go go gobi
You know what? Pretty much every year, I am over summer by the time September rolls around. I think maybe the feeling is stronger this year than most, simply by virtue of work circumstances: at least the office has air conditioning. Even as average temperatures climb year after year, it still doesn't feel like a necessary investment to buy an air conditioner for the home: it is expensive to begin with, and then it'll just jack up our electricity bill and we get enough of that shit turning on the heat in the winter. Working in the office always provided a respite for at least half the day.
Now, we've got no rain in the forecast for the next ten days, forecast highs averaging around 80° virtually all of those days, and mid- to upper-eighties by the middle of next week. The highs around 80° I can live with for a while, but climbing up closer to 90°, especially in September, feels like inching closer to bullshit territory. Even the National Weather Service, which I rely heavily on because statistically they get their predictions right the most often, is indicating 85° on Tuesday and 86° on Wednesday.
I'm so ready for weather cool enough to put the comforter back on our bed, and to turn off the fan instead of running it all night. I mean, shit. Looking forward to pumpkin-spice-everything is just the tip of the iceberg. I am ready for fall.
Oh, and we had that all-Merchandising Zoom meeting yesterday, now required for every person in the department whenever it's the first of their weekly meetings each month. Justine sent out an email that one item on the agenda would be talking about racism and inequality, and that alone took about half the hour—half of that being a 14-minute speech by Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll about racism, which he played in its entirely. Tracy P and I got into private IM to basically dunk on this decision, and on this group that was 90% white having this discussion with each other.
That said, although I still think playing the Pete Carroll video was a little tone deaf, there were still some powerful moments here and there. Robin B from the Deli spoke up with something I seriously related to, talking about how dispiriting it is to feel like she's losing family members because they refuse to regard racism in this county and a problem that needs to be addressed, faced, and taken action on. She clarified that it wasn't really immediate family members but mostly extended family, as is the case for me as well—although things are getting kind of delicate with one or two immediate family members as well.
Shobhit had a day off from both jobs yesterday, spent most of the day just watching TV. He did cook a cauliflower based dish I would normally turn my nose up at, but I gave this one a chance and it was very good! Mostly because before making the sauce he fried the cauliflower with a kind of breading, and eating that alone was addictive, like eating popcorn.
And I usually hate cauliflower. But, one of the dishes we brought home from the Chaat House place in Bellevue last weekend was called Gobi Manchurian ("gobi" is Hindi for "cauliflower"), which seemed to me like a pakora side dish of some kind. Shobhit did not reveal to me it was just marinated fried cauliflower until I had eaten a bunch and noted that I like it, which gave him some smug satisfaction. Anyway, what Shobhit made was his first attempt at it and his best approximation of it from a recipe he found online. The recipe did call for vinegar and we had none; I have no idea how much of a difference that made.
We actually took a break in the middle of watching Jurassic Park on Netflix to make the marinated, chunky with finely chopped vegetables of other sorts. Shobhit had been sleeping in front of the TV when I started the movie, which I am not even certain I have watched since I re-watched it in anticipation of the release of Jurassic World in 2015. Now, without exaggeration I have probably seen that movie now around thirty times or more, but a five year break can really make a difference. I still consider it my second-favorite movie of all time, but having seen it so many times, it’s still also easier to notice the frayed edges, like the slight jerkiness, perceptible really only if you're looking for it, of the animatronic dinosaurs (particularly the giant T-rex).
I don't think any of that detracts from how brilliantly constructed that movie is, though. It's still very, very easy to see how it became the most successful movie of all time at the time (1993), even with the insanely dated computer system Lex uses to enable the locks in the visitor center. Anyway, Shobhit just watched along with me when I started it, without comment or complaint, but predictably rapt by the movie—he never fell asleep to that. Actually I got the feeling it may have been even longer ago that he last watched it, and there is no question he hasn't seen it anywhere near as many times as I have. Now I plan to watch The Lost World again soon. It actually only occurred to me just now to consider watching all of them again . . . none of the rest come anywhere close to my love for the original, but I do have a real soft spot for the ending sequence of The Lost World with a T-rex loose in San Diego.
Anyway. I had noticed Jurassic Park was available on Neflix soon after Michelle mentioned it on the Friday Zoom Lunch Meetup last week. Oh that reminds me, I still need to come up with a list of TV shows to recommend over lunch tomorrow!
[posted 12:35 pm]