Happy New Year 2020
New Year's Eve at Seattle Center was a definitive letdown this year, as is plainly evident by the above video. The so-called "laser light show" did improve, as you can also see from a few extra, smaller video clips in the full photo set on Flickr. But not by a particularly wide margin. I knew there was a chance the fireworks would be canceled due to high winds on Tuesday night, and honestly for a while I almost hoped they would. I assumed a laser light show would be really cool in its own right, and quite a difference from the total 20 other times I have watched the Space Needle fireworks show on New Year's since my first one in Seattle, ringing in 1999.
Turns out I was kind of wrong about that. I do have a sense that the producers of the show learned some lessons on Tuesday night, and if this were to happen again, they would be better prepared for an alternative that made it worth people sticking around for the full ten minute show. As it was, this year, the crowds were leaving toward their cars before even five minutes had passed. Even Shobhit and I did.
For some reason, I had been thinking they had canceled the fireworks for ringing in 2000 as well, but I was mistaken in my memory, which I figured out after digging up an old letter to Barbara in which I described what I did that year: Danielle and I actually walked over to watch the fireworks from across the street on Denny Way. Now, that year was still the only other year major New Year's plans were canceled: the mayor canceled the "Millennium Celebration" because of a terror threat (the city was on edge already only one month after the WTO riots), and as I recall, as a result the Seattle Center area was sparsely populated with people even by regular fireworks show standards. But, the fireworks themselves still happened, and 2020 was the first time ever that they were scrapped, since the first time it was done, to ring in 1995. (Curious aside: I had no idea that when I saw it for the first time ringing in 1999, it was only its fifth year.)
I keep thinking that, with increasingly unpredictable weather due to climate change, in all likelihood it will be a lot sooner than another 25 years before this happens again. Odds are pretty good that fireworks will return next year, though.
And even I learned some lessons after the fact this year, such as how I should have been monitoring the Space Needle's own Twitter feed, which I never thought to do. Had I been doing that, I would have known bu 11:50 pm that the fireworks would not be happening at midnight, because the winds were still too strong. On the ground, they sure seemed calm, but as Shobhit noted, the wind was probably a lot stronger at the top of the Space Needle, which goes 605 feet into the air. They even said a minute later that they would aim to proceed with the fireworks at 2 a.m. if the winds died down, but even if I had seen that, we sure as shit would not have stood out in the cold for another two hours (after already doing so for one hour), and we still would have gone home at the same time.
They also tweeted at 1:01 a.m. (seven minutes after I had gone to bed) that the wind speed was still 38 mph; and then they tweeted at 1:54 a.m. that the fireworks show would not be happening this year at all.
Right after midnight, though, I didn't even realize they were hoping still to proceed with the fireworks later in the super-early morning. With nothing but the light show happening, I assumed that was all we were getting, period. (I mean, in the end that actually still was the case.) And it kind of bummed me out, especially considering how little "light show" actually happened for the first five minutes or so, to the point that we finally followed the rest of the crowd back to our car. I did look back from standing next to the car and get probably the coolest shot, as by then the lights had gotten more interesting. I remain mystified as to why they didn't go straight into that kind of thing at midnight, to hold people's attention. As it was, people though the show was basically over as soon as it began.
Shobhit did call me out to the living room after we got home, to see that the show had been synchronized to music, so I got a brief video clip of that on the TV screen (see video at bottom of this post). Another lesson: I should have thought to play a live radio feed from my phone. I should have thought of this regardless! I watched the fireworks the last three years in a row from the PCC office, and keep kicking myself when I don't think of that. I'm going to write myself a note. ...Okay, done. Noted in next year's Google Calendar event!
I suppose it's just as well that Shobhit and I still went ahead with our plan to watch the fireworks from Seattle Center again for the first time since we last did, to ring in 2015 (for 2016, I watched by myself, from Melrose Avenue on Capitol Hill). Three years watching from the PCC office started to get stale after last year, and although Dad and Sherri and Danielle all joined us for the first of those, ringing in 2017, for both 2018 and 2019 it was just Shobhit and me as no one else wanted to join us. We need variety!
