— पांच हजार सात सौ अठारह —
I have so much more to tell you about, and yet I keep doing other things, like work! and, okay, a bit of dicking around. I should probably stop dicking around!
Alexia picked me up after work yesterday and drove us up to Woodland Park Zoo for this year's really fantastic "
WildLanterns"—which she goes to more years than not, but which I had only gone to once before, also with Alexia, in 2021. It's kind of odd how I felt I was barely affording it with my budget back then, and the ticket prices remain comparable but I think it makes a huge difference that now I have a specific budget line item for all my paychecks throughout the year, to save for "Christmas events." It's just a matter of which ones I choose. I smartly did this after taking the rather expensive Christmas cruise last year on Argosy Cruises. Nothing I did this year was that expensive, which allowed me to do one or two more things.
I'm really glad we went. I loved it in 2021, but I honestly thought this year it was distinctly better. I took even more but of the photos I actually kept, I have
79 shots from that event this year alone. (In 2021 I had 69.)
The timed entry tickets were for 5:30. Alexia had managed to get to my office through traffic at 4:45. So, I worked an extra ten minutes. Still, I was smart to take the bus down to the Central Library and back during my lunch break to pick up a couple of library books rather than try to do it after work, which would have necessitated leaving early yet again. Yesterday was the one day this entire week I have
not left work early. I will be again today.
We actually arrived at Woodland Park Zoo at 5:15. The last photo I took there was at 6:49, so we would have left around 7:00. Longer than I might have assumed we'd be there. But it was just so, so cool. I can't recommend it enough.
And particularly! Last night was very deliberately chosen, as it's one of two night's they are doing this season called "
Night Owls," where all admission is 21 and over—no children, anywhere! I proposed this date to Alexia even though she doesn't drink, using the argument that it would be cool to go with no kids there. Also, at least at the time we went, it certainly cut down on the crowd numbers. I think Shobhit would have loved this as well, but alas, he had to work last night.
There were at least three or four different bars selling cocktails and beer around the zoo grounds. At the first one, I got the one hot cocktail they had available for me: hot cocoa with Bailey's in it. It was delicious. There was a lot of other cocktail options but I didn't want to be walking around in the late fall with a cold drink. I was slightly tempted to get another after about an hour but I decided there was no good reason to get a second hot cocoa.
I had a great time. A couple of things added to our time there: we went in to see about half of an interactive animal presentation, where at first they had a snake out, and then Molly the porcupine. And when we got to it, we decided to pay the $3 each (I paid, since Alexia had paid for parking) to ride the zoo's "Historic Carousel" they've had there since 2006.
— पांच हजार सात सौ अठारह —
— पांच हजार सात सौ अठारह —
Alexia was driving me home afterward, and she opted not to take the freeway since Maps said the alternate route had a "similar ETA." I realized, just as we were driving south on 15th past Volunteer Park, that this year's "Holiday in the Park" event was still happening.
Alexia had caught a 9 a.m. flight home from Ohio from a work trip in the morning. That would have been 6 a.m. Pacific Time, and she was very tired, and so she wasn't interested on going to this second event in one night. She happily dropped me off at Volunteer Park though, so I went to roam around the event for most of its final half hour or so. The booth that usually hands out free hot chocolate (I would have taken a second one for free!) and cookies was already breaking down. Oh well.
This made for
my 10th time going to these events, although it was my first I wound up going to by myself since 2019. (I returned two weeks later just to see the Holiday Train display with Laney; I suppose that's still in the cards this year.)
My photos are very similar every year because every year the event is basically the same: hot chocolate and cookies; live performances in front of the Seattle Asian Art Museum; walking through the holiday display, with a model train around Christmas Trees, at the Volunteer Park Conservatory. I don't care, though; I can't say I particularly ever tire of it. I really thought I might have to skip it this year because of the conflict with WildLanterns, but I made it anyway. I'd have preferred to go with someone but that's okay.
Shobhit was still at work and I walked home, made some leftover shahi paneer for dinner, and commenced with processing the day's photos. I took either just under or just over 100 photos each day both
Wednesday and yesterday. I don't have another photogenic holiday event again until . . . tomorrow!
— पांच हजार सात सौ अठारह —
I just finished with my usually-biweekly Zoom lunch with Karen—but, the last time we had one scheduled, she had a conflict she could not change and so it got canceled. I hadn't talked to her in four weeks, and we had
so much to catch up on.
And still we got sidetracked for several minutes, because she asked which earrings I was wearing today (
cups of eggnog), which got us on a discussion of all the earrings I now have, and how I theme them generally by month. I sent her the link to
my earrings photo album and she went through and was delighted by many of them.
She also talked a fair amount about her house construction in Tulalip. It has gone through many delays, and currently is scheduled to be finished in January. That's next month though, so she's almost there! I can't wait to finally visit and go see it.
I had started the conversation by saying I had so much to tell her about, which she brought up again at the half-hour mark. I had way more I could have talked to her about, but as soon as I told her Shobhit and I booked our anniversary trip next year to D.C. for World Pride in June, she was thrilled: she loves that city, and having been on the federal Accessibility Board and also gone to many other conferences held there, she's very familiar with it. I was really glad to talk to someone who was fully on board with my expectation to have a good time in spite of President Fuckwit being back in office, rather than these ridiculous notions of it being really dangerous (not in the least bit likely) or deeply depressing, or both. As I have said multiple times already, I won't let any bastards rob me of experiencing queer joy.
I do plan to contact World Pride organizers about trans inclusion, though. That is especially critical now, and so far I see nothing specific to trans people on the World Pride D.C. website.
Anyway, Karen has lots of recommendations for us. This took up the whole second half hour of the lunch hour. Now I'm back and I need to spend the afternoon trying to get some actual work done.
— पांच हजार सात सौ अठारह —
[posted 1:12 pm]
