— पांच हजार दो सौ बावन —
When I had my leftover samosas and pakoras from Saffron Grill that had been provided for my 20th anniversary party on Friday, as my lunch yesterday, I really assumed it would be the last I would see of them. But, last night I discovered Shobhit had still left one samosa and two pakoras uneaten. They're mine now! Alas, this does mean that, for sure, they're the last I will see of them this time.
But not to worry! I will be home every evening this week, to help Shobhit with prep for having four people over for a homemade Indian dinner on Friday: one current coworker and her husband; one former coworker and her best friend. In the former case, it's Cathryn, who had gone out of her way to buy a delivered lunch for Shobhit and me while I was home with covid in April, and I cut her a deal that I would allow that if she promised to come over for dinner sometime later this year. In the latter case, it's "Chef Lynne," who I've been promising to have over for Shobhit's cooking for months, well before she was laid off late last year. We're finally making that happen, and just having them all over at once.
Lynne in particular is definitely hoping for samosas. This means Shobhit will be making samosas for the first time since August of last year, when his cousin Harshal came to visit for the first time. And these are guaranteed to be notably better than Saffron Grill's samosas, which are pretty good in their own right. But, samosas are easily Shobhit's claim to fame. He also plans to make shahi paneer; his signature eggplant dish; and a garbanzo bean dish—the former two of those being longtime favorites of mine. We went grocery shopping on Sunday at Amazon Fresh to make use of their oft-sent "$20 off $40" coupon, giving us a break on the cost of food supplies. Tonight we're going to the Asian grocery store to get what we couldn't find on Sunday. A fair amount of both tomorrow and the next evening will likely consist of a lot of vegetable chopping.
— पांच हजार दो सौ बावन —
A fair majority of my evening last night was dedicated to taking myself to see
I Love My Dad at SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, the best movie I have seen since
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, a full month ago.
The showtime was at 5:15, so I just waited a little longer than usual at work, then rode my bike up there, as it's the closest theater to my work office. Just as I predicted, it let out at 7:00, I rode my bike home, and arrived at about 7:35. Shobhit had a very delicious dish of sauteed mushrooms and bell peppers for us to eat with the last of the leftover naan from Friday's party, which we ate while watching episode 8 of
The Sandman on Netflix, before I retired to the bedroom to write the movie review. It was unusually easy to write.
— पांच हजार दो सौ बावन —
— पांच हजार दो सौ बावन —
I just had this week's virtual lunch, via FaceTime, with Karen—it was supposed to be on Friday but she needed to reschedule it because she's taking a work-related trip to Los Angeles, leaving this afternoon and returning on Friday. She has an afternoon flight scheduled but is hoping she can get it changed to the evening, to give her some time to do some sightseeing that afternoon. She read
The Library Book by Susan Orlean on my recommendation, found it as utterly delightful as I did, and now of course wants to see the Los Angeles Central Library. She's also hoping to do a self-guided tour of the Walt Disney Concert Hall and maybe squeeze in a visit to the art museum.
Karen was getting confused about her hotel, which she said was the InterContinental, and her itinerary information she had been sent said she needed to go to floor 50 to get to the hotel, and that the lobby was on floor 70. What?? What the hell building in Los Angeles would that be? I knew of only two that even had more than 70 floors, and neither are called InterContinental.
Well, after we said our goodbyes, I did my due diligence and researched it. I then had to send her these two texts:
Holy shit! The InterContinental Hotel is indeed located in the Wilshire Grand Center building, as of 2017 the tallest building in Los Angeles (only because of a 166-ft spire, cheaters) and it does indeed have 73 floors—the same number as U.S. Bank Tower, which has L.A.'s highest roof. These are the only two buildings in L.A. with more than 70 (or even more than 62, actually) floors.
The hotel occupies floors 39-70, according to
waterandpower.org. I only just learned that Wilshire Grand has an observation deck, but from what I can tell only hotel guests can access it. 😭 (The observatory at U.S. Bank Tower, which thankfully I did once get to visit, has been
permanently closed)
I couldn't do those embedded links in the texts, but I included them here for your benefit. Don’t you feel privileged?
In any case, I am super jealous. I didn't even know the Wilshire Grand contained a hotel at all, and Karen will be staying there for three nights, in the tallest building in Los Angeles! Her room itself will be guaranteed above at least floor 38, and probably higher. I'm sure she'll take plenty of photos for me. She couldn't tell me any real details about who is hosting her or what the project entails except that it has something to do with architecture, but whoever it is clearly has very deep pockets, to be putting her up in
a hotel like that.
We also talked a lot about some stressful experiences she's had recently with aging and increasingly frail parents, one of whom has marked dementia; and I talked about the itinerary we're developing for our trip to Australia, what's already been booked and what we will soon book. She was very excited for me.
Now I've spent way too much time on this post and need to get back to work.
— पांच हजार दो सौ बावन —
[posted 1:19 pm]
