mostly boob tubing
Oh, my god. This morning has just been one thing after another with work, each thing commanding way too much of my time, until my morning was basically gone and I still haven't finished it all, let alone even been able to consider all the shit I would have otherwise been doing without this bombardment of new things coming in!
Shobhit was in the bedroom briefly when I was particularly frustrated with it. "Just breathe," he has taken to saying when I am in these moments. I never do actually breathe and the thing is, that's actually good advice. I later went to the bathroom and found myself thinking about this while sitting on the toilet: most of it's done now, it's fine, nothing was actually some huge emergency. Effectively, I just made the choice to let it all stress me out. I'm usually so much better at not allowing that to happen. The key difference is that I was getting multiple emails that commanded attention while I was already trying to focus on getting something else done, but that doesn't change the fact that I still made the choice to let it stress me out. As with everything else, I should just identify what takes the highest priority, do that, and not think about the other things until it's done.
I do still have to stop and reconsider the prioritization with each new thing that comes in. But that part is not really as difficult as I seem to be trying to tell myself it is.
All that aside, I had a pretty laid back weekend. Honestly, until yesterday evening, I can't say I spent the weekend doing much of anything besides watch movies and TV. Well, I did have a nice phone call with Gabriel yesterday afternoon—I'll get to that a bit later in this post—and I even said that to him during the conversation. But, I wasn't watching movies or TV while I was on the phone! Or while I walked to the library to pick up two DVDs (more movies!) on Saturday. Or when I was writing movie reviews, which I spent about an hour doing on each day Friday (Quo Vadis, Aida?: A), Saturday (Acasă, My Home: A-), and Sunday (Tina: A-). They were all excellent films and I would recommend all of them; the first two of which I went out of my way to recommend to both Ivan (via Facebook Messenger, because of his acute interest in southeastern European countries) and Gabriel (on that phone call, because Quo Vadis, Aida? has an almost pointedly unhappy ending and I knew that "realness" would interest him, and because Acasă, My Home is a documentary that combines two of his interests: living off the grid, and protected parkland that preserves multiple bird species).
So, over the weekend when Shobhit was at work and I was not writing a review, and not taking a walk, I was either watching those movies I reviewed or I was watching TV—mostly my library DVDs of season one of Star Trek Discovery. When Shobhit was home, we either watched episodes of The Expanse on Amazon Prime (so I am binge watching to science fiction series at once; honestly Star Trek Discovery is better, in their first seasons anyway so that may well switch) or finishing up season three of The Larry Sanders Show on HBO.
The one exception would be the one movie I watched over the weekend that I did not review, Gangs of New York, one of the aforementioned library DVDs which I watched with Shobhit after he got home from work Saturday night. After we finished the CNN docuseries Lincoln: Divided We Stand, I made a list of five Civil War-era movies to watch whose settings span the years of the American Civil War, and this one was the first on the list. I hadn't seen it in ages, and honestly, in retrospect I think the movie is a lot better than many of its detractors suggested 19 years ago. The one exception being that a lot of the cross-dissolve editing felt very dated and unnecessary.
Anyway! One more quick note about my conversation with Gabriel. He and Lea and Tess had gone on a camping trip over the weekend, their first time taking any kind of trip away from home whatsoever in at least a year. Since it indicated their tentative steps toward a return to whatever approximation of "normalcy" we'll get to throughout the year, I decided to bring up my Birth Week. Amazingly, it was maybe the first discussion we ever had about my Birth Week plans in which he did not go out of his way to scoff at the very concept. Maybe because what I want to do this year is a little more aligned with his interests and compatible with covid restrictions as they still stand—the State Parks tour I had originally planned for last year—and maybe also because it will just be nice to get together again for any reason. He did appreciate that I deliberately thought to meet up with him first, so that I would not have been around any other people before seeing him, which I figured he would be more comfortable with. (He and Lea are vaccinated, but Tess is not, and so that remains of paramount concern to him.) He is thus earmarked for the start of my "Birth Week" outings, on Friday April 23—fully seven days before my actual birthday, and all of four days after his. "Maybe we can say we're celebrating both our birthdays!" he said, and I replied, "I would be totally fine with that."
