— पांच हजार दो सौ उनसठ —

Forecast high today is 88° and it was so noticeably warm on my bike ride to work this morning, I actually pulled out my phone when stopped at a traffic light to check the current temperature: 72°.

A few blocks later, as I rode down the hill on Pine Street, a young man on another bike turned in front of me. He was not buff but he was fit, in the way nicely healthy young men are, and he had his button-up shirt undone so that it largely fluttered in the air behind him. This afforded partial views of the skin on his lower torso from the back, the waistband of his underwear a couple inches higher than that of his khaki pants.

I wish I could adequately convey how fucking hot it was.

And because I have turned into a dirty old man, as always, this was significant motivation for me to pedal harder, so I could remain within eyesight of that man's fantastic body.

— पांच हजार दो सौ उनसठ —

— पांच हजार दो सौ उनसठ —

Last night we had our Braeburn Condos Social, on the large rooftop deck on the West building. This was not just our first such event since the pandemic, but our first since June 2019. My post about that event never specifies the number of people, aside from "a pretty nice number" that ultimately filled up both of the two circular tables up there.

Well, I would suspect that last night's attendance either matched or, more likely, slightly exceeded that from 2019—the two circular tables never filled up completely, but at any given time there must have been at least seven people at each table, and there were other chairs around for people to sit in too, anywhere between six and ten, so I would guess there was somewhere between 25 and 30 people there total. Also, there are five people currently on the board, and I believe all of them eventually showed up; the 2019 event had only Shobhit there from the board.

Last night's event was organized by a married lesbian couple whose names I forget. They had been allocated a budget for it from Shobhit, who is currently our board Treasurer, and they told us later that they did it $100 under budget. The Board President, Alexander, actually served as a DJ, a nice touch that we did not get at the last event—it was catchy dance music that was never obtrusively loud. I'm guessing he volunteered his time to do that. There was also a young Black woman from Verizon Wireless at a booth offering swag and ice cream with a tiny toppings bar. I asked her if she does gigs like this a lot and she said yes. I can't imagine doing anything like that, particularly on a regular basis. I wonder if she made even a potential sale. Shobhit asked her a few questions but it became clear it was not for us when she said they don't do cable, and our Internet is bundled with our cable through Comcast (or Xfinity, whatever).

I do remember the names of a few new people I met: Jimmy, who moved in only a year ago and is a renter; Ryan, who moved in in late 2020; Sam, who was at the last event but in the interim time, also in 2020, had been renting but when his landlord said she needed to sell, she sold it to him, which conveniently prevented him from having to move; Hannah, who lives in the East Building if I remember correctly; Laura, a really short lady who said she sometimes sees me on my bike in the garage, has lived in the East Building since its construction in 2006, and is in a unit third floor directly below the seventh-floor flood that happened about a month ago, totally destroying the units below it on six and five. Mike and Mike, the couple who lives directly below it on our floor (the fourth), did a good job of catching whatever leaking they could, which saved Laura from a lot greater damage her unit would have sustained otherwise. As it was, she had to live in a hotel for four days while repairs were done, and her unit still has a lot of work needed but at least she was able to move back in.

I was introduced to many others whose name I don't remember. A couple of guys were super cute. One was legitimately hot. A lot of them had moved in since the last social event, and were clearly interested in getting to know more people in the building, especially after a couple of years of covid restrictions. So it was really nice to have this event.

They actually had burgers at the 2019 event, but the lesbian couple opted for lighter fare, mostly snacks, but it still served sufficiently as a dinner for me. I ate a lot of chips with artichoke cheese dip.

There's a guy named Tony who organizes a biweekly Wednesday "Action Movie Night" in the Braeburn Condos theater, which I went to a couple of times in the past and didn't get very dedicated to. I'm thinking about getting back into it, even though the movie is always a surprise by whoever is choosing it each week—and, another rule is: no repeats. Even though they've apparently been doing this for ten years! A cool bit of synchronicity, though: the inaugural movie, on October 17, 2012, was the original 1995 Judge Dredd. They went virtual over the pandemic so keep the movie night tradition unbroken, starting in April 2020; the theater was reopened in July of last year, and the inaugural movie back in the theater, was the 2012 movie Dredd—a remake of Judge Dredd. So: they don't allow repeats, but they do allow remakes, and the first time back in the theater was a remake of the first-even movie they did back in 2012. Ironically, this remake had originally been released in 2012.

I think I may try getting back into attending these biweekly Wednesday "Action Movie Nights." They frequently have flyers for it up in the elevators, and Shobhit has even commented on attending sometime. It's a lot easier for him to right now, as his work schedule consistently has him ending work at 2 p.m. I'm thinking maybe we'll attend next week. Tony has this great spreadsheet on the Braeburn website of the entire history of what movie was picked and by whom in the past, and I quite like most of the past picks by the person indicated to be picking next week. And, I'd really like to start attending often enough to get a chance to be the one to choose one of these days.

— पांच हजार दो सौ उनसठ —

[posted 12:27 pm]

-- चार हजार पांच सौ अड़तालीस --

Shobhit's back pain seemed to improve markedly yesterday. It gets a little worse after any time he lays down and it's the worst after sleeping overnight, but in each case it seems to be notably better than when he was last in the same position. Suddenly I'm filled with hope for the weekend.

