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Laney and I were going to meet at the Kedai Makan across the street from my building on Capitol Hill for Happy Hour yesterday. The thing is, somewhat annoyingly, Happy Hour there ends at 5:00, so we made a plan to meet there at 4:30. This is usually when I leave work, which meant I had a plan to leave work early, at like 3:45. But, when Shobhit and I were walking to Salt & Straw Tuesday night and this came up, he noted that there is another Kedai Makan in Belltown. I totally spaced this, and that location, while much farther away from Laney's apartment, is much closer to my work, meaning I would not have to leave work quite as early.

I texted Laney to ask if she'd mind meeting there instead. She was all good with it. So this allowed me to leave work yesterday at 4:10 rather than 3:45. I still left work early, but only by 20 minutes rather than 45. Also: nobody cares either way! And honestly, after all was said and done, I think the Capitol Hill location would have been better. The dish I ordered ("Roti Jala" with chickpea curry) that had been so delicious on Valentine's Day at the Capitol Hill location last year, arrived last night at the Belltown location lukewarm. It wasn't quite as impressive, although it was still tasty.

There was still something amusing about this location: arriving at 4:30, the place was absolutely dead. I had to read the hours posted on the door just to be sure they were actually open. I technically arrived at 4:26, and stood outside waiting for Laney, only for her to text me moments later that she was inside, at a booth, and was the only customer in there. Conversely, while there were two cooks we could see in the kitchen, the sole server was this middle-aged Asian man who seemed to be occupying a space between stoic and grumpy nearly the entire time we were there. And he really took his time. To be fair, once we actually placed orders, it never took long for stuff to get to us—Laney noted that he entered orders into an electronic device moments after we placed them.

We both had two drinks. I had what was called a "Jungle Bird": rum, campari, lime and pineapple. It was decent.

Laney had two beers. She also had the "Malay peanuts" with some rice. I took a bite of the peanuts and only later registered that these had anchovies in them—barf! I didn't actually eat any of the little anchovie strips, but the peanuts definitely had their essence on them. Just thinking about it is nauseating. Laney even asked if Shobhit ever eats fish, a question that genuinely shocked me, as he's been so openly strict about vegetarianism for decades. How and why would that not include any kind of seafood?

Anyway. Between her trip to Florida last week, and what had originally been a scheduled weekday Happy Hour on Monday getting postponed to Wednesday, I figured out only this morning that last night was the first time Laney and I had hung out in 15 days. Over two weeks! The last time we saw each other was on Tuesday February 11, when we went to see Love Hurts. She was supposed to see Paddington in Peru with me two days later but canceled when she could feel a slight cold coming on and was rightly adamant about resting at home enough to get over that before flying to Florida that Saturday.

It's extremely rare these days that we go that long without hanging out. The next time it's even really possible is for a similar reason, in June when Shobhit and I go to Washington, D.C. for nearly a week.

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Shobhit opted not to join us for Happy Hour, likely to help me save money. He still wanted his Social Review point, though, so he walked down to meet us and then walk home. I had told him to give us until at least 6:00, mostly because Kedai Makan's website specifically asks customers to limit their time there to 90 minutes—clearly it made little difference yesterday, we could have hung out another hour or more.

But, Shobhit appeared at about 5:50. He sat with us for a few minutes. The three of us walked together to Pike, where Laney, who was a bit achey perhaps from the vacation last week, wanted to catch a bus up the hill. Along the way, I took a couple of photos of skyscrapers that I really liked; one of them is below: it's arguably the most fascinating new high-rise in Seattle, called First Light. Sources vary on its height, but according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), it's 499 ft and 48 floors. Most notably, it's topped by this overhanging platform residents will be able to use as a lounge area, the building's top-floor swimming pool indoors behind them. I am dying to find an open house I can take advantage of in this building.

Shobhit tried to tell me it's not a skyscraper. I think maybe he thinks a "skyscraper" has to be a supertall building ("supertall" being used for buildings st least 100 meters, or 984 ft—not even Seattle's Columbia Center, at 933 ft, quite meets that threshold). But the modern definition of a "skyscraper" uses a threshold of either 100 meters (330 ft) or 150 meters (492 ft), and First Light meets either threshold, assuming the 499-ft height is correct.

The Wikipedia pages listing tallest buildings in a given city seems to vary where they start on the low end, depending on the city and how big its skyline is. The shortest building in the New York City list is 650 ft (198 meters) and still 112 buildings are listed; the Seattle list goes down to 400 ft (122 m) and thus lists 53 buildings. Either way, First Light is, by any standard definition, a skyscraper.

Laney has a real issue with that platform on top of it. Just thinking about it practically gives her vertigo. She could only look up at it for a few seconds at a time as we walked past.

Once we got to Pike, Shobhit and I opted still to walk the rest of the way home. Laney waited a couple of minutes for the #10 bus, which we could also have taken, but Shobhit wanted his steps and I was good with walking. We got several blocks before Laney's bus passed us. I wanted to be able to wave at her as she passed, but she was clearly looking at her phone. I tried to text her, "Hihi," and thanks to autocorrect I accidentally texted her, "Hugo."

With my current subscription to Apple TV, we have five different shows to catch up on. Now that we are current on Severance, I asked Shobhit which one he wanted to start next: Silo, Bad Sisters, Shrinking, or Disclaimer? Somewhat to my surprise, he chose Bad Sisters, and so we watched the first two episodes of season two. Spoiler alert! The sister who killed her husband in the first season dies in a car crash. I was really surprised and did not see that coming. I'm kind of okay with it though, she was the most annoying and least likable of the five of them. Beyond that, the show is still quite good, and it's always a welcome sight to see Fiona Shaw added to the cast. I didn't even know she was actually Irish; I'm not certain I have seen her in anything where she uses her native Irish accent rather than a British one.

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[posted 12:33pm]