— छह हज़ार छियानवे —

There was no Daily Lunch Update (DLU) yesterday, because at work we had an all-day training in the Merchandising Department. Well, it was from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., anyway. It was called "Embracing Complexity," which was amusing to me because when we had our last all-day training back in August of last year (only weeks before our move to the new office), it was all about simplifying how we use our tools at work—particularly Outlook. I have to admit, I actually still do some of the things I learned in that training—particularly using Tasks to clean out my inbox, and color-coding calendar items. (In the older version of Outlook I use in the remote desktop I always work in, I can automate this color-coding based on keywords, a feature I love—but unfortunately, this does not appear to be a feature available in newer versions, a frustratingly typical thing that happens with "upgrades," which do away with great features previously available. Fucking Microsoft!)

That training was called "Effective Edge." This makes me think maybe I watch too much porn, considering the first thing that makes me think of.

Speaking of which, there was an amusing moment when, inevitably given the complexity of so many things we deal with here, POS was brought up—this is something we have long colloquially sounded out as a word: "pos" (as in, rhymes with the first syllable of posse). But, Tyler sounded out the letters, which some people also do: "P-O-S." Jenn, the facilitator, said, "I'm going to guess that means something other than what I'm thinking," which got a good laugh out of the room. I should note that this is kind of an old, stale joke in many circles; many of us have been very aware of the dual acronyms for "point of sale" and "piece of shit" for years. Jenn, however, was not; so, there was a freshness to the innocence of her comment.

The biggest laugh of the day, though, would have to be my favorite moment from the training: a perfectly timed accident when Jenn was queuing up a short video from YouTube, not realizing it would come out of the gate with a commercial, and the sudden and enthusiastically spoken statement, "Watch what alcohol does to stuck poop!"

This is still crackling me up. I giggled when I just wrote it. And later I had to message both Cathryn and Amanda over Teams:

DAMMIT missed opportunity—when we all went around the room saying what we'll take away from that training I should have said "I'm going to watch what alcohol does to stuck poop!"

I really want to find every excuse possible to repeat this at work. There won't likely be much opportunity for it, but damn do I want to keep saying it. As soon as Noah and Frank arrive at the office. In the middle of meetings. Introducing my team at the annual all-Merchandising meeting. "Watch what alcohol does to stuck poop!"

I don't even know what the commercial was for. I don't think it much matters.

I expect that in an upcoming meeting Gabby will ask me how I felt about the training, just as she did after the "Effective Egde" training. She asked both in 1:1 meetings and in our Pricing & Promotions (now "Merchandising Enablement") team meeting. When we broke for lunch yesterday, Amy asked me basically the same question. I could tell even by then that I got more out of the Effective Edge training than I was likely to get out of "Embracing Complexity." My job is way more complex than it used to be, but I do think its complexity pales in comparison to that of the people in Merchander or Manager positions above me—this would be precisely why I do not want those jobs and never have. I only got promoted at the beginning of this year because Gabby advocated for it and got me a raise and new title to acknowledge how much my job had already evolved—mostly thanks to her, I should say.

I will say I am fascinated by the concept of complex adaptive systems, and that humans are a part of many, including teams at work, even though the analogies from nature are "superorganisms" created by schools of fish or flocks of birds or ant colonies. The part that left the biggest impression on me was the "small set of simple rules" that otherwise autonomous agents within a complex adaptive system follow, but which can be gently nudged by any of those agents in a way that ultimately effects change on the whole. Anyway this was what I brought up when asked what I was taking away from the training, instead of that I was going to watch what alcohol does to stuck poop.

— छह हज़ार छियानवे —

— छह हज़ार छियानवे —

Having not updated yesterday, what should I tell you about the day before? Nothing, really. I spent Wednesday evening at home; I susbcribed to a month of Apple TV so we could see this year's season of Slow Horses—there are six episodes per season and this timing meant that the last episode will air a few days before the subscription ends. It also meant we could watch two episodes that evening, after which we were caught up. We then watched two episodes of Widow's Bay, the show that had swept the Emmy Awards. It's really fun, but so far I'm not sure why all the Emmys. We watched another episode last night.

I spent a good amount of the evening last night at Steamworks. This was my first time there since July, but I went to the bathhouse in Amsterdam twice since then, during our trip to The Netherlands.

— छह हज़ार छियानवे —

I just had my biweekly lunch over Zoom with Karen. At first she told me all about a bunch of challenges with her work office landlord, and then I told her about a bunch of things I have booked, at verying degrees of expense: the Tasveer Film Festival Gala fundraiser on October 30; the possible Opening Night and Closing Night movies at that same festival earlier in the month; back to the Queen Mary Tea Room for a Christmastime visit with Alexia and Ivan on December 18. I'm doing pretty well with my holiday planning this year, actually. Then we talked a lot about shows on Apple TV, because I just subscribed to a month of it. She has watched the first episode of the fourth season of Ted Lasso and she quite enjoyed it, apparently. I'm not sure if we'll watch that or Silo season 3 next, after we're finished with Widow's Bay.

— छह हज़ार छियानवे —

[posted 1:05pm]

— छह हज़ार पचानवे —

Last night Shobhit and I attended the Tasveer Film Festival and Market launch party—the third year in a row that we've attended.

