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I did a kind of odd thing with my Flickr photo album collections this morning, something I have never done before: I made a
collection of Minneapolis visits which includes the three previous times where the only "visit" was on a layover at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport.
Normally I would never do this. I tell people all the time that I don't count a layover as a "visit" to that city or state—in spite of three previous layovers at MSP (all between 2010 and 2013), I never counted Minnesota as a state I've "been to" until the week I spent in the Twin Cities this month, returning a week ago tomorrow.
But, I have more photos of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport than I remembered, because I forgot about the amount of time I spent there, particularly in
late August 2011, when Shobhit and I rescheduled our flights out of New York a day early, and a second time hours earlier than that, barely getting out of there before all local airports
and all public transit shut down at noon in anticipation of Hurricane Irene. (By the time Hurricane Irene did indeed hit New York City directly, and cause widespread power outages and flooding, it had been downgraded to "Tropical Storm Ireme," but it was still bad enough.)
We originally had direct flights booked on Delta. We were going to fly home on Sunday, August 28 in the afternoon. I got us rescheduled for the afternoon on Saturday instead, and when I learned the airports were to shut down by after noon, we barely got rescheduled on early flights out LaGuardia Saturday morning.
I did not remember until reviewing those old posts this morning that this trip was also combined with Shobhit actually moving out of New York, after his year and a half living there. He had
a shit ton of luggage. We wound up bagging the plan to take the subway out to LaGuardia and took a cab instead, as far as I can recall the only time we ever did that to or from any New York-area airport.
In any case, it would have been bad enough, and stressful enough, to be trying to get out of their ahead of an oncoming hurricane any other time. But Shobhit was also bringing all of his shit home. He was home in Seattle for one week before he then moved to Los Angeles in early September, where he lived for the next five years.
Anyway, my "
Days Two & Three" photo album from that trip, which was my
16th trip to New York City, included a good seven shots from our three hours or so killing time at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport.
My "
Travel Day" photo album from the November 2010 trip to New York, chronicling the trip home, includes nearly about as many shots just from the airplane, but also of the first layover I ever had in Minneapolis. About a year and a half after Shobhit moved from L.A. to New York, we took a Valentine's Day trip to New York for old times sake in 2013 (still the most recent I've been there; I would love to visit again), and that trip
also included a layover in Minneapolis on the way home—but only two photos taken of or at the airport in that case.
Anyway, I only decided to do this mostly because of those hours spent just hanging out at the airport in 2011. It felt like slight more than just a layover—still not a legit "visit to Minneapolis," but the airport has a mall and we had hours to kill there. And: I had mentioned this as other times I've been through Minneapolis (although it should be noted, only a small portion of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport is within Minneapolis proper's city limits, and it's not within Saint Paul's at all; most of it otherwise surrounded by suburbs but not within any incorporated city, which I do find odd).
This also had come up in conversation with Laney during our post-movie Happy Hour on Saturday. We went to have lunch and drinks at Westlake Park, a block and a half from AMC Pacific Place where we saw
Barbie—we had done this exact same thing when we saw
Barbie the first time, on Sunday July 23. That was not an official "Happy Hour" day though, so although she bought a canned wine to go from Veggie Grill, I did not, and we didn't take an official "Happy Hour" photo or anything. Yesterday was, however, and we had decided to combine it with a re-watch of
Barbie, and I did take a photo to post.
It's quite pleasant there, sitting at public tables in Westlake Park, with several visible security staff as well as "Downtown Ambassadors" walking around. We must have hung out for a good three hours or so, chatting about how much we love the movie—we had loved it so much the first time around, we decided we wanted to go see it again—as well as other things.
I had a "Santa Fe Chik'n" sandwich, my favorite, from Veggie Grill. As we had done last time, we got take-out from Veggie Grill and ate it at Westlake Park. She gave me money for the only thing she wanted, which was sweet potato fries; I had enough points in my points membership that I just redeemed some to cover her fries and brought her money back. She was pretty appreciative of that, and actually used the money to get snacks for our movie watch yesterday.
I filled my new Klean Kanteen thermos with lemonade and vodka. A bit too much of it. I didn't even finish it; I developed a predictable headache later; drinking two glasses of water after getting home really helped.
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— पांच हजार चार सौ उनचास —
Shobhit had actually joined us for the movie. He hadn't seen it when Laney and I went the first time, as his campaign was still going on. Now he's got some extra time, and he wanted to see it.
We walked downtown to meet Laney at the AMC, taking a detour to Whole Foods along the way. I had a pair of sandals that turned out to be the wrong style—I found a perfect pair at a store in the Mall of America in Minneapolis, but they didn't have it in my size, so I ordered from Amazon, accidentally getting a style that was not quite right—and Whole Foods now has a station where you can bring Amazon order returns and just drop them off. Amazon sends you a QR code and a person just scans it, simple. It might be the single great thing about Amazon buying out Whole Foods. I could have done the whole transaction without even speaking to the lady, who scanned my code, and wordlessly took the shoe box. I was like, "Is that it?" and she said, "Yep!"
My replacement pair of sandals should be arriving today. I finally threw away my last pair that were literally falling apart after we returned from Australia in March. It took too long for me to finally get a replacement pair, but at least now I'll have them.
Anyway, Shobhit's mood seemed fine on the way there, but when the movie was out, his mood didn't seem great. I asked how he liked the movie and he just said, "It was okay." Even though he laughed out loud several times during the movie, so . . . whatever.
He had already decided he would not join Laney and me for the Happy Hour lunch in the park, and Laney decided to grab the one empty table in the shade rather than walk the rest of the way to Veggie Grill. I don't think Shobhit was even really thinking about how that was a goodbye for the day, but Laney was later openly disappointed that he hadn't even said goodbye to her.
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Laney and I got together again yesterday, for a movie watch in the Braeburn Condos theater: she
finally got to see
Everything Everywhere All at Once! This was now my third time seeing it—actually maybe my fourth, if I watched the SAG screener with Shobhit, which I might have—and that movie seems to improve with every re-watch. Laney laughed a
lot. It really is a great movie. We even both agreed it's a better movie than
Barbie, much as we both also really loved that one.
Everything Everywhere All at Once has far more layered depth to it.
Barbie has that too, but there's something a lot more cheeky, winking about it, in a comparatively superficial way.
We chatted for a while after that movie was done as well, both out in the community kitchen, and then again out in the "canyon" between the two buildings of the condo complex. We'll see each other again Sunday next weekend, for Alki Beach Pride.
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I did spend a lot of time with Shobhit over the weekend otherwise, just not that would otherwise qualify as "socializing." We watched a ton of TV, starting on Friday, when I realized how many shows with new seasons we needed to catch up on: six episodes of season five of
What We Do in the Shadows; five episodes of
Reservation Dogs; two episodes of season three of
Only Murders In the Building. Over the weekend, in addition to all of that, we binged episodes 3 through 8 of
The Diplomat on Netflix, which is highly addictive.
In other words, if I was at home, it was basically all-TV, all the time. I enjoyed it though.
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[posted 12:47 pm]
