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We had our Book Club after work yesterday, postponed from last week after Steve couldn't make it at the last minute due to a work commitment. We chose a new place this time, just a few blocks away to the east, on 1st Avenue, called
Cafe Cosmos. It turned out to be far more ideal than Queen Anne Beer Hall, which is increasingly overrun by loud sports fans; this place is a quieter coffee shop type place but also serves beers and ciders, so it had a nice set of options. I ordered a chai latte which was honestly a mistake because the real chai I make at home is a hundred times better, practically an entirely different beverage. I'll get a hot chocolate next time. Anyway, it's a place far more conducive to actual conversation, the whole point of these meetups.
We also had a higher attendance rate than we've had in several meetings: five of us made it, including Mel, Kara, Steve, Deena and myself. The book we were ostensibly supposed to be discussing was called
The Secret Life of Groceries which sounded very interesting but I had not yet managed even really to start. Kara hadn't read it either. The other three had read it and the overall consensus was that it was disappointing. "You're not really selling me on bothering to read this one at all," I said, and Steve replied, "You needn't bother." Well, that's settled then. Fuck that book!
We were there maybe an hour and fifteen minutes or so. We chatted a lot about other books, and especially about a lot of TV shows. Also the massive amounts of rats Mel has in their yard. Mel almost suggested a book about rats that massively populate cities, but right before we all left, we actually settled on
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach, which I had never heard of but am very interested in.
I also bought my dinner there, as this cafe has a small deli case. I was most intrigued by a wrap called "Hangry Vegan" with "spicy peanut sauce" as an ingredient, even though in the end it was neither spicy nor even detectably peanutty. Oh well. It was seven bucks. I had budgeted twenty bucks for this anyway.
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The weather took a turn yesterday, and I still wore shorts only because the forecast initially said like 75° with sun coming out in the afternoon, neither of which ever actually happened—we actually had some rain earlier in the afternoon; it was overcast all day; the temperature never exceeded 66°. The forecast high today is 65°. I'm wearing jeans for the first time in probably more than a month.
Yesterday broke a 68-day streak of consecutive days with a high over 70°. Apparently the record was set in 2017 with 72 days, so we didn't beat that. I'm sure we will one of these years soon enough. We have rain in the forecast today too, and the chances and when seems to change by the hour. This morning my weather app was just showing 20% chance of rain for a few hours this afternoon and evening. I decided to throw caution to the wind and still ride my bike to work anyway. I wore my light rain jacket, which I rarely have reason to wear—typically in warmer months, it isn't raining; and in colder months when it is, I need a heavier jacket. And this is a very nice, North Face rain jacket!
This will still allow me to get home more quickly than I would otherwise. Shobhit's paternal cousin-once-removed, Harshal (I need to get a family tree chart so I can remember what the exact familial connection is), is back in town, now married, and we've invited them over for dinner tonight. Shobhit has been hard at work on cooking four different dishes since yesterday, or since Sunday if you count when he started the produce shopping for it.
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[posted 12:38 pm]
