— चार हजार सात सौ अड़तीस —

So I finally had my walk with Alexia to Lake Washington yesterday, the first time she walked with me in the opposite direction of the office, and it was quite nice. Also, unlike when I last took the walk on my own which was on a Saturday afternoon, we actually passed fewer other people. I will still glad we both had masks on, though.

It's a 1.7-mile, roughly 40-minute walk, 1.3 miles (76%) of which is a straight shot right up Pine Street, which we actually live on—we just have to take brief detours both at the beginning and the end to get around certain road or natural barriers.

This was my third walk with Alexia within a seven-day stretch; we walked to my office and back after work last Thursday, then again just this past Monday, all of four days apart. Then we went on this walk only two days after that. As expected, though, it was much quieter going to the east through almost exclusively residential blocks as opposed to going to the west through downtown. The bigger challenge was going up and down kind of long and relatively steep hills, trying to chat with masks on at the same time, which took our breath away a little bit.

She had never walked this specific route though, and it seemed like she enjoyed it, especially the few blocks with no through streets but with actual pedestrian cut-through pathways, including the wooden footbridge over the Madrona Briar Patch. We hung out for a few minutes at the north side of Madrona Park at the lake shore where I had taken my own picnic lunch when I walked there last month, and we talked about international travels we have taken and international travels planned. Apparently she actually visited Machu Picchu something like twelve years ago. Gabriel and I planned to go all the way back in 2010, which got derailed when he and Stephanie divorced, and it suddenly hit me that it's been a full decade and we still haven't gone. I wonder if we ever will? I sure as shit still want to.

Then we walked back, during which we made kind of tentative plans for me to share Australia photos with her over Zoom on Sunday evening. She "peeled off" to go into Central Co-op about a block from home; I came back home and finished watching the Netflix documentary on Michelle Obama, called Becoming. It was nowhere near as good as Crip Camp (granted, even though they are both Netflix documentaries, that's kind of an apples and oranges thing), but I enjoyed it.

— चार हजार सात सौ अड़तीस —

— चार हजार सात सौ अड़तीस —

It's been three weeks since our last one, and I just finished today's FaceTime lunch with Karen. Boy do I miss our lunches at Six-Seven at the Edgewater Hotel, but as much as I love that place, fuck dine-in restaurants! At least, until we have a vaccine and/or treatment for COVID-19. No sustained time in any enclosed spaces outside the home!

Anyway. Our regular schedule is 2nd & 4th Thursday of the month; this three week break is because April had five Thursdays in it. That's how we had our last lunch the week before my Birth Week and not during it. I still took a screenshot of it for my first Birth Week photo album of the year, though.

And, we had a very nice and lively chat; as always it's nice to catch up with friends, especially in times like these. We talked a lot about the Netflix documentaries Crip Camp (for obvious reasons, Karen being a wheelchair user) and Becoming—and then, when I asked about the Netflix series Never Have I Ever, I was a bit sobered to hear that neither she nor Anita could make it past the first episode because they found its depiction of wheelchair use to be outright insulting. And upon further reflection, I can see that. It's too bad because if there is any way to separate out that unfortunate element, the rest of the show was pretty great and very well written.

Now though, I need to get back to work!

— चार हजार सात सौ अड़तीस —

[posted 1:11 pm]