— पांच हजार छह सौ पचास —
You know what? I've made a decision. No Social Review points for anyone yesterday!
By the time Shobhit got home from work, Beth had retired to the guest room for the evening. Had the three of us hung out for any amount of time during the evening, I'd have granted them both a Social Review point.
I'm not going to give one to Beth for yesterday either though. We did chat a bit while I ate my leftover quiche—which she made the night before—in the living room, but she's been staying with us so long now (yesterday being day #9), were she actually living with us, there would be no Social Review point for that. It was just a few minutes, long enough for me to finish the quiche and also listen to her tell me about Shobhit walking with her around the neighborhood looking for apartments in the morning and afternoon, and then I retired to the bedroom to write my movie review. By the time I was done with that, she had already retired to the guest room. Her occasional giggling heard through the door indicated she was watching a show, probably.
They'll both get a Social Review for this evening, I'm sure; we'll all be hanging out together, probably helping Shobhit with a lot of the prep for having Alexia over for dinner tomorrow. The same will happen tomorrow, assuming Beth joins us for dinner—and even if she doesn't, we'll all be hanging out together for some period of time tomorrow. This is not yet a done deal, but I may actually go with Beth tomorrow afternoon to watch the Blue Angels air show, which Beth has never seen (at least certainly not in Seattle).
— पांच हजार छह सौ पचास —
The movie review I wrote was for
Trap, the new M. Night Shyamalan film that wasn't nearly as good as it could have or should have been—basically par for the course with this guy. He had a period of films that were so much worse that I avoided his movies like the plague for years. Then, more recent ones have gotten better reactions, so I've given his last couple of movies a chance. In both cases they were just okay, at best. It's once again feeling a bit like a waste of time.
I did not realize while watching the movie, but learned later on Letterboxd, that Saleka, the woman who plays the pop superstar performing at the concert where two thirds of the movie is set, is actually Shyamalan's daughter. According to users on Letterboxd who were at the premiere, Shyamalan said he conceived of the whole movie just to showcase Saleka performing. Apparently she's 28 years old. I did find myself wondering how old M. Night Shyamalan is; he's been churning out movies now for 25 years. (He's 53.)
Anyway, I had ridden by bike from work to Pacific Place, where the showtime was at 5:00. The movie ended around 7:00, then I rode the rest of the way back home; ate my dinner; and it was after 9:00 by the time I was done writing the B-minus review.
— पांच हजार छह सौ पचास —
— पांच हजार छह सौ पचास —
The only other news to report is that I had a physical therapy appointment this morning, at "Sports Medicine" at Virginia Mason. The sporadic pain I get every few months in my right arm, stretching from the back of my neck and shoulder down to my forearm, was suspected by my doctor to be a pinched nerve. After the PT guy this morning, a young Asian American man named Dustin who pulled his barely-shoulder-length hair into a ponytail, did several tests to rule out anything more serious, basically came to the same conclusion. The tests were physical but very non-invasive, basically looking at my posture, seeing how walk, knocking at certain points on my arm with a little hammer thing.
In the end, he gave me
six exercises to do every evening for at least the next few weeks. His conclusion was that this nerve pain comes from a certain vertibrae in my back, where there is cumulative pressure after years of my head being in a slightly off-position from looking at screens and devices of various sorts all day.
The intent with the exercises is to re-strengthen the parts of my back that have been weakened by this, and hopefully prevent the pain from returning. That alone motivates me to dedicate the time needed for this. It'll just be a few minutes every evening anyway. It felt mostly like a bunch of different versions of stretching.
— पांच हजार छह सौ पचास —
There's someone
else who gets a Social Review for today, though: Karen! We had our biweekly Zoom Lunch just now.
Except, our last one was four weeks ago. She had a scheduling conflict and had to cancel the one previously scheduled for July 19. In the meantime, she went out of town for a coference, where she caught her second bout of covid; she tested negative as of Monday or Tuesday; she's been attending a local conference yesterday and this morning; she barely managed to leave the conference to go to her house in Magnolia and make herself some lunch to eat while on Zoom with me.
Karen's life is so complicated it's nuts. I was able to share some slightly more complicated than usual circumstances for Shobhit and me, though, as I spent quite a lot of time explaining how and why Beth has been staying with us now for nine days. It had been expected to be eight, and assuming she actually makes it on the flight out on Sunday, I only realized while talking to Karen about it, by then Beth will have been staying with us two days shy of two weeks.
Anyway. We spent the last ten minutes or so of our call getting me caught up on the house Karen and Dave are having built in Tulalip. She's still really hosting she can have her family's Thanksgiving there, but it's going to cut close after the house is finally ready for furnishing. In any case, between her job, that second house, the seemingly endless conferences she travels to, and stuff going on in her extended family, Karen't always got a whole lot of shit she's juggling. It makes my life seem positively smooth sailing! Compared to most people's lives, it actually is, honestly.
— पांच हजार छह सौ पचास —
[posted 1:11 pm]
