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]

return to portage bay

— छह हज़ार सोलह — Shobhit has been talking about going out for breakfast for a little while; we almost never go out to eat anywhere anymore, unless it's something that gets planned with another friend. We've done Mirabelle by Orphée, a new favorite in Pioneer Square, a few times over the last several months, but when it comes to going out for breakfast in particular, I can't even remember the last time Shobhit and I went out for breakfast when we weren't traveling. I just consulted my Social Review records (another in the endless array of reasons the Social Reviews ultimately prove useful!), and it would appear that, outside of travel outside of Seattle, the last time he and I went out for breakfast in Seattle was in May 2024. Two years ago! And we went out for breakfast twice that very month: once at The French Guys and once at Volunteer Park Cafe. I can't believe that was two years ago already. Anyway, Shobhit asked me Saturday evening if I wanted to go out for breakfast Sunday morning. Now that I budget for so many planned vacations and travels, my budget almost never allows for this, although I suppose it theoretically would a little more often now that Laney and I aren't going out as often. But, we did recently go to the Tulip Festival and that basically wiped out any discretionary spending for this pay period. So, my response was: "If you want to pay for it." And ultimately he decided he would. We spent a somewhat inordinate amount of time looking up places to go for breakfast, first focusing on Capitol Hill and then branching out. And then it was he who asked about Portage Bay Cafe, which I was all about: the one on Roosevelt Way in the U District is across the street from the Roosevelt location of the PCC Central Office, which means that until we moved away from there in 2016, I used to eat over there pretty regularly. I consulted my records again, and as far as I can tell I hadn't eaten at that Portage Bay location since then, roughly ten years ago. (Gabby and Amy and I did once at at a Portage Bay, but for that one we drove to the South Lake Union location, which is closer to what was then the Belltown office location on the waterfront.) Portage Bay was always a bit pricy, and of course their prices are even higher now. We both ordered dishes and they were both around $20. I also ordered a $5 London Fog, and he ordered a coffee. With tax and tip you can imagine how spendy that was. I'm glad Shobhit paid for it. The food was delicious, though, and I was delighted to be able to order the egg-and-torilla dish called the "Migas," which was always my favorite and I hadn't had in ages. It had been so long since I ate there that I nearly forgot that we would have no need to drive up there, and we could easily get there by Light Rail—thanks to the Northgate Extension that opened in 2021. This included U District Station, which is all of four and a half blocks from Portage Bay Cafe. (Capitol Hill Station is half a mile, or about seven and a half blocks, from home.) After breakfast, we walked up to the U District Trader Joe's to get cocoa powder for the red velvet cake Shobhit wants to make for my birthday party. Then we went back to U District Station and took the train back to Capitol Hill, where we walked over to QFC for him to check his lottery tickets (he didn't win), and when we got over to Capitol Hill Farmers Market it still wasn't even open. I was so concerned about a long wait at Portage Bay Cafe that I got out of bed at around 6:30 and set to getting ready right away; by the time we got to Portage Bay Cafe it was around 9 a.m. and they had been open only an hour, and there were plenty of open tables. We were seated immediately. — छह हज़ार सोलह — — छह हज़ार सोलह — As for the rest of the day, in the afternoon yesterday I took myself to see Normal at the AMC Pacific Place, which I had a rather good time at—a bit better than I hoped, even. That was at 1:30, so it let out at 3:30, and I walked home, and spent the better part of the next hour writing the review. The rest of the evening was just eating and watching TV: Euphoria, Rooster, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver—all HBO Max, the channel of choice on Sunday evenings. Otherwise Shobhit has been binging the reboot of Malcom in the Middle on Hulu, which I'm finding surprisingly entertaining even though I never watched the original show. I certainly didn't realize it first aired over two decades ago. Damn, I feel old. Oh and by the way I turn 50 in ten days. I really hope I can come to terms of being in my fifties soon. Because I am definitely not there yet. I have no choice in the matter, though. The only way I could stop aging is if I died, and I have no plan to do that. I mean, obviously I'll have to eventually, and every day bringing me closer to it is part of the problem. But it's still not in my plans! What is in my plans is all the fun stuff in store for me this year: Birth Week next week; weekend trip with Gabriel to Lummi Island in late May; weekend anniversary trip to Whistler with Shobhit in June; Amsterdam in late July and in August; the Fourth Biannual Family Vacation in Tokeland, Washington in August; the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta with Shobhit, Jennifer and Matthew in October. The four-month lull since the last holiday season is over! And I'm thrilled. I've got all that to get through and then it'll be another holiday season. I spent a good amount of time this morning combing through the World Pride Amsterdam website events pages and putting specific World Pride events on my calendar. Between that and all the other shit I want to do, those couple of weeks are pretty packed with plans already. Just like next week is. I'm ready! But I suppose I have to get through this work week first. Oh, I guess I can also mention that after work on Friday I took myself to see The Christophers, which was very good. As for Saturday, that was when Shobhit and I did our own joyride on the Link Line 2 light rail route, and I already posted about that separately. — छह हज़ार सोलह — [posted 12:32pm]