lunch with the brokers

— छह हज़ार अठारह — Did I do something yesterday? What did I do yesterday? I can tell you what I did this morning: I woke up with a bit of a crick in the center of my back. At least my neck feels better; a couple of days ago I woke up having slept so wrong on my neck that it hurt to turn my head all the way to the right. I honestly think the five stretches I do religiously every other evening helped with that. I've been doing those ever since seeing a physical therapist about the nerve pain in my arm, which also would go up to my neck. When was that physical therapy appointment, anyway? Oh: August 2024. I've been doing these stretches that guy gave me for almost two years now. I have no plan to stop, ever, because I have never had the same kind of nerve pain again. The pain in my neck was different from that, in any case. But, if it was also a nerve issue, presumably the continued stretching helped. I feel better now, anyway. I feel less great about turning 50. I am on PTO all next week for my Birth Week, and Gabby has significant overlap with her own PTO: today is her first day off and she's out through Wednesday next week. She's going to Tokyo with her husband Nick, because Nick's mom is attending a doula conference of some sort and they decided to tag along. Anyway, when Gabby left yesterday she texted the team over Microsoft Teams, leaving three short messages about who we can lean on in her absence, etc. She ended it with, Happy 5-0 to Matthew on 4/30! Enjoy your birth week! And that was sweet but also seeing it written like that, "5-0," made me want to throw up a little bit. Anyway. I rode my bike home, something I won't be able to do today because it was quite raininy this morning and so I walked. But! The spectacular forecast for my Birth Week is holding so far—indeed the extended forecast has rain today only, and straight-up sunshine the next four days, with highs in the mid-sixties. It's showing some clouds the next few days, but as of this morning the forecast on Friday next week is partly sunny and 71°. If we can get that same weather the very next day then conditions will be perfect for my party at Dad and Sherri's house. — छह हज़ार अठारह — So what did I do last night, once I got home? Shobhit and I made flatbread pizzas for dinner, and mine turned out to be quite delicious. I cut mine in half and will have the rest of it for dinner tonight. I ate while finishing the latest Bill Burr comedy special on Hulu, which was all right, except that it was released last year but clearly recorded before the election in 2024, so some of it was both quickly and strikingly dated. Shobhit was listening to more of his news programs, but then we watched about two and a half episodes of season 2 of Patriot. I had felt after the first episode or two that this season was kind of weak conpared to season 1—boy was I wrong about that. We're now halfway through this eight-episode season and it's amazing. One scene was done in a single shot and follows John, the main character, from a subway to a grocery store where a shooting takes place (and both he and a friend lose some fingers, which they carry with them), and back into the subway station and onto the train. I was really impressed with how well they pulled it off. Having the soundtrack be one of John's folk songs in which he sings all about exactly what we're watching him do was just icing on the cake. — छह हज़ार अठारह — — छह हज़ार अठारह — I had a bit of an unusual work event today: a broker too me out for lunch. This is not exactly unheard of; brokers have taken me out a handful of times over my many years at PCC. This was the first time it's happened since we moved to our Downtown location, though, and that was just under eight months ago. The main woman in the group, her name is Ayn and that's pronounced "Anne," had asked me for recommendations of where to go, and I kept drawing a blank. There are tons of places all around here, but I've only gone out to lunch a couple of times at all since we moved to this location. But, then Ayn recommended Mendocino Farms right at the end of this block, and I was like—perfect! I had never eaten there before either, but I knew they have sandwiches and that sounded great to me. I had a vegan banh mi sandwich and it was delicious. I had met Ayn several times before when she has visited Grocery Merchandisers for meetings over the years. There were three other woman from her brokerage who I have exchanged many an email with, though: Tonja ("Tonya"), Nia, and Trisha. Trisha is the only relatively recent hire, she's been with them since last year I think. But I've been emailing Tonja and Nia for years. It was my first time meeting any of those three in person, and when I went to meet them all up by the front desk when they arrived at 11:30, they all but cheered when I showed up. I felt like a celebrity. I mean, brokers have been treating me like a celebrity for years. We had lots to talk about, and actually hung out for a good ninety minutes. I learned a lot about all of them, and they brought up fairly early on that they'd like to do a lunch like this again. Apparently Ayn and Tonja had been talking for some years about taking me to lunch but only this year finally got around to actually doing it. It sounds like maybe next time we'll go out for drinks at the end of a work day. Tonja talked about how this lunch was kind of to feel me out, since they didn't even know if I drink, for example. (I said I very much do, although I have to be a lot more careful about it now than I used to.) Anyway it was a lovely lunch, but now I need to get the work done that I need to get done, because as I noted to the four of them, I am out of the office all next week! Actually they all even expressed interest in getting onto the distribution list for my email photo travelogues. I need to email them all about that now. So I'm actually going to post this now and get to it then. No, really! — छह हज़ार अठारह — [posted 1:10pm]

