Here is what I did on Friday evening: the third and final of this year's Three Dollar Bill Cinema Outdoor Movie at Cal Anderson Park -- the only one of this year's that I made it to. I told Shobhit he could just come and meet me there later if he wanted, when the movie was to start just after 8:00 pm. He took me up on that offer, not wanting to come and wait there with me for an hour beforehand. I took the outdoor folding blanket, found a nice spot I never would have gotten had I gone over there later, and read my library book, and occasionally people-watched. It was quite pleasant, actually.

Shobhit, ever the skeptic, didn't seem all that eager to come, but he did -- he gets a Social Review point for this, after all. He was really ino the movie once it started, though, and afterward I discovered, to my general surprise, that he had never seen To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995). He easily saw the similarities to the Australian film from the year before, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which he declared was a much better movie (which I have always said as well). Nevertheless, Shobhit was rapt, and it was fun just to glance over every once in a while and see the expressions on his face. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he clearly had a good time watching that movie in the park with me that evening.

And then, on Saturday morning, we decided to go out for brunch -- I told him I would go, when he asked if I wanted to, if he paid for it. And he agreed! We drove down to E Marginal Way S to this diner we both really like called Hudson, ordered an omelet and huevos rancheros, and each split both plates.

He didn't have to go out to eat with me that day to get a Social Review point, though; Jennifer came to spend the first of her two nights on Saturday, and having a guest overnight automatically ropes Shobhit into a Social Review point anyway.

So, before starting this blog post, I spent a lot of time writing the captions for the 30-shot photo set on Flickr that I have for this visit with Jennifer -- rather more than I expected, actually; excluding when I stayed overnight in Shelton with her and Eric for parties of one kind or another, it's the most I've taken for a visit with Jennifer whose purpose was just visiting Jennifer since she came to stay with me in Seattle, which was in October 2012. That wasn't even the last time she came to visit Seattle -- that was January 2015, and for that I took all of seven photos. That was right after Ivan moved out from his first stint living here, and I had suggested we take advantage of my condo being empty between roommates -- and also give me a bit of company in a time when I was feeling super lonely.

The first time he lived here, Ivan removed his bed, so the guest room was empty and Jennifer still had to use the hide-a-bed in the living room. When Ivan left again earlier this year, though, he left behind his dresser and his bed, knowing we had no plan to have another roommate, and thus leaving our guest room furnished with what he insists is a very comfortable bed. So this time, for perhaps the first time ever, Jennifer had a bed to sleep in that was in a private bedroom. I think she makes three times now that we've had guests overnight in that bed since Ivan left -- the other two being Shobhit's friend Sachin, and then Uncle David and Mary Ann back in May. Ivan has also come back and visited multiple times, of course.

Anyway! Shobhit had been considering going camping again this weekend, which I would have preferred as it would make it easier for Jennifer and me to visit independently, but the weather was not warm enough for it and so he changed his mind. It was overall still fine, and Jennifer and I did get a fair amount of time to ourselves. I will say that Jennifer was much more polite to Shobhit than he was to her -- he kept complaining about my having made our dinner reservations for 6:00 last night, insisting it was too early. He did this even after I already explained that I made the reservations before I knew for sure he'd be home for the weekend, and it was the time Jennifer preferred. How does he not understand that he shouldn't bitch about a decision that had been made in consideration of a guest? Finally I actually said to him, "You're bring rude."

Jennifer later commented that observing Shobhit and me bickering alernated between reminding her of her own marriage to Eric, and reminding her of Grandma and Grandpa McQuilkin. In any event, Eric drove Jennifer to Bremerton from Shelton, about a 45 minute drive, and dropped her off to take the ferry across the Sound to Seattle. She barely managed to catch the 5:40 ferry, and I did at least have this benefit to Shobhit being home for the weekend: I had the car this time and thus was able to drive down and pick her up and drive her back home, instead of having to take the bus.

We just spend the rest of that evening at home, and we made ravioli and salad for dinner.

