— पांच हजार नौ सौ तेईस —
Last night was this year's
Holiday in the Park at Volunteer Park. I went with Shobhit, who last came with me two years ago; I went by myself last year because Shobhit was working.
This event has been happening annually
since 2012, and I have been going since the beginning. There were three years in the intervening time I did not go, either because the event was canceled (in 2014 due to a forecast windstorm that never actually materialized; and in 2020 due to the pandemic), or because I was unable to go (2015 was the one year this occurred).
Over the years, I have gone with different people: with Susan in 2012; with Laney in 2016 and in 2019; with Alexia in 2021 and 2022; with Jessica along with Lanbey in 2016; with Shobhit in 2017, 2018, 2022, 2023 and 2025. Shobhit is the one reliable companion at this event, actually—he even remembers it happens and asks me when it's scheduled.
After Laney moved back to Capitol Hill two years ago, I really thought she'd come back to it with me, but this is the third time the event has happened since she's lived six blocks from me, and she still hasn't come back to it since 2019. Sometimes it's because she has other plans, and more often it's because she doesn't want to walk in the rain—and it was wet last night, though most of the time it was down to a light trickle. To be fair, back in 2016 and 2019, Laney lived on Capitol Hill then too but in an apartment far closer to Volunteer Park than either of us live now.
There are three key elements of this event: a booth where volunteers offer visitors free cookies and hot chocolate; a program of four half-hour performances by local groups singing Christmas carols outside the front entrance of the Seattle Asian Art Museum; and the Christmas display inside the Volunteer Park Conservatory.
I shall now make a particular observation about each of these three elements this year.
1. The cookies are back to packages of rows of them that we can just grab by hand, probably purchased at Costco. My chocolate chip cookie was nice and soft. When the event returned after covid in 2021 (indeed, when covid was still very much happening, or at least with greater severity than now; at least we were post-vaccines by then), they pivoted to
individually wrapped cookies that just weren't as good. They were a bit better
in 2022, but they didn't return to these kinds of cookies again until either last year (I don't have any photos of last year's cookies to confirm) or this year. The hot chocolate is a bit of a misnomer, because I think maybe they don't make it hot enough to begin with and/or they need better insulated equipment. They didn't have cups yet when we arrived about 15 minutes into the 2-hour event last night (it goes 6-8 p.m.) but they filled Shobhit's tumbler cup about three quarters full with it. It was barely warmer than room temperature, but other than that it was still tasty. Beggars can't be choosers, I guess.
2. The Beaconettes, the acapelle group of women who wear beehive wigs with Christmas lights weaved through them, close out the performances program just about every year. They were getting ready to go on when we finally left last night, but the previous group had gone on long. I'm sure I'll see The Beaconettes tomorrow at the Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition at Pike Place Market anyway, although they are much more fun to see after dark with their lights. That said, the group that was on before them, the Garfield High School Jazz Combo, were quite charming and talented—so much so that I actually took four video clips of them. Indeed, it was because of that group we even stayed as long as we did; at first I thought I might just take a couple shots of performances before heading home, in which case this year's photo album would have had 28 shots in it. In the end the album got 36 shots, the second-highest in my history with this event.
3. There was a pretty major disappointment with the Christmas display inside the Conservatory: the model train set, which has been set up there every year since the beginning, is gone! I asked the lady working the gift shop in there and she informed us the train had belonged to their Head Gardener, who has retired since last year. Bummer! I'm all for people retiring when it's time, of course, but maybe we can find someone else with a delightful model train set? The Conservatory was still very pretty with all the Christmas trees and other decor, but it really isn't the same without the train. I'm still glad I went though. It was a lovely evening, even with the wetness.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ तेईस —
— पांच हजार नौ सौ तेईस —
In other news, Shobhit met me at Virginia Mason to see Dr. Wancat about my back at 9:30 this morning. I took off my shirt, she looked at it, and it became immediately apparently that it was a good thing I came back in for her to look at it.
It's nothing serious, but part of the incision had come undone, basically leaving a visible divot in my back. It already looked markedly different than it had on Wednesday, when it was a lot more like the wilted cover of a burst blister—and the leakage was by far the worst on Wednesday; it was negligible yesterday; and barely detectable today by the time I was back with the doctor.
The key difference is that Dr. Wancata gave Shobhit some gauze supplies and showed him how to basically redress my wound, ideally twice a day for the next week or so. Shobhit was so worried about this that he was trying to convince me to take my laptop home yesterday and work from home today, which I knew would never be necessary. If anything were even likely that serious, Dr. Wancata would have told me on the phone on Wednesday.
So this is what's going to happen for the next week: Shobhit will press a tiny bit of gauze inside the divot on my back, then cover it with tape. Dr. Wancata says that over time the divot will heal up from the inside out, so Shobhit will have to stick the gauze less further into it each time the dressing is redone. In any case, this should work far better than the makeshift use of band-aids with folded tissue over it that I have been using for nearly a week now. It's now very unlikely that I'll be leaking gross fluid into the back of my shirt again. So that's a relief.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ तेईस —
I just had my biweekly Zoom lunch with Karen. I saw her at her Tulalip place on Thanksgiving last week, and our last Zoom lunch was the previous Friday, so this is a rare case of actually seeing her three times in as many weeks—two of them virtual, but still. Today, I must have spent the first half an hour catching her up on my Back Cyst Saga.
I should have discussed the need to either cancel or reschedule upcoming Zoom lunches. Friday the 19th will be the first day of my pre-Christmas PTO. I'm back in-office on the 26th, though; that will be the one day I work that week.
She has a lot of travel coming up. She's being given an Honorary Doctorate at a university in Brussels! She's never been there, but she will be in February. She's going to beat Shobhit and me there by six months.
Anyway, that's enough about that for now. I actually have work to get done! So I'll get back to it now.
[posted 1:10pm]
