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We did the closest thing to a social activity we've had with our brief subletter, Eddie, last night. He flies back to San Francisco tonight so that'll be it. We got $750 out of it so I'm not complaining. (Shobhit kind of is, because I agreed to that amount over email without attempting to negotiate, because I took his ad at its word that was his ceiling.) I use the word "we" loosely; the money was Zelled to Shobhit's bank account. I'd love to apply it to travel savings for Australia but Shobhit will likely use it for extra mortgage payments.
Anyway. We just took him with us shopping at the Central District PCC. He had gone to and really liked Central Co-op, which is only a block away, and apparently really liked it, so Shobhit suggested we bring him along to PCC.
Eddie was saying San Francisco doesn't have as many similar options, but I'm wondering if he just hasn’t looked hard enough. Granted, PCC has 17 store locations, making us by far the largest natural foods grocery cooperative in the nation, 9 of those stores in Seattle proper. But, I just did a quick search of Google Maps over San Francisco, and found a bunch of natural markets. Of course, that doesn't narrow it down to co-ops, and for that all I can find is a place called Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative, which appears to have just the one location, on the west side of town just two blocks south of Golden Gate Park and seven blocks from Ocean Beach. Oh wait, I guess there's also a Rainbow Grocery, a worker-owned co-op on Folsom St. There's probably one or two others I'm just not finding. But, it's still a far cry from the nine stores PCC has in Seattle alone.
Shobhit and I got several items that were on sale, including some Theo Chocolate bars we gave Eddie because he was looking for local items to take back home as gifts for friends. He purchased a few other items on his own, including a new veggie jerky made of mushrooms that I added early last year, but I don't think I have tried yet. I'm too enamored with Louisville Vegan Jerky anyway. Either way, they're too expensive—I loved getting a bunch of Louisville jerky samples last year, but I don't want to pay over six bucks for 3 ounces of the stuff.
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There's not much else to report on about last night. I did finally take Gabriel's latest TV recommendation, a show about a guy desperately trying to keep a Chicago sandwich shop afloat on Hulu called
The Bear. I watched two episodes and was duly impressed with it; I love every character so far.
I watched a few TikTok videos. I found an alarming one discussing wastewater analysis indicating that, although home testing is resulting in covid case counts being underreported, wastewater data suggests we may be ramping up to a covid wave even bigger than the Omicron one we had last winter—which, by the way, lots of experts said at the time we would not likely experience at that severity again. But, that's how variants work, I guess.
I'm having a hard time finding easily digestible data online that corroborates this idea, however. And the metrics and how we deal with it are still different than it was in 2020 or even 2021, and maybe even the beginning of this year, depending on your comfort with risk level and probability of severe disease. For instance, when we had the Omicron wave in December and January, I made the deliberate choice to work from home all through January to ride it out—a decision that seemed to have been a smart one, only for me to wind up with covid in April anyway, when transmission rates were far lower than they had been in January.
And, I won't lie, having had it once does make me less worried about it. I don't
want to get it again, but increasingly think of it as an inevitability no matter what I do. That doesn't mean I throw all caution to the wind—I was far more precautious traveling to Denver and back this month than I was traveling to Louisville and back in March, for example. And as I have said over and over, I learned my lesson from our Easter gathering and will test any and every time I am about to go to a family gathering for the foreseeable future. I will test before leaving for Wallace, Idaho in September, and may even test multiple times over that whole week, as we go to Leavenworth right after. Right now I have concerns that transmission rates in September may be even more severe than they were in January, but who knows. It won't stop me from going, but it will make testing that much more important—and in all likelihood Shobhit and I will be the only ones who bother, but at least we'll have done our part.
That whole week in September is now finalized in terms of booking, by the way. Hercules Inn, where we have always stayed the past several years, was booked the 24th, but the guy who runs the place gave Dad the suggestion of looking at other options on the Wallace Chamber of Commerce website. Sherri and I independently found the place we ultimately booked, at literally the same time—she was looking at the website when I called to suggest it, a place called
The Church House. It has only one bathroom that the three of us will have to share, but that's not a huge challenge, and the full kitchen and large patio space will work well for having a large-ish (probably 11 people) family brunch for Christopher's 50th birthday.
Anyway, Dad and Sherri only want to stay there two nights; they won't want to spend more time than that in Wallace, and I don't necessarily blame them. So, we'll make a pit stop on our way to Leavenworth from Wallace, staying overnight in Moses Lake on the 25th, at the
SureStay by Best Western. I've now sent a check in the mail to Dad for my half of the cost for The Church House, and booked one night at the same place in Moses Lake; that whole weekend will be without Shobhit, who doesn't want to miss work for an entire week—he doesn't get vacation time like I do. (He'll take a bunch of time off for Australia, but that represents different priorities, particularly for him.)
So, I'll take the bus down to the 512 Park and Ride to get picked up by Dad and Sherri, and just ride with them to Wallace, then Moses Lake, then Leavenworth, and Shobhit will likely come join us on Monday September 26. It'll be the same house the rest of the family stayed in together in September 2020, well before vaccines so I was the only one who could have otherwise gone but did not; I just drove out for a day trip visit and spent most of my time hanging out outside. This time, though, I paid for a room for Shobhit and me to stay in for three nights. In that huge house, with all the Olympia-area family (so, not including the Wallace-area family), I estimate there will be about 24 people—16 adults and 8 children.
All in the same, huge, six-bedroom house, with nine families, a few of them using certain "non-bedroom" areas as bedrooms: the basement, and a common area that I believe has a hide-a-bed upstairs. I would not likely have come if I otherwise had no choice but to sleep in a common area, but Shobhit and I are getting a downstairs bedroom which does not have its own bathroom, so we'll have to share one on what I believe will be the ground floor, but I think that will be fine. I don't remember how many total bathrooms there are, but I'm almost certain there are four or five. I want to say I remember at least one in the basement, at least two on the ground floor (one a private one in the bedroom Dad and Sherri will be staying in, and at least one common use one), and at least one upstairs. I bet there's at least one more.
Dad did tell me there will be an expectation of each family cooking for everyone for at least one meal, so Shobhit and I may have to decide how we want to prepare for that. We've got two months to figure it out, anyway.
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[posted 12:24 pm]
