The Last of Ivan / Seattle Pride in the Park 2022

Shobhit, Ivan and I all went out for pho' for dinner Friday night, basically our last "traditional" dinner type with Ivan for who knows how long—he flew out to Philadelphia on the red eye late last night. Back when Ivan lived with us, both of the last two times he did actually, he would often suggest pho' for going out for dinner. Pho' was just one of his things. I rarely think to get pho' on my own, but I do like it and was nearly always down when Ivan suggested it, just as he did for Friday. In fact I kept my calendar free Friday evening with the full expectation that he would suggest going out for dinner, and it's not at all surprising that he suggested pho'. Shobhit did say he'd like to join for pho;, texting me from work on Friday, clarifying that it was fine if I wanted to get my last dinner alone with Ivan. I saw no particular need for that, though, so when Ivan messaged me asking if we could do dinner at 6:30, I told him we needed to wait for Shobhit and so he shifted it to 6:45. That gave us basically just enough time for Shobhit to get home, change is clothes, and then for us to walk over there and meet Ivan, although we were about five minutes late. We actually ran into him on a corner on Broadway a couple of blocks from the restaurant we were aiming for, so we walked the rest of the way there. Ivan always liked going to this place across the street from Broadway Market on Broadway called "The Pho'." We got there, only to discover the place has been converted into a new, Korean restaurant—even though the "The Pho" sign was still on the wall above the entrance. I had no idea The Pho' had closed, or when; it appears to have been just recently, albeit with the same owners who took over The Pho' in early 2020. But, they are Koren and apparently always wanted to make and sell Korean food, so now that's what they're doing. That's not what Ivan (and I) wanted, though, and none of us really wanted Koren. Ivan and I both whipped out our phones to find another pho' place, and found another one just a couple of blocks further north. It's called Pho' Than Brothers, and guess what? Their pho' was excellent, notably better than The Pho's ever was. That said, that block on Broadway was striking how much had changed. We noticed for the first time that Wedgewood II Vegetarian Thai has also closed, as of May 1; and we were fairly shocked to see even that blocks' Pagliacci Pizza closed, although I must have already known that and forgot, because that location's planned closure was covered in 2019 and they have a new location on Pike Street. Nevertheless, it was striking to see three storefronts in succession on the same block, no longer looking like they all did for many years. Once we got over to Pho' Than Brothers, we all got different sizes, making me think of us as the Three Bears, just in sizes instead of temperature: I got the small vegetarian pho' (which is frankly already in a plenty-big bowl); Ivan got the medium; and Shobhit got the large. They even have an extra large, but Shobhit wound up putting half of his in a container to bring home as it was. At Shobhit's suggestion, we then walked over to Pie Bar on Olive Way off Bellevue, for dessert. "I always have room for dessert," Ivan said, and so off we went, walking in the very light rain. Ivan got the mud pie, which he let me have a bite of; it was delicious—but, even though it's exactly what Shobhit and I had the last time we were there, I was almost unprepared for how spectacular the slice of multi-berry "Desserted Island Crumble." Holy fuck, it was good. Neither of us really needed to order cocktails along with it (Ivan didn't have a drink), but we did. Shobhit's, a chocolate concoction, was much tastier than my "apple pie toddy." I think these might also have been the same drinks he and I ordered the last time we were there. Anyway, it rained only slightly heavier, but still lightly, as we walked home from there, and then spent the rest of the evening watching the new Hulu film release Fire Island, which I then reviewed and posted (solid B) yesterday morning. I didn't expect to see much of Ivan yesterday, even though he was going to be around all day before his red eye; he had initially booked a winery tour that included a stop at Snoqualmie Falls, which apparently he'd never been to, yesterday. But, he fell behind on his last-minute errands Friday and so he called them to rebook for yesterday instead. That made for quite a busy last day for him, I'm sure. His tour didn't leave until 10 a.m., though, so I got a bit of quiet time with him after Shobhit left for work but before Ivan left for his tour, which was nice. There was a brief period there when I thought I might actually be attending Seattle Pride's first "Pride in the Park" since 2019 (excluding the very similar event they held there last October) with Alexia, Shobhit and Ivan. Shobhit really went back and forth, but after his tire replacement could not happen until Tuesday which meant not even being able to leave work on the bus until 5:30, he wound up not coming, especially after he texted to ask me if it was worth it and I said it was the same as October, just more people. Ivan really just followed a typical trajectory here: telling me he was interested in joining for something, continuing to say so, until bailing at the last minute. He messaged me later yesterday that he was running behind and suggesting Alexia and I go on without him and he "may stop by briefly," and I knew then that was not going to happen. But, whatever. At least I had Alexia to go with, and she seemed to have a pleasant enough time I'm just glad we're back to holding traditional in-person Pride events this year. Pride's website has a great resource list for Pride events all over the region all summer, actually, so my Pride collection of photo albums this