Lee Court
For once, after a few quieter weekends, I had a very eventful weekend: I saw both Danielle (Friday) and Gabriel (Saturday)! It had been a while since I had seen either of them, too—since before Christmas in Danielle's case (in fact, this was my first time seeing her this Social Review cycle, as I post those at the change of each season); and since New Year's Eve in Gabriel's case. I literally did not realize until writing this very paragraph that I had not seen either of them even once in the entire month of January. It was about time! Also I'll be seeing Danielle again on next weekend.
Anyway. We'll talk about Danielle first, because I saw her Friday evening. I already mentioned on Friday that I would, after posting about the 20th anniversary of her moving in with me, coming from Spokane, in 2000. I later posted about it on Facebook, and in the comments I posted a link to the blog post. Danielle then wrote, But where's the pictures from us being opportunists and sneaking in to the apartment building we once lived? Well, I had posted the blog post many hours before we did that—duh!—but I did then reply with a couple of those pictures. And, the photo in the middle of this very Daily Lunch Update (DLU) is one of said photos. I'll get to that in a minute.
I took five photos on Friday with Danielle, none of them at Palace Kitchen where we had dinner—I don't think Danielle had ever eaten there before, but I chose it because it was open for business back in 2000 when Danielle moved in. (If Palace Kitchen was 18 years old in 2013, then it would have opened in 1995—five years before Danielle moved over.) I couldn't think of any other restaurant still open today within a one-block radius of my old apartment building that was open back then. It's one of Tom Douglas's many restaurants. Anyway, I chose to add those five photos I took after dinner to my old "Living with Danielle" photo album on Flickr from those four months she lived with me in 2000. I like them better there than getting lost in the sea of photos inevitably destined for my "Misc 2020" photo album, and it's a nice jump forward twenty years for those photos. Although none of those are from the day she moved in (I don't think; twelve of the shots are only identified as being from February 2000), and the earliest specific date marked on any of those shots is February 14, 2000—which also happens to be the first photo of the two of us together after she moved (and was also the photo at the top of Friday's blog post).
Dinner was very good, incidentally. Palace Kitchen is a very meat-centric place, and when I asked if the rigatoni could be made without the venison in it, the waitress went back to ask and then said she was sorry, the meat was already in the sauce. So, I went for the vegetarian spaghetti dish she said they had as an option even though it was not on the menu, so I asked for that. When the dish came, the chef had still made it with rigatoni noodles, which was very nice of them.
I had budgeted $30 for this dinner, as I had made a drink for myself at home before we left for downtown (Danielle, who had driven straight from work in Renton, sat to relax for about fifteen minutes and she had a glass of wine), and I would have met that budget except Danielle ordered us an appetizer of fondue with sliced pears, sliced apple, large bread chunks and goat cheese for us to share. It was delicious, though, and in the end I still only spent about $34. Being only four bucks over budget is pretty easy to absorb. Also, they automatically added 20% gratuity to all orders regardless of party size, which I might usually be annoyed by, but I didn't really mind it here. It simplified things as I did not have to pull out my phone to calculate a tip, and I have a feeling a Belltown restaurant like this would probably get stiffed of gratuities its staff actually deserved otherwise. Our service was excellent, and that makes a difference too—I would have left a 20% tip anyway. A majority of other diners almost certainly would not have, and these people deserve a living wage.
Anyway! Back to the old apartment building. Danielle had parked her van in our garage since Shobhit was working, and we caught a bus downtown to dinner. Once dinner was done, we walked the one block over to Lee Court Apartments at 5th and Blanchard. Mind you, this is the block on which Cinerama is located on the opposite corner—Lee Court is on the northeast corner (or, the southwest corner of the intersection at 5th & Blanchard); Cinerama is on the southwest corner (or, the northeast corner of the intersection at 4th & Lenora). When I moved into that apartment on June 13, 1998, Cinerama had just been renovated and reopened by Paul Allen after having been closed for some time. It was then and remains my favorite movie screen in Seattle. When Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace opened in 1999, the theater had two lines of people stretching in opposite directions around the block, until they met again under my balcony on Blanchard. (Side note: the window seen in the far upper-right corner in the photo at the top of this entry—that was my old apartment. I lived there six years, from June 13, 1998 until I moved out to move into an apartment with Shobhit on First Hill on August 27, 2004. Again, Danielle only lived in there with me for four months, in 2000.)
