the calm before the transition
Typical Tuesday entry today: far less to say after a Monday entry about the many goings-on of the weekend. Last night, by contrast, was comparatively uneventful, although I did take myself to see the Oscar-nominated animated shorts at the Uptown Theatre at 4:30. I can walk there in barely under ten minutes, so I left work at 4:20 yesterday.
It got out at right about 6:00, and after I used the bathroom -- I didn't gave to pee but knew I could, and after my experience driving home from Tacoma on Sunday, I can no longer afford exceptions: always pee proactively! -- I went ahead and still walked home. I just wanted to get the exercise in for the day, and I listened to Fleetwood Mac's 1990 album Behind the Mask along the way.
Shobhit had a dish of zucchini and potatoes ready and waiting when I got home, and he even waited for me to have it. We ate it with these flat breads we got from Trader Joe's called lavash. Then, I went to the bedroom to write the collection of mini reviews of the eight animated shorts (five Oscar nominees, and three "Highly Commended" to fill out a feature length run time). It took about as much time to collect all the still images and write out the html code and links as it did to write the actual reviews, but I was still done in about an hour.
Then, I came back to the living room to finish that HBO movie I started with Shobhit, which he thinks is hilarious and has seen three times already, The Pentagon Wars. I did not find it nearly as hilarious as Shobhit did, but it was still pretty good. It's a little jarring to see a movie starring Carey Elwes that was ten years after The Princess Bride but was still made two decades ago. He was gorgeous when he was young. He's 55 now, can you believe that shit?
Anyway then I went to bed, and to my amazement, even Shobhit came to bed not long after 10:00. So not even Shobhit saw Ivan come home from his last day ever working as a nurse in Seattle.
So, this evening will be the last I see of Ivan before he leaves for good. He's to spend the day today packing and cleaning, and he expects two or three more rounds of things to take down to the storage unit in the garage. That's what he said on Sunday, anyway. He's going to leave the furniture in the guest room -- the bed and the small side dressert -- which actually works well for all of us: it leaves the room furnished and thus very useful for any guests we might have (including Ivan himself); and he doesn't have to worry about disposing of it. This is far better furnishing than my old futon I had in there before bringing in Delan as my first roommate back in 2010, after all.
I have some framed art work that used to hang on the walls in that room down in storage, and I've been thinking about bringing it back up and hanging it again. Otherwise, we might as well just throw that stuff away. Ivan also has glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling in there, and I actually hope he just leaves those there; I think they're kind of cool and fun.
He did tell me yesterday he booked his return ticket in the morning, and it'll be from Zagreb. He arrives in Seattle around 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 13 -- exactly three months after he leaves tomorrow. So, I've marked my calendar that he'll be returning that day to stay one night with us. He says he'll then move to Canada (Vancouver, specifically) the morning of the 14th. I keep thinking that's a potentially stressfully tight turnaround considering how much jet lag he's likely to be experiencing, but maybe he also just wants to get it done, which I can understand. I just hope we can get dinner or something that evening.
I did notice when looking at my Google Calendar that May 13, a Sunday, happens to be Mother's Day, not that that makes a difference to any of this. It also happens to be Shauna's birthday, so her birthday falls on Mother's Day this year. I keep thinking about how long it's been since I've seen her -- not since my last Birth Week. I'm going to insist we get together for my Birth Week this year. We need to see each other once a year, at least! Given she lives just north of Seattle, even that seldom is kind of pathetic. The pendulum really swung the other way once she had no reason to take me grocery shopping anymore.
Anyway, Ivan has his travel for the next two weeks and then that return flight from Zagreb (which is not far from where Kornelija's parents live, incidentally; I told him he can go say hi to them) all booked, but really nothing in between. We were talking about this over Facebook Messenger while I was at work yesterday and he basically said he preferred it this way, wanting to kind of wing it during the two and a half months he'll be wandering around Eastern Europe. I look forward to following along on his travels from home, and am kind of jealous of his freedom even to embark on such an adventure. That said, he's 32 years old and at that age I'd already been working for PCC for six years and been with Shobhit for four, and for me at least, there is far greater value in that stability.
Ivan says he's said many times before that he was done with being a nurse for good -- he said the same thing when he left living with me in Seattle the first time to go to school at Evergreen in Olympia, which I have also pointed out. But, the circumstances this time increase the chances, at least, that for once he could be right: Canada has a national health care system that makes it much easier for him to get some other kind of job that pays less. He's hoping to get into the cannabis industry. It'll be interesting to see where he's at with all that once I visit him in Vancouver sometime later this year.
[posted 12:27 pm]