An Evening with Gabriel and Mandy
Hey guess what, I still actually haven't told you everything about my weekend! All I've had time for, so far, is to tell you about the day trip to San Juan Island with Shobhit on Saturday, and Easter Sunday in Olympia; last night I finally got around to finishing all 73 shots of the San Juan Island trip and all 26 shots for Easter on Flickr. And I last night I still managed to watch several episodes of HBO series before that: Game of Thrones, Barry, Veep and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. As such, I had kind of a busy evening last night but there wasn't much going on for me to tell you about.
I did make a Costco cheese bagel sandwich out of leftover artichoke dip that Eric had made for Easter. In all likelihood, I will never get that artichoke dip again. Ditto the leftover "Easter Eggnog" he sent me home with, which I still haven't even opened.
Anyway! The San Juan Island day trip was hardly even the only thing that wound up going on, on Saturday. I spent that very evening with Gabriel and Mandy, and to a somewhat lesser extent Lea, at Lea's apartment, before I even went home. Shobhit dropped me off because we were running late, and he just went the rest of the way home to feed the cats. I had initially hoped Shobhit would join us, but the way the evening panned out, it's just as well that Shobhit stayed home. That's not a negative observation, but just an observation. Dynamics of two worlds colliding were already sort of subtly screwy even without Shobhit thrown into the mix.
The evening was a one-day-belated get-together for Gabriel's 42nd birthday. I guess his youngest brother, Marc, has a birthday in early May, and someone decided they should celebrate both their birthdays together on Friday, and it resulted in a big family get together largely actually focused on all their kids. I got the feeling the Saturday evening get-together with just a couple of friends was comparatively kind of a low-key relief for him.
I didn't really think I'd be able to hang out with him at first, actually, because I thought that would mean having to drive all the way down to Tacoma. The prospect of that was already iffy depending on when we got back to Seattle from San Juan Island, and ultimately I'm really glad we took the 4:15 ferry back from Friday Harbor instead of an earlier one. It was quite the whirlwind tour of the island as it was. And even taking the 4:15 ferry, which had a stop at Lopez Island and did not leave there until 5:00, we did not arrive at Anacortes until 5:40. I had estimated then that we would get back to Seattle just after 7:00, and after stopping at the Burlington Costco for gas, driving through that town to bypass heavy traffic on I-5 and then still encountering a lot of heavy traffic on the freeway the rest of the way, even driving directly to Lea's apartment I didn't get there until nearly 8:00.
And, that was how it worked out -- it turned out, Gabriel was going to be at Lea's apartment anyway, and she lives in Seattle. (Funny how romance makes you do things you hate under any other circumstance: before Lea, literally every single time Gabriel came to Seattle he would bitch and moan and complain about how much he hates Seattle because of the traffic and the parking. Now? He's coming into Seattle with no complaints all the time! The things you'll tolerate for a new special someone.)
Lea, as it happens, already had a "girls night out" planned with two old high school friends of hers, which Gabriel was not a part of, but he was still going to be hanging out at her place, looking after her surprisingly large dog, doing laundry. He had sort of tentatively asked Mandy if she'd be willing to drive from Tacoma to Seattle to hang out, and she was! So, that worked out for all three of us, and I had an easy way of hanging out with Gabriel. I still would have loved to otherwise, but a drive to Tacoma after a day trip in the opposite direction to Anacortes and San Juan Island, the very night before driving in that direction again to Olympia for Easter? It just would have been too much. Luckily though, the stars kind of aligned for us all.
Shobhit dropped me off in front of the Eastlake Veterinary Hospital, which Gabriel said was "just steps" from Lea's apartment building. I called Gabriel and he said they'd be getting to me in a couple of minutes. I stood and edited photos of San Juan Island on my phone while I waited for him and Mandy, who had been out walking the dog, Lady. I only remember the dog's name because Mandy kept singing it: "She's a Laaaay-deh!" Lady is a very pretty, black, medium-haired dog of indeterminate breed, but quite large. As in, Gabriel is over six feet tall and Lady can jump up and put her front paws on his shoulders. Her back must have been close to two feet off the ground (which is higher than you might think -- break out your ruler and check it!).
I walked with them for a bit. The subject of my Birth Week came up somehow, the concept for which Mandy had not yet heard about, so that gave Gabriel an opportunity to share his annual monologue on how much he hates it and how self-important he thinks it is for me to do. You know what, though? I've made a decision about this when it comes to Gabriel. He loves to shit on the concept of my Birth Week, no matter how much I try to conceptualize it as a means to spread out quality time with the most important people in my life (to him, it's just an expression of my arrogance; and, sure, that could be applied generally to my insistence on always making a big deal of my birthday, to which I say: okay, yeah I guess so) -- and yet, if he doesn't get invited to a Birth Week event, he's openly hurt by it. I literally can't win. So if I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, then I might as well just go for the thing I want anyway! So I'll just keep trying to involve him in my Birth Week -- as I have successfully done so for every single one of them (15 years' worth!) to date. As a matter of fact, this tradition of mine has gone on so long now, Gabriel is one of only three people who have taken part every year since I started it -- the others being Auntie Rose and Danielle. My two best and oldest friends, and my great aunt. Not even Shobhit has taken part in all of them, because I started this in April 2004 and he and I met in June of that year.
