— छह हज़ार तीस —
This past weekend for me was pretty eventful by most people's standards, and less eventful than many weekends by my own standards. Certainly compared to most of the weekends through April, which included Easter Sunday in Olympia; a day trip with Shobhit and Alexia and Ivan to the Tulip Festival; Pont Defiance Park with Tracy; re-riding the Light Rail Crosslake Connection with Shobhit; and the first weekend of my Birth Week (thus the first weekend of May was the
last weekend of my Birth Week). If nothing else, this past weekend was a bit more eventful than the previous weekend, which consisted merely of a 90-minute Happy Hour with Laney and going to a movie.
This past Saturday, Shobhit and I went to Issaquah to spend the afternoon and early evening with Alexia. As soon as I had texted her
my photo of the adorable puzzle Tracy had bought me for my birthday at Third Place Books on April 24 (Day One of my Birth Week), we decided we should get together to put the puzzle together. Soon thereafter, we decided to plan on Saturday, May 16 for that. Shobhit had nothing else going on that day and so he went to, which meant we drove rather than me taking the bus, although I'm always totally fine with the bus.
It was a very different kind of get-together, that—very quiet. We'd spend long periods of time concentrating on fitting puzzle pieces together, in total silence. There was occasional chatter, of course. Still, I kept thinking about certain other friends of mine who can't abide by letting time pass in silence like that, especially for that long. Alexia and Shobhit and I were all perfectly comfortable with it, though.
The puzzle Tracy bought me was 500 pieces. The individual pieces were also a bit bigger than expected. With the three of us all working on it at the same time, we finished it in about 90 minutes. I suppose that means that if I had done it all by myself, it would have taken three times that long—so, 270 minutes, I guess? That's four and a half hours. I keep thinking about that puzzle Mom bought me at a yard sale years ago and, since she gave it to me as a gift, I did put it together, but it took me months.
Anyway, we finished this puzzle so quickly, Alexia asked if we wanted to help her finish the 1000-piece puzzle she had in a zipped-up, flat container under her couch. She unfolded sides of her coffee table to create space, which was very cool. But, we worked on this puzzle for maybe 10 minutes before we gave up, it was so difficult. It was nothing but leaves that looked very similar to each other. They all had slightly varying patterns with white centers and lines out to very dark green outer edges, that kind of thing. It felt impossible. Also, she had thought she had it 3/4 done and I would argue it was maybe a quarter finished.
So then Alexia suggested we try the "Poisonous Plants" puzzle (also 1000 pieces) she had bought at the Christianson's Nursery gift shop the weekend that she, Ivan, Shobhit and I had all gone to the Tulip Festival. This one was a fair amount easier. This one we opened and started from scratch, and for a bit we thought we might finish it. But, we were maybe half done when we all decided we were hungry.
So, we went to
Maharaja, an Indian restaurant Alexia really likes all of half a mile away downtown Issaquah. Under normal circumstances we'd have walked, but it was raining off and on Saturday and we didn't want to risk it. (Indeed, it start raining during our drive over there.) I had eaten there once with Alexia already, back in January when Shobhit was in India; this was his first time. A bit predictably, he declared it just "okay."
I had been slightly disappointed with the Shahi Paneer (on their menu as "Shai Paneer") when there last time, but somehow I apparently missed that they have two versions. This time I ordered "Zaika Shai Paneer," which has more vegetables and nuts mixed into the paneer sauce. It was much better. So much so that, even though we also ordered eggplant and lentil dishes, I was sad when I ran out of my first portion of Shahi Paneer, and got a second portion before I finished eating the other stuff.
We also ordered pakoras. Or maybe they were uncluded in the package "Indian dinner" that we ordered, which was more than enough food for all three of us and saved us quite a bit of money. Credit to Shobhit for suggesting we go that route. We were all stuffed by the time dinner was done.
We went back to the apartment and worked on the puzzle a bit more. Shobhit and I finally left at around 8:00, having gotten there at a quarter after 1:00. We were there for nearly seven hours. Alexia had made a batch of delightfully soft snickerdoodle cookies that had a slightly salty kick to them and they were amazing; she sent us home with a bag of them. We had already come back with the food storage container she'd given me full of peanut butter chococolate chips for my birthday. It's interesting to me how often she bakes a bunch of cookies given she lives alone. Maybe she knows she can always give me a bunch of them.
Anyway. It was a lovely, very chill day. So much so that, because he was inexplicably tired, Shobhit asked me to drive us home—and he didn't side-seat drive the entire time. God, do I wish it could be like that always. He can be so pleasant to be around when he's not in one of his irritable moods that turns him into a raging asshole at the slightest provocation. I really need to jump back into researching where we can find a couples therapist again. We clearly didn't stick with it long enough last time, and although we're doing okay right now, that's guaranteed not to last and that's kind of the problem. Also it's arguably better to go to therapy before things get genuinely bad anyway.
— छह हज़ार तीस —
— छह हज़ार तीस —
Yesterday, Shobhit and I went to the one and only SIFF film I attended this year. I got to see it for free, due to two free passes Shobhit received as a Board member of sponsor SAG-AFTRA Seattle Local. It was called
Body Blow, an Australian gay camp neo-noir that basically delivered on its promise, its many evident flaws notwithstanding; I gave it a solid B, but I rather enjoyed it. Shobhit, for his part, left the theater saying it was better than he expected.
