— पांच हजार छह सौ पैंतीस —

Holy shit did I have an exciting, stressful, genuinely suspenseful—and then followed by wild relief—start to my day.

I was five blocks into my one-mile walk to work from the bus stop at 3rd & Pine when I realized my phone was not in my hoodie pocket, where I very, very stupidly had put it while on the bus. I will never, ever do that again.

Because I don't particularly want to rewrite it all, I will paste into here what I already posted to my socials:

My baby has been found! I left Ewan the iPhone on the bus on the way to work today, didn't even realize it until I was about five blocks away from the bus stop. I retraced my steps back to the stop just in case; caught a bus up 3rd Avenue to go the last mile to work that I usually walk; and fretted about all the people and places I would likely need to call: Shobhit; King County Metro; the Apple Store.
My first idea was to try tracking the bus I had been on using the One Bus Away app + the King County Metro #11 schedule. I called Shobhit, and thank god he was actually home, who actually did go downstairs to try and catch a passing bus, but it was the wrong bus. Then, I tried logging into iCloud thinking maybe I could at least iMessage from there (I shortly discovered you can't, so, whatever), but I have fucking two-factor authentication on and I have to have my phone to get the code! But, then iCloud had the option of going to Find Devices if I've lost my phone, and: also thank god for *that*!
Amazingly, Find Devices knew where my phone was, and I was even able to track its movement southwest on Madison Street until it turned onto Pine and came right up to our building. Shobhit boarded the bus, had me on speaker, had to explain multiple times that his husband "left his phone on this bus. It's tracking on this bus!" Evidently the driver was testing him, had him call the phone and when it rang he trusted that Shobhit could legitimately take it. Shobhit then drove the phone to me at work because he is a sweetheart.
I have to say: having even a half-hour period where I had no idea even what time it was made me feel insane. It's easy to forget that how dependent we are on these devices actually is a bit frightening. (If the grid goes down and we are expected to live as survivalists, I'm toast.) On the flip side, a feature like Find Devices that allows for such efficient problem solving in a way that never would have been possible twenty years ago makes me marvel at modern technology, the fact that I spent about an hour feeling like I was inside a suspense movie notwithstanding. And yes I know, the Find Devices feature has been around for years, shut up! Where's my walker?

I actually texted Gabby about it first before Shobhit even got here. It's Thursday which means most of Merchandising is out doing store tours, but I really wanted to tell someone about all this, so I chose her. She was suitably amazed by the whole story.

I also really had to use the bathroom, but needed to stay at my desk because Shobhit would have to call my work number to let me know once he got here with my phone. He had asked if I wanted him to drive it to me, and I said he could just wait until he was on his way to his 4:00 work shift if he wanted, but he actually said, "No, I don't want to risk that. I'll bring it now." Risk what, I'm not sure—forgeting to stop by? I don't know. I still really appreciated that he drove it to me immediately.

When he was on the bus, I never had a chance to speak but he had me on speaker on his phone just in case it became necessary. So that's why I was able to hear him speaking, first to the driver and then actually to a person sitting on the seat I had been sitting on, right behind the bus's back door. I asked Shobhit about this when he got here and I was talking to him through his open driver's window in the car: it seemed weird to me that the bus driver had the phone, but Shobhit had to go to the back of the bus looking for it first. It's possible the bus said something Shobhit didn't register, I suppose. "I was kind of a deer in headlights," Shobhit told me. Ultimatley, the driver did get his attention, and I actually heard the conversation about having him call my phone. So Shobhit hung up and I waited for him to do that.

This was maybe the two most suspenseful minutes, because I had no idea yet whether calling it had worked. The crux of the matter, in the immediate sense, was that I was literally tracking the phone's location on Find Devices on my work computer, so we knew for certain it was on that bus. But, then Shobhit called me back and said, "I have it." And holy shit, what a relief that was.

I had been all set to call King County Metro Lost and Found—I already had the web page with contact information up—and, potentially, the Apple Store to schedule a time to come in and take care of things. But, thanks to Find Devices, we retrieved Ewan the iPhone on what I presume was its second loop around the route since I had gone on it.