year may wind up being of record size. I've already got my "Seattle Pride in the Park" photo album, anyway (in the past they called it "Volunteer Park Pride Festival," but whatever), although it only yielded 25 shots. These 'Pride Picnic" photo albums never wind up being very big anyway. The whole thing was, as I already noted, striking similar—virtually identical—to the event they put on last October, even with the live music stage in the same grassy area over by the Volunteer Park Conservatory. This is clearly because the remodeled Volunteer Park Amphitheater still isn't opened, due to the concrete workers strike. The latest I have found online is that, after an initially published opening date of 2021, they expect to open in June of this year! I'll be surprised if that actually happens, but I guess we'll see. No other Pride events are scheduled for this park, incidentally; all the "Capitol Hill Pride" events on Pride Weekend occur on Broadway or in Cal Anderson Park. So, Alexia and I just made the rounds through all the booths—there were more booths this time, for sure, than there had been in October; but plenty less than in previous years—and grabbed freebies wherever we could. I got a couple packets of applesauce. Exciting! Shobhit would be a lot more aggressive with this stuff, but there still wasn't as great a loot on hand as there has been in the past either. Whatever, it was fine. In a couple of cases there were lines that were just too long for us to have time for, such as for the "Lovers" sex toys booth, where they were, I think, giving away masturbatory devices. I even got a largely unreadable shot of that booth's hanging letters that spelled out MASTURBATE. I actually went back into Flickr this morning and captioned all the photos in the photo album. Most of my Birth Week photo albums remain uncaptioned, but at least this one is done. It's so hard to keep up with the captioning anymore. The one long line Alexia and I did stand in was for dumplings at the Dumpling Tzar food truck. This was well worth it; my potato dumplings topped with melted cheese and shredded cheese were delicious. We sat at a semi-secluded picnic table to eat, and then we walked home, with the aim of getting back before Ivan would be headed out for the airport at about 7:00. Ivan was still packing when I got home, which was kind of astonishing. He left with just three bags, all of them rollers, but two traditional suitcases and one he could carry as a backpack. It was still just around 7:10 when he was ready to go. Because it was raining more heavily then, he was going to get a Lyft, but Shobhit suggested I offer to give him a ride to the Light Rail station, so I did—even though once again I would be driving on the spare tire, but at least the station is only half a mile away. Besides, quite unlike when he left for Victoria on May 1, this allowed for not just a proper goodbye, but a private one between just the two of us, which left me feeling very satisfied with his departure. He actually did also give Shobhit a hug when we left the condo, which was sweet. Shobhit was like, "Have a nice life!" Ivan just said thank you. When I pulled up to the south entrance of the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station, pulling to the curb on the nearby side street between the station and Cal Anderson Park, I got out and helped take all of his bags out—one out of the backseat (set atop a bunch of the stuff that usually goes in the trunk but won't be put back until the tire is fixed), and two out of the trunk. With the slightly nervous laughter that he always accompanies his major goodbyes (and reuniting hellos) with, Ivan gave me one last hug, and said yet again, "Thank you, for everything." Then he also said something somewhat surprising and odd: "I'll see you in two years." He even held up two fingers when he said it, in a tone that suggested that was his current plan. He'll come back for a visit in two years. I told him that as always, so long as there's no one else staying or living in the guest room when he visits, he always has a free place to stay. As for his "two years" declaration, though, take that with the tiniest of grains of salt. Ivan can change what his plans are by the hour, let alone by the day or by the month. How he envisions his 2024, which is far further off than anything he ever definitively plans, might very well be wildly different next week than it is now. Based on his historic patterns, though, I do feel it unlikely he will go more than two years before visiting again, but, you never know. He's spent so much time focusing his attentions on the West Coast, has for many years in fact, but now he has his sights on Upstate New York and New England. In all likelihood, he'll get a nursing job, feel okay with it for a few months, then get sick of it like he does all his jobs, and randomly choose some other place to go. For all I know, he could visit again within the year. Probably not. But if I've hard-learned anything about Ivan, it's that there's no holding him to any of his plans for any extended period of time, at least not until he has actual tickets booked. It's for this reason that I feel less sad about this goodbye than previous ones: I am far more sure than ever that I will see him again. I just don't know when. I still think I am likely his longest-lasting close friend at this point, and he knows I can be relied upon as a friend. He would not go out of his way to say such a thing to me, ever, but that's fine. I'm content to know it to be true. So, once I was back to the condo, I texted Alexia that we were ready for her to come over and watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. She and I basically made a plan for her to wait to come over until Ivan and I had said our goodbyes, just so we didn't add any stress or pressure to Ivan on his departure with yet another person present. I think this was a good and effective plan. Alexia brought over goodies: a fruit salad she suggested I blend to make piña coladas for Shobhit and me, which I did indeed do and they were fucking delicious; and a box of many sugar cookies, which I ate too many of. I weighed in at 168.9 lbs this morning, which is about enough to give me a panic attack. I need to lay off the sweets and the alcohol for a while. Jesus Christ. Watching the movie was a lot of fun, as expected. We all already have tickets booked for opening night of Jurassic Park: Dominion on Thursday evening after work. We're all looking forward to it. Alexia has delighted in all of these films, only the first one of which had she ever already seen. And, it has been a lot of fun rewatching them all with her. [posted 12::08 pm]

