— चार हजार नौ सौ इकसठ —
I have a lot to tell about my weekend today but I'm going to
try and get through it quickly. I also have a lot of work to get done today, dammit!
Friday afternoon, after having done my receiver paperwork on that day instead of Thursday, I left the condo at 3:00 to bike down to the office. I thus had not one, not two, but three things to be there for: first, swap out back door receiving paperwork. Second, bring my new laptop back to Andrew in IT
again, only one week after it had been issued, so he could fix new and unexpectedly persistent issues: neither the headset nor the internal camera were working. And third, Zaira, our receptionist for roughly the past year, decided with her roommate that they were going to move to New York City—Brooklyn, to be at least 1/5 more specific—for apparenlty nothing more than the experience. She was set to fly out on Sunday (yesterday), and a very small get-together was planned for her on Friday afternoon, with a small spread of snacks to take out onto the patio.
Both Scott and Tracy happened to be in the office working that day, so I spent a fair time chatting with the two of them inside the office near their desks—all of us masked, of course (both Scott and I past our second vaccine shots; I believe Tracy is between shots).
Tracy was there clear until I left much later, around 6:00, but she did not join us out on the patio. I had forgotten that Adrienne's email sent out to invite people to Zaira's little goodbye-get-together had been BCCed to, as she had put it, "those of you who I know have spent more time with Zaira, either in the office on a regular basis and/or via her helping out with things in the office (scanning, courier related, etc.)" That did not specify being regulars on the weekly Office Lunch Meetup, but that could be the only reason she had included me on the recipient list for that email. Tracy, apparently, was not—she has only been on a couple of the weekly video chat hangouts, and I even asked her about this in person on Friday: it was quite the coincidence that she was there when I came in, as apparently she really only comes into the office to work about once a month.
So, Tracy had received the separate email inviting people to post to Zaira's onlune "KudoBoard" offering her well wishes—which I thought about adding to, but never did. I did search my Flickr account for photos of her I could use, and I only had a few screenshots with multiple people from Zoom calls, the only halfway decent one of her showing her twisting her lips in a kind of odd way. Anyway, I had thought the "Kudoboard" email was sent to the entire office, but that one had
also been send to a select group BCCed—and Tracy had received that one, but not the separate one inciting people to the patio party. Tracy felt strange about "not being invited," so she deliberately avoiding going out.
Scott said he may not have gotten the party invite, but he went outside to join us anyway. This would be a clear, key difference between Tracy's and Scott's personalities. I'm much more in Scott's camp with this, actually. I'm sure Zaira would have been happy to have Tracy join us, but, whatever.
Soon after I arrived, Adrienne was setting out plates of cheese and crackers. I had mixed feelings about this . . . I'm not sure we're quite at a point yet where any kind of "buffet style" spread is advisable. But, I was first to serve myself; I did not touch any of the food with my fingers; I am vaccinated—I feel like my risk was effectively minimized. And if cheese and crackers are available, you cannot keep me from them.
I also asked her about the number of people expected, and she mentioned how she had a maximum number of people she would have allowed, from those to whom she sent the invite. She said she had actually capped the number at 15—which indeed made me feel better; given the wide space out on the patio, that was an absolutely reasonable number. And that's
almost within
current Washington State Phase 2 guidelines: no more than 15 people at any outdoor gathering. Unfortunately, and I only realized this just now, the guideline still stipulates "limit two households." We
way exceeded that; in fact there had to have been as many households represented as there were people. In our defense (I suppose?), we did sit socially distanced; we were outside; and being Grocery workers, the majority of us were fully vaccinated, and probably all of us at least partially vaccinated.
So how many people actually were there? There was Zaira herself; Adrienne; Scott; Morgan; Marianne; Katherine; Teresa; Bridget; and myself, but maybe two or three other people who came out whose names I either don't know or have forgotten—so, maybe 10 or 11? Not too bad. And I must say: it was wonderful. Very small, but still the first in-person office gathering of any kind since 2019. And god damn, did I miss it: both hanging out with coworkers, and just being able to sit out on that patio on a beautiful, warm day. It had been so long.
When we first went out there, there was quite a lot of talk about belligerent customer phone calls Zaira has had to take on a regular basies, most of the examples discussed from just the previous couple of days. So, the replacement Receptionist who has already been hired, a young Black woman named Kwanteria, was witness to them, and given a taste of what she can look forward to. Note to self: I should email her and note that Zaira had attended many of the Office Lunch Meetups and hope she will too, if she is able.
