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I've got too much work to do this week and only four days in which to get it done: I'll have to get up as early on Friday as if I were going to work, so I can be on the bus scheduled to arrive at the State Route 512 Park & Ride at 9:11 a.m., where Dad and Sherri will pick me up and drive me to Wallace, Idaho. We then have a family get-together on Saturday at the house Dad, Sherri and I are renting together for two nights that weekend, for my brother's 50th birthday.
I'm on deadline for multiple tasks this week, which would be the case whether I were working on Friday or not—all things I need to have done by the end of the day Thursday. I'd be further ahead today if not for multiple things I've had to take care of due to POS inquiries from stores, necessitating unusually complex corrections and/or clarifications. Whoever eventually takes my place in this position next year, I don't envy them taking on matters of this sort. Although, maybe it will be someone with a greater breadth of knowledge than I had, completely ignorant, when I first started here twenty years ago. There's still going to be a steep learning curve, I think.
Anyway. As long as I'm talking about this weekend, I guess I'll add: oh, what the hell. Why not share a full schedule?
Friday, September 23: bus to SR 512 P&R to meet up with Dad and Sherri, then ride to Wallace, Idaho.
Saturday, September 24: family gathering for Christopher's 50th birthday, Wallace, Idaho.
Sunday, September 25: ride with Dad and Sherri from Wallace to Moses Lake, where we will stay one night at a hotel.
Monday, September 26: ride with Dad and Sherri from Moses Lake to Leavenworth, where the whole family will stay three nights. Angel and Gina, their kids and their families, as well as Shobhit will converge to meet there that day.
Tuesday, September 27: Different families are taking turns making either breakfast or dinner for everyone each day. Shobhit and I have been tasked with providing salad and bread for dinner Tuesday, when Gina and Beth will be making lasagna.
Wednesday, September 28: no specific agenda
Thursday, September 29: everyone drives home, including Shobhit and me back to Seattle.
It's kind of a lot. I'll be sharing my tribute video for Christopher on socials on Saturday morning. I'm still looking forward to all of it, though, especially Leavenworth. We now have an initial forecast for Leavenworth Sunday through Wednesday, and most days the forecast is sunny and in the low eighties! I actually hope that forecast holds.
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— पांच हजार दो सौ इक्यासी —
I guess I could mention Shobhit's and my drive across the West Seattle Bridge last night. We crossed it all of two nights after it
finally reopened after two and a half years of closure for repairs. We just went to experience the bridge, really.
We combined it with some errands. We went to Costco first, so Shobhit could check his tire pressure, get gas, and get a few things he'll bring when he comes to Leavenworth on Monday. We forgot to get bread so we still need to get that.
Then, finding our way to an onramp to the West Seattle bridge proved very complicated. The Maps App on our phones clearly thought the bridge was still closed, so it kept trying to tell us to go the same longer, detoured route to West Seattle that it's been showing for the past two and a half years. Google Maps was more up to date, but the bridge is so close to Costco that we actually got turned around more than once trying to figure out how the hell to get on the fucking thing. When you're
under it and near I-5, we discovered, you have no choice but to drive all the way up to the I-90 entrance, then shift to I-5 to come back down and drive onto the West Seattle Bridge from there. So even though we were right underneath it to begin with, we had to drive about five and a half miles out of our way.
I did just realize something, though. That wasn't specifically to get to the West Seattle Bridge. Rather, it was to the
Spokane Street Viaduct, which connects to the West Seattle Bridge but is not the same thing. We actually could have driven over to Highway 99 and gotten onto the bridge from there. Because we could not rely on the Maps app, we tried following street signs from underneath the bridge, and they told us to turn north on 4th Avenue South. We got confused because for a long stretch there are no other signs about it. I guess we're just supposed to infer that we should go all the way up to I-90? Who the hell would figure that out?
Well, in any case, we finally got onto I-90, then I-5, then took the interchange to the West Seattle Bridge (okay, first the
Spokane Street Viaduct—I keep forgetting we actually still have a viaduct even after the Alaskan Way Viaduct was demolished). I still had the directions in the Mapps app going, for getting to Alki Beach, and it did not correct until we were actually on the West Seattle side again. Then, instead of taking us up and around via Harbor Ave SW to Alki Ave as expected, it directed us to California Ave SW in the heart of West Seattle. Then, northward on that street until we hit Alki Beach, after which we did come back around via Alki Ave SW and Harbor Ave SW. It was along that stretch that I had Shobhit pull over for a moment so I could get a beautiful nighttime picture of the Seattle skyline from across Elliott Bay.
We drove back via the West Seattle Bridge again, and then drove to QFC to get some half-gallon milks that are on sale for 99¢ each (some of which Shobhit plans to bring to Leavenworth). Then we came home, put groceries away, and watched one episode of
Night Court (a kind of lame Halloween episode from season four) before I went to bed.
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[posted 12:27 pm]
