So the original plan was for Laney and me to go to The Cheesecake Factory for this month's "Happy Hour" yesterday afternoon at 2:00, after which Alexia would meet us there at 4:30 before the three of us headed down to Westlake Park for this year's "Downtown Holiday Lights & Delights."

But, just as it had last weekend for The Great Figgy Pudding and Thursday for Holiday in the Park, Laney's sciatica got in the way, and even though she was feeling confident Friday night that she'd make it, she texted me yesterday morning just after 8:00:

Hi Friendo, I got about 2 hours of sleep last night. My back is really bad. I'm going to need to stay home and do the ice and heat. I called my doc's on call nurse and she said ice and heat and stay laying flat as much as possible, that's all I can do. I wish I could take something for it but Tylenol is the only allowable thing and it doesn't really do any good. Argh! I'm missing all the holiday stuff. Hoping tomorrow is better so we can still do the double feature. Sorry this is getting in the way of our plans

Thankfully, after she texted last night to remind her what our double feature movies are today (Carol and Happiest Season—both available on streamers so that's nice), she followed up with, Yay! I got lots of rest today and so I think I'm good for tomorrow. No follow-up this morning canceling (My back is somewhat better and I'm going to walk to your house very slowly with no twisting or pivoting. One of the things my doctor always says is when your back gets like this pretend you're walking with a breakable vase on your head LOL.) so that's hopeful, much as my eternally pessimistic husband was that she would cancel yet again. (To be fair, she's canceled the last three things we were supposed to do together.)

Anyway, back to yesterday. Alexia and I kept the plan for Holiday Lights & Delights, just pushing it back an hour, because the cancellation of Happy Hour freed me up to join Shobhit for the 43rd District Democrats Holiday Party, hosted by a woman in Wallingford whose house is technically in the 46th District.

Shobhit and I boiled up some butternut squash ravioli from Costco, and added a truly delicious pasta sauce we made, to bring for the potluck. I'd say the ravioli was a hit, and it really kind of was, but I'm not sure more than about 25 people came to the party, and we made so much of it that more than half was still leftover when we left the party. There was a lot of really great other food though, including a dish of spicy onion pancakes, a cake-like dish with a layer of jelly in the center, spanakopita, a red velvet cake that was amazing in spite of it being store-bought, peppermint brownies, and cheese and crackers, among other things. I partook in a lot of it and was pleasantly surprised still to be a pound lighter this morning.

The woman hosting was named Jessica, and Shobhit and I were the first guests to arrive, at 3:01, one minute after the start time noted in email. Jessica was a very short woman who told us how the low-ceiling attick level of her beautiful house, built over a hundred years ago, worked well for her.

Shobhit spent a fair amount of time visiting with people he was already acquainted with from his City Council campaign, as well as Ellen, the woman who once conducted his accent lessons and also helped him a lot in the campaign. (She was also part of our contingent in the Pride Parade this year.) I spent some time just casually passing time in a chair by the wall near the refreshments table, and then an elderly lady named Linda struck up a conversation. When my love of movies came up, her husband—who took every opportunity he could to tell us all he was born in 1941—joined us. We talked a lot about movies, and in particular about May December.

As I already noted, Shobhit and I were the first guests there, but others arrived within about ten minutes after that. Shobhit and I left not long after about ninety minutes of being there, at which point the party was already winding down anyway. We drove back home, I texted Alexia that we were ready when she was, and within a few minutes she let us know she was also ready.

And then, since Shobhit was also back from the party, the three of us walked downtown together, where, in the end, Downtown Holiday Lights & Delights was one of three different holiday displays we perused yesterday evening.

"Holiday Lights & Delights" has evolved—or, depending on your perspective, devolved—a bit, since the pandemic kind of forced its inception during the holiday season of 2020, creating a holiday outing or people that was outside and could be socially distanced. It also included an "augmented reality" element that made for some fun screenshots, but, this year there was no such element at all. They are having the same kind of Saturday event in Pioneer Square that Tracy and I went to last year, but it was too late in the day yesterday to do it; if I can find time I may try and check it out on Saturday next weekend.

