So, yesterday was the annual Tree Lighting Celebration at Westlake Center, which happens every year the day after Thanksgiving. And, if I happen to be in town, I always go. Sometimes with Shobhit, sometimes by myself—but this year, Danielle joined me. She had driven from her home in Rento up to Seattle—a 32-minute drive without traffic; it can take as much as 45-50—for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, drove back home that night, and then drove back into Seattle yet again yesterday. To be fair, I have no idea how inclined she would have been to come back the very next day if not for a client she already had scheduled in Ballard, for her new side hustle giving people IV infusions, so she was going to be back in Seattle again yesterday regardless.

Either way, it made two days in a row we hung out, a rare thing indeed. We even pondered, while we were together last night, how long ago it might have been since the last time that happened. And, before I started writing this post, I figured it out, so I could send her this series of texts:

I scoured my archives to figure this out: the last time we hung out two days in a row, we had to travel together to do it: Las Vegas, September 29 - Ocotober 1, 2019. So, that was actually three days in a row!
Last time we hung out two days in a row in Seattle? March 8 & 9, 2019, when we went to the Smith Tower observatory, because you stayed the night.
But! Even that's not quite the same, is it? The last time we hung out two days in a *without* traveling *or* spending the night at either of each other's places was ... August 22 & 23, 2015! That was when, the first day, you came to Seattle for the outdoor movie showing of Edward Scissorhands at Cal Anderson Park; the next day, I took transit down to Renton to go to the "Ho Ho Ho Down" summer Christmas themed party at your friend's house
I just spend a stupidly inordinate amount of time figuring this out

Side note: you cannot embed links in text, obviously. I just included them for reference purposes in this post.

Anyway. I had originally planned to take myself to a movie yesterday afternoon, but when Danielle said her appointment in Ballard would end around 3:00, I knew I wouldn't have time to see the movie and write the review, so I bumped the movie to today instead.

I certainly managed to keep myself busy until she got here otherwise, though. First, I uploaded my Thanksgiving photos to Flickr, then I wrote my blog post about it. And after that, I went down to the storage unit in the garage, and brought up all the Christmas decorations. I put up the Christmas lights around the windows, and then set up the Christmas Tree—now the ninth year I have used that artificial white tree. That makes a record for a single tree, as the much taller, green artificial tree I had between 1998 and 2005 was eight years; the tiny, potted live tree I kept far longer than I should have was between 2006 and 2013, also eight years. I've had this white tree, which looks largely pink with multicolored lights on it, since 2014. Eight plus eight plus nine, that makes 25 Christmases in Seattle to date (or, technically, once Christmas Day actually arrives this year). Damn. I'm getting old.

I did something slightly different with it this year, deciding to stand it on top of the usually-unused tall white wire chair that has been standing next to our entertainment center for ages (I can't even remember when or where the hell we got that, or why). I actually found a perfect wooden board, from one of the several boxes Shobhit brought home from Total Wine & More for his gardening, to set on top of the stretched-wire seat so it would be more stable. I should probably get a detail shot of the chair and stand for future reference.

In any case, with only one exception with this tree, I have always stood it in front of the southwest-facing Bay Window, theorizing that it was easier to see from the street at an angle; centering it in the middle of the bay windows would only have a maximized view from the building across the street. The one exception to this before now was 2020, when I did center it in the bay windows, and I don't even remember why. Perhaps because we were still in stay-home orders and even by December in 2020 not as many people were out traveling the streets? I mean, there were still plenty. But whatever: I did that again this year, as you can see in the photo at the top of this post. Standing it on the wire chair was new this year, though, and so was putting the love seat right in front of it, rather than scooting it to the side like I always did in the past. Also, using the chair allowed me to keep use of both of the end tables for lamps; in years past, I always had to clear one of those end tables for the tree. I actually think this works better.

This was also the first time in ages that I hung the musical bells strung along the nails near the ceiling on the TV wall—something that was visible in the original photo before I cropped it to an aspect ratio more to my liking for Flickr. For at least the past seven years, I have strung another line of Christmas lights up there instead. The most recent year in which there weren't lights up there that I can find is 2014. It doesn't show the bells though, and I just spent way too much more time trying to find a photo showing them, and coming up short. Oh well.

