Sheraton Seven
I already mentioned more than once last week that my original plans for the weekend got either postponed or moved around: at first, I thought I'd be going to Auntie Rose's memorial service in Port Townsend on Saturday, and then to Kanaskat-Palmer State Park with Laney (and Shobhit) on Sunday. I also thought maybe Shobhit and I could go to Happy Hour at Olympia Pizza III on 15th on Friday, giving him a Social Review point for all three days. In the end, he just gets two. But every point counts!
Anyway, first there was the email from Valerie early last week that Auntie Rose's memorial would be postponed, again, to Saturday October 2. Final date this time, no postponements, even if we're forced to do it virtually, although Shobhit and I will take a day trip to Port Townsend that day regardless.
Then, because Shobhit had his Project Management class party on Sunday, he asked if we could move Kanaskat-Palmer State Park to Saturday to accommodate that, and Laney was willing. So, original plans for Sunday were flipped to Saturday.
As for Friday, we decided to put Olympia Pizza on the backburner because Shobhit had already made a chickpea dish and so we had that for dinner. Shobhit had said maybe we could go for a walk that evening, but we never did. Nothing of note otherwise occurred that evening. I think maybe we watched a few episodes of Schitt's Creek on Netflix.
Thus, Saturday was our day trip to Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, which I already posted about that day after we got back.
Sachin did come over for a bit on Saturday night, but I'm not making that part of the next Social Review (and Shobhit gets a point for the day anyway) because I didn't really hang out with him and Shobhit in the living room. I will make a quick note to say, however, that this is one area (among many) where I am really glad Ivan is back, as this means the guest room is now occupied and Sachin can't just crash in there when he drinks too much. Now he has to control his drinking better so he can get himself home. Hooray!
So that really just leaves me with Sunday to tell you about today, although in the end I hung out, in one way or another, with multiple people yesterday.
First, the more spontaneous part: I got a phone call from Angel, my oldest sister, on Saturday night. On odd detail about this is, even though she must have my phone number, she has taken to calling me via Facebook Audio in the Facebook Messenger app. Honestly this kind of creeps me out, because it's very much in line with the idea that Facebook wants to take over every digital aspect of people's lives, from web surfing to video chatting and even audio calls.
I much prefer getting a direct phone call. I mean, it's not like AT&T is some small company or any bastion of integrity and customer satisfaction, but at least they stay in their lane. In my life they do, at least; I only deal with them for phone service.
Anyway, I answered and Angel said, "Is this my brother?" Uh, yes. She told me she and a friend were in town for a Seahawks game and wanted to know if I wanted to meet up for a drink afterward. Even though the game was not set to end until around 10:00, I said sure.
Then, shortly after 10:00 when I found out this was a "pre game" that makes no difference to the later season so it doesn't even mean anything that the Seahawks won against the L.A. Chargers 27-0, she finally called me back. She said they were riding the Seattle Great Wheel and then would be heading back to their hotel—they were staying at the Sheraton. And I was really interested in going there, having recalled staying there once with Dad, Sherri, Angel and Gina in 1986 and there being a swimming pool on the top floor, which I knew was still there with panoramic city views all around. But, she hadn't mentioned earlier they were going to the Great Wheel—had I known that, I might have gone down to join them for that—and I was already nodding off. She told me she forgot about that plan and her friend had reminded her.
And I was like, sorry, I just can't stay awake that late. She suggested we meet in the morning instead. I would have much preferred to get nighttime views of the city, but that's okay; I would take this opportunity any time of day. We hung up and then Shobhit suggested we meet up for brunch; I messaged Angel to ask about that and she said sure.
Here's where things get tricky. We had one more voice call, and she mentioned about her friend (I've asked her to remind me of his name and she still hasn't gotten back to me; I can't remember it) is vaccinated. And I said, "Are you?" She then responded to me with something like, "Ohhh, don't ask me that," and then she admitted she isn't. She told me she had a recent test that was negative, "Although I know that doesn't mean anything," she said. I decided I would still be willing to meet up for breakfast but we would need to find a place with outdoor seating. She said that was fine.
I have to give Angel this much credit, at least: she clearly doesn't deny any of the science behind vaccinations, or even masks. Or most of it, anyway. Shobhit and I agreed we would keep our masks on in the car (in addition to our windows being down) after we picked them up at the Sheraton yesterday morning; they had their masks on even outside while they were waiting for us, and did not take them off after getting in the car. And later, during breakfast, Angel said she thinks she will get the vaccine now that it's FDA approved. "That's what I was waiting for," she said. I mean, it's a bit anti-science to insist that there was good reason to wait for full FDA approval (there wasn't; they've long been known to be safe and effective), but at least, assuming she's being true to her word, she's not one of those people who are predictably moving the goal posts after what they claim to be waiting for has happened. So, hopefully she will indeed get vaccinated soon. "I really hope you do," I told her.
And by the way, because Angel said she wanted to do some swimming at the hotel in the morning but Shobhit had other stuff to get done so he wanted to pick them up early, we agreed on picking them up at the hotel at 8:30, quite early for a typical Sunday. And brunch places often don't open until 10:00 or so. I was surprised (and pleased, actually) to find that it was quite a challenge to find a place that was both open at 8:30 a.m. and did not require proof of vaccination to enter. One place did also allow for proof of negative test within the past 48 hours. In any case, this is clearly a trend still gaining momentum and I'm all for it.
