So! I met Gabriel's new girlfriend last night. Is that even kosher to call her yet, I wonder? The woman he's dating. I can tell you one thing, he was damn near giddy when he was over, and it was clearly just because of how enamored he is with her -- and I only mention that because of how nice it was to see, how long it had been since I had seen it. He and Shobhit even got along great, for the second time in a row that they were around each other!

They weren't over for a particularly long time, but they stopped by for maybe roughly an hour, right after the Oscars had ended. I wonder if Gabriel will head here to see what I wrote about it? I know his mom will see it. Hi, Janine! Gabriel used to spend a lot of time scouring my blog for mentions of him, but any time it comes up in conversation with him anymore, he'll say something like, "I can't remember the last time I looked at your blog." He jumped ship on Facebook and Twitter some time ago, maybe blogs are just part of that. He's got his own thing going on!

I suppose it's possible Lea will find her way here, to see this photo she had expected me to post to Instagram but never did (mostly because I was too distracted with social media posting about the Oscars themselves). She did admit she had looked up both me and Shobhit on Facebook, after I had also admitted I looked her up -- unless or until she and I friend each other on Facebook, though, all I can see is a few photos. Her line of work understandably has her wanting most of her Facebook content to be locked down.

What's the verdict, then? How does Matthew feel about the latest woman in Gabriel's life? Everyone is dying to know, I know they are! I actually told Gabriel not long ago that my first impression of his last girlfriend had me thinking of her as . . . "a little much." She seemed fun, but also there was something subtly forceful about her personality, and by extension about Gabriel's clear eagerness for me to be into her. I only mention these things because they are clear differences between her and Lea, who, at least upon first impression, seems much more grounded. She's also involved in a lot of research and therefore has a fairly scientific mind (in spite of her saying Gabriel's interests are in "hard science" and hers are in "soft science"). I know it's only one meeting (for me) and therefore impossible to judge, but at the very least, based on both my first interaction with her and what I know about Gabriel's time spent with her so far, she is neither psychotic nor "hippy-dippy" in any way, which are two steps in the right direction! (I feel it also relevant to note that in her very academic line of work, she could never get far were she either of those two things.)

Now, there's also this: Gabriel has been going to movies with her that he would previously not be caught dead at, which does give me a little wtf? in the way of vibes -- they had just come from seeing, of all things, Isn't It Romantic, a pseudo-meta-romantic comedy I would call "fine" and I would frankly expect him to consider an abomination and an outright affront to all humanity. But, you know, this is what "new relationship energy" (something I mentioned last night) does to people.

In any case, they met in November; have been dating since last month; and already have scheduled plans as far out as September this year. That is only an observation, not a judgment! I mean, shit. Shobhit and I moved in together two and a half months after we met. I am in no position to judge or make premature predictions; life always has a way of taking things to places you didn't expect at all. All I can see is Gabriel seems really happy right now -- and, in sharp contrast to his last relationship, this one does not have "rebound" written all over it -- and that genuinely makes me happy. (Speaking of which, Danielle had a bit of vastly overdue excitement of her own on her trip to Florida and the Bahamas this month, which had me beyond thrilled for her as well. I guess February has been a good month for those in my inner circle.)

So, anyway. We also broke out the superfancy bottle of tequila. Shobhit and I had both agreed that, of all the people we know, Gabriel would best appreciate the quality of a liquor of this kind. So I said, "You want a shot of our $400 bottle of tequila?" (To clarify, the listed retail is $320 -- still a hell of a lot -- but with Washington State Taxes I still paid four hundred dollars. I'm not sure what difference in impact there is between a casual reference to a "three hundred dollar bottle" versus "four hundred dollar bottle," anyway.)

That's what we're all holding up in the photo above -- about half a shot each of the Seleccion Suprema Añejo Tequila a broker tried and failed to gift me, and then I just went ahead and bought a bottle myself. Shobhit and I have now drank from it three or four times, albeit always a tiny bit at a time. Now that we've shared it with Gabriel, we may not break it out again for several weeks or maybe even a few months.

Both Gabriel and Lea were suitably impressed with it. Shobhit insisted on serving it in these fancy little goblets he long ago brought back from the Dubai airport -- quite the pairing with authentic Mexican tequila, but, whatever. Shobhit was never one for cultural nuances per se.

So does this qualify as an "Oscar Party," then? I'm going to say it did! Even though when Gabriel called to ask me if the Oscars were still on, there were only two awards left to give out -- Best Director and Best Picture -- and he said, "We're coming for the last two awards, then." Had I known he was coming after all (he texted me earlier in the day he would not be able to make it), I would have vacuumed. He's so allergic to cats that if he touches cat hair and then touches his face, he'll swell up, apparently. I've never seen it, but whatever!

And they the didn't actually make it until the ceremony actually ended. I had set the DVR to record right after he called, though, so when they arrived, we re-watched those two awards, so Gabriel could delight in Alfonso Cuarón's win for Best Director for Roma, and then groan like I already had when fucking Green Book won Best Picture. It was Crash all over again, albeit with one key difference: I'm not sure a vote for Green Book was a vote against anything else, whereas many votes for Crash were definitely votes against the superb gay love story Brokeback Mountain (which, just like Roma this year, did win Best Director -- a split between those two categories is increasingly common). This year, a vote for Green Book was just an older white person patting themselves on the back for their "progressive" tastes, with no regard for that movie's countless problems.

