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Last night was a really fun Happy Hour with Laney, largely because we were celebrating the 10th anniversary of when we first started our monthly Happy Hours. We've actually been doing them twice a month mostly since she moved back to Capitol Hill about a year ago, but most of the past decade we've done them once a month.
The first photo in my overall
Happy Hour with Laney photo album (268 shots and counting) was taken at Bait Shop, north end of Broadway on Capitol Hill, August 18, 2014. Last night's Monday Happy Hour was the closest one to the 18th so that was our "10th Anniversary Celebration" Happy Hour, returning to that same bar.
It was only our fourth time there. We went once in 2014, once in 2016 and once in 2017, but had not gone back in well over seven and a half years. We arguably should have. Their "Sweet Corn" dish is both really reasonably priced ($7) and delicious. Anyway, we did our best to recreate the 2014 photo, even though to be honest I think we both look better in the 2014 shot. A big part of it is the warmer lighting, which was probably due largely to the mostly cloudy weather at the time. It was actually sunnier yesterday, making us brighter rather than warmer in color. Also, of course, we're both 10 years older now. Laney has lost a significant amount of weight, and I am actually about 15 lbs heaver now than I was then. What a dream it would be to get down to 149 lbs again! But, I keep eating chocolate and pastries and cookies.
Anyway, Laney and I were there about three hours. Shobhit was there for maybe one of those hours. He never did make it clear whether he'd join us; he keeps saying he "gets in the way" even though Laney and I both insist that he does not. It's not like Laney and I don't get more than plenty of time just the two of us anyway. And then, while he was out on a walk getting his steps in, he did wind up coming in to join us for a bit. He got a beer. That had to have been around 6:00, after Laney and I met up there at 5:00—her walking from home and me biking from work.
Shobhit had food prepared at home and so he resisted ordering any food. He also got very hungry though and wanted to go home, but when I said I wasn't ready to leave and he could go home ahead of me, that's what he did. Laney and I hung out for another hour or so, leaving at roughing 7:30. The 2024 recreation of our photo taken right outside the entrance was taken at 7:27. I did walk with her back down Broadway to Pine, though, and we even stood chatting for a few minutes on that intersection before I turned to walk home up Pine.
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I haven't even mentioned the most fun parts of Happy Hour, though.
First, when Shobhit arrived and our server took his drink order, I told the server to put him on my bill. Laney piped up with, "They don't know each other, he just thought he was cute. He does this all the time!" Ha! I couldn't tell if the server even thought Laney was joking.
When Laney and I put in our initial orders before Shobhit even arrived, though, Laney told the server that we were celebrating our 10th Happy Hour anniversary, returning to the place where we started it. And, shortly after Shobhit arrived, the server did something incredibly sweet: she
arrived with three complimentary cocktails, miniature versions of their "Frozen Painkiller" (cruzan aged dark rum, coconut, pineapple, orange, cinnamon, nutmeg). "Happy Anniversary!" she said.
Laney asked her to pose with the drinks first so I could get her photo. Shobhit did a kind of fascinating thing, after Laney asked the server what her name was (Maddy): he asked, "She/her or they/them?" Probably because she had a relatively androgynous look. But, Maddy replied, "She/her." Shobhit even asking me this was interesting to me because he regularly uses gendered pronouns with other people who have stated they were nonbinary, and it's often difficult to tell if he's just forgetting or if he's being careless about it. He clearly understands what nonbinary means though and was being respectful here.
Anyway, I then asked Maddy to take a photo of the three of us holding up our mini Frozen Painkillers—which were delicious by the way—and it turned out to be a pretty great shot. In the end I took a solid 10 photos at Happy Hour last night, way more than I usually do at our Happy Hours. This was the only one of them that Shobhit was in, though.
Otherwise, I had a $14 cocktail that was not on the Happy Hour menu (a grape flavored one that was tasty but not worth that much), and in addition to the sweet corn—which both Laney and I ordered—I had the Deviled Eggs. These were both the same dishes I ordered in 2014. I totally forgot how smoky they make the deviled egg filling. It's a choice, and one I'm ambilanet about.
After Shobhit left, Laney and I wanted one more drink but not a full one. So, we split a regular order of one more Frozen Painkiller, which Maddy very nicely
split into separate glasses for us. I was totally going to split the cost with her but Laney covered it. Between myself and Shobhit, I already spent a bit over $44 so this actually helped my budget slightly. Laney and I both gave Maddy an unusually large tip, as she had really gone above and beyond last night.
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[posted 12:33 pm]