So, last night, it was all just this year's light displays at Wesltake Park. I took all of 13 photos there last night, most of which are great shots, and I had already gone over to get some shots without the crowds last Tuesday, so now my full photo album on Flickr has 24 shots in it (so far, anyway; who knows, maybe I'll go back with Laney later). I thought it was quite the pretty display this year, and love the huge deer made out of lights.

Our next stop was Fleurs de Villes Noel at Pacific Place, now the third of these I have seen specific to the holiday season here in Seattle. Alexia had already gone to it with another friend, and was somewhat disappointed by how few of them were floral arrangements in the shape of dresses on mannequins, but was still perfectly happy to go back to it again with us. We had a bit of confusion at first, though, because she suggested we go to "Pike Place" when she meant "Pacific Place," and I was like, sure we can go there, but we were just there for the Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition last weekend. We'd even gotten over to 4th and Pike before we realized she was meaning to say Pacific Place. And then we backtracked and went over there.

And that visit yielded a 27-shot photo album, again with a lot of great pictures. Slightly fewer than the 29 shots I took in 2021, but more than the 22 shots I took last year.

And, when you throw in the Pride-releated Fleurs de Villes displays Shobhit and I have seen in both Vancouver, B.C. and Sydney, Australia, I've now seen five Fleurs de Villes floral displays. The one in Sydney, which was also the only one we had to pay an entry fee for, was probably the best, honestly. I was really happy to have seen that one, but then, I genuinely enjoy all of them, especially as they are made with fresh flowers.

When they do it at Pacific Place, they always have several on the ground floor atrium level, but there's one in the basement level, and usually between two and four on each other level up to the fourth floor. We went to all of them, of course. My favorite shot is probably the least Christmasy (although none of them are especially Christmasy), which Alexia took of Shobhit and me, sitting beneath a suspended bunch of cotton made to look like a cloud. It was very cool.

And, since we were all downtown anyway, Shobhit suggested we go over to the Sheraton to check out this year's Gingerbread Village. Shobhit was convinced it would not be crowded on a Saturday evening, which I thought was a nuts take, and in the end we were both kind of right: it wasn't empty by any stretch, and actually was relatively crowded (I was one of few people to wear a mask, which I had not thought to do over at Pacific Place), but we only waited in line about twelve minutes. Given that in years past, I have waited in line anywhere between 45 minutes and nearly two hours, that practically felt like no wait at all. And still, Shobhit commented on how impatient he was waiting there, and how patient I was in situations like that. I really don't mind waiting in long lines.

The theme this year was "The Chocolate Factory," with a tie-in to this year's movie release Wonka, which Laney and I will be watching in a couple of weeks. Last year had been a movie tie-in as well, with Lightyear. That seems to be the new, annual approach ever since the event finally returned post-pandemic, with the event canceled in both 2020 and 2021. Also like last year, there were only four gingerbread sculptures, as opposed to the 5 they'd had in 2019 and several years prior. I could swear there were even years, now many years ago, when they had 6, but I could be doing revisionist history in my head.

Either way, I'll give them this: even the four displays they had this year were impressive in their attention to detail. I'll be coming back to this with Laney midday during my PTO the week before Christmas, and I'll probably find details I missed this time around—and add to the photo album, which as of right now already has 26 shots.

I either created or significantly added to three separate holiday-season photo albums last night. I'm already at 14 finished or working photo albums for Christmas 2023, with at least another 5 yet to come. I really thought I would do less this year than last year's 20, and still I'm liable to get up to 19 this year—and I likely would have matched the 20 if only we actually scheduled a Team Holiday Outing this year, but it seems pretty clear now that isn't going to happen.Oh, well; as bummed as I am about that, I clearly have so much other shit going on, it's not that big of a deal.
[posted 11:50 am]