Discovery Weekend
I had quite the eventful weekend. I'm tempted to say it was "wildly eventful," except I hesitate the subscribe to the connotations of the word "wild." I just did a lot of stuff. I did legitimate socializing—as in, stuff that will be on the next Social Review—the past three days in a row, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday; Ivan, as it happens, was the one person involved all three days. But, Shobhit will get Social Review points for two of them; and I spent social time with two other people besides (our neighbor Alexia on Friday; and Shobhit's cousin Harshal on Sunday).
I kind of feel like I should work backward, just because all three of the photos in today's DLU are from yesterday, when a group of four of us went to Discovery Park, and also to the Ballard Locks.
But, for a little bit of context, I still need to get back to the beginning for a moment. Ivan had hoped to be working an overnight shift for his new job on Friday night, but because he has a training day shift today, they wouldn't let him do it. He had a shift over Thursday night, and apparently Foss—or whoever there was the person to inform him of this—said it was "protocol" for employees to have three nights off before going from a graveyard shift back to a day shift. Ivan was quite unusually annoyed as a result of this, very openly bitter about these new people he's working with (that didn't take long), and declared it "bullshit."
I think I did discover later part of what was the source of his frustration: he had to ask if he could wait until he gets paid this coming Friday to give us our rent. This request came over Facebook Messenger. I conferred with Shobhit, and as I predicted we were both fine with it; Ivan has a long history of being reliable in this area, and I'm not sure he's ever been late with rent either of the other two times he lived with us. I wrote back that it was fine, without even asking for any explanation. Shobhit was figuring Ivan must be short on money with his recent move back to Seattle from California, and it seems he's basically right. Unsolicited, Ivan thanked me for understanding and then wrote that "I had to get a dental procedure done before leaving California that insurance didn't cover and it kind of drained me temporarily."
He was further frustrated that now he has "no shifts this weekend and nothing to do." Well, that wasn't true! We already had plans to go out for dinner with him and Alexia Friday night, and we had already talked about a movie we were going to see. So then, I suggested we all drive out to Discovery Park on Sunday—something Ivan had been trying to convince another friend of his to take him to but who kept flaking on him and for some reason kept wanting to do something else like go to Seward Park (which Ivan begrudgingly agreed to but I don't think even that happened) or go to a nude beach (something that is very much not Ivan's thing and he refused). Anyway, when Ivan was complaining about this flaky friend, I said maybe Shobhit and I could just take him to Discovery Park sometime instead—Ivan was so taken by that suggestion that he almost immediately texted his friend back to say okay they could go to Seward Park. Thus, when Ivan was complaining about having nothing to do this weekend, I suggested Discovery Park on Sunday. That actually seemed to calm down his stress a little. I'm not sure he was even thinking about how it meant he now literally had something planned on all three days this weekend.
Now, Shobhit also invited his cousin Harshal (actually his first cousin once removed; he's a guy in his thirties who is the son of an older first cousin) over for samosas yesterday. He offered this invitation after the Discovery Park plan was made, but we knew it would not necessarily be an all-day thing; Shobhit told Harshal to come over "any time after 11:30" (obviously accommodating for how late Ivan tends to sleep in), and he wound up coming by at about noon.
For the next six hours or so, yesterday largely became kind of a hangout of all four of us, not by design but it just sort of fell into place that way. Harshal was over for his second visit (his first had been five weeks ago, on June 27), and probably his last before he moves to San Jose in a couple of weeks. He promised to get in touch any time he visits Seattle again, though. Anyway, I think Shobhit just wanted someone to invite over for the samosas he finally decided he would make—for the first time since Christmas 2019; he just never felt like he had the time or the energy to make them in between his two jobs during the pandemic. I mean, the pandemic is far from over; you know what I mean. During the most impactful year and a half of it. So far, maybe.
In any case, the single family holiday get-together we've had since Christmas 2019 was Easter 2021, and Shobhit wasn't up for the effort needed at that time. He recently quit his job at Big 5, however, and so that freed up a lot of time for him, at least temporarily. I helped Shobhit chop a lot of vegetables for it on Saturday morning, and I have to say, this was probably the longest break he's ever taken between making batches of samosas—and he sure hasn't lost his touch. The samosas turned out stupendous, largely because of key ingredients he likes to add now that he didn't in early years: cashew nuts, and Beecher's cheese curd instead of paneer. He's really improvised on his typical "recipe" (he never actually uses recipes) and, in my opinion, improved on it. My lunch yesterday was three samosas.
Right when Harshal arrived (and remember, this is pronounced way different from how a typical American might read that; think "Hirschel"), I took Ivan down to the storage unit as he had requested. I had told him I would once Shobhit and I finished the show we were watching—and Harshal arrived five minutes before the season ended. So, I went ahead and just took Ivan down while Shobhit let Harshal in. This took several minutes; Ivan was going through boxes he had literally not gone through in two full years—there was