Four islands yesterday! Okay, only two islands in the most literal sense of what most people think of as an island. And honestly even Foster Island barely qualifies, with a waterway between it and the rest of Washington Park Arboretum that barely looks like more than a fairly small river, only in this case it's pretty stagnant water. It's accessible by a small foot bridge.
Yesterday was supposed to be my Birth Week Day with Danielle. It was the one day that fit with both of our schedules, the last of her days off for the week, but I had reserved Tuesday for Shobhit due to it being my actual birthday. In retrospect I suppose I could have rescheduled Danielle for Monday evening after Shauna canceled
then, but I did not know then what would happen on Wednesday—which was when Danielle not only became the second person this week to cancel, but the second person this week to break a previously unbroken streak—in this case,
21 years—of Birth Week participation.
At 10:04 a.m., I received this text from Danielle:
I'm most likely needing to cancel. Ry has some issues at school Ineed to go deal with.
I responded,
Oh no ☹️. And about fifteen minutes later:
I realize this means you probably aren't coming but I'll still wait to go until like 1:00 just in case. But, Danielle never did engage again. I still haven't heard from her again.
I was pretty bummed for a while. I rather wish she had been more definitive: "I have to cancel" would have left me les room for some slim hope that she'd make it after all. But, soon enough I kind of gave myself a mental slap across the face and told myself to get over it. In the grand scheme of things, how important is this, really? And god knows her kids are far more important. Some years, my Birth Week comes together exactly how I want it to (2023—actually last year was the first to occur without a single cancellation or postponement in many years), a lot of times it doesn't. I just make the most of what I have to work with.
Besides, I didn't have to go to the islands I had slated for yesterday alone: Shobhit has Tuesday through Thursday off of work this week, so he was going to be joining us anyway. In the end, it was just the two of us.
But first, we walked together downtown. He had lottery tickets to scan and then buy new ones when he inevitably lost, which we did at the QFC on Pike and Broadway. Then we walked down to Pike Place Market and browsed there a bit. Beecher's Cheese, which recently finished renovating their space so their cheese making facility is twice as large as before, is finally offering samples again. We took several. After that, we went to the Men's Warehouse on 4th and Union, to try on the rental suit I'll be wearing at Gabriel and Lea's wedding on Saturday. The jacket isn't the greatest fit, a tad snug, but the lady said that if I went up a size it would be too loose. I had Shobhit
take my picture in it, and my expression isn't the greatest because he was really annoying me and that was the best I could muster at that point, after he had already taken several photos with no warning and at too low an angle, in which my expressions were way worse.
I wasn't able to take the suit home just yet. The lady noted my pant legs were a bit long and so she marked them for alteration. We made a plan for me to pick them up at noon today, but I later realized I was thinking of my Friday schedule when I did that, so I had to call back and say I'd pick them up at noon on Friday. Today, I need to meet Valerie at noon at Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island—which is on the way to Snoqualmie, where Gabriel and Lea's wedding rehearsal is tonight.
I'll get back to that.
Shobhit and I took the bus home, hung out for a bit, and then headed out to Washington Park Arboretum, to explore Foster Island and Marsh Island, which I only learned yesterday morning were created in 1916 when the Ballard Locks were created, and lowered the level of Lake Washington by nine feet. Mind you, after we parked and crossed the footbridge onto the island, there was a hill we walked up, which was indeed a small hill but really felt like a greater than nine-foot gain. I could be wrong, I'm terrible at judging distances by sight.
While I got
plenty of good pictures there, especially where Highway 520 passes over the island which I think is pretty cool, our access was a lot more limited than it could have been: slightly heightened water levels either soaked into or fully submerged multiple sections of foot paths, completely blocking access to what no doubt would have been the most interesting sections of the Arboretum Waterfront Trail, which passes from Foster Island to Marsh Island westward and on to East Montlake Park.
We weren't able to gain access to Marsh Island at all.
There's a viewpoint platform along the trail, before it even leaves Foster Island, that I'd have loved to go up to, but the offshoot trail to it was
far too wet and muddy to reach it. If I had waterproof rubber rain boots, it could have been done easy—but, I don't. We went further on the main trail, and within about a minute encountered
the same issue.
In the end, I could only get photos of the much smaller Marsh Island from across the water, on either side. I thought maybe we could reach it from the west side, so I suggested to Shobhit that we drive over to East Montlake Park and try from there. The trail was submerged there
right at the start of the trail, but with dry planks of wood on either side, which I then walked across very carefully. Shobhit started to try, but he has difficulty with balance in the best of circumstances, and I was like, "Are you sure you want to try?" He immediately said, "No," and suggested I go and come back myself.
I tried, but after a very short distance, where there should have been a walking path to Marsh Island, I encountered what you see in the photo above: by far the most water between where I was and where I wanted to go. There was just no reaching Marsh Island—which you can see at the end of the bridge in that shot—yesterday.
