— पांच हजार छह सौ चवालीस —

A couple of weekends ago, in fact the weekend directly preceding Shobhit's trip to the Washington State Labor Convention in Wenatchee, Shobhit participated in the 48-Hour Film Project: different teams get together to write, produce, film, and edit a short film, all within the span of 48 hours. Shobhit went and participated as an actor, got a minor part, and told me at the time he wound up working a bit as a Production Assistant, although he never got credit as such.

SIFF Cinema Uptown, the movie theater on Lower Queen Anne, hosted the premieres of all the shorts made in Seattle that weekend last night. There were two blocs, one at 6:30 and one at 9:00. I had really hoped his short would be shown in the 6:30 slot, but alas, we had to go at 9:30.

I kind of lost count, but there must have been ten or eleven shorts that we saw in total. The one Shobhit was in was played maybe third from last. It was about a cult and was called Only the Fruit. The guy who played the cult leader was gorgeous. Shobhit has one line, I think, and he plays one of several cult members workshipping in a yard, all chanting things in unison. It was pretty amusing to see onscreen, because Shobhit's voice was actually the most well-enunciated and it made it easier to hear his voice above all the others.

There was a huge crowd of people out front when we arrived, and we thought they were in line, but a lot of them were just hanging out with their teams. Shobhit chatted a bit with a few of them before we went inside to get our seats. The screening room was maybe at 80% capacity, and I was one of literally only two people that I could see wearing a mask. Shobhit and I had a discussion on the drive down there about how many people are gettnig covid this summer; Karen just returned from a conference herself with it, and is now home from work all week. And this will be her second time with it, although based on her post it sounds like she was not up to date on her boosters. As always, Shobhit and I will be first in line when the new ones come out this fall.

Still, I had mentioned how I still wear masks on transit and in theaters, but almost no one else does. Hence my being one of two people in that theater, that I could see anyway, with one on. It was rather hot in there, too, especially with the mask on, but I kept it on.

Anyway, when the program ended, a huge QR code came up on the screen, which took us to a web page on our phones where we could vote for our three favorite short films. I voted for the one with Shobhit in it, of course—and for the record, by definition none of these films were amazing, yet several were relatively impressive given the constraints. And I actually would say that the one Shobhit was in was one of the three best. My favorite, though, was a film called Mind Games that had a sort of fantasy sequence with a lot of impressively staged fight choreography in it. My third favorite was a tongue-in-cheek film about climate change called The Last Straw, which I might say had the best editing of all the films.

— पांच हजार छह सौ चवालीस —

— पांच हजार छह सौ चवालीस —

In other news, a pretty notable development that I knew was coming for several days but have not yet mentioned here: Beth, Barbara's daughter who is actually a year older than I am, arrived to stay in our guest room until next week. She's been living with her most recent husband for nearly two years in South Korea (which, apparently, she loves); she basically escorted the four of her husband's kids back to the States after they were staying there with them for a year; she passed them off to their mother to then fly back home to San Diego yesterday. She got a military flight (via her husband, who is American but living on a base in Korea) that she was only able to book last week, and she still needs to book her flight back, but will likely fly out super late Tuesday night next week.

So this is the thing. There's a reason I haven't bothered to mention this until now, because Beth has texted me at least two other times about the possibility of staying at our place while traveling back and forth between Korea and the U.S., but both other times, it petered out and never happened. So when she first broached the subject with me over text a couple of weeks ago, I admittedly did not take it super seriously. I still ran it by Shobhit as a possibility, and he said it was okay.

Things got a little complicated the other night, as she suddenly asked if it would be possible to stay just one night with the kids. I had already texted Barbara to ask how many kids Beth currently deals with—her two kids from a previous relationship are both grown, and these are newer ones. Barbara thought she had two, which I thought might be manageable. When I broached this with Shobhit, though, he asked how old the kids are, and so I texted Beth to ask.

She said: 9, 11, 14 and 21.

I was like . . . oh. There are four of them?

I texted back, So ... that's a lot

and she replied,

That's ok. I'm looking for lodging
That was a crazy ask lol
Disregard!

I did appreciate that she seemed to understand. Like, five guests? At least one of them would have had to sleep on the floor, unless they could fit on the small love seat. They'd all be sharing one bathroom. And it would be chaos.

Eventually she did find a hotel. And, although the original plan had been to stay overnight with the kids one night at a hotel in SeaTac, the kids' mother apparently arrived a day earlier than anticipated, which gave Beth leave to, as she put it, "fuck off."

Shobhit and I were watching Small Horses last night before leaving for the movie, and Beth called me. She started with, "Please don't murder me." I replied with a suspicious, "Why?" She asked to come that evening, and as I had already told her we would be out until as late as 11:00, she said she could aim to arrive around 11:30.

This was all fine, really. God knows it was better than having all four of the kids at our place. There was a series of text exchanges where Shobhit insisted he come pick her up at Capitol Hill Light Rail Station and her saying it was unnecessary, she already felt bad, blah blah blah. She finally agreed, but then later she got on the train right around the time our show started, so we knew she'd arrive much earlier than initially stated. She said she wanted to find dinner somewhere. And then, when we got home closer to 10:45, shortly after I texted our ETA, she said she was already at our building!

I see Beth in person only once every several years, and although we've been on FaceTime a few times, this was definitely the longest break we've ever had: the last time I saw her in person was in 2007, when she came that December for our housewarming party, literally a couple of months after Shobhit and I moved into the condo. Beth was convinced last night she had never been there, and I had to look up the photos to prove she had been.

That was nearly seventeen years ago. Mind you, before moving to Korea, Beth has always lived in the metro D.C. area, where she grew up (Barbara is orginally from Virginia). Prior to 2007, Beth had come to Seattle as a surprise for Barbara's birthday in 2003; I previously saw her in April and May 2000 when Barbara, Danielle and I all went to D.C. for the Millennium March on Washington; and Beth visited Seattle once by herself, well before she had her kids, and hung out with me for a few days in 1999. So anyway, I've seen Beth in person in 1999; 2000; 2003 and 2007. But 2007 was the last time.

I stayed up maybe 45 minutes later than usual as Beth settled in and we spent a little while chatting and catching up in the living room. There will be a lot more of it to do over the next several days, during which I have a lot of stuff already planned and she'll be welcome to join me if she likes. I have no plans tonight, while Shobhit will be working, so maybe Beth and I can go out for a bit, walk around or something. We'll see.

Something did occur to me just this morning: the Social Review! Any visiting friend gets a point for every day they stay with me, whether we actually go out or not. That's going to give Beth at minimum of eight points on my Next Social Review, likely putting her at #4 in the rankings. And since this will also include Shobhit, both of us hosting her at once, he also gets a Social Review for all of these days, which will in one shot catapult him far ahead of Laney, who currently has the most points. But not for long! So Shobhit should be pleased.

— पांच हजार छह सौ चवालीस —

[posted 1:03 pm]