All I was really going for was a twenty-years-later photo of the two of us together with the apartment behind us. The building has six floors, and you can see an up-to-date, 2019 shot of it on Google Maps Street View here. That vantage point really illustrates the dramatic changes that block has undergone in the past twenty years—the kind of changes I would have been really delighted by had they happened while I live there: there are now two bona fide skyscrapers on that very block, which were not there when I lived there: the 255-ft, 25-story The Martin on 5th Avenue at Lenora, finished in 2013 on a site that had previously just been a paid parking lot for as long as I had been in Seattle previous; and in the middle of the block over on 4th Avenue, the 440-ft, 41-story Arrivé building, finished in 2018 on the site of a one-story building that had long since been abandoned.
A couple side notes on the Arrivé: it's one of the literally twenty-two buildings either constructed or set to be constructed between five years ago and five years from now that are within 5 feet of the 440-ft height restriction for the areas around Belltown and Denny Triangle, most of which feature architecture which I find fucking boring—and therefore they contribute to an unfortunate kind of homogenization of the Seattle skyline. But! Of those 20+ towers, Arrivé has a look that is actually kind of interesting, with multi-colored, angular patterns and a top that is at least more distinctive than the vast majority of the many other towers the same height. Back when I lived at Lee Court, the lovely view to the south from the roof was dominated by the Westin Hotel towers to the left, and the Warwick Hotel to the right. Now, that view would be far more dominated by The Martin and Arrivé on both sides, obscuring at least half the Westin and probably at least part of the Warwick.
And the thing is, I could have gotten photos of that updated view! Except, there was scaffolding and tarp along the open air walkway on every floor of Lee Court. And how do I know this? Because thanks to Danielle, after we went to look at the lobby just outside the front doors, we snuck into the building. Some guy who was clearly a resident walked in and he did nothing when Danielle grabbed the door before it shut behind him. She said some bullshit line so he could hear, like "Let's just see if they're home," to give the impression we knew someone who lived there. I don't feel guilty about this at all, but I still feel compelled to note that here we were doing exactly the kind of thing that management at the Braeburn has been trying in vain for years to get residents of my current building to stop allowing, as it results in package thefts and car break-ins. That kind of risk is no doubt even worse in Belltown than it is on Capitol Hill.
I never brought it up to Danielle on Friday, but going into that lobby for the first time since 2004 actually brought up the one particularly bad memory from my time living there: when I had gotten home one night and some random guy harassed me, actually following me into the lobby when I went into the building (it later occurred to me I should have gone to the nearby lobby of a hotel instead, to get rid of him), pulling at my jacket and saying, "Do you want to suck a dick?" He only left when another resident came out of the elevator to leave. That happened in late October, 2002, and it scared the shit out of me. Then when I called the police I gave up on feeling obliged to report it because the woman on the phone was exasperated with me instead of in any way empathetic.
Honestly, by the time I moved out of there in 2004, I felt like Belltown as a neighborhood had gotten a lot seedier than it had been when I moved in six years earlier. I can't really speak to what it's like living there now, but I am walking through almost daily and I feel like the direction has been back to for the better over the past decade or so. For instance, the convenience store just two blocks west on Third that used to be a haven for drug use is now a well-kept-up dog park. There is a lot more residential buildings now than there used to be, and although Seattle's homeless problem is now perhaps worse than ever, Belltown in particular does not feel quite as dangerous as it did in 2004. Then again, I never walk through late at night, so who knows?
I don't remember ever feeling particularly unsafe in the area around the time Danielle lived with me, in 2000. And from Danielle's perspective on Friday, it was just all about the radical change in her life when she moved to Seattle after a lifetime in Spokane. She was 23 when she moved, which means that in only three more years, she'll have lived in the Greater Seattle area longer than she lived anywhere else. She probably already has; I know she lived in California for a few years as a child. But in any case, in another three years she will have lived here literally half her life. And I was a big part of it! After, of course, I made it here myself in 1998 with ease entirely thanks to her. Well, and that $80,000 inheritance I got around the same time (which was the equivalent of about $128,000 in today's money).
