— पांच हजार एक सौ अट्ठाईस —
I spent the evening with Tracy last night. First we went out for dinner, then we went to see the worst movie I have seen in a theater in 17 years. I'm not kidding. It's only the second movie I have ever reviewed with an F grade, and the last one was in 2005. But, I'll get to that in a minute.
Tracy drove us straight from work to Thornton Place in Northgate, which is the complex just south of Northgate Mall. Tracy reminisced about a bad date she had once there at the coffee shop called the Jewel Box, which she said probably happened in 2015. I'm still too conditioned to think of Thornton Place, which includes several ground-level businesses below two different residential buildings in addition to the Regal Theaters multiplex, as "new." I need to condition myself out of that perception: the place, it turns out, was built in 2009. It's thirteen years old.
Anyway, I knew there were restaurants in there, but especially being between my exposure notification from Friday and my Covid test I'll finally have after work tonight, I didn't want to be spending any time in any indoor public space unmasked. So, I searched for any places that had outdoor patio seating, and found one: Watershed Pub & Kitchen. It took Tracy and me a minute to find it, after we parked, as it's not one of the businesses along the short street that curves through the middle of the complex. I finally figured out it's at the end of that little road, just a slight bit down the street and around the corner. After seeing no outdoor seating inside the complex, I was relieved to see that they indeed had outdoor seating, covered and with space heaters. Perfect.
I quite liked the dinner there. I think even Shobhit would enjoy coming back there with me, given his propensity to eat pizza by folding it over: they have that exact thing on
their menu: "Pie Folds," they call them. Only one of them is vegetarian, but that's what I ordered, called "Bold Funghi," with caramelized onions, spinach, and mushrooms. It came with a very nice side salad that was all much better greens than iceberg lettuce. I also had a cocktail, a spiced cider that was the
prettiest I had ever seen.
Tracy just ordered a soda to drink, and the tall glass came with a customized image in the style of
The Godfather, but with an image of someone we didn't recognize and the caption
The Bobfather. We spent several minutes trying to figure out online who the hell it was, only finding images of the late, famous PBS painter Bob Ross. That's not who it was. So I asked our waiter, who said it was the guy who owns
Latona Pub, whose name is Bob. I asked if he also owns Watershed Pub, and the waiter said no—but, Bob the Latona Pub owner was apparently a mentor to the guy who owns Watershed, so that was the connection. Something Tracy and I would never have figured out on our own in a million years. Anyway, his name is
Bob Brenlin. Side note: interesting, turns out he owns three brewpubs in Seattle, one of them the Hopvine on 15th Avenue just down the street from Shobhit's and my condo.
Tracy had a personal pizza that she ordered gluten free. She liked it but wasn't as effusive: "good, for gluten free."
— पांच हजार एक सौ अट्ठाईस —
— पांच हजार एक सौ अट्ठाईस —
We finished up with dinner, and were over in line for the advanced screening at about 6:00, an hour early as intended. I told Tracy this was the plan and she was fine with it. We didn't realize we'd have to stand outside for the first half hour of that wait, though. She went back to her car to get a heavier jacket.
So, the movie we saw, which I got access to through my SIFF membership, was the new Roland Emmerich film called
Moonfall, and it was not just galactically, but
universally terrible. The trailer was ten times more entertaining, which truly didn't take much. Anyway,
read my F-grade review. You might be somewhat entertained by that alone. I even texted Gabriel this morning to tell him it had happened, since I hadn't given a movie an F since 2005. He texted back a gif of an excited Kermit the Frog, which cracked me up, and then followed that with
Justice has prevailed.
The movie is a solid two hours, and started at 7:00. Tracy and I spent the drive home discussing how terrible it was. She even told me she thought to herself at one point,
What if Matthew thinks this is an okay movie? Ha! Not a chance.
But anyway, that did mean it was about 9:30 before I got home, and I am also looking after Alexia's cat, Cassie, for a couple of days while she is in Portland on business. So, I had to go feed Cassie, and also make sure Shanti and Guru had enough food. That did not leave me enough time to write the review, much as I was eager to—I was constantly thinking of things I wanted to say about it—without it meaning I'd be up too late. So, I went to bed, falling asleep just before Shobhit got home from work. I wrote the review this morning, which I have not done in a long time; I really try not to do that anymore if I can help it. Don't tell anyone.
— पांच हजार एक सौ अट्ठाईस —
[posted 12:25 pm]
