Last night was Laney's and my monthly
weekday Happy Hour—as defaults on our calendars, we do one on the second Saturday of every month; and we do one on the fourth Monday of every month. July 1 was on a Monday, so yesterday was the fourth Monday of the month. (Our Saturday Happy Hour was supposed to be doubled this month with the Tacoma Pride Festival, but Laney bowed out of that and we had our Happy Hour at McGilvra Place Park a block away from the condo on Sunday that weekend instead.)
We went to a place on Capitol Hill that Laney recently discovered and really wanted to try, especially because they have outdoor seating, called
Captain Black's. I'm really wishing now that I had taken a photo or two of the decor inside, where Laney and I spent about the last hour we were there (out of about four hours, very unusual for time spent at a bar; we usually reserve that for parks). It has a very nautical theme, with multiple sailing ship paintings and multiple ship steering wheels hanging from the ceiling. It really brought to mind the Shipwreck Cafe, the restaurant Dad and Sherri owned and operated until selling it in 2019, and which had a very similar vibe. It occurred to me it would be really fun to take them to Captain Black's, except they are at a point in their lives where they have zero interest in hanging out in the middle of the bustling big city.
You could
browse some reviewer interior photos on Yelp, wherein you'll find a couple of the steering wheels. They don't fully illustrate the vibe in person as of last night, but it's better than nothing.
I actually invited Shobhit to join us, pointing out that he would get a Social Review point, as I knew he wants to get back ahead of Laney again, who is currently ahead for the #1 spot. We all actually arrived separately, as I rode my bike directly there from work; Laney walked from her apartment building at Broadway between Pine and Pike; and Shobhit walked from our building on Pine and 15th.
This place is located on Bellmont, one plot in from Olive Way. I got there first, and the only place I could find to lock up my bike was on a rack in front of the Capitol Hill Goodwill, a couple of buildings further south on Bellmont. I was slightly nervous as pretty sketchy people come in and out of that Goodwill, but still figured it would be okay since I use a U-lock as well as a lock chain that I weave through the fram of the bike as well as both wheels. I learned my lesson
there several years ago, when someone
stole my back wheel right out of the parking garage at our condo building.
Anyway! Back to Captain Black's. Their Happy Hour setup is very strange and gives the place a significant learning curve for newcomers. The food kitchen is technically a second business, and you can only order online using QR codes printed on the tables. They text you when the food is ready. Drinks from the bar are ordered separately and in person.
The food is . . . fine. Which makes it not the greatest value in some cases. Laney's phone is too old for QR code ordering to work, so I ordered for both of us and she Venmoed me for her share. She got the $8 cheese quesadilla; I ordered the $15 "loaded" nachos, which at that price I assumed would be large enough to be considered sharable. I was shocked at how average sized it was when I picked it up, skirting the edges of "small." Certainly not worth fifteen bucks, although it was tasty enough.
Shobhit arrived last, and I had left about half the nachos for him, but he suggested ordering the quesadilla as well. So I made a second order for that. He also asked, ridiculously, if I wanted a beer, although I had already ordered a Moscow Mule—he knows full well I don't drink beer as I think it's disgusting. I said, "If you want to buy me another Moscow Mule I wouldn't argue," and he said something like, "Nothing for you!" and went to the bar. Laney immediately said, "How much do you want to bet he'll come back with a Moscow Mule for you? As much as a dollar!" She took her bet down to seventy cents but I never took the bet, although I did think there was an even chance he would indeed come back with that second cocktail for me. And he did! You can even see the two copper mugs on the table between us in the photo above.
In the relatively brief time between Laney arriving and Shobhit arriving, Laney had aimed to get there at 4:50 because I knew it would be about that time when I arrived, but she got held up about ten minutes. A woman in her building was deeply distraut because she lost one of her three jobs, and asked Laney to loan her money to buy a pack of cigarettes. Laney was feeling guilty about it because she knows this woman also has cancer, but I wasn't judging her for it: sometimes circumstances dictate certain needs that are technically bad for you, especially when you're talking about socially acceptable addiction like nicotine. Still, we kind of laughed about it: buying a lady with cancer a pack of cigarettes to make her feel better. Sometimes life just takes an absurd turn.
