— पांच हजार तीन सौ छह —
Well, tomorrow is election day, and I am dreading it. The closer we get to the day itself, the more polls shift toward predicting Republicans will retake not only the House (which has been expected for months), but the Senate as well, even though Democrats keeping the Senate, or maybe even picking up seats, had been predicted for some time. Either way, it's going to be close, and our only line of defense, for another two years at least, will be the Presidency, which is very likely to be taken in 2024 through both voter suppression and election denialism, especially if we lose Congress tomorrow. We may not even know for sure for days, unless it's a surprise landslide, which is also possible. And this, after the overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier this year. But now I guess middle-class White women are more concerned about "the economy" than bodily autonomy. The election hasn't even happened yet and already my faith in this country's future is just about as low as it's ever been.
I suppose I should keep perspective here, and consider my own privilege in all of this. The only reason I've gotten this far without feeling like the government's boot was on my neck all along is because I'm White. To plenty of people, they might look at my dread and see me as just another White person starting to see what this nation has really always been. Just because the racists and fascists have been emboldened since the election of President Fuckwit in 2016 to say the quiet part out loud, as both voters and political candidates, doesn't mean they haven't been there all along, working for this very common goal for decades.
It's still fucking depressing. In a deeply dark and cynical way, I take comfort in the fact that climate change will fuck up their lives just as much as it does the rest of us. It's not like Democrats have ever been our "saviors" in any of this. Their greatest accomplishment has merely to have been to hold the floodgates of things getting much worse much more quickly. Well. Give it time.
— पांच हजार तीन सौ छह —
On that note, why don't we focus for now on happier times! Like, say, Kathy R's retirement party on Friday afternoon. I had my 20th anniversary at PCC in August, and even that's just
under half of the time Kathy had been here; as of 2022, she had worked at PCC for 42 years—having been hired in 1980, at a time when PCC had all of three stores open. Actually, and I didn't think to ask about this on Friday, she may very well have been hired when there were still only two: Ravenna (a store that closed in 2000) and Kirkland. But, the original Greenlake store, the third, opened in 1980, the year Kathy was hired. I just have no idea if it was before or after she started.
In any case, Kathy was one of the very few people left around here who had been here the entire time I was here—and much longer before, besides. Being someone who, as was noted multiple times on Friday, worked largely "behind the scenes," in a completely different department from mine, my interactions with her over the past twenty years were limited, mostly just to nods or slight smiles of acknowledgment while passing each other walking through the office. I did talk with her a little bit on Friday, asking certain things about her history here, and it was almost certainly more direct conversation I'd had with her than all that we'd had in the previous twenty years combined.
But, I have also become fairly well known as the unofficial PCC historian, because of the photos I always take, and Sara J in particular asked both if I would be at the party and if I take photos. I was like: yes, and of course!
Thus, in the end, even for a person I never got to know all that well over two decades, I wound up with
a photo album of forty shots—padded out, just slightly, by making two of the shots
an animated gif. No one else but me thinks about these things, but 40 is a respectable size album in my view. I was slightly relived to get there, because well into the party, I had taken all of about 15 photos.
Once the inevitable gift presentation and reminiscence speeches happened, though, the event became far more photogenic: everyone gathered into the large conference room, and the number of shots I had taken nearly doubled. On top of that, I was asked to take group photos, both of the "original HR team," and the current HR team; the former featured eight people; the latter thirteen.
Among those on the "original" HR team were three recent retirees within the past five years or so: former HR Director Nancy T; former Assistant Director of HR Johnnie B; and former Customer Service Manager Mimi—the latter being the one I have stayed in regular contact with since her retirement in 2017. She arrived early on Friday and I ran into her, walking the office finding people to say hi to, as I was returning to my desk from the bathroom. She was one of maybe three people who kept a face mask on for the entire party (even when
posing for photos), being one of the few people still having the attitude of "you can't be too careful"—she is, after all, in her seventies.
When she saw me, somewhat to my surprise, she opened her arms for a hug, and I said, "You're okay with a hug?" She said yes and we had a long, tight embrace; I hadn't seen her since Shobhit and I met up with her during
the Tulip Festival in 2021. We found our way to each other again on opposite sides of a tall table in the large conference room, and she commented on how she only ever takes her mask off to wipe her nose or to take a drink. This led the conversation to her asking if it was "a big transition" coming back to the office and working without a mask on. I explained to her that I simply did not return to the office in 2021 until they removed the mask requirement—I was never anything close to anti-mask, but have gotten all vaccines and boosters as soon as they were available, and even though working at the office with a mask on had been an option for some time, and even though I really had lost my patience with working from home by then, as long my choice was between working from home without a mask on, or working at the office with a mask all day, I was going to choose the former. So, my return to the office full time at the end of June 2021 was simply because the mask requirement had been removed, and the vast majority, if not all, the office staff had been vaccinated.
