west seattle field trip
I had a pretty low-key evening yesterday, first walking straight home from work, then doing laundry. Shobhit heated up French onion soup for dinner, with which we combined deep fried sliced potatoes inside a breading of his devising that was kind of similar to the breading he makes for samosas. It was almost agonizingly delicious. Seriously, whatever problems Shobhit and I may ever have in our relationship, if he really wants to keep me around forever, it may very well be that all he has to do is cook me delicious food. The thought of life without his cooking is almost too much to bear!
We watched the Netflix movie The Laundromat, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring seemingly every actor alive. There were countless famous people in that movie in what can only be described as bit parts, including Sharon Stone. Meryl Streep was first billed, but she was barely onscreen any more than Antonio Banderas and Gary Oldman, who basically served as narrators as well as playing basically the chief villains.
I give the movie a solid B. Entertaining enough, I'd say. Shobhit complained about a third of the way through of it being "kind of boring," which he does of just about anything that doesn't have naked men in it, so I take those comments with a grain of salt. I think the movie did engage him a bit more soon after that, but I think still he probably wouldn't give it any better than a B-. Oh well, it gave us something to watch.
Then we watched two episodes of Cheers on Netflix—for the first time via the Netflix app on the Comcast DVR. I didn't even realize it was offered as an option there until Noah mentioned it during a conversation at work yesterday. I was happy to find another source other than the Apple TV box, which has had intermittent color imbalances since I bought the thing, probably nearly a decade ago now. There's also an Amazon Prime Video app there, and I should check and see if there's an HBO Go as well. I know there isn't a Hulu one, but I am likely to cancel Hulu soon in favor of subscribing to Disney+, which I don’t do unless I cancel one of the streaming subscriptions I already have. In this case I don't even need convincing by Shobhit; the number of streaming subscription services I have is ridiculous already and I have no business adding another without removing one too. And, I still can't live without what's offered on HBO Go or Netflix. (Amazon Prime Video is just bundled as part of the Prime subscription which is already worth paying for to avoid a lot of shipping cost. Yeah yeah, Amazon is evil, blah blah blah. I also live in the real world.)
Anyway that about sums up my evening.
The reason I'm posting later than usual today, though, is because Scott finally followed through on his suggestion that he drive me out to the new West Seattle store—which just opened October 2—so I could see it, and we could have lunch there. I brought it up again at our weekly meeting with him and Noah on Monday, because he was talking about how, starting next week, he'll be out of the office a lot more often again in the lead-up to the Ballard store opening, which is officially set for November 13—all of six weeks after the West Seattle opening. So, I said, why not do the West Seattle lunch this week, before that starts?
And, Scott and Noah do store tours every Thursday as general practice, which meant he was to be out and about anyway. He only ever came into the office today to use the restroom when he came to pick me up. He had told me yesterday he would come at 11:30 but he arrived half an hour early and got here at 11 instead. I already assumed this excursion would take at least two full hours out of my day, and it did; I just got back by around 1:00 instead of 1:30.
And: the West Seattle store is very nice. It's far more spacious and has a lot more natural light than the old store, which was in the same location before this otherwise residential complex was constructed, did. There's also an interesting art installation above the registers area made of a huge, thick rope and reclaimed sail cloth cut out like a giant used them with scissors and folding papers. When I first heard about it, I thought it sounded kind of cool; having seen the finished piece, I have mixed feelings about it.
I think Scott made West Seattle basically one of his official work stops, so I waited around for quite a while as he talked to who I assumed was the Dairy Buyer. I had some sample cheese from the nearby Deli section. Then, he bought me my sandwich and LaCroix lemon sparkling water along with his own lunch, and we ate together up in the small cafeteria style seating area that is one floor up and overlooks the whole store, which was probably my favorite thing about that store. It was very cool. Jeff, the Beer and Wine Merchandiser, and Peter, the Associate Merchandiser who works with him (he is to Jeff as Noah is to Scott), happened to be there and eating their own lunch at the table behind where we sat.
Then Scott drove me back to the office and dropped me off without coming in. He said he was off to the Fremont store, so I presume he's making it to a minimum of three stores today, maybe even four. As expected, about half the time out was just driving out to West Seattle and back. It was cool driving down the waterfront with downtown so opened up by the removal of the Alaska Way Viaduct. I still maintain getting rid of that thing was one of the greatest things to happen to this city in decades.
Anyway I really need to pee so I guess I'll post this and get back to work.
[posted 1:32 pm]