I did have to throw away a string of lights that wouldn't work. In another year or two I'll probably have to buy more. I do still have plenty though, and am not using all that I have. I listened to Christmas music while I set everything up, including my classic "Christmas the Way It Was Meant to be Heard" playlist, which used to be a cassette recording of songs from Mom's Christmas records. I digitized it many years ago, complete with the record surface noise and occasional skips that have long been a part of my nostalgic listening of those songs. They also always make me think of Mom, though, so hearing it is often very bittersweet. This is now the third Christmas since Mom died.

Danielle's dad, Reg, died five years before my mom did, so he died in 2015. It was very difficult for Danielle, in what I would call a very different way from my processing of Mom's death. Still, every once in a while something will trigger a weird pang of grief when reminding me of her, and these Christmas songs can be an example of that. I thought about asking Danielle yesterday if she still experiences that sort of thing with the memory of her dad. Then I totally spaced it and never did ask her. It may have been best not to anyway, I don't know. Having Christmastime be a trigger for memory of death is a strange thing.

Shobhit knew Danielle and I would not be home before he got home from work, and he knew I had let Danielle into the garage to park in our spot while she was here. She had said she was going to try and make Rylee come along for this, and I totally expected her to be coming, so I made three hot chocolates to go—and then Danielle showed up alone. I left one of the tumblers full of hot chocolate for Shobhit, which he never drank, and he let me take it to my movie today. I poured it into a mug to reheat in the microwave before leaving, but it also had vegan marshmallows sitting in it since yesterday. So, protip: don't do that. It totally disintegrated and separated what had been left of the vegan marshmallows, making a very weird sort of separated-elements hot chocolate.

The hot chocolates Danielle and I had yesterday were very tasty though. Danielle asked if there was booze in them, and I said, "There is in mine!" I had added two shots of peanut butter whiskey to mine. When I thought Danielle was coming with Rylee, though, I didn't bother putting booze in hers. But, I then put three shots of rum in hers, and a third shot of peanut butter whiskey in mine. I had mine done shortly after we got downtown.

We walked, both of us bringing umbrellas, because it had been raining and was still lightly raining when we left. I had already told her that the forecast had the rain stopping between 4:00 and 5:00, though, and that forecast held. I was very happy about that; it made for a brisk, dry evening for the celebration at Westlake Center.

"I'm so glad I didn't ditch you," Danielle said—no fewer than five or six times yesterday, or some variation of it. When she woke up in the morning and it was raining she considered canceling. I'm also really glad she didn't. She was also super happy to get the exercise out of walking downtown and back. We even walked all the way down to Victor Steinbrueck Park, via Pike Place Market (under a stunning sunset). She wanted to smoke a joint there at the park for a few minutes. We then turned and made our way back to Westlake Park.

We had a lovely time, and I was thrilled to have someone to join me, as otherwise I would have just gone by myself, as I have done many years in the past. The key difference this time was I wasn't walking straight there from work, and was able to walk at a leisurely pace (although to be fair, Danielle kept asking me to slow down; I'm a fast walker) from home. I'm now writing this on Saturday night, only one day left before I return back to work on Monday. And although I'm happy to be getting back to work, this was the first time I have taken a full week off of work for anything other than travel or my Birth Week. Although I still had plenty to keep me busy, some of it was actually still going to movies (today's was the third I saw this week), and a lot of it was finishing up this year's calendars. Whatever the case, this was a "staycation" that I truly loved, and which proved that I would have no issue with being retired and filling my time. Write a novel? Ha! Good luck finding time for that anymore, with this lifestyle.

The ceremony itself did not seem to last all that long. but that was fine. We walked into a couple of stores on our way back home, including Old Navy, where she almost bought a sweater but then changed her mind and put it back. Once we got back to the house, Shobhit had recently returned from work, and he had leftovers from Thursday out on the kitchen counter. All three of us partook from it, so Danielle basically also had dinner at our place two days in a row. Only now are the leftovers nearly gone.

I walked Danielle out, and also took my binoculars to take the requisite outside shots of the Christmas Tree. Every time I do this each year I wonder what people passing by think, seeing some rando taking pictures of the windows of my building through binoculars. Then, I drove Shobhit's car from its street parking spot back into the garage.

I just realized that not only is this my 25th holiday season in Seattle, it's my 47th ever. But I'm still only 46. Goddammit!

