emotional closure (etc)
Okay, let's see how quickly I can get through the goings-on of my weekend, which was all-Shobhit, all the time -- he gets Social Review points for all three days! -- although I did share Laney with him on Friday, as she shared me with Jessica: all four of us met at Diesel for our monthly Happy Hour at 5:30.
I walked my super-fancy bottle of tequila to a bus stop and then bussed it down 3rd Avenue to Pike Street, where I was able to catch a #11 pretty quickly, and get home about 15 minutes earlier than if I had walked, giving us barely enough time to feed the cats before heading over to Diesel, which is all of two blocks from our place, easily the closest-to-home I've ever done Happy Hour with Laney before. (Seems fair: we've done plenty that were only blocks from her place.)
Diesel is a gay bar, specifically a "bear bar," and yet there were even more women there Friday evening than I'd ever seen before -- three others even besides Laney or Jessica, one of which was even holding a small dog at the bar. We found a couple small tables to sit at behind the bar, and had ourselves a pretty good time. They pour double shots in their Happy Hour well drinks, of which I had two Tequila Sunrises.
I did this thinking we might open the fancy tequila afterward at home, but we did not -- and we still haven't. I wound up agreeing with Shobhit that whenever we bust that open and have our first taste, our palettes should be clean. We should not have that right after having cheap well drinks. Shobhit was fond of pointing out that shots are typically marked up three or four times the cost of liquor, and consider that this 750ml bottle of liquor cost $400. If you assume one ounce as a shot, that's about 25 ounces in the bottle, or $16 per shot. Mark that up three times, and you've got a typical bar value of at least $48 a shot. Holy shit!
Anyway we haven't opened the tequila yet. We did walk over to the condo afterward just so they could see the box and the bottle, though. Shobhit was clearly tired and finding an excuse to get back home -- he lay down on the bench with his head in my lap and an employee came over and said "Sweetie you can't lie down in here." Laney and Jessica only stayed at the condo long enough to see the tequila bottle, pet the cats a bit, and then they headed home.
We both went to bed much earlier than usual on Friday, which meant waking up much earlier than usual on Saturday, and so I got right out of bed and into the bathroom to get ready, so we could go to Glo's on Olive Way for breakfast -- something he had suggested we do over the weekend, but briefly on Saturday suggested maybe we should wait, but I was like, I am almost never up this early on a Saturday, we should do it today. We made it over there by 7:30 or so, and had only to wait for a table to get bussed before we were seated. Had we arrived even an hour later, we'd have waited another hour just to be seated.
I ordered the eggs Florentine and it was worth every penny. Shobhit ordered the veggie omelet and we took half of it to go, eating the rest for lunch later.
We spent much of the rest of the day shopping, since I got paid on Friday (new 2019 pay rate, except it was applied only to the four days in 2019 that were part of the pay period, so my check was actually smaller than it will be next time and from then on): Costco, Ross Dress for Less -- where I got a wireless speaker system marked down from $70 to $30, five days before they're to close for good; just a few things needed at PCC Greenlake Village; then to University Village to try and get my suddenly faulty iPhone battery replaced.
Except! My iPhone 6s was out of warranty. The guy tried really hard to find evidence of there being any issue before December 8, in which case they would have replaced it for free, but, no such luck. Now the question became, should I pay $49 for a replacement battery on a phone I've been thinking I would probably upgrade sometime this year anyway, or just upgrade now and avoid that $49 battery replacement? It does mean spending more now (though the alternative result would be cumulatively spending the most in the long run), but I chose upgrading now. So, now I have an iPhone XR. I want to say this is my . . . fourth? iPhone. I think. They're all still called Ewan the iPhone. So I guess this would be Ewan IV. Anyway the camera is not as good as the depth I'd have gotten with the more expensive XS but I did get the 128G phone and for once, I now have my entire music library on my phone itself, and after 12 years no longer need the iPod classic for that one purpose.
I did get reminded this morning that the new phones no longer have the standard jack for headphones, so my old headphones don't work -- thankfully the phone comes with a new pair that has the lightning jack. But, it does mean I can't listen to music and charge the phone at the same time anymore. Not until I get wireless headphones, anyway, and those are really expensive. In any case, getting this phone on the Apple Upgrade plan they do now, I've added another forty dollar monthly expense to my budget. On the other hand, unlike every single other time I've gotten an iPhone, I have avoided a several-hundred-dollar one-time charge on my card. Also, I traded in my old phone for a $220 credit, which leaves me at a net positive for the first three months or so. Okay, really just one month, since I also bought a new phone case and the glass protective screen yesterday at the AT&T store. I still get a 50% discount through Shobhit for that, though, so that's cool.
Anyway! Time spent at the Apple Store on Saturday -- their new store at University Village was a complete surprise to me; it's apparently been open since June 30 of last year but it's been longer than that since I have gone there -- was much longer than originally expected. We then went home and started watching Barry on HBO Go, which is a great show. Highly recommended!
So that brings us to yesterday, when Shobhit and I took a walk downtown to take a look at the Alaskan Way Viaduct, now empty of all traffic since it closed forever at 10:00 Friday night. Lots of people have expressed emotional goodbyes to it; I guess traffic came to a standstill at that very time Friday night, as people stopped their cars to get out and have an impromptu party. Others scoffed at this, and although I honestly won't miss the thing -- the views from the top of it were spectacular, but the views of it from the ground were always awful -- I found it to be pretty harmless fun. I wasn't that bummed not to be there since I've got the first weekend of February all booked up already, complete with company including Dad and Sherri and Gina and Beth (not to mention Shobhit), for the "public goodbye" events. And honestly I'd far prefer the ability to walk along the viaduct than just drive across it one last time anyway.
We looked at it yesterday from the requisite spot, Shobhit's favorite place in Seattle, Victor Steinbrueck Park by Pike Place Market. That view is going to change radically, systematically over the next few weeks and months.
We went over to World Market to look around a bit, then back through Pike Place and then to the AT&T Store for the aforementioned iPhone accessories, before having lunch at Veggie Grill. That was a little bit of an ordeal because we both tried to redeem $5 coupons that had been emailed to us, and the manager told us it could only be redeemed online and not in the app, even though the coupon literally said it would be valid in the app. To be fair, he was very helpful in the end, both before and after he discovered our issues were actually due to a Seattle-area server being down. No wonder the online web page refused to switch our ordering location from Los Angeles. In any case, we finally got our lunch and it was tasty. We took the bus back home and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening finishing up with Barry, and other odds and ends.
I did not see any movie all weekend. Can you believe that shit? It's just because nothing particularly intriguing opened this week. This evening I'm going to stop at Pacific Place on my walk home from work and re-watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. With no better options, it's totally worth seeing again, and will be the sole movie I actually go see this week. On the upside: no new review to have to write.
. . . And so begins the "Period of Maximum Constraint," which felt nonexistent this morning. I got some new photos of the empty viaduct, usually busy that time of morning, on my walk from the bus downtown to work. Elliott Avenue actually seemed to have less traffic on it than usual. Helen mentioned in our meeting with Scott and Noah this morning that lots of people are taking today off. Noah estimates it'll be Tuesday next week before we have any real sense of new traffic patterns.
I really do have to get back to work now.
[posted 12:56 pm]