— छह हज़ार उन्यासी —
Yesterday I hung out with Tracy, our first time seeing each other since going to see
The Odyssey in Tukwila on July 18. Between other plans she had and my travels, we just weren't both available on a weekend until yesterday. We were supposed to get together to eat at Veggie Grill sometime a couple of months ago, and that's what we pushed out to August 30. But, she wanted to add more to do while we hung out, so the other day she started texting me ideas.
Her first suggestion was a Drag Brunch at Julia's on Broadway, an idea I really liked, but I knew I would not have the budget for it—after the weekend with Jennifer and her family the previous weekend, I went into my paycheck this last Friday already something like $60 over budget. For a hot minute my projected budget for the next two weeks had a budget balance of -$54 or so, though that sort of resolved itself when I had budgeted $50 just for possible spending in Olympia on Saturday, and all we bought in the end was that Costco pizza, which Shobhit went ahead and paid for.
There was also my budgeting $11.35 each way for the Bainbridge Island Ferry yesterday, forgetting at first that you only pay pedestrian fare westbound on Washington State Ferries. And then, I checked my balance on one of my spare e-purse Orca Cards (you can't use an annual pass on Washinton State Ferries; you can use an Orca Card, but only the kind with actual money loaded on it), and it had a balance of over $18. Perfect! I think I had loaded that for a possible visit to Seattle from Jennifer and Matthew last year, but then that visit got canceled because we nearly all got sick; Shobhit and me both with confirmed covid, although I never had any symptoms. And that was for a planned trek to the Issaquah Salmon Days festival, which Jennifer has long been interested in, but it can't happen for us this year because it's the same weekend we'll be in Albuqueque for the International Balloon Fiesta.
Anyway, that meant I could also wipe two different $11.35 line items from my budget.
Now my projected balance is $15.14! w00t
At my suggestion, Tracy and I met on Bainbridge Island. This saved her a one-way vehicle fare on the ferry, because from Puyallup she could cross the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which is a toll bridge but only eastbound. I caught the 11:25 ferry, but opted to walk to the ferry terminal from home, so I left home at 10:45. Laney and I had agreed to call on Facebook Messenger at 11:00, so we chatted while I walked, and actually she texted me she was ready a bit early, so I was able to call her only a few blocks into my walk. That was at like 10:55, so I guess we didn't get on the call
that early.
It was really great to see Laney, even if only virtually—she doesn't have an iPhone with which she can use FaceTime, so I temporarily re-downloaded Facebook Messenger so we could use Messenger Video. It worked out just fine, and I deleted the app again not long after we were done chatting. We actually called each other twice, because as soon as I was out on the water on the ferry, the connection started to get really weak and the audio delayed. So I waited to call her back until I was on the bus out of the Transit Center by the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal. By then, though, we had kind of gotten through everything we needed to talk about, so we took just a minute or two to establish that we would do this again next weekend—when it should be much easier, as I have nothing currently planned on Saturday or Sunday next weekend (though I do on Monday, which is Labor Day). In fact, I marked my calendar to keep it free on Saturday, just in case I am affected by the first shingles vaccine, which I am scheduled to get right after work on Friday.
But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here. I talked to Laney most of the walk down there, and was somewhat surprised to find that they were already boarding the ferry when I arrived; it turned out I timed it perfectly. I was a little concerned about using tap-to-pay with my Orca Card at the ferry terminal for the first time, but it was super easy and quick. I then walked onto the ferry, looked for an outlet where I could plug in my phone to charge so using video chat wouldn't suck up my battery, and it was another several minutes before the ferry even departed. So the first call with Laney was a good 37 minutes; the second was only 2.
And we did manage to spend a good amount of time catching up. She was sitting outside in the back of Jessica's house where she's currently staying, basically just waiting for confirmation of the apartment she applied for in Federal Way. I also shared a lot about the trip to Amsterdam, including some relatively extensive sexual exploits that I could not really share in my email travelogues. We also talked a bit about how we'll pivot our social plans together both once she's settled into that apartment, and when she's recovered enough for it to be possible.
I'm pretty sure that, years and years ago—25 years ago at minumum—I transfered from the Bainbridge Island ferry to a bus through the island on my way to a transfer to one more bus all the way up to Port Townsend. I did this at least a couple of times when I went to visit Auntie Rose at her house in Port Townsend. Which is to say, I have transferred to a bus from this ferry before, but it's been at least two and a half decades; the bus line numbers may have even changed in the meantime, and maybe even the location of the "Bainbridge Island Transit Center" which is really no more than two small bus stop shelters right next to the ferry terminal.
