— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्तर —
I did plenty over the weekend, as usual, but the absolute highlight was going to the new
Ocean Pavilion addition to the Seattle Aquarium, a completely new building across the pedestrian walkway from the original building on Pier 59. It reportedly cost
$160 million to construct, includes coral they have been growing specifically for this project for
ten years, and presumably is a significant reason for the
steep ticket prices: although they can be as low as $36.95 if you purchase at least two weeks in advance for a weekday ticket, we went on a Saturday and I was not able to purchase the tickets until Wednesday, only three days in advance. This pushed the price up to $44 per ticket, and thus I spent a total of $88 for Shobhit's and my tickets.
Shobhit was rather annoyed when he heard this, insisting it was not worth it. I believed it would be, I still think it was, and I even think it was worth it for Shobhit. He would never say it was worth that price, but as I told him, it's not like we do this one frequently—in fact that was my first time back to the Seattle Aquarium
since 2016. Eight years ago! (Until I was literally writing this and I checked my excel sheet of transaction history, I thought it was 10 years ago when I went with Danielle and Morgan—but I had forgotten to add the Christian Visit 2016 album to the Seattle Aquarium albums collection . . . until now.) When I took Christian in 2016, the cost for both of us together was $60.85. Granted, that was one adult and one child, but was likely still a bit expensive even for then. U.S. inflation has gone up about 31% since 2016; I paid 44.6% more this past weekend than I did in 2016. It should be noted, howeer, that $60.85 in 2016 had the vale of $79.75 in 2024 dollars. This means that adjusted for inflation, I paid all of 10.3% more this past weekend than I did in 2016, and that barely makes any difference especially considering I paid for one adult and one child in 2016 and for two adults in 2016. Also . . . damn! I just checked the price difference currently between Adult and Youth (age 4-12) tickets, and Youth tickets are only 40% the price of Adult tickets. This would have to mean that, in real value, I spent
less on Seattle Aquarium tickets this past weekend than I did in 2016.
You know what this reveals to me? That not even Shobhit is immune to skewed perception of prices when not accounting for inflation. The price of Seattle Aquarium tickets are not actually that outrageous. Now granted, he surely would have declared them too expensive in 2016 as well, but I see that as beside the point. He actually kind of got over his incredulousness fairly quickly, and you know what? He quite clearly had a very good time. We were only there about two hours—which means it cost us $44 per hour—and he was very engaged and having fun the whole time. And I always really enjoy being able to watch Shobhit having fun.
Anyway, I had actually originally planned to go to the Seattle Aquarium's new Ocean Pavilion with Danielle. It seemed like a perfect thing to get us to hang out together and do something fun, much like we did at the
Museum of Illusions in late July. The new facility had its grand opening on Friday last week, August 30, but Danielle was working that weekend so we settled on this weekend. At first we looked at Sunday, while Shobhit was working. But, when I saw that Shobhit did not work Saturday until 5:00, he expressed interest in joining us—at that time, I did not tell him how much tickets were, and it was still early enough that I did not know for sure what the final price would be anyway.
I don't know what's going on with Danielle this week, but she kind of got wishy-washy by midweek, after I had texted her I would like to buy the tickets because the price goes up the less far in advance you buy. I texted her on Tuesday and she said she'd get back to me because she wanted to see if Rylee would like to join us, which I thought was a great idea. I hadn't heard back by Wednesday midafternoon so I followed up again, and then she texted back,
So...I'm getting sick and questioning Saturday. Just buy your tickets and I'll figure my stuff out later. So, that's what I did. And, by Wednesday night they were $44 apiece. Had I bought them even a week earlier, I'd have saved at least $5 per ticket.
I told her I hoped she felt better Saturday, which was sincere. And she must have been because quite late Friday night she texted to ask if I was still going to the Aquarium at 11 a.m. (this had always been the plan, to accommodate Shobhit and his desire to be back home in plenty of time to get ready for work) or if I was flexible on time. I did not hear back from her again until two hours after I texted her that Shobhit and I were walking down to the Aquarium on Saturday morning. As you likely surmised, she did not make it.
I was really glad I was able to make the plan with Shobhit. I was bummed I didn't get to hang out with Danielle, but I have literally been eager to see this new Ocean Pavilion for
years (I can remember seeing early renderings, when it looked like a giant glass bowl; the largest tank in it kind of still is that—but
inside a boxed structure.) And my personal assessment is: it did not disappoint.
The
photo album yielded 53 shots, by a pretty wide margin the most photos I have ever taken at one visit to the Seattle Aquarium—36 of them were taken at Ocean Pavilion alone. Mind you, nearly all of the other photo albums merely include shots of the Aquarium as part of a broader theme: one of four different niece or nephew visits (Braeden was the only one of Christopher's children not taken to the Seattle Aquarium, as the kids stopped being able to come after Braeden only had one visit), or two PCC Holiday Parties in 2004 and 2005. The only other photo album specific
only to the Aquarium was when I went with Danielle and Rylee in 2014 (ten years ago!), and that album has only 26 shots in it.