I explained to her that, although I don't wear a mask at the office, I'm still strict about wearing a mask whenever on public transit, or in a movie theater, or in stores. Now, Shobhit rarely wears a mask anywhere anymore, which largely nullifies my efforts, but what can I do? I feel I am still doing my part, and masking has long been noted to be more effective at preventing you from spreading it to others anyway. Shobhit clearly feels it's largely pointless at work (even though it really isn't), because at this point virtually no one there, customer or staff, wears a mask anymore, plus he insists masks make it difficult for him to breathe. (I am very skeptical of that; Shobhit's a big baby about such things so I have a hard time taking it seriously.) It's still easy to argue both sides of that one, though. There's not much sense in arguing that Shobhit keeping a mask on at work will help him from spreading a virus to me if he catches one, unless he were to keep a mask on at all times even at home, which no reasonable person would ever expect. The thing is, KN95 masks in particular have at least some efficacy even of protecting the wearer, which Shobhit does not bother with. Of course, you could turn that right back on me, given my own practice of not wearing a mask at work. My counter-argument to that would be that Shobhit works retail in a public space, whereas I am in a private office surrounded by people I know to be vaccinated. The one time (so far) that I got covid, it was literally because Shobhit was the one who brought it home from
his work, which anyone could have predicted.
Anyway, back to Mimi. We also got to talking about wanting to get together again, and just as she did a couple of years ago, she invited Shobhit and me to come stay at their place sometime. (I'd be equally happy with staying the night or just making a day trip of it; the drive is not super far.) I was like, "You're okay with that?" She replied, "Oh, yeah. Our rule is just that you have to be vaccinated and boosted." Done and done, boosted twice over in fact. I told her I would even still take a home test before coming to her place, even having been vaccinated (I was vaccinated and boosted, after all, when I got covid in April). I think the key difference for Mimi, really, is the vast difference between having just two people as guests in her home, and spending several hours in an enclosed space with a crowd of a few dozen people. Even for her, as continues to be the case with me, it's a risk assessment analysis with all decisions of social interaction.
I also had nice conversations with both Randy (former CFO, still longest-running PCC employee ever, retired in 2017 after 46 years), and with Nancy T (former Director of HR, retired in 2019 after 32 years). Randy, who I had not seen in five years, looked really good and I told him so; he commented on how happily busy he's kept in retirement, and we both agreed that we don't understand how people fear getting bored in retirement. I know I've had a couple of genuine conversations with Randy before, but we never knew each other particularly well, and yet somehow on Friday we comfortably slipped into conversation almost as though we were old friends.
Chatting with Nancy was similar, as I sat next to her at the kitchen table for a few minutes, when she was directly across from Kathy, who was sitting in front of the large bowl of Life Savers seen in that animated gif. This was how I heard the story, which Nancy told, of Kathy once eating an entire 5 lb bag of Life Savers. Were they all mint flavored, I wonder? I didn't think to ask. All the ones at this party were. Anyway, Nancy remembered that I lived not far away, up on Capitol Hill, and asked if I still do. Indeed I do, and in fact October 27 was the 15th anniversary of Shobhit and me moving in there. Shobhit completely approached that home purchase as an investment, something he figured we would sell in just a few years. It's funny how life tends to bring you something very different from your plans. I never had any such plans regarding the condo, because I have always loved it there and have been perfectly content to stay indefinitely. Granted, Shobhit's history there has been different, with a six-and-a-half-year break when he lived in New York City for a year and a half and then Los Angeles for five, combined between March 2010 and December 2016.
Mimi texted me later, asking me to send her a photo of the "old HR team," and I obliged; I then emailed her with a link to the photo album, after I finished captioning all the photos, on Saturday afternoon. At her suggestion, she forwarded the link to Kathy, Nancy and Johnnie, all of whom Mimi remains in contact with. Today, as has now become my custom basically as of Halloween this year, I also uploaded photos people at work may want to have copies of, to our intranet W Drive; I did this by uploading the original files at home to One Drive and then downloading them again on my work computer once I got to work today.