That said! As of that conversation, over the course of several days last week, I now have one state park scheduled to visit with one different person each day between Friday April 23, and Sunday May 2. All now officially confirmed! (Still regarding Gabriel as semi-tentative; he can never easily make hard plans a full month in advance . . . but, I have a feeling it will work out.) So let's review:
Friday, April 23: Dash Point State Park, which happens to be literally walking distance from Gabriel's Federal Way home. Possibly followed by a socially distanced outdoor movie viewing at his house.
Saturday, April 24: Jarrell Cove State Park near Shelton, with Jennifer before staying the night at her house—the first time I will have done so in fully two years, since last year's overnight stay had to be canceled. I'll also be the first time I stay overnight in anyone's home since the pandemic started, but I'll be nearly two weeks away from my second shot by then, and the visit will still be within CDC recommendations. (Jennifer almost certainly would have welcomed me ages ago, but I would never have done this prior to getting the vaccine.)
Sunday, April 25: Fort Worden State Park with Valerie, in honor of Auntie Rose, her mom and my great aunt, who passed away in February 2020. Before Auntie Rose died, the plan was to go there with her, in her hometown of Port Townsend, and after she died, Valerie talked of joining me there in her stead—first in 2020, then of course postponed to 2021. Being already on the Peninsula side of the Sound will make it an easier drive straight up to Port Townsend.
Monday, April 26: Deception Pass State Park with Danielle, a repeat of the day trip she and I took there twenty years ago, in 2001.
Tuesday, April 27: Cape Disappointment State Park, with Dad, for our reinstated annual Birth Week Bike Ride, after which we will stay overnight on the coast in nearby Long Beach, WA—where Shobhit and I had gone for our anniversary last year, that being our first venture out of town since the pandemic began.
Wednesday, April 28: Former state park and now a city park, Mukilteo Lighthouse Park, with Shauna. Usually I reserve the final Sunday of my Birth Week for Shauna but had to switch it up when I found out she's leaving for a weeklong trip on May 1.
Thursday, April 29: Sun Lakes - Dry Falls State Park, this one very tentative with Lynn and Zephyr. Lynn had scheduled to take a weekday off of work for a park visit with me last year, which of course had to be canceled. Also this is a pretty long way for a day trip—three hours drive one way—which I am still up for but we'll see, we may come up with a closer alternative. Also she won’t know for a while if she can eve get the day off of work.
Friday, April 30: my birthday, always reserved for Shobhit: I'm looking at Olallie State Park, which apparently has multiple waterfalls up in the Cascades, and I want to see them!
Saturday, May 1: Fort Ebey State Park, with Claudia and Dylan.
Sunday, May 2: Birth Week newcomer Tracy, from work! State Park still to be determined.
And, finally! Shobhit and I went and got takeout for dinner last night, which we ate at South Lake Union Park, mostly because, after his massive slippage in the Social Review standings I posted on the 21st, he has a suddenly renewed interest in getting Social Review points. Well, this got home one!
After a bit of deliberation, we finally landed on Shake Shack for where to get some food for dinner. We hadn't gone there in a while, I god damn are their "Shroom Burgers" delicious. Love! We each got one of those, and then one order of Cheese Fries to split. I also had made hot chocolate to bring in the thermos/cups set Gina and Beth got us for Christmas, giving the set its first use. We sat right by the water of Lake Union and I posted a photo so they could see we were finally using the gift they gave us. We didn't stay long as, although the rain from earlier in the day had cleared up nicely, it was still quite chilly, especially right by the water. So, we ate our burgers and fries, drank our hot chocolate, and then high-tailed it back out of there. But I sure do like how the photo I got turned out, using the timer on my phone.
[posted 12:28 pm]