— चार हजार आठ सौ चौंतीस —

I don't really have any more to tell you about my entire weekend than if this were just another weekday passed without much going on. I had zero social activity of any kind over the weekend. Which, honestly, was fine; 2020 limitations have been far from ideal but I think I've been able to adapt well enough that it's not been terrible. It does still annoy me that I haven't been able to see the inside of Gabriel and Lea's house, and I likely won't yet for the better part of a year at minimum, but you know what? Things could be way, way worse than that. (Hell, and they may yet be! Let's just hope note.)

I didn't even get a walk in with Alexia, although I tried to invite her to come with me on a walk to the downtown library on Saturday. But, she had her mother over for a visit that day, and although she suggested maybe we could take a walk yesterday, she wound up texting me yesterday that she didn't feel like walking in the rain. So, during Shobhit's work shifts he had on all three days, I basically just had the weekend to myself. And actually, this allowed me to be fairly productive: I made some good headway on the surprising amount of work it takes to put together my calendars. I now have little left to do besides just place the photos into the templates on the Costco website—bearing in mind that we're talking about 13 photos for each month page (plus the calendar cover page) and 67 photos of people to put into the grids for birthdays and anniversaries. So getting to the point that I can actually order them is still going to take some time; I just spent a few hours yesterday doing necessary organizing and editing of the photos I intend to use. I think I may have finally come up with a system for grabbing the photos, when uploading them for use in the online templates, that is a lot more efficient now than it has been in the past.

Oh, I almost forgot, I did have more of Friday evening with Shobhit than anticipated: he went home early from work that day, when he was originally scheduled to work until 9 p.m., because he was convinced his new blood pressure medication, which was the same medication just a different manufacturer, was somehow defective. He wound up going to the drug store to get the pills again from the previous manufacturer, after which his blood pressure did come down—only for it to go up again even on that, confirming my suspicion that nothing more than a change in manufacturer was not likely to make the same medicine less effective. He might just need to up his dosage.

In any event, that did give us time to watch the season two finale of The Boys on Prime Video on Friday night. And I have to say it had a twist that I absolutely did not see coming, and that alone impressed me. That show's dialog writing is, I would say, adequate—but I think the show's writers are very skilled at plotting.

— चार हजार आठ सौ चौंतीस —

— चार हजार आठ सौ चौंतीस —

So, as I said, I walked to the Central Library on Saturday, which I did so I could return my latest library book—It's Garry Shandling's Book, which I actually checked out originally at the same time I had checked out the Ken Jennings book Planet Funny, all the way back in February. It's just that it took me like six months to finish Planet Funny; by contrast, It's Garry Shandling's Book, which is a quick read by design, took me about three and a half weeks. Now I've read a whopping four books in 2020! Anyway, I returned Shobhit's John Grisham book too.

From there I walked a little around downtown, in a fruitless search for the one thing I need to complete my Halloween costume idea for this year. The place I checked at Pike Place Market didn't have it. I wandered into Pacific Place to see if I could find it in there somewhere . . . and hoo boy, was that depressing. I mean, Pacific Place underwent a massive internal renovation last year and it was already expected that a bunch of its stores would close and others would re-open. But, the economic recession of this pandemic has clearly delayed the re-opening of . . . well, nearly everything: literally not one level of that mall has more than three open businesses, and most of them have about two. It was the deadest, most ghost town-like I had ever seen Pacific Place (which I had actually not personally stepped back inside before this since the pandemic started back in March).

There is an AMC Theater on the top floor, and King County theaters are re-opening at limited capacity this week. There are already signs up staying masks must be worn "unless you are enjoying food or drink." Jesus Christ, then what the fuck is the point? I have actually moved slightly closer, psychologically, to considering going back into a theater before the end of the year . . . but it may still not happen. I would only want to if, say, I could manage a first-showing of the day before noon, when either no one or close to no one else is even in there. We'll see.

I've already gotten a Facebook invite to my grandniece Jaycee's 11th birthday party on October 30, which I'm rather impressed to see Brandi plan to have outdoors at a park in Olympia and even stating in the invite for people to wear masks. But, that's Shobhit's birthday and even though (so far anyway) we have no special plans for that night, a) it is still the Friday we're having a "Zoom Halloween Happy Hour" for work, which I will not miss; and I will otherwise stay with Shobhit that evening no matter what. It's his birthday too, and it's the least I can do. (Side note: my sister also booked a movie theater for a private showing of Coco for the entire family two weekends from now, also in Olympia which sounds like a blast under normal circumstances, but under these circumstances is straight up crazy—arguably for them regardless, but particularly for me to come from King County and spend two hours indoors with everybody. Seriously, if I did something like that and later found out I had spread infection, I would have a pretty fucking hard time living with myself.)

All that said, I did just manage to set up a Virtual Pumpkin Carving Party with Gabriel and Mandy for Friday the 23rd (Gabriel requested it be the Friday of that weekend so Tess could participate), and I am thrilled. I haven't managed a pumpkin carving party since 2014, and I am kind of over the moon that I get to have one this year, even if it has to be over Zoom. I had suggested it because the Halloween Happy Hour for work, which will be the following Friday, will include a pumpkin carving contest. I already know what I want to carve. A side effect of this that also makes me happy: it means that between the pumpkin carving party; the work Halloween Happy Hour; and whatever the hell will happen Halloween Day itself but I'll certainly still find something somewhere to get pictures of, I will still manage at least three separate Halloween-related photo albums on Flickr this year, which has basically been the average for over a decade. And this, even though, unfortunately, there won't be any in-person Halloween parties, like I have attended the last three years. I guess this year I'm just trading one kind of party for another. The partying this year will be virtual, and that's fine.

— चार हजार आठ सौ चौंतीस —

[posted 12:25 pm]