— पाँच हजार सात सौ पैंतीस —
I only watched one movie this weekend! Can you believe it?
Granted, it was long enough to be two movies: Laney and I went to the 12pm showing of
The Brutalist at the AMC Pacific Place on Saturday. We were both very impressed with it, but I'm not ready to jump on the bandwagon of calling it a "masterpiece" just yet. I mean, maybe it is. I just think time will be the judge of that; it's too soon to tell.
Laney and I were also both delighted by the inclusion of a 15-minute intermission. Even with that intermission included, I was very conscientious about my fluid intake until the movie was over: I had my bowl of cereal, but over the course of the morning I kept thinking about having tea and then just about slapping my own hand:
no liquids! I slept in surprisingly late that morning, until nearly 8am, so I had the almond milk in my cereal around that time. I peed before I left to go meet up with Laney at Pine and Broadway; I peed again when we got to the theater; and I peed yet again when the intermission happened. I likely would have had to go really bad by the end of the movie were it not for that intermission.
— पाँच हजार सात सौ पैंतीस —
Laney and I also had our scheduled second-Saturday Happy Hour on Saturday, which we shifted later in the day than usual to accommodate for the movie—we were relieved there was a showtime at least as early as noon, knowing that with trailers added, a three-hour, 35-minute film would let out about four hours later, and that's exactly what happened: it was around 4:00 when we left the theater.
And then we walked just a few blocks up Pine, to the Seattle Convention Center Summit building where there is a
Pike Brewing with covered and heated outdoor seating we have long wanted to try for one of our Happy Hours, even though they don't serve cocktails there. Just beer, and sometimes cider, which was good with me. They had said that sometimes they don't have cider, though, so on our walk down before the movie we stopped in to ask if they had ciders that day. The very nice, quasi-punk but middle-aged lady said they had four cans of cider. I asked if they would likely still be available later in the afternoon, and she offered to hold a couple back for me. I only drank one of them in the end, but I was delighted to find it was a blackberry flavored one and it was truly delicious.
We also discovered that that same lady has a dog which she brings to work with her, chained to a metal beam in the outdoor seating area with a pretty long chain that is padlocked to the back of a gray vest she wears. She's a three-legged dog named Sadie. She also has a dog pretty large dog bed she lays in, and she clearly gets regular treats from customers. Laney and I sat at a small table directly beneath one of the overheat heater lamps, and the minute we sat down, Sadie got up and came over to me to say hi, even though she had never met me before. I was impressed by how mellow she was.
I realized later that she must have been expecting a dog treat. Another guy with a dog sat at a table near us after a little while, and he had treats readily available for Sadie, who was also clearly familiar with the other guy's dog. Laney chatted briefly with the guy a couple of times, and we learned that he's a regular and Sadie knows him. He didn't get any food, but he did stick around to have two glasses of beer. We also learned that his dog, a medium sized dog with black and brown fur that looked somewhat like a slightly smaller German Shepherd, was 16 years old. Laney and I were both shocked by that; dogs don't often live that long. And this one seemed pretty spry, didn't seem elderly at all (but, like Sadie, was very chill—as were the maybe three or four other dogs we saw pass through while we were there).
This place sells hot dogs to eat, and that's what Laney and I both had, just substituting the link with a Field Roast link. It had cream cheese and sauteed onions on it and was delicious. There is a Monorail Espresso right next door, so instead of getting a second hard cider, I got a hot chocolate from them. It was nice to get a hot beverage, but the hot chocolate I can make at home with the Starbucks cocoa from Costco is notably better. Plus, that hot chocolate has to have been the one thing that pushed me over to gaining rather than losing weight as of Sunday morning: I was up half a pound. But! I was back down 2.1 lbs from that as of this morning, which was itself rather a shock, even though I only had breakfast, a light dinner, and a few Indian snacks at Gabriel and Lea's yesterday.
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— पाँच हजार सात सौ पैंतीस —
So that brings us right into Sunday, when I had no other plans, I had access to the car with Shobhit out of town, so I decided to see if Gabriel was available to hang out—and I was totally up for just driving down to Federal Way to see him and Lea.
Lea had a lot of work to do so I didn't see a lot of her, but I did see her for short bits, especially when she later came down to make dinner. I did not expect to stay for dinner, but they seemed to really want to create a scenario where this was possible—she said she was making shrimp. I said, "I don't eat shrimp, but thank you. I have leftover pasta at home." The Lea light-heartedly jabbed, "You're a
real vegetarian." Yes, I am!
She said there was a ramen-type noodle dish she could make and it would be easy and quick for her to do, so I said okay sure. I don't know what brand it was, but it was perfectly portioned for the kind of portion control I am aiming at currently; it was "sweet and spicy" flavored; and I actually found it delicious.
I had already been there a good three-plus hours by that point, and although Gabriel fretted a bit at times about finding some activity for us to do, I was happy just to sit and chat and hang out. For a while, at one of Gabriel's suggestions and I indicated that appealed to me, we sat around the fire on their upper-level back patio. I had brought chai to share with both of them, which they always appreciate, but it was all consumed by then; at the fire I had a surprisingly tasty, cherry-flavored Liquid Death water that Gabriel had provided.
Shortly after I arrived, he shared several homemade snacks made by an Indian work friend of Lea's. No one knew what the names of any of them were, and I even showed the photo I took to Shobhit on FaceTime after I got home last night, and he didn't know what they were called either. He said they looked like they were South Indian or maybe Gujarati. I may have heard "Gujarati" wrong but I'm not sure. In any case, they were not familiar to him—and he prefers Indian snacks with much smaller pieces.
I had initially suggested 1:00 when I texted Gabriel yesterday morming about when I might come over. He countered 1:30, which was fine. At Shobhit's suggestion, I drove first to the Costco gas station in Federal Way because it is consistenty the cheapest gas in the Puget Sound region. The issue there is that, whenever I do this, I never build in enough lead time to account for the traffic both going into that gas station parking lot and just waiting for a gas pump. I texted Gabriel at 1:24 that it would be 1:30 at least by the time I was done getting gas, and it takes another 15 minutes at minimum to drive to his house from there—something I knew he would be happy about. And he immediately called me back and said this worked out great because he was at the store at the moment. He wanted to know if I wanted him to get anything for lunch (nope) or anything to drink (I said I was bringing chai: "Look at you!" he said).
Thus, it was much closer to 2:00 by the time I got there. I think we hung out for a good four and a half hours. It would have been slightly less but I did stay for the aforementioned dinner, which I was not expecting to do. I saw Tess only briefly, as she was coming by to look for a lost keyboard that several minutes were spent with all three of them tearing her room apart looking for, to no avail. Just before that, she actually took me to her room to show me the very cool computer she had assembled on her own. She also volunteered that she still reads my movie review blog. "I'm your most voracious reader," she said, or something to that effect.
It took about 40 minutes to drive home. I really can't wait until
Federal Way Link Light Rail extension opens next year, even though it will take longer to get there than driving. But, I usually don't have access to the car, and light rail will make it much easier than taking the bus. I'll probably come to visit a lot more often then, and I told them so.
— पाँच हजार सात सौ पैंतीस —
[posted 12:36pm]
