Let's see if I can get through everything from my weekend relatively quickly. It was very busy, social engagements once again on all three days.
Friday was another Movie Night with Alexia in her condo next door, while Shobhit worked a later shift at Total Wine. This was the third
Mission: Impossible movie I've watched with her now, this one being
Rogue Nation from 2015. In retrospect, I think this is my least favorite of the three since they stopped numbering them—but, it's still better than the first three in the whole franchise, so it remained very entertaining.
Alexia and I got to talking about other movies, and I was delighted to hear she was interested in doing a particular type of Star Wars marathon with me: I want to watch them all in episode number order, but when we get to episodes IV, V and VI (the original trilogy), I want to watch my DVDs that have the original releases on them—which you cannot buy anymore, so I was pretty thrilled when I realized the Original Trilogy DVD box set I bought some twenty years ago or so had included them. I haven't seen the non-"special edition" versions since the newer ones (which I actually do prefer) came out, and I'm interested in revisiting what they actually looked like to 1970s and 1980s audiences.
I do want to include the two standalone movies, though:
Rogue One and
Solo. So, that'll be 11 Star Wars movies for us to burn through. And we haven't even finished
Mission: Impossible yet, although we'll have that done with the next one we watch.
I had leftover hummus pizza that I brought over, along with a piña colada I made myself. It was a tasty dinner and a pleasant movie night.
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I did watch one movie for review over the weekend, my second one in a row that I bought a "virtual" ticket to through SIFF.net:
February, a Bulgarian film that was too long and moved at a truly glacial pace. It had redeeming qualities to it but I will soon forget it, I'm sure, and never watch it again.
I did have to message Ivan about it after I finished it, though. Not just because the film was made and set in Bulgaria—one of the Eastern European countries
he visited in the spring of 2018—but because, to my astonishment, a sequence of the film features the main character doing military service on an island in the Black Sea, off the coast of Bulgaria, called
Saint Ivan Island. Ha!
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Shobhit managed two Social Review points over the weekend as well, even though he wasn't part of the primary things I did on Friday or Saturday. But, he got off work at 6:00 Saturday evening, and I had plans to meet Danielle and Morgan for dinner at a new place called Cashew Thai Cuisine on Lower Queen Anne at that very time, so he decided he would join us for dinner.
I was truly the only person who actually got there at the agreed time. I waited outside with my umbrella, or standing in a little cove with windows to a closed section of the restaurant, for several minutes. Then she called me at 6:05, and the first thing she said was, "You know that thing where I'm never on time for things?" She told me they were on their way, but her GPS said the ETA was 6:20.
Shit. I really should have told her we'd meet at 5:30. We didn't have reservations or anything so that would have been a very effective strategy.
Shobhit had some slight challenge finding parking—I guess there was a Seattle Kraken game that night—but, he found street parking. By the time he arrived, I had already gone in and gotten a table, even ordering for Danielle and Morgan as they texted me what they wanted. So, when Shobhit arrived he was the last to order. But, then when my dish came with meat because I had misread the menu, I technically became the last to order because they had to redo my cashew pineapple fried rice. Kind of mystifyingly, my replacement plate still arrived earlier than Shobhit's did; he really cut it close and barely finished eating before we needed to leave.
I did love my dish though. Danielle and Shobhit both were disappointed to learn that they don't do star level spice ratings; either a dish is prepared spicy or it isn't, based on the menu. They had hot sauces they would bring to the table, at least.
Anyway Danielle parked in a nearby parking garage. It was easily past 6:30 by the time she and Morgan came in, and their dishes were already on the table. There were certain things I had hoped to discuss but we were kind of rushed as a result of all this so I never got it it. We did get an update on Patrick, though, who was apparently in California doing rehab and set to come back soon—Shobhit and I had clearly not been updated on his situation in a while.
Danielle had three tickets to this hip-hop comedy improv show called "
Freestyle Love Supreme," something she got deeply discounted tickets to through some website a few months ago and had asked if I wanted to come. We discussed whether Shobhit would come, and I said I had no idea at the time because it was way too early to know his work schedule. But, although after seeing the show I do think he would have enjoyed it, Shobhit has no real interest in hip-hop so I didn't think he'd be interested in the show really, even after I found out he got off work at 6:00. Danielle had thought she would be bringing Rylee but Rylee wound up having a sleepover with a friend and so she brought Morgan instead.
So far as I could tell, Shobhit had no problem with not coming to the show. He was also happy to join us for dinner beforehand, and I know he's glad that garners him a Social Review point. As for the show itself, even though our seats were not assigned until we got to Will Call, placing us about two rows from the back wall in the balcony, it turns out there's not really a particularly bad seat in the Bagley-Wright Theater. (It seats 282.) As you can see from the photo above, which was taken near the end of the show when they said we could all take our phones out for photos, it actually wasn't that terribly far away. We were in row F of the balcony.