I had the option of using the two passes to see two SIFF movies on my own, but opted instead to find one movie that would interest both of us, and this was it. I mean, that had workable showtimes, anyway; one of the perennial frustrations of SIFF is that a given movie typically has only two showings in the festival and often they are both showtimes that won't work for me. There was a Mexican film called
Fifteen that was compared to
Heathers and very much interested me, except its two showtimes were a midnight showing (not a chance) and a 9 p.m. showing on a weeknight (also not a chance).
Over the years, many years I have traditionally purchased the "Cinematic Six-Pack," a pack of 6 SIFF movie tickets you can get at a discount, and often an even deeper discount the earlier you buy, often as early as November of the previous year. The problem with that these days is even finding six movies at the festival that I'm all that eager to see. One of the many lasting and unfortunate effects of the pandemic is SIFF's truncated festival duration. The festival was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic; it has run for 10 days every year since, although 2021-2025 it has been hybrid, and having streaming options allowed for greater flexibility, even if I do prefer seeing films in-theater. They had no hybrid component this year for the first time since the pandemic, but they still only ran for 10 days. Prior to the pandemic, this was a long-running festival, usually three and a half weeks. The 2019 festival had run between May 16 and June 9.
But now, SIFF faces
significant financial challenges, they laid off a quarter of their admninistrative staff in the past year alone, and after water damage forced the closure of the Egyptian Theater, which they had been running on Capitol Hill for years, they wound up deciding it was more cost effective for them not to reopen there at all, leaving them with three year-round Seattle theater venues rather than four (the others being SIFF Cinema at the Uptown; SIFF Film Center at Seattle Center; and SIFF Cinema Downtown, formerly Cinerama). A lot of this is feeling like an unfortunate downward cycle, as it's hard to imagine them stretching back to their pre-pandemic scale after laying off a bunch of staff. The state of the movie industry overall does not make the outlook extremely hopeful for anyone, let alone SIFF.
I will continue supporting them however I can; I have been a member for decades now, and will continue renewing my membership (albeit the lowest level one) every year. I mean, having an AMC membership does affect how often I see movies at SIFF Cinemas, where I may get a $5 discount per ticket but I merely pay $27 a month for AMC and I get to see unlimited films for that price. We'll see how this is impacted if they ever close down the AMC at Pacific Place, which will leave me with no in-Seattle AMC to go to; thankfully there's no talk of that, but the state of that theater, which is seriously rundown as Pacific Place overall continues to limp along, is not super encouraging.
In any case, I do long for the days of the three-week festivals, when SIFF was known as the most-attended film festival in the country. That can't possibly be the case now, and it may never again be. It's a bit of a bummer, and it does mean I may never buy the 6-pack package again. I have always insisted on still seeing movies getting wide release during the festival alongside festival films, and combining the two was much more manageable with a three-week festival. A ten-day festival is a different animal altogether.
— छह हज़ार तीस —
All that aside, Shobhit wanted to walk to Lower Queen Anne for the movie, and take a long, roudabout route in order to catch up on how far behind he is on his steps. I was good with this, and walked with him. Thankfully yesterday was not rainy like Saturday was (much as we need way more rainy days than we ever get anymore).
We walked down Pike Street to Pike Place Market, went through the Market and to Victor Steinbrueck Park, where I got
this shot of the Overlook Walk, much more lush with greenery now that it's been open a year and a half. Some people complained about "all the concrete" when it first opened, but there's a ton of plant life that's part of that structure's amazing design, and it remains one of my favorite points of interest in Seattle now. It was a truly fantastic way to connect Downtown and Pike Place with the Seattle Waterfront in a way they were never connected before. It almost feels like a wildlife land bridge, except it's for people and, okay sure, supported by concrete.
We walked Pier 62, as Shobhit is wont to do, along with the floating pier that has a staircase down to right next to it. That was where I found a starfish that I worried about being out of the low-tide water, but when I texted my photo to Gabriel, he noted that the correct term is "sea star" (because it is not a fish), and that they are built for this so it will be fine. Everything I googled said starfish will suffocate outside of water within three to five minutes, but it also said something about exceptions for "tidal" species, so maybe that's what the case is here.
From there we walked up the waterfront, past the dock where tons of people were boarding a cruise ship, and through Myrtle Edwards Park to the W Thomas St Pedestrian bridge. The main bike and pedestrian path through the park was the only thing open through it, as the park is undergoing major renovations; this is why the sculpture
Adjacent, Against, Upon got scrapped from my "1976 Landmarks" Birth Week list, even though it was unveiled there that year. But, we were able to see the installation from above and behind from that bridge, so I got
a picture of it from there.
We wound up reaching the theater close to two hours early, so in the end we went over to KEXP by Seattle Center to order some drinks from the Caffe Vita there and kill time. I can't remember spending any time in there before when it
wasn't some kind of special event (such as a debate in the primaries when Shobhit ran for City Council), and I was kind of struck by
how much I dug the vibe in there. They played lots of cool music I didn't recognize but really liked; I looked up probably four different songs on Shazam. I didn't download any of them or anything, but whatever. I have long since aged out of any working knowledge of contemporary popular music.
— छह हज़ार तीस —
Okay, what else? Friday: I saw a movie that night too,
Is God Is. That one is very highly acclaimed but it didn't speak to me. I struggled a bit with that because other reviews made me think I should have seen more in it than I did. On the other hand, I'm not morally obligated to love every movie that other people love. I am also my own person, goddammit! Okay I guess I'll stop being defensive about it now.
— छह हज़ार तीस —
[posted 12:35pm]
