— पांच हजार पांच सौ पच्चीस —
Had circumstances this year been different, I could potentially have gone to the annual "
Holiday in the Park" at Volunteer Park with a record three people: I could potentially have gone with Alexia (with whom I went both last year and the year before), Laney (with whom I went in 2016 and in 2019),
and Shobhit (with whom I've now gone four times: 2017, 2018, 2022 and 2023).
The massice chemical supply company Alexia works for is undergoing a lot of change these days, and she had a slightly last-minute trip she had to take to Phoenix this week. So: not available. I
was going to go to Holiday in the Park with both Shobhit and Laney last night, but the pinched nerve in her back that resulted in her having to cancel joining for The Great Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition last Friday is still affecting her, and she had to pull out last night as well. Right now I'm just hoping she'll still be able to make it to our scheduled Happy Hour at The Cheesecake Factory and then Seattle Holiday Lights and Delights tomorrow, and then our scheduled Double Feature at the Braeburn Condos theater on Sunday. She seemed relatively confident she'll be up for keeping the weekend plans, but she's had so many ailments lately it's really hard to know what to expect.
Shobhit just happened to have yesterday off of work. Laney confirmed she would not be coming only a few hours before the event, but when I got home and told Shobhit, I said, "I still want to go, though." I'm kind of eager to keep going to this event every year that I can—I've only missed it three years since it began in 2012, and two of those years was because
they canceled it (in 2014, due to a forecast windstorm that never actually materialized, and then of course in 2020 due to the pandemic). The only year that it actually occurred that I didn't make it was 2015, probably because I had too much to do the night before I left for that year's Christmastime visit to see Mom in Idaho the next day.
I think it had been Shobhit suggestion last year, when he and Alexia and I all went together, for him and me to bring our own homemade hot chocolate in insulated tumblers, because so often the free hot chocolate they offer at the event is lukewarm at best. This time it was my suggestion, and I added a shot of whiskey to Shobhit's and two shots of whiskey to mine. And then? The
hot chocolate they offered was plenty hot! They offered them in tiny little cups, but there were two hot chocolate booth stations, one by the Seattle Asian Art Musuem and one by the Volunteer Park Conservatory. We didn't drink all of the hot chocolate we got by the museum because it tasted a little burnt. The Conservatory hot chocolate was better, and I just added it to my tumbler of hot chocolate, warming it up a bit more and filling it back up.
They also had cookies at these two refreshment stations. The cookies they have on offer at this event has kind of evolved over the years, and the best was in the early years, when they had loose, frosted sugar cookies set out on paper plates. The cookie offerings changed drastically in 2021, which was post-vaccines but covid considerations remained in full effect, and they offered pre-packaged,
Grandma's Cookies (bleh). Last year they switched to baked cookies slipped into transparent plastic sleeves, along with Ghiradelli chocolates, and it was the same this year—minus the chocolates. Most of it was cookies this year, chocolate chip or (Shobhit's favorite) oatmeal raisin.
There was a couple of plastic sleeves of peppermint bark, however. When Shobhit and I went to get in line for the holiday train set in the Conservatory, a lady at the refreshments booth there announced, "There's two peppermint barks left!" That caught my attention and I
grabbed one. Without missing a beat the lady quickly re-announced, "There's one peppermint bark left!"
At Shobhit's suggestion, we went over to the Conservatory first, because the line was so long at the booth in front of the Seattle Asian Art Museum. The line wasn't very long to get in, but once in side, holy shit was it crowded. It takes a long time to move through the entire Conservatory just by virtue of how many people go in there during this event. The holiday train and Christmas Trees display is always just in one specific section of the Conservatory and the rest is still open to peruse all the plant specimens, which of course we did, and I got a few pretty cool shots of plants and flowers, as I always tend to.
I usually get a selfie with whoever I go to this event with in front of the Christmas Trees they surround the waist-level, elevated trai track with. I've already done this with Shobhit in the past though, and didn't want to repeat what I've already done. Instead we got this year's selfie in front of the museum, which was actually Shobhit's suggestion. He then even suggested two more spots to get selfies, with the Space Needle and/or the Seattle skyline in the background.
We spent nearly another half hour at the event after that, because right when we got out of the Conservatory, the fun acapelle group The Beaconettes—who had also been at Figgy Pudding last Friday—
were arriving. They actually sounded a lot better last night than they did at Figgy Pudding, and that may have had more to do with the more intimate setting at this event than anything else.
They sang several, very crowd-pleasing songs. And then once they launched into one we had already heard them sing last Friday, Shobhit and I finally left to walk back home.
In the end I got
a 32-shot photo album out of this year's event—the very same number I had in last year's album. This is now the 9th one of these I've gone to, spread over 12 years.
— पांच हजार पांच सौ पच्चीस —
— पांच हजार पांच सौ पच्चीस —
I've gotten very little work done so far today, because I came in late due to my doctor's appointment for an annual physical. This time around I spoke mostly to a medical student instead of Dr. Means, who came in only for about five minutes. It seemed a little ironic to me that of all the medical staff I came across this morning at Virginia Mason's Buck Pavilion, Dr. Means was the only one
not wearing a mask. He came into the room, saw that I was wearing one, and asked if I preferred he wear one. I told him I didn't care, he could do whatever he wanted, which was true. That doesn't change how odd I find it that only
the doctor was not wearing one. But, also, he's young and handsome and has a nice face, so who's complaining?
I've scheduled my first colonoscopy, for January 15. How exciting is that? (Not exciting at all.)
I was slightly struck by the sign on the window that read,
Windows are tinted for your privacy. It made me think of the dentist office, in the half-basement level of a building, I walked past on my way to Virginia Mason this morning, on Pine Street just a few blocks from home: I was able to look into a window, down into a room where a young lady was sitting in a dental chair, some kind of red tab sticking out of her closed mouth. She caught my eye as I walked by. I was surprised they didn't at least draw the blinds for patients.
Anyway, the appointment was at 9:00. I went down to the 6th floor for my blood work and urine sample at around 9:30. It was very close to 10:00 when I managed to catch a northbound RapidRide D bus on 3rd Avenue. I had just a few minutes before my 1:1 weekly meeting with Gabby, over Teams because she doesn't come into the office on Fridays. During our meeting a person from some religious group slipped a flyer through the crack of her front door.
— पांच हजार पांच सौ पच्चीस —
I just had my biweekly Zoom lunch with Karen. Nothing momentous that we discussed, with the possible exception of when she excitedly told me, "The house is getting framed!" A neighbor near the property up in Tulalip took a photo and set it to her, and she held up her phone for me to see. It was actually very exciting, and makes her more hopeful that the house will be done in time for Thanksgiving next year. The wooden walls of most sides of the house had been erected in the photo, and I guess it was taken on Tuesday this week. The neighbor sent it to her with the message, "A lot of activity the past two days," or something to that effect.
I nearly forgot about this lunch with Karen, until she texted me a confirmation about 15 minutes before noon. I usually take a half hour break for lunch but when I do a video chat lunch with Karen we take an hour. So that was yet another thing to cut into time I could have gotten work done today, in addition to the doctor's appointment and then the meeting with Gabby. Now I should be able to focus and get some real work done through the afternoon.
Otherwise, though, I'm not really that worried about it.
— पांच हजार पांच सौ पच्चीस —
[posted 1:07 pm]
