weekend at home
Super-low-key weekend, which means that even though I haven’t posted a regular update since Friday, I still don't have a huge amount to update you on from my weekend. It was kind of a nice change of pace, actually.
I did take myself to two movies over the weekend, at which Shobhit opted not to join me: first, The Wife at the Egyptian on Friday evening. It was good, Glenn Close was great, but the movie wasn't quite as great as I wanted it to be -- and, in my mind, tempered the Oscar buzz Glenn Close is getting for her performance in it. Second was We the Animals at the Uptown on Saturday, which was very good.
I was going to see that second one on Sunday, but moved it to Saturday when Claudia messaged me at work on Friday to ask if I was going to do the final "Store to Farm Bike Tour" on Sunday from the Burien store -- she was thinking she would do it. This was a 29-mile ride one way, and part of it I heard was super-difficult hills, so I knew I couldn't hack that. But when Claudia said she would pick me up in her truck and was going to just stop at the Burien store to see if anyone else showed up (probably not) and then drive to the trail and avoid the busy street and hills from there, after which the trail was "super, super flat" -- I changed my mind. And then? Claudia messaged me on Saturday to confirm, telling me she was okay with it if I didn't want to go -- I told her I was basically going only because she was, so I was okay with it if she didn't want to go. She said she just didn't want to go at "the butt crack of dawn" to be there at 9 a.m. and did I want to ride a trail somewhere else at 11 a.m. instead? I said I'd love to, so then we set a plan for her to pick me up at 11. I was in the middle of getting ready yesterday morning when she texted me again to apologize for "being such a flake" and said that after her two weeks in the UK she just wanted to be at home. She said she owes me "a fancy cocktail." I was honestly irritated by this last-minute cancellation and would much rather have never made the plan at all, but, whatever. What good would being pissy about it do me? I just texted her back, "All righty," and that was that. Shobhit, for his part, was happy to get the surprise that I'd be at home with him all day after all.
Getting back to Saturday, briefly, Shobhit and I did our grocery shopping before I went to the movie. It took us four fucking hours. Guess how many stores we went to this time, just to take advantage of not only the cheapest place for certain items, but to redeem coupons for certain stores? Six! Shoreline Costco to PCC Greenlake Village to MacPherson's Produce on Beacon Hill to Safeway off Rainier Avenue (where we briefly ran into Cavin and his, I guess, other-partner David) to the QFC on Rainier Avenue to Trader Joe's.
Yesterday, we didn't do anything all that special, just opted to fill the unexpected time together by walking down to the waterfront and to Pike Place Market, and then to Cost Plus World Market -- where there were items so deeply discounted Shobhit could not pass them up. 30% off, we now have two more bottles of Piña Colada Mix; also Margarita Mix and "Blood Orange" mixer and even a gazpacho bottle. We did not know we'd be buying anything and had not brought the reusable bag we usually have (we should maybe make it a habit of always carrying one, just in case) and took them double-bagged in paper sacks. We caught a bus back up Capitol Hill from Pike and Fourth.
Then we watched the 1976 version of A Star is Born starring Kris Kristopherson and Barbra Streisand, which . . . honestly, kind of sucked. I don't ever need to watch that one again. That's three of them down, though, and so we'll go see the new one with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga on the weekend of October 5. I'm relieved to be seeing early critical responses to that one are very positive.
We later also watched Real Time with Bill Maher (on which his vehement defense of Al Franken was a little . . . uncomfortable) and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and I also read my library book for a bit, and then it was off to bed.
I just got back from lunch with Karen at the Six-Seven Restaurant at the Edgewater Hotel with Karen, an unusual lunch with her on a Monday, as I had to reschedule it from Thursday this week. This week that's the day Gina and her friend Jennifer and I are reprising the day we spent together in 2015 at the Washington State Fair.
I got hung up by a phone call right before noon and wasn't able to leave until 12:00 on the dot, when I usually leave earlier -- it's also supposed to rain later this afternoon (well, maybe, and even then only before: I just re-checked the forecast and the late-afternoon hourly forecasts on my Yahoo! Weather app no longer shows "30% chance rain" but just partly cloudy skies; so much for bringing my umbrella today) and so I did not take my bike this morning. I did take a Lime Bike the second half of the way, but there's no sense in burning another dollar just to ride the half mile down to the Edgewater. So, I walked instead of biking today, which takes twice the amount of time. I was there in another ten minutes.
And then we split the gyro sandwich, as we have been doing rather frequently lately -- they no longer have the truffle macaroni and cheese special, and this is much cheaper and far fewer calories anyway. We had lively conversation as always, this time ranging from ambition to architecture. Then I walked back again.
I'll see her again this coming Sunday, when the 4-person free pass to the Woodland Park Zoo I initially got for taking Danielle and the girls will now be shared with Karen instead. Danielle was going to be going to a concert this weekend; instead, now, she'll be in Spokane for a friend's funeral. And Karen and I, and probably both our spouses, will be going to the zoo.
[posted 1:17 pm]