oh right I forgot
Okay let's go back a little ways for a minute.
I was updating the current draft of the next Social Review after yesterday's entry about the weekend, and it was unusually not up to date. I looked at my calendar from the previous weekend, and was reminded I had gone to see Ready Player One with Shobhit on Friday, March 30; and to Isle of Dogs with Laney the morning of Saturday, March 31. (I gave them a C+ and a B+, respectively.)
Thinking I just needed to find the blog posts in which I wrote about them, so I could link to them in the activity log on the Social Review, I went to look for said blog posts, and . . . oops! I never wrote them. Because I did not post any regular entries on Saturday or Sunday of that weekend (Sunday being Easter), and instead wrote all about Easter in my post the next day, Monday April 2. And Easter was all I wrote about -- I totally spaced on writing about the rest of the weekend!
So, I'm mentioning it here. Official documentation that I went to see those movies. Okay, I guess the reviews themselves count too but whatever.
I found Ready Player One to be pretty much equal parts entertaining and disappointing. No fewer than three podcasts I listen to had subsequent long discussions about it, and literally the only reason those discussions occurred was because Steven Spielberg directed it. That film could have been identical but directed by another person and people would not be talking about it to the same degree. And that's really the problem -- as I said in my review, Spielberg is better than this. The film has mixed reviews at best, and that phrase could also be applied to all those podcast discussions.
Isle of Dogs, although it has its own slightly problematic elements, was a far better movie-going experience. Laney and I both quite enjoyed it. I really thought I would be seeing that one by myself -- the original plan was to see both movies with Laney, but she had to tell me late the previous week that she was still feeling too sick and would not make it for either of them. I had even already bought the tickets in advance for Ready Player One, but Shobhit happily used Laney's ticket. When Laney tried to pay me back for it on the Light Rail platform Saturday morning, I refused it.
Laney texted me early-ish Saturday morning to ask if I was still going to see Isle of Dogs -- which Shobhit was also interested in, but he worked that morning from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. I told her I sure was, and she said she was feeling a bit better after all, and would like to come to the movie. She later told me that aside from quick trips to places like the grocery store, she hadn't been able to go out, certainly not socially, in three weeks! This because this cold kicked her ass so hard, she said, it was the sickest she had ever been in her life. Her doctor would not put her on antibiotics but did put her on some kind of steroid. She was still feeling tired, just from all it had taken out of her, on that Saturday, but by then she was evidently getting stir crazy and just wanted to get out of the apartment. She figured just sitting in a movie theatre wouldn't take too much out of her. She did admit to being quite tired after the movie on our way back up the hill on Light Rail, though.
Once I got back home and wrote my review that day, Shobhit and I spent much of the rest of that day preparing the foods we brought way too much of for Easter dinner -- the deviled eggs and the salad.
It's not often that I write about what I did ten and eleven days ago, but my OCD tendencies got the best of me today and I needed a record of something I did that would otherwise go unrecorded. I can't have that! Also, it gave me some filler for my usually much shorter Tuesday post.
I've had a spot near my left inside ankle itching like crazy the past couple of days. I've scratched it so much at different intervals I've actually wondered if I might draw blood. Two days ago I could not figure it out at all -- there didn't appear to be a rash or a bite or anything. It seems to have sort of evolved as of this morning, though: I think something definitely bit me. I've finally got what looks like a bite-bump. It must have been in my bed, I suppose? Whatever it was, it's fucking annoying.
I took myself to see Outside In last night and I quite liked it. I didn't even know it was set in Western Washington until I was watching it. Specifically it's set in Granite Falls, which I have never been to, but it's where my dad's sister, Aunt Penny, lives, and is where my cousin Tammy is from. I went to see on Facebook if Tammy still lived there and thus learned she actually lives in Edmonds. I had no idea she was that close. I mean, Edmonds is still no closer to my home than it is to Everett, I suppose; it's about 17 miles from either place -- and it's near the same distance from Everett, just in the opposite direction (southwest versus northeast), as Granite Falls, which is 16 miles. Granite Falls is just a hell of a lot more rural than Edmonds is -- Edmonds qualifies as "out in the middle of nowhere" by my standards, but it's also a suburb between Seattle and Everett. Granite Falls is legitimately out in the boonies.
