Danielle wanted to get going earlier than later yesterday, which worked out well for me. She had said she wanted to head out from
her house in Renton at 9:00 in the morning, so I said I would be ready to go by 9:20. She wound up calling me at 9:20 to tell me they had just left their neighborhood, which was honestly still earlier than I assumed she might make it. She was here to pick me up by about 9:40, all of about twenty minutes behind schedule.
I was then brought back home by about 3:30 this afternoon, leaving me far more spare time for the rest of the day than usual thus far during my Birth Week. The best thing about this was that it allowed me to write up a draft of this very post last night, so I would not have to spend time this morning working on it, and I could get going for Long Beach at a comfortable time and pace.
This was the one time during the week I have a rental car that I did not drive my rental car. Danielle and I are both vaccinated, so I asked if I could just ride with her in her car. So, that's what we did—although there were moments when I wondered if I should regret that decision. Multiple times she would scream at her children in a pitch that literally made my ears ring. To be clear, she wasn't screaming in a mean way; she was usually screaming in delight or in shock at one thing or another. That didn't make it any easier on my ears. That said, she also has a certain dynamic going on with her teenage / preteen kids (Morgan is 16 and Rylee is 12) that resulted in a kind of cycle between jovial and mutually resentful, over and over again, but we don't need to get into detail there as it's really none of my business and certainly none of yours.
On the upside, it certainly saved me the gas that it would have taken to drive roughly 170 miles round-trip, so there's that. Also, unfortunately, because I've been keeping my Discover Pass in the rental car's glove compartment, I totally spaced bringing it; Danielle had one but she doesn't know where it is. So, I had to pay for a $10 day pass at Deception Pass State Park. Honestly we could have just as easily just parked on the road that leads up to the Deception Pass Bridge, but Danielle kept saying, "It's just a small thing," and I wasn't interested in making a big deal out of it (although Shobhit almost certainly would have). Besides, she had just driven me there, after all, and the value of the gas it took her to get me there and back was maybe 150% the value of that day pass. Basically, in terms of straight dollars, I still came out ahead.
Also, I didn't have to drive today. Although Danielle was kind annoyed with me when we first set out, because she was driving bizarrely slow down Pine Street on our way to the freeway. She turned to me and was like, "Do you want to drive?" Well, no, not really. I later found out that part of this was that her janky van, a 2004 Honda Odyssey (incidentally, the same year as Shobhit's Nissan Sentra) is so janky the speedometer no longer works. She would regularly ask Morgan or Rylee to tell her how fast she was going on the freeway, presumably using an app they had on their phones. (Her van has certain elements bused out of the dashboard as well.) Apparently the van's name is "Felicia," although I never did find out why.
From my place, it's a roughly one-hour, 35-minute drive to Deception Pass—this being my third time there, that I
have a record of, anyway. It seems I have been going there once every 10 years on average: part of Shobhit's and my tour of Whidbey Island in 2010 included Deception Pass. And, this was the second time I have gone there with Danielle, the first being nearly exactly twenty years ago, in 2001. In fact, I found a log on which to prop my phone and use the timer to
recreate a photo I took of us during that visit. Unfortunately, my phone fell off at one point, for the first time landing on a rock face-down, so the awesome protective case I have wasn't so protective anymore . . . I now have the tiniest crack in the screen, and may soon go to an Apple Store or AT&T Store to see about getting it fixed.
I'd have loved to have either Morgan or Rylee just take the picture for me, but neither of them were interested. Morgan had planned to meet up with her boyfriend at 3:00, and when it became clear there was no way they were going to get back to Renton in time for that, she became incredibly petulant—and managed to influence Rylee into behaving the same way. We had barely been to the park an hour before they were both nagging Danielle to go back home. Danielle had asked if she could bring the kids on this trip after she learned only recently that for some reason they had yesterday off of school, and of course I said that was fine.
The irony of course, is that for much of the time we were there, those kids had a perfectly good time, but they were too young to realize it, instead being resentful that they couldn't just go back home. Later, they went out of their way to make the choice to make their own day worse, by insisting on waiting in the van while Danielle and I walked across Deception Pass Bridge and back. Rylee might have otherwise, I suppose, but she's in an apparent phase where she is terrified of bridges, so it was fear holding her back. Morgan isn't afraid of bridges, but wouldn't walk with us just because she was pissed that we weren't already headed back home. I decided to look on the bright side: they probably spent a lot of their time together talking about what a bitch Danielle was supposedly being . . . in which case, the sisters were bonding with each other, at least!
(By the way, Morgan is
really short for even a 16-year-old girl, and quite thin. Rylee is already taller than her, and a bit on the heavier side. The result is that even though Rylee is four years younger, she looks older than Morgan. It's kind of odd to observe.)
I'm sure glad Danielle and I walked the bridge. Even though it was great to get on the beach and recreate the photo from 2001 and get that nice photo of all four of us spread out for my
social media checkin, the walk across the bridge was easily the highlight of my day. The north section of the bridge, which spans "Canoe Pass" (the south pass being Deception Pass), was largely wrapped up for some kind of bridge repairs, which was kind of a bummer. But we still got truly gorgeous views out of that walk. I think that spot might truly be one of the most beautiful spots in all of Washington State.
Of course, I got plenty of great photos, the
full photo album on Flickr featuring 38 shots. When we returned from the bridge walk, we went back to the van and then headed back home—honestly, Morgan probably got back to her boyfriend all of an hour later than she had hoped. I can't imagine all that fit-throwing she did was really worth her while in the end. Of course, I'm one of "the olds" now, so it would make no difference to her for me (or Danielle) to tell her she has plenty of time to spend with her boyfriend in the coming days and weeks and potentially months and years; it's not every day you get to go to a place as gorgeous as Deception Pass. Not that a lot of sixteen-year-olds would give a shit.
Speaking of being older . . . multiple times Danielle said to me, "You're halfway to ninety!" Jesus Christ. I don't need to hear that shit. And it's not like she's any different, really; she just loves to rub it in that I'm "older than her" . . . by a whopping three and a half months. She sure thought it was funny, though.
But, seriously! I had a very nice time. Of course I did! That's been the case every day this week, and by design. I always have a great time through my Birth Week. I even successfully made the best of stay-home orders last year with the "Birth Week Virtual Quarantinis" I did each day. I did get a phone call from Gabriel last night, mostly to talk about his disappointment that I had not written extensively about last night's Academy Awards ceremony (it's not my fault they scheduled it during my Birth Week, and writing about my Birth Week takes priority), but also to tell me how much more he appreciated my deliberate decision to see him first—I guess he didn't realize until reading about it in this blog yesterday that I would actually be staying the night with Jennifer. "That was very distressing" to read about, he said. And he left it at that, which I in turn appreciated; any further judgment he might have about my making such a decision, he kept to himself.
I even told Danielle today about my intention to see movies in a theater fairly soon. A lot about that decision depends, however; I may not find that I am comfortable just for my own sake—depending on how many other people are in the theater, and how many of them are taking off their masks to eat concession snacks. I actually don't know how comfortable I will be until I go out and do it myself. But, also, it depends on where things are going with transmission rates. I mean, I'm vaccinated and will still wear a mask, but if the current trend of transmission rates gets even more crazy, I will be less inclined to go to a movie theater. If the growing percentage of people getting the vaccine starts to make a more positive difference, I'll have a more positive attitude about the idea. Nothing is really set in stone about that at this point.
For now, I'm just moving on with my Birth Week, which I am delighting in as always. I need to start thinking about what I want my 2022 theme to be.
[posted 6:41 am]
