it's chili in here

— छह हज़ार अड़तालीस — I updated daily over the weekend, a rare thing indeed: but it was because I always like to make an annual cultural event like the Fremont Solstice Parade and Fair its own post, which I wrote up and shared on Saturday evening, after Ivan and I went to it together. What I posted yesterday was not a regular update for the day, but a quarterly one: in the morning I shared the Spring 2026 Social Review, in which Laney was amazingly knocked down to #4 in the rankings—displaced by both Ivan and Alexia. Even though all three of them tied with 9 Social Review points each (I give one per day in which I engaged in social activity with someone), I spent entire days with both Ivan and Alexia in ways I did not with Laney. One such day was the Tulip Festival, and it was fun to have great shots each of Shobhit, Ivan, and Alexia among the tulips to use in the top 3 spots. Now, even though I usually fold Shobhit in with the Social Review points just for days Ivan is with us when he's staying over, I opted not to this time for either Friday or Saturday—Shobhit already handily made it to #1, with nearly four times as many points as any of the next three ranked after him, and even more than that among anyone else. Plus, on both Friday and Saturday, Ivan and I went out together and Shobhit did not join us, which made it make more sense for just Ivan to get the point. Yesterday itself is a bit different, however. Ivan never went out with us, but he did hang out with us for a while before he headed back to Edmonds in the afternoon. Shobhit took part in a chili cookout at CC's, and we all had some of it before Shobhit and I took his huge amount of food over there. So, I'd say we all had lunch together. Points all around! Side note, this is a rather different scenario with Ivan in town than it's been in many years. Not since before he lived in our guest room the second time, from late 2016 to early 2018, has he lived in or around Seattle but not lived with us. So indeed, this hasn't happened since 2016; when he came back to Seattle again for a job in 2021, he just lived with us again, which he did for nine and a half months. What's actually different about his circumstance this time from any other circumstance before, is he is not living in Seattle proper—he took a job in Edmonds, so he basically lives up there. Although he just rents AirBnBs, which has to be far more expensive than subletting a room, but whatever. He also confirmed when he left yesterday that, although he is going back to the AirBnB he was staying at in Edmonds before, he still took all of the stuff he takes with him anywhere (this includes one large backpack and another smaller bag) when staying two nights with us, since it saved him the cost of staying in Edmonds. He apparently only works three 12-hour night shifts a week, and travels to other areas in the region on his days off a lot. He was in Seattle last Monday, when he was texting me his disgust with all the World Cup fans in town; and he recently spent several nights in Tacoma. I honestly don't know how he lives like this, but he's been doing it for years and years. He'll regularly go back to his parents' house in Lancaster when between jobs, so presumably he has possessions stored there. But otherwise, he only keeps what he can literally carry with him from place to place. He even told me right before he left yesterday afternoon that it was more than he even really needed. I did notice he wore the exact same outfit every day he was with us. Shobhit totally expected him to do laundry while he was here, which would not have surprised me either as he did the last time he stayed with us, but he didn't. Anyway, his placing at #2 on the Social Review is clearly a byproduct of his current proximity—we don't do stuff nearly as frequently as we might if he actually lived with us; but we're obviously hanging out way more than when he's doing nursing jobs elsewhere in the country. Plus, the fact that he's stayed anywhere from one to three nights each of the times he's come down from Edmonds to visit (that's four times alone since he moved to Edmonds in March) actually pads his numbers so they are comparable to when he did