— पांच हजार तीन सौ अस्सी —
Last night was Action Movie Night at the Braeburn. We had ten people in attendance. Let's see if I can remember them all: Tony; Jake; Ben; Ryan; Derek; Joe; Sean; Jesse; Shobhit; and me.
Tony shifted around the person whose movie choice it was, because apparently Jesse is moving to Wisconsin, so he let Jesse make the choice one last time. Jesse was already fairly new, having chosen only once before—on only the sixth Action Movie Night Shobhit and I attended since starting last summer, on November 2, he chose
Den of Thieves. This wasn't a masterpiece by any stretch, but I had never seen it and it actually wasn't bad.
Last night's choice, on the other hand, was easily the best title we've had since Shobhit and I have been going: the 2006 Martin Scorsese film
The Departed, which I gave a solid A and was
my #1 movie that year. They only movie that could be argued is better since Shobhit and I have been going was
No Country for Old Men, but we didn't actually get to watch that one as it was Jason's choice on February 22, when Shobhit and I were in Australia. I was kind of bummed to have missed that one. Why couldn't it have been one of the dumber movie choices the week we had to miss!
Anyway. There was a more limited than usual choice of food last night: a relatively small pizza, which had pepperoni on it; a wildly popular homemade tray of smoked ribs that Jake brought and everyone ate except, of course, Shobhit and me; and the macaroni and cheese with added bell pepper, mushroom and tomato that I made. Our macaroni was pretty popular too, though, and everyone else found it to be a great companion with the ribs. If I were a meat eater, I probably would have agreed.
— पांच हजार तीन सौ अस्सी —
— पांच हजार तीन सौ अस्सी —
The Departed is a two-and-a-half-hour movie, and it was just after 7:00 before it got started. Before it ran, I found out from Tony that the apparent projector issues I had trying to play movies from Vudu with Laney last Saturday may actually have had to do with the medium I was using, and weird connections with wires not necessarily tied only to the projector. Indeed, Jesse's movie was played from an actual DVD and there were no screen issues at all last night. According to Tony, if I played the movie streaming with a connection from Shobhit's laptop, I probably also would not have had screen issues. I'll have to make note of that for the next movie watch I have with Laney, which will mean needing to either stick with DVDs or use Shobhit's laptop on a day when he won't need it using the kitchen for a campaign open house.
We left pretty quickly after the movie was over, as it was after 9:30 by that point. I put our two plates in the dishwasher, we gathered our stuff, and we said our goodbyes.
— पांच हजार तीन सौ अस्सी —
— पांच हजार तीन सौ अस्सी —
Now that it's April, I'm starting to contact friends and family about scheduling my Birth Week. If all goes as planned, I'll spend time with between 12 and 15 or so people between Friday, April 22 and Sunday, April 30.
Some peculiar memories are coming up now, as this month will mark the one-year anniversary of when Shobhit and I got covid—and, we passed it on to Dad and Sherri at Easter / Sherri's 70th birthday party on April 17 last year. Easter this year is this Sunday, on April 9, and once again we'll be potlucking at Gina and Beth's house in Olympia. Shobhit suggested we make cucumber sandwiches which I thought was a great idea. We can tell everyone we're pretending to be English.
I keep thinking about that doctor last year who told us just to expect to get covid again in a few months. We have yet to get it a second time, knock-wood. And since September, at least four times (two of them at family gatherings) I have had prolongued, indoor, unmasked exposures. The most dangerous was the most recent, the Action Movie Night before last, in a small theater room with no windows. I wonder if that kind of regular exposure, without actually getting infection, helps maintain a high level of immunity?
Not only did the Easter thing happen last year, but by the end of that week Shobhit and I were home sick from work, and I was forced to push my Birth Week plans back a week. Let's all just hope and pray there's nothing even close to a repeat of that this year. As of right now the plan is to
end on Sunday, April 30, that making my actual birthday the very last day of the break.
— पांच हजार तीन सौ अस्सी —
[posted 2:15 pm because I spaced it at 12:30 and just remembered to post this]