a month of tying loose ends

— पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे — For the first time in nearly two decades, I have started thinking—and writing—about no longer reviewing every movie I see in a theater, especially if it has a middle-ground grade that renders it an inconsequential movie that few to any people are likely to bother even considering. For now, it seems, I still just can't help myself. What if someone out there is still interested in reading my review? Now that I have a web domain on a service that provides Google analytics, I have found some surprising reviews have gotten a comparatively large number of hits. My review of Halston from 2019 continues to get regular hits, and is by far my most-read review since I started fruitcakeenterprises.com in July 2017; it has more than double the traffic of my second-most viewed review (First Reformed from 2018). As such, I never know what movie people might actually be interested in reading about, for even a few years afterward, and regardless of the grade I give it. Some rando left a very snotty comment on my Halston review, by the way. That was kind of entertaining. Anyway! None of this is necessarily good enough reason to continue spending so much energy for so little return on investment, but as I said, this is a habit very, very hard to break. So, even though I gave Memoria a solid C, I wrote over 1400 words about it; and last night's movie, You Won't Be Alone, I gave a B-minus, and I still wrote more than 900 words about that one. Someone might still want to read about it! Like, when it comes to their local market, or whatever. I went with Ivan. It was our first genuinely social outing outside of the condo (so, excluding when we watch movies together at home) since we went to Neko Cat Café on December 29. We might otherwise have done something together since, except that I purposefully did not go out for nearly the entire month of January while the Omicron wave peaked. And then, I guess, there just never was anything in particular that interested both of us to go out and do in either February or March. I did try to get him to see a movie with me in March, which in typical fashion he strung me along for some time feigning interest and then bailed at the last minute. That was a movie he would have hated anyway. (Compartment No. 6, which, incidentally, was fine but not great, and was part of my starting to reevaluate whether I should continue mothering to review all of these movies.) I had walked downtown and then decided to catch a bus the rest of the way up the hill, to give me some extra time. Ivan had told me he would be going on a hike, which was why he asked to change our plan from the 4:45 showing (which I would have preferred as I could then just walk right over after work) to 7:45 as he didn't think he would be back in time. And when he was still gone when I got home, I really thought maybe he wouldn't make it to the movie after all. But then he came in while I was making veggie burgers for dinner, and he said, "Are we still going to the movie?" I said, "That's up to you." And he said, "Well yes, or I wouldn't have asked." Okay snotty: you're the one who consistently bails on me at the last minute, otherwise I wouldn't respond like that. Anyway! I told him we'd need to catch the #8 at 15th & John at 6:57, assuming the bus was on time. Then Ivan took his dear sweet time, even after checking the clock after he was done washing the dishes from his own dinner. He went into the bathroom and . . . brushed his teeth. Seriously? I decided, whatever. I wasn't all that invested in this movie anyway, and just used it as an idea for him and me to do together. I figured he would be very interested as it includes two very big interests of his—witches and Eastern Europe—and I was right. Still, when he finally started putting on his shoes, I said, "If this bus is on time, we're going to miss it." It was scheduled to arrive at the stop in about three minutes at that point, and it takes at least seven minutes to walk over there. He acted like he didn't realize he was running late. "But, maybe it's late," I said. "Or, we'll just catch the next one." If the next one were even close to on time, we'd still get into the theater before the trailers were done, so, whatever. I didn't even bother trying to rush over there. And then, like absolute magic, the #8 we wanted was a few minutes late, and it pulled up literally at the moment we arrived at the bus stop. We got on and Ivan started tying his shoes. "Good thing I didn't tie my shoes before we left!" he said. — पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे — — पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे — I did get a few questions answered while on the bus ride down to the theater. I asked if he yet knew the exact date he'll be leaving to move out, and he did: May 1. He wants to spend a couple of weeks exploring Vancouver Island, and will be catching the 7:30 a.m. Victoria Clipper boat to Victoria, British Columbia on Sunday, May 1—the day after both his and