As it happens, this is also by far the longest I've gone between visits, mostly because of the kids no longer visiting: I was there for one reason or another each year between 2003 and 2006; had a three year break until 2009; then two years later in 2011; three years later in 2014; two years after that in 2016. Now it's been eight years since then. I'm probably good for another decade or so, but I was sure glad I got to go. It as very fun and I got a lot of great photos.
And that was all of two hours out of my weekend. But it was still definitely the highlight!
— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्तर —
— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्तर —
The other two days, of course, were characterized by movie going. Friday evening I went to see
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, with not one, not two, but
three friends. Had Shobhit not been working and could have joined us, we would have been five! But even at four: I can't remember the last time I went to a movie with that many people. Certainly since before covid, which takes us back to at least 2019, and I'm betting it was a year or two even before that, if not longer.
The amusing thing, to me, was that they were three friends who have only ever met through me, and are each wildly different from both the other two: Laney (known since 2000; good friends since 2004), Alexia (known since 2007, good friends since 2020), and Tracy (known and good friends since 2020). Both Alexia and Laney later told me they really like Tracy and think she's funny.
I kind of felt like Laney maybe liked the movie a little better than the rest of us, but by and large we were all on the same page with: it was . . . okay. Overstuffed and uneven, but with lots of very fun and funny parts. Tracy didn't seem to be the biggest fan of Baby Beetlejuice, but I thought it was hilarious. I didn't care for what they did with Winona Ryder's character of Lydia. And we all agreed that the 1988 original
Beetlejuice was a
far better movie.
The four of us stood together to discuss the movie for a few minutes on the ground floor of Pacific Place after the movie, and then Alexia broke off to find a restroom and then drive home to Issaquah. Tracy then offered to give both Laney and me a ride home, dropping Laney off on Broadway. Tracy and I only sat in her car and chatted for a few minutes, but we did talk about how she wanted to come up with something for us to hang out and do on Capitol Hill.
— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्तर —
I saw Alexia again just the next day, as we scheduled a movie watch for that evening, or more like late afternoon: Shobhit had left for work by 4:30, which was the time we settled on for her to come over, and see the latest in our Harrison Ford-athon:
Ender's Game.
Alexia is clearly a fan of the novel on which it's based, which she said she's read at least three times! We both found the movie compelling but a little rushed, with not-great acting except for Asa Butterfield, who has been impressing me for years, since he was a kid even younger than he was in this movie.
We had leftover lentil and eggplant that Shobhit made the day before, with some rice, and Alexia happily partook for dinner with me while watching the movie. I fried us up a couple frozen parathas each to have with it. We both found it quite satisfying.
— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्तर —
Yesterday Laney and I had
hoped to go see a movie called
I'll Be Right There, starring Edie Falco as a lesbian, but for some bizarre reason it's playing only elsewhere in the Puget Sound region—closest about 30 miles to the south—and nowhere in Seattle proper. What the fuck is that about?
So then, because she had seen many positive reviews, she suggested we go see
Longlegs, in which Nicolas Cage plays a demonic serial killer. I had been actively avoiding it both because of the horror genre and because of disappointment expressed in podcasts I listen to, but with no better option yesterday, I agreed.
We met at the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station, and got to the AMC 10 in the U District a solid half hour early, leaving us to wait on one of the couches outside the screening room for a few minutes so
Alien Romulus could finish. We then went in, a little nervous about how scary it might be . . . only to discover it never really got scary at all. Neither was it particularly good. We both left the theater agreeing that the movie was overhyped and overrated. But hey, it gave us something to do!
We took Light Rail back, I walked home from the station, wrote my review, and had some leftovers again for dinner. I took a cocktail with me to the movie and even though I only put two shots of vodka in it, it nearly knocked me out. I nodded off several times during the movie, and over the course of the rest of the day I needed to drink two cans of Zevia zero-calorie soda and one glass of water. Shobhit got an extra hour of work being out for deliveries, but once he got home we barely had time to watch two epsidoes of
Pachinko on Apple TV, finishing out season one; and this week's episode of
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. After that it was time for bed.
— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्तर —
Oh, just one other thing to tell you about yesterday: I wore my maroon(ish) shorts and a green T-shirt, so I decided to wear my green dangle earrings that are shaped like leaves. When I pulled out the box full of earrings, popping open the lid to one of the compartments (I currently store all my earrings in pill boxes), it bounced and one of my smaller silver hoop earings popped right out—and into the sink drain!
Fuck!
Thankfully, the pipe under the sink has the catch-curve design and is comprised of plastic pieces easily disassembled with round clasps that screw to tighten or untighten. I took everything out of that cupboard, put a bucket under the pipe, and turned off the water levers that are down there. The whole thing was surprisingly easy to take apart and then put back together—and I got the earring back! I would say "I am so butch" except that whoever designed these sinks made it easy enough for a child to figure out.
— पांच हजार छह सौ सत्तर —
[posted 12:32 pm]
