— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ छिहत्तर —
The major highlight of my weekend was Dad and Sherri's surprise 40th anniversary dinner, which I wrote
separately about yesterday. I like to have events like that to be given their own dedicated post.
It leaves comparably little to write about the reat of the weekend, though. I was supposed to do a Harrison Ford-athon movie night with Alexia on Friday, but she texted me to cancel, having had a very busy work week and just wanting to sit at home and relax. Totally fine, but it also left me with the evening to myself at home. It pleased Shobhit to know, though, that it also meant I could spend the evening at home with the cats
on their 16th birthday while he was at work.
Shobhit, who leaves for India on the 28th, has been picking up extra shifts, or expanding shifts he already has scheduled, wherever he can. As a result, between last Friday and tonight, he's working until 9 p.m. four days in a row. This was why I dropped him off and picked him up at work on Saturday, when he could not come with to Dad and Sherri's anniversary dinner, but I took the car to drive myself.
I spent a bit of time working on a video project on Friday evening instead. I also burned through four episodes of the Showtime series
The Curse on Hulu, which I started watching on Laney's recommendation. It's painfully cringey with its premise about self-involved White liberal land developers who think they are helping the local indigenous community but are willfully ignoring how much damage they are actually doing. I texted Laney with my only complaint: the whole thing about Asher's micropenis, which seems to be folded into the narrative only to emasculate him, and feels very out of place in a show that otherwise walks a skilled line with its tone and themes.
— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ छिहत्तर —
— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ छिहत्तर —
As for yesterday, Shobhit worked an unusually long shift, the longest of the aforementioned four-day stint of shifts ending at 9:00. On Friday he started at 5:00; Saturday he started at 12:30—but yesterday, he started at 9:00 in the morning. A solid, 12-hour shift.
In the meantime, Alexia and I walked downto SIFF Cinema Downtown (formerly the Cinerama) for her first, and my second, viewing of
Dune Part Two. My favorite place to sit in that theater, which has been the case for decades now, is by one of the two middle aisles to the side of the middle section, second row of the balcony, and I had managed to get those seats—actually on the opposite side of the row from where I usually sit, but those seats had been taken.
This was my second time back to Cinerama since its reopened, and Alexia's first; my first had been back in the fall when Shobhit and Laney and I all went there to see
Wonka. I did balcony seats then too, and that was when I learned I should not do balcony seats with Laney, who had difficulty with all the stairs. I thought there was an elevator all the way up to the balcony, and there actually wasn't. So, when the movie ended yesterday, I went into the floor level to scope out the best seats to book when Laney and Shobhit and I go see
Dune Part Two there on Tuesday next week (which will be both of their first times seeing it, but my third). I even figured out the ideal seat numbers and wrote them down. But, when I went to book them online after I got home, they were already taken; I still got three seats in that same row, but just a bit over to the side.
Anyway, just as I expected, I found seeing
Dune Part Two a second time very useful. I even gleaned a greater understanding of how characters keep sandworms above the surface when they ride them. I'll probaly retain even more upon third watch.
I'm thinking I may watch it a fourth time sometime later, so that it matches the number of times I saw
Dune Part One. And from then on, I will only ever watch Part One and Part Two back to back, as one, five-and-a-half-hour movie. The narrative runs through the two as one complete story, so that seems like the only way to watch them going forward.
Alexia and I walked down to the theater and back together. The weather was surprisingly nice, especially on the way back, except for how chilly it was—and on the way down, not really rainy, but very wet in the air, creating a cutting chill. Once there, I was glad to have the tickets digitally so I didn't have to buy them, and once inside, the lines at the concessions were incredibly long. We had both gone to the bathroom, and when I got back outside, I didn't realize she was already in one line. The line I got into twisted around and went all the way up to the counter again, so when she saw me she thought I was about to order so she got out of her line, where she was much closer to the front. After a few minutes she went back to her line again, and still got to the counter surprisingly quickly because of the people in front of her being several large groups.
And I sort of accidentally squeezed a few bucks out of her, which I did not intend to do. I even have a punch card for five free popcorns as a SIFF member, which I offered to use for a medium popcorn for us to share, but she said she wanted to get a large. And then when I asked if she had ever had the mixed buttered/chocolate popcorn (my favorite at Cinerama, which SIFF has kept up with), she wasn't interested in that, so she offered to just buy two smalls. Without thinking, I said okay—realizing later that I could have just used my punch card. I also asked for a water, thinking I would get a cup for use at a drinking fountain, and I was given a bottled water, which Alexia also paid for, having covered everything we ordered. I felt even worse about the water, which was a total waste.
Oh well, I guess!
Alexia liked the movie. She was very interested in joining when I eventually book the Braeburn Condos theater for a
Dune Part One and
Dune Part Two double feature. As we chatted about it, it was still so chilly on our way back home, I quite looked forward to getting home, changing into my pajama bottoms, and just being in for the rest of the day. It was also nice not having to write a movie review.
I did wind up on the phone with Gabriel for another half hour, discussing the movie, which he had gone to see with Lea and Tess yesterday morning. He's wildly obsessed with everything
Dune, having gained the understanding that it's, as he puts it, "Adult Star Wars," and also knowing the significant degree to which George Lucas was inspired by it to make
Star Wars, which lifts a lot of key elements in its narrative.
And then I watched another two episodes of
The Curse. It's kind of hit its stride, so even though it's still deeply uncomfortable a lot of the time, I've gotten a bit more used to it.
Once Shobhit got home, shortly after 9:30, he asked if it was too late to watch
The Regime, the new limited series starring Kate Winslet that premiered on HBO last night. Normally I would have said yes it was too late, but, knowing I would otherwise have to wait to watch it until Tuesday, I went ahead and sat and watched it with him before I finally went to bed. I had already brushed my teeth and taken out my contacts anyway, so once the show ended, I could go right to bed.
The show was all right. Not bad, not great. It has potential, so hopefully it gets better, especially knowing that Hugh Grant is coming.
— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ छिहत्तर —
[posted 12:31 pm]