We're not out of the woods yet in terms of my being disappointed, but Shobhit was in a better mood yesterday than he's been in all week -- like, in a legit good mood -- and when I said, "Maybe we can just go down on Friday to stay one night in Portland instead of two?" he replied, "Maybe." I'll take it!

His original intention with two nights included a vision of the trip that included an extra day that I could have taken or left anyway: a day trip from Portland over to Cannon Beach and Tillamook. If we just drive down tomorrow instead, a) we'd just stick to visiting Portland, which was basically all I wanted anyway; and b) we'd only pay for one night at the hotel instead of two, which will save me money I thought I'd otherwise be spending. Booking so much later might cost more for a single night, but I can't imagine it costing more than the originally booked price for two.

Furthermore, Shobhit had a doctor's appointment today that we were going to have to wait until after, before driving to Portland. We'll have no such barrier if we get up and go tomorrow morning.

I am still steeling myself for the possibility that we don't manage to go, but I remain hopeful that we can make it work. Shobhit doesn't seem all that excited about trying to fit a Portland visit into a different weekend this summer, and we have plans to go to Denver in August already, and July weekends are already full of plans of one type or another -- most of which can be moved around if necessary, but it would still be more of a pain than just getting the Portland trip out of the way now. So I'm hoping we can make that happen.

...

. . . So much for that! Shobhit finally texted me after seeing the doctor. He took L&I forms to both his jobs. And he finally said he still doesn't think we should go to Portland tomorrow. "Just do something fun locally," he wrote. "I don't wanna drive 180 miles one way." Fine, fine. We'll have to do plenty of driving down to Chehalis for the wedding Saturday as it is.

This does mean I will now have to make a herculean effort to go to Portland sometime in July though. Or sometime, I guess it's not mandatory that it happen in July. Maybe September or even October would be a better idea, given all that's already planned in July.

-- चार हजार पांच सौ अड़तालीस --

-- चार हजार पांच सौ अड़तालीस --

Most of the evening yesterday was spent on the largest outdoor deck atop the west building of the Braeburn Condominiums, as we had a community barbeque. We were up there far longer than I expected -- like, three hours -- so I was sure glad I had the wherewithal to put on sunscreen, especially on by far the hottest day of the year thus far. We skirted 90° yesterday and that sucked. I was pretty sweaty by the time I got home on my bike.

I was even originally planning on attending this event without Shobhit, when I thought he'd be working. He's called in sick to both his jobs the past few days though because of his back, and so he was actually able to attend. It worked out well as he became the de facto Braeburn representative, being the only Board member who either bothered or was able to attend.

The whole thing was organized by another resident, a former Board member named Mary, because of having experienced property theft in the garage. So this was both a spring barbeque and a "safety demonstration," with three "community outreach" officers from the Seattle Police Department present for the first half hour or so. It was kind of jarring, exiting the elevator to the roof and then seeing cops there, with all their firearm gear strapped to the outside of vests. "Why are the cops here?" I wondered, thinking for a second maybe there had been some kind of incident. I was definitely not the only resident for whom that was the effect, but it was soon made clear what they were there for.

And admittedly, I found their presence at least somewhat illuminating, although most of the information being hammered into everyone was stuff I have long been over-familiar with -- never let people tailgate behind you at building garages and entrances, that kind of stuff. As for Mary and her focus on property protection, I honestly found her a little insufferable, particularly when she would try -- and fail -- to get the police to comment on whether the city's homeless population was addicted to opioids, something I'm not convinced is that relevant to her stuff in storage getting stolen.

She'd only get the Silver Medal in the Annoying People Olympics for the evening, though, thanks to another older man who apparently has lived in the building since it opened in 2005 (I have long thought the entire complex opened in 2006, but learned last night the west building opened in 2005, and only the east building, the one Shobhit and I live in, opened in 2006 -- a year before we moved in). He was kind of a yeller, would not stop and listen to people actually attempting to address his concerns, and it was difficult to get him to just shut the fuck up. At one point Shobhit even got up and had a bit of a private conversation with him, which actually seemed to kind of calm him down. I have to admit, Shobhit did a pretty good job of displaying diplomatic leadership capabilities last night, and I'm actually not often prone of give him compliments of that sort.

It was pretty sparsely populated when Shobhit and I arrived, and Alan, the building manager, had both regular and veggie sausages already on the grill. I'm all about the free dinner! That was the whole reason I was going to go even by myself if I had to. As time went on, though, a pretty nice number of people actually came up, until both the circular picnic tables were quite full. At one point I was at one while Shobhit was at the other; after a while I joined Shobhit at the other, but then Shobhit got called to my first one to answer a question, and then for some time we had basically just swapped tables. And I did quite a lot of chatting with plenty of people at both tables -- even Mary, who was far more tolerable when she was just sitting and eating and visiting, rather than attempting to get everyone to listen to a presentation at an event that wasn't optimally designed for presentations.

It was nice that the event happened at all, and it's only because of Mary that it did, so I have to credit her for that. The young photographer woman who has previously been the Social Committee Chair had to abandon the post due to her busy work schedule, and I don't think there is one officially currently. Sometimes I wonder if I should consider it, but I'm selfish and just not sure I want the responsibility. In any case, it was a nice evening and I was surprised it was already 9:00 when Shobhit and I returned to the condo.

-- चार हजार पांच सौ अड़तालीस --

[posted 12:28 pm]