[posted 10:20 pm]

So this was my Black Friday. Shobhit worked until 10 p.m. that night—precisely because it was Black Friday—and I watched a movie for review, the second of "five films" by Steve McQueen being released weekly on Prime Video: Lovers Rock, which I gave a solid B.

But! Before that, I walked to the office—briefly stopping along the way at Westlake Park, the location of the traditional Lighting of the Tree Ceremony, which I go to every year, even if sometimes I have to go by myself.

This year, however, the event quite predictably went virtual, with live coverage of it available on KIRO 7. And honestly, I might have gotten some screenshots I really liked had I actually downloaded the KIRO app to watch along on my cell phone, but, I didn't. As such, even though I was actually at Westlake Park on Black Friday just as I always am, I was not actually there at the moment when the Holiday Tree lit up.

I still got several very cool pictures (and one cool video—the above offering a quick glimpse of the still-unlit Holiday Tree in the distance at the end) at Westlake Park, though, mostly because of the Holiday Light Sculptures, a new feature this year. And As of December 4, the park will offer QR codes used to participate in "augmented reality" on our phones, so I will definitely be going back for that, and happy to have another new thing to add a photo album to this year's Christmas collection, considering several other traditional indoor things won't be possible this year. I'm hoping maybe I can convince Danielle to come up and join me for that.

Now, consider one of the shots I took last year: the crowds at this event are usually so massive that many people wouldn't fathom coming to see it in person even when things are normal. The crowd was truly nothing like that on Friday this year, but there still was a bit of a crowd—especially right by the tree in front of Westlake Center, where there is no chance of six feet of space between anyone. Even there it was nothing like a normal year, but that's beside the point; it was still too crowded.

Across the street on Pine from there, however, in Westlake Park where the light sculptures are, there was plenty of space to keep distanced from people. Nevertheless, even as I considered waiting another fifteen minutes or so before I presumed the tree would finally light up (as well as the "Seattle Star" on the old Macy's / old Bon Marché building, and the fireworks atop that building), once I got about 10 photos (part of my "The Holiday Season Begins" photo album for 2020) both at the park and a few on my walk down there, I decided to move on to Target as my next stop. It occurred to me that as long as I was there, seeing really too many people gathering even under these circumstances, I was part of the problem. So I got my photos and got out of there.

I picked up a few necessities at Target. I got a few photos walking through Pike Place Market. And then I walked the rest of the way to the office to swap out paperwork. There was only a single receiver report waiting for me, which was a little annoying and almost certainly just the result of how many people in Accounting did not bother to work the day after Thanksgiving. This means I'll have that many more to pick up when I go back on Tuesday, but, maybe Thanksgiving being one of the two days all year that we close not just the office but all stores company-wide, that might think the stack just slightly.

I then rode the bus back home and barely had the time to watch and review Lovers Rock, thanks in large part to it being all of 68 minutes long.

And that brings us to yesterday, a day I already expected to be quite eventful but then it turned out to be even more so.

First, I needed to get my Christmas decorations up. Ideally I like to do this on Black Friday itself, but anymore what with working that day and then going to the Tree Lighting ceremony—and, this year, also watching and reviewing a movie—there's rarely time for it on that day, so I do it on Saturday. Thus, late yesterday morning, I went down to the storage unit to fetch the three boxes, one with the tree in it and two with lights and ornaments.

I really hoped to do something not just different this year, but kind of radically different: I had a vision of setting up the tree out on the balcony for the first time ever, surrounded with more lights along the balcony and guest room window borders. This was not feasible with the tree being directly exposed to the elements, though, and after searching online for clear tarps that were far too expensive (as in, usually more than a hundred bucks), Shobhit and I happened to go into Pacific Supply Co on 12th Avenue last week, and we found a clear tarp-like sheet for all of about five bucks. It was not quite as completely translucent as I wanted, but it was close enough. I figured I would hang it from beneath the balcony above us, and seal off the space all around with duct tape, creating a clear(ish) wall.

Well, when I took out the plastic sheet yesterday and put a chair out on the balcony to attempt this, I discovered the balcony above us is too far for me to reach even while standing on my desk chair. I had nothing higher to stand on that could possibly be safe, and I did not think this idea was quite worth falling over and to my death on the sidewalk four stories below. So, so much for that.

