let's get this party reminiscing
Janet Jackson on Wednesday was obviously an eventful, unusual day. Today we're back to uneventfulness -- to the degree that I just spent the entire evening at home by myself after work, as Shobhit had a late shift until about 9:30. I did see him briefly after he came home and I went to bed. I prepared a Tandoor Chef Naan Pizza for him, complete with chopped okra, bell pepper, onion, tomato, red pepper flakes and mozzarella cheese on top of the jalapeños and regular cheese it already had on it.
I prepared that after finishing the season premiere of This Is Us, one of the shows I still watch that Shobhit long ago ditched, so I might as well watch it when he's at work. Same with this week's episode of The Mindy Project, which I watched before that. I'm a little more uncertain about this show called Great News, which I did not even know existed in its first season last year but I went ahead and watched its pilot episode on Hulu last night after I saw a tweet linking to an article about how Tina Fey is to join the case for season 2 about the premiere. And, apparently, she was executive producer last season. Anything with Tina Fey attached I am interested in, and the show was not exceptional but it did make me laugh. What I read is that the show's creators have several people in common with 30 Rock, my all-time favorite TV comedy; the second season is apparently supposed to be even more similar than the first season was; and I am prone to give it more of a chance than most shows just because even 30 Rock took roughly half its own first season to really find its footing.
So, anyway. I guess I watched three episodes of TV shows last night, amounting to about two hours' worth of TV. I'm actually interested in checking out the new Will & Grace after seeing some of the surprisingly positive critical reactions (the guy who wrote that particular piece is a gay comedian I follow on Twitter and who has been a guest on several of the podcasts I listen to), but I didn't feel like having to fast-forward through commercials on TiVo when I could just watch commercial-free on Hulu later -- probably tonight. Shobhit might actually be interested in that one anyway.
I guess I won't get into too much detail regarding what I did for a couple of hours before watching TV. It's more fun just to let your imaginations run wild.
I will say I had a cup of spiked eggnog, and then another drink after that. And I had the entire bag of Field Roast Miniature Corn Dogs. If I really want to get my weight under control, I'm doing it wrong. I weighed in at 149.3 lbs this morning, and it honestly made me a little sick. I'm now pushing 150 lbs, a threshold I have not crossed in many years now -- it was probably before 2010.
I mean, I still look fine and am not overweight, but this is the wrong direction to be moving in, obviously. And whether I look fine or not, I certainly liked how I looked at 140 lbs way better. I'd rather look great than look fine, but I keep consuming more calories than I am burning. This is a very bad habit that is very hard to reverse, as anyone who ever struggles with weight is very aware of. I used to be able to say "I was once 35 lbs heavier!" and now I can only change that to 25 lbs. That makes me uncomfortable. I need to get my shit together.
Maybe after I eat a bunch of Shobhit's samosas tomorrow.
I did get a free lunch today. I'm saving my frozen spring rolls for Monday now. There was a container of Steph's Tofu in the office refrigerator and someone wrote in big letters on the label, Eat me! So, I did just that. I don't know how much of it there was -- the container was maybe 3/4 full and I took it all. Half a pound, maybe? Maybe more? It was very filling so I should be set until dinner, in any case.
And then, a momentous weekend coming up -- or at least, a momentous Saturday. It's Laney's 60th birthday! Shobhit asked me to pick up some Beecher's Cheese Curd on my way home from work tonight, which will be when he starts working on the samosas. He's also thinking about making a peach pie, although I suspect that will be overkill for this particular party, which is potluck already.
When Laney turned fifty, ten years ago, she had her party on the night before -- so actually, that was ten years ago today, and it was held at her house in Columbia City, which she called "The Cottage." It was a small house that did not accommodate a lot of people, but it was on a comparatively large plot of land that made parties much easier than, say, the one-bedroom apartment she now lives in.
Laney has kind of bounced around a lot over the years. Before "The Cottage," she was in a house in the Central District, where she lived with Mac. After "The Cottage," she moved to Olympia for a year, maybe a year and a half -- I don't remember exactly how long. But then she had her heart attack and just felt her life would be less stressful if she came back to Seattle and so she did. She's been on Capitol Hill ever since and that's been great. She lived in one apartment and when she moved she went literally to the building across the street from it. And that building is across the street from the Capitol Hill branch of the Seattle Public Library. Much like Shobhit and I did with our condo, she's winning when it comes to location.
Anyway, in 2007, Thayer, Hayley and Jessica hosted Laney's birthday party at Laney's house; this time, Laney is hosting her own party, but at my place -- I offered her the use of our Community Kitchen at the Braeburn Condos and reserved it for her. Several months ago she was ruminating on what to do for her sixtieth, and I told her I really thought she would do something special. And I said, after she noted her apartment could not accommodate a party, if she wanted she could use our kitchen. She decided to have a small party with about fifteen people expected, which our kitchen can barely accommodate.
I'm not sure how many people were at the 50th birthday party -- which lasted past midnight, at which time we all cheered in Laney's actual birthday like it was New Year's Eve -- but it appears it might have been comparable. Reading my journal entry about it was certainly interesting, especially with the vantage point of not only two years later, but having recently seen both Shawna and Charlie at another event this year.
Side note: there is built-in irony to any written account of struggles with aging and mortality, considering I did that in the journal entry about Laney's 50th birthday -- and now it's ten years later, and reading such a thing from ten years ago seems kind of ridiculous. Also it was fun to scroll through the "Essence of Laney" photos I put in that post, which chronicled her previous year -- including an early-in-the-year look that was very butchy, and a photo of her and Shobhit at her dining table getting started on her being his mortgage broker. It was roughly one month later that Shobhit and I moved into the condo.
These days, honestly I'm more prone to reflect on how much fun it's been to know Laney for so long, than to let birthdays serve as a reminder of mortality. I think my attitude has generally improved over the years, just broadly speaking. I don't remember the moment I first met Laney, but when I joined the chorus we sat next to each other, and that would have been in the late summer of 2000. At that time, I was 24, and although she was soon to have a birthday, assuming I met her before September 30, then when I first met her she would have been 42.
