a Fair chance
Oh shit you guys, I have very little time to write anything now because I breezed through almost my entire morning doing actual work! I don't know what came over me. Well, I suppose maybe it's the multiple deadlines I need to meet today.
I have little to share anyway. I thought about watching a movie for review last night, and then bagged it when I knew I needed to watch the last 15 minutes or so of this week's episode of American Crime Story: Impeachment with Ivan, but had no idea when it would happen. There's no reliably specific time at which he wakes up to start making his dinner and then getting ready for his night shift, but once he did, he asked when we would watch the show, and I told him we could whenever he was ready. He wanted to finish his dinner first, and shortly thereafter, we did. Shobhit acted jokily put-out, "I sacrifice!" he mock-moaned, which was annoying but whatever.
Oh, I guess I could mention that I took two brief detours on my bike ride home from work before that. First, I went northward on Battery Street so I could finally figure out the name of a high-rise residential tower I kept seeing just north of Denny Way; I got three photos and later finally figured out it's called The Waverly (2021, 280 ft, 28 floors). After that, I rode to the Central Library to pick up four DVDs I had on hold, three of them Daniel Craig James Bond movies, for two double features I plan to have with Tracy on Saturday, September 25 and Sunday, October 3 before we go see the new James Bond movie the weekend of the 8th when it finally opens.
Anyway, after Ivan and I finished our show, I spent a bit of time in the bedroom, and later went back to the living room to watch a couple of episodes of Schitt's Creek with Shobhit. We're in season 4 now and I finally really understand how that show became so beloved.
As for this weekend, no solid plans yet, really. I'm just excited that we're finally set to get some real rain—as in, possibly more than our entire normal amount of rainfall in September, all over the course of three days. And this, after having nearly no rain whatsoever all summer, save for a couple brief, light showers like a month ago.
This did mean I had to forego biking to work today, one of maybe three or four times all summer that I could not bike in, but it's a small price to pay! We are just so, so overdue for some rainfall. It's too bad it can't be a little more spread out than this, but we'll take what we can get I guess.
I just finished a lengthy text chain with Gina and her friend Jennifer. I think we finally finalized and confirmed our plans for the Washington State Fair on Thursday next week. That will be the second to last day of the fair, and will leave me immensely satisfied that we have kept up our tradition of the three of us going every three years: we previously went in 2015 and in 2018. Jennifer tried to get us to go again in 2019 and both Gina and I resisted; Gina said she gets tired of it going every single year and so do I—and since 2015 and 2018 were three years apart, I wanted to maintain that pattern.
I think there had been a brief suggestion by Jennifer that we even go last year, when we naively though COVID would be under control by last September. I still maintained that I wanted to wait until this year; I recall arguing also that we'd be out of most COVID restrictions by now. Haha! Well, at least they're actually doing the Fair this year, which is a lot more than can be said for last year. They are still mandating masks, and I am completely on board with that. I also don't want having to wear masks be a reason to break the pattern.
The only real part of this that was up in the air until now was Gina's availability, as she's been very busy fixing up her and Beth's new house. Also, she did inform me today that David, her son who works as a State Trooper in Clark County, is indeed vaccinated (first I've gotten confirmation of that; Shobhit constantly assumes he's conservative and therefore unvaccinated, but you simply cannot make blanket assumptions)—but, he's also go COVID. He lost his sense of smell and has to isolate, not even seeing his baby, for 10 days, but otherwise "does not feel sick." You know what the reason is for that last part? Vaccination! What a concept.
Anyway, one of Gina's texts read, As a law enforcement officer, he is really close to a lot of people that are snotty and spitting. Ew. But, this does get back to one of the pertinent points a lot of doctors and epidemiologists I follow regularly bring up: the issue there is duration of exposure, combined of course with the viral load being exposed to. Most importantly, Gina has not seen David since September 4 so I don't consider her unsafe to be around.
Pierce County is mandating masks at all events with over 100 people, which the Washington State Fair certainly is. I know some people will be there walking around without masks, but I'll steer clear of them. Hopefully they won't be infiltrating indoor spaces. A whole lot of what we do at the Fair is just milling about outside anyway, and being both outside and masked, and knowing the three of us are all fully vaccinated (which I also confirmed today), leaves me feeling safe enough to go ahead with this.
Also! Gina has a long history of entering radio contests and winning. She won tickets to the Fair! She's not sure yet how many, she thinks four. So there's a "Fair" chance I won't even have to buy my ticket. I'll still want to spend some money there, though; I feel bad about how much revenue they lost last year due to having to cancel the whole thing for 2020.
[posted 12:50 pm]