What I needed, being a Saturday, was the #390
Kitsap Transit bus. The ferry was scheduled to arrive at the terminal at 12:00; the bus scheduled to leave at 12:10. The ferry was a little late, though, and then it seemed to take forever for the pedestrian ramp to be lowered and us walk-ons to be let off. It was 12:07 by the time I was actually disembarking the vessel, and then I hussled up the ramp to the parking lot—where I walked the wrong way at first, and then had to use the marked locaton of the stop on the One Bus Away app to figure out where the hell the bus stop was, which turned out to be around a line of hedges from the parking lot. It was well after 12:10 by the time I finally got to the stop, but I was right when I figured the bus would likely wait for the ferry to unload before leaving. I got on the bus and it left at about 12:14.
The bigger challenge, actually, was the one-mile walk from the bus stop where I got off, and the place Tracy and I agreed we would go yesterday: an event called "
Art in the Dahlias at Bainbridge Island Farm." It's a you-pick flower farm where they hold this two-day weekend event with art vendor booths. I sort of assumed I would get lots of art photos like I do on the Art Walks Shobhit and I go on, but these were all merchant booths with products that it seemed it would be tacky for me to take photos of when they are trying to sell the products. I did get three photos of art, or four if you count
this woman's lemonade pants; the other three were of a pendant, and a couple of pretty cool geometric statues of a
moose and a
horse. But, most of the rest of the photos were of dahlias and other flowers, which Tracy and I meandered through a couple of times, these rows of flowers you can buy after clipping them off yourself, but we just looked at them.
We did buy cupcakes from the Frosted Lily Cupcakes stand, and we decided to wait to eat those until after we ate at Veggie Grill. I was very excited by the $7 Biscoff cookie butter-filled cupcake.
— छह हज़ार उन्यासी —
— छह हज़ार उन्यासी —
Tracy and I did spend some time talking about when we had each last been to Bainbridge Island—we were both thinking it had been many years. But, then I looked up my Flickr account, and was like: oh, right. I was just there three years ago! When I went with Valerie, to the
Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, as part of my "
Hidden Gems" Birth Week theme. Surely it was many years before
that, right? Well, six: I was there for dinner at
Doc's Marina Grill, with Shobhit, Gabriel, Kornelija and Kornelija's parents on New Year's Day 2017. (I learned later that Gabriel kept the plans for that dinner so it wouldn't ruin it for Kornelija's parents, even though he knew already by then that he and Kornelija would be separating.) Okay, so how about before that? If you exclude just
passing through to use the ferry but move on to other destinations, I think it may indeed have been since 1998, when Danielle and
her then-boyfriend Seth and
her sister Shannon and I
took the ferry there just
for kicks.
Anyway I got a
28-shot photo album out of the day yesterday. I had thought I would include it in my "Art Walks" collection, but a) those are all Seattle Art Walks, and this is not; and b) it turned out to be much more about the flowers than the art anyway. So, it went into a couple of other collections that are a bit more generic in nature: "
Misc Local Events," and "
Misc Tracy."
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Tracy hadn't put the directions in her phone quite right; she had shared her location with me early on, and later when I was on the bus I shared mine with her too. We realized later that she must have passed me on my bus, because when I got off the bus with about a mile to walk to the farm location—with no shoulder on the road whatsoever; that wasn't the greatest—she was down the highway much closer to the ferry terminal I had left! So, she had to turn around and head back to me again, and it was kind of funny that by the time she caughtup to me and I got into her car, I was already only maybe a tenth of a mile from the entrance to the farm.
And then, we spent maybe barely an hour there. We left and drove back to the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal, getting in line at 2:00 behind a long line of cars; I knew we'd never make it onto the 2:10 ferry. "If we make it onto the 2:10 ferry I'll eat my pants," I said, which really made her laugh—and she thought I was saying I'd be so
excited that I'd eat my pants, which really cracked
me up. What I was really saying was how confident I was that we'd have to make it on the next ferry, which was at 3:00. Which might have seemed like a long time, but the traffic filtering system there is rather inefficient; by the time we even got to the ticket booth, it was already 2:30.
I probably should have offered to pay half the vehicle ferry fare ($21.30), but I didn't. You know why? Because I didn't want to. I wanted to keep my budget down! I am a selfish asshole. Thankfully Tracy clearly doesn't think so.
There was even a sign on the ticket booth that said, YES! YOU WILL MAKE IT ON THE 3:00 FERRY. I thought that was nice and helpful.