In any case, I decided to look up the Pelton Café Bike Shop Shobhit and I had tried and quite liked just two weeks prior, and they had no vaccine restrictions posted to their website, and I recalled that they had outdoor seating. They opened at 9 a.m. Close enough!
Also, Angel and her friend were quite pleasantly surprising with their punctuality—I had no idea how ready they'd actually be by 8:30, but Angel messaged me about 10 minutes earlier than that that they were ready and already down waiting by the valet entrance. Nice! So we were there at 8:30 and actually at Peloton and waiting for them to open for a good fifteen minutes or so.
They have very small, two-seat tables outside which we just scooted close together, and allowed us to sit together outside but fairly well personally spaced apart. And, it was a lovely visit and breakfast. After Angel had confessed she was not vaccinated (and we wondered how much influence Brandi had over that; Brandi is so vocal in her resistance to vaccinations on Facebook that I have muted her for 30 days yet again; it's the only way not to be triggered by her willfully ignorant posts), I kind of worried about getting into some tension with her about this. I felt a lot better when she said she was now thinking she would get vaccinated, and so we didn't have to have a whole lot of discussion about it.
There was a bee that flew around us a bit, though, and Angel kind of freaked out about that. I had no idea she was so afraid of bees. I asked her if she had any kind of allergy to bees, and then she said, "I wish I did, that way I'd have an excuse!" Eventually the bee finally flew away.
We all masked up after breakfast and got back into the car; Shobhit just dropped all three of us at the Sheraton Hotel so he could get back home and get to work on a class thing. In the meantime, I went up inside the Sheraton Seattle Hotel, thereby taking enough photos of the views to justify a full photo album on Flickr, the latest addition to my "Seattle Skyscraper Views (no official observatory)" collection. I went first to their room on the 16th floor—staying masked, as I did the entire time I was even in the building—to get some shots from their window, which were fantastic; then Angel escorted me up to the 35th floor (technically 34th; hotels skip the 13th, a really dumb but easy way to assuage people's superstitions even though "floor 14" remains the 13th whether people like it or not) where I got a bunch of shots of the spectacular views from both the pool area and the fitness room. I didn't even realize until I got up there what a spectacular, perfect vantage point shot I could get of the new Rainier Square Tower.
It was truly delightful to get up there and take these pictures. And, I suppose if I wanted to be strict about COVID precautions and insist I should not hang out with an unvaccinated person, especially indoors—we did stay masked up, and this was just an opportunity I could not pass up. Sue me!
Angel came with me to the lobby and we hung out for a few minutes outside while she smoked a cigarette. She offered an elbow bump in lieu of a hug, said our goodbyes, and I walked home.
I kind of just hung out for most of the afternoon, during which I got a somewhat jarring call from Gabriel. I can't and won't get into a huge amount of detail here, as there is not yet enough concrete information and I don't want to get into conjecture; also I don't have a lot of time and will need to get back to work soon. I'll just say that it was alarming, potentially anyway, except that there's no reason for alarm until concrete information can be gotten. Hopefully some new information will be gleaned soon, and in the meantime, after I told him my Sunday had been freed up for the rest of the day after all (after I tried to see if Danielle wanted to get together and she never got back to me with any definitive answer), early yesterday evening we already got back into the Fast & Furious franchise and we watched Furious 7, connecting as usual over FaceTime.
Gabriel never told me this one had a delightfully over-the-top car stunt jumping between three skyscrapers in Abu Dhabi! After the sequence with cars literally skydiving had me declaring it was one of the dumbest things I had ever seen (which I enjoyed notwithstanding), that skyscraper sequence, completely insane as it was, one of the greatest things I had ever seen in a movie. This is finally the installment, I told him after the movie ended, that finally makes me wish I had been watching these movies all along. This one also has the very touching memorial to Paul Walker at the end, and for once I did get a little misty eyed at one of these movies.
It's kind of interesting when Gabriel and I watch these movies with both of our spouses along for the ride. Lea's reaction to these movies seem marked mostly by indifference—although she did note that her favorite part in this movie is when Dwayne Johnson says "Daddy's got to go to work" and then he breaks through his arm cast by flexing his muscles. Ha! That did crack me up.
Shobhit, on the other hand, is all in. He started watching along as of the movie we went to watch together in person at Gabriel and Lea's house (Fast & Furious, the fourth one) and has mostly watched along virtually with five, six and seven as we've gone on from there. I know Charlize Theron is in the next one, as a villain I believe, and I eagerly anticipate watching it. I'm actually bummed now that F9 is out of theaters and I won't be able to watch it on the big screen. Oh well; I'm finally definitely planning to see the next ones in theaters. I understand the tenth one will be split into two parts, like the final installments of the Harry Potter and Twilight series.
Gabriel insists we won't be watching Hobbs & Shaw and that it doesn't count as one of these movies. I'm actually now kind of interested in it and might just watch it on my own anyway. Can you believe that shit?
[posted 12:28 pm]