I shall now tell you the story of Shobhit's birthday present, which was really a present for both of us. A rather expensive one. I never let on that I was even doing anything special for his birthday. If I had, and I told him before he saw what it was that I spent around $379 combined on it, he'd probably have had a heart attack. I expected that reaction would be mitigated once he actually saw what it was, and I was right.

This story actually goes all the way back to Alki Beach Pride, which occurred on Saturday, August 31.

We noticed that there was a new public restroom building there on Alki Beach, and it had a beautiful public mural of a different marine animal on all four sides. I took photos of all four of them. And when I take photos of public art and upload them to Flickr, if I can manage to find the information online, I like to tage the photos with at the very least the name of the artist, and if there is one, the title of the piece.

These were all signed with the handle "@dozfy," as are all of this artist's many murals around town, which I have long loved. I love the style.

So I googled Dozfy, and found his website (which also has links to his socials). Right there in the center was what immediately caught my attention: Pet Portraits!

Shobhit has been talking about wanting to get a framed picture of Shanti and Guru on the wall, just like I have long had for both Batty (1989-2004) and Peng (1998-2008), ever since they died. I saw this and thought it would make a spectacular alternative.

The thing was, it only shows options of a portrait of a single pet, kind of a head shot, $169. That was a little steep but I was still seriously considering it. I found an ideal photo of Shanti and Guru together (see above), and attached it to an email I sent on September 5 to the artis, to ask three questions: 1) what the turnaround was for an order; 2) whether I could commission a portrait with two pets on it instead of one; and 3) what the dimensions of the portrait are.

He replied the same day: 1) a portrait takes 7-10 business days to finish; 2) the dimensions for regular orderd are 9" x 12"; and 3) he said it's really hard to fit both cats onto that size, but he could do it on a 10" x 14" size for $200.

Okay, so now it would be even more expensive. I was really ambivalent about the idea for, like, a day. But then I sent him the payment via Venmo on September 6.

He emailed me a photo of the portrait on September 11—see below—and I absolutely adored it. I felt instantly that it was worth the expense. It was a one-time thing, something I'll cherish forever, something I was confident Shobhit would love, and the fact that I was supporting a local artist was icing on the cake. Everything about this felt right to me, especially after I saw the finished portrait.

He emailed me a photo of the package tracking number on September 17, telling me it should arrive in 2-3 days. Once it finally did arrive, I had to be careful about only going down to the package room in the West building of the Braeburn Condominiums when Shobhit was out at work, as I did not want him to see me come home with the package. I can't remember exactly when I did this, but it must have been either Friday September 20 or Saturday September 21, as Shobhit had evening work shifts those days. In any case, once I finally had a chance to fetch it, I brought the package upstairs and hid it in a place I knew Shobhit wouldn't find it.

So then came the next step: I wanted to have this professionally framed. I am a multiple-time customer of Frame Central on Broadway and Pike, an easy, seven-block walk from home. I actually did this on Saturday, October 5, after Jennifer and Matthew went home from their visit for the Northwest Chocolate Festival, and Shobhit had another evening shift—which he'd had very few of on days I did not have other plans, ever since I got the portrait in the mail.

I spent quite a while talking to the guy at Frame Central about my options, actually, going over what would result in the most decent final product that saved me the most money. Shobhit would have been very proud of me, probably more so than he would assume. At first we were looking at custom sizing of frame, but in the end we went with a ready-made frame which saved me a lot. The one thing I did splurge on was the anti-glare glass. They had a demonstration of how it looked versus regular glass right there on the counter, and the difference was dramatic—you could only barely notice any reflections on the anti-glare one. But the guy gave me many options for ways to save, including I think was a 10% discount if I signed up for their newsletter—an easy choice, as I just used my Hotmail account where anything not specifically approved just filters to my Junk folder anyway.

The price kept going up and down depending on the options. The lowest quote I got was $149 but I think that was before taxes, and I think that did not include the anti-glare glass. The highest quote was something like $225 and I was just like: yikes. I did not want to spend more on the frame than I spent on the portrait itself. In the end I settled on a final price that, with tax added, came to $178.79. I decided, after some deliberation, that this was the best option.

The framing process took longer than the portrait itself. I placed this order on October 5, thankful I had started this process so early, and they said it would be ready for pickup on October 23. In the end they had it ready on the 24th. That was last Friday. I picked it up on my way home from work, when Shobhit thankfully was at work again. I was also happy to have it given to me wrapped in brown paper; that was enough for me and I wouldn't have to gift wrap it. I walked it home and found a hiding space for it under the dresser drawers in the guest room.

I was very tempted to give it to Shobhit on Tuesday night, after Laney and I had gone to see Conclave (which was quite fun). I nearly rationalized it by saying Shobhit was technically 51 years old by that evening because he was born in India—a strange thing about noting his birthday that I have posted about countless times over the years. But, in the end, I decided to wait.

I took the day off just for his birthday yesterday, which I think he really appreciated. We did not do anything extraordinarily special all day, but he clearly enjoyed having the whole day to spend with me. He did have a dentist appointment he had to go to at 8:00 in the morning, and then a Weight Watchers meeting at 10:00; I accompanied him for the latter. I even recorded a brief but hilarious video of the group singing him Happy Birthday. (I posted it to my socials without thinking; only Mandy was like, "You posted his Weight Watchers group online!" I just kind of thought: Oh well, the damage is done. If there even is any damage. I don't think anyone who sees my posts is likely to know any of those people, who fly by pretty quickly across the screen anyway.)