— पांच हजार तीन सौ छह —
— पांच हजार तीन सौ छह —
As for the rest of my weekend, there was only one other example of a social engagement—and it was also on Friday. Alexia and I have begun our "Harrison Ford-athon," and we started it with
Raiders of the Lost Ark, watching at our place this time. I had texted Shobhit to see if I should just go watch with Alexia at her place or if we should invite her over; Shobhit suggested the latter. I also leaned toward that option, as she has hosted so many nights at her place already, and this way I could be the one to pay the four bucks to rent it VOD from Amazon Prime Video—it's only available streaming now on Paramount+, which neither of us subscribe to.
Kathy's party was officially scheduled from 3:00 in the afternoon until 7:00 in the evening, and I might actually have stayed longer—or even had some of the
tomato bisque, which I had been told was delicious—except that we also had this plan in the evening; Shobhit intended to make focaccia bread sandwiches; and it had been way too long since I had vacuumed and I did not want Alexia to be sitting in filth. I wound up leaving at about 5:00, shortly after the speeches were done, and thus only about half an hour later than usual. I caught the Monorail and Light Rail, and once home I immediately set to vacuuming while Shobhit finished up the vegetables he put on the sandwich and then put dinner in the oven.
Meanwhile, as Alexia had texted me, she was ready to come over whenever, leisurely spending her time at home reading a book. When she did come over, she accepted the offer of a small bit of the sandwich, which Shobhit made in two layers. It was admittedly tasty, but I don't particularly like when he does this as it's too big and messy then to eat with your hands. Shobhit still did, but both Alexia and I went with using a fork.
I don't know how long it had been since I last watched
Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it wasn't super long: it had been streaming on either Netflix or HBO for a while and I'm pretty sure I burned through the whole series just a few years ago. I have seen it many times, of course, but surprisingly Alexia could not even remember when she last saw it, it was so long, probably sometime in the nineties. Seeing it her was thus more fun given how familiar I already am with the movie, and Shobhit was super into it, though he squealed like a girl multiple times in the snake scenes, because he is afraid of snakes (just like Indy).
Next on the docket will be
Blade Runner, assuming Alexia will be interested in it; I suspect she will but am not certain. I just watched it not long ago and have seen it countless times but I never tire of that film. Barring that, next up is actually the next (and by far the most problematic) Indiana Jones film,
Temple of Doom. So it’ll definitely be one of the two.
— पांच हजार तीन सौ छह —
Otherwise, over the weekend I watched and reviewed two films:
Armageddon Time, which I took myself to see at Pacific Place downtown on Saturday and found to be excellent (A-minus); and then on Sunday,
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story which is actually a parody of biopics that I found to be merely moderately amusing, solid-B, which was streaming on the Roku Channel. I only go out of my way to review new releases that are straight to streaming if they are high profile or have outsized interest, and I felt this qualified. That movie's production has gotten a lot of press, and it feels like the Roku Channel's flagship project: it's certainly the first and only thing I've ever watched on it. I remain amazed that it was available both free and without commercials.
Otherwise, Shobhit and I spent the weekend catching up on TV shows, most notably AMC's
Interview with the Vampire, which we watched four episodes of on Saturday evening. We did some shopping too, the usual kind of stuff. Yesterday, before coming back home to watch this week's episodes of
The White Lotus and
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (we actually had two episodes of that to catch up on), I did go downtown for a 5 p.m. appointment at the 5th Avenue Bartell Drugs pharmacy for my flu shot.
I was really afraid it would hurt, both because my flu shot last year had and because a friend had already said the one they got this year did. At the very last minute, my hyperventilating was truly ridiciculous—only for me
not to feel much of anything. I'm beginning to think it doesn't really matter what kind of shot it is and it all comes down to the person administering it. And I wouldn't necessarily have expected that level of skill from this woman, who kept me waiting several minutes, was clearly very busy, and once she finally came to me gave me the shot and was done in a matter of seconds. I was left there just feeling foolish for getting all worked up in my head about it.
Well, whatever. It's done now. In 2021 I received 6 different vaccination shots (two primary covid shots before the first booster in October; the first two of three HPV vaccination shots; a flu shot) and I've now had five in 2022 (third and final HPV vaccination shot; two monkeypox vaccine shots; omicron booster shot; a flu shot). I've had eleven vaccine shots of one kind or another in the past two years alone, and that's on top of the blood work I have to get done every three months to keep up my PrEP prescription. I get poked a lot, is kind of my point, and yet I can never just calmly sit through having a needle stuck into my arm.
— पांच हजार तीन सौ छह —
[posted 12:31 pm]
