— पांच हजार छह सौ इक्यावन —
I have a lot to catch you up on today, more than I thought I did or expected actually.
Let's start with yesterday.
It was our first day with Beth
confirmed to have been on her way back home—I'll get to that—and, although we had at first anticipated taking Beth to see it, Shobhit and I just went to see the
Blue Angels airshow ourselves.
I had actually forgotten that I
had not gone since 2022, because last year I was at my trip to Minnesota for the Co+nvergence conference in Saint Paul, and then Shobhit met up with me that weekend—which would have been the very weekend the Blue Angels airshow would have happened. The same issue would have happened this year as well, as I totally intended to return to Co+nvergence—only to learn that they put it on hold this year, in favor of another conference focused on Fresh and Perishable categories (not my department!), but the hope and expectation is that the conference will return next year, at which time I will likely have to miss the Seafair airshows again. Which is fine; this is one even that's better appreciated when not seen every single year—in fact, among the nine times I've gone to see the Blue Angels over the past 20 years, the only times I have gone two years in a row were 2005-06, and 2009-10.
Anyway. Intent to get a bunch of extra steps in, Shobhit suggested we walk down to the I-90 bridge, so that's what we did. That's a slightly more than three-mile walk there, and we got there early enough that Shobhit
then suggested we walk across the 2-mile bridge (okay, I just double checked this: the actual distance walking on the bridge is more like 1.6 miles) across Lake Washington to Mercer Island and back. This actually both helped us kill time, and we were able to see other, more minor flights of aircraft before the Blue Angels started their show about 10 minutes behind schedule at 3:45 or so, all while we were moving.
Neither of us had ever walked the entire span of that bridge—the
second-longest floating bridge in the world, behind the SR 520 Bridge that also crosses Lake Washington (
to the north), all three of the top 3 being in Western Washington—and I can't say I'm especially eager to do it again. But, I'm glad to be able to say I have done it.
Once the Blue Angels were actually flying, it was a very fun show to watch, as it always is. I did find myself incredibly frustrated by my phone's camera, which refused to focus when I had it on really high zoom function. In the past, I got shots with my phone placed looking through our binoculars, which we somehow managed to damage while in Toronto back in June. (They still work, but a rubber cover thing on one of the eye holes is gone, making it difficult to adjust looking through.) In spite of this, I managed to get
a photo album with 53 shots, several of them spectacular, so in the end I guess I won't complain too much about it. The 2022 album had all of 40 shots, and this year's was the largest photo album I've gotten out of the Blue Angels Seafair Airshow since the very first one I did, with 60 shots, in 2005.
Shobhit and I watched most of the show from maybe a little bit west of the center of the bridge, but started working our way back about 15 minutes before the show ended. They fly for nearly an hour.
By this time, all the walking in my sandals was resulting in chaffing on my feet, so I was absolutely not up for walking the three miles back home again from the west end of the bridge. We walked over to MLK Way and, with 15 minutes or so to spare, we walked up the road to Jackson, where we then waited just a few minutes for the #8 bus, which we rode up to the stop on 15th and John, then walked the four blocks (0.4 miles) home from there. By the time we got home, we had walked a total of about 8 and a half miles yesterday. I haven't had daily steps like that since we were in Toronto (one of those days, I walked a total of 12 miles).
— पांच हजार छह सौ इक्यावन —
— पांच हजार छह सौ इक्यावन —
So, moving back a day: we had Alexia over for dinner Saturday evening. This was something we had planned on July 16, once we knew Shobhit would have that day off. This was well before we knew for sure Beth was even coming to stay with us, let alone that she'd be with us until the end of the day that very Saturday.
When Beth had been unable to board the flight when we dropped her off at the airport Tuesday night last week, Shobhit and I had the condo to ourselves that night, but then Beth was on the train back up to us on Wednesday morning—Shobhit picked her up at Capitol Hill Light Rail Station. At that point, she said the next flight out was early Sunday morning, so the expectation was that she would go back to the airport later Saturday night, just as she had Tuesday night. Thus, her stay was extended by three nights—from what was originally going to be seven. (This total span made for 11 nights, remembering that she stayed overnight at the airport last Tuesday night.)
In any case, this brings me back to Friday evening, when I made no plans other than to stay home and help however needed with the extensive food preparation Shobhit already had underway. I chopped a few vegetables, Beth offered her help here and there as well. As often happens, so much has happened already since Friday now that I no longer have a vivid memory of that particular evening. I do know that all three of us were home, and there was a certain amount of dinner prep that occurred. Thus, Shobhit and Beth both get a Social Review point for that night!
I did text Alexia
a photo of two of the dishes getting cooked on the stove Friday night, successfully getting her excited for dinner on Saturday.
Shobhit had worked a shift 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, and then the very same shift again on Saturday. I did some housework during that time Saturday morning, and Beth went on a solo outing, apparently down to Pike Place Market. She was in the guest room showering and primping when I vacuumed the entire condo, and I managed to start and finish that entire task while she was in there. She left shortly after.