I was pretty bummed by the scaffolding obscuring the current view I could have gotten pictures of. Instead I had to settle for a shot of Danielle, next to the scaffolding (see below). We did go up the stairwell to the top, to see if we could get out onto that roof again—predictably, no dice: the doors were locked and required a resident building key. (They do at The Braeburn too; I'm sure that's standard.) We did get pictures in front of my old apartment door—Danielle asked if we should knock; I said no, although it was clear no one was home anyway—and Danielle even suggested a shot in front of the old #202 mailbox. That building's floor units are numbered differently from most American buildings, with #202 actually two floors up from the ground floor, as in, what we would usually think of as the third floor. So even at six stories, the building's apartments on the top floor all start with 5. I did almost climb over the railing on the open-air section mid-floor and walk out onto the scaffolding to see if I could pull the tarp aside and get a photo of the view, but Danielle advised against that kind of risk, so I didn't do it. It was fun kind of sneaking around and getting the pictures I got anyway.
Danielle had gotten a bus transfer that was still good once we left and walked back over to Pike Street, so we bussed back up the hill and then she drove home shortly before Shobhit got home from work.
Shobhit once again decided he wanted to go out for brunch on Saturday, which we seem to be doing at least once most weekends lately. He wanted to give another chance to this tiny joint on the north end of Capitol Hill and a bit to the west of Broadway, on E Thomas St off Summit Ave E (only four blocks from Laney's place, or from the Capitol Hill Branch Library), called B-Side. The place is so small, with table seating for maybe 10 and then a counter/bar on the opposite wall for three or four, and with a menu that has only six food items on it, that I would have always missed it even walking past. I guess Shobhit found it on Yelp some time ago looking for breakfast out on a day off, and at the time he was uncertain if there was meat in his dish and so he threw it out. Why he would do that instead of just clarifying with staff, I have no idea; that seems rather uncharacteristic of him. He did make sure this time, and we split two dishes: the egg sandwich with mushroom, which I really loved and I would go back there just for that; and the day's special, which was a vegetarian frittata with sweet potatoes in it, which I thought was just all right. I'm not a huge fan of sweet potatoes, but they did not overpower the dish, which had several other vegetables in it too. I just found the sandwich a lot more flavorful.
He did not need to be to work until 12:45, which meant we had plenty of time, so he agreed to drive me to the Apple Store at University Village so I could finally upgrade my iPhone from an XR to an 11. Under other circumstances I would have just kept with the XR for some time, but I really wanted the improved camera for when we go to Australia. I think it will make a difference that's worth it—even worth the one major, unexpected expense that no one bothered to mention when I went in to ask about it a couple of weeks ago: when you trade in your phone to upgrade as part of the iPhone Upgrade Program, they don’t just slightly alter your monthly payment going forward. I mean, aside from the initial payment, my $41.50 is hardly a huge increase from the $39.50 I was paying before (and also comes with a near-doubling of the memory capacity, which was another big selling point). It turns out, for the two-year loan that they re-set and start you over with after Apple pays off the balance of the previous loan—I was at 13 payments for the XR—they tack the sales tax for the entire 24-month loan value on the first payment. So, in addition to the $35 activation fee Shobhit will get on the next AT&T phone bill (now that we combined our phone service accounts), my first payment for this phone will actually be around $142. That part, I was not expecting.
I went with it anyway. I will need to keep this in mind the next time I consider upgrading as part of this program, however. The 11 Pro has the zoom capability I really want, twice that of this phone, but I am settling for all the other technical improvements (wide angle lens and a new "night mode" chief among them) without that doubling of zoom, because I could not justify increasing my monthly payment by a whopping $20 a month. That's just dumb. I was thinking I probably will trade in for that after another year or so, if the difference in monthly payment is again minimal. But, I am no longer thinking that, now that I know the first payment after resetting the 24-month loan includes all of the sales tax up front. Surely I will upgrade again eventually, but with that tax payment as a deterrent, it will likely be a few more years now.
I'm still glad I have the 11 now, though. I'm wondering if they have a photo tutorial at the Apple Store that I can and should attend sometime over the next two weeks, so I know everything I can do with it before I go to Australia. I should look into that.
And then, on Saturday, I went to hang out with Gabriel for a little while. I was hoping I would finally manage to get together with him to watch my library DVD copy of Lady Macbeth starring Florence Pugh, which I have been plotting for weeks . . . but, it was still not to be: Gabriel and Lea had dinner plans at 6:00; Tess with still with them until around 4:30 maybe. I had the DVD in my bag, but there just wasn't the time for it. Gabriel had thought we could all go hiking for a bit at Seward Park, which I was totally up for, but then transit took much longer than usual for me to get down there because this was one of the three weekends they had all Light Rail stations between SODO and Capitol Hill closed for construction, and I had to ride a "Link Shuttle" bus on surface streets from Capitol Hill to SODO where I then transferred to a train. Even with only the Light Rail stations as stops, having to navigate the streets made riding even that far probably more than twice the time it usually takes on the train. I saw some people with baggage coming or going from the airport, and I really felt bad for them. Shobhit and I will still be dealing with less frequent trains than usual when we leave for Australia (two weeks from today!) and will still have to transfer trains at Pioneer Square Station, but at least the tunnel will actually be open that weekend and we won't have to ride any damned buses. Also, when we come back on March 9, even that part will be done and Light Rail will be back to its regular, normal scheduling.
