— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ उनतीस —
I had so much shit going on yesterday, social engagements taking up all of my free time, it was almost exhausting—almost.
I already covered lunch with Gabby and Amy at Serious Pie in
yesterday's post. Gabby actually blocked out two hours on our calendars for that, which was only slightly more than we needed. Even ninety minutes would have been cutting things really tight.
One thing I forgot to mention yesterday: both Gabby and Amy ordered cocktails. I was genuinely surprised by this. Is this actually a thing people do? Drink in the middle of the day before the end of the work day? This was a first for me.
I'm not necessarily judging, for the record. Were it not for my evening plans also including booze, I might have gone ahead and ordered one then myself. It would have been a first, though. Until that moment, I never would have dreamed of drinking at a work lunch. I remember articles coming out in the midst of covid lockdowns about how many people admitted to drinking while working from home. I suppose it might depend on the kind of work you're doing, but I handle pricing all day, so doing that while even slightly buzzed would be kind of nuts in my opinion. So, I never drank even while working from home.
Okay, okay, I guess I will admit this much: I did put a dollop of Bailey's in the tea I drank while working from home on Tuesday this week. That was just because it's effectively the closest thing we have to cream, though—it was less than a shot, and used just for flavor. This is a legitimate defense!
— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ उनतीस —
Anyway. When the work day
did end, I left work 20 minutes early, so I could arrive at the Rob Roy cocktail bar's annual conversion to the "
Miracle on 2nd holiday pop-up." It was pretty much identical to how it looked last year, with maybe some subtle variations.
This year we were a party of six, and I will list us in the order of the group photo seen at the bottom of this post: Jacey, a broker; myself; Katy from UNFI, who is the one who invites us all to this every year; and three others from PCC, Steven, Amanda, and Noah.
We all met at 4:30, and then it took a solid half an hour for a spot with enough space for us all opened up so we could go in—and even then, the spot that opened up for us was the small, outdoor area, without any space heaters. It wasn't too terribly cold and we all had coats, and at least we could finally order our drinks. Being outside, though, was a big factor in my getting only
ten photos this year as opposed to the
15 shots I got last year, when I had more time inside to see things I could take pictures of. (There's a hell of a lot more Christmas decor inside.)
I think there was enough time for all of us to have two drinks last year, but this year we had just the one, having only an hour there once we were seated. I was not the only one pressed for time, and when I said I needed to go, just before 6:00, everyone else was ready to go too.
Katy announced to us all last night that she's leaving UNFI, after seven years there. I commented that I hoped we could continue this annual tradition anyway, even if we all have to buy our own drinks—this was the third year in a row that she's taken PCC people there (it was my second year being invited), and she always uses her company card to pay the tab. She agreed with me, so we'll see whether or not that pans out. If we do meet again next year, I do hope we can pick an earlier date when we don't all have other shit to do the same day, so we can hang out longer like we did last year.
The hot buttered rum I ordered—the only hot drink on the special menu—came in a winking Santa mug, just as it had last year. As you can see I got a very festive picture of it.
Katy stopped drinking at the beginning of the year, but asked to get a non-alcoholic beverage in a fun cup. This "Marshmallows & Unicorns" mug is apparently new this year, so she got a non-boozy drink in that, which they still put the skewered marshmallows into.
Katy also usually gets the drink that comes with
a cute little clasping Christmas koala, but as I already noted, there was no time for second drinks last night. The server was very generous, however, and said she'd just give one to Katy, without her having to buy one (which she offered to do, at first).
When we all disbanded at 6:00, I then had half an hour to get home in time for Action Movie Night at 6:30. I really wasn't confident I would make it, as I was leaving 2nd Avenue at Battery, and there is absolutely no direct transit from there to home—I needed at the very least get down to Pike/Pine first.