I got weidly obsessed with matching the number of photos I have in both my 2024 and 2025 photo albums, each of which had 30—and by the end of the evening, I had 30 again! What I totally forgot, until I looked more closely, was that in both 2024 and 2025, each album actually contained photos from multiple different events: in 2024, there were merely 10 from the launch party; another 12 taken by Shobhit on the first day of the Film Market; then another 8 taken on the two days we went to see films during that year's festival. So that was four different dates that all added up to 30 photos. Then, in 2025 (last year), I took 16 shots at the launch party, and yesterday I had completely forgotten we attended the Opening Night Film and Gala event, at which I took another 14 photos, combining to make a photo album of 30.

Will we be going to the Openig Night Gala this year, which is next month? This seems very up in the air. I don't remember at all how we got access to the event last year, but I do not remember shelling out $50 each to get in, which is how much tickets are to it this year. And we are even more interested in the movie about trans women that is the Closing Night film, at which tickets are also $50 each—this seems a little bonkers to me. The Opening Night film looks very good as well (we saw trailers to both at last night's event), but do I really want to spend two hundred dollars for both of us to see merely two movies? I mean, Jesus Christ.

I already bought two $175 tickets for us both to attend the annual gala fundraiser they are holding at the Seattle Convention Center on October 30—which Shobhit expressed interest in attending, I think largely because it happens to land on his birthday this year. Those two tickets plus processing fee came to $378.26. If we buy tickets to both the aforementioned movies on top of that, we'll have spent $578.26 on this year's festival alone.

To be fair, I suppose, Shobhit joined their Board this year, and as their Treasurer, he's being very openly appreciated for his financial expertise. But, at a recent Zoom board meeting, it was suggested that every Board member buy a table at that annual gala fundraiser. A full table is 10 people and costs $1,750! How much fucking money do they think we should have to spend on the organization, anyway? And how much do they think we have just lying around? Shobhit actually said during that meeting that if buying a table at the gala were a known expectation, he would not have joined the Board to begin with. I mean, of course he wouldn't.

Is everyone else in this organization independently wealthy or what? They have a lot to be proud of and I actually think this festival and organization is very cool, but there are moments when it feels like it doesn't even occur to them that some people actually operate on tightly managed personal budgets. Shobhit's not even getting paid for his work on that Board.

So, just our two tickets to the gala fundraiser it is. The open question is whether we'll fork over an extra couple hundred for the Opening Night and Closing Night events. I'd love to see both the movies playing, but damn. That's a lot of money just to go see a movie. It's probably not out of step with similar events at other festivals, but it's also why I never go to Opening Night films at, say, the Seattle International Film Festival. I spend enough money going to movies throughout the year as it is.

Anyway. As for the photos, if we go to either of those films and I take more pictures, then this year's album will wind up with more than 30 shots and I needn't have worried about taking lots of photos last night. I figured the fundraiser gala event would be its own photo album anyway, as although it's clearly related it's a more sort of separate event from the festival itself.

— छह हज़ार पचानवे —

— छह हज़ार पचानवे —

I did have a pretty good time at the event last night, as I have every year. There was another slight bit of confusion due to my misremembering the previous albums covering multuple events, though: Shobhit had texted me asking if we should change into Indian outfits, and I texted him photos of us both wearing exactly the same outfits in both 2024 and 2025, which made him think we should not go in the same clothing three years in a row. I'm not sure this makes a huge difference, but we did not wear those outfits at exactly the same events—we dressed in them for the Launch Party in 2024, and then for the Opening Night Gala in 2025. Still, the crowd and the Tasveer people in attendance would have been the same either way.

The one thing I noted about this last year was that I had an outfit I wore each year that was not the same outfit I wore to our wedding. Shobhit's was the wedding outfit, but theoretically we could return with me in my wedding outfit and thus not an outfit I've already worn to a Tasveer event. Honestly right now I'm thinking maybe we should wait to dress up this way until the fundrasier gala on October 30. That seems like the better fashion move this year.

The one noticeable difference this year was Deborah, former anchor with Kiro 7, attended—she's still on the SAG-AFTRA Seattle Local board with Shobhit (she's President, in fact). We chatted with her a lot during the event and during refreshments in the "blue room" up on the second floor of the theater building, and we also sat with her at the presentation in the main theater. She took the group selfie seen at the bottom of this post; I asked her if she'd mind texting that to Shobhit shortly before we left, and I was delighted that she texted him while we were on the Light Rail train home. (It's wonderful that the Tasveer Film Center is easily accessible via Light Rail; it's a 0.3-mile walk from Columbia City Station.) There was also a SAG-AFTRA Local Seattle office staff guy who came but I forget his name. He chatted me up a little and commented on how surprised he was by how big the Tasveer Film Festival is.

The catering this year was by a place called Desi Adda, which is based in Redmond. There were only three regular dishes and a dessert, and one of the regular dishes had chicken—that still left a cauliflower pakora that was surprisingly tasty, and a noodle dish that was a bit spicy but still so good that I later went for a second full plate of food, which I really should not have done. The dessert was gulab jamun, which even another person noted to Deborah is better when warm, but it was still tasty. I had two of those, but did not get a second hepling of them with my second plate. I did have a small slice of the cake that was set out after the presentation in the theater was over.

I chatted a fair amount with a couple of other people on the Board, particularly an evidently White woman named Jimi who has apparently been connected to the festival in some way for ever 20 years but only recently joined the Board; and Swapnil, another gay man on the Board who is also the most recent Mr. Gay Seattle (under the name Sahil Kini). I do think it's pretty cool that the Tasveer Board is pretty diverse even within the South Asian umbrella: half men and half women; at least one third queer.

We took the train home and I barely had time to edit and upload my (30) photos from the evening before getting into bed around 11:00.

— छह हज़ार पचानवे —

[posted 12:38pm]