— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ बासठ —

I had a very social weekend, pretty much as per usual.

Friday night I finally had another Movie Night next door at Alexia's condo, our first since January 5—over a month ago—when we watched Barbie. This time, with our Holiday Movie nights (plus Barbie) now out of the way, we have returned to Harrison Ford-athon, our first Harrison Ford movie since we watched Six Days Seven Nights on November 11—three months ago!

When we first started the Harrison Ford-athon, after first running through all the Star Wars movies and then all the Indiana Jones movies (in the latter case to prep for Dial of Destiny's release at the end of June), we went back to fill in the gaps of his films, not quite at the very beginning of his career, but ever since The Empire Strikes Back. We watched every single Harrison Ford film released beteen 1980 and 1998. That covered 18 years and as many movies, of varying quality, by far the worst of which was The Mosquito Coast. It's the barometer by which we are now constantly comparing the varying quality of films we've watched in its wake: the ones that aren't super great, we are regularly saying, "At least it's not as bad as The Mosquito Coast."

After Six Days Seven Nights, though, which was arguably the second-worst of his films we have watched—not nearly as much of a struggle to sit through, but utterly preposterous—Harrison Ford's career in the late nineties through the aughts clearly took a more spotty turn. And, depending on the apparent critical consensus of the film, I have finally taken to being more choosy about which films I have us watch. Random Hearts from 1999 has a 38 score (out of 100!) on MetaCritic, so I decided: fuck that.

His next film, What Lies Beneath (2000), is much more mixed, with a MetaScore of 51. I knew it wouldn't be great, but maybe it would be entertaining and/or compelling. So, that's what Alexia and I watched on Friday.

Our responses were pretty mixed as well. It has a pacing that's a bit slow for its own good, and it tries to mix murder mystery and ghost story in a way that prevents it from being quite successful at either. But, it costars Michelle Pfeiffer and her performances is great in it. So it had some redeeming value, at least.

His next movie, with a score of 58 on MetaCriti, is a film from 2002 called The Widowmaker. It costars Liam Neeson and is about a malfunctioning Russian nuclear submarine, which clearly makes it more in the vein of The Hunt for Red October—and will definitely be more Alexia's speed. So, I think we'll keep that one on the list. The next one, a film from 2003 costarring Josh Hartnett with a MetaScore of 47 called Hollywood Homicide, I think we may skip. On the other hand, that one has high user ratings, which I won't likely agree with but it makes me think Alexia might enjoy it, so we'll see. I'll think on that one.

— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ बासठ —

The highlight of my Saturday was a return to Happy Hour in the Park, with Laney, at Volunteer Park. I might otherwise not have gone for this so early in the year, rather than meeting someplace where we bought drinks and food, but I asked Laney if we could do a "no-cost" Happy Hour because my budget was so tight, after going to dinner at Saffron Grill with Alexia the Friday before last, and Shobhit and I have Valentine's Day dinner reservations on Wednesday.

I was thinking we could just hang out at Laney's apartment, maybe. But, it was Laney who suggested we go to Volunteer Park, and just dress in layers, and sit on the Amphitheater stage, which is covered, in the case of rain or drizzle.

As it happened, Saturday was a pretty nice day, at least by February standards. The high was 49°, and it was actually mostly sunny when I first walked down to meet Laney at her building. She decided we would walk the mile up to Volunteer Park rather than driving, and she had two lawn chairs for us to sit in, and asked me to carry one of them. I wound up carrying them both, as even carrying one of them along with her backpack and walking cane was proving a bit awkward for her.

She was chatting with a few people outside her building when I arrived, so I quickly went into Walgreen's to get some deodorant. This middle-aged woman at the checkout counter, whom I had never seen, looked at me and said, "Your hair looks great!" That's always nice to hear, isn't it?

We took a pit stop at m2m Market so Laney could buy a bag of tortilla chips, which was her lunch. They had only one bag of them for sale there, and it was too big, so she both shared with me at the park once we had set up, and had me take the last of it home. Conveniently we still had some salsa at home, and Shobhit still had some guacamole, so we finished that right off later in the evening.

It was kind of amusing putting ourselves sort of on display, sitting in our chairs on the Volunteer Park Ampthitheater stage. At Laney's suggestion, instead of trying to set up my timer with my phone propped on the ground, I ran out and asked a young lady passing through the park to take our picture. She took a wide shot, at my request—a couple of them, actually—but when I posted it I included a cropped version that functionally served as a zoom shot.

