Well, as of this week, Danielle has a record twenty years covered for my Birth Week, having participated in every single one. To be fair, assuming I find a way to get together with Gabriel by the end of the week, he'll have as many years covered.

Also, this is kind of on a technicality: I didn't start calling it my "Birth Week" until 2004, making this year officially the 19th one. But, I later constructed 2003 as a Birth Week in retrospect, having actually spent time with friends every day for a full week that year. I just didn't create photo albums for any but two of those days, one being a few days when Dad actually came up to see me in Seattle on my birthday itself; and the second being the first of what would become several (but long since discontinued) annual Potluck Picnic Parties at Golden Gardens Park. Both Danielle and Gabriel were at that first party in 2003, so it serves as the first photo album in the full-history collections I have for each of them. The rest of the years, even if there was also a party at the end of the week, the photo album included in that collection is for the other day I spent with them. (And I did spend a different day with both of them that week in 2003 as well; I merely have only blog posts as records of them, as opposed to photos.)

I do feel compelled to add that, although Shobhit was not around for my Birth Week until 2005 (having met after my birthday in 2004), he does also have twenty photo albums in his Birth Week history, but that's just because there are two photo albums each in 2018 and 2019 that feature him. And, with two days off of work in the middle of the week this year, he'll probably wind up in at least three of the albums that do not also feature other friends for 2022.

So anyway, let's get back to this year, and Danielle specifically. Yesterday's photo album features 31 shots, three of them video clips, plus a fourth video clip that is just the other three edited together into one video (see below)—I must say I appreciate how easily and quickly I was able to put that together using the iMovie app on my iPhone.

The album does feature one shot from before I headed down to Renton to see Danielle, though: the one seen at the top of this post, of me, right after my requisite Birth Week haircut. (See this shot taken on my birthday, two days prior, for comparison.) Oddly, I posted both photos to Facebook, the first one just as a representation of how I looked on my 46th birthday, and both proved surprisingly popular—the first one even more so, maybe largely because it was my birthday: that one got 25 likes and 9 comments; the post-haircut photo got 16 likes and 10 comments, but with the bonus of Gabriel's friend Andy texting on a five-person group chat of Gabriel's closest friends with a compliment on how great my haircut looked. I'm sure Gabriel loved that.

In addition to this daily morning posts on each day of my Birth Week, I've been trying to get a draft started on the travelogue email I will eventually send out, and it has been a challenge to get much of it done due to being pressed for time, between writing these posts and the rest of the Birth Week stuff I have scheduled. I actually got a little bit started yesterday, and would have gotten more of it written, but I had to leave for my 11 a.m. appointment I managed to get at Rudy's Barbershop down on Pine half a mile west of home.

I walked over there, and then witnessed something rather odd: a very thin, Black man getting a haircut from the guy I had clearly been booked with myself, who was clearly . . . how can I put this the least problematic way possible? "Not neurotypical," let's say. He chattered a lot in a way that was audible yet difficult to make out, although the guy cutting his car, who did indeed later cut my hair, told me he kept telling him, "I want to look like a little boy." There was a lot of visual details that seemed odd only in combination, including his pristine, almost astonishingly clean jeans and pressed white shirt; and a roller suitcase complete with a neck pillow, as though he were stopping for a haircut either on his way to or on his way home from the airport. Who does that? Whatever the case, and of course I could be wrong about this, but he seemed like the kind of person who might have a caregiver of some sort at home wherever he lived.

The most memorable thing, though, was when the hairdresser was headed back to the chair with a broom and dustpan, clearly to clean up the hair that was on the floor. The Black man said something I could not make out, but then the hairdresser took the dustpan back to the storage closet, came back again with a plastic sack and the broom, then swept the hair from the floor into the sack—and gave the sack to the guy, who took his hair from the floor away with him. I'm dying to know what he needed his own hair back from the floor for, but I suppose I'll never know. (When I posted about this to Facebook, my niece Brandi, who is also a hairdresser, said she's had clients who kept their hair for reasons ranging from "deer repellent" for scattering around their gardens, to making "art" with it. Neither of these scenarios seemed likely with this guy.)

When the guy went to pay for his haircut, I overheard him asking about whether the hairdresser gets all the money he's paying, and the person at the desk spending an inordinate amount of time explaining that they get a portion of, plus all of whatever tip he might leave.

So the hairdresser finally invited me over to his chair, his name being, according to my email confirmation, Hutch, and he got what I wanted in impressively short time. He set to cutting my hair, and we sat in silence for a few minutes. And then I said, "Okay, my curiosity's getting the better of me, and I have to ask. Has anyone ever asked you for their hair before?"

Hutch said no. But, he clarified, people have asked to keep, say, a ponytail that has been cut off. But never like this, asking for the hair after it's already fallen to the floor. That was as new for him to experience as it was for me to see it. I asked if he had been there before, and apparently he also said over and over and over, "It's my first time here," untl suddenly he said, "It's my second time here." I guess he'd had a booking earlier in the day but came in late, and the other hairdresser there wouldn't take him, so Hutch did. I'd have gotten started with my haircut as soon as I arrived on time at 11:00 if it weren't for that guy, but I probably waited a good fifteen or twenty minutes. At least it wasn't boring, I guess. I actually brought a library book to read while I waited, just in case I did have to wait, but it was hard to stay focused on the book with all this oddness to witness.

