Mandearrings
I just finished with this week's Zoom Office Lunch Meetup—Meetup #21—and it was just the core, standard group of four this week: Rebecca, Brent, Noah and myself. All four of us are the ones who have attended the most times (top 4 on the list), and it's almost surprising even this many of us made it, given it's actually Christmas week (which I keep forgetting) and people are busy for all sorts of reasons. In fact, both Brent and Noah bowed out early because of the next things they needed to get to.
I'll see Noah again tonight, though. We're having our Merchandising Department Holiday Happy Hour and I'm really looking forward to it. I was actually telling Rebecca about it on the Meetup call during lunch when Noah joined. And he joined from the office, saying he had some work to get done there before he'd be running between stores the rest of the week. He actually asked if I was working in any store this week, and I was like, "Nope." I never get asked to volunteer for any store shifts Christmas week; that only ever happens for Thanksgiving week. Besides, I truly would not be able to do it this week, I have far too much work of my own to get done by end-of-day Thursday.
This just occurred to me. When did I last actually work Christmas Eve, anyway? Traditionally I take it off, so we can go down to Olympia and stay the night at Dad and Sherri's house. I just scanned back through multiple calendars and I can tell you this will be my first time working Christmas Eve in over a decade; it probably last happened sometime in the early- or mid-2000s. In any case, it's been a long time. But, just like my single day off instead of my entire Birth Week this year (also a first since I started taking the whole week), it'll be fine.
Oh! I also showed Rebecca one of my snow pictures from last night (that's the Braeburn East, as seen from 15th & Pine—the Christmas lights you can barely see in a window on the side of the building to the left is our unit), and that reminds me. I decided to put the snow photos into their own photo album, even though they are only six shots, but that also means I can make them part of my full full collection of snow photo albums. I also made it part of my Christmas 2020 collection, and you know what that means? Eight Christmastime photo albums for 2020! I really am stupidly excited about this. And now I kind of hope it snows again at least once more this year so I can add to that one photo album; I don't otherwise really like a photo album to have that few shots in it, but, whatever.
Anyway didn't I mention I have a lot to do today? I need to get back to work. I know you're but a fraction of the way through this post but everything after this, I already wrote. It's magic!
So, a quick drop-off of Christmas gifts from Gabriel and Lea yesterday wound up turning into something much larger. It broke off into two separate meetings, one actually in-person and one virtual.
First, in the afternoon before my work day was done, I took a break to go downstairs and take gifts from them that they actually brought in person, having taken the afternoon to apparently drive all over the Greater Seattle-Tacoma Area and drop off gifts in four separate locations. I was last on their list, and Gabriel asked me for a suggestion as to where they could get some take-out pizza as they were starving. True to form, Gabriel was concerned about hygiene, and since I don't ever go out for dinner (and very, very rarely get takeout from anywhere; I can probably still count on one hand the number of times we have done so since March), I was somewhat unsure of what to recommend. But, then I remembered Hot Mama's Pizza just down on Pine and Boylston, having recalled that they are selling pizza by the slice right out their window without even allowing customers inside. Gabriel remembered the many times he's gotten pizza there in the past, he later said the pizza was very good and he was happy with their COVID-safe setup.
And once they'd had their late lunch, they came to drop off the gifts. The weather yesterday was nuts, incredibly heavy rain for much of the day (and later in the evening for a couple of hours, it even turned to snow), but I told him there is a covered area right outside the manicurist place at the bottom of my building.
When they arrived, I think they quite understandably expected I would come out the main entrance right at ground level, but instead I took the stairs, as I often do so as not to have to wait for the elevator. That door opens up right into the aforementioned covered area, and I opened the door slowly to make sure I didn't hit either of them with it; Lea was standing maybe four feet away, in a face mask of course (as was I), and she immediately said, "Hi Matthew!"
I came out the door, and Gabriel was down by the door, setting the two boxes atop the intercom box. He saw me on the level that's up a small five-step staircase to the manicurist level, and immediately said, "You're too close." (I wasn't going to stay that close, he didn't give me a chance! Also we were all outside and masked, we were fine. Still, I swear it's just not possible to be in his presence in 2020 without him complaining about social distancing violations of one kind or another, even when I'm doing everything right.) He and Lea found a spot to stand in that covered area, and I went down to where the boxes were, also covered. And then they stood at the top of the steps and I was down by the door, giving us all just barely acceptable distance, I suppose, and we actually chatted for so long I started to get incredibly cold—as I said, it was both unusually wet and unusually cold yesterday.
