— चार हजार सात सौ पैंतीस —

Well, my weekend did not wind up nearly as social as I thought it would. Laney had a work thing come up that had her working later than usual into the evening, and given that she has been temporarily scaled back to half-time instead of full-time, it was totally understandable for her to prioritize that. She clearly did not want to just postpone Virtual Happy Hour until later in the same evening, so at first she had texted me that she had to cancel . . . I asked if we could postpone to Friday this coming week instead, and she said yes.

So, then I just watched Wednesday's episode of Mrs. America on Hulu instead of doing Virtual Happy Hour with Laney on Friday night. I thought that might mean I would skip the drinking but I wound up making a drink for myself that night anyway. Which I did again on Saturday night. And again yesterday. Which is likely one of many factors that has my weight right back up to 156.7 lbs as of this morning. And I was so close to getting under 150 lbs right after returning from Australia!

— चार हजार सात सौ पैंतीस —

At least Saturday night still yielded a social activity—which I am counting on the next Social Review even though I did not either see or even speak verbally to any of the other three people involved. But, we interacted for two hours, and it was clearly a social endeavor. So it counts!

Laney and I, both in Seattle, joined Thayer and Hayley for a "Netflix Party" the way it was originally designed: watching a movie together with a text thread off to the side. Now, I had already done Netflix Parties with both Gabriel and Danielle (separately), in both cases with separate FaceTime video chats going on, so we could actually talk instead of just doing text chat. After some trial and error with Gabriel, we had to come up with a creative solution so that hearing the playback off-sync through the speakers would not be a problem: I turned my volume way down, and just kept the closed captioning on, which I always have on anyway; the volume would be up on their end and I could actually hear it from there.

But, in those cases, it was just two people. In this case, that would clearly never work, with five people all watching at once. So, we just did the text chat—and it worked fine, and was a lot of fun. I was here in my condo on the south side of Capitol Hill; Laney was in her apartment near the north end of Broadway (also on Capitol Hill, about a mile away); Thayer and Hayley were in their home in Wisconsin, Milwaukee specifically.

They have lived back there, nearer to Hayley's family, for several years now; they moved in 2016, I think. And it was that year when I first sent the email to all of them suggesting we try this new "Netflix Party" thing, and even though we even settled on a movie title (Heathers, no longer streaming on Netflix in 2020), we never followed up and it never happened . . . until now. I replied-all to the most recent email from 2016 just last Tuesday, to suggest we finally do it, now that in the age of COVID-19-related stay-home orders "Netflix Parties" are suddenly all the rage.

I threw out some title suggestions, everyone was down for Groundhog Day—which Laney noted was perfect for "quarantine," as every day feels like a repeat of the last one—and we all settled on Saturday night. Hayley and Thayer wanted to watch after the kids were put to bed, which made it 9:00 p.m. their time, 7:00 Pacific.

I sent out the Netflix Party link about 15 minutes before 7:00, and in both Laney's and Thayer and Hayley's cases it took a couple of tries to get the link to work (which has tended to be my experience as well). It finally did work though, and we were finally all watching the movie together.

The movie was great, the chatting was fun, and I hope we can do it again sometime.

— चार हजार सात सौ पैंतीस —

— चार हजार सात सौ पैंतीस —

Earlier on Saturday, even though I had no other pressing need for it since I had already walked to the office to swap out receiving paperwork on Thursday evening (with my neighbor Alexia joining me), I went into the office again. Shobhit wanted me to reprint the paperwork he needed for renewing his passport, as parts of the original printouts had also gotten sticky with the in-bag flavoring syrup spill I'd had on Tuesday. Also, I had an unusual bout of just feeling bummed out about everything going on in the world on Saturday morning: I was sad and feeling lonely, as even Shobhit worked from midmorning to 7:30 p.m. every day this weekend, and on top of that I'd been pretty disappointed that Laney had to cancel Virtual Happy Hour on Friday. I didn't feel like taking a whole two hours to walk to the office and back, though, and the weather was unseasonably warm this weekend—highs were 86° on Saturday and 87° yesterday—so I rode my bike instead, taking care to do it in the morning before it got too hot.

And holy shit was that a good decision! I felt so, so much better after that. There really is so much truth to exercise being good for your mood.

There was only one new receiver from Friday for me to pick up, so I snatched that along with printing out what Shobhit needed. Once again I was there early enough that no one else was there. I snatched a couple of snacks because I'm just incapable of not doing that, and then rode back home again.

When otherwise not watching stuff, I spent the weekend finishing up the captioning of all the photos from my Birth Week. I had already gotten about half of them done, and now they all are. They amount to 10 days' worth, 305 shots total. That's way down from the (probably record) 533 I took last year, or the 494 I took in 2018 when I did my first "theme"—but, for a week in which I had to stay home nearly every day (only leaving town one day), 305 is a pretty damned good haul, I think. I managed to make the most of it and I had a pretty good time under the circumstances, and all my friends and family indulged me, which I really appreciate.

— चार हजार सात सौ पैंतीस —

And then of course there was yesterday, which was Mother's Day. I called Mom shortly after noon, knowing she'd likely be sleeping if I called in the morning. She was unusually upbeat, too: when I asked how she was doing she actually said, "Really great!" and she was apparently sincere. We didn't talk long, but long enough; I noted that this time of year the calendar itself insures that I'll call her at least once a month three months in a row: for Easter, for Mother's Day, and for her birthday on June 2.

