— पांच हजार दो सौ बत्तीस —
Well, I'm overeating today already. Fun!
Kwanteria is moving back to Houston, reportedly (as in, I heard it through the grapevine) because it's just too expensive for her to live here. She's had conversations with me about a desire to move out of the suburbs and into Seattle proper to be closer to the office, and I don't know, maybe she was taken aback by how impossible it was to find a place in town that was any more affordable—or, probably, even
as affordable—than her place in Redmond. Commuting from the eastside isn't sustainable either.
I can already hear Shobhit asking me: why would she move to a state as awful as Texas?? Well, first of all, I hate those sorts of questions because they actively ignore the nuances of people's lives—something Shobhit loves to do. And first of all, Texas is now the nation's second-most populous state, with over 28 million people. That's only about 11 million less than Canada. And not all of them are forced-birth nut jobs; in fact that state is inching closer and closer to being purple rather than outright red—they just have a misrepresentative state government, like most states do.
Furthermore, Kwanteria is a single mom and she grew up in Houston, which is why she's going back there. She's moving closer to Houston at least in part because she has family there who can help with childcare. This is completely reasonable.
The surprising information I learned this morning is that, although she's leaving for Texas with her son on Sunday, she's actually still working for PCC through August 31. She'll just be working remotely for the next two months. PCC would never have allowed this kind of thing before the pandemic changed everyone's metrics and sense of what is possible. (I once asked about working remotely from L.A., when Shobhit was living there, and was told that would not be an option.) That should give her enough time to line up another job in the area while she's already there.
Anyway, she organized a small potluck get-together in the office kitchen this morning, a "breakfast brunch" of sorts. Not a lot of protein was brought to this thing; it was almost exclusively pastries and scones. Monkey bread, doughnuts, lemon bread. I had small bits of several of them.
I had meant to skip breakfast in anticipation of this, but without thinking I still had my requisite bowl of cereal at the office—cereal is always on offer, but I eat breakfast at the office on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as a rule, and eat at home the other days of the week both to mix things up and so I don't feel like I'm
completely mooching off office food supplies. And they only have my favorite cereal they've ever had on offer occasionally: Nature's Path
Red Berry Crunch, to which I add fresh blueberries brought from home. Sometimes I see a box of that added to the snack table in the kitchen on a Tuesday or a Thursday and by the next day other people have already eaten it all, so I was thrilled to find the box still unopened this morning.
I suppose it's just as well, given the nature of the foods that were brought. I didn't make or bring anything, but I don't feel so bad because I contributed to the fund Adrienne set up to give Kwanteria a Visa gift card to help cover gas for her
long drive to Houston. I struggled to decide on how much to contribute and then landed on $30, which I might otherwise have spent on a ticket to a live show of some kind. I figure that should cover at least half a tank of gas or so, although I did suggest to Adrienne that someone with a Costco membership offer to take her to fill up at Costco's lower gas prices—unless she already has a membership, which is entirely possible.
In any case, Kwanteria invited me among the 16 other people she invited, and I'd say maybe around 10 showed up today. I only remembered it after looking at my calendar about an hour after I ate the bowl of cereal. I would have skipped the bowl of cereal otherwise.
I chatted with Kwanteria a bit, but then so did everyone else so there wasn't a lot of one-on-one time with her, although I did wind up sitting right next to her at the bench-seating tables we have in the middle of the kitchen here at the office. I spent at least as much time talking to Adrienne, who sat to my left and who has officially taken over Tracy's role as Private Label Manager; I also chatted a little bit with Ami across the table from me and one over; but I wound up, just by chance, talking the most with Mackenzie, about our respective experiences with covid, and also my history of passing out at work. It was actually a pretty fun conversation.
Kwanteria and I had several conversations about seeing a movie together sometime. I guess that won't be happening now.
— पांच हजार दो सौ बत्तीस —
— पांच हजार दो सौ बत्तीस —
As for last night, I skipped the cycling to work so I could take transit straight to Northgate after work, even though that necessitated busing south to Westlake Station first so I could catch Light Rail. After how hot it had been over the weekend, and seeing that the forecast high yesterday was still 68° and partly sunny, I came to work without any jacket or even a hoodie, which proved to be a mistake. It was cloudier than expected, very breezy, and I was quite chilled. Tracy had already warned me she would be driving straight from her new office in downtown Everett and would have to meet me at the box office; I arrived a good 45 minutes earlier than showtime, so I decided to kill time inside Jewel Box, the coffee shop / sandwich joint Tracy and I had dinner at just last week before we saw
Freedom: Uncut.
I got myself a hot chocolate, and was so impressed with it that I
posted a Yelp review for the first time in three years. This now makes a total of 25 reviews I have posted since creating a Yelp account in 2009. I told Tracy I rarely post Yelp reviews, but I guess that averages nearly two per year. Still fairly rare, but more than I was thinking. I guess the average was higher back in 2019, but who was I going to be reviewing during a pandemic?
Anyway I really loved that hot chocolate.
I sat in a comfy chair with it and read my library book for a while, until Tracy finally arrived, just after 6:00. The showtime was at 6:10, and she bought her dinner at concessions: a Doritos "nachos" (which was just a bag of Doritos set inside a plastic tray that had a small side compartment for cheese sauce; it was pathetic), a "hot dog" (far too small and, she actually had me feel the bun because it was so rock hard); and a large soda. I had actually eaten leftover paneer dish from home the night before, from a lunch container I brought just for this purpose, at a nearby outdoor public table with an umbrella before I went into Jewel Box to get warm.
And then we watched the new Baz Luhrmann movie,
Elvis. I really
was not all that crazy about it. Neither was Tracy. But, it gave us lots to talk about, at least once that long fucking movie (two hours, 39 minutes) was over, and she drove me home as usual. We wound up spending a lot of time chatting in her car across the street from my building, also as usual. She's really happy with her job at Funko so far, which is really great. But then I needed to get inside. I got to bed around 10:30.
— पांच हजार दो सौ बत्तीस —
[posted 12:45 pm]
