happy anniversary to kevin
We're finally back to regular Daily Lunch Updates (DLUs) today! I'll gave to keep it kind of short though because I don't have a lot of time.
And, I still have a lot of work to do, hopefully, on the Las Vegas photos (which totaled 318 photos and videos). But not on the most pressing parts: I was up until nearly 11:30 last night, finishing my rather long email travelogue of the trip, which I then finally managed to get properly html formatted and posted to this blog this morning. I actually backdated it to last night, because that was still when I wrote it and when the email went out.
I hadn't had any time to work on writing it up on Tuesday because we got home too late from Las Vegas. I'm sure glad our flight back home from LAX (after visiting Palm Springs) three weekends from now will be on a Saturday, which will make things a lot easier. I'll have the whole day Sunday to work on stuff like this. Although, in spite of that trip being four nights and thus one night longer than this Vegas trip was, I'm still certain I won't have nearly as many photos from that trip.
Anyway! I might have returned to the standard DLU yesterday, except I nearly forgot that I had lunch plans with Scott, Noah, Kevin and Beth. Kevin's 20th anniversary with PCC happened last week and so Beth, with whom Kevin now works in Category Management—but Kevin still focuses on Grocery, as he has for years, largely with Scott and Noah and me—decided we would take him out for lunch. She told us she got permission to expense the lunch to PCC. Nice!
My own 20th anniversary will be in August of next year, which is nuts. I should think about what I want to do for it. Just a lunch as well? I actually had a small party for my 10th. My 20th should be a bigger deal, shouldn't it? I suppose that's up to me!
Anyway. Kevin chose this restaurant at the Amazon Sphere's called Willmott's Ghost. I have been to the Amazon Spheres to tour the gardens four times, but never ate at any of the restaurants in retail spaces outside at ground level. Now I have!
And I have to say: this place was phenomenal. The focaccia bread starter alone was worth mentioning to Shobhit later, as it was super soft and seasoned with a sprinkle of salt. Oh my god, it was good.
The place specializes in pizza, which was what everyone else ordered, but I had the eggplant panini instead. The pizzas are too large not to share, and everyone else's had either anchovies or sausage. My sandwich was a little heavy on the aioli spread, but was still delicious, and it even had a slightly spicy kick to it. Also the bread looked like a little hut with a point in the center. I should have taken a picture, but instead only took a few shots of the space.
I did have a small slice of Noah's pizza, even though it had anchovies on it—he cut out a small square without any anchovies. My having done this would surely horrify Shobhit, who refuses to eat even vegetarian food whose plate has touched that of a meat dish of any kind. And had I been thinking, I would have declined even that little square myself, but when Noah first offered, I had forgotten what he ordered and only remembered his pizza had mushroom. I remembered the anchovies only after I actually took the little square of pizza in my hand.
So, I ate it. there was no fish on it. I'm sure oils from the fish had seeped into it to some degree, though, which is precisely Shobhit's fear with these things—and would have been what made me decline it, too. But, I took it without thinking. And so I ate it. And it was super tasty. I want to go back sometime and order a legit vegetarian pizza. They have multiple options. And going back with Shobhit would be perfect for sharing.
Beyond the deliciousness of the food, it was just truly wonderful to get to go out for lunch with coworkers again, for the first time since the start of the pandemic. I don't remember when I last did, but at the most recent it would have been February 2020—21 months ago. We're at a point now where Washington requires all indoor dining to check for proof of vaccination, and thus this was the first restaurant—though not the first business—I've gone to that checked my vaccine record. I now have copies of it four different ways: my physical card which I still keep in my jacket; photos of that same card both before and after getting the booster shot last month; a screenshot from the MyIRMobile website; and a QR code version saved to my Wallet app. I'll never get caught without proof of vaccination; it's too easy for me to access it in multiple ways.
And, as always, I did not find having it checked annoying. Quite the opposite. I feel validated and I feel safer and more comfortable.
Beth also booked a six-seat Lyft to take us there and back. That was kind of an odd experience, as the very back seat was always very cramped, but it was not long in there so it was also fine.
As for the rest of the day, I had hoped Ivan would watch this week's episode of American Crime Story: Impeachment with me since he was taking last night off, but he was kind of cagey over Facebook Messenger: If I have time. Um, okay. But, he had also told us when we got home on Tuesday that he'd just gotten his booster shot and the side effects were hitting him hard. To my surprise, he still worked that night—but, he never got up, and so far as I could tell, slept all the way through from before Shobhit and I got home from grocery shopping at about 6:30 (he picked me up at work at 4:30) until at least this morning. Shobhit and I could only guess he was sleeping off the side effects, which clearly hit Ivan much harder than they had us.
So, no TV watching. Which was just as well, because once I finished helping put away groceries, and made chai, as I already said, it then took me until rather late to finish my travelogue email. Nearly 11:30, after starting it probably around, 7:30 maybe? That means it took me about four hours. It was just past midnight before I was actually finally in bed.
[posted 12:25 pm]