And, I was able to spend a few hours with Jennifer downtown yesterday -- Shobhit could have come, but he had zero interest in seeing The Happytime Murders, which Jennifer really wanted to see. So, after I made us all omelets for breakfast (knowing Jennifer hates cereal; she has ever since we were kids -- she's a weirdo; she doesn't like spaghetti either, but I double checked and she does like ravioli), Jennifer and I walked downtown and saw the 11:05 am showing of the movie at Pacific Place.

From there we walked to The Chocolate Box, where we are in the photo above, to partake in the wine flights plus chocolate for two, which were part of a Groupon gifted to her and Eric for Christmas last year and which expired in March, so she could only spend the value of what had originally been paid for it.

Or so we thought! Jennifer got more than had been promised by the nice lady who first waited on us (and also took the picture), because she left for a bit and another guy took over for her. After having the wine and chocolates, which were all delicious, the new waiter guy just went ahead and offered Jennifer the choice of either wine glasses or a bottle of wine that had originally been part of the coupon, and Jennifer opted not to correct him. She took the glasses, and she gave one of them to me to keep.

She also bought a glass of the wine that we both liked the best in our flights, the only one that we both got -- and this morning she left it in our refrigerator, later telling me she was gifting that to us as well.

We walked a little through Pike Place Market after that, and then walked back home again. This was more walking than Jennifer was used to so her legs were sore -- something Shobhit acted like he couldn't believe, as it's "only a couple of miles" (we probably walked a total of three at least), and he seems to forget that very few people actually walk as much as he and I do.

The movie Sleepless in Seattle came up while Jennifer and I were walking back, and Jennifer said it had been a long time since she had seen it. Oh, right -- it came up because we were walking up the same sidewalk right by Pike Place Market that Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner are seen walking down in one scene, and I mentioned that. So then I looked up all my streaming services to see if the movie was available on any of them, and it is indeed on Amazon Prime Video. Thus, we killed time until it was time to go to dinner by watching that.

Jennifer had thought we might have some of the Beecher's Cheese and crackers she bought at Pike Place while watching the movie, and when Shobhit indicated he wanted to save room for an expected large dinner at The Melting Pot (knowing he might still be at home, at the very least I did still make reservations for three when I made them, just in case), Jennifer just kept that stuff on the kitchen counter. She even also brought back confections as a gift for him from See's Candy, as he had mentioned how often we go in there for their free sample, which I thought would impress him more than it seemed to. To be fair, he did thank her.

Still, when he was in the bathroom after we got to The Melting Pot, Jennifer said at one point, "He seems to control when and what you eat." I was slightly taken aback by that, both because there really is a general appearance even to others that Shobhit is way too controlling -- but, I would still not go so far as to say he is to that extent. And to Jennifer's credit, this morning she actually gave me her own version of an apology (apologizing is really never something Jennifer does) -- she said, "I shouldn't have said that," and essentially took it back, admitting it doesn't really look that way. She even admitted that it was a better plan not to eat so soon before that huge dinner we all had.

The dinner, by the way, was stupendous -- Shobhit had been a little disappointed to see The Melting Pot only had an average rating of 3 out of 5 stars on Yelp, and I couldn't say why that would be. This was a first time there for both Jennifer and Shobhit -- for some reason I had assumed he had been there before. I had been at least twice, maybe more -- once or maybe twice back in the day, evidently before Shobhit, with Danielle; at least once with Hadley. I can find no record of having gone since going with Hadley in 2007. That was a bit ago.

At Shobhit's predictable suggestion, I looked up The Melting Pot on Groupon -- and they had a coupon! Dinner for two, a value of $103 for $62 -- 40% off. Score! So, we offered to cover dinner. Jennifer did order a couple of cocktails she paid for herself, but dessert was not included in the Groupon and there was no way we could go there and not get chocolate fondue ("Bananas Foster," the melted chocolate being white chocolate, pictured above), so Shobhit and I also added that to our tab.

