— पांच हजार चार सौ अठारह —
I feel like a somewhat narrowly missed disappointment over the weekend, but that's not a complaint: I'm much more just delighted that Shobhit and I were able to make something work for our "anniversary weekend" (the specific date of our anniversary is actually tomorrow). And this was after we booked a trip at probably the shortest notice we have ever done, settling on a plan only on Thursday.
And a
big thank-you to Valerie, who made our two nights in Port Townsend possible at all: we were able to stay at their house, just two doors over from Uncle Imre.
Beyond that, I must say that having bought the MacBook Pro has already proven absolutely worth it: I brought that with me, and was able to process photos as we went along, far more quickly and efficiently than I've been able to process photos from any trip or vacation in many, many years. What a joy to have that handy!
Quick side note: I
already posted yesterday, all about the trip, with fully eighteen photos embedded in the post itself—once again, adapted from the "travelogue" email I sent out mid-afternoon yesterday. I converted that to the html version suitable for posting online while Shobhit watched some reality TV crap. (
Stars on Mars was the name of the show, hosted by William Shatner, and dumb as shit.)
Quick side note to the quick side note: This, actually, is another very positive byproduct of the MacBook Pro. Before getting the laptop, I'd have been confined to the bedroom to work on this. Now, I could do exactly what I wanted to do, and still keep Shobhit company in the living room, which he always wants.
Anyway. I adapted from the travelogue because I had already written so much there, and wouldn't have anything particularly different to say if I re-wrote all about my weekend for the blog post. The trip spanned Saturday through Monday, as we drove back home yesterday, although the post (and the email) really only covered Saturday and Sunday. I took only a few photos yesterday (including the middle and bottom photos in this very post you're reading right now), and we left to head back home at around 10:00 in the morning.
I can tell you this: as the
10th Port Townsend trip photo album spanning the past 25 years,
this one contains by far the highest number of shots, at 122. The previous record was all of 60, that one being when Shobhit and I went up for the day to Auntie Rose's memorial service in October 2021.
This photo album is also, of course, part of the
Anniversaries collection, where the 122 shots actually falls short of the record, which was easily the 334 shots from last year's four-day / three-night trip to Victoria.
We have lots of time to discuss any possible plan for next year, of course, but I'm still gunning for a trip to Toronto. I think Shobhit would enjoy visiting that city, and he'd also get a chance to see Niagara Falls. With him still being mid-campaign right now, any thoughts of 2024 traveling remain a distant consideration, for now.
— पांच हजार चार सौ अठारह —
— पांच हजार चार सौ अठारह —
There remains a lot to consider through the rest of the summer, plenty of it having to do with Shobhit's campaign, plenty of it not; some of it is both: we'll be marching in the Seattle Pride Parade, and his contingent, somehow, is #20 in the parade, and the first of all the political contingents!
The challenge now is finding people to join us. The only definite people we have right now are Shobhit, myself, and Sachin. We've got eight "maybes" on the Facebook Event invite, but two of those people live out of town (one of them, bizarrely, Mary Ann from Australia: she's not coming to the U.S.) and Laney's "maybe" has already officially been made a "no" in person without changing the RSVP on Facebook. History proves that virtually all "maybes" actually mean "no." One of those "maybes" is Tania, who lives in Central Washington now but who owned the veggie hot dog place where Shobhit and I met. What a joy it would be to have her with us!
I did text a direct invite to Valerie this morning, and to my genuine surprise, she said that if she's in town she will "absolutely" be there, and she'll try to find others to join! Now, this probably is mitigated by any chance she'll have to be with Uncle Imre in Port Townsend that weekend, so it's not a full promise. It would be amazing to have her march with us, though.
Shobhit also has a booth at the
Capitol Hill Pride Festival (scroll down about 40% of the way to find Shobhit), where he's also scheduled to speak, on the day before Pride, Saturday June 24. He just ordered a canopy from Amazon that he intends to take there and have set up all day, which may complicate Laney's and my happy hour plans we had already made for that day. We'll see.
At least two other candidates are booked at that same event; still others booked separately at the Seattle Pride even that day further up on Broadway. It's unclear whether all the candidates even know the difference between these two actually-distinct Pride orgazations. It was somewhat of a challenge just explaining it to Shobhit.
It appears Trans Pride Seattle, on Friday that weekend, will be the only part of Pride Weekend not also involving Shobhit's campaign. I still full intend to go to that as well.
This coming weekend, on the other hand, is the Fremont Solstice Festival, which Gina and her friend Jennifer are actually coming up from Olympia to attend with me; whether Shobhit goes is still up in the air, and thus so is whether I'll be able to drive. Gina plans to park and ride the Light Rail from Angle Lake so it may make more sense to take the bus from downtown anyway. I still need to figure that out.
Similarly, Lynn and Zephyr have their wedding, for which I am taking the day off of work, on Wednesday
next week, June 21. Either Shobhit and I will drive together, or I'll just take public transit. I just figured out yesterday that it would take two hours each way, which honestly I found surprisingly doable: I have taken tansit all the way to Olympia multiple times now, and that tends to take between two and a half to three hours.
I'd prefer Shobhit actually come along, largely because, after all, Lynn and Zepher were both in attendance at
our wedding ten years ago. (I was also at Lynn's last wedding, in 1999.) But, his campaign commitments may be an issue regardless.
And all of that's just June! July includes Independence Day; a hangout with Gabriel, Lea, Mandy and Andy on July 1; the Tacoma Pride Festival (maybe, hopefully); and the requisite movies, Happy Hours with Laney, and other campaign stuff with Shobhit. And then, hopefully—still, annoyingly, unconfirmed officially—the trip to the Twin Cities for both work and play the first week of August, right after the primary election itself, which is Tuesday, August 1.
Am I spreading myself too thin this summer? Time will tell!
— पांच हजार चार सौ अठारह —
[posted 12:29 pm]
