Here I thought I would have to attend this year's March for Science -- which I only knew about because I happened to see some reference to it on Facebook, like, yesterday -- on my own. But Marie, from the IT Department at work, happened to see me at Cal Anderson Park, and we wound up marching together. She hadn't been able to come with anyone else either.

When I texted Gabriel my tweet with the photo of the Star Wars characters, he indicated he wasn't even aware the march was happening -- The hell? he wrote back. That happened today? I'm so out of touch... So, I guess it's slightly possible he could have come if I had told him about it. I only recently found out about it myself, though. He is a science teacher, though, so that's a bit amusingly ironic.

Shobhit did not join me for this one and instead stayed home to work on prep for the lunch/dinner for which we are inviting his cousin Abhishek and Vinaya (and, presumably, one or both of their kids) tomorrow. We did plenty of shopping for this both last night and this morning -- last night because Laney wound up having to cancel Happy Hour due to working late. Shobhit and I walked to QFC for tomatoes and one other thing I forget. It doesn't matter. We watched a bit of TV. Shobhit watched a lot of news about President Fuckwit bombing Syria.

We decided we would go to Macpherson's Produce Stand and to Costco this morning, before I went to the march. We also decided to go out for breakfast and split a plate. I looked up places near Costco, which did not open until 9:30 and we were in the vicinity by about 9:10. We wound up at a place called Hudson with pretty high user ratings on Yelp, and we split a very delicious omelet with veggie sausage in it. It was just the kind of old-school diner atmosphere we loved to find in New York and Los Angeles, and I can imagine seeking that place out again.

We got to Costco close to 10 a.m., which was when the march was scheduled to start -- but those never start on time, so I really wasn't worried about it. By the time we were done there, had made it back home, and I left as soon as we brought the bags upstairs, it was nearly 11:00. It was well past 11:30 by the time the march actually started, which kind of surprised me given how much smaller the March for Science crowd was this year than last year.

You can go to the full photo set on Flickr (31 shots) to get this information (and much more) in the captions:

This was notably smaller than last year's March for Science, which I did not actually march with but did get 16 photos of the rally as Shobhit and I walked through it on our way to the final clearance sale at American Apparel. (It was also on the second day of my Birth Week last year and was the same day we went to Wolf Haven.)

I have a theory that there are three reasons for much smaller crowds at this year's March for Science: 1) march and protest fatigue (this was my ninth since President Fuckwit was inaugurated, 15 months ago); 2) chilly and wet and intermittently rainy weather; and -- perhaps most importantly -- 3) really poor promotion.

Anyway, it wasn't long after I arrived at Cal Anderson Park, an walked around getting about ten photos at the rally, before Marie found me. So that's Social Review points for three people from three separate events today -- Marie for the March for Science; Shobhit for going out for breakfast (actually a motivator for his encouragement of going out -- the Social Review point); and then after the march, luch with Laney.

I had originally figured I would go along with the march just to downtown, and then turn around and come back up to meet with Laney -- who had offered to meet for lunch today when she had to cancel Happy Hour last night. With Marie marching with me, though, and the march actually getting downtown a bit faster than anticipated (in spite of it starting later than expected, albeit not by much), I walked nearly the entire way to Seattle Center. I didn't part ways with Marie until we were literally across the street from the MoPop Museum. And then I walked part of the way eastward on Denny way, because transit stops for several blocks were closed on Denny for the march.

A #8 happened to be coming up just as I passed Westlake Ave, however, so I got on a bus for, I suppose, the next half mile or so. I met Laney at her place and we walked together the few blocks up to a Thai place she really likes on North Broadway called Rom Ma Thai.

I honestly hoped they'd have cocktails there so I could have one in lieu of this month's Happy Hour outing, but alas, they had only beer and wine. I had two cocktails last night at home anyway. And I'm going to have another after I post this entry.

We both had "Lunch Combos" and even now, four hours after finishing it -- or rather, being unable to finish it -- I am stuffed. I won't be having dinner. Or I suppose I'll be having a cocktail for dinner. I should have brought the leftovers home for Shobhit, but had figured it wouldn't be necessary since he was already cooking so much. I helped him with the last bit of chopping for maybe half an hour when I got home, after we took a quick walk up to Cantral Co-op for just a couple of things (and I am now $25 over budget), and then I came to the bedroom to embark on processng the march photos. That was probably close to three hours ago now.

Anyway, there's so much going on this weekend I figured it would behoove me to get an entry posted today instead of trying to write about the entire weekend in Monday's entry. I really thought I would see a movie today but I've had enough action for one day. I'm even going to cancel my free tickets to an architecture tour tomorrow, I think, and just try for that again in warmer and dryer weather later in the year. I think we'll keep the focus tomorrow on Abhishek and Vinaya's lunch visit.

[posted 6:12 pm]