Anyway. Yesterday was the one day this week expected to be dry and kind of warm -- high near 60° -- and so I finally got back on the bike and made my first bike commute to work this spring. But then, I basically did it twice: I was pretty exhausted riding up Capitol Hill the first time in five and a half months, but it did get me home by just after 5:00. And I was home for an hour, long enough for Shobhit and me to make pasta for dinner, and then I left for Lower Queen Anne at about 6:00 -- taking the bike. I thought about taking a LimeBike down and busing back, but decided, hey -- I have that light on my helmet and it shouldn't be too dark when the movie got out, so why not? I took my bike and rode again.
I should have done the bike share / bus option, but whatever, I survived. Riding back down there was obviously easy given it was mostly downhill. Riding back posed a couple of problems. First, I need to charge the helmet light -- it went out and would not come back on about halfway through the ride back. Luckily downtown is pretty damned well lit at night anyway -- it's actually far easier for me to be seen at night on this route than it was at night coming back from the old office in the U District. On the upside, they finally finished construction on the two-way bike path on 2nd Avenue that I was constantly riding outside of last year -- and it's wonderful and feels much safer; I love it.
The bigger problem, though, was the hairbrained idea of riding up Capitol Hill twice on the first day I did it in five and a half months. Holy shit, that was tiring, and a strain on my legs. I geared all the way down to 2, and when I'm well practiced on the route I never go lower than 4. Even then, just one block from my building entrance on 15th, at that point I finally got off the bike and walked it the small rest of the way up the hill.
I then took about an hour to write my movie review, after which both Shobhit and I were in bed around 10:30. All the exercise I did yesterday took so much out of me that I slept like a log, and even found it difficult to wake up and get out of bed this morning.
I'm not sure what night have made Shobhit so tired. He called in sick yesterday, so he wouldn't have to miss his first-ever Braeburn Condos board meeting. First impressions of that seem to be very positive for him; I think it's making him feel useful. He told me this morning "I used my PM skills for that meeting," and it clearly made him happy -- ditto some presentation for another thing he's doing for some organization, I think maybe Sachin is connected to somehow? I don't know the details. He seems to be finding the inside information he's getting from the meeting to be very interesting.
My weight was up again this morning, to 151.8 lbs, and I'm honestly unsure why -- except to theorize it's just a continued wave of effect from VegFest on Sunday. I really need to be careful about snacking between meals for a while. Having dipping cookies Shobhit got at the Indian grocery store last weekend for the sweetened chai we have every evening anymore isn't exactly helping -- but then, neither is grazing on snacks at work. I really didn't have a lot yesterday though. I guess what I really need is a day or two without any snacks.
I got some slightly disheartening news at work yesterday. My desk is going to move . . . yet again. I guess I'm luckier than many; when we first moved into this office in August 2016, Kibby's desk was right next to me, and she was moved two desks away months ago. And now, I guess, they want the Category Management Team -- Beth, Bryan, Kevin -- to be closer to the people in Deli, so they're going to come and take the desks now occupied by Scott, Noah and myself. Right now they are at desks on the other side of a bank of small conference and quiet rooms. Scott and Noah and I will be moved to those desks on the other side of that bank of rooms.
This is a very open office design so it's easy to walk over there on either side of said rooms -- half of which is one mid-sized meeting room, the other half being a meeting room half the size on one side, and two small quiet/phone rooms on the other. I often go into one of those phone rooms for calls to my doctor's office or to renew my Truvada and Valacyclovir prescriptions, so that's one (relatively meaningless) benefit: my desk will now be much closer to the only one of those rooms I ever use with much frequency.
The part that sucks is that right now I can see part of Puget Sound from my desk, which I have always loved. The desks in that other area are in a spot with that view completely blocked. I can see part of the Space Needle in the other direction, at least. Maybe they'll give me the desk closest to that side of the building but I sort of doubt it. In any event, the move is scheduled for April 20 -- Friday next week.
[posted 12:22 pm]