Taco Del Viaje
I didn't bike to work yesterday, for two reasons. Or maybe three. First, I had no bike helmet. Honestly, I would have been willing to ride without one -- I pretty much never do when I take a LimeBike. I even attempted to do just that, but then when I walked over to 13th and Union where the app said a bike was waiting, there was no bike to be found. And the stupid app still said there was one there even when I closed the app and re-opened it again, thinking maybe someone nabbed it while I was walking over there. Maybe the bike was invisible. A stealth bike.
That took long enough that I was right there over on Union when a #2 bus came along. I just hopped on that, which suited me fine because I am seriously into this novel I'm reading from the library, The Power. And this is the one bus that gets me from just a couple blocks from home directly to within just a couple of blocks of work, with no need for transferring or walking half the way. The problem is, it takes a pretty roundabout route, going down Union street and then turning up 3rd Avenue downtown until stopping just north of Denny Way on 1st. I actually get off on the last stop before it crosses Denny, which saves me a few minutes, so I can walk through the building across the street on Western Avenue and then getting to my building via the skywalk across Elliott Avenue. This is fascinating stuff, isn't it?
I did grab a LimeBike after work. I was grabbing a #41 northbound to Northgate to meet with Shobhit, and I had a plan. I decided waiting for the #41 at Convention Place Station was a bad idea -- the last time I did that, the bus was so full I couldn't even get on and I had to wait for the next one. I decided to ride a LimeBike to University Street Tunnel Station and grab a 41 there, before the last crowds got on at the last stop in the tunnel.
Convention Place Station is much altered at the moment, though. The tunnel stop there is closed, but buses are still driving through it. The stops have been moved up to 9th Avenue, which buses ride up a newly constructed ramp from (and to) the old Convention Place Station to get to. Other parts of the station are being demolished, so it's basically riding through rubble. It's an interesting sight to behold. This is in preparation for the eventual construction of the Convention Center expansion in that spot, and apparently buses will continue running through there -- but not stopping through March 2019. Light Rail already bypasses that stop as it goes direct from Westlake Station to Capitol Hill Station. Apparently after that, all buses will stop running through the tunnel and it will be reserved exclusively for Light Rail. Interesting. That's really going to fuck up 3rd Avenue with all those extra buses.
All this time I kind of assumed the Convention Station expansion would integrate the existing bus stop there. I guess not. In any case, it's an interesting sight as buses pass through the station right now, with demolition going on around it. I wonder if they only do demolition work at night? No construction or demolition work was actually happening when my bus passed through yesterday.
So then I met with Shobhit at Big 5, and I bought myself a new bike helmet. It was on sale and with Shobhit's discount I got it for well under twenty bucks. I even paid for the pair of shoes he also got.
We then went across the parking lot from there to get dinner at Taco Del Mar. Burritos for both of us. He asked if I wanted to pay or if he should, and I was like, "I just bought you a pair of shoes!" I only ate half my burrito and brought the other half for lunch today. I need to get my shit together with my food consumption. After last weekend I weighed in yesterday at an even 155 lbs. Yikes! I abstained from snacking well enough yesterday that I dropped back to 153 as of this morning. It'll be a miracle of I drop yet another 2 lbs by tomorrow but I'm hoping to keep this going. I can't just keep gaining weight.
Then we drove home and I did laundry. I also updated my budget with some recent notable expenses:
*Ivan is coming for a single-night visit this weekend -- he had initially asked for two weekends after that, but just this past weekend changed his mind. He agreed to come with me Saturday evening to the newly renovated Space Needle observation deck, which with its new glass floor has many people I might otherwise ask to come with me pretty dead set on not going. The tickets are timed entry and so I purchased them yesterday, for 8pm because that's the time at which the $5 per ticket discount kicks in.
*I've long been planning to visit Vancouver to hang out with him -- Ivan -- the very next weekend, and I finally started with actually booking things. I clearly waited too long on this when it came to lodging. At first I thought I would be doing AirBnB for the first time, as I sent a request to book a room in a house all of 12 blocks north of Ivan. Stupidly assuming that would probably work out fine, I booked the BoltBus tickets (leaving Saturday the 18th at 6:30am and leaving Vancouver Sunday the 19th at 5pm) before I got a message back from that AirBnB host, that they had just booked a trip out of town and would be unavailable to accommodate me. Then why the fuck was the date listed as available? That was a rather annoying way to experience AirBnB for the first time.
There was actually one other AirBnB listing even closer to Ivan, and it was super cheap (like thirty bucks), but probably because of how ridiculous it was: checkin after 9pm ("no exceptions") and checkout before 8am; and the place to sleep was just her couch in the living room, with a sleeping bag provided. Uh . . . no. And until I ran into that snafu, I was refusing to book at either of the hostels with available rooms as it appeared they only had shared bunks in rooms for six to eight, and I just wasn't going to do that. The problem after booking the BoltBus tickets was that I could find no regular hotels within reasonable distance with a rate any less than something like $225, usually more. Then I discovered the Cambie hostel, which does not have the greatest reviews online but I guess I'll live, had not just a location in Gastown but another one between Gastown and downtown -- and I could get a room in which I shared with just one other person. Choosing between that and a too-expensive regular hotel, I went ahead and booked that. It was the last 2-person room even that place had available, and otherwise the options were again rooms with 6 or more. Shared bathrooms. This is the kind of thing I once said I would refuse ever to do again, but here we are. It's just one night. Who knows, maybe after this I'll swear off of it again. I'm just in a position now of trying to save as much as I can and not spent a whole lot for a single night's stay somewhere. This certainly saved what I thought I'd be spending on lodging: the AirBnB place that didn't work out would have cost me $107 CAD; this will now cost me about $57. I don't intend to spend a huge amount of time in the room anyway, and I also like that it's only five blocks from Vancouver's Steamworks. I went there once in 2010 and I'd like to go again. Pretty much every other city's bathhouse is better than Seattle's.
So, anyway. Three things I either paid for or booked yesterday: Space Needle with Ivan in Seattle this Saturday; BoltBus and hostel in Vancouver the following weekend.
Shobhit, for his part, is going out of town himself this coming weekend. He's finally decided to go camping on his own without me, which I've been encouraging him to do for some time. I've been telling him for ages there is a gay camping group, and I guess this weekend they're having this special "foam party" event. He's going to leave on Friday and come back Sunday. I saw on their website that in camping areas that are not in view of the public, it's clothing optional. Shobhit will love that.
He's had camping equipment, unused, the whole time we've been together -- but never went camping because camping isn't for me. (I last did that in 1996.) He has a camping stove, a tent, and a sleeping bag. We brought all that, plus the smaller cooler, up from the storage unit last night. He put together the tent right in the living room to make sure it still could be set up. Blades of grass spilled out of it and he said, "That grass is fifteen years old." Well, not it's inside the vacuum cleaner.
I'm still hoping to visit Danielle's friend Jeanna with Danielle in September. Should I manage to make that happen, it will absolutely be cheaper than my trip to Vancouver: Danielle will drive and my only expense there will be to help pay for gas. And the whole point of this trip is to visit Jeanna and stay in her house in the middle of the woods north of Spokane, so no lodging cost either. That'll be my cheapest travel of the entire year. After that I still would love to visit Faith in Palm Springs for Thanksgiving, but whether that has much chance of happening remains to be seen. I'm still hoping.
[posted 12:22 pm]