The stars really aligned for me, though, even after I stupidly walked ahead of a bus stop on 3rd only for a bus to pass me by less than a minute afterward. I had no choice then but to walk the eight or so blocks between Rob Roy and Westlake Station, where, once I reached there, I opened One Bus Away and saw a northbound (technically, from that spot, eastbound) Light Rail train was set to leave in
one minute. I rushed down into the station, and got onto the platform just as the train was pulling up. That was at 6:10, leaveing me 20 minutes to ride to Capitol Hill station and walk the roughly half-mile home from there.
And I did it, with time to spare! Shobhit confused me via text for a minute when he texted
Nine minutes—how the hell did he know how long it was taking me? He had seen me walking up Pine from our condo window, and he knew I had walked from Capitol Hill Station in a brisk nine minutes because I had texted I was boarding the train twelve minutes prior to that, and he knew the train ride between those stations is three minutes. Even I was surprised to have walked that quickly.
I discovered some cat puke near the litter boxes, so I needed to clean that up, and asked Shobhit to pour me a drink of Zevia Cherry Cola with rum while I did that. He had prepared an Indian snack mix to bring to the potluck (for which I helped chop a bunch of vegetables on Tuesday night), and then we were headed back down to the elevator toward the Community Kitchen right at 6:30.
Shobhit had to skip the movie portion of the evening, because he had a windows committee meeting to attend right upstairs above us, at 7:00. He stayed for the pre-movie eating and visiting, though, and we were both a little disappointed in the unusual lack of engagement in food we brought: only one person besides us ate any of the snack mix, which was actually rather tasty. What's with these people! They were much more excited by the pizza (this one with meat) and mexican appetizers tray that were brought by others.
Chris G had the movie pick this time around, and I'm kind of glad I didn't look up his history on the movie log: he's been bringing movies since 2017, and with just a few very notable exceptions (
Rise of the Planet of the Apes,
Prometheus,
Freaks), they really haven't been great. Last night's pick wasn't
great either, but it was more fun on re-watch than when I went to see it in the theater last year:
Violent Night.
I was actually surprised to see last night's pick actually be something that qualifies as a "Christmas movie"—a very voilent one, sure, but it's also literally about the "real" Santa Claus. Thus, without it ever having been part of the plan this year, I had to add it to this year's
Christmas movie watch list, it now being the sixth such movie I've already watched. (This film was also among the
six Christmas movies I watched last year.)
When the movie ended, I did explain to the group that I enjoyed this movie a lot more the second time around. I still stand by how I rated it to begin with (B-), but as always with movies like this, it's a lot easier to like on re-watch when you already know what you're getting into and can't possibly be disappointed.
Once back upstairs after the movie, even though I wouldn't normally do this, but I'd have to wait a few more days otherwise, at about 9:30 we sat down to watch this week's episode of
Fargo on Hulu. This way I could listen to the
Prestige TV podcast recap this morning, and move on to the next things: Tracy and I are seeing
Poor Things at The Egyptian tonight, right after the power on my block is scheduled to be taken out by Seattle Utilities for
twelve hours, from 7 pm to 7 am. These things often finish earlier than scheduled, so I'm hoping I'll still be able to shower as usual tomorrow morning. We'll see. In the meantime, our building management is warning that the building will be dark and cold, and to add extra blankets for sleeping overnight. Some of us are planning to blast the heat just before the power outage, in the hopes of keeping things warm for a few hours at least.
I cannot find anything about why the hell Seattle Utilities is doing this
now, in the middle of fucking December; the info from management only tells us how they, and we, are preparing. It's all a little complicated, with an otherwise secured building, and our fobs won't work during an outage. (There will be temporary locks where our regular building keys, which usually only work from inside the stairwells, will work. The garage doors will be kept open, and there will be hired security patrolling the premises.) It's going to be . . . an experience, which I will be coming home to after the movie tonight, as will Shobhit after his work shift ending at 9:00.
— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ उनतीस —
[posted 12:32 pm]