I finally got my haircut done, which did not last long, and I was very happy with it. I then needed to walk to City Cat Vet Clinic to pick up some medication for Guru. and then back over to the QFC to pick up some baking soda. The QFC has new sort of gates installed at the entrance, plus signs saying roller bags are not allowed in the store. I can only assume these are new measures in response to high theft rates, residual effects of how badly the economic impacts of the pandemic have hit people below the poverty line. We still live in strange times. I won't even get into how poised the Supreme Court appears to be to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

Shobhit's work shift yesterday was 1:45 to 10:15, and I both dropped him off and picked him up. Well, more accurately, he drove there from home and he also drove home from there, but with me, after I took the car during his shift to go spend the afternoon with Danielle, and go out for dinner with her and her daughters, Morgan and Rylee.

What would be this year's Birth Week activity, tied into this year's theme of trains and railroads, really went back and forth over time, and in the end we just did what I had suggested from the start: eat dinner at Melrose Grill in Renton, where trains pass right by the front of the building. This was the closest thing I could find to a "train attraction" in Renton, where I could just come meet with her and she would not have to travel far to take part.

Well, a few weeks ago, when we still thought my Birth Week vacation would be last week rather than postponed to this week, Danielle came back to me with the idea of riding Amtrak somewhere. At the time, the plan was still to spend the first weekend of my Birth week visiting Jennifer, staying the night with her, and then with Dad and staying the night with him and Sherri. Danielle and I then fashioned a plan for her to catch Amtrak southbound from Tukwila Station early in the morning on Monday, April 25—because she usually has Mondays off—and then she would stop at Olympia/Lacey station and we would take the train back north together. In fact, we literally made the plan official the previous Monday, April 18, and I bought my tickets while I was at work at the office that day—only to have Shobhit text me that afternoon that he had a fever, and for him to test positive for covid that evening, and for me to test positive the next day. Luckily Danielle never got to finishing the booking of her tickets, and I had to go to Amtrak's website to request a refund, due to pushing my Birth Week back a week.

As it became clear that I would indeed be recovered enough to go forward with this week being my Birth Week, I texted Danielle several times with ideas for still doing some kind of Amtrak day trip, just without stopping in Olympia now. For a little while I thought I had a great idea for going north to Bellingham and back, before I finally figured out that as long as Amtrak is still not going to Vancouver B.C. due to covid. they aren't taking any trains north of Seattle at all, and are only taking people to Bellingham via "bus connectors." No point in that! I even considered a day trip down to Portland and back—which, incidentally, I now plan to do just by myself on Thursday, now that the Team Event at work that I thought I would need to come into the office for has been officially postponed indefinitely. But, then, finally, Danielle texted me that she forgot she had picked up some hours on Monday this week and would not get off work until 2:00.

Well, that settled that, then. Back to the Melrose Grill idea it is!

By the time yesterday actually rolled around, I found out her work hadn't needed her after all and she still had the day off. Jesus Christ. She said she was happy for it because she was exhausted, so I suppose it's just as well. The Melrose Grill idea was probably still better for her anyway, which is fine.

In fact, the whole experience worked a lot better for me than I realized it would. When I had first read about how trains pass by so close to the front windows on Yelp, I was imagining a somewhat more secluded spot, like, on the edge of town or something. I was fascinated to discover this railroad goes straight down the center of a street for several blocks through Downtown Renton. I've never seen urban design like this before; usually the railroad tracks are separate and self-contained, with city streets just crossing them perpendicularly at certain intervals. Here, tha tracks are literally in the center of the street—a one-way street, sure, but still.

So then my primary concern was whether a train would actually pass while we were eating, as if one didn't, it would make the whole endeavor to make it truly fit into my Birth Week of trains moot. Okay, I've been saying "trains and railroads," and there's still a railroad there, but without a train passing by, it would be a pretty boring addition to the week's themed activities.

When we were seated, after getting inside right after they opened at 5:00, I asked the waitress (who had a very cool look, curly hair kind of bunched on top of her head with the sides pinned back; really long orange fingernails), "I have a really odd question. I don't suppose you know if there's a regular time that a train goes by?" She said she didn't. I was like, "It's what I came here for. And I'm a vegetarian!" (Melrose Grill is a steakhouse.) But, she was openly happy for me when a train did come by, all of about twenty minutes after we got there. It was the only one that passed while we were there, too.

I was inordinately excited when it happened. I don't usually get excited by trains as a rule, but this was in a very specific context, and made the outing to Melrose Grill in Renton wholly worthwhile. Plus, there was still the novelty of a train going down the middle of the street in the city center of a suburb of Seattle, huge train cars passing by just feet away from the front windows.

