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Shobhit gets a Social Review point for last night, woohoo!
Before last night, the cumulative Social Review points thus far had Laney with 11 points and Shobhit with 12. They've been neck and neck for a while, but last night furthers his slight lead.
I have a Double Feature with Laney but Shobhit will likely join us for the second movie. Then, we have the Madonna concert on Monday, which will further Shobhit's lead even more! And again, with the SAG Awards viewing party the
next Saturday! This should fill him with a justified smug satisfaction.
So what did we do last night, then? We just went for a walk. Shobhit tracks his steps almost as obsessively as he tracks his Weight Watchers food points, and he wanted to get more steps in. I had the evening free and was perfectly good with taking a walk. Shobhit asked where I wanted to go, and I suggested we take a walk up 15th Avenue E.
I'm really glad we did. We passed Olympia Pizza, which I havne't eaten at in ages, and I noticed they have outdoor seating they are clearly using (the fact that no one last night was sitting outside notwithstanding), with menus on the tables and outdoor space heaters mounted by every table. On our way back, I took a photo of it to send to Gabriel, and also note that Smith has outdoor seating as well, though without the heaters. Both are great ideas for whenever Gabriel might be in town and want to meet up at a place with outdoor seating.
I should maybe start budgeting for this: potential spontaneous outings. That way I won't have to decline any last-minute invitations to go out just because I've used up my budget. And then, if it doesn't happen, I can just filter the budgeted amount into the travel budget item. It's an idea, anyway.
Gabriel was pretty happy with the suggestions. The trick now will be for me to be actually around, near home, when he happens to be around and wants to sponteously meet up.
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— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ चौंसठ —
I spent a fair amount of time last night, otherwise, writing up what I have currently projected as travel days. At the moment my
liberal estimate is a total of 15 travel days by the end of th year. If it did indeed wind up limited to that—and this includes a wild estimate of a 5-day trip to Toronto for our anniversary in June—it would be the lowest number of travel days I've had in any given year
since 2015.
On the upside, given how early it is yet in the year 2024, in all likelihood other things will come up as the year goes on. For now, as of yesterday I got a finally-confirmed three days of travel in early April: a weekend trip with Gabriel's wedding party to Lopez Island.
This would be the same five of us who met up in December to shop and/or get fitted for suits: Gabriel, his brother Garret, his other friends Andy and Brian, and myself. Hey I just realized something. Gabriel has known me the least amount of time among this group, and yet I am older than the lot of them (by, like, one year). Hooray for bein the geezer!
Gabriel booked a
small cabin on Lopez Island for the weekend of April 5-7, a Friday through Sunday; it has one bedroom and one bathroom (which I will have to
try not to monopolize) but sleeps five.
This was the alternative Gabriel settled on, instead of trying to find a way to get us all to fly out to Kentucky for the "path of totality" in the eclipse happening the very Monday after that weekend. I'm sure he was bummed not to be able to make that work out, but he was clearly also very excited to have this plan finally all set.
I've actually thought of trying to visit Lopez Island sometime. I have never been there, with the exception of
briefly docking there on the ferry on our way to Orcas Island during my Birth Week in 2010. We never actually got off the ferry. Well, this time I will.
I'm actually rather looking forward to this. I already knew Lopez Island was one of the "quieter" islands, even by San Juan Island standards; of the four San Juan Islands served by Washington State Ferries, it is the second-least populated, at just over 3,000 people. (The much smaller Shaw Island has a year-round population of 188; Orcas Island has 6,000 people and San Juan Island just over 8,600.)
Of course, the islands vary greatly by size. Well, fuck it, here's how those four islands rank in population
density:
San Juan Island: 124/sq mi
Lopez Island: 106/sq mi
Orcas Island: 78/sq mi
Shaw Island: 24/sq mi
. . . Well, shit! Lopez Island is the second-most crowded ("crowded," haha) of the four islands! I know it's also among the least-visited, however; the tourist-season swelling of people would be far more dramatic on San Juan and Orcas Islands, which both have larger resident populations.
(By the way, point of comparison: the population density of Seattle proper is 8,775/sq mi. That's more than
seventy times the density of the most populous of the San Juan Islands. So, the island list above? They're basically
all out in the middle of nowhere. Which is the point!)
This does mean, just incidentally, that I will only be working three days the week that ends on that April 5. I will also only be working three days the week prior. This is because Barbara's visit is the previous weekend, and even more: she arrives Wednesday March 27 and goes back very late the evening of Monday April 1, so I'm off Wednesday-Friday the first week of this period, then off Monday and Friday the second of those two weeks. Whatever! At least I'm well on my way to burning through my ridivulous amount of PTO at work. I then work three weeks after all that before taking the week off for my Birth Week.
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[posted 12:38 pm]
