— पांच हजार दो सौ छियासी —
Yesterday I rode my bike from work, giving about an hour to heat up some leftover pasta for dinner, feed the cats, pop some popcorn, and gather the Blu-Ray player and DVD to take over to Alexia's condo next door. In the meantime, Shobhit used the one mango we still had at home to use the blender and make what he consistently calls a "mango shake"—but because these drinks don't actually include ice cream, it would more accurately be called a "mango smoothie." I added two shots of rum to my glass, really a useless move since it made little difference and really did nothing for me. I'm just pointlessly damaging my liver, I suppose.
At the end of all this, there were plenty of dishes to wash, which I did. In the end we had about fifteen minutes to spare by the time we were ready to go over at the agreed time of 6:00.
I got the Blu-Ray player set up, plugged in and connected to Alexia's TV again. She and I were surprised, and almost creeped out, to discover the TV apparently remembered the setting that she got it to last time, so that it did not stretch the screen when I played the DVD of the original theatrical release—this time of
The Empire Strikes Back.
We had last gathered at her place for movie watching a while ago: Saturday, September 10, when we did a double feature of
Rogue One and
A New Hope. The next weekend Alexia was out of town; the weekend after that
I was out of town; this, three and a half weeks later, was just the soonest we could get together to move on to the next movie in our Star Wars marathon. We actually had a plan to watch it on Saturday but Alexia had to cancel. We didn't even know it was her 60th birthday that day, but that's not even why she canceled: she was too upset because her 94-year-old dad, whose memory is fading quickly, was having a hard time processing the fact that his long-divorced ex-wife (Alexia's mom) had died. I guess it wasn't until he called to wish Alexia a happy birthday that she even told him the news, and his reaction was upsetting.
But, she was happy to block out both Tuesday and Thursday this week for
The Empire Strikes Back and
Return of the Jedi, so that Shobhit could watch with us before he leaves for India on Sunday.
I'm thinking now that Alexia and I will go ahead and plan for watching the sequel trilogy without him. Not only is he never going to leave his mom alone to watch these movies (I suppose we could all just watch at our place while she's here, really), but these movies have all been playing a lot on cable and Shobhit has watched them all recently on his own anyway. That works fine for me anyway, and allows Alexia and me to move ahead, should we be able to coordinate it, while Shobhit is in India over the next three weeks.
— पांच हजार दो सौ छियासी —
— पांच हजार दो सौ छियासी —
I do already have plenty planned while Shobhit's out of town anyway though. I'm seeing
The Woman King with Tracy (my second time, Tracy's first) on Tuesday next week; Happy Hour with Laney on Friday the 14th will have to be back to virtual as she's leaving town for fall/winter retirement travels for the year. Jennifer and Matthew are coming up to stay the night on Saturday the 15th. Tracy and I have scheduled a dinner together, without a movie (she keeps wanting to just hang out on Capitol Hill), on Monday the 17th. The Braeburn Condos has its next Action Movie Night tonight, which Shobhit and I will go to; the next one is Wednesday the 19th, and Alexia may actually join for that one. I have this month's virtual movie watch party with Kwanteria on Thursday the 20th, and I'm hoping to have the third Virtual Pumpkin Carving Party in as many years with Gabriel and Lea and Mandy that same weekend. I also have a work Book Club meeting to attend that Friday, the 21st, right after work.
After that, I don't have anything on my calendar, really, besides a movie that same weekend, before Shobhit and his mom return on Friday the 28th—except, possibly, a "Halloween Walk" of North Capitol Hill with Alexia, hopefully on Thursday the 27th. Shobhit will want to show his mom the neighborhood decorations on Halloween night, but she can't do that much walking so he wants to take her around in the car. I've proposed to Alexia that we walk on another day so I can get better photos.
That weekend of Shobhit and Shashi Ji's return is both Shobhit's 49th birthday (Sunday the 30th) and then Halloween Day on Monday the 31st. Back when I thought I needed to burn through a ton of PTO this year, I thought I would take off that Monday and Tuesday, but now that I know something is being planned for Halloween for work (nothing was last year, for the first time since I've worked here)—and I've even been asked to be on the planning committee—I've changed my mind about that, and will work every day that week.
Beyond that, I'm going to be doing a lot of juggling my own independent social calendar with whatever we did with Shobhit's mom while she's here, possibly through the end of the year. As I said to Noah this morning, though, I'm not really fretting about that though. However the rest of the year goes, it'll be fine.
— पांच हजार दो सौ छियासी —
[posted 12:23 pm]
