headed toward the holidays
The fourth movie watched for review in as many days, from last night, watched right after finishing my work day: Time, an extraordinary documentary about a Black woman fighting for two decades to get her husband out of a truly excessive sixty-year prison sentence for robbing a bank. It's my new favorite film of the year. I really cannot gush enough about it; you should absolutely watch it and it is available streaming at no extra cost on Prime Video, assuming you are an Amazon Prime member.
I did take a brief detour between work and the movie, to go over to Trader Joe's at Shobhit's request and pick up a few things. Thankfully the movie is short and sweet, a cool 81 minutes long, so it still ended with barely enough time for me to even write the review before Shobhit got home from work—a bit later than he would have otherwise, because he had to stop by a Bartell Drugs at University Village for a medication on his way home. Thanks to that, he walked in the door at literally the minute I was posting the link to my review on Twitter and Facebook. That must have been somewhere in the vicinity of 6:45.
Then we watched this week's episode of Fargo, which so far I think is better than season 3, but when it comes to that series being highly recommended, I still kind of feel like people can watch seasons 1 and 2 and be good. After that, an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, then the season premiere of season four of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I was particularly interested in that last one as it was when Betty White joined the cast, making it the earliest in her career I've ever actually watched her on a TV show. She didn't look all that much different than she did a decade later on The Golden Girls, really. It sure is interesting, though, to see her play a character with a brain, and even maybe a little deviant one at that. Overall, though, the episode itself, particularly compared to the previous season, was a little "meh."
Then Shobhit went to what are now daily podcasts by FiveThirtyEight.com that he's watching online, so I retired to the bedroom for the evening. Still, Shobhit had been unable to get much sleep the previous night and so by the time I was actually headed to bed, he startled me by being in bed and snoring already. I was listening to a podcast of my own in my AirPods while getting ready for bed so he had come in unnoticed.
I just got off from the weekly Office Lunch Meetup, and it might very well have been a record low in attendance: just three people! Rebecca, being the host, is always there from the very start of the hour; not long after we started chatting, Adreienne joined. And, that was it. No Brent this week, no Andrew, no Noah—I did already know, from my check-in Microsoft Teams video chat with him and Scott yesterday, that Noah had a walk-through at the West Seattle store scheduled for today, so I figured he would not make it on the call today. Maybe he, and perhaps more, will return next week. That said, I can imagine attendance being more of a challenge week to week as we move through the holiday season, which is fast upon us.
Still, even compared to many calls with up to 10 people, this was an unusually stimulating one for me. Why? Because we spent most of the time talking about movies! And we all know I am all about that shit. This came up because before Adrienne joined the call, Rebecca asked how my weekend was, and so I went through the list of four movies I had watched and reviewed. I didn't even think to mention the fifth movie I actually watched, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit on Disney+ with Laney on Saturday. I had already mentioned the four other movies had been on four separate platforms (Netflix, VOD, HBO Max, Prime Video), and Disney+ makes even a fifth separate platform utilized over the weekend.
We talked Tim Burton, and Horror movies, and movies about food that Adrienne likes because she used to work as a chef. The whole hour was a lot of fun and I am so glad we get these weekly hangouts.
In other news, I nearly forgot to mention a family outing that I kind of brought together yesterday, posting the idea to the "Grandma and Papa's COVID Page" on Facebook. I had looked at some notes I took last year on what Christmas events to attempt this year and which ones to skip this year (the ones to skip mostly being ones that will be canceled this year anyway), and one of them was going to ZooLights. I looked up their website to see if they were still doing it this year, and although they predictably have new social distancing and mask protocols, I was delighted to see that they were. They were also doing timed entry tickets, which meant it would be prudent to plan it now if we were going to do it.
Not only did it all come together nicely, and we settled on the 6:30 entry time on Saturday November 28 (the Saturday after Thanksgiving), but to my genuine surprise, Shobhit even had me buy a ticket for him as well—even though he usually works until 8 pm on Saturdays. But, he said he can put in to work an earlier shift maybe. I haven't been to ZooLights since 2004, which I went to with Shobhit (meeting Gina and Eric, her then-boyfriend, as well as her son David, and Eric's two other friends). There have been several coordinated family visits since, but they have often been on weekdays and on dates I couldn't make it. But, especially knowing other traditional Christmas events will be canceled this year, and that this is an outdoor event easily done socially distanced, I decided I would make a real effort to come back this year. And now it's actually going to happen! I'm excited.
I think the overall holiday season this year is going to feel a little wackadoodle, for obvious reasons. I actually managed a record ten photo albums through the Christmas season last year (previous years averaging more like six to eight), and this year, I think I'll be lucky to manage four. Even four is likely only if there will be any version of the Gingerbread Village display at the Sheraton Hotel, and that's a big, big "if." I already figured last year that this year I would skip things like Holiday in the Park at Volunteer Park or the Teddy Bear Suite at the Fairmont Hotel, as these are things that get stale too quickly if gone too every single year anyway—so I already knew the number of photo albums I got out of the Christmas season this year would be lower. I would not have predicted as few as four, but oh well.
There won't be a Lighting of the Tree Ceremony, as that is usually packed and would thus be a "superspreader event." I wonder if they will put up a Christmas Tree anyway? I hope so. In any case, just putting up my own Christmas Tree, and getting photos of decorations around town, I'll still get my standard "The Holiday Season Begins" photo album. Mom died this year, so no more Christmastime visits to Wallace, Idaho; that's one previously-staid tradition that is now gone forever. But, ZooLights will give me a second photo album for the season; Gingerbread Village (if it happens) a third; and then of course the Christmas photo album itself. That'll make four. Unless I can find something new to do that is both photogenic and not a real risk of catching a virus. It's possible! I still have time to brainstorm.
[posted 1:17 pm]