Anyway, the hope had been that Andrew would have my laptop repaired by the time the party was done, and unfortunately, it wasn't. He was fairly certain that he finally figured out the problem, but I was still going to need to come back in over the weekend to pick it up, to give him more time to fix it. We had agreed I would come back into the office sometime midmorning on Sunday, but then when I asked if 10 a.m. worked, he yet again had to ask for more time—in the end, he had to reissue me yet another laptop. I guess they only have a few laying around, no other brand new ones at the moment, only other ones left behind by departing staff, and they like to keep those hard drives intact for a while just in case anything is needed. In the end, he had to transfer the content of former IT director Will's hard drive onto this wonky laptop I had been using for the past week, and then set up his laptop for me to use. Only then did the headset and camera finally work.
So, I met him at the office yesterday at about 2:30, once again riding my bike there—the weather was more than 20° above normal yesterday, a high in the upper seventies. It was a nice ride, bordering on
too hot. And way too hot for April in Seattle, that's for sure. And the forecast right now for my Birth Week is fucking overcast and rain! Why couldn't this weather happen then instead? Well, whatever. In any case, he needed me to log in on the computer a few times so get certain things installed, and the one bit of bad news was that, because of that hard drive content swap, he was unable to transfer all my tagged documents in Word and in Excel like he had been able to previously. Thankfully, I had already learned my lesson fro several years ago and took screenshots of what they all are, so that's not the hugest deal in the world. And since he had put these on a flash drive, he was actually able to transfer over all my work-computer Chrome bookmarks, which was amazing.
— चार हजार नौ सौ इकसठ —
— चार हजार नौ सौ इकसठ —
As for the rest of Friday, I had planned on watching and reviewing a movie that evening, but I had not counted on being at the office clear until 6:00 p.m., and I got back home only minutes before Shobhit got home from work. He preferred I defer my movie to Saturday morning, so we could watch a bunch of episodes of season two of
The Expanse instead.
This made Saturday quite the seriously packed day for me. I got out of bed early enough that I would be ready to start my movie by 8:30 a.m., when Shobhit would be on a study group call for his Project Management class. I watched the Netflix documentary feature film, front-runner for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar,
My Octopus Teacher, which is . . . fine. Solid B. But, it's maybe the least deserving of the Oscar.
I waited a little bit to write the review, so Shobhit and I could watch a couple episodes of season four of
The Larry Sanders Show before he left for work. I had asked if he wanted to watch one of the two episodes we had left of season two of
The Expanse, but he wanted to save that for the evening after his work shift, because watching just one episode would leave him wanting more.
I wrote the review after he left for work around 11:00. Not long after that, I met Alexia out in the hallway at 1:40, as she had texted me asking if I was up for a walk and should we finally try that Pizza place we've been contemplating for many months, on Madison and Boren—which we tried once before, but when we got there when they opened at 2:00 that time, their oven was not yet heated up. It has a rather generic name: "Italian Family Pizza." This time, we timed our walk so we would get there right when they opened; we placed our order; then walked down to the library downtown (so I could pick up a book and she could return a couple); then walked back. We had to wait several minutes and then they gave us our to-go orders.
I had shown Shobhit their paper menu we could take with us when Alexia and I had gone in there the first time, and he asked me to order him the "White Pie" in the larger size, which was huge—32 inches. I had a tote bag with my library book in it, and it turned out to be to small even for the personal pizza box size used for both Alexia's small pizza and my calzone. So, she carried the two small pizza boxes and the tote bag for me, and I carried the huge pizza box, a bit awkward as we walked the 0.7 miles back home, mostly back up Madison Street.
I suggested we eat our lunches together up on the rooftop deck of the Braeburn Condos, and Alexia loved that idea. I still needed to stop inside the condo, where I set down the huge pizza on the counter (the box wouldn't even fit fully on it), grabbed a paper towel and some utensils, made myself a quick margarita, and even quickly put on some sunscreen so I would not get sunburned.
We then spent the next hour or so at the little table up on the rooftop deck. A couple of other people were already up there on lounge chairs sunbathing, but we were able to keep a safe enough distance from them. It was really nice, just chilling up there with Alexia. She commented on how one of the silver linings of the pandemic has been becoming better friends with me over the past year, which was nice.
We went back down to our homes on the fourth floor just in time for me to leave for my hair appointment—my first since February 2020, the longest I have gone without a haircut for probably, I don't know, 15 years maybe? The long hair is now almost
all cut off. Honestly, I'm not crazy about the cut, although I do love how the color turned out.
I went back to Bang Seattle, which I had not gone to in a couple of years just because of the price, although in the past several years my best cuts have been fron there. What I did not count on was their prices having gone up multiple times sicne then, to the point that, with tip, it was
twice the cost it had been in 2018! Cut and color, and a separate fee for a toner thing used for hair coloring, altogether with what amounted to a $52, 20% tip, came to $312! I mean, that's barely cheaper than what I was once paying to see Madonna in concert. It seems kind of insane to me,
but: cost of living in Seattle is also insane, and I don't begrudge them charging those prices, honestly. They clearly have other clients that will pay it, otherwise they wouldn't be able to charge those prices.