It's all good now! What could have been a truly shitty morning turned out to be one marked by relief. And I really thought Shobhit was going to lay into me for making this mistake, but he was actually relatively chill about it—probably for two key reasons: we actually found the phone and got it back; and even if we hadn't, Shobhit was thinking my AppleCare coverage would replace it. (Side note: I just double checked the coverage. It covers damage, but does not appear to cover loss of the phone. Oh well, I have it back now anyway!)

— पांच हजार छह सौ पैंतीस —

— पांच हजार छह सौ पैंतीस —

Completely unrelated to any of the above, I guess I can tell you now that I went to a movie last night that critics generally liked and viewers seem decidedly mixed on, but which although very odd I found myself digging it: Tuesday, about a mother and her terminally ill teenage daughter confronting Death in the form of a talking parrot.

Oh hey, guess what? I also made a stupid mistake last night! I had originally planned to see a different movie last night, but changed it later when I found this one had better reviews. What I forgot to change, though, was the actual theater it was playing at, in my Google Calendar. So when I got to Pacific Place, the kid scanning my phone said, "Are you part of a party?"

"No," I said, a bit confused.

Then he asked to look at what theater I had booked, because sometimes people buy tickets for the wrong theater. He clearly didn't realize I am an AMC Stubbs A-List member, because he started talking about exchanging tickets for me. That was very nice of him, but the movie I wanted to see, I was now realizing, was not at Pacific Place. I even tilted my head back and whispered, Fuuuck!

But, luckily, I had left home a fair amount early so I could stop by the Regal Meridian 16 so I could book 5:15 tickets for Laney and me to see Thelma there tonight. The original plan was to see that one at the AMC 10 in the U District—which was where I should have gone straight to last night—at 5:30, but when I went to book the tickets last night, all three of tonight's showings at the AMC 10 were sold out! What the fuck? I can only guess someone had taken the option of renting out the entire theater for their own party or something, because the Regal showtimes were far from sold out.

Thankfully I still had two discounted ticket vouchers for Regal bought at Costco ages ago—now I have one left—so, functonally it was the same: I didn't have to pay any more for my own ticket, and I just went to the box office to book both my ticket and Laney's senior discount ticket. I got to Pacific Place feeling like I had plenty of time, I could take my time, use the bathroom, etc. Then when I saw that it was something like 6:20 and the showtime was at 6:30—Light Rail to the rescue! "I think I can make it," I said to the kid, who told me to have a nice evening as I did an about-face and left.

Now it was a race to get to the AMC 10 in time. I knew I wouldn't get there by 6:30; exactly how late I'd be was the question. By the time I got to University Station, walked the three blocks to the theater, finally managed to use the bathroom, it was 6:45.

I should have known better, this being AMC. They played a solid half an hour of trailers and I still saw half of those. I could have left downtown another ten minutes later.

So anyway, I watched the movie, I enjoyed it, I came home and the first thing I did was make a sandwich for Shobhit to eat when he got home, which had been his suggestion over text earlier in the day. In the past I might have just left it up to him to make his own sandwich as I needed to write my movie review, but I figured this was the least I could do given how little time I've had to help him with the extensive food prep he's been doing for having Gabby and Nick over for dinner tomorrow night. So, I prioritized making Shobhit a sandwich. I did not make myself one, as the pizza lunch Gabby had taken Amy and me to yesterday afternoon had been incredibly filling. I did eat a slice of cheese, I will confess.

And then I wrote the review. The third B+ movie I've seen in a row, the kind of thing Gabriel loves to throw around, that I give every movie a B+. Or, maybe I just enjoy movies and am good at finding movies I will enjoy. I did give IF a solid C six movies ago. That movie mostly sucked. Out of 53 movies I've gone to so far this year, six have ranged between C-minus and C-plus. That's a good 11% of them, so I'm not always great at identifying a movie that will be good. I would separate B-minus and solid B as "good-ish," and above that, there have been 24. That's roughly half of them.

— पांच हजार छह सौ पैंतीस —

[posted 12:23 pm]