miles in my shoes

— छह हज़ार सत्रह — I've already eaten too much today. Noah came out of a meeting this morning with a box of incredible, high-quality doughnuts; I took his advice and chose the "cronut," a croissant-doughnut hybrid which was superbly seasoned. I thought about how I'd have done well to, say, cut it into quarters and eat only one piece. I thought a lot about that as I went out to the kitchen, grabbed a paper towel to catch any of the seasoning that might tumble off, and ate the entire thing. I had already eaten two bites of chocolate and a small bag of chips. There's a guy named Bob who is one of our major contacts at our biggest distributor, and he happened to be in for a meeting today. He bought Taco Time for the entire office. It was set out like catering, something I had never seen from the likes of Taco Time before. I actually have a favorite item at Taco Time, something I have not eaten in years: the Crisp Bean Burrito. No deep fried items in this spread, though: it was a taco buffet. I made two small soft tacos and they were surprisingly tasty. — छह हज़ार सत्रह — I'm having an unusually chill, uneventful week this week, in the lead-up to my Birth Week, and I'm absolutely good with that: my calendar is so packed in the 10 days between this Friday and the Sunday of the following weekend, I'm happy to sit back and recharge for a bit. I don't even have another movie planned until Thursday. I had no social engagements last night, none planned tonight, none planned tomorrow night. Maybe we'll catch up on some TV. I could have last night but Shobhit wanted to listen to his news programs—he's able to get the audio online of his MS NOW shows, including Rachel Maddow, even though we don't subscribe to the actual channel. I spent much of that time watching one and a half standup specials on Hulu. I chose Hulu because my one-month subsctription to that one ends on Friday. I've considered extending another month just for Abbott Elementary, but I'm not sure it would be worth it just for that. And it's about time for me to do another month of Netflix, which is one I don't want to do lower-tier subscription for because I don't want to deal with commercials, even though I did do that with Hulu and already have to deal with on Pime Video. (HBO Max remains commercial-free, thank god.) — छह हज़ार सत्रह — — छह हज़ार सत्रह — Anyway! When Shobhit was done with his news programs, he asked if I wanted to go for a walk with him, and I said sure. I thought we were just going up to Volunteer Park via 15th and then back via Broadway, but he added steps everywhere he could: we walked past Volunteer Park and Lake View Cemetery to Louisa Boren Lookout, then even slightly beyond that to the end of 15th Avenue; back to Volunteer Park, where we walked to the Conservatory, then back to the Water Tower, and back to the Conservatory again; then we walked over to Broadway and walked back mostly on that street. I think Shobhit would have been happy to overshoot Pine a block over to Pike just to get more extra steps in, but while we were walking past Seattle Central College, I was finally like, "You can do what you want but I'm turning here," and we cut through Volunteer Park on the way to go the rest of the way up Pine Street to home. My toes had multiple blisters already from the eleven cumulative miles we walked on Saturday while riding the 2 Line to Redmond and back (and getting off at every station, but also walking between stations two different times), and this was not helping. The walk last night alone amounted to 4.2 miles, round trip. I actually took Shobhit's suggestion and put Band-Aids on a couple of my toe blisters this morning. Aside from the blisters, though, I should note that it was a lovely walk. It was 63° when we left and the sun was starting to set; I figured I should take a light jacket since it would probably get chilly enough to need it after dark. Well, not so much: I walked with my jacket in my hands the entire way. I have also been checking the 10-day weather forecast on my Weather app every single day for the past several days, to see what the forecasts are through my Birth Week. Right now it goes through Thursday next week, and guess what? Rain forecast for today and tomorrow, but none the eight days after that! We're looking, so far at least, at sunny or partly-sunny days with temperatures in the low to mid-sixties; currently the forecast for Wednesday next week (when Barbara arrives) is for 69°. We'll see if that holds; I just hope the dry weather holds. I know I love to yap about how much we actually need the rain (we're already in a statewide drught declaration due to compounding years of not enough snowpack), but I'm selfish and I want the weather to be nice for my Birth Week! It can rain every day for the rest of May if it wants. It won't, and that's going to make everything worse, but at least I'll have a nice birthday! Of course, I haven't yet reached the forecast for Saturday May 2, which is arguably the most important as that's when my party takes place at Dad and Sherri's house in Olympia. It'll be a hell of a lot more pleasant for everyone if we can hang out outside. But, I guess I won't worry about that until I start seeing the forecast for that day, which I won't get in the 10-day forecast for another two days. Granted, I learned long ago never to trust the 10th day forecast in a Seattle 10-day forecast, but for now, things are looking good. There was even one day (Tuesday, I think) showing 50% chance of rain for a few days and it's not even doing that anymore! — छह हज़ार सत्रह — [posted 12:34pm]