I put up the tree and lights in the living room as usual. But, I did do one thing different: I centered the tree, still at its usual perch atop one of the end tables, in the middle of the bay windows, instead of centering it in front of the southwest facing window as I have always done in the past. This actually makes it easier to see from a bit closer outside, rather than my rationalization in the past, which was to make it more visible further down Pine Street to the west. I did have to cram the love seat rather tightly between the couch and the aforementioned end table, mostly blocking the door to the balcony, but, whatever. I like how it looks this year.

So, I was in the middle of all this, the requisite Christmas music playing on the living room stereo (mirrored from the iMac in the bedroom via the Apple TV box), when I received an unexpected text from Lea, to both Mandy and myself: a Zoom invite, "Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting."

Huh?

I was slightly confused as our video chats, especially group ones, are usually scheduled beforehand. But instead of questioning it much, I went ahead and clicked through, and found myself on a Zoom call with Gabriel and Lea—and, briefly, Tess—all of them in the hot tub a ttheir new house, which apparently Gabriel spends a lot of time in. Gabriel explained that they were supposed to have their monthly Zoom call with Lea's friends, Darren and Josh as well as Julie and Ryan, and they all evidently flaked. So, Gabriel said, "Let's just invite my friends!" So here we were, and within a few minutes Many joined as well. A little bit later Janine even joined, although she never turned on he video "because I'm still in my curlers." Who the hell does she need to wear curlers for, anyway? Her mother, the only person living with her?

Well, anyway. Social Review points all around! Well maybe not for Tess; she got out of the hot tub within seconds of my joining the call, and I never saw her again.

This was easy for me to hang out with, though, as I just continued decorating my tree, and by the end of that Zoom call I think my tree got complimented by at least three different people.

So both Janine and Mandy got off the call after a few minutes, though Mandy was on long enough for us all to see the newborn baby she and David are fostering, whose name hilariously is Chloe and that just by coincidence happens to be also one of her dogs' names. For just a few minutes it was just my feed and Lea and Gabriel's feed on the call, but then Lea's friend Julie, who had missed the scheduled call because she had slept in so late (Darren and Josh were apparently out getting a kitten), finally joined the call, wearing a wonderfully festive holiday sweater with a cat print. And then for quite some time, probably even longer than the call had lasted previously up to that point, I mostly just hung out in silence while Julie and Ryan chatted with Gabriel and Lea, about things like the Star Wars props Ryan makes himself as a hobby, or I think at one point they veered into something sports related. But it was fine, as I just kept on decorating my tree (which Julie also complimented).

I finished with the tree during this call, and even heated up and ate Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch while it went on. It was only at this point that I took my iPad down from its perch on the entertainment center, aimed at me by the tree, and set it on the coffee table where I sat to eat. I had nothing else pressing just yet to tear me away, so I just hung out until Lea actually ended the call as the host. I did participate in the conversation here and there; I wasn't completely silent. Gabriel was amused that I had just sat down to eat, which no one else was doing.

I'm glad I got the invite to join the call, though. It was nice to talk and hang out with them all.

Shobhit only worked four hours at Total Wine & More yesterday, since he took the day off at Big 5 so we could both go to ZooLights at Point Defiance Zoo last night. He worked 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and I left shortly after he got home, to walk down to the Central Library and pick up a CD so I could re-rip it after all its tracks disappeared from my computer in my recent Music Library troubles. I had been wearing my new eggnog earrings for December, which I had even shown off on the Zoom call just prior, and discovered only a few blocks away from the library that one of them had fallen out. Fuck! On the upside, the Etsy seller has already told me she'll send me a single replacement. Yay! I only just saw that reply from her though, so yesterday I actually walked back home exactly the way I came, trying to scan the sidewalk for a fallen earring—but of course, never finding it.

By the time I got back, we had less than two hours before it was time for us to head out. Last night's outing was actually my idea, which I posted to the "Grandma and Papa's Vovid Page" Facebook group in mid-October, when I found out Point Defiance Zoo was going ahead with their annual ZooLights displays, only this year with timed, limited entry for social distancing, masks required—and anyone who wanted to go should definitely get tickets early before they inevitably sold out. Timed entry was an idea I noted would be nice even in normal years; even Gina commented that she had sworn off ever doing it again after the last time she went, because it was so crowded. And now it wouldn't be. Side note: after actually going, it occurred to me the much smaller crowds also made it far easier to get good photos without too many people ruining shots.

