— पांच हजार सात सौ पंद्रह —
Quite the unusual social mix last night. First, dinner: at Nordstrom Cafe, which is on the 4th floor of Nordstrom, but at the other end of the skybridge that connects to the
3rd floor of Pacific Place. That's confusing enough on its own, but there is also a "Nordstrom Grill" down on the basement level of Nordstrom, but the Nordstrom website makes it very difficult to differentiate between the two.
We all figured it out, anyway. There were four of us who met for dinner, and we all arrived separately. I walked direct from work, coming through Belltown from the north. Laney walked from home, coming from Capitol Hill from the east. Alexia did the same as Laney, but they did not walk together; Alexia arrived early, and first, having given herself extra time for expected traffic. But, she also parked on Capitol Hill and walked, expecting to walk with Laney and me back up there after the movie.
Fourth was Lea, who I'm pretty sure thus made this the first time we did anything social without Gabriel. She was meeting Laney and Alexia for the first time. She also wore her mask most of the time she wasn't eating, which none of the rest of us did—not even Laney, although both Laney and I wore our masks in the theater as usual, but especially last night as the theater was, shockingly, probably three quarters to capacity. I even used Covyxil right before going in the theater; Lea had done the same earlier and I think even Laney did too.
Alexia never wears a mask. Which is fine. We all have our different comfort levels with these things, and it evolves in individual ways over time.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The windstorm on Tuesday night, which hardly affected us on Capitol Hill and apparently spared Gabriel and Lea as well (even though power was out in areas all around them), knocked out the power in Issaquah, with no expectation of it coming back on until Saturday at the soonest and possibly as late as Tuesday! She told us about her Tuesday evening trying to get home, with
three different routes with felled trees blocking the roads. Only with her fourth route did she finally make it home. She said it was really scary, and it sounded like it. She was happy to get into town and have dinner at a place that would serve a hot meal.
Speaking of which, she ordered the mushroom ravioli I kept raving about. None of our dishes were warm enough upon delivery. It figures, I can finally get someone to try something I rave about, and that particular time, it's sub par. Alexia did say she could tell it would be much more delicious if it were just hotter.
— पांच हजार सात सौ पंद्रह —
— पांच हजार सात सौ पंद्रह —
Anyway, a fifth joined us for the movie, meeting us at the AMC across the skybridge and up one floor at Pacific Place: Janine, Gabriel's mom, who decided to come after Alexia booked two tickets to join us without knowing who she'd get to come with her and trying several options. For a period Tess was going to join us, but then she had a commitment with a tech rehearsal for a play she works on handling the lighting.
Once we were all seated, Lea took a selfie from her end of our line of five seats, and so I took
one of my own, from my end. Laney was on the other side of me which is why she's comically peeking up from the bottom of the frame.
We all saw
Wicked: Part I, and I think pretty much all five of us were delighted by it. It wasn't perfect, which was why I gave it a B+, but I was also much more charmed by it than I expected it to be, which was also why I gave it a B+. To me, this was very much a B+ movie.
We didn't get a lot of time to visit with Janine, which was too bad, although we chatted just a little as we left the theater. Dinner was at 5:00 and the movie showtime was at 6:30. The movie runtime is two hours and forty minutes, so with trailers we got out of there around 9:30. Laney and Alexia and I all walked back up Capitol Hill together. The three of us are seeing yet another movie tomorrow—
Gladiator II—but tonight actually starts this year's Christmas events for me: Seattle Christmas Market with Alexia. And tomorrow after the movie, the Seattle Festival of Trees. I'm probably going bowling with Tracy on Sunday.
And I am taking all of next week off of work, with stuff planned every day already. Of course! So I have had lots of work to get done this week and today, but I'm pretty proud of how well I managed my time and work load, actually.
— पांच हजार सात सौ पंद्रह —
[posted 12:34 pm]
