Wednesday, March 27

Hmm. I wonder how quickly I can synopsize how we know Barbara without boring anyone who doesn't already know her to death?

She and I met at the summer job I was working in Spokane during my college years, doing telephone surveys, a job I deeply loathed more than any other job I've ever had ("I don't mind it," she told me at the time, revealing early on that she is psychotic). In an earlier life, she had been a copy editor for UPI (United Press International), so when I helped launch an ultimately failed, second gay newspaper in Seattle in 2000, I convinced her to move here to be our copy editor. For the next solid decade, we spent a huge amount of time together, mostly going to movies but also doing plenty of other things; she has long been one of my three closest friends. In 2010 she moved back to Virginia to be closer to her daughter, but by 2021 she did a nationwide search for the cheapest rent she could find on her extremely limited retirement income, and that's how she wound up in Louisville—where I went to visit her two years ago.

Shobhit did not come to Louisville with me because he was traveling to India at the time, so although I last saw Barbara two years ago, Shobhit hadn't seen her in person since 2011—thirteen years ago—the last time we flew her back out here, for Easter Weekend, the same we did this year.

Barbara only got to see Shobhit for one day this year, but hey that's more than zero! He left for this year's trip to India the day after I picked up Barbara at the airport. She then came with me to pick him up at work, the above group selfie taken right outside of Total Wine & More.

Are any of you bored to death yet? Let's move on before the body count gets too high.

Thursday, March 28

The two major highlights of Thursday would be: 1) Barbara riding along for me to drive Shobhit to the airport—thus I had to drive to the airport and back two days in a row—for his trip this year to visit his mother in India; and 2) Barbara and I went to a movie. This wouldn't seem like much of a highlight, except that back when Barbara lived in Seattle, she was my movie-buddy, and we often went to the movies together multiple times a week. This was our first time going to a movie together since we saw Death at a Funeral in April 2010. At that time, the AMC Seattle 10 in the U District, behind us in the above photo, was still Landmark's Metro Cinemas. That theater closed, reopened as Sundance Cinemas, closed again, and then reopened as an AMC, all after Barbara was last here.

Friday, March 29

Barbara asked to go to Green Lake, which she remembered being fond of. I invited my other friend Danielle to join us there, for a picnic lunch. After a fairly drizzly week, the sun came out again on Friday which made it a perfect day for it. We walked maybe a third of the path around Green Lake before heading back again.

Do you like Barbara's pigtail braids? She told me she felt like "doing something weird" with her hair that day. I'm not sure pigtail braids are weird enough, honestly. She needs to try harder.

And now for a brief detour—to Qatar! Specifically, its one major city (home to over 80% of the country's population), Doha. Shobhit's sister lives there with her husband and two children currently, and he had a nine-hour layover there on his way to visit his mother in Delhi, India. His sister's family picked him up at the airport and showed him a great time around the city for several hours, so of course he texted me a bunch of photos. I had no idea there were even any skylines in the world yet, particularly of this magnitude, that I had never seen before—and I loved seeing this one, and delighted in how colorful it is. (That shard-shaped building all lit up in pink is a residential tower called the Burj Al Mana, built in 2023, 812 ft, 57 floors.)

. . . And now: back to Seattle!

You know how people talk about never having been to any of the tourist attractions in their own cities? I am not one of those people.

The 175-ft tall Seattle Great Wheel opened in 2012, the year after Barbara moved away from Seattle—so of course I had to take her on it!

This was the 10th time I had ridden it in the past 12 years, and Barbara was the 10th person I rode it with. Can you tell I never tire of it? That's more than can be said of some of the people I've ridden it with.

Barbara took this photo of me taking a photo of Puget Sound from the Seattle Great Wheel.

. . . And this is the photo I was taking!