We were seated in a booth several booths back in the long and narrow building, and we were the only ones to lift the blind over the window next to us, so I could better see if a train was approaching. This did also make it easier to get the photos and videos I got, albeit very tinted blue through the color of the glass of the window. In any case, I took the aforementioned three video clips from my seat, both through the window and standing up to point my camera toward the front of the restaurant so you can see the train cars passing. The videos edited together are the video clip seen in the center of this post, above—plus a screenshot of the exterior of the restaurant that I took from Google Maps Street View, because I stupidly never took a shot from that angle outside with my own camera.

They did have a vegetable alfredo pasta I could eat, by the way. It was delicious, as were the warm rolls, the salad, and even the margarita I ordered. Everything I had there was delicious. I would absolutely recommend that place, both for the food and even for the service, as the staff was very attentive and friendly. I even got complimented on my blue eyeliner—twice! Our waitress complimented me, as did the young man who had spoken to Morgan briefly about the gauges in his ears. (Yuck. But, he was still very cute. And also very young. Danielle quipped that I should tell him how cute I thought he was. Great idea, come off like a creep.)

When we were done, we went outside and walked around a little. Danielle had hoped we could get cupcakes from her favorite cupcake shop for my birthday, but they had closed at 4:30. She suggested she take a couple of photos of me on the railroad tracks, which of course I was happy and eager to do.

There wasn't a lot still open in that area of downtown Renton by that time, actually. There was an essential oils, hippie-type place Morgan and Rylee went into for a while, and I wore my mask in there more to cut out the stench than anything else. Danielle and I went to wait outside again after it got to be too oppressive.

Morgan is 17 now, but will be 18 near the end of July, which is astonishing to me. She and Rylee, who was born in October 2008 (making her 13) are the only children whose birth I witnessed in person, as I videotaped both of them for Danielle. It's weird to look at them now, because they both have the same parents, but Morgan is 17 but truly tiny, both short and beanpole skinny, and she looks like she's 12. Rylee is a larger girl, and could easily be mistaken for 16. Anyone just looking at the two of them together would assume Rylee is the older one, which is weird considering Morgan was born four years and four months before her.

Morgan has her driver's permit, in fact. She showed it to me, and that was how I learned all driver's permits are now printed in "portrait" mode—vertical, taller than wide—and apparently have been now for many years. When the hell did this change happen? I totally get the logic, how it makes it so easily identifiable as a permit rather than a license. I just never knew the change occurred. Hmm, I just did some googling, and although I still can't figure out when the change occurred, the vertical thing is not just about permits vs. license—it's about it being issued when the card holder was under 21. This makes it easier not to sell alcohol to minors. So, even when Morgan gets her license, it will still be vertical—until she's 21.

Anyway, Danielle let Morgan drive us all, first to the frozen yogurt joint we went to for dessert, and then home to her dad's. I did see Patrick very briefly before dinner, by the way; Morgan drove his car to us and I saw him get out of the passenger side to go to the driver's side after Morgan got out. We waved at each other. He's looking old, and, surprisingly thin—which Danielle chalked up to his having gone through rehab and being sober. Drinking lots of beer will chunk you up. I know he's several years older than Danielle, but I can't remember exactly how many. Eight years, maybe? He must be in his mid-fifties.

Danielle and Rylee and I all went back to Danielle's house, where I hung out with Danielle until it was time to leave, drive back to Seattle, and pick Shobhit up from work. Danielle brought out a box of really old stuff she had come across, including a few opinion pieces I had published in the Daily Evergreen at WSU. She also came across this bizarre letter from a guy named Ronnie who wrote to Danielle in 2000 from jail. It was clear he was connected to Barbara somehow and certainly related to Beth; apparently he was Beth's paternal uncle and was doing time for murder! Barbara could not remember how or why he ever spoke with Danielle on the phone, except that it must have happened very briefly when we were all visiting Washington, D.C. in 2000 and staying in the basement of Beth's grandma's house. In any case, Barbara had some entertainingly choice words about the guy in her texts back to me:

First of all, this letter was the result of a phone conversation while Ronnie was imprisoned for murder; he had called his mother I think and he has always felt he was god's gift to all females he felt he could manipulate.

and:

He has been single his entire life, even when he had a main girlfriend. And he has never really cared about anyone but himself.

and:

He is Beth's uncle, sadly. He's an absolute asshole in nearly every way and he's kind of like Trump-lite — lying, making shit up, never responsible, etc.

Danielle wondered if he was still alive and I never got around to asking Barbara, although Barbara spoke about him as though he were. I tried Googling him but his first and last name are too common, especially for a crime that must have happened in the nineties. Anyway, it was fascinating to come across these blasts from the past, which not even Danielle could remember all the details about. She also found a program for Christmas mass in 1999 at Spokane's Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes, which Barbara had invited Danielle and me to join her for. At the time, even though Barbara never exactly identified as Catholic, she used to go to mass a lot in Spokane, finding solace in the extensive ritual experience.

Soon enough, it was time to hug Danielle goodbye and drive back to Seattle. The store was closed at 10:00 and that was exactly when I got there, and Shobhit was ready to go. I got into the passenger seat and let him drive us home.

[posted 9:25 am]