Having dinner at 6:00 proved a very good idea in hindsight, actually, as the whole thing took us more than two hours -- and we didn't even get the main entree dishes until about 7:00 anyway. So Shobhit can shut up about that. It started with cheese fondue with breads and vegetables and apples to dip; then salads; then the broth in the fondue pot for the main entree items to be cooked in. The entree part with the broth was nothing like Shobhit insisted it would go, as he said "Trust me" and then was proven wrong immediately. Why does he insist he knows stuff he knows nothing about? But, then we had some unsureness about the fact that we'd all be sharing the same broth and Jennifer had meat items to cook in it. I finally piped up with this genius idea: Shobhit and I, who were sharing a meal usually meant for one, would cook all of our vegetarian stuff first, and then Jennifer could cook her steak and her duck in it. And, that worked out perfectly fine.

The chocolate fondue for dessert was, of course, the fucking best. It was the first time I'd had it with white chocolate -- I did like it a lot, but I like regular chocolate better and will want to go back one day to get it that way again. Perhaps when they have their half-off Happy Hours in the bar, which Shobhit of course loved hearing was an option there.

We had driven down there, and found free street parking only three blocks from the restaurant with surprising swiftness. We then drove back home and had chai while we played Cards Against Humanity, which Jennifer wanted to do because she had never played it. Playing with only three people makes it a little more of a challenge for it to be as effective as intended, but we still got quite a few good laughs out of it.

As for today, Shobhit worked all day -- he had already been schedulef for 8 to 4:30, and then he texted me later that he was picking up another shift at a Shoreline store from 5 to 10. I just had leftover salad from Saturday night's dinner for tonight's dinner.

I rode with Jennifer across the Sound to Bremerton, where Eric and his brother and the kids were already there to meet up with us to go to the Blackberry Festival. I was trying to decide where I would go to find myself some lunch there, as Jennifer ate her garlic prawns and rice, when Eric suddenly came up to me with a handheld pita with falafel in it. He'd ordered it without the feta cheese, not knowing if I would like that (give me cheese! -- it was still good without it), but it served well as my lunch. And then Jennifer wanted a slice of blackberry pie a la mode and bought me one too.

We didn't spend a whole lot of time there, but we got what we came for. Eric felt bad leaving me at around 1:45 when the next ferry back to Seattle was not scheduled until 3:00, but I told him I would be fine. I just barely missed the 1:30 ferry. And then? I discovered Kitsap Transit has a "Fast Ferry" for passengers only that gets across in half the time -- 30 minutes -- leaving at 2:05. And they accepted my Orca Card! I didn't have to pay anything for it; I got across much earlier than I thought I would; and the boat moved twice as fast. It was my lucky day.

And then! One more thing! PAX West, the gaming convention, was in Seattle this weekend, and Gabriel and Tess came into Seattle to attend the final tournament of Fortnite, which they both love playing, happening in a temporary tent that had been constructed in a parking lot on Pine and 8th. Gabriel wasn't quite sure when they would get out of it, but he finally texted me back when I was just getting into Capitol Hill on the bus. I decided to get off and walk the half mike or so back when he told me they'd be out in about half an hour.

That gave me plenty of time to walk down to Pacific Place and use the bathroom. I'd ay that in the end they got out more like 45 minutes after he texted me it would be half an hour, but that was fine. We all went into the Caffe Ladro across the street and I think Gabriel thought I was a tad sneaky by using my Chinook Book 2-for-1 coupon to get a free drink after he got himself and Tess drinks he was buying anyway. Hey, if you have a way to get yourself a free iced chai, you take it!

Gabriel and Tess were dressed as Fortnite characters with which I have no familiarity. They posed for a picture with another person walking by dressed as a bush -- or, according to Gabriel, a "bush camper."

I walked with them as they made their way back to the main PAX West stuff in the Convention Center, getting signatures from apparently famous Fortnite players along the way a few different times. Two of the guys they got signatures from, I must say, were very cute. Very young too, okay -- but still cute.

So I didn't spend a huge amount of time with them, but it still counts! Social Review points for Gabriel and Tess! My guess would be that I spent maybe 45 minutes with them. They went back into the Convention Center and I walked the rest of the way home, where I went to work on my photos. And here I am. I concurrently washed all the sheets and am now washing all the towels. Exciting stuff! I need to put the sheets back on the beds now.

[posted 9:14 pm]