So, here's the thing about Danielle not being able to make it: it wasn't an ideal time to visit this spot anyway. I'm thinking now we should plan to come back later in the year, when the water level is hopefully lower, and we can actually access all the trails. I'll just add those photos to this album, call it a makeup date with Danielle, and thus indirectly still include her in this year's Birth Week theme. Maybe we can do it around
her birthday, in August. Also maybe I should buy some new rain boots, which would probably still come in handy even then.
Shobhit and I drove into the U District from there, as he went to a hardware store looking or chicken wire to keep bunnies out of his p-patch plot. We also stopped at the University Village AT&T Store to get replacement protective screens for our phones. At this point, Gabriel had tried to call me twice, once while I was trying on my suit and then while we were talking to the lady at the AT&T store. He then texted me that I needed to call him asap.
I called him as we got back in the car, and I got the honestly pretty heartbreaking news: Andy, who was supposed to be the Best Man at the wedding and had been killing it in the role thus far, has tested positive for covid. He's not going to be at the wedding, which means someone else will need to fill in the role of Best Man. "You're my other best friend," he said. Fair! And to be honest, I would have been far more intimidated by having the role of spearheading any kind of bachelor party (even though we did a weekend getaway instead) than by things like where I stand at the wedding, handing over the ring, or even making a speech. I had been going back and forth in my head as to whether I would make a speech at this wedding at all (I made one at the wedding reception in 2006, which went over pretty well but had a weak ending; I actually
officiated the wedding in 2012, and have always regretted not writing down everything I was going to say—I won't make that mistake again). My role is not yet finalized, but in the midst of the uncertainty, I think the decision has been made for me: I'm going to need to have a speech prepared, Which is fine.
Why not pivot to his brother, you might ask? Well, there's a difference between a brother and a best friend, for one. And secondly, there's the insanely stupid baggage with their little brother, who hasn't even been speaking to the family for months, had indicated for a while he would come to the wedding, and last I heard had backed out again, which quite understandably has everyone else in the family very upset, and especially both Gabriel and Janine (their mother). Choosing the one brother who does come to the wedding as Best Man would put this whole story into even starker relief for everyone there, which Gabriel does not want.
I will find out more about the plan tonight. I've already tested and sent the negative result photo to Gabriel and Lea. But Andy getting covid, though—what terrible timing. I'm sure he feels awful about it, on top of feeling like crap from covid. I don't envy him at all either.
Anyway! Islands!
I wouldn't normally have made Action Movie Night an official Birth Week activity, but I couldn't help myself when I realized the Braeburn Community Kitchen, where we always have our pre-movie potluck,
also has a kitchen island. And what serendipity, that this happened to be when my next date for choosing the movie fell! The group is large enough that anyone only gets to choose about twice a year.
This is a very nice group of people, so they all happily indulged me when I asked to take a photo of us all around the kitchen island. I also really like this about it: it's the first time a group photo has ever been taken of this group, which has been meeting for biweekly movie watching for 12 years, since 2012. I asked about it, and Tony said they've only taken a photo once of a huge pile of beers that people had brought. So, now there's a group photo for posterity, which I sent to the Google Group last night.
I had long had another movie in mind for this time, which I had seriously considered for the last two, maybe three times it came to my choice. I thought I'd
finally be doing that one—but then someone suggested to me that I choose a movie set on an island. Duh, of course! But what movie? I Googled "best movies set on islands."
I about kicked myself when I came upon the obvious choice:
Jaws, among my ten favorite movies of all time and easily among the five movies I have seen the most times, is set on the fictional Amity Island (and filmed at Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts). I went to the movie history to make sure it had never been chosen before, and I was so surprised and delighted it hadn't, I re-checked the list about five or six times over the past couple of weeks just to be sure I hadn't missed it somehow.
Most people play their movies streaming, which has a disadvantage because the title comes up onscreen as soon as you press play or any other part of the screen. I played my DVD copy, which was much better because I could have it queued up with no indicators anywhere onscreen, and it was fun listening to people recognize it as it started. The first sound is these sort of underwater pinging sounds, and a couple guys in the room knew it instantly. But then of course, when the iconic John Williams score began, everyone knew what it was. And I think the whole group really enjoyed the experience.
When it ended, I asked if anyone in the room had never seen it. Nope,
but, several had not seen it since they were kids, including Tony.
Shobhit and I had made a very good pasta that got a couple of compliments, but its volume had been expanded pretty significantly by the packet of veggie meat crumble that we added. We had a bit more than a quart of it leftover to take back home, which I know because only almost all of it fit into a quart container. By 10:00 I was really tired though, so instead of writing this before bed, I went to bed, wrote this in the morning, and here we are. I need to take a shower and then maybe take a stab at a wedding speech.
[posted 8:52 am]