— पांच हजार छह सौ तैंतालीस —
— पांच हजार छह सौ तैंतालीस —
We had quite an anomalous weather day yesterday, which followed a solid two weeks of consistent heat, one week with nearly every day in the nineties, then another week with every day in the eighties, not a cloud in sight. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, yesterday was overcast the entire day, the forecast high getting cooler and cooler both over the course of the few days prior and during the course of the day itself. In the end we barely hit 70° yesterday, which on the one hand was an absolute dream after all that heat. The flip side was that, had I known it would change that dramatically, I'd have brought a sweatshirt. I had nothing warm to put on, and we sat outside three quarters of the time we were at Captain Black's. (It's right back to sunny blue skies today, incidentally.)
When I first arrived, I sat at a table on the front deck, facing the street. I had no idea there was an even cooler outdoor seating area in the back, with a city view! So when Laney arrived, we moved back there. I texted Shobhit where we were after he texted me that he was on his way, and he replied,
Might be chilly. I replied,
It's totally fine, and his mildly amusing response was,
If you say so.
Well, it absolutely
was totally fine at that moment, at a quarter after 5:00. Laney and I were there a solid three and a half hours after that, though, and I'd say Shobhit left maybe after around an hour, maybe less. By then, even though the forecast had at one point shown sunshine by the end of the day, it was clear that it was an all-day overcast kind of day (which Seattle has not seen in weeks), and the later it got, indeed the chillier it got.
Laney and I both feel we'd really like to come back again, perhaps in the fall: that back deck has a tarp they can lower to block any cold breeze, and even has hanging space heaters, almost certainly leftover from the covid days. We even have a plan for a different, either similarly priced or cheaper food item to order when we come back.
In the meantime, it must have been around 7:30 when Laney asked if I wanted to move inside: no one else was sitting in there so she wasn't concerned about indoor seating (although more people did come in by the time we left). And I said no at first, but finally got too chilled so I suggested we go inside after all.
We might have left an hour earlier than we did, but then Laney offered to buy me a third drink. She all but insisted on it, because I felt really bad about the idea, knowing that I definitely could afford it more than her but did not have the budget for it, but she clearly wanted to get another drink (she's always drinking beer—it's too bad I don't drink beer, it would save me a lot of money) and I don't think she wanted to me the only one. I went on about this a little bit, but when she was like, "Don't try to talk me out of it!" I was finally like: fine. I got one of their mango slushie drinks. (The Moscow Mules were better.) I really lucked out yesterday, because I had three cocktails and only had to pay for one of them.
When we finally left, after I had to go to the bathroom to pee no fewer than four times, we walked over to my bike, still locked up in front of the Goodwill. And here's where maybe the most interesting thing of the day happened: a guy who may or may not have been homeless, but was definitely panhandling, walked up and showed Laney a note of some kind. It appeared he could not speak, and Laney later figured out the guy was deaf. I don't know exactly what was written on the note, but it asked for something, and when he gestured to the shorts he was wearing, she said, "Oh, you need a pair of pants? Okay, let's go." She asked if I minded waiting for five minutes; I said it was fine; and she and this guy went inside.
It took a bit longer than five minutes, predictably, and Laney later talked to me as I walked her home that she felt like his mom, telling him which things were too expensive, and that he should try on the cheaper pants before she bought them. He really wanted a white pair of pants which she thought was a bit illogical as they'll surely get dirty quickly, but she didn't fight him om that. When they finally went to the register, I even saw him gesture at a pair of shoes and Laney said no. She just bought him the pair of pants.
And how much did she spent on them? Seven dollars. She was feeling pretty good about herself as we talked on the walk the rest of the way to Broadway after. "Now I can be an asshole for the rest of the month!" she said.
I have to hand it to her. Even on her limited income (she had already justified buying my drink by saying she was about to get her social security check), seven bucks was an easy purchase, and the kind of thing that would have meant almost nothing to her or me but likely made a huge difference to this guy. And I never would have done that. Laney, much like Barbara actually, has a knack for connecting with people along a wide socioeconomic spectrum that I do not have. I'd have just said "Sorry" and kept walking. But Laney did a pretty awesome thing there.
Once we got to Broadway, we said our goodbyes and I rode my bike the rest of the way home, up Pine Street. Shobhit and I had just enough time to watch the season two finale of
Slow Horses before I headed for bed.
— पांच हजार छह सौ तैंतालीस —
[posted 12:44 pm]