When she got back, she evidently took a nap. She returned shortly before Shobhit got home from work. He asked me to ask her something, I forget what, except that it necessitated knocking on the guest room door. She called me in, and she was under the blanket on the bed, but told me she had just woken up. She said she actually screamed when a jet flew so low over us that it was super loud and literally rattled all the buildings, and at least three nearby car alarms went off. (The Blue Angels do their air show three times the first weekend of August every year, on Friday, Saturday
and Sunday—Shobhit and I just went down to watch on Sunday.) I saw later that
Shanti and Guru's memorial paw prints had fallen off their little boxes of ashes on the top shelf of my desk, and at first I could not figure out why that would have happened. Then I realized it had been the vibrations of the passing jet. We might as well have had a minor earthquake.
There was a day or two there where Beth was talking about actually buying a commercial airline ticket back to Korea, instead of attempting the military flight out on Sunday morning. This would have extended her stay yet another two days, maybe two and a half, depending on the departure time—which she kept telling us she didn't know. That seemed weird to me, but she said she was waiting to hear from her husband, James, as to whether he'd bought the ticket. Shobhit and I both asked her multiple times what the status of this was, always with no concrete answers. I think she may have ultimately gotten a hint, though, because in the end she decided to attempt the military flight regardless—ultimately, thankfully, with success.
I only bring that up because, when we thought Beth might be with us until tomorrow, we talked about taking her yesterday to see the Blue Angels. Prior to that, the idea had been broached that she and I just go ourselves to see the show
Saturday while Shobhit finished preparing for dinner. When that remained a possibility, this had an effect on whether we should tell Alexia to come for dinner at 6:00 or at 5:00. Finally, though, we scrapped the idea of going to the airshow Saturday—which was just as well because Shobhit needed plenty of help, particularly with frying the parathas. He clearly felt that I did a better job of following his expectations of how long to fry them, how much ghee to spread on them, etc.
Alexia is an early riser who goes to bed early, so it was fairly predictable that she'd be happy to come closer to 5:00 than to 6:00, so that's what we finally told her to do. And thus, we had a
four-person dinner party on Saturday night. Counting when Shobhit also made a large dinner of Indian dishes Thursday the week before last, basically in honor of Beth as our guest, this made for the
third hosted dinner we've done this calendar year. Shobhit is still hoping to get his old accent teacher, Ellen, over for a dinner before the end of the month. We'll see about that, though; plans for the rest of this month are quickly filling out, and Ellen apparently just returned from a trip to a wedding with covid. The soonest we could have her over is in three weeks, though, so she should be well over it by then.
Alexia really wanted to bring something, even though there was no need given how much food Shobhit would be cooking. Granted, even Beth clearly wanted to contribute, so she went to Trader Joe's (a beloved grocery store they do not have in Korea, and which she has apparently dearly missed these past couple of years) to get the ingredients, and then baked a cake tin of brownies. Shobhit and I finished that off last night. Anyway, I'm digressing here! Alexia brought us chopped melon, so she wouldn't have come empty handed. She did bring to-go containers, though, as we always suggest to our dinner guests. She didn't take quite as much as Shobhit suggested, because she's on a trip to Columbus, Ohio this week and thus only had another day to eat leftovers before she would be headed out of town for the week.
I will say there was a bit of a change in vibe, in group dynamic, having both Alexia and Beth with us—they are such very different people. Don't get me wrong, there was no tension or anything between them. It just kind of felt like they had very little in common. Although I will say, Shobhit sort of "warned" Beth that Alexia is convervative, even though she isn't really; she's moderate conservative at worst, and quite liberal in a lot of areas—especially when it comes to reproductive rights or environmental concerns, which she very much revealed in natural conversaton on Saturday. (This is why I wish Shobhit would quite jumping to wild conclusions about people.) Now, had something like police department issues come up, Alexia likely would have looked a lot more conservative, especially talking to a Black woman, but thankfully that never came up.
It was all a very pleasant evening, with super delicious food, which everyone knew to expect since Shobhit cooked it. Alexia hung out for a few hours, and Beth then finished packing, while Shobhit and I caught a couple of reruns of
As Time Goes By. We then once again offered to drive Beth to the airport, which we finally did mostly when I felt it would be too late for me to go if we waited any longer. I was starting to get tired.
Shobhit and I both had a feeling she would make it on the plane this time, though we had no way of knowing for sure. Shobhit texted her yesterday morning to ask what the status was, and this time she said she was making it and was getting her ticket at that very moment. As of today, she is back in Korea with her husband and dog.
After she spent several days looking at apartments, but also not (yet?) hearing back from the people she said offered her a job at the interview she went to last Monday, it feels wildly up in the air if and when she will return to Seattle, presumably to live for at least a year. It actually would be fun to have her around, especially if she finds a place of her own, when we can show someone new a lot of the many beautiful places to see in Western Washington and the Puget Sound region. Historically, though, Beth's stated plans are tenuous at best. That said, her visiting this time at all was the first time that actually panned out, after at least two other times in the past asking if she could stay with us and then the intended trip never happening. So, who knows? The direction Beth's life goes in the near future will have to be left up to suspense for now.
In any case, my "
Beth Visit 2024" photo album contains 45 shots, from an 11-day visit, although that does not include last Monday's
outing to West Seattle, with Danielle and Riley, which itself was another 43 shots. So,
all together, I have 88 shots related to Beth's visit.
If she does actually move to Seattle, though, maybe
next year she can finally get to see the Blue Angels show (even though I likely won't). I bet she'd really enjoy it.
— पांच हजार छह सौ इक्यावन —
[posted 12:27 pm]