live with us, but we did stuff together on more scattered days than clustered together like they have been this year. This year, he came for the day trip to Whidbey Island with Shobhit and Alexia and me in March; for the day trip to the Tulip Festival, again with Shobhit and Alexia and me, in April; again in April for our shared birthday when he actually took the initiative himself for the first time to suggest he participate in one of my Birth Week activities; and now for the Fremont Solstice Parade in June. I have no clue when we'll hang out again, but it will probably involve another overnight visit, and we'll figure it out. I'm always delighted to have him visit. — छह हज़ार अड़तालीस — — छह हज़ार अड़तालीस — So, about that chili cookoff, it was actually called "Seattle Leather Daddy's Chili Cookoff," so of course they had to hold it on Father's Day. Seattle Men in Leather, of which Shobhit is a member, was the organization putting it on; but CC's was the host venue. There were supposed to be five competing chilis, but one of them didn't show, so there were only four. I guess this is an annual event, but the first one Shobhit tried his hand in—even though his was predictably the only vegetarian one, and most people want meat in their chili, so it was honestly not a huge shock that his didn't win. Plus, he had never made such a high volume of one dish before either, which posed its own challenges, not least of which was mixing all the ingredients between three different pots on the stove; transferring them to portable tin containers; and actually walking to Pacific Supply Hardware Store to get a food thermometer because it was required to be at least 145° upon arrival. (Shobhit knew this was a meat consideration more than anything, but he still went to get a food thermometer anyway.) Ivan had actually expressed a surprise amount of interest on Saturday, in comning with us to this cookoff, as he watched Shobhit work on prep the entire time Ivan was here. But, once he'd had some of it early yesterday afternoon, he later indicated he wasn't going to come. I have a hard time imagining Ivan hanging out at a gay bar anyway. I did go and I spent the whole time basically being a wallflower, and I still would have looked like a social butterfly compared to Ivan, I'm guessing. Anyway, the event was officially from 3 to 7 p.m., and chili participants were told they could drop their dishes off at 2:30. Shobhit and I carefully loaded the car with four flat tin dishes, three of them set on their side inside the large insulated tote that we have, and one of them just wrapped in a towel. All of them were stacked in the trunk, and Shobhit asked me to drive, which made this my first time driving since the weekend after my accident, when driving really fucked up my back. I was fine yesterday though. Shobhit had forgotten to double check that email with the details, and we got there shortly after 2:00. They quite strictly did not open their doors until 2:30, shortly before which I drove the car back home so as not to deal with parking. Ivan was just packing up when I returned at that point; when Shobhit and I first left, I was still under the impression that Ivan might come with us. He had gone out for a walk so I even texted him when we left; he told me when he responded that he was working out in our gym on the ground floor. Then, Shobhit had forgotten to print out his ingredient list, and when I took his laptop to the printer in the West Building I could not get the printer to come online. In the end I emailed the document to him and he was able to print it out at CC's. This distracted me from Ivan for a bit, but then when I took the laptop back upstairs, that was when he was all ready to go and he hugged me goodbye and thanked me for having him. I used the bathroom, and then was out the door myself within minutes, to walk back to CC's. I thought maybe I would even catch up with Ivan on his way to the Light Rail station, but no such luck. I then got to CC's at maybe 3:30 or a bit before, and was there for a good three hours, largely kind of twiddling my thumbs waiting for the contest results. They only announced the 2nd and 1st place chilis, which happened at about 