There was a rather dark moment in the conversation, though. We were talking about the coronavirus, and she said, "If any of us get it, we'll die." She said this with such matter-of-factness, it was both jarring and creepy. She even included Christopher in that "we"—he might be a lot younger than her or Bill, but he has his own many health problems, even diabetes. The thing is, in all probability Christopher would survive it, and there's even a fair chance Mom or Bill would. I guess Bill is even refusing to go into Coeur d'Alene for doctor appointments as he's too afraid of picking it up and bringing it home. I have a feeling they would all be perfectly fine with Shobhit and me canceling what had been a planned trip to see them in July, but I still told her we would wait until sometime next month to make a final decision about that. I have a feeling we will indeed scrap it and just hope we can visit again in December, but, we'll see.

I also wound up on a brief FaceTime call with, of all people, Barbara! That was actually pretty exciting; I hadn't seen her, even on FaceTime, since Christmas 2018. I wasn't even intending to FaceTime her yesterday, as Beth had told me the Friday before last, during our "Birth Week Quarantini" FaceTime call, that Barbara hates video chat. Beth had said Barbara will respond to text threads where you just send things like funny gifs back and forth, so I just texted Beth to ask if she would send me Barbara's phone number so I could update my contact page for her and perhaps do just that.

And then within minutes, my FaceTime was ringing, and it was Beth—who immediately handed her phone to Barbara. She and Beth were visiting one of Beth's grandmas, I think. I just know that Beth had driven Barbara there, even though Barbara currently lives with Beth's friend (or cousin maybe? I can't remember) Terry; I can't remember why it was no longer working for Barbara to live with, if I remember right, it was Beth's paternal grandmother. Maybe that's the lady Beth was helping take care of when we were on the call, and she's just too old now? That could be. I need to get clarification on all these things.

Anyway! Barbara showed me the lady at the house they were standing out in front of, saying "We're social distancing" . . . ironic since clearly Beth and Barbara were not, in relation to each other. Still, Barbara indulged me for several minutes and we caught up a little; she asked about lots of people and how they were doing: Shobhit; even Mom and Bill; and of course she asked after Dad and Sherri.

So, after the call with Barbara, even though I had already both sent her a Mother's Day card (as I also did with Mom; they both received them on time) and sent her a Happy Mother's Day text, and even though Sherri is never one for phone talking for very long, I had to call her—mostly not just to say "Happy Mother's Day" over the phone, but to tell her I had just spoken to Barbara and she had asked about them.

The call with Sherri was predictably the most brief, and she said, "I have to go as we have company." Company? Yep, Beth and Gina were over again. This never stops worrying me, even though in all probability, being in Thurston County where COVID cases are far fewer, they're probably fine. But! Sherri also noted that the only reason Angel wasn't there was because . . . she was sick. Jesus Christ.

Sherri said they had done a rapid COVID test and it came back negative, but since those have a lot of false negatives a more comprehensive test result was supposed to come back today. Angel had had a doctor's appointment and quickly afterward developed a sore throat, they think possibly Strep—the exact same thing happened to another Facebook friend of mine, after having a doctor's appointment. I feel like right now doctor's offices and hospitals must be the most fertile breeding grounds out there, for all sorts of shit even in addition to the coronavirus.

Whatever the case, Angel should never have been out visiting anyone ever. On one of the early family Zoom calls Angel mentioned visiting Brandi's new baby (supposedly "with protection on") because she just couldn't resist it; in the same conversation she mentioned having a compromised immune system. Jesus fuck. So she's visited her children and her parents, and currently she's sick. Wonderful. It's hard for me not to come close to the conclusion that they are not taking this seriously enough.

On the other hand, one could argue the same of Shobhit, who actually works in a retail store every day, and he says he's only wearing a mask "maybe 40% of the time." He mentions the space usually kept between him and customers—the majority of whom come in without masks—as if that makes much of a difference. They are also understaffed and often have too many people inside the store at one time. Unlike Total Wine, where they require all staff to wear masks, clearly Big 5's higher-ups don't think of this as seriously as they should be. They're even selling masks at Big 5, for fuck's sake. One problem with Shobhit is that the masks fog up his glasses, and if he wears contacts then he can't read stuff on labels and such. It's a little bit of a catch-22.

Still, I'm kind of amazed neither Shobhit or I have gotten it (yet). It's been two months. Or maybe we've both had it, just stayed asymptomatic, and just never got sick. That's possible too, which further underscores the importance of us wearing masks, to protect others. I did have several odd residual elements of that cold I caught in Sydney, lasting for a lot longer than things usually do. I got over the cough unusually quickly, actually, but I had sporadic minor lightheadedness for weeks. Then again, I've taken my temperature twice a day every day since March 18 and have never once had a fever. So who the fuck knows.

Now we're slowly re-opening the state and, with no treatment or vaccine or cure, that make me even more wary of getting back out into any kind of "business as usual" in the world like it was before March. I guess a lot of decisions between now and the next few months will just depend on how the numbers look.

— चार हजार सात सौ पैंतीस —

Oh! And one other thing I did yesterday: I made strawberry banana bread, which I cannot stop eating. I already cut into the second loaf just this afternoon. We need to stop baking if we really want to get our weight back under control! Sheesh. But, fuck it's delicious.

[posted 12:28 pm]