I will admit, there were moments late Tuesday night that I did wish I were in the office, which was warm. At least it wasn't raining at all, when earlier in the day the forecast had said it would be. I had even considered bringing a second jacket to layer and a stocking cap of my own, which I really should have done. But because the forecast showed the temperature going up slightly, into the low-mid fifties, compared to earlier in the evening, I didn't think I would need them. Shows what I know! Turns out when the air is still damp and it's 11:30 at night, it's still fucking cold. Shobhit wound up giving me the winter cap he was wearing, because I was so cold.
We did not go fully into Seattle Center, in the end. Shobhit had suggested finding parking on 5th Avenue headed south so that it would be easier to drive away when we were leaving, which proved to be a very good idea. And then, when we walked over to Safeco Plaza, we discovered there was a perfectly good view of the Space Needle right from there. We were really no further away from it than we might have been from the other side of the International Fountain inside Seattle Center; we were definitely closer than the view from the PCC office on Elliott Avenue (though not by a huge margin); and although the bottom of the Needle was blocked by the KOMO Plaza buildings from our vantage point, it did not block much more of it than the building across the street on Elliott Avenue does from PCC either. Had I never watched the fireworks from work before, I probably would not have accepted this partially obstructed view, but now I was totally used to it. And the expected fireworks launch from the top of the tower anyway, aside from the countdown that goes up the stem 10 seconds before midnight.
Also, there are benches in that open plaza area in between the two buildings of KOMO Plaza! It never got too crowded in there; the crowds were sardine packed over on Denny Way but not where we were. The bench was off to the side by the wall of one of the buildings, and it was metal which made me colder after a while. By the time there was about 15 minutes to go, I was standing up and jumping in place just to get my heart rate up and warm myself a bit.
A small group of kids (by "kids" I mean, probably in their early twenties) later came and sat at the other end of our bench, which had metal arm rests creating, I think, four sections. It was two guys and a girl, and I could not tell if any of them were romantically linked with each other. It interested me that it was the two guys, not one of the guys and the young woman, who sat nestled together inside one of the sections, which can barely fit two people between arm rests, no real space between them. They all still kind of seemed like just friends, though; none of them was especially "snuggly" with another. I got a pretty "straight vibe" from the guys, but these days, who the fuck knows? Also even straight guys are a lot more comfortable with that kind of physical closeness with each other now, than they would have been when I was that age. And I realize this is pretty insignificant, particularly by 2020 standards, but when it's noticeably different from "my day," it's something I always notice.
Anyway, we hung out at KOMO Plaza for roughly an hour. I had bussed all the way up to meet Shobhit when he got off work at 10:15, and he finished up nearly ten minutes early while my bus was already five minutes delayed. On a normal day he'd have taken some time even after his shift-end to get out of there and I still would have gotten there in plenty of time. Now, he was waiting in the car on Elliott Avenue by the nearby Whole Foods when I got off the bus, one stop earlier than usual. Then he drove us down to that aforementioned parking spot on 5th Avenue. Shobhit was hungry, and he decided to get a pizza from the Zeek's Pizza there on Denny & Cedar St, less than a block from where we parked. They had a half-hour wait for tables so he ordered a personal pizza to go, which itself took 20 minutes.
I had already had plenty to eat, so he got the small instead of the medium and asked for it to be super spicy. Works for me! That way I definitely won't eat it. Predictably, he declared it "not spicy," and convinced me to take a bite he thought would be less spicy. And it was awful and I had to take a drink of his water. It wasn’t unbearable (which means to Shobhit it was not spicy enough, although he did declare later that it was good), but it was still too spicy.
It was so tedious waiting around for just that one hour, I kept thinking about the one year Shobhit and I went to Times Square, ringing in 2011. Shobhit and I had reached out final spot as close as we could get to "The Ball" that was to drop, at around 3 p.m. Police there do not let you leave your spot and then return to where you were again; if you leave, you can only come back to the edge of where the crowd is, which can easily expand a block or two in the time you're gone to use the bathroom or whatever. So, that day, we stood in that one spot for literally nine hours. How the fuck did I manage that! By being almost a decade younger than I am now, I guess. I did say even then that I was glad I could say I've done it, but I would not want to do Times Square for New Year's again. Unless I manage to book a Times Square hotel room, which I would still be interested in—but, no waiting for nine hours on the street. There's not even that great a show there at midnight; just tons of confetti and the huge crowd is what makes it a novel experience. I had only had milk in my cereal for breakfast that morning as my single moment of fluid intake; I peed multiple times before 3:00, and still I had to pee so bad by midnight that I was in agony. No thank you!