6:00. We finally left after that. I did buy my own chili bowl, though; I only had Shobhit's, but I had the $10 order that included a bag of Fritos. This was chili I had plenty of at home, so really I paid $10 for a bag of Frito's and some shredded cheese and chopped fresh onion to top the chili with. It was super tasty like that, though. Shobhit and I both had seconds of the chili with some French fries he bought on our way home, which was a mistake in terms of weight maintenance. Between the extra helping of chili and the pint of Molly Moon's ice cream we bought—we finally saw Alexia's son Bram in there, he's been the manager there for a while, and he even gave us his employee discount (I honestly wasn't even thinking about that)—I was up another pound and a half this morning. It probably didn't help that we also bought waffle cones. But damn, was that Blueberry Pie ice cream cone delicious! We spent the rest of the evening watching TV. Season 3 premiere of House of the Dragon, which was very exciting; Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which this week was about feral hogs, of all things. — छह हज़ार अड़तालीस — [posted 12:33pm]

the fruitcake enterprises social review—spring 2026

In the spring of 2026, I engaged in in-person or face-to-face virtual social interaction with the following people on the indicated number of days: 1. Shobhit—35 *
2. Ivan—9 *
3. Alexia—9 *
4. Laney—9 *
5. Gabriel—6 *
6. Barbara—5 *
7. Karen—5
8. Tony—4 **
9. Jake—4 **
10. Daniel—4 **
11. Tracy—2 *
12. Lea—2 *
13. Ryan—3 **
14. Derek—3 **
15. Chris—2 **
16. Andrew—2 **
17. Greg—2 **
18. Jennifer—1 *
19. Dad—1 *
20. Danielle—1 *
21. Lynn—1 *
22. Claudia—1
23. Zephyr—1 *
24. Valerie—1 *
25. Gabby—1 *
26. Jessica—1 *
27. Amanda—1
28. Cathryn—1
29. Nick—1 *
30. Tess—1
31. Ben—1 **
32. Ayn—1 ****
33. Tonja—1 ****
34. Nia—1 ****
35. Trisha—1 ****
36. Berkeley—1
37. Craig—1 ***
38. Dylan—1 *** * Birth Week participant ** Regular attendee at Action Movie Night *** Irregular attendee at Action Movie Night **** Broker lunch
Total days in the fall with social interaction: 60 (65.2%, a -4.8 percentage point change from winter)
. . . Well! What a delight my social life in the spring of 2026 was! Just a couple days fewer than winter with social interaction overall, but the spread is unusually fantastic—with one notable exception (I really need to find ways to spend more time with Danielle), this is closer to an ideal spread across all my friends than it has been in ages. True, Laney took a nosedive in actual points, with 9 now compared to 19 in the winter, but this was an expected byproduct of her budget tightening in the lead-up to moving out of her apartment, which meant seeing far fewer movies with me and cutting back just a bit on the frequency of our Happy Hours. On the other hand, that tally of 9 points tied her with both Alexia and Ivan, both of whom I had to rank above her just because I spent so many full days with both Ivan and Alexia (Whidbey Island; Tulip Festival). Between Laney backing off and Ivan returning with a vengeance due to his moving to Edmonds for a job (we'll see how long that lasts), Ivan still surprised by managing to take the #2 spot. But in retrospect, it makes sense, as he came down to stay at our place for slightly varying numbers of days each time we got together: three nights when he joined us for the day trip Whidbey Island; two nights when he joined us for the Tulip Festival; one night during my Birth Week; another two nights this weekend for the Fremont Solstice Parade and Fair. Alexia is fairly holding steady, though even she gained two points over last quarter, she remains in the #3 position just as she was before. But Gabriel is another one who really reared up from behind: I hung out with him twice during my Birth Week; we got together to see The Mandalorian and Grogu, and then the three-day weekend on Lummi Island really made the difference, doubling the amount of points he'd have otherwise. (Gabriel is the one person I know who would go out of his way to declare how stupid my Social Review is to begin with, ironically.) Karen had 7 points last time, ranking at #4 then; this time she's at #7 with 5 points, but more in line with our