): he grew up with a very communal mindset when it comes to sharing things. If he had his way, every meal we ever ate, whether at home or at a restaurant, would be something we shared -- even when we order two separate dishes, more often than not we split each one and transfer our half to each other's plates. A lot of the time, I just want my own meal. And it rarely occurs to me to share even something like that chai tea latte. And I ascribe this to my own upbringing: when I was growing up, between Mom, my brother and me, we split everything meticulously equally as though the food were being rationed. Order a large pizza? Twelve slices, we each get four slices. Period. Dozen doughnuts? We each get four doughnuts. As long as it was easily divided (so an exception would be, say, a large pot of pasta), this was how we ate everything throughout my childhood. As a result, to this day I have to be very deliberate in changing my mindset that I have my own meal and that meal is mine only.
A lot of the time this still annoys me because Shobhit can pack it in like nobody's business, and if I let it go unchecked then I literally get far less of whatever we're eating. Shobhit nearly ate an entire loaf of blueberry bread from our freezer last night, which I'd had a single slice of, and he would have had I not grabbed the third of the loaf still left and put it back in the freezer. So you know, this whole "sharing" thing would work better for me if I didn't end up getting the short end of that stick more often than not.
Anyway. I was maybe 12 or 13 when I first realized this rigid way of dividing food was not how everyone does it. I was with Dad and Sherri once and we had ordered pizza, and I counted all the slices and said, "We each get three slices." Sherri was just like, "I might want four!" She wasn't actually saying she wanted four, only that the possibility remained open. In other words, you just get however many slices you eat until they're all gone. The downside of Mom doing it the more rigid way is that I was conditioned to think I was being treated unfairly if someone else got more to eat than I did. That's maybe not such a good thing, and as a result if someone tries to take bites from the food on my plate I have to restrain myself from stabbing their hand with my fork.
Anyway, where was I? Oh. Shobhit and I returned home, and we watched my Netflix copy of Diner, a movie mostly famous for featuring an ensemble cast of unknowns who nearly all went on to become famous: Paul Riser, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Ellen Barkin. We were all of five minutes in when Shobhit declared, "I'm already bored," but in the end he wound up paying attention the whole time. I found the movie to be . . . okay. Whatever, I can say I've seen it now.
I just got back from lunch with Karen at the Six-Seven restaurant at the Edgewater Hotel. I rode my bike there and back, and even though it's sunny today, I should have worn my jacket. It was a bit nippy -- looking at the NWS Seattle website, I see it's currently only 60°. Well, actually that doesn't seem too cold. Maybe it's because I was riding right by the water. It's always cooler on the waterfront. In any case I would have been more comfortable with my jacket on.
Karen and I split the Portabella Macaroni and Cheese as usual, and although I really should have only eaten half of it, I just have eaten 75% of it. Karen is a little person and just by design can't eat as much. I could eat the whole damn thing if I threw caution to the wind. It's just so fucking good. Shobhit would never like the price -- before tip but with tax, it worked out to $11.40 each, and that's just for one dish -- but I'm thinking I should have him join us one of these days just so he'll understand. I don't think he'll ever truly understand until he has it. That dish is fucking worth the price! It's worth the calories, even.
It's 1:22 pm now though and I usually end my lunch break at 12:30 so I should get back to work.