I may or may not go back for a cut, but I am leaning toward making this my last color job. As I learned when I got it cut and colored last year, not even going to Renton where prices are supposed to be cheaper makes that big a difference: the cut itself was cheaper, yes, but adding the color still took the cost right up to close to $200. I had already been thinking I may never color it again, honestly, because I could no longer justify the cost—and using a box from Bartell Drugs, while I love the final look, makes my scalp hurt too much, for like two days straight! No, thank you. I know Shobhit loves my hair blond (and I quite like it too), but this is just ridiculous. The biggest reason I went ahead and did it again this year was mostly because I had skipped having any kind of hair apppointment in the fall due to COVID. Maybe
this will be my "last hurrah" for coloring.
I really thought Shobhit would shit a brick once I told him how much I had spent. To my amazement, he was largely unfazed. I still told him I probably won't ever do the color again.
Anyway, speaking of COVID, this place was very good with their precautions. They keep their door locked and only let in people with appointments; Kat, the woman who did my hair, took my temperature as soon as I came inside. She was one of only two hairdressers in there at the time, with a third employee cleaning up and stuff. They were all double masked (I technically wasn't; I was wearing one of my work-issued ones that has a separate filter layer underneath), and the only other thing that was notably difference was that, apparently due to state requirements, they have to cover your eyes while they wash your hair. Kat clearly knew from experience to warn me that once the towel was removed from my eyes, the light would be
very bright—and she was right.
Kat did a fantastic job with the back of my hair, but the top, front and sides are . . . okay. Maybe not quite as layered as I would have liked, but I have no idea how to tell her to do it differently. She did note that I might notice some minor fixes I'd like done after I style it my own way, which indeed happened yesterday, so now I have a 4:00 appointment this Friday. The hair on my right side is noticeably longer than the corresponding hair on the left, and I kind of can't handle that. So, Friday's going to be a busy one: the first day of my Birth Week, I pick up my car rental in the morning; I have the hair fix at 4:00, after which I will drive down to meet Gabriel, Lea and Tess at Dash Point State Park in Tacoma. I just hope it doesn't rain.
And that wasn't even the last of all I had to do on Saturday! The hair appointment took three hours and twenty minutes, and I
barely caught a #41 bus from downtown to Northgate, only managing it because I literally jogged half the way downtown, and the bus I got on was like eight minutes delayed, pulling up only about a minute after I got to the stop. I then met with Shobhit when he got off work at 8:30 at Big 5, and we drove to the Greenlake Village PCC to take advantage of a weekend Private Label promotion, plus get a discounted "veggie sliders" product I want to try that is on sale in April 10/$10 (I only bought three, having no idea how good they are) but for some reason not carried at the Central District store we now usually shop at.
Then we came home and watched those final two episodes of season two of
The Expanse.
— चार हजार नौ सौ इकसठ —
Yesterday, I watched and reviewed my sixth and final film from this year's virtual Seattle International Film Festival:
Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street. It was very good.
Andrew needing more time with my work laptop allowed me to get that done in the morning, after Shobhit had gone to work. Then, just when I started wondering what I would do with the rest of my day, Andrew emailed that he had come up with a solution for my laptop, and shortly after that I was biking back down to the office. Good thing, too! I am now, finally, working on a fully functioning laptop again.
It was 2:30 when I got to the office, and it was around 4:00 by the time I got back home again. I spent a pretty good amount of time re-setting up a bunch stuff on my laptop so I would not have to cut into my work day today doing it, most notably re-setting the pinned tabs in my web browsers, but alsp re-pinning some of the documents in Excel and folders in Explorer. I have a lot of those still left to do, but I'm well on my way. My desktop slideshow images and my lock screen image are set again now too, so things feel mostly back to normal with it.
Shobhit was supposed to get off work yesterday at 6 p.m. and he even hoped maybe we could go down to the beach on Lake Washington and get himself a Social Review point in the warm weather, but, alas, the store got short staffed and he had to work until closing at 7:30. I had my dinner on my own time, and this gave me time to watch both this week's episode of
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+, and the premiere episode of the HBO miniseries
Mare of Easttown. I was in the midde of that when Shobhit got home, and then we watched
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver while it was actually airing. Soon after that I was finally getting ready for bed.
— चार हजार नौ सौ इकसठ —
Oh, and one last thing: today is Gabriel's 44th birthday, and I went in with Lea and Many on getting him a Cameo video—by Ahmed Best, the actor who played Jar Jar Binks. It was
way too expensive to pay for on my own, but when I suggested last month to Lea and Mandy that we split the cost three ways, they were all for it. I've actually had it in the can for several weeks, but I texted it out to him (on a thread with Lea and Mandy) this morning. He loved it.
Anyway, I did select for it to be available online, so the 40-second video can be viewed
here.
— चार हजार नौ सौ इकसठ —
[posted 12:29 pm]