typical amount of time spent together, only further down the list than usual thanks to the likes of Ivan and Gabriel. It's the fact that I missed not one, but two Action Movie Nights this quarter that pushes all the regulars in that group further down the rankings than usual. Tony would have had six points, for example, if not for my needing to skip Action Movie Night during my Birth Week—the day that Barbara arrived—and then missing Action Movie Night the week of my bike accident, because I was stuck in the ICU. So, I attended four Action Movie Nights instead of six. And last but hardly least, I certainly can't forget about Barbara! She used to dominate the Social Review, back in the 2000s, the way Laney had for the last couple of years—even more so; sometimes she even used to beat Shobhit! She hasn't lived here since 2010 (I've been doing these Social Reviews since 2002), but we also flew her out for my 50th birthday, and she was here for five days, thus giving her 5 points on the Social Review but, amazingly, still ranking lower than Alexia or even Gabriel! She participated in all the Birth Week stuff I did while she was here, and I sure loved having her. I do hope the next time I see her is when I can finally fly out to visit her in Louisville again. Luckily she's far happier in the subsidized housing she's in there than Laney turned out to be at Pride Place here in Seattle; Laney is much happier back in her van with the ability to drive to quieter neighborhoods to spend the night. Anyway, now for the who did what with whom where and when! Saturday, March 21: with Shobhit and Ivan, Ivan spending the night Sunday, March 22: with Shobhit, Ivan, and Alexia, day trip through Whidbey Island (Washington Park Loop, Anacortes; Deception Pass / State Park; lunch at Sunshine drip; Coupeville & Price Sculpture Forest; Fort Casey State Park; Greenbank Farm), out for dinner at Tandoori Flame & Indian Grill Monday, March 23: with Shobhit and Ivan, last evening at our place Monday, March 23: with Shobhit, Seattle Leather Artists' Media Show at Vermillion Tuesday, March 24: with Laney, BYOB Happy Hour at Olympia Coffee, US Bank Center Friday, March 27: with Karen, lunch over Zoom Saturday, March 28: with Laney, East Link Connection / Crosslake Connection Light Rail stations tour Sunday, March 29: with Claudia, hanging out in Port Orchard Monday, March 30: with Shobhit, walking home from work Wednesday, April 1: with Shobhit, Tony, Jake, Ryan, Derek, and Daniel, Action Movie Night (Trailer Park of Terror) Thursday, April 2: with Laney, to a movie (The Drama) Saturday, April 4: with Shobhit and Laney, double feature at our place (Nebraska and Downsizing) Monday, April 6: with Shobhit, walking home from work Tuesday, April 7: with Shobhit, walking home from work Friday, April 10: with Karen, lunch over Zoom Friday, April 10: with Shobhit, Alexia, and Ivan, movie night at our place (The Devil Wears Prada) Saturday, April 11: with Shobhit, Alexia, and Ivan, Tulip Festival 2026, and Little Mountain Park Sunday, April 12: with Tracy, Dune Peninsula, Point Defiance Park, Tacoma Wednesday, April 15: with Shobhit, Tony, Jake, Chris B, Derek, Greg, and Daniel, Action Movie Night (The Pentagon Wars) Saturday, April 18: with Shobhit, East Link Extension / Crosslake Connection 2026 Redux Sunday, April 19: with Shobhit, out for breakfast (Portage Bay Cafe, Roosevelt Way) Tuesday, April 21: with Shobhit, out for a walk up 15th & back on Broadway Wednesday, April 22: with Ayn, Tonja, Nia, and Trisha, out for lunch (Mendocino Farms) Friday, April 24: with Tracy, out for dinner (Cafe Arta at Third Place Books) Saturday, April 25: with Gabriel, out for lunch (takeout on Bremerton waterfront) Saturday, April 25: with Jennifer, Mason County Senior Activities Center, out for dinner (Shelton Thai Cuisine in Shelton), and staying the night at their place in Union Sunday, April 26: with Lynn and Zephyr, Erector Set in Downtown Everett, out for lunch (Scuttlebutt Brewing), and Surf II on the Everett waterfront Monday, April 27: with Shobhit and Valerie, out for lunch at George's in Kirkland, out for dessert at Kirkland Bakery, and walking the Public Path along the lake Monday, April 27: with