We were there probably a couple of hours. More and more clouds gathered, so even though the temperature didn't really drop, with no sunshine we got quite chilly. We both smartly did indeed dress in layers, and once we both went to use the bathroom (the bathrooms at the Amphitheater, annoyingly, locked, so we had to walk across the park to the ones by the Conservatory), we warmed ourselves back up a bit by walking the mile back to her place. I carried both the chairs up to her apartment before then walking the six blocks back home again.

— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ बासठ —

This photo doesn't quite look like a drizzly day in February, does it?

I took the bus down to Renton to hang out with Danielle yesterday. I had a free day, and we don't hang out often enough, so more than a week ago I asked if she was working on this date and should we get together. I did not realize at the time that this was Super Bowl Sunday, but when I texted her Saturday night to confirm and acknowledge this, she texted back yesterday morning to still come on down. She said her mom would be coming over to watch the game.

Here's the particularly odd thing about Gail: for years, after she moved to the Seattle area, I saw her quite regularly. But, and I don't really know why—there was no intention of this on anyone's part—I hadn't seen her in several years. The last time I saw Gail, in fact, was when Shobhit and I went to Danielle's house on New Year's Day, 2017. Seven years ago! Sometimes, time just gets away from us.

It was a few years ago I noticed Gail in photos Danielle posted to Facebook, in which she was nearly unrecognizable because she had lost so much weight. I had never seen her so thin; if I remember right, I think she had a procedure done. When I saw her yesterday, she was pretty shocked to learn it had been so long since I last saw her. We hung out a fair amount of time yesterday, while the Super Bowl was on (it started at 3:30), and the one thing that really struck me was how mellow she was, in a way she never used to be when we were much younger. I have no idea if that's a Gail-getting-older thing or if it was just a yesterday thing.

My idea for yesterday with Danielle, actually, was to get into her hot tub. Shobhit and I did this barely more than a year ago, and it was the only other time I had ever done it.

Shobhit worked yesterday though, so I took the bus down to the Renton Transit Center, and asked if she could come pick me up there. It's still about a fifteen minute drive from her house, one of countless things I hate about Renton, and the suburbs more broadly. I get that it's inconvenient, and in Danielle's defense she never said that about it, but she was also clearly hoping to find a way out of driving me back by the 5 p.m. bus I needed to take back to Seattle. She asked if there were any buses from her neighborhood, and I did do a few searches—if there were any available, I'd have been fine with taking one, it just would have likely meant having to leave up to an hour earlier. But, the buses that go through her neighborhood clearly serve commuters and only had workable times on weekdays. There was nothing going through at the time I was there yesterday.

We hung out in downtown Renton for a few minutes after Danielle picked me up. we went into a little local store, and then we decided to get cupcakes at the great little cupcake shop they have downtown Renton, called Common Ground Coffee and Cupcakes. I hadn't realized they basically ice them to order. I'll say the cake part of my cupcake was . . . fine. The icing, though, was amazing, which made for a delicious cupcake. Then, we drove back to her house.

The hot tubbing was really nice. Danielle said she's learned a lot about the maintenance of the water in it, and that any kind of body lotions really screws up the water. She insisted this included deodorant, and asked me to wipe off any I had on. I did what I could, but honestly this made me less inclined to want to do this again, depending on what else might be going on that given day. I really need my deodorant. To be fair, I never developed any body odor thereafter. Whether that was because my body was just fine without the deodorant, or I did not do a good enough job of wiping it off, I really have no idea. I suppose I could just be more prepared the next time and bring my deodorant with me. That's a reasonable compromise.

Danielle seemed to really enjoy being in the hot tub too, saying more than once that even she hadn't gotten in it in a while. She played mellow music throuh her Echo that she had in her open bedroom window above us, and we just kind of hung out and chatted. I did get a call from Gabriel, who is eager to find a way to use his version of a Bacherlor Party to get over to the "path of totality" for the eclipse coming in April.

This all came about because I accidentally sent a text meant for Barbara to the group text with Gabriel, Lea, Andy and Mandy, and it mentioned Louisville. Gabriel at first thought about it being on the "Burbon Trail," and he even texted me about whether I'd want to go to Louisville, and I had to tell him I had been considering going already, then pivoted to flying Barbara out here instead, the flights already booked.

He seemed to later connect the eclipse, which made him even more excited. Honestly, from his perspective, I totally get it. And he's in the process of trying to gauge how many of us in his wedding party would be up for this. He noted on the phone yesterday, "You're on the fence." Which was true. But by yesterday, I really had to be honest: I'm leaning toward the side of the fence where I don't do this. I don't want to jeopardize the possibility of Shobhit and me going to Toronto for our 20th anniversary (of our first date), which will likely be expensive.

