easing back
I went to see another movie last night in the theater—the fifth time I have done so since first returning to theaters early last month. This was the first one of those, though, that was a documentary: Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It. Being a documentary, it really has nothing about it that commands in-theater viewing, but it was currently only available in theaters and also my best option for a movie playing that I was both interested in and had not already seen.
I enjoyed it very much, and perhaps more importantly, I just enjoyed the experience of being in a theater. It's so great being able to do that again, although I do continue to wonder how long it will be before theater attendance has reached pre-pandemic levels, or if it even ever will again. It's been nearly two months, after all, and still this screening I went to last night at 6:45 had all of two or three other people besides me in there. For the moment I actually do prefer that over being in a sold-out crowd, but it's obviously not sustainable for the future of the movie theater industry.
Of course, theaters in Washington State remain at limited capacity, but attendance is on average well below the 50% capacity we're still at—when Shobhit and I went to In the Heighs on opening night June 11, it had by far the biggest crowd I have seen so far, and it was still easily below 50%. And there has already been plenty of press about how that movie has performed below expectations at the box office. Now, in another week or so current restrictions in Washington will be lifted, but I have a feeling it will still be some time after that before many more people are comfortable seeing movies in theaters again. On the other hand, with no more face mask requirements after that, maybe some will be more inclined to go out for something like that. Either way, I expect it will take some time.
I'm discovering that the AMC Pacific Place and Regal Meridian multiplexes are showing mostly the same movies. I guess there will be more variance in the near future when a larger number of movies are opening in theaters again, but I am finding myself drawn much more to Regal than to AMC, even though my reinstated monthly membership is only at AMC. I did buy like twenty discounted Regal tickets at Costco because they were stunningly cheap (valued at something like $6.75 each), so I'll have an easy choice between the two for a while. Historically, Pacific Place has the best movie selection, which is why my monthly membership is with them. However, Regal has the reclining seats, and holy shit are they more comfortable.
Anyway. I was quite busy all evening, spending the time between work and leaving for the movie cooking and then eating ravioli for dinner; finally updating my budget after last weekend's trip to Idaho (total expenses: $561.66, up 37% compared to the trip to Portland the previous weekend, but bear in mind that includes three rather than two nights hotel stay, and in Idaho the dinner I covered for everyone Saturday night alone amounted to nearly a third of the entire trip's expenses); and vacuuming. In the interest in saving time on getting there and back, I decided to ride my bike to the movie, which got me back home a good 15 minutes earlier than I had at first estimated. Writing the review proved surprisingly easy, and I was nearly done with it by the time Shobhit got home from his later shift at work.
In other news, the entire state is bracing for a massive heat wave this weekend, on the level of what usually comes in late July or August and almost never in June: likely breaking the 100° mark both Sunday and Monday; my phone's weather app says 86° today, 95° tomorrow and 90° on Tuesday. Yikes. Ugh.
I need to check the National Weather Service forecast though, as I like to do knowing they are stastically more accurate with their forecasts than anyone else. They've still got a striking yellow box running over Friday through Monday, labeled Excessive Heat Watch. None of their forecast highs are quite at or above 100°, but they're showing 94° Saturday, 97° Sunday and 98° Monday. Fucking close enough! I just learned recently that running a fan at 95° or hotter actually just makes things worse as it mearly moves around air that is too hot and makes it hotter, something I never knew before, so I'll have to be careful abuot that while we're at home and keep the fans off over much of the weekend . . . which, by the way, is Pride weekend! I had stated in the past that I kind of hoped the weather would be shitty this weekend to make the second year in a row of Virtual Pride was more palatable, but I was thinking rain. I suppose this works too. Well, if you have air conditioning anyway. Which I don't.
I will for half the day on Monday, at least! That's when I shift back to working at the office. We also have the Merchandising Department party on the office patio tomorrow though. I'm going to be using a lot of sunscreen this weekend. Oh! And I suppose I have even more of a reason to maybe return to the bathhouse on Sunday. They'll also be air conditioned. Otherwise I might just want to die.
I just had my latest FaceTime lunch with Karen. I told her last time we had one that the next time we talked, I'd have two different trips to discuss with her. So here we are.
And actually, I told her a little bit about both the previous weekends, as she clearly had not read the detailed travelogue emails I had sent out for both (and I get it, they are long and people are busy), but we spent a fair amount more time talking about things having more to do with her. She and Dave and Anita recently had their first post-COVID visit with Karen's parents in Massachusetts, which was apparently very emotional for her 88-year-old mother, mostly because of the increased frailty of her 91-year-old father. It sounds like if all goes as planned, Karen herself will have visited four times by the end of the year, she's gotten concerned enough about them.
They are also taking a family vacation to Hawaii in August. Anita is about to graduate from graduate school, and when I learned she is 24 now, I was like . . . holy shit. She was 16 years at our wedding! But yeah, uh, math. That was eight years ago.
Karen and Dave have closed on the property they bought north of town (maybe even north of Everett? I can't remember exactly where now, except that it's on the water) so they officially own it now. They're going to build a second home up there, but we've already talked about having us visit the property with them sometime over the summer.
I guess I should post this and get back to work though.
[posted 1:08 pm]