here comes the weekend
I've got a busy weekend coming up: I was going to have my monthly Happy Hour with Laney this evening, but that is now postponed until Friday next week -- because Danielle has the girls at home next weekend, but not this weekend, and asked if I could reschedule with Laney so she and I could get together and hammer out our travel plans later this year for Upstate New York and for Las Vegas.
Ever since I found out there is a bar now at the observation deck level of the Smith Tower, I have wanted to go up there for Happy Hour, and so Danielle and I are going to go there this evening. Now, I only finally figured out just yesterday that their Happy Hours technically only happen Monday-Thursday, so, so much for taking advantage of that! Consolation prize: Danielle checked Groupon and found a 2-for-1 deal for admission to the observation deck (which you have to pay for to get to the bar up there). That's a $40 value for $20 -- and what we opted for instead of waiting to pay the discounted per-ticket price of $12 after 9pm. So really, we're paying $20 for what could have been a $24 value, but hey, even that's a 16.6% discount, and for an earlier time than we'd be able to do otherwise!
Anyway when Danielle texted me about the Groupon deal I immediately texted back to her that Shobhit would be proud of her for thinking to check for that, and disappointed in me for not thinking to. I really should have thought of it on my own but whatever!
I may leave work early this afternoon, in fact I probably will -- just exactly how earlier depends on Danielle's ETA. She hasn't decided yet whether she will drive up, park in my garage (in which case I will need to move Shobhit's car), and then take Light Rail with me down to Pioneer Square; or if she will park at the Tukwila Light Rail Station and then take the train from there, and I will go down on my own to meet her at the Smith Tower. She gets off work at 3:30 but works in Renton, so I'll need to get an ETA from her either way once she's on her way, and then I can gauge how, where and when I will meet her.
As for tomorrow, I head down to Olympia to stay overnight with Jennifer, after attending Dad and Sherri's 35th anniversary dinner -- which was my idea, incidentally! I just texted Gina several weeks ago when it occurred to me that's what number it is, and suggested we do something special, even if it's minor. Dad and Sherri clearly wanted something minor, so we settled on dinner at Dirty Dave's Pizza -- a choice I quite loved, because our family has a long history with that place. I can remember eating there when I was a teenager.
Also once I'm at Jennifer's place I can finally get the full story on Jennifer and Eric's sudden separation. Eric has posted a lot on Facebook about his new bachelor life -- he just today posted the new furniture that arrived. Even when Jennifer first messaged me about this, she told me about how annoyed she was by how much he would post about. (My guess is they were having problems; he would post certain things that vaguely indicated problems but were cagey about specifics, and Jennifer -- kind of understandably, I think -- hated that.) I did love the only way Jennifer has addressed any of it publicly so far, when she posted: I heard a Hawaiian BBQ is going in the Shelton Walmart- sorry that’s the extent of gossip about my personal life I’m willing to share on social media.
(For the record, in case anyone wonders about this: I have no intention of sharing said details here once she shares them with me -- other than, probably, noting that she shared them with me. It took me way too long to learn that lesson but I think I have fairly well learned it now.)
Our neighbor to the east on the fourth floor, Alexia, is set to look after the cats tomorrow night and Sunday morning. Unlike, say, the morning after I stay the night with Jennifer during my Birth Week, when I'll need to get moving fairly early to meet Auntie Rose for lunch in Port Townsend the next day, for this visit I won't have any pressing need to rush home on Sunday. Alexia has told us how the cats like to watch her as she does yoga in the nook area right outside the guest bedroom, so I cleared out most of the stuff that had now been cluttering that area, and put it into the guest room closet. My guess is she'll do "cat yoga" again on Sunday morning.
Because I also have Danielle coming tonight, though, that meant I really needed to get the vacuuming done yesterday. So that's basically what I did as soon as I got home. I had a veggie chicken sandwich for dinner, and watched the very last physical DVD I'll ever have from Netflix -- of all things, Private Parts, the movie by and about Howard Stern from 1997. I had never seen it, and if you can believe it, actually thought then that it looked stupid; this was from a time when I was far more open to stupid movies than I am now. But, over the years I have heard how the movie actually turned out surprisingly well. And you know what? A whole lot of it is actually really funny. And some pretty fun, surprising supporting actors in it: Allison Janney, Paul Giamatti (who gets a great scene riffing during the end credits).
The most striking thing watching it now was how young Howard Stern looks. He would have been 43 when the movie came out; he's 64 now! It's a little weird to marvel at how young someone looks when, even at the time, they were still a year older than I am now. Well, okay, barely: I'll be 43 myself next month.
I did get on Skype briefly with Shobhit before starting the movie, which I hadn't done in a couple of days. He's always sitting on this ornate looking couch in his mom's condo when we talk. I asked him about it the other day and he said they had it made, twenty-some years ago. I guess there's something wrong with one of the cushions now -- like, it's really old. That place has three bedrooms but I guess there is so much stuff in the other two rooms that Shobhit sleeps in the same room as his mom, in her bedroom. I find that really strange, but maybe it's kind of a cultural thing. You'd never catch me sleeping in the same room as my mother. I had to once in the guest room with two double beds when we all stayed for Christmas at my grandparents' in Phoenix when I was like 14, and Mom's snoring was so agonizingly horrible I had to go lay on a couch. Ah, memories!
[posted 12:23 pm]