And the show was great. My first live theater, so far as I could tell, since seeing Kinsey Sicks with Laney in July 2019. The whole audience had face masks on, of course (see photo Danielle took, also above), but that was fine. The Freestyle Love Supreme performers, five vocalists and two instrumentalists, were insanely talented, very funny, and made for a uniquely entertaining evening.
And then we wall went back to Danielle's van in the nearby parking garage and she drove me home.
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As for yesterday, two notable events, the first being a small-group activity: Shobhit just happened to have the day off, so he was able to join Tracy and me for our long-planned viewing of
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition in the Braeburn Condos theater. I had initially scheduled it for this day thinking it was Ivan's off weekend so he could join us, but then the schedulers at his job swapped them around. But, he then got Sunday off, so he told me he could join us after all. But, "Sunday off" for him means Sunday
evening so he still worked Saturday, and had to sleep all day yesterday so he
couldn't join us after all.
However! Back when I thought Ivan was joining us, I knew there would be four of us. But, then I invited Alexia on Friday and she was interested, so she joined us instead. We still had four. For about half a day I thought we would have five, but that was not to be. It was still the most people I've had gathered for movies down in that theater in a few years. And it was great fun. I went to try and figure out when I had last watched this movie, and I think it may have been as long ago as 2011. Eleven years ago, holy shit!
Oh, there's also a new doughnut place over on Pike, in the space that used to be my beloved Old School Frozen Custard, and Alexia joined Shobhit and me for a walk over there early yesterday morning. Alexia and I have tried twice but it was both times too close to their closing time and they were sold out; this time we were there about 45 minutes after they opened. We really should have just gotten one doughnut for each of us, but Shobhit is always a sucker for a deal and he ordered a dozen so that he could get the 20% off for that. Except each doughnut is between $4 and $5 (they vary), and I paid, and also added a 15% tip, so
for doughnuts, I paid $53.51.
Part of Shobhit's rationale was the "party," as he called it; we brought several things to eat to the movie, including baked and seasoned carrots he wanted to use up before they went bad; to have with the last of my sample hummuses I brought home from work last night; plus the aforementioned doughnuts; and even an apple date pie Shobhit decided to bake. Tracy was very impressed with this pie by the way, and had two helpings. I could barely choke down one bite. I was open to trying it, but forgot how much I
really do not like dates—this was no reflection on Shobhit's cooking. I even said I could barely get it down without gagging, and Tracy was just like, "Dramatic." But it was literally true. No dates for me, thanks. Gack. That shit barely stopped short of making me throw up.
Alexia brought candied walnuts, which were also fantastic.
We had way too many sweets. I didn't eat a lot for the rest of the day after that, but still this morning I weighed in at a solid 166 lb. Goddammit! Also, that self-timed photo I took of us all in the theater, oh my god. I can't remember the last time I took a photo of myself so unflattering. I hate how I look in it. But you know that won't stop me from keeping the photo to commemorate
the moment! (I asked if I could take a picture real quick, and Alexia said, "Of course you want to take a picture!" Not in a judgmental way at all, she was totally game.)
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When Tracy and I watch movies just ourselves, often a double feature, we usually break between to sit out in the community kitchen to eat a lunch. But, this time we had to keep breaks to a relative minimum, and eat largely during the movie, as Shobhit and I needed to be back upstairs by 5:00 to watch this year's SAG Awards.
I had misremembered all of the Extended Editions of
Lord of the Rings as four hours each, but the first one only has about half an hour of added content;
The Two Tours something like forty minutes added and
Return of the King about fifty minutes. But, it was still close to 12:30 before I got the movie started, so it was just past 4:00 when Shobhit and I got back upstairs.
I did a few household chores and thus it was a comfortable amount of time before the awards started, which I really enjoyed. I love that
CODA won Best Ensemble.
After that we watched the second of this past week's episode of
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Then, while I was updating a playlist in Apple Music, Shobhit convinced me to come watch this week's episode of
The Simpsons because it was about the state of Marge and Homer's marriage and he said it was like us, which was ultimately kind of a stretch (except that we do spend a lot of time sitting on the couch watching TV together . . . which he made me do even more of just to watch this episode). I went back to finish up the playlist I was working on (a version of Fleetwood Mac's
Rumours but consisting of all covers; I now actually have 16 Fleetwood Mac playlists), but then came out to the living room again so we could watch last night's episode of
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Predictably, the opening segment was a fairly detailed discussion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
And that about wraps up my weekend.
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[posted 2:26 pm]
