— पांच हजार छह सौ इकहत्तर —
We are less than two weeks from the autumn equinox. You know what that means?
Fall and holiday planning!
A couple of months ago I created a shared excel docoument, which I keep online at my personal Microsoft Office account, for a Social Review Calendar with Laney. It seems to get more elaborate and schedule stuff further out the longer it exists. I just did some accounting this morning, and I already have plans with Laney five days through the rest of September; nine days each in October and in November; and eight in December. Basically this means we hang out roughly one out of every three days.
And that's not even to mention how often I
still spend time with Alexia, even after she moved from the condo next door to an apartment in Issaquah. We have about four Movie Nights scheduled between now and the end of the year; maybe four movies she'll join Laney and me to see; and I emailed her with some Christmas event ideas just yesterday, knowing she'd be happy to start marking her calendar now.
I sent Tracy a
very comprehensive list of movies on the docket between now and the end of the year, just yesterday. I haven't heard back from her yet on which ones she might be interested in, but she often takes a while, and won't likely be very interested in more than a couple of them anyway.
In any event, I guess my point is this: I already have a shit ton of stuff planned with Laney, mostly movies but also two Happy Hours per month, over the next three months. And, mostly because I got an email from Seattle Center about the return of the Seattle Holiday Market, it occurred to me that there are some holiday events with dates already set so planning for the holidays can commence!
I don't even give a shit that it's still only September. Early planners get benefits and save money! Namely, it looks like I can book tickets to the Seattle Holiday Market for about $15 if I book them this week; they will go up as the holiday gets closer. I remember hearing last year about how it was not a very good value, especially with tickets closer to $30 at the gate. But, regular price currently is about $22, which is much easier to swallow, and $15 is even better. It makes me much more inclined to check it out at least this year, even if I never do it again. I want to see it at least once.
In other budgeting news—pivoting to dollars rather than time—I have finally made the decision to cancel my Disney+ subscription. Or rather, not to renew the annual subscription. When Shobhit learned that I was budgeting to pay $154 for the next annual payment he was incredulous, and my knee-jerk reaction, as usual, was to be defensive and resistant. But, although there are some shows on Disney+ I consider vital, the truth is I will indeed go multiple months in the year without watching anything on it, which renders the "price break" for an annual subscription meaningless. It's still going to be a lot less money if I pay the higher monthly rate for one month, say, even four times in a given year. When season two of
Andor is released in January—and that is required viewing—then I will just pay for the two months or so needed to run through that season then, and then cancel renewal again, until something else comes along that I want to see on that streamer.
To be honest, I was also really enamored with the fact that Disney+ had the whole catalog of animated features available. But how many times have I actually watched any of them? Nearly never.
I've had a monthly budget item of $13 to save up over the year for this, which I have now just converted to a budget line item I'll move each paycheck, now called "Rotating Streamer," to which I will continue contributing $13. I already had seven months' worth, which amounted to $91. There's a movie out on Netflix this week that I want to see, so I will use some of that to re-up Netflix for a month—which I am liable to do at least once more before the end of the year, as inevitably there will be some Oscar contenders I am unable to see in a local theater. And, with season 4 of
Slow Horses and season 2 of
Pachinko now underway on Apple TV and my free three months about to expire on September 24, I will pay for one more month of that so we can finish out those series, stop it from renewing, and re-up a few months from now on that one for other stuff coming later. Probably in January.
The goal, long-term, will be for there to be, at least on average, only one streamer I am actually paying for in a given month, between Netflix, Disney+, and Apple TV+. And the aforementioned budget line item will give me some quantifiable parameters for that.
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— पांच हजार छह सौ इकहत्तर —
I guess I can actually tell you about last night now, huh?
Nearly a year ago, Sachin got a job in Nashville and so he moved there. He's been in Seattle for as long as I've known Shobhit; in the early years they used to speak to each other a lot in Hindi but they really don't anymore and haven't in ages. He's been Shobhit's one local friend who has stayed consistent all this time, even after a few tense arguments. I'm glad they've stayed in touch. And I didn't even know until maybe two days ago that he was in town for a visit, and was going to come over yesterday.
I had completely forgotten this until I got home riding my bike from work. Sachin even asked what the mark was on my forehead. "That's from my bike helmet," I said.