Saturday, March 30

Is it blueberry ice cream? No, that's just what Barbara's friend back in Louisville thought it was when she sent her a picture of it: Barbara made purple potato salad for Easter. In fact, she went to get the purple potatoes from Central Co-op, which she was still calling Madison Market back when she lived in the Central District, and was delighted to discover her membership there was still active. She started on this on Friday, actually, with the expectation of it gaining better flavor after sitting in the fridge for a couple of days. And it was, indeed, delicious—if a bit off color from what you typically expect a potato salad to look like, (I took this photo on Saturday morning.)

Barbara and I drove down to Olympia early Saturday afternoon and stayed the night at my parents' house, a choice I made to maximize the time my parents could spend with them. Long ago Barbara and Sherri made a particularly special connection, so Sherri was especially delighted to have her around.

Sunday, March 31: Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday morning, Dad and Barbara and I walked the half mile or so from my parents' house to Mission Creek Nature Park, the 37-acre park at which a few years ago Dad started volunteering to do landscaping work. He long ago cleared out a ton of overgrown blackberry bushes, and the parks department has give him official recognition for his work multiple times.

We walked another half mile or so on a trail through the park, then walked the rest of the way back to the house, totalling a roughly two-mile round trip walk.

Anyway. I really like the above shot of Dad in the park. It looks like a perfect shot to use for his memorial service program.

Sherri recently came across a couple of really old photos of my dad that I had never seen—this one, in front of a cake, would suggest it was his birthday. But which one, no one had any idea. I would guess this would be sometime in his twenties, and if by chance it was the earliest birthday after he and Sherri got together, then at the youngest it would be his 28th birthday I suppose. Anyway, when I was young people would not shut up about how much I look like my dad . . . it doesn't happen so much anymore, now that even I am decades older than my dad was here.

The Easter Bunny is keeping his eye on you—peering out from a plate of my deviled eggs.

Deviled eggs are what happen when the Easter Bunny gets diarrhea. It's pretty shocking how tasty they are.

Protip: if you have pet toys around, there's no need to buy toys for the children.

One of my nieces planted this in Dad and Sherri’s bathroom.

You would not believe all the eggs my sister laid. Even that shoe! I heard a loud thunk and there it was. It was a weird holiday.

Wendy, Sherri's sister, took this fabulous photo of Barbara and me at Dad and Sherri's dining room table.

Back in the days when Barbara lived in Seattle (2000-2010), I used to bring her to all my family holiday gatherings—she quickly became a de facto part of the family, and formed an especially strong connection with Sherri, who was born the same year as her. After Barbara moved away from Seattle, she first spent a few months in Spokane, and when Dad and Sherri (and I) took a trip to Spokane in June 2010 to see my brother's family, they spent some time with Barbara too. A year later, Shobhit and I flew Barbara back out here from her then-new home in Virginia to spend Easter, when we all went to Spokane yet again for the holiday. That was the last time she and Sherri had seen each other in person, this year being the first time in 13 years. There is great hope that they will see each other another time again, but who knows? Time is a tricky thing to contend with, but it was fantastic to get us all together once more this year.

Monday, April 1

One last stop making the rounds on the Barbara Tour of Old Friends: Laney and I have been doing either monthly or biweekly Happy Hours since 2014—ten years! And that still started three years after Barbara left Seattle, after which she's been seeing our Happy Hour posts and feeling a bit of FOMO. Finally she got to join us! (Barbara doesn't drink alcohol, so while Laney nursed a beer and I had two cocktails, Barbara had coffee.)

Saint John's Bar & Eatery on Capitol Hill in Seattle—literally one block from Laney's apartment—has a really fun ambiance with a mostly dinosaur motif, hence the dinosaurs at the bar in the above shot. (They also have some of the cheapest Happy Hour prices in town. Five stars, would recommend!)

Still at Saint John's Bar & Eatery: I didn't even realize until I looked at this photo on my computer at home that it was made out of old Rainier Beer cans. Ha! So, well, cheers to a great extended Easter Weekend, with family and the return of an old, dear friend!

[posted 7:56 pm]