Shobhit tried to think of things to do for the day, including driving up to La Conner, where the Tulip Festival happens. But it's the opposite side of the year for that, and it would be a bit more than an hour drive both ways. In the end we settled for a stop at Zylberschtein's, where we bought several pastries, split a savory one that we just had heated up there, and then took the rest of them home.

I presented him with his present before we left for the Weight Watchers meeting, though, after he got back from his dentist appointment. I just couldn't wait any longer. I had already told several people about this (Laney, Alexia, Gabby and Amy at work) and they were all very excited about it.

I'm not quite sure how to characterize Shobhit's response to it. His immediate response, as you can see in the video below, was clearly being triggered into missing Shanti and Guru. And, as I already said, he did ask how much I spent and how I had budgeted it (I took the cost of the portrait out of the travel budget and I took the cost of the frame out of my Christmas gifts budget), and he seemed to have no problem with that.

He did notice a small blemish in the portrait, what looks like a minor smear across Shanti's right ear. I had noticed it too, but it's not like I was going to go back to the artist and demand a refund or retroactive discount. It's barely noticeable, and I really love the portrait. Another thing Frame Central had to recommend was mounting the portrait on top of the white matting, because Guru's ears are too close to the edge fo the paper. It still works out well; I think the frame in particular looks perfect.

After getting back from Zylberschtein's and I made some chai and had one of my pastries, I removed all the old framed posters from early-days Seattle plays Shobhit was in that have been hanging in the living room for years and years, and made room for the cats' portrait. I then re-hung all the play posters in the guest room.

We watched this week's episode of Only Murders in the Building—the season finale, in fact—and then for a while I actually spent some time getting a fair amount of photo collecting and editing work done on the calendars I'll be making for Christmas this year. Taking yesterday off proved useful in many ways.

I never do this, but I did check my work email a couple of times. I was hoping to see whether any email would have gone out about any kind of office Halloween celebration today, which has never come, and never did. And although I had thought for a while that I would dress up as "Gay D. Vance" again today no matter what, in the end I decided against it. I wore my Day of the Dead kitty earrings and my red and black button-up shirt with little skulls on it instead.

There isn't so much as the slightest Halloween decoration here at the office today. I even walked around the office this morning to count how many people were here, and there were about 14. Thursdays are a day few people come into the office. It's a culmination of multiple scenarios this year: an off-day for office attendance; no one bringing it up (I never even asked about it, perhaps I should have, not that it would have made any difference); the fact that we only recently got a new Office Manager who would not have a working knowledge of office traditions.

Many of these traditions are fated to change over the next year anyway, with a move into a new space where there isn't even ebough room for everyone to be there at the same time. Will we even still do the Thanksgiving "Harvest Feast"? We only just got word on Tuesday that we'll have our last one in this office on December 4.

This isn't even quite unprecedented: it was a very similar vibe in 2021. The differences there were that Halloween Day was on a Sunday so any work costuming would have had to be on Friday the 29th, and hardly anyone was in the office that Friday. I had a very simple costume that year ("Captain Awesome") so it was easy to wear to the offie anyway. "Gay D. Vance" would have been far too much effort for no payoff today, except maybe the potential awkwardness of being dressed like that for the Office Relocation Project Team site visit downtown this morning (I'll have to share about that in a later post). In the end it just seemed best not to dress up today; I got my photos in costume for the year with Tracy last Sunday anyway.

Lastly, we had Action Movie Night last night, which Shobhit opted to attend even though it was his birthday, rather than going out for dinner. We baked the spanikpita we got on our last shopping trip to Costco.

It was unusually crowded last night, too: Tony, Ben, Ryan, Derek, Chris B, Andy, Tom, Sean, Eric, Daniel, Shobhit, and me. Twelve people! There were onlu two empty seats in the theater. And Jake, who misses these things less often than anyone besides maybe Tony, was unable to make it this week. Chris G usually comes abd was not there either. Had they both come it would have been a completely full house.

It was Tom's choice this week. Tony had asked over email if I could bring the backup movie. Tom never replies to the emails, and he often does not come, so it seemed likely I could be playing the movie choice. I should have emailed Tony directly to double check earlier yesterday. Instead I signed up for a week's free trial of Paramount+ just for this purpose—only to find that Tom was indeed there. So much for that.

It's Joe's turn next time, but his attendance is very spotty. I'm scheduled after him. But, next time is November 13, when Shobhit and I are flying home from Phoenix and there's no way we'll get back in time. This means my choice in all likelihood will be November 27, a potential bit of a bummer: that's the day before Thanksgiving. I wonder if that will be sparsely attended. I guess we'll find out. I'm still trying to decide whether I will stay a night down in Olympia for Thanksgiving, which could impact this as well. I'm leaning toward not, but we'll see.

Anyway, Tom is proving to have very good taste. His last movie was The Silence of the Lambs, which he said is his all-time favorite movie. I knew what this one was as soon as it started: "I know what this is!" It was Alien Romulus, which I liked a lot. I was surprised he managed to get it so soon after release and wondered if we were even watching it legally. I was happy to see it again, though. I had tried a few times to get Shobhit to go see it with me even after I had already seen it, but it's just as well he didn't: he declared "I found it underwhelming." Whatever! I like it a lot. But, I'm a big fan of that whole franchise.

[posted 12:53 pm]