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Laney and I had a "Happy Hour" last night. But, it was a BYOB (bring your own booze) version, where we both brought peppermint and/or cinnamon schnapps to sneak into our hot drinks purchased at the Starbucks
in the Sheraton Seattle Grand Hotel lobby. This was less a deliberate choice of coffee shop than a deliberate choice of a laid-back, comfy chair atmosphere in a hotel lobby. And Laney wanted an excuse to use some of the liqueurs she recently bought: ULLR Peppermint Cinnamon Schanpps, and Sinfire Cinnamon Whiskey. She mixed one shot each into the mocha she bought at the Starbucks, where she also bought herself a sandwich for dinner. I brought my leftover stir fried rice from the night before.
I, on the other hand, simply brought two shots of Rumple Minze Peppermint Schnapps, and I poured that into my 16oz hot chocolate. Alcohol content-wise, it was right up to the edge for me—a little much. Not that I got much of a buzz, honestly, but the flavor became a tad overwhelming. Flavor-wise, in the future I'll be good with just one shot of it, I think. That stuff is 100-proof anyway so one shot is kind of more like two.
It continues to be kind of amazing how Laney and I never run out of things to talk about. We hang out constantly, and still, we managed to run out the clock for about three hours in that lobby last night. I walked there from work and she walked there from home, so we came from different directions (her from the east and me from the north), and she got there about 10 minutes before I did. She texted me that it was incredibly crowded but she was still okay as she found chairs at least six feet from any other people. We talked later about how, in say, late 2020, a place that crowded would have been incredibly dangerous indoors. But, we just don't worry as much about getting covid anymore. We're both still religious about masking on transit, though, and in theaters depending on the circumstances and how crowded they are, specifically near where we are sitting.
Anyway. We talked about the Southern California wildfires, which we both agree are really the beginning of a future filled with far more frequent events like it. We talked about maybe taking a short trip somewhere, considering how close we are and how much time we spend together and it's kind of surprising that we've never traveled anywhere together. I threw out the idea of an overnight package trip on the Victoria Clipper in late December, as they sell package deals that include a bus ride out to Butchart Gardens and they do Christmas Lights out there every year. I've never been to Victoria in the winter and think it sounds fun. She was surprisingly open to it, noting that she's an expert budgeter and if she knows far enough in advance she can budget for something like that just fine—just as she did for her flight to Florida next month, with Jessica, to visit her sister (Jessica's aunt) and brother-in-law. We would have both the package deal cost and an overnight hotel cost to consider, but I just need to do some research and run by her what it might run her overall. In any case I really like this idea, although for me it would be on top of the trip to D.C. in June and the hopeful trip to the Twin Cities and maybe also Winnipeg in August.
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— पाँच हजार सात सौ उनतालीस —
Laney asked if I minded if we took the bus home, and I was totally good with that. We had 14 minutes to kill even once we reached the bus stop, though, so I suggested she come and check out the wildly remodeled "Cedar Hall," which used to be the City Centre mall at the U.S. Bank Center building—the one where Gabby's husband Nick works on the 42nd floor. Laney really liked the ambience in there a lot; there's a bunch of very cool furniture, art, and fixtures; and even the security guy at the lobby desk up on the second floor was so nice to us he told us to just let him know if we needed to use the bathroom. I was like, "I almost feel bad we went to the bathroom before leaving the Sheraton!"
There's an Olympia Coffee in that lobby as well, so we both agreed to later come back for a BYOB Happy Hour just like the one we had just done at the Sheraton, but here instead. The next slot on our Social Calendar for that is January 2026. Ha! Or, perhaps, just as happened last night, if we have to pivot from a movie plan we can replace it with an extra outing of that sort sooner.
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It had been a couple of days since I'd managed to get Shobhit on FaceTime from India, so this morning I called him after I had cut through the Overlook Walk as usual after riding the bus downtown, and was walking along the waterfront. Shobhit saw that it was dark where I was, and asked if I could see the moon.
I showed it to him a couple of times. Apparently his mom is on a fast, I think related to a Hindu thing, and she can't break the fast until the moom rises. Shobhit showed his mom my moon and told her there's the moon, she can eat now. Ha! That cracked me up.
Side note, Shobhit pointed his phone at her, she saw me, and she was quite lovely and friendly. She even asked me how I was doing. I said, "Good! How are you?" and she was sort of like, "Eh." She looked really good, though, and I said so. I really liked the colorful outfit she was wearing.
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[posted 12:33 pm]