He brought a bottle of wine. Shobhit had a few different dishes for us all to have for dinner, some of them leftovers (particularly the eggplant, my favorite, which we finished off between the three of us); and the lentil dish), plus a new dish he made with the
ton of green beans he's been harvesting from his p-patch plot. I must admit I had fairly low expectations of that one, and yet it turned out to be quite delicious, particularly with the small amount of corn he added to it.
Sachin was duly impressed with it all. Shobhit often makes parathas from scratch but not this time; even though it had been some months since we saw Sachin, the visit was very casual. We all had fried frozen parathas from DK Market instead. They were perfectly tasty in their own right.
There was also a Braeburn Condos board meeting over Zoom, between 6 and 7, so Shobhit's attention was diverted to that for an hour. Sachin kind of minded his own business during that time, on his own laptop. And I got a call from Gabriel, who said he was barbecuing and wanted someone to talk to while he did it.
We talked a lot about movies. We have a new goal of attending the Telleuride Film Festival together; this year's just ended last week. I kind of love this idea, but who knows if we'll actually make this happen. "Yeah, just like we were supposed to go to Peru," I said—a trip we actually got fairly serious about in 2010, but then his first devorce happened and the trip never happened either. We both agreed a trip to Colorado is a lot more plausible than a trip to Machu Picchu, so, you know, maybe? I marked my calendar for the end of August next year anyway.
My call with Gabriel lasted 32 minutes. In the last several minutes, Shobhit came into the bedroom, where I had gone to talk to Gabriel, and asked if I wanted to come up to the roof with him and Sachin. Our re-siding project at The Braeburn is about to commence next week—finally!—and it never occurred to me but it makes sense: Shobhit said it's going to be a year and a half before we have access to the rooftop decks again.
I still had Gabriel on the phone as we all got into the elevator, which was probably a bit chaotic to Gabriel listening. Sachin started to say hi to Gabriel, so I switched from my Air Pods to speaker phone. Sachin could not think of having seen Gabriel since a birthday party of mine they were both at—which would have to have been my 40th birthday party, in 2016. The one where Gabriel and Shobhit got in a huge argument that literally devolved into them both saying "Fuck you" to each other, and in my mind is the source of my inclination anymore just to keep them separated if I can. To be fair to both of them, it's more likely than not that they'll be fine together, but I still hate spending the time worrying about whether something will come up and make one of them antagonize the other (and although these days that does apply more to Shobhit than to Gabriel, it absolutely still applies to them both). I prefer simply not to have to worry about it.
It's a little unfortunate that that remains Sachin's most dominant memory and impression of Gabriel, because Sachin made a crack about how nice and polite Gabriel was being on the phone and he was like, "That's not the Gabe I know, he's being too nice!" So Gabriel, with very obvious facetiousness and through a bit of laughter, was like, "Well then, go fuck yourself!" and the like.
I was thinking about this later, though, and I kind of felt bad for Gabriel in that scenario. 2016 was
eight years ago, for fuck's sake, and I did say to Sachin that, indeed, Gabriel has mellowed a bit since then. I did not mention that he was also in a far, far darker period of his life then and thus a bit more prone to triggered behaviors. Gabriel and I both have a particular history of disrespectful or even hurtful behaviors specifically toward each other that neither of us really engage with anymore, and haven't in ages. We're just a couple of chill, midd-aged guys. (God, do I wish Shobhit could do the same—particularly when driving—but I fear he's just going to be tightly wound until the end of his days.)
I should probably note that social tact has never been the highest thing on Sachin's priority list either. Nevertheless, it was still nice to see him. And when I told him I hope to visit Barbara in Louisville again next year and take a day trip to Nashville, he immediately offered his place for us to stay overnight. I honestly hadn't even considered that as a possibility, heretofore assuming we'd just make a day trip of it, just as we had to Indianapolis and Cincinatti when I last visited, in 2022.
Last time, I flew to Charlotte for a layover before flying on to Louisville, because Seattle has no direct flights. That was a mistake and sucked up way too much of the travel day, especially combined with the three-hour time difference. There
are direct flights to Cincinatti though, so the next time I visit that's what I'll do, and just pick up a rental car there and drive the 90 minutes to Louisville. This way I can hopefully tack on another day of exploring Cincinnati, preferably on the day I fly back. But I have time to consider the planning of all that, though. First I still hope to visit Scott in Phoenix sometime this fall, which will likely necessitate some rescheduling of the shit ton of other social activity through the rest of the year.
It's so exhausting being a social butterfly jet setter!
— पांच हजार छह सौ इकहत्तर —
[posted 12:38 pm]
