It's been another busy Holiday Events weekend! Although to be fair, the three holiday events I've had scheduled this week were all yesterday alone—that's what most of this post will be dedicated to.

Just briefly, I will note that there were two movies scheduled for this weekend, both with Laney: one on Friday and one today. Shobhit joined us somewhat last-minute on Friday, when I realized he was not working in the evening, and he might be interested in what Laney and I had planned that evening: Queer, which both Laney and I liked quite a lot, in spite of its nebulous script and narrative.

Shobhit, not so much. I think it very likely that three things convinced him to join us, in spite of the relative likelihood that Daniel Craig will get a SAG Award nomination which would later grant him a screener: 1) it's a gay story and there was a definite promise of hot gay male nudity in it; 2) I had $10 in AMC A-list reward points to put toward his ticket, so all it cost me was barely more than four bucks; and 3) probably most persuasive for Shobhit, it would give him another Social Review point when Laney was already bound to get two, and possibly three (in the end it was also just two), this weekend. Side note: after this weekend, Shobhit has indeed eked ahead in the Social Review standings again, thanks actually to his joining us Friday or else they would be tied: Shobhit is at 25 points as I write this, and Laney is at 24.

So, presumably, Shobhit was glad to have joined us for Queer, even though he was definitely bored and fell asleep a few times—even in spite of all the truly hot young gay men Daniel Craig's character has sex with, more than one of which is shown with full frontal nudity. That usually perks Shobhit right up.

We were already at Pacific Place, so right after the movie, Shobhit and Laney and I all went around to look at this year's Fleurs de Villes NOËL 2024 holiday floral displays, many of them this year based on classic Christmas movies. I got over 30 photos out of that, adding yet another album to my working Christmas 2024 collection, which is on track to total 15 albums by the end of the season. That's an objectively large number, and still would be the fewest I've had since 2021. The 20 I had in 2022 and 18 last year both felt like a little much though, to be honest. We'll see though; I could have unexpected ones added this year, which was what padded out the numbers the past couple of years.

Anyway! Let's talk about yesterday. It started with the Great Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition, apparently the 39th annual—and the first one, that I have ever known about, to occur on a weekend afternoon rather than an evening. I have no idea what the thinking was behind that. It's less photogenic with things like Christmas lights in Pike Place Market, but does make it easier to get candid shots otherwise.

I also made a bit of a mistake in suggesting to Alexia that we get down there at 1:00 rather than at noon when it starts. My thinking was to save an excess of being out and about when we already had the Dina Martina Christmas Show to go to at 3:00. But, I did not realize that all the competing chorus groups do their singing in the first hour—the hour that we missed. We did, however, get to see finalists singing on the main stage, so that still made it worth going to. I'll just have to make a note of actually getting there at the event's start time next year.

And still, I did get a 22-shot photo album out of it. A lot fewer than last year's 40 shots, and even slightly less than the 23 shots I got in 2014, but that's okay. We saw maybe three or four choruses perform, and given that they were the ones voted as finalists and they were on the mainstage, one could argue we simply got to see the best of them anyway.

I'm still hoping to remember next year to go at the start of the event, though. Being able to choose for ourselves which groups are the best is more fun.

Laney had considered joining yesterday, but needed to be available to FaceTime with Jessica on a particularly significant day for her, so she skipped it. I think we could have managed more elbow room during the competition portion of Figgy Pudding, but after I got Alexia and myself close enough to get good pictures of the mainstage, the crowd was so sardine-thick that I know Laney wouldn't have been comfortable with it anyway. I did move us over to stand just inside the main entrance to Pike Place Market, though, so that at least we had reliable shelter over our heads: it was a kind of wet day yesterday. It never rained too heavily, but having shelter made it a lot easier to take pictures and video clips without also having to hold up my umbrella—which I did bring, and I did use briefly. I should have just gone with my rain jacket, but the forecast made it very difficult to decide how best to dress.

Anyway. Figuring that Alexia would be hungry, I suggested we find a place to get a light lunch. At first she suggested finding a place in the Market, but it was so crowded down there that I suggested we find a place outside of there. In the end I suggested "Asean Streat," the new-ish Asian food court on the ground floor of Westlake Center, which Shobhit and I ate at once. It's kind takes some getting used to as you have to order from any of the vendor booths from kiosks and we were a bit rushed, but we figured it out. We both wound up independently ordering from the same banh mi place, although of course she had meat on hers and mine had tofu.

I usually skip lunch, and this one was not quite as "light" as I'd hoped. It was a pretty large sandwich and I ate the whole thing. It sure was tasty though. Alexia's took a bit longer to be ready. and she managed half of hers before we were up and walking over to ACT Theater.

That took us to this year's Dina Martina Christmas Show, which was fantastic and hilarious as usual. Alexia had told me beforehand that she would refuse to do it if Dina asked her to come onstage with her. Thankfully, when that part of the show happened—she brings someone onstage to give several oddball gifts to—Dina even prefaced it by saying she would only take a volunteer, so not to worry.

Still, when we sat in our seats in the front row to on the side of the stage, the lady sitting behind Alexia leaned forward and said, "She's gonna pick on you!" I immediately said, "Don't tell her that, you're going to make her panic!" I then noted that the space we were sitting in would make it too difficult to pull Alexia onstage anyway: they're sort of like box seats, so she'd either have to walk far around the seats or literally climb over a four-foot wall. I knew that wouldn't happen.

And yet! There was an interaction between Dina and Alexia. There was a moment when Dina unrapped a confection candy, something like a white chocolate Werther's. She walked over and just placed it, unwrapped, into Alexia's hand. They even exchanged a couple of comments, though I can't remember what they said. A moment later, Dina came back, took the candy back out of Alexia's hand, and popped it onto her mouth and ate it.

I later told Alexia that Dina was sure putting a lot of faith in the audience having clean hands. I was sure Alexia's hands were clean, but Dina Martina doesn't know that. We also talked about what might have happened had Alexia decided to eat it herself. Alexia said she probably has the bit prepared for either possibility, and I'm sure she's right.

Alexia had parked right across the street from my building, so we walked downtown together, and then walked back together. Shobhit had been home from work for a while, and by this point we had only an hour to eat the very delicious meal he had made—with scratch-made parathas, yummy—before we had to leave for yet another thing.

This was the French holiday concert by a new French chorus that Ellen, the friend of Shobhit's we had over for dinner last weekend with her husband, told us about and said we should come. I ordered us two "sliding scale" $9 tickets online (regular price was $19), which I actually did on my phone while Alexia and I were walking over to ACT Theatre.

The concert was at a church on 19th and Prospect, which was a roughly half-hour walk for Shobhit and me. It was also entirely in French. The program offered a QR code where you could see the French lyrics alongside English translations, which was cool, but too distracting to read along while trying to listen to the performances, which were genuinely well done and very pretty. They also had a very young conductor who is in graduate school and was very cute.

There's a lot more I could share, about Ellen founding this chorus and how and why, but that's all kind of not my story to tell. They had a little reception in the basement afterward with lots of very tasty sweet treats. So between that and the concert itself, it was very worth going to.

Oh, there was also a guy from SLGC there! I exchanged texts with Laney to confirm. It was Chris V, who had been the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus accompanist. He looked a lot older, which makes sense. I left that chorus in 2004 and thus have likely not seen him in twenty years. Shobhit and I spoke briefly with Ellen during the reception after but I never did got a chance to mention my peripheral connection to Chris to her.

Anyway Shobhit and I walked home after that and I spent some more time processing the day's photos. There were only barely more than thirty this time.

[posted 6:30 pm]