my birthday. On April 30, I will be 46 and he will be 37. It's weird to think of Ivan as moving squarely into middle-age; I've known him eight years as of this month, and when we first met he was still only 28 (though he turned 29 two weeks later). I've known him long enough for him to be one of my "young friends" and then move into an older phase of his life: a few pounds gained, a lot more experiences and travels under his belt, three different stints living in our guest room. I even told him last night, "I'm not saying I expect this, but after a few or several years, I won't be surprised if you wind up living with us again. The last time you left, I was convinced you'd never live with us again, after all. And here you are." He was just like, "You never know." I do have a minor theory that, after some more years of moving all over the place by himself and still not making any lasting connections with people (though to be clear, I still hope he does make such connections and would be very happy for him if he did), a certain kind of loneliness may make him decide to return again. I think that was very much a factor in his decision to return after feeling isolated for a year in New Zealand—even though it took another year for him to move back in with us again, but that had to do with what work he could find. Honestly whether he never lives with us again or he does come back eventually, I'm fine with either eventuality. The bottom line is that I have learned not to think of anything whatsoever as permanent when it comes to Ivan—including the idea that he's "leaving Seattle permanently," as he put it when he informed me of this last week. I'm digressing a bit. I could swear he said the cruise is two weeks, but I could also swear he said he departs Vancouver on May 15 and returns the 25th which is only 10 days. Either he's rounding or he gave me a wrong date; he does do that sometimes, giving me details that don't jibe with each other. According to him, anyway, his Vancouver Island + Alaska cruise terminates back in Vancouver, B.C. on May 25, after which he still doesn't know what he's going to do, aside from look for travel nursing jobs. He is considering New England, apparently; maybe Vermont. He said there are shortages everywhere. I asked if there were shortages in more than ERs and hospitals, which he has always refused to work in as a nurse, and he said yes, every area of nursing has shortages. I asked if he had a long term plan for all his stuff. He's had three boxes of stuff in our storage unit literally since the last time he moved out—in 2018, four years ago. I once mentioned it over Messenger when he was still in California, after his return from New Zealand, and he seemed to get just slightly defensive: "COVID changed my plans you know." At that point, we thought he was just coming for a visit last July, and it wasn't even until he arrived that he found a job and decided definitively that he would just live with us again for the time being. I think he probably remembers that exchange, though, and perhaps anticipated that we would not appreciate just being used as a storage facility for the foreseeable future. He told me that what he doesn't give away, he's "shipping back east," to his parents' house in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He did ask if we wanted to keep the furniture in his room, evidently forgetting that for all intents and purposes, we kept the bed and the dresser for ourselves when he left in 2018, at which time we also thought he'd never be back again. Of course, we'd like to still keep those. He commented, and this was far from the first time he had done so, how much he likes that mattress. We had people stay over and sleep in that bed several times between his departure in 2018 and the onset of the pandemic in 2020, so several other people have slept in it (including Uncle David and Mary Ann, one weekend in May 2018—the last time they visited Seattle), but I never have. Ivan used to have what felt like very nice memory foam pillows which he has since replaced with regular ones; I only just ordered a memory foam pillow for myself, in an effort to relieve intermittent neck pain, and it arrived yesterday. I've slept on it only once now, and I slept surprisingly deeply last night even though I did not have it quite formed the way I want yet. It feels like it's still tilting my head up too much, but I think I can work on getting it more ideally sculpted. In any event, one of his projects for this month is to evacuate all his stuff from the condo, with the exception of the bed and dresser. He hasn't put in his notice at work yet but plans to in the coming week, he said. Hopefully we can do at least one more dinner at Saffron Grill with him and Alexia before the month is out. I was thinking last night about the likelihood that it was the last movie he and I go see together before he leaves. It's still early(ish) April, but a lot of things have to align for us to see a movie together: my own availability, a day he has off of work, a movie we're both particularly interested in. I'll be surprised if it happens again by May 1. It remains weird to think about, how much I enjoy having him around, how much I'll miss him, but also how much I love it when Shobhit and I have the condo to ourselves. Ivan took a three-night trip to Portland last weekend and we got used to it very quickly—so much so that yesterday morning I almost walked out into the kitchen nude when I first woke up, then had to catch myself: oh right, Ivan is home. Shobhit's finances will take a significant hit without Ivan's rent, but maybe doing without it will be a bigger motivator for Shobhit's search for a better job. Plus, he's got money getting transferred from Indian accounts, which will provide a notable financial cushion, for a while at least. — पांच हजार एक सौ नब्बे — [posted 12:20 pm]