I never thought to ask Claudia if she intends to make this "Saint Nicolas Cage Day" party an annual event. I kind of hope she does.

I was thinking today about how easy it is to judge a person's character by the friends they keep. I think Claudia is a standout on this front. I always enjoy the other people who come to their parties. And not just because I found one particular guy really cute. (Strangely, he was almost bald, something I don't usually find attractive. But his face made up for it.)

I couldn't tell you how many people made it to her and Dylan's party today. I was first to arrive, a few minutes before the shared start time of 1:00 p.m. This was because my Fast Ferry departure options were either 11:30 a.m., which got me to Claudia's door at about 12:45; or 12:50, which would not have gotten me to Claudia's door until about 2:15. I took the earlier option, which included 15-minute wait at the Bremerton Ferry Terminal until I could catch the 12-minute foot ferry across Sinclair Inlet to Port Orchard, followed by the walk to Claudia's house roughly a mile away. Had I taken the next ferry, which didn't even leave Seattle's Pier 50 until only 10 minutes before the party was to begin, I'd have had a 25-minute wait at the Bremerton Ferry Terminal before I could catch the Foot Ferry across to Port Orchard.

Okay I'll be a bit clearer about how these passenger-only ferries work.

Seattle-Bremerton Fast Ferry: 30 minute crossing (this is half the time it takes the vehicle ferries operated by Washington State Ferries)Bremerton Ferry Terminal: 15-25 minute "layover," depending on schedulesBremerton-Port Orchard Foot Ferry: 12 minute crossingPort Orchard ferry dock to Claudia's: 18 minute walk

This isn't even accounting the time it takes to get from home down to Pier 50 to begin with. This morning, I left at roughly 10:30 so I would get to the dock comfortably early, what with there not being another ferry after that for 80 minutes. Shobhit walked with me, at my suggestion. His first Social Review point for winter! Getting a jump on that before he leaves for India on Christmas Day.

We both walked the whole way—1.7 miles—with our umbrellas. It rained lightly the whole way, I really need to buy a new pair of shoes. Currently they are fine if I am out in rain briefly, but even in light rain, a 45-minute walk results in the soles of my shoes sucking up the rain water enough that my socks start to get damp. I might have still been fine, except that when I got off the ferry at the Port Orchard dock, the rain suddenly really dumped down. My shoes were completely soaked through by the time I was even halfway to Claudia's. She did text to ask if I wanted her to come pick me up, but I was a couple of blocks from her house by the time I noticed the text. I was at Claudia's today for roughly three hours, and the entire time I had my shoes, with the socks draped over them, in front of her fireplace in an effort to warm them up and dry them out.

I hadn't even stepped in any rain puddles or anything. It was just raining so heavily that, between the rain itself and the heavy drips coming down from the edges of my umbrella, my socks got soaked through the tops of my shoes faster now than they did even through their soles.

Anyway. Three hours. I could have been there another couple of hours relatively comfortably, but when the time of the 4:30 ferry approached, I decided kind of at the last minute to pull on my socks and my shoes and head out. I think it kind of struck Claudia as abrupt, and she said, "You do you!" And I was like, "I will!"

I have to say, by the time I got home, in no longer soaked but still damp shoes and socks, and only my pea coat when by then it would have been better to have a hoodie underneath to layer and get warmer, I was really grateful I did not put off when I could be home and changed into my comfy flannel pajama bottoms. Plus, I found I had a lot of stuff to do, beyond just processing the day's photos—even as I write this, I still haven't put away yesterday's laundry—and I would have felt even more rushed had I not gotten home clear until 7:30 rather than around 6:00.

I did catch a RapidRide G line home from downtown after getting back to Seattle on the Fast Ferry from Bremerton. Still, door to door, it took me 10 minutes shy of two hours to get home. This would be why so many people don't even consider using public transit to go routes like this. But, to me, it's just a matter of smart planning. That said, I spent more cumulative time getting there and back than I actually spent at the party. I suppose that might have made for an argument to stay a couple hours longer. I'm sure the party went on quite strong longer even than that. Had the weather been different, I also might have been more inclined.

I still had a good time, even though there was some amusing irony in the idea of Claudia and Dylan playing Nicolas Cage movies in multiple rooms in the house, and nearly everyone still gathered and socialized in their very large kitchen and dining room. The dining room stretches into a sort of den area, and that's where the fireplace is. They have a cute, small artificial Christmas Tree on the mantel.

Both Dylan and Claudia went all out with their Nicolas Cage Character costumes: Dylan from The Wicker Man—complete with a netting around his head with cute little bees hanging inside it—and Claudia from Raising Arizona, easily my favorite Nicolas Cage movie. She even put that one on first, on the TV in the living room. I tried to watch it for a while, first with Dylan's brother and his fiance, then with Claudia's friend Rachael (I have no idea if that's how she spells it) and her husband Steve. I got real chatty with the latter couple, but in both cases people eventually got up and meandered back into the kitchen where everyone else was.

At least two or three other people came in Nicolas Cage costumes, but they were references to movies I did not recognize. I was exchanging texts with Laney on the Fast Ferry to Bremerton, and she asked if I was wearing my snowflake earrings because Nicolas Cage was in a movie called The Frozen Ground, and as it happened, I was! I told both her and Claudia separately that if I had plastic vampire teeth I could have brought those and said I was from Vampire's Kiss, but alas, I do not. There's always next year! If they do this again next year anyway.

I did not bring anything to this party. There was no ask for people to, although many people did anyway. This gave me plenty of junk to eat. There was a very good, homemade olive focaccia bread. A bunch of chips. A hot sauce I unfortunately mistook for salsa. Sliced bread with a cheese spread made with jalapeños and "hot honey," but it was sweeter than it was spicy. Someone brought Lindt chocolates and mini peanut butter cups. I had one cocktail, an Orange Crush with Tito's vodka, which gave me a weird quasi-headache, which Tito's does almost every time. I really need to decline vodka any time it's Tito's. Anyway, if I had stayed another two hours, I would have just grazed far more than I should have. And as the party crowd got larger, I kind of became more of a wallflower. All elements came together to tell me: okay, I might as well go home now.

Tracy did suggest not long ago that she and I got visit Claudia together sometime. I prefer visits that are not parties anyway. I'm hoping to make that happen next month. I've already got shit planned every single weekend Shobhit will be in India, and even the weekend after. It almost feels like the holiday season is stretching through the next month, with all the shit I'm still planning. Sheesh!

For now, I guess I'll post this and actually get to putting away the laundry.

Oh! Except, one last thing: Shobhit and I had gone over together to visit back in August, and we went to the farmers market there on the Port Orchard waterfront before we went the rest of the way up to Claudia and Dyan's house. I had my Star Wars tote bag, and we packed it with stuff that was too heavy, and it ripped. I was really bummed by that, but Claudia said she would mend it for me if I left it with her. I only ever see her every few months at best, but she was true to her word: she had the mended tote bag mended and ready for me today! I had actually forgotten about it, so this was a delightful surprise. Tied up with it inside a ribbon was a Christmas Card, inside of which she noted that it had come from the free bins at PCC, which really cracked me up. She left PCC a few years ago now.

I'm just so happy to have my favorite tote bag back!

[posted 9:10 pm]