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I rode my bike home yesterday, and then made a salad at Shobhit's request. He decided that since we would be going to Costco anyway, we would order a pizza while there, and bring that home for dinner, with a salad as a side. Although he decided he would top his pizza with it, which I think is weird but whatever.
I texted him too late to ask if he wanted me to drive to Total Wine to pick him up. That would have saved us some time, but in the end would not have made any real difference, and it would have just unnecessarily added to the miles driving on the spare tire.
Once there, we discovered it really was necessary to be there in person to get all this squared away. They were short staffed already, the first guy we spoke to said—a guy with mediu-length curly hair and glasses that made him look strikingly like a young blonde "Weird Al" Yankovic—but on top of that, they had "a call-out" yesterday specifically. This would explain both why they never answered the phone on Tuesday or yesterday, or all week really. It was stressful just being there watching those guys run around all over the place, trying to get work done and help customers at the same time.
Shobhit just bought his current tires new three years ago, making them well under warranty, but apparently they are about to be discontinued, which made the guy worry that it may complicate ordering a replacement. He even said there was a chance he would be forced to order all four new tires, if the new replacement didn't match correctly. He double checked and found out he could indeed just order the one new tire, which was a relief. The bigger problem was that they did not have it in stock, so there was no way it could have been replaced yesterday itself, even if they weren't short staffed, which alone made it impossible already.
The hope was that it would come in today and it could get repaired by sometime tomorrow; if the tire didn't come in today then it would not be possible until next week. Well, Shobhit texted me literally while I was writing this that the tire came in. But, the first available slot was Monday, which is a day he has his Board meeting right after work, so he had to make the appointment for Tuesday morning. I'll just be glad when it's fixed and I know we're good to drive to Victoria on Sunday next weekend.
Anyway, we took our pizza home and ate it with salad while Shobhit watched his daily news programs, and we waited for Ivan to arrive.
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— पांच हजार दो सौ उन्नीस —
After he returned from his 14-day cruise, Ivan went to Whistler to a town north of Vancouver called Squamish to Vancouver itself to here. He was most disappointed to discover he could not take Amtrak down as intended; apparently they are now not set to reinstate Amtrak north of Seattle until January 2022. He declared that "ridiculous," but if they have staff shortages I don't know what else they can do. Still, they have alternate bus service, and so that's what he rode.
Shobhit and I were still making the rounds after Costco, first to Trader Joe's and then to a couple of gas stations until he finally found one that sells his beloved (and objectively wasteful, but he loves to dream of winning and not having to look for work anymore) lottery tickets, when Ivan sent a Facebook Messenger IM that read, "More like 8," after he had told me to expect him around 8:30. In the end it was more like 8:20 but whatever.
I had gone down to check the package room in the West Building for packages, found some medication I did not realize had been delivered already, and he texted me "Here!!" I then amused myself by walking up behind him outside, instead of from inside the East Building lobby as I'm sure he expected. He gave me a huge smile and a slightly awkward hug, but I was happy to get a hug of any kind, especially after not getting one when he left a month ago.
We came up the elevator together, and then the three of us chatted quite a bit for much of the rest of the evening, Shobhit and me on the couch and Ivan in what was always kind of his default spot in the chair at the end of the dining table. This amounted to roughly and hour and a half before I went to bed, but Ivan did already suggest we get pho' for dinner tonight, and I noted I had indeed left my calendar open on Friday just for him.
He told me he's doing a winery tour today that's going to last most of the day, until about 5:00, which rather surprised me, as he still had a lot of stuff left in his room to figure out what to do with. On the other hand, apparently his flight out to Philadelphia tomorrow isn't until later in the evening, he's taking the red-eye—which means he'll be here most of the day tomorrow too.
It's a little odd having him back so soon, but just for a couple of days. It feels instantly just like normal again, like he was living here all along but just went away for a while. But, his absence will be felt a lot more permanently in a couple of days. I guess his Lasik surgery is already scheduled for late next week, and he hopes to go to Upstate New York and Vermont (he did specify so I know for sure now it wasn't New Hampshire) and maybe get his next nursing job somewhere in that region. He's been sending me a lot of photos during his last month of British Columbia and Alaska adventures, and I'm sure he'll continue to. Maybe I'll send him bunches of photos from our own Victoria trip.
Sometimes Ivan makes kind of awkward attempts at keeping conversation going. "So what do you guys think about the political state of the country?" he asked, as if it were any different than one month ago. It was more interesting talking about the places he went last month. He highly recommended Whistler, which Shobhit has been to twice on work trips but I've never been to; it's such a small town I don't know what appeal it will have. Except! According to Ivan there are bears all over the place. He even
posted a photo of one that was just meandering behind him on a trail he was hiking on. That would scare the hell out of me, but, it does intrigue me a bit too.
Once it was time for bed, I just went to bed without a word. No need for goodbyes just yet. That'll happen tomorrow evening.
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[posted 12:21 pm]