So we had the 35-minute crossing back over to Seattle, and Tracy drove us up to Veggie Grill, where we were both stunned to find a parking spot only slightly up the street from the restaurant entrance—I think we must have parked in front of the space next door (all the other spaces being closed and empty currently; we're really thriving in downtown Seattle these days). I had a "Chik'n Bacon Ranch" sandwich, along with a small side of tater tots with blue cheese dip—which came at no extra cost, but damn was I full after eating both of those things. They were delicious, but the sandwich was more than enough on its own.
Not too much for me to still eat my Biscoff cookie butter-filled cupcake, though! And holy fuck was
that delicious. It was almost a religious experience.
Veggie Grill is barely more than half a block from the building where I work, so I asked if Tracy would be interested in seeing the office—having left PCC in 2022 I think it was, she would not have seen either the new office we moved into nearly a year ago now, or the new Corner Market PCC store next to it.
I instinctively went to the 4th Avenue entrance first, because I constantly forget that this store is not open on weekends. So, I led her around the corner and into the Union Street lobby entrance—crossing the garage entrance, where I was able to show her exactly where I had wiped on on the street with my bike accident on May 26. We then went in the back entrance to the office, which is at the end of the elevator bank for the parking elevators, which only go up as far as the second-level lobby for Rainier Square.
I showed her around the office, and she followed along with interest, particularly noting how much smaller it was. I mentioned more than once that, with people working from home more days than not (except for me), Mondays and Fridays in particular are still largely empty in here. I took her to the front desk area, which is its own secured space: when the store is open, you can only get in the store lobby entrance with a key card, and then another key card is needed to get into the desks area, past the kitchen and front desk. (Tracy commented on how she could see it was a good view of the Pride Parade from the kitchen windows—the only windows we have in this office, it's always worth noting.)
I took her outside the lobby entrance, which put is into the lobby area from which you can access either the store or the office, but is still inside the street entrance—which was closed, locked, and a pull-down gate was drawn. The store has its own gate that is pulled across from side to side, and I was a little shocked to see it pulled maybe three quarters of the way, but not closed all the way, making it
very easy for us to go into the store itself after hours, something I had never done. I had even wondered if there was someone else in there, but there wasn't. I even took a selfie with Tracy inside the darkened store, "in the store being bad," I joked.
But this was when things started to make us a bit nervous: I got back in the outside entrance to the office, into the area with the kitchen and front desk, just fine. But my key card was not working on the second door. And the 4th Avenue entrance blocked off, I had no idea how the hell we were going to get out of there without that card reader working.
I must have gone in and out of the front desk area three times, and each time, the card reader on the second door would not work. Now we went back into the store, hoping to find some other exit we could use. There is a door between the store and the office in the very back, but it does not have a card reader and only has a key lock. I tried to open that door but it was locked. The Corner Market store has sliding-glass exit doors to the concours leading up to the Rainier Square lobby (as well as the pedestrian tunnel leading over to Union Square two blocks away), but after walking up to it, I didn't even try to unlock it. That wouldn't do, because even if I
could unlock it and leave—I did not try to find out—I would have had no way to lock it back up again from the outside.
What the hell was I going to do? Was I going to have to call someone? Gabby, maybe? Finally I remembered there is an elevator to the garage. We went first to the elevator door that is level with the office and store entrances, around the corner from several stairs from street level. There was a card reader there too, and I have a building card (for now; it's meant for using bike locker storage, but the location is too far on the other side of the block for it to be useful to me), but it would not work and call the elevator.
Finally I remembered the elevator door that is at street level. This is between the outside street entrance, and thus currently the other side of the drawn garade-door gate, and the sliding glass door just in front of the bottom of the aforementioned steps. I was deeply grateful that the automatic sliding doors still opened for us; and at
that elevator door, the call buttons worked without any need for a card reader. So, we went down to a level of the parking garage that's one down from where I usually lock up my bike, and then we tound the parking elevator bank, which took us
back to the Union Street lobby entrance, and the card reader in the back door still worked, and we were back in the regular office space. Whew! Now Tracy could use the bathroom,
and we were not stuck.
I went back into the kitchen while she was in the bathroom—but I smartly propped open the door this time (at least we also knew of another way to get out of there). I grabbed a can of Nixie Zero Calorie Cola out of the staff fridge, and nabbed a sample focaccia bread that had been left out and I knew would make Shobhit happy. And then we walked back out the back entrance and out the Union Street exit back to her car, in which Tracy drove me home.
— छह हज़ार उन्यासी —
The only other thing for me to tell you about my weekend is that Friday I took myself to see
Coyote vs. Acme, which wasn't exactly a classic but was clever and fun, I enjoyed it. And, of course, I
already posted about our visit with Dad and Sherri in Olympia on Saturday.
— छह हज़ार उन्यासी —
[posted 12:34pm]