So then we went up to Lea's apartment, which was . . . spectacular. If I had any regrets, it would only be that Lea wasn't actually there when I walked in and said, "Holy shit, I need to get a job at a university!" She doesn't have a balcony, but her super-tidy, one-bedroom apartment has wall-length windows overlooking Eastlake Avenue -- which means she has spectacular views of the north end of the Seattle skyline to the far left; a pretty decent, if somewhat obscured by telephone lines, view of the Space Needle; and a pretty direct view of Lake Union. She must have incredible views of fireworks, both on the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve. In the latter case, even better than the view I get from my office! Although my office is closer to it.
He even took us up to the rooftop deck, which was so fancy I had to say, "I feel like we're visiting The Capitol in The Hunger Games!" Up there the views were even better (Lea's apartment is on the fifth floor, and there's a few floors above her). Mandy told us the good news that she had been accepted into graduate school and Gabriel gave her a double high-five. Another group was having an outdoor dinner at a nearby table, and Mandy had to comment on overhearing one woman suddenly asking the group, "What are your goals for summer, you guys!" We all talked about how we'd never ask such a question.
Gabriel has been trying to get Mandy into Game of Thrones, which she had never seen, but seems interested in. He suggested we go down and watch the first episode of season one, and Mandy and I both thought that was a great idea. So down we went.
Getting through the episode took some time. While it was on, Gabriel and I both regularly delighted in the kinds of discovery in hindsight we could never have had when going in blind and none of the seasons ahead yet viewed -- a surprising lot of the characters still alive now are seen in that very first episode. Hell, I had forgotten the opening sequence starts at The Wall and ends with a White Walker attack. These characters have all been talking about the White Walkers since moment one. And yet it takes several seasons before they're all even convinced that White Walkers aren't just a myth or that they were long gone. Now, in the current season, we're set up for next week's massive battle episode with them. Shobhit noted last night that probably a lot of the characters alive now will perish in that battle. I bet he's right. I don't think the series will just end with a fight with the White Walkers -- in fact, right now I think Cersei is biding her time until everyone else's armies are weakened by them. It was pretty interesting to watch this week's episode, with pretty much every single character at Winterfell -- most of the main characters still left alive at this point -- just resigned to the expectation that they were going to die, but would just go down fighting.
But I digress! The episode had to be paused for a pretty lengthy period when Lea got home, and her two friends came up to use the bathroom, but they stayed standing by the door and chatting for, I don't know, forty-five minutes? This was the "worlds colliding" I referred to earlier, where Lea's and her friends had their own, long-established social dynamic; Gabriel, Mandy and I had our own, different one, but it was Lea's social dynamic that took over the space, rather suddenly. A lot of chit chat about things neither Mandy nor I could have much contribution to; Gabriel did a lot of talking, both because that's just in his nature and because it makes sense for him as Lea's boyfriend. There was a period there, though, where Mandy and I kind of felt like the odd people out. She gave me a ride home later -- which I very much appreciated -- and I told her then that I should have just gone over to the couch and chatted with her for a while.
I'm not complaining, though! I want to make that clear. No one made any choices that I am judging; this is just a description of the scenario. I mean, shit, it was Lea's apartment, after all. And truly, Lea's two friends seemed like very cool people. One of them was very pregnant. The non-pregnant one was fascinating to me, in that when she had a neutral expression this was not the case, but when she had an emotive expression she looked remarkably like Elizabeth Moss.
The friends left, and Lea snuggled up between Gabriel and Lady on the couch, and we watched the rest of the Game of Thrones episode. Before we re-started it, I stated that I was not going to have time to play the game Mandy had brought, and Gabriel was openly disappointed when Mandy herself agreed. Still, when the episode ended, Gabriel asked Mandy to explain the game and do a mock round of it. The game is called Superfight, and is based on "absurd arguments," but Gabriel takes making arguments way too seriously, no matter how absurd the premise, and so in the end it was . . . kind of not fun. Beyond Gabriel's insistence that I just never want him to win at anything (and I don't know, maybe he's right, and I could stand to unpack that), it's probably best that I just leave it at that.
One amusingly ironic thing about the game was how it turned into the very kind of heated arguing the game is designed to facilitate, except instead of making arguments about what was on the cards, the most heated arguing was about how they were arguing.
He later texted us both to thank us for coming and it was actually kind of touchingly sincere.
Shobhit had suggested I take a Lyft home, assuming I would be drinking a lot while there. There wasn't much in the way of hard liquor there, and although Gabriel did offer me something to drink, I had one hard cider and felt no need for more after that. Had I left earlier, I might even have just walked -- Lea's apartment is two miles from my place. But, it was quite late, and I was much relieved when Mandy offered me a ride. We chatted quite a lot in the car and it was fun getting to know her a little more. I convinced her to watch Ali Wong's comedy specials! (She even texted me last night when she was watching.) By the time I got into the condo, it was 12:15 a.m. That was my first time back home that day after leaving for Anacortes at 7 a.m. Saturday was a long day. That would be a big reason why it's taken me until Tuesday to finish telling you about it.
[posted 12:28 pm]