Shobhit, Starbucks at Pike Place Market Tuesday, April 28: with Alexia, picnic at Central Park in the the Issaquah Highlands surrounded by the "Issaquah Alps"" Wednesday, April 29: with Shobhit and Barbara, Ballard Avenue Landmark District Wednesday, April 29: with Shobhit, Barbara, and Ivan, dinner at our place and Barbara (in the guest room) and Ivan (in the Guest Suite) staying the night (including watching a movie with Shobhit and Ivan (Dust Bunny)) Thursday, April 30: with Shobhit, Barbara, and Ivan, Olallie State Park, and out for dessert (Berna's Bakery & Cafe in Issaquah) Friday, May 1: with Laney and Barbara, picnic at Freeway Park, then coffee and tea at Olympia Coffee in the US Bank Center lobby Friday, May 1: with Shobhit and Barbara, Barbara staying at our place Saturday, May 2: with Shobhit and Barbara, Providence St. Peter Hospital, Olympia Saturday, May 2: with Shobhit, Danielle, Gabriel, Lea, Barbara, Laney, Jessica, and many family members, my 50th birthday celebration Sunday, May 3: with Shobhit, Dad, and Barbara, Mima Mounds Natural Area Preserve Tuesday, May 5: with Shobhit, Gabby and Nick, "Cinco de Matthew" birthday dinner at Gabby and Nick's house in Edmonds Wednesday, May 6: with Amanda and Cathryn, out for lunch at Freya Bakery & Cafe Wednesday, May 6: with Alexia, to a movie (The Devil Wears Prada 2) Friday, May 8: with Karen, lunch over FaceTime Saturday, May 9: with Shobhit, SIFF Industry Event in the rooftop lounge and terrace at Arrivé Apartments Tuesday, May 12: with Laney, to a movie (The Sheep Detectives) Wednesday, May 13: with Shobhit, Tony, Jake, Ryan, Craig, Chris B, Andrew, Derek, Daniel, and Dylan, Action Movie Night (April X) Thursday, May 14: with Shobhit, Capitol Hill Art Walk Saturday, May 16: with Shobhit and Alexia, putting together puzzles at her place, and out for dinner (Maharaja Issaquah) Sunday, May 17: with Shobhit, out for a walk to Pike Place, Pier 62, and Myrtle Edwards Park; then to a SIFF movie (Body Blow) Monday, May 18: with Laney, BYOB Happy Hour at Barnes & Noble Thursday, May 21: with Gabriel, Lea, Tess, and Berkeley, out for dinner (Agave Cocina & Cantina) and then to a movie (Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu) Friday, May 22: with Gabriel, out for lunch (Train Wreck Bar & Grill in Bellingham), arrival at Lummi Island, walking Sunset Beach, visiting Full Bloom Farm Stand, and hanging out at Bula Beach House AirBnB Saturday, May 23: with Gabriel, labyrinth at Lummi Island Congregational Church, out for lunch (The Galley), hiking Baker Preserve Trail, out for dinner (Beach Store Cafe), and sitting by the fire at Bula Beach House Sunday, May 24: with Gabriel, visiting the closed Willows Inn, out for lunch (Saigon Cafe in Bellingham), and returning fron Lummi Island Wednesday, May 27: with Shobhit and Alexia, visiting me in the hospital Wednesday, May 27: with Shobhit and Karen, visiting me in the hospital Saturday, May 30: with Alexia, Double Feature at my place (When Harry Met Sally and Four Weddings and a Funeral), and takeout dinner (Aviv Hummus Bar) Sunday, May 31: with Alexia, to a movie (The Mandalorian and Grogu) Wednesday, June 3: with Shobhit, walking with me downtown before my movie Thursday, June 4: with Shobhit, Pioneer Square First Thursday Art Walk Saturday, June 6: with Shobhit, Seattle Pride in the Park at Volunteer Park Sunday, June 7: with Shobhit, to a play (Frida . . . a Self-Portrait at Union Arts Center) Wednesday, June 10: with Shobhit, Tony, Jake, Ryan, Ben, Daniel, and Andrew Action Movie Night (For a Few Dollars More) Saturday, June 13: with Shobhit, drive to Whistler, B.C., Train Wreck Trail, hot tubbing at Sundial Hotel, and out for dessert (Peak Pies) Sunday, June 14: with Shobhit, Blackcomb Gondola, Peak 2 Peak Gondola, Cloudraker Skybridge, Whistler Village Gondola, and anniversary dinner at Araxi Monday, June 15: with Shobhit, walking Whistler Village, Brandywine Falls Park, and Shannon Falls Park Tuesday, June 16: with Laney, to a movie (Disclosure Day) Friday, June 19: with Karen, lunch over Zoom Friday, June 19: with Ivan, to a movie (Leviticus) Saturday, June 20: with Ivan, Fremont Solstice Parade and Fair, and out for dinner (Annapurna)