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I did nothing especially social over the weekend. I nearly did a movie watch with Shobhit and Alexia at Alexia's place next door yesterday, but she had to cancel because of stress regarding her elderly father not quite able to process the death of her mother, even though her parents have been divorced and living in separate states for decades. We now have that movie rescheduled for tomorrow.
Instead, I really spent most of the weekend at home with Shobhit, although a good portion of that was with me in the bedroom while Shobhit was watching TV in the living room. He did work 9 to 2:30 on Saturday, and I was out all afternoon that day to see the re-release of
Avatar, which I really enjoyed even though its premise is white-centering garbage. I even did an unprecedented thing by reviewing a re-release, making it the first movie I have ever reviewed twice. But, I knew I would have a lot of new things to say about it.
Aside from that, I spent quite a lot of time over the weekend processing my travels over the previous week, in photos on Flickr, some captioning of those photos, and especially on Friday after work, writing up the two
travelogue emails about it (part one: Wallace, Idaho; Moses Lake; Wenatchee . . . part two: Leavenworth). But, I also had a lot more to say about these trips than was appropriate to include in the travelogue emails, so I spent a good amount of time writing more about it all on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. "Additional notes" on
the trip to Wallace, and visiting my brother was posted right after noon on Saturday; "additional notes" on
the trip to Leavenworth, a lot of it about my sisters was posted midmorning yesterday (Sunday).
At some point I'd really love to get
all the photos from these travels (260 shots total) captioned, but that's going to take some time. I thought I might make a dent in captioning last night, but instead I got caught up on organizing a new "
All Visits to Wallace" album collection. I drew up a whole lot of notes for it too, as you can see: a full list of all 29 visits to date since 2003, and what the dates in Wallace were (a ton of these trips were combined with visiting somewhere else, usually Spokane, which basically stopped once Christopher moved to Wallace). Scroll far down to the bottom of that list, though, and you find other lists: all visits with Mom actually there, before her death (26); all visits with Bill there, before
his death (28); all visits since Christopher moved there (now eight such visits, over the past five years); all visits taken with Shobhit with me (this has been very random and spotty; he was with me 14 of the 29 visits I have taken to Wallace to date); even all visits with Dad and Sherri (two so far, last year and this year) and the one time I went there with Danielle—in 2003, my first visit; she drove me out there from Spokane that year, for my first visit since Mom and Bill moved there from Spokane.
And then! Even below
that, I have a log of where I stayed every time I visited Wallace. This is mostly because this question comes up sometimes (like: how long or how many times have I stayed at Hercules Inn? —six times over the past five years, as it happens), but I also discovered there was a lot more visits than I remembered in which I simply stayed only in Spokane and only took a day drive out to Wallace while I was there (I did this seven of the first nine times I went to Wallace; I've done it eight times total). I even forgot how many times I stayed at the Wallace Inn, the only "nice," full-scale hotel with a swimming pool in Wallace: I've still stayed there more times than any, totaling seven times, between 2012 and 2016. It was shortly after that when Shelley recommended Hercules Inn to us, and I stayed there six visits in a row between 2017 and 2021. I'd have tied Wallace Inn for seven times had Dad and Sherri and I managed to book it for our visit two weekends ago, but they were booked up and that was how we wound up at the Church House this year instead. If I can help it, though, my next visit will be back at the Hercules Inn, even though they apparently significantly raised their rates.
As you might imagine, all of this took a lot of time. But, I enjoy this kind of shit, so I had a good time working on it all. I've even now created
a collection of photo albums specific to my siblings' 50th birthday parties—I'm the only one left, and once I have a party for my own 50th birthday in 2026, I'll add that photo album to it too.
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— पांच हजार दो सौ अस्सी-चार —
I have no major travel scheduled now until Shobhit and I go to Australia at the end of February, so that's a fair bit of time—about four and a half months—but, Shobhit does. In fact, this week is kind of a countdown to
his next huge trip, as he leaves for India on Sunday. He'll be gone nearly three weeks, and when he returns on Friday, October 28, he'll have his mother with him—for her first visit in over fourteen years. We'll see how that goes, but I'm sure it will be fine.
In fact, we went out yesterday for a bit to do some shopping that had to do with Shashi Ji's visit. We went first to Costco, where he got some towels for her, thinking she had asked for some, and apparently was just told this morning she doesn't want him to spend any money. Well, we're going to anyway! I still think we should take her on some outings while she's here, and that's going to cost some money. Maybe she won't mind as much if I'm the one spending it.
We also went to Home Depot, and found some night lights, so she'll have some light in the dark when she gets up to use the bathroom at night. Shobhit also wants to get a no-slip bathmat for the tub, and I'll probably order one from Amazon; I need to get a second "Squatty Potty" for the guest room so she can use that too. After that we went to PCC Central District to get some of the Blue Diamond Almond Breeze aseptic quarts that are on sale for 2/$4, only to discover the one flavor I wanted (unsweetened vanilla) was sold out. Dammit! I'll have to go back later, but before that sale price ends on Tuesday next week.
And of course, as always I have a lot going on, both this week and while Shobhit is out of town. I'm watching a ton of movies this week, at least potentially; Tracy and I are seeing
Bros at Pacific Place tonight; we're going to watch
The Empire Strikes Back with Alexia tomorrow night; we have the Braeburn Condos Action Movie Night on Wednesday; we may see
Return of the Jedi with Alexia on Thursday. I have a rooftop bar happy hour to go to with Karen on Friday after work. I will likely take myself to another movie on Saturday, and I'll be driving Shobhit to the airport Sunday afternoon.
As for while Shobhit's out of town, I'm hoping to do a Fast Ferry ride with Danielle to Kingston sometime, although now that they're on winter schedule they're no longer doing Saturdays so we'll have to do a weekday, maybe Monday the 10th. And Jennifer and Matthew are coming to spend the night on Saturday, October 15.
I'm still trying to decide when I should ask Claudia if she'd like me to come stay the night with her. I was thinking I would do it as something to do while Shobhit's out of town, but he was thinking I might want to do it as a time just to get away for a bit while he's mom is here. That may be the better idea, but I'm going to ask Claudia if she has a preference.
— पांच हजार दो सौ अस्सी-चार —
[posted 12:32 pm]