Lea then spent a whole lot of time petting Shanti -- even apologizing for it, as if that would ever be necessary! Petting the cat too much? A love of cats is another vote in her favor as far as I'm concerned. In fact, in that picture in which we're all holding up our little goblets, you can barely see part of Shanti's front paw at lower left in the frame, right above Shobhit's arm -- Shanti was laying there, in her apparently new favorite spot in the whole condo, and Lea spent most of the time sitting right there petting her.

I was rather happy they came by, and even if it was sort of barely after the fact, rendered the evening an actual "Oscar Party" instead of it being just Shobhit and me on our own yet again. Last year and the year before, Shobhit and I went to the live screening of the Oscars at Central Cinemas. As it happens, with Shobhit at home this year and two guests, this officially makes 2019 my biggest "Oscar Party" since 2010, the last year I actually sent out invitations and suggested people dress up -- that was the last year Barbara attended. Then things changed thereafter since Shobhit moved away for the next six years and Barbara moved back to Virginia permanently.

Even if four isn't that many, and they didn't come by until the very end, getting the numbers higher than they have been in nine years makes me happy.

-- चार हजार चार सौ छियासी --

-- चार हजार चार सौ छियासी --

As for Ivan's latest visit, after he and I went to the Lusio light show at Volunteer Park and then the renovated Space Needle in August; and even after returning to Neko Cat Café and the Marrakesh for dinner in November, this visit was pretty uneventful. We could not find any local events to attend, or hell, even any movies we were both interested in to go to. As such, the only "outings" we had were a couple instances of going out for dinner.

The first of those was The Marrakesh, yet again, on Friday evening. I took like three, pretty nonessential photos while there; I wanted a photo set to mark the occasion of his visit for my Flickr collection of photo albums, but this album contains all of seven shots -- not one of them even featuring Ivan himself. In any case, this rendered The Marrakesh, where he met me for dinner Friday evening at 5 p.m., pretty much the highlight of Ivan's visit.

To be fair, although there was definitely an element of interest on Ivan's part in just being in a city he kind of misses (especially as long as he's living in Bellingham), this visit was largely business as well: he had a bunch of mail to pick up (thankfully including an official change of address, so our receiving his mail should slow down significantly now), errands to run and the like. We would have gone out to do something else on Friday after dinner if we could think of something, but we wound up just going home and watching the DVD copy he "lent" me well over a year ago, before he even moved out in February 2018, of this Yugoslavian film from the eighties called Time of the Gypsies. He still left it among my DVD collection, incidentally.

I really thought this movie would bore Shobhit, and it did a little bit in the end, yet it held his attention for the first ninety minutes or so, which rather surprised me. In any case, that was how we spent the rest of Friday evening.

I did not spend a huge amount of time with Ivan on Saturday either, in the end. I had suggested maybe we walk downtown so he could see the viaduct one last time before it was demolished; somewhat predictably, he wasn't hugely interested in that -- and he had already taken a walk downtown on Friday, after all. He declared he wanted to go hang out for a bit in the U District, and he wanted to do that on his own. So, that left the afternoon for Shobhit and me to get our shopping for the weekend done: Costco, PCC Greenlake Village.

Ivan and I had earlier decided to get pho' for dinner Saturday night, so at least we made dinner plans again. Shobhit was not going to join us for that, but then Ivan messaged me to ask if I'd go to this Mediterranean place he found on Broadway called Al Basha instead. Shobhit was actually interested in joining for that.

Ivan was at the Starbucks across the street from there when we exchanged the messages about it, but Shobhit did not want to have dinner too early, so Ivan came home for a little bit first. We all watched an episode of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, and then the three of us walked together, in the rain, to Al Basha -- where the food was . . . okay. The atmosphere was terrible: the feel of a cafeteria; the front door inexplicably propped open, so we could literally see our breath even at our table inside; a guy stocking soft drink coolers right next to our tables. It was all very odd.

But, hey, whatever! It gets both Shobhit and Ivan a point on the next Social Review for more than just Ivan being around the stay the night.

That said, I will give Ivan a point for yesterday basically just for being around -- having stayed the night his fourth night, and for the second morning in a row we all had hash browns and eggs for breakfast. (We have an excess of eggs because of a QFC promotion.) As in, we basically all had breakfast together at home before Ivan finished gathering his things and was ready to go. We did take a brief trip the three of us down to the storage unit, both because Shobhit needed suitcases for his India trip and Ivan needed to get a couple of things out of his boxes he still has down there. I think that when I go visit him in Bellingham for my Birth Week in April, with access to space in the car, I will bring him all of his stuff -- just as I had after he moved out the first time in 2015 and I went to visit him at Evergreen State College for my Birth Week in April of that year. And hopefully I never have to go through that process again.

Anyway! Shobhit wanted to go out for a bit more shopping, and since we'd be leaving anyway, we offered Ivan a ride to the Bolt Bus stop down in the International District. He had taken Amtrak down Wednesday evening, but northbound train times did not work for him so he took the bus back. His bus left at 1:00 and we got him there about ten minutes before that -- at the exact spot Shobhit dropped me off for the 6 a.m. bus last August when I went to visit Ivan in Vancouver, B.C. We pulled up behind the bus; I got out to give Ivan a goodbye hug; and Shobhit and I were off to the Asian grocery store for a few items of produce, and then to Bartell Drugs for some cosmetics Shobhit intended to take back to India as gifts. Then it was back home to kill time before the Oscars.

-- चार हजार चार सौ छियासी --

[posted 12:46 pm]