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Well this is a pretty fucking big news day all around, both personally and globally.
I suppose I'll start with the latter, since it's huge news the world over: Queen Elizabeth II, at age ninety-six,
has died. And I must say, I'm finding myself surprised by the emotional impact this news is having on me. Not that I'm especially sad, or think this is particularly tragic (the death of a 96-year-old is by definition
not tragic), but I am feeling a deep understanding of the momentousness of this occasion—the lack of truly direct political power of the British monarchy notwithstanding.
She still reigned for a record 70 years. There were already huge celebrations for her "Platinum Jubilee," this very year. And although the death of a head of state of countless other countries would barely make a blip in the 24-hour news cycle, I am certain we are now set to be hearing a
lot more about this woman than usual for many months to come. The same goes for Charles, now automatically the king (their first king since 1952), and the rest of that entire family. We tended to hear far more than was necessary on average as it was; now it's going to go into overdrive.
The Commonwealth comprises of 56 member states, but the "
Commonwealth Realm," I literally learned just now, comprises of the only nations that still consider the British monarch as their head of state, of which there are currently 15. But, several of them still have some means of hitting close to home for me: Canada, which Shobhit and I visited twice this year (Victoria and Vancouver), not only borders the U.S. to the north but borders the north of the very state I live in and is all of 98 miles from where I live. Australia, on the other side of the planet both horizontally and vertically from where I live, is where my Uncle David lives, married to native Australian Mary Ann who thus had Queen Elizabeth II as her queen since she was a child. I haven't been to New Zealand, but Ivan lived there for a year between 2019 and 2020 and sent me tons of photos.
The U.S., of course and famously, is pretty much the opposite of being a member of the Commonwealth Realm—we literally had a war nearly 250 years ago in order to break free from it. That hasn't stopped millions of Americans from being bizarrely obsessed with the Royal Family, however. The same goes for India, which had been colonized by Britain (as has countless other countries the world over) until they gained independence in 1947—five years before Elizabeth became queen. This at least party explains why Shobhit, being from India, knows a
lot about both the Royal Family and the political structure of the UK (though to be fair, he has intricate knowledge of the political structures of a ton of nations). I can always rely on him to answer questions about the monarchy, especially while we're watching
The Crown on Netflix. (Season five, coming this fall, will surely get a bump in viewers as a result of all this.)
Prince Charles—excuse me,
King Charles—is himself 73 years old. Clearly he's not going to reign for seventy years. Even if he lives as long as Elizabeth did (which is doubtful), he’ll reign for at most 23 years. Prince William will then become King; if that happens even as late as Charles being 96, William will by then be only . . . well, okay. Sixty-two. Still kind of up there. William is already 40 right now. There would have to be a sudden, unexpectedly young death to occur again for there to be any hope of another ascension to the throne as young as 25. No one's going to be reigning for seventy years again for a long time, probably centuries. Will probably all be wiped out by climate disaster by then anyway.
Anyway. The death of a famous person rarely hits me like this, but in spite of the advanced age, this is really hitting me. It's going to change a staggering number of things the world over. Even David, the Meat Merchandiser who sits behind me, noted that probably the majority of heads of state around the world will be paying their respects. ("Except maybe Putin," he said. "Or that guy in North Korea." I mean . . . Putin
has his own issues.) I'm honestly surprised by how little chatter I seem to see on social media about Elizabeth's death as I write this, but the news is still very fresh; I'm sure it will ramp up quickly, and soon.
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So, the big news on the personal front? I also already
posted about this on socials: Shobhit's mother will be coming to visit us again, for the first time since 2008. In the context of our own, individual lives, this is also truly momentous news. It's been a long, long time.
I honestly spent a lot of time thinking she would just never come and visit again. Shobhit has attempted to convince her nearly every time he's gone to see her in India the last three or four times he's done so, maybe more. I'm genuinely surprised she finally agreed to it now. Shobhit thinks it has to do with tensions between her and other family members. That may or may not be the case, I don't know.
All I know for certain is this: Shobhit has booked his flights to visit India next month, leaving Seattle on October 9 and returning October 28. He also booked one-way tickets for his mom to accompany him on the way back. We may not know when she returns to India until sometime after she's already here, but Shobhit is assuming as many as two months. Two months could have her hear even just barely through Christmas, which could be tricky but we'll figure it out.
Apparently Shobhit's brother may be visiting the States during this time, in which case he would likely come visit us sometime in November while their mom is here—and maybe even bring his eldest daughter, who is going to college in Indiana and has yet to visit. I'm already having visions of all of them being here for Thanksgiving, a holiday they don't celebrate but it would be fun to share the holiday with them; we've had
many Thanksgivings with an Indian feast at home over the year already, after all. ("Thanksgiving with the Indians" always amuses me.) I mean, we have no idea at this point if they would even be visiting than particular week, but it would be very cool if they did, and probably ideal for Shobhit's niece to visit during a holiday break. We could maybe even see if Shobhit's cousin, Abhishek, wants to bring his family over to join us—it could be our first and only extended-family Thanksgiving with
Shobhit's family, with potentially as many as nine people present. I would love that.
If Shobhit's brother does visit, then his mom could be going back to India traveling with him, at least potentially; that could cut her visit as short as one month, I presume. But as I said, there's no telling what the timing of any of this stuff might be. She could also be here through December. I worried a little about it being too cold to take her to the natural-setting types of places she so clearly loved when she visited last (in both 2006 and 2008 she was here in the spring), but as Karen noted over lunch yesterday, there's a lot of fun holiday stuff we could take her to see. Even the Lighting of the Tree ceremony the day after Thanksgiving might have some interest to her, and there's a bunch of traditional holiday stuff I like to do that might be fun to share with her.
Nearly all of this is wild speculation at this point. The only definitive things right now are that Shobhit leaves October 9, leaving me with nearly three weeks in the condo to myself, before he returns with his mom on October 28, after which she will be staying with us for an as-yet undetermined amount of time. I'm going to see if Claudia wants me to come stay the night during this period in October (Shobhit noted doing that sometime while his mom is here might be ideal, just to give me some time away, which is a fair point) or if Jennifer wants to come stay the night with me one of the weekends Shobhit is out of town. In any case, I now have a shit ton of planning to do. Which is my jam anyway!
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And oh shit, I almost didn’t even have time to tell you about last night! Shobhit and I attended the biweekly "Action Movie Night" at the Braeburn Condos Theater, for the second time in a row—Tony, the longtime (as in, ten years) organizers, quipped that we had "proved ourselves" by coming back, and he would add us to the email blasts that go out shortly before each one, so people can chime in regarding what food or drinks they will bring.
It was another surprisingly high attendance event. I think there was maybe one guy who had not been there last time and one guy from last time who didn't make it this time. Thus, once again there were 13 people in attendance, filling all but one of the 14 movie theater style seats in there. Honestly, I want to keep coming just so I can eventually get the opportunity to choose the movie.
A guy named Joe made the choice this time, and we watched a 2003 movie,
The Italian Job. When it first started, I really thought I wasn't going to be that into it, and by the end, I found I had enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. It did have
relatively decent reviews, as it happened. It was packed with stars, all of them looking shockingly young, given it came out 19 years ago. These included Donald Sutherland, Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Jason Statham, Mos Def and even Hank Green (where has that guy been?). I had a lot of fun and am looking forward to the next one in another two weeks.
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[posted 12:23 pm]
