I guess the recent years of my Birth Week day with Laney is arguably a bit of a stretch: both last year and this year it was rather belated—particularly last year, as it didn't happen until August, after Laney returned from her travels for the summer. But, it was still part of my theme of touring Washington State Parks, just as my time hanging out with her yesterday, making the 18th and final "Birth Week train" of the year, was part of my trains theme.

In my defense, had I never gotten sick and I could have kept to my original Birth Week schedule of April 22 through May 1, this walk along the South Ship Canal Trail (her suggestion) would indeed have occurred this year during my actual Birth Week. But, I did get sick, and had to postpone my Birth Week a week—and then, on top of that, Laney re-injured her knee, so she couldn't go for this walk the next week as planned. We had to wait until her knee healed enough yet again.

Even the walk yesterday was not particularly long: about 0.7 miles one way, thus 1.4 miles round-trip. On the upside, I happened to find this train in Google Photos online, which was the only reason I asked that we walk to the west rather than to the right, from where Laney went to park her van by West Ewing Mini Park alongside the Lake Washington Ship Canal. We got as far as those "Excessive Height Cars," and shortly thereafter just turned around and walked back.

But, not before we stopped at a distillery that was right by there. Laney needed to pee and figured there would be restrooms there; she was right. I went ahead and used the bathroom myself, since I am at an age when it's smart to pee proactively. We might have looked into some of the tastings available at this distillery, except all they made was gin—yuck—so she just took their card and we were on our way.

Once we got back to the van, though, Laney drove us to Zeek's Pizza, which she had suggested as a lunch spot. They had outdoor seating so that suited us well, and we rather liked the setup that was basically stools at wooden bar seating, in one of two little square seating areas in front of the restaurant.

It was somewhat disappointing how little of the South Ship Canal Trail—which itself used to be a railroad—was actually right next to the canal water. I suppose more of it might have been had we walked to the east rather than the west, but I wanted to find that train. The 18th one! That made for 18 photo albums for my Birth Week this year, a record by four. So, even though my "Birth Week" consisted of the standard 10 days plus two later bonus days—totaling 12 days—there were five days yielding more than one photo album: First Hill Streetcar and Heritage Park (with its Interurban Trolley on display) were on the same day; Washington State History Museum (with its model train display) and The Old Spaghetti Factory (with its trolley seating) were on the same day; the day trip to Portland yielded three separate photo albums, for the Amtrak trains there and back, the visit to The Grotto and riding the MAX Light Rail; my bike ride with Dad on the Willapa Hills Trail was on the same day I hung out with Gabriel and Lea, at both the Auburn Environmental Park and West Hylebos Wetlands; and then when I later spent the night with Jennifer, we did both the Kitsap Live Steamers and the High Steel Bridge on the same day.

I don't know if another Birth Week will yield as many as 18 photo albums. Maybe. But, it probably won't for a while. Even those 18 photo albums got that high largely because Shobhit went to multiple places with me that I had no one else to go with, rather than just the typical one destination reserved for going to with him on my actual birthday.

I have tentative themes set for the next two years already, by the way. I have many notes for both, 2023 being "Hidden Gems" and should be pretty easy to find things to do with everyone I want to spend time with. And, after Iraseme, the broker, took me out to lunch last Wednesday, she offered a suggestion of "islands" as a theme, which I quite liked. So, I have that tentatively earmarked for 2024 now. That does, of course, also mean a lot of boat rides, making it largely similar to the "boats and waterfronts" theme I already did, in 2019. But, a) there are several islands accessible via bridges; b) all of the boats I do take will be ferries, rather than the widely varied boats I took rides on in 2019; and c) by 2014 it will have been a good five years since the "boats" year anyway. I think it'll work well enough to stand on its own, in spite of it obviously also yielding a lot of photos likely to be similar to my State Parks Tour. Whatever. I still like the idea! Especially after looking up extremities like the northernmost and southernmost islands in Puget Sound; the westernmost island that is the westernmost point in the contiguous 48 states; and even a surprisingly large island near Portland in the Columbia River.

And here I thought I might be running out of Birth Week theme ideas.

Anyway! Laney drove me back home, and I was back early enough to take the bus and meet Shobhit at Total Wine & More when he got off work at 5:30. Actually, I was back early enough, even, to take an unusually hard nap for nearly an hour, a byproduct of deep drowsiness after a bad night's sleep thanks to chai I drank Friday night, plus the rum-spiked fruit custard smoothie I blended and took with me for the walk with Laney. We had split a medium pizza for lunch in addition to that, so it was little surprise that my weight was up pretty dramatically this morning.

I met with Shobhit at Total Wine because he said there was a tasting happening. Just what I needed! I just had a few very small sips anyway, and Shobhit had me drive us home. We took a detour to stop at the PCC office so I could fill a tote bag with samples I had in my desk drawer. We came home and I watched the last episode of season one of Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, and then I watched the first episode of the new Disney+ season of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Yesterday was not the only day this weekend that I hung out with Laney, though: she came over today to watch Paddington 2, which of course delighted her about as much as I predicted. We had originally planned for her to come at 2:00, but this morning I asked if she could come at 1:00 instead so I wouldn't be cutting it close for going to see yet another movie at the Egyptian at 4:15. That one was a pretty good Norwegian film called The Innocents, about young children who discover they have supernatural powers, which, let's say, they do not use responsibly.

Oh! And I suppose I shou;dn't forget Friday, when Alexia came over, both for the beans and rice dinner that Shobhit prepared, and to watch Jurassic World, which we all had a blast watching. A movie like that is always more fun on re-watch, because nothing about it can disappoint since I already know what I'm headed for. The movie is dumb, but also thrilling as hell. We'll be getting together again next weekend to watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

[posted 9:01 pm]