As I said in my post to the page at the time, this was a great thing we could do as a family for the holidays and still be socially distanced and exclusively outside. Dad actually commented last night how the weather was perfect. Shobhit and I both dressed in layers so we weren't too cold, but it wasn't totally freezing anyway, and it was dry. In any case, this was going to be the single opportunity for out family to gather in any real capacity during the holidays this year, so I was all about this idea once it occurred to me. I was even kind of surprised that Shobhit was interested in going, so I purchased tickets for him and myself as soon as we all agreed on a date. Dad and Sherri did the same, and so did Gina and Beth, and not long after, Brandi did too.

Unfortunately, many others waited too long to get tickets and found them sold out, so in the end it was just 11 of us, coutning the four kids Brandi brought, but without Nick: Ricky and Rachael couldn't make it, but their son Raiden wanted to come and so Brandi brought him with her and her three kids. Angel did not have a ticket and would never have been able to use it, as she only just got home from the hospital after a bout of sepsis in her leg, apparently beause she wasn't cleaning off the area of her leg before giving hersef injections for he arthritis.

Speaking of the general health of the family, no one's battling COVID—not yet anyway, knock-wood—but Sherri is now walking with a cane, to help with support for athritis she also has in her feet, which I had no idea about. Dad still seems basically fine, but still, it's starting to really sink in this year how my parents have kind of definitively turned a corner into "old." I don't suppose that should come as any real shock given that my mother literally died this year, but frankly she still went earlier than she should have, at all of 68 years old, broadly speaking a as a result of her lifetime of unhealthy living. Something else did occur to me specifically about Mom recently, though: she absolutely lived her life the way she wanted, no matter how others felt about it. That much, at least, I can respect.

I still have two parents left though, and I'd rather they lasted another good while longer. I also have to face some facts, such as how Grandma passed away nine years ago, precisely half the age she was when she had her first child (and Aunt Raenae, for her part, is now 72 years old). At least Dad was the youngest and remains fairly healthy. When we were leaving last night, he even suggested that if the weather is good ebough on Christmas Day when we come down (but won't be going inside the house), perhaps we can go for a walk, along a new bike path just finishing construction. I thought that was a fantastic idea, as it will keep us from feeling like we have to rush right back home too quickly after going down to Olympia.

Anyway, family has been meeting for ZooLights here and there over the years kind of all along, but I was just the first to suggest we go ahead with it this year—in the past, they tended to go on a weekday that made it practically impossible for me to be able to join. I hadn't gone, it turns out, since 2004. That was the year Shobhit and I got together, so he also went that year and hasn't been since. Sixteen years. Prior to that, Danielle joined me to meet with family during the holidays in 1999. Me being the one to bring it up this year, I was more easily able to nudge the date into a weekend.

An event like this is best gone to every several years anyway. They don't change the displays much year to year, but plenty does change in sixteen years. My digital camera in 2004 was truly primitive by comparison, and luckily thanks to my insistence on upgrating in time for the trip to Australia earlier this year, I now have an iPhone that takes very nice nighttime pictures. I got a good 62 photos just at the zoo last night. (The photo album has 64 photos and videos, but one is of the Tacoma skyline from the freeway, and one shot is swiped from Brandi, the family group shot she took—all of us masked, for the record. Not socially distanced, obviously, but outside and brief, both key elements. And yes, yes, nothing is zero-risk, but if we don't operate on probabilities rather than absolutes, there's no point in living at all. The most important thing is not to spend extended time indoors with anyone outside your household, and I have stuck to that quite religiously.)

We all spent close to exactly one hour inside the zoo, me taking countless photos and videos (I took more than I saved). The drive there and back was about fifty minutes, which meant we spent twice as much time traveling there and back as we spent at ZooLights, but that's okay. I'm still really, really glad we did it. We parted ways, everyone else driving back to Olympia (a 40-minute drive) and Shobhit and me back to Seattle. Then we spent the rest of the evening eating dinner and watching several episodes of season 5 of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

[posted 11:55 am]

The Holiday Season Begins: 2022

The Holiday Season Begins / ZooLights 2020