— पाँच हजार सात सौ छियालीस —
I had a whole plan last night, involving social engagements with two other people, and most of the evening wound up pivoting to something wildly different. Both said people still managed to gain another point on the next Social Review, however, which I'm sure will come as a huge relief to . . . at least one of them!
The plan was to meet Tracy at 5:00 for dinner, before Shobhit joined us to see
Babygirl at 7:05 at AMC Pacific Place. At first I thought Shobhit would join us for dinner, but there was a Braeburn board meeting he was sitting in on at 5:30 so he needed to skip meeting up for dinner but join us for the movie after.
The movie never happened. The dinner . . . half-happened.
I was meandering through the skybridge between Nordstrom and Pacific Place, as we were to have dinner at Nordstrom Cafe which is on the fourth floor of Nordstrom, right on the west end of that skybridge. Tracy caught up with me, and immediately told me she wasn't feeling very well. She had to pull over in her car downtown and throw up several times in the street, before she came to the Pacific Place parking lot.
She had felt fine prior to this, and was pretty sure this was food related. I was a little ambivalent, but decided to sit with her in the restaurant anyway. I ordered my standard portobello mushroom ravioli dish, but she had only a glass of water. She decided she would wait until 6:00 to decide whether she felt better enough to stick it out for the movie.
Apparently, this sort of thing has happened to her before. She said she spends a lot of time feeling nauseated because of medications she's on. I asked if it's possible something like this could be triggered when food is even only slightly off, and she said maybe. She also said she'd had seafood for lunch, which could have been part of this, although she texted the friend she had lunch with and that friend was fine. That person probably ordered something different, though.
It was kind of amusingly ironic, then, when the server came with a
shrimp dish for me. I was like: uh, I did not order that. She figured out later that the woman who had taken my order (this place is the type where you order first) had just pressed the wrong button. The server was very concerned about me, even though I assured her I had plenty of time; another ten minutes to wait for my dish was totally fine. Still, she said, "Can I get you anything? Bread?"
I was like: "Well, I won't say no to that!"
And then she came to me with two things: a small dish with a very fresh, very warm bread roll with a seasoned butter spread; and even a cup of tomato soup. I felt a little bad because she had taken that initiative and I still had to ask if it was definitely vegetarian (the whole reason I could not eat that shrimp dish); she went back to double check and it was.
My ravioli dish came soon after. I chuckled at this, because I had these
three dishes of one kind or another in front of me, and Tracy had nothing but a cup of water. "I'm here with this embarrassment of riches," I said, "And you've got nothing!"
She left to go use the restroom. I had no idea if she was throwing up more or if she was fine. By the time she came back, she said, "I'm gonna go home." Totally understandable. She had already thanked me earlier for being understanding, and said, "Some of my friends would not be understanding." I replied, "Those are not good friends."
She doesn't like feeling like she's being a flake with me, as she has a history of occasionally needing to cancel, though usually not after she's already met up with me. This was the third time she had tried to get out to see
Babygirl, and it still wasn't happening. But, I totally get it—especially if she might have a bout of food poisoning. She later told me she had gone home, thrown up some more, and passed out. But she felt better already after that, and she's fine enough to be back at work today.
I wound up eating a lot more than expected or intended for dinner last night, while Tracy ate nothing. Oh well. At least I got to see her. She officially moves into her dad's house, with her dad, tomorrow. We'll still get together but, from here on out, she'll often be coming all the way from Puyallup (where, incidentally, she also grew up). So: Social Review point intact there! Dinner with Tracy! Even though she was largely miserable and just watched me eat.
— पाँच हजार सात सौ छियालीस —
— पाँच हजार सात सौ छियालीस —
I had started texting Shobhit when Tracy was in the bathroom. I texted him when I got out to start walking home, saying I was happy to still go to the movie (which I have already seen) but also happy just to get a refund. I texted him when I got home. He didn't see any of these texts until his meeting ended at 6:30, at which time he told me to just cancel the movie reservation and get refunded (I have a monthly membership, but this will refund me the discount-Tuesday tickets for the two of them, which were $7.35 each—once that happens I'll Venmo that much back to Tracy).
The idea of going for a walk came up shortly after Shobhit was back upstairs in the condo—luckily he saw my texts; he was about to leave straight from the Community Kitchen in the West building downstairs. We both used the bathroom before leaving, and then I said, "You wanna do somethig really bad?"
Shobhit knew exactly where I was going with that. "What?" he said, "Ice cream?" He had just a couple of days ago texted me a photo of
this month's seasonal flavors when he was walking by, and they all sounded amazing (this month's flavors being vegan notwithstanding). So, we walked first to QFC, where he scanned his lottery tickets and the two security guards standing next to the machine were unexpectedly invested in him winning. Shobhit was just like, "No, I'm not going to." (Why he still bothers to play is a separate conversation.)
Then we walked down Pike, and popped in for a minute at Doghouse Leathers, and then we went across the street to Salt & Straw. We both sampled all five of the seasonal flavors, and then split a single scoop cup of the Bananas Foster with Candied Pecans. Shobhit then could not resist getting a slice of pesto pizza at Hot Mama's Pizza; we finished the ice cream while we were in line. I had already eaten too much so I told him to go ahead and sprinkle his hot pepper flakes all over it. He kept offering me bites anyway, and I was careful to bite where I could not see any peppers—maybe three bites worth. I got peppers in the first bite and it was not fun, I nearly spit it out.
So there you have it! "Out for dessert" with Shobhit. He still got his Social Review point as well. Then we walked back home and watched episodes 2 and 3 of
Squid Game 2 on Netflix.
— पाँच हजार सात सौ छियालीस —
[posted 12:32pm]