It's just too much at too short of notice, unfortunately. Had this idea come to him, say, a year ago, I would have prioritized and budgeted for it. But, I've already got a whole lot locked in place for vacation time and travel in 2024: Barbara's visit at the end of next month; Birth Week Vacation at the end of April and beginning of May (which will overlap with Gabriel and Lea's wedding); the hopeful trip to Toronto in June; the already-booked Biannual Family Vacation on the Washington Coast in August (which I may add a day or two to now that I know the Co+nvergence conference in the Twin Cities is not happening this year); the requisite weeks off for Thanksgiving and the week prior to Christmas.

I guess Lea is also eager for Gabriel to be able to make a trip to Louisville work, as she has family from the area. Again, I totally get it. I'm just not in a position to make it work, at least not easily, on only a month or two notice.

Anyway! I was on the phone with him for a good 10 minutes, before I noted that I was supposed to be hanging out with Danielle, so we hung up.

— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ बासठ —

Gail arrived while Danielle and I were in the hot tub, and we stayed in for a while after that. At one point it started drizzling, and I had to get out of the tub to assist Danielle in opening the overhead umbrella. Only minutes later, the umbrella stand lost its balance and started to fall over. By then the drizzling had stopped, and I had to get out of the tub to assist in collapsing the umbrella back down.

I don't know how long we were in there, maybe an hour? We got out, and after I had dried myself off and changed back into my regular clothes in the upstairs bathroom, I came out and there were four people ready for the game: Danielle and Gail, plus Danielle's roommate Michelle (I think that was her name?) and her boyfriend, whose name I forget. Let's say Mike. I had brought chai that I made at home before leaving, not realizing there would be this many people, but I still made just the right amount: everyone but Gail accepted the offer of some. I poured my own portion in the insulated cup I brought for myself, and poured everyone else's in mugs I found in Danielle's kitchen cupboard. There was just a small amount leftover after that, which Danielle happily took, so my two thermoses were empty on my way back home last night.

The four of us kind of sat in a line on Danielle's sofa, facing the TV she has mounted on the wall opposite. I sat between Danielle and Gail, which allowed me to get a couple fun selfies with Gail—my first photos of her in seven years. (I have 133 shots of her, incidentally—not a huge amount, given I have known her as long as I've known Danielle, which is to say, since 1987.)

Michelle has a young son, who came out every so often. I forget his name too. He was designing a video game of some kind. Danielle has commented on how smart her is; I first met him on New Year's Day.

I can't say I exactly watched the game at all. I sat on the couch facing it. I did get a picture of Danielle walking past it, and my plate of chips and dip. I did create a photo album, of 14 shots, for both this year's Super Bowl and my "counter programming"—that being the hot tubbing.

I had nearly forgotten I actually have a collection of photo albums for "Super Bowl / Counter Programming." I had not kept it up or maintained since I made a photo album of a long walk Shobhit and I took on Super Bowl Sunday in 2016, though. So, later in the evening, I looked up the dates of the Super Bowl every year between 2017 and 2023 to see if I had taken any photos. Nothing qualified as either a "Super Bowl Party" or even "counter programming," though, with one exception: the SR 99 Tunnel and Viaduct Ride in 2019, which Gina, Beth and Dad all came up to Seattle to participate in, happened to occur on Super Bowl Sunday. I don't remember if I registered that at all at the time, but the way I see it, it still counted as "counter-programming," so into the collection it went.

Soon enough, it was time to get back to the Renton Transit Center. Getting the 5:00 (technically 5:01) bus would have gotten me home perfectly in time for Shobhit to pick me up downtown on his way home from work. I should have told Danielle the bus was leaving at 4:55. I didn't worry about it much when she clearly took her time to get out of the house once it was clear we needed to go, because I assumed we'd cut it close but make it.

I forgot that King County Transit bus riders are regularly known for leaving their stop a couple of minutes early, which is annoying as shit. When Danielle was close to downtown, I checked my clock and I still had five minutes. I thought it was plenty of time. Then, Danielle turned to quicklu and then had to drive around a block to get back on track to where she was taking me. Had even that part not happened, I would have made my bus. I should have clocked that there was no one at the stop when I got out, but after I thanked Danielle for the ride and she drove away, One Bus Away indicated the fucking bus had already left—even though I was standing there the very minute it was supposed to leave. I had to wait half an hour for the 5:31 bus. I was deeply annoyed by this, but bitching at Danielle about it wasn't going to get me anywhere.

Shobhit, for his part, delayed leaving work by 15 minutes so he would get downtown at the time I would get to my stop at 6:07. I got off the bus on 4th Avenue and his car was on Pike Street, and we drove the rest of the way home. We spent most of the rest of the evening with the game on, and me processing the day's photos on my laptop.

— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ बासठ —

[posted 12:37 pm]