Those aren't complaints, though, just observations; it was great to see them, honestly, and nice to be able to hang out, however briefly. Gabriel was actually in an uncharacteristically good mood. Or maybe it's only uncharacteristic compared to his darkest days with Kornelija, which continue to weigh heavily on my memory; it seems pretty clear that his relationship with Lea is far more naturally compatible, and he is generally much more contented with his life—maybe even happy? He actually came across as happy yesterday, which is nice to see. I only saw him briefly but it felt like he was having a good day, and that's with having to drive all over the place in massive rains. But if you're doing something with a person you're happy being with, that makes what you're doing more fun. I'm making a lot of assumptions here but at least they're positive ones!
Anyway, they told me I also had something coming in the mail, and they wanted me to let them know when I got it, because they wanted me to be on video chat so they could watch me open it—and, another person had to be on the call. Uh, okay.
We said our goodbyes, I went inside the lobby of my building, checked the mail—and there was the very package they were talking about. It was not large in size, in fact in a mostly flat mailer envelope that actually fit inside the mail box. I immediately texted them, and they attempted to do the opening of the gift within minutes thereafter, with them using FaceTime from his phone in their car, and attempting to bring Mandy (why her?) on the call. Except, their signal was never strong enough using 4G, not even after they drove higher up Capitol Hill and tried again. So they said we'd have to call later, which I suggested doing after 6:30 as I needed to bus to the office and back.
So. First, I checked out the boxes they had just dropped off: baked goods which, as it happened, Lea had been working on icing some of the last time we had done a Movie Draft over FaceTime. Cookies, peppermint bark, a snack mix that looks like puppy treats but tastes amazing (sort of a Chex-like snack coated with peppermint chocolate powder and mixed with m&m's). Fantastic! My new challenge is not to eat the entire contents in one sitting. So far so good!
I finished my work day, and then took roughly an hour and 45 minutes to get to the office and back using transit. I could have waited until Shobhit got home from work and taken the car at about 8:00, but I did it this way so I could have those last couple of hours at home with Shobhit. All things considered, I made really good time even using buses, although a good twenty minutes or more could have been shaved off if not for wait times for delayed buses, especially coming back.
I took the #8 both ways, and upon returning, found that it had started snowing. I first walked to Central Co-op so I could get a bottle of Thai Peanut Sauce I wanted to use for the stir fried rice dinner I was about to make, and I got a couple of my nice snow shots during that bit of walking, both to the store and between the store and returning to my building.
Once I was done with dinner, I texted Gabriel and Lea that I was ready; they said Mandy was out so it would need to wait a bit. By the time Shobhit got home and we were just sitting down to watch this week's episode of His Dark Materials (and also discovering the Xfinity box finally has the HBO Max app, hooray!), I was just about to press "play" when I finally noticed I got a Zoom invite, as had Mandy.
So that was when I opened what might be the weirdest Christmas gift I have ever received. I had at first assumed they sent something to both Mandy and me that was somehow connected and she and I would be opening gifts on this call. Nope, just me! Uhhh, okay, even weirder. And that was when I opened my gift and discovered it to be . . . a set of Mandy's face earrings.
Okay, so yes, this is objectively funny. Does it have any practical utility? Not so much. This was all Lea's doing though, and I am learning she has a thing for spending money on certain trivial things just for their brief entertainment value, and you know what? I can respect that. It was how I wound up with a delivery of ice cream during our Pumpkin Carving Party, after all. And guess what else? The whole idea originated during that very party, when earrings that are a person's face came up in conversation. And although it would have made way more sense for these earrings, given to me, to be of my own face, the joke in the conversation was that they be Mandy's face. And so, that's what Lea immediately set about ordering.
Hilarious! Although to be fair, these are easily going to wind up being the most "novelty" set of earrings I own, as I won't likely wear them more than once a year, say, maybe at a birthday party for Mandy—which, incidentally, she noted her birthday is in January. Or maybe, this just occurred to me: maybe from here on out I will wear them any time I know that I'll be seeing Mandy.
Side note: I was sitting on the floor with the iPad on the coffee table, the Christmas Tree nicely framed behind me, and Shobhit was sitting on the couch during all of this. He barely paid attention. This kind of humor escapes him entirely. I can't imagine how much Lea spent when she ordered these earrings, but I bet I could expect it was far more than either Shobhit or I would consider it to be worth. That does not lessen my appreciation for them, however. It cracked me up, and was easily the highlight of my week.
[posted 1:18 pm]