At least this year I was not in bladder agony by the time I got home. I did have to pee, but it wasn't too bad.
This was my favorite picture of the night, probably. The bench we sat in was next to trees with Christmas lights all over them, and viewing the pink-bathed Space Needle through them made it look a lot like spying a UFO flying by.
Before all of this, and right before transferring to the Rapid Ride D bus to meet Shobhit, I had taken Light Rail into downtown from Columbia City, where I spent a couple of hours hanging out with Gabriel.
I had texted him on Monday to ask what his plans were, thinking maybe we could get together for watching the Space Needle, as we have a few times in the past. He told me he was hosing a game night at his place with friends. He said he would have invited me but he knew I'd be watching fireworks, which was fair. I still kind of invited myself to come by for a little while anyway, just to kill time since Shobhit did not get off work until later. "You're more than welcome," he said. And then he was annoyed that I got there at 6:45 even though he told me the thing was meant to start 7:00 to 7:30. Well, I knew I'd be needing to leave shortly after 9:00, so I wanted to maximize my time with him. He's one of my best friends and I love him, is that such a crime!
He hates it when people show up early. "I'm not like other people!" I said. I think he can agree with that, at least. He still had a couple things to get at stores, so he came to pick me up at Columbia City Station instead of waiting for me to walk to his apartment building. He spent a good chunk of our alone time together complaining about how boring my ten-minute "2019 in Ten Minutes" video was. I'm not kidding, that's literally what he did, and it's the word he used. And basically it's fine; I just don't want you to think I'm exaggerating out of irritation. "No one forced you to watch it," I said. "You ignore my blog all the time, why would I give a shit if you just ignore that video?"
Well, because I tagged him in my Facebook post, I guess he felt obliged, but then he had to slog through so many minutes (okay, he didn't use that phrase, in that case I'm exaggerating—though I would argue I'm still not exaggerating his sentiment) of shit he didn't care about, just to see what shots were included of him and of people relevant to him. Duly noted! Next year, when I post the video, I won't tag him. I guess I won't tag anyone, since anyone interested will see it and watch it either from social media or here on this blog.
He actually said, "I'm going to give you some advice." His advice? Put time stamps on the video so he knows where to queue it to when it's about him. You know what? I never had a chance to mention this to him that night, but I actually have done this once or twice in past years, and if I do it for him, I do it for everybody, and it's fucking time consuming! Can you imagine how much time, how many hours, I already spend on every year's series of year-in-retrospective posts, and on this video itself? Without adding the time it would take to write out time stamps for everybody? It's not like ten minutes is an eternity. Maybe it is for someone with no attention span. I'll freely admit that I almost never watch people's ten minute videos either, but! If the same kind of thing were posted by, say, Danielle, or Gabriel himself (hahaha! as if that would or could ever happen), about their year, I absolutely would watch it. It's not my fault I'm the only one who does this!
He was even astonished that someone posted a Facebook comment noting that even though she had never met me, she watched the whole video and enjoyed it. God forbid someone should find me interesting. Truth is, Gabriel does too, whether he likes watching a ten-minute video I've made or not. He's just loathe to admit it. Why else would he be one of my closest friends?
Well, because I am loyal and dependable, for one thing. He did also mention that when we were in his car, because he was complaining about another friend who frequently flakes on him. I've had one or two friends like that myself (Hadley, back-in-the-day friend from PCC, mostly comes to mind), and I get it: it's a huge pain in the ass. I don't flake on people. It's just not something I do. And on the rare occasion that I do have to cancel at the last minute, I'll be totally forthright about why, rather than be weird or passive-aggressive about it.