So, when I arrived at Gabriel's place in Columbia City, sometime after 3 p.m., Tess was there playing videogames, basically waiting for Stephanie to come and pick her up. She was using the PlayStation Lea had given Gabriel as a one-year anniversary present. Tess was playing a Spider-Man game in which apparently all of the real buildings of New York City were replicated, which I thought was very cool, although it also included the fake buildings that are part of The Avengers universe, which I found distracting and dumb. But what are you going to do, it's Spider-Man! Then Gabriel had to show me this amazingly bizarre game called "Goat Simulator," in which you play a goat that is head-butting everyone on the streets and in so doing basically terrorizing the city. Gabriel know that one would be right up my alley and he was right; it was fucking hilarious.
Stephanie arrived not long after, stayed to visit for a few minutes, and then left with Tess. Lea was focused on work at her desk and I went along with Gabriel to walk her dog, Lady, and we drove to Seward Park to do it—so, I made it to Seward Park after all. That was where I took the one picture I took on Saturday, of twilight on Lake Washington to the south of the park, and that's the photo below. Ironically, I tried that shot with both the regular and the wide lens feature, and the regular shot was actually better framed. That doesn't mean I won't find plenty of use for the wide angle feature in the future, though!
Gabriel drove us back to the apartment and, after using the bathroom real quick, it was time for me to go, as they had to get ready to meet their friends for dinner. I walked back to the Columbia City Light Rail Station, a train came within just a few minutes, and then I took the shuttle bus back into downtown. I made the dumb decision of getting off downtown with the intend of catching a #11 since that goes up Pine right to my building, but it was so long before a bus came along that I really should have just stayed on the shuttle bus and then walked home from Capitol Hill Station. I would have gotten home at least just as quickly, if not quicker. Oh, well.
I had thought I would be going back to Gabriel's again yesterday to watch the Oscars, but then he said he wasn't sure if he could get ABC to play live on his TV. I could not risk it, so I wound up staying home after all. So, nothing even remotely resembling an Oscar Party this year, and the first year for which I have zero photos since I watched with only Tommy in 2016, and the third year since 2005 that I did not take any photos. Last year, at least, Gabriel and Lea had come over for the tail end of the telecast, and without that I would have had no photos last year either. Gabriel mentioned several times that it was the one-year anniversary of when I met Lea, although that's not strictly true: I did meet her at last year's telecast, but the Oscars last year were actually on February 24. They were quite unusually early this year.
They started at 5:00 and that was when Shobhit got off work, so he was home soon after and he watched most of the telecast with me. Prior to that, I had hung out at home most of the day. I did laundry and I vacuumed, so I felt pretty productive. I was thinking I might still be going to Gabriel's until around 3:30, but it became clear shortly thereafter that it would not be happening. He did wind up getting the telecast in the end, and we exchanged a lot of texts during it.
The Oscars this year were surprisingly exciting, in the end. The acting categories were all supremely predictable based on the wins that Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Laura Dern (Marriage Story), Renée Zellweger (Judy), and Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) had all won in countless other awards ceremonies leading up to this. But, Parasite gained surprising momentum early on, and in spite of that, I was still convinced 1917 would win Best Picture even after Bong Joon Ho won Best Director—Director and Picture had been split between Alfonso Cuarón for Roma and then the shockingly disappointing Best Picture win for Green Book last year, after all; splitting those two awards has been increasingly common in recent years. So, when Parasite won Best Picture after already having gotten Best Original Screenplay, Best International Feature and Best Director, it was a truly unusual shock to see it win Best Picture. Bong Joon Ho was clearly bowled over and very sweet, and much like the similar (and actually bigger) shock of Moonlight winning three years ago (after La La Land had been announced first by mistake), it was a truly stunning capper to the telecast. There will be lots of talk about this on the different movie podcasts I listen to, and it will be nice to hear people talking about the Academy actually getting it right again, instead of something boneheaded like Green Book.
[posted 12:42 pm]