draft walking hour
I finally won my second Movie Draft! Gabriel and Lea and I did 2003 last night. So let's review the history.
Movie Draft #1, on 10/4/2020: 1999 (winner: Lea)
Movie Draft #2, on 10/18/2020: 1984 (winner: Lea)
Movie Draft #3, on 11/8/2020: 2007 (winner: Matthew)
Movie Draft #4, on 11/22/2020: 2000 (winner: Lea)
Movie Draft #5, on 12/13/2020: 2014 (winner: Lea)
Movie Draft #6, on 1/10/2021: 1970s (winner: Lea)
Movie Draft #7, on 1/30/2021: 2020 (winner: Gabriel)
Movie Draft #8, on 2/14/2021: 1993 (winner: Gabriel)
Movie Draft #9, on 3/14/2021: 2003 (winner: Matthew)
So! Now both Gabriel and I have won the same number of them (2 each); Lea remains way ahead of either of us with 5 wins—although, it should also be noted, she hasn't won since four Movie Drafts ago. She was quite convinced she would not win the 2003 draft, mostly because she was 18 years old that year and thus her choices would be "very immature." I don't know if that assessment was quite accurate but evidently her prediction was. She sent our three lists to her friend Joan; Gabriel to Mandy; and I to Barbara. All three of them ranked my list first! I don't think that even happened when I won the first time. Mandy said my choice of documentary, Spellbound, was what sealed it for her. We all had potentially swaying populist choices on our list, though: Lea, who go to go first, snatched my beloved Lord of the Rings: Return of the King away from me; Gabriel got both Kill Bill Vol. I and Lost in Translation; but, in addition to Spellbound, I managed to snag Finding Nemo, Elf, A Mighty Wind, X2: X-Men United and About Schmidt. Gabriel kind of didn't expect to win this one either because for once he stepped away from strategizing (which was a successful tactic both the last two movie drafts) and went with the movies he loved most, just because he loved so many of that year's movies so much. So I suppose this round my win was kind of a gimme. I hardly had to make an effort!
Incidentally, this was our longest break between Movie Drafts since we started these; they're usually two weeks apart, sometimes three; this time we hadn't done one in four weeks. That doesn't mean we haven't had any other virtual hangouts in the meantime (this is always over FaceTime): we had the Patton Oswalt livestream comedy show on Saturday February 20, and the Maria Bamford streaming show on Saturday February 27. So, as of yesterday it had still been merely two weeks since the last time I had [virtually] seen them.
I did have a roughly one-hour old-school phone call with Gabriel on Saturday evening though, after I had texted asking if we'd do the Movie Draft that day and it was established we'd wait until Sunday: "We can still be social now," he said after calling me, or something to that effect. We talked a fair amount about what each of us consider critical thresholds before we will really change the covid-restricted behaviors of our day to day lives. I went ahead and used the bathhouse as an example: I will absolutely go back there, but not until both of two things happens: I get vaccinated, and we reach the stated goal of 2% average positive tests over two weeks. I got that figure from the stats section nearly the top of the Seattle Times Coronavirus daily news updates page (scroll down to the bottom-center of the stats grid). Gabriel called my example of bathhouses "severe"—an odd word choice; going to the bathhouse is perfectly normal to me! I don't really think that just because other people don't do that sort of thing then my doing it is "severe." Although I suppose to be fair, casual sex with strangers certainly puts one into a different category of risk assessment.
I also noted that I will indeed be going to Olympia for Easter. But, even though Dad, Sherri, Gina and Beth have all been vaccinated, plenty of other family will be there who haven't been, and there is no doubt at all that they will all be comingling inside the house—Shobhit and I will not. We'll treat it much the same as we did for our Christmas Day visit (although at that visit, it was only Dad and Sherri there; that was before they were vaccinated), and we'll limit our time to staying outside, with the exception of going inside, masked, to use the bathroom.
There's also the plan for Dad and me to stay overnight in Long Beach for our Birth Week Bike Ride, this ride to Cape Disappointment—of course we will not be sharing a room, though. In that case, it will be far less risky for me to visit them inside their room as there won't be anyone from any other households present, and current guidelines actually allow for single-household visits with vaccinated people. Still, the way things stand right now, I don't expect to be vaccinated until sometime in May at the soonest. That will still likely be before our Father's Day family visit in Wallace, Idaho, and that might very well change exactly how careful we have to be about visiting family by that point. I am hopeful that I will be vaccinated at least by then—and also hopefully by the weekend trip I want to take with Shobhit for our anniversary the weekend prior.
I actually feel that I have generally been very careful about all this, even though the examples of these planned visits are still things I am certain Gabriel wouldn't dream of doing. He even spoke of how overwhelming it will potentially be once socialization is just overall more opened up to all of us again—his schedule is cram packed even as things stand right now. I remain eager to see his new house, which he moved into last June so it's hardly that new anymore, but I won't be surprised if it's late fall, maybe even into winter, before he would be comfortable with in-house visits, even if the visitor has been vaccinated. If nothing else he made it clear that won't even be considered at least until after Tess has been vaccinated, and being a kid who is doing school from home, she'll be last in line in their household.
Anyway, I did have a separate socializing event on Saturday: for the first time in two months, our neighbor Alexia took a walk with me—just as in the previous time, to the Central Library, and then to Target downtown, and back. I didn't even realize it had been that long.
We had a nice time catching up, although over time she has betrayed quite a lot of "middle-aged white lady" attitudes that border on problematic (she has a tendency to defend the police before defending Black Lives Matter, for instance). I cannot remember what prompted this, but she actually expressed irritation with Disney firing Gina Carano from The Mandalorian. She said something like, "I'm still mad that Disney fired her," and I immediately said, "I'm not." Alexia replied, "She has the right to her opinion." And, who is disputing that? Such a response conflates a right to an opinion with a right to a part on a TV show, which are two wildly different things—something I really wish I'd had the presence of mind to say in the midst of the conversation. Instead I said, "And they have the right to fire her." And with that, Alexia agreed. I also noted that the woman had been saying very bigoted things, and Alexia just didn't say anything in response.
Oh, well. I still enjoy my walks with her, and sometimes my arguments seem to open her mind a little. Also she occasionally shares homemade baked goods with us and I'll never argue with that!
Moving further back to Friday, Laney and I had ourselves our March Virtual Happy Hour. This was the one we previously had rescheduled to the earlier date of February 26 so we could take advantage of the free wifi at her campground outside New Orleans, when she thought she'd be leaving there by March 5. But, then she managed to sign up for a vaccine in the area so she's staying a few weeks longer so she can be there when she gets her second dose. After that she plans to go back to the Gulf Coast of Texas again, where locals never wore masks, but she'll surely feel much more safe and secure after she has been vaccinated.
So anyway, we decided we'd just still do our March 12 Happy Hour as originally scheduled, having just done an extra one in February. We didn't stay on quite as long this time, only about two hours; we had some more technical difficulties as her van was in a spot several dozen yards away from the wifi source. We even tried getting off Skype and reconnecting via Facebook Video Chat, which did seem to work a little better for a few minutes. But, it was still nearly 9 p.m. her time by then and her voice kept cutting out so I couldn't understand her, so we disconnected. Nex time, she'll likely be back in a Starbucks parking lot or something where the signal is much stronger.
So, that was basically my weekend . . . Shobhit worked all three days, and I managed to watch and review just one movie, on Saturday: a film about stray dogs in Istanbul called Stray, which wasn't quite as good as I wanted it to be, or as the critical consensus seemed to suggest, but, it was fine. I had hoped to watch and review another movie yesterday, but between the Movie Draft and doing laundry and vacuuming and a quick walk to the store, doing so was just adding too much to the day. I thought I might tonight, but I forgot the Oscar nominations were out this morning (odd timing; they usually come out on a Tuesday), so I'll be working on my requisite analysis of those this evening instead.
[posted 12:34 pm]