And, in spite of all the bitching I just did about . . . well, about his bitching about my video, the time spent just the two of us running errands to a couple of stores was actually my favorite part of the evening with Gabriel. That video was hardly the only thing we talked about. We also talked about racism! And it was an illuminating and satisfying discussion, although he wanted to put it on hold while we were inside Safeway where there were too many black people around. I didn't see the big deal but whatever. He had noise makers to find. There were none at Safeway but I was the one who spotted them at Walgreens. He was openly appreciative when I spotted them, so I said, "See, aren't you glad I came early?" He replied, "Yes, I am!"
That said, I couldn't help but feel a little like I really had crashed their party while I was there. It might have been different had any other friends of Gabriel's made it, but three other couples came and they were all friends of Lea's, with whom I had little to nothing to talk about. Now granted, one of those couples was Josh and Darren, who are generally a delight and this evening was really no exception; Darren in particular is so friendly and affectionate, it's almost as unnerving as it is pleasant. Still, once the other two couples arrive, and I can't remember any of their names even though I was introduced, focus kind of shifted on shared histories I have had no part in, making me kind of a third wheel. Or a ninth wheel, I suppose. I was the only one there not coupled, as Shobhit was at work. Darren, ever the friendliest of friendly, asked about Shobhit twice.
None of this is Gabriel's fault, and I hope he doesn't resent me too much for showing up just to be another person he had to worry about entertaining (I wish he would just separate me from people he "has to entertain"). In retrospect, his evening probably would have been slightly easier had I just not shown up at all, thereby preventing him from having to worry about it. He did convince me to play briefly with him and Josh on a video came, I think it was Mario Cart, but I knew so little about it I could barely function and I came in 12th place. Gabriel also said it was "very sweet" of me to try it, at least. I was just disappointed the game would not let me veer off the track and run over random fauna. That was what I wanted. Oh, and before that, I did play a music song-identifying game on their Google Home smart speaker for a while, with Gabriel, Josh and Lea. That one was kind of fun, when I knew the songs anyway.
As it neared 9:00, I kind of wandered back and forth, mentally counting down the clock until I needed to go catch the Light Rail northbound again. While Gabriel and Josh and maybe one or two others played Mario Cart, I meandered from there over to the snack counter at the kitchen, where Darren was chatting with a couple other people, in a conversation I had no means of taking part in. Darren did break off to say, "Would you like a snack?" or something to that effect, and I replied, "Yeah that's why I came over here." He immediately said, "Whoa!" as though I had sounded like a real asshole, and after that I felt pretty self-conscious about it for, like, maybe five minutes. I really couldn't tell if Darren thought I was super abrasive or not, but if I was, I honestly didn't mean to be.
The crackers and cheeses and little savory pastries were delicious, though. I'm not convinced anyone else was thrilled about my presence that night but I was still glad I came. It was better than killing time at home for four hours by myself. Perhaps, though, I should still make an effort to come up with a better plan next year. This is especially the case for waiting out the show at the Space Needle, such as having a radio feed going on my phone or something. As it was, this year rang in less with a bang than with a whimper. But hey, I guess it's all uphill from here!
Hahaha just kidding! The twenties are well set to be an even bigger dumpster fire than the 2010s were, globally speaking. I mean, shit. Australia is already basically entirely on fire, with their summer season having only recently started; Mary Ann already mentioned in one of her emails about our trip there late next month, "Bring a gas mask!" I also woke up to a Facebook message from Ivan this morning: Good luck with your trip to Australia! The bush fires there are so bad that there is a thick layer of smog all the way over here in Christchurch from the fires 1,500 miles away!
My only hope at this point is that the temperatures will have cooled down at least slightly, and enough of the fires will have burned out, that it just won't be quite as bad then as it is now. Or hey, maybe it'll be worse! Or, like Seattle last year, the winds will be in our favor and smoke will just be blowing away from the cities we're visiting. Anyway, that's kind of my point: in the coming decade, my guess is this kind of shit will be increasingly common, where once a vacation could be trusted to be a pleasant good time, it now depends on luck of timing and placement and increasingly volatile weather. This is making me wish more than ever that I had visited Australia for the first time long before this. But, what can we do about it now? Just hope for the best.
That's the slogan for the 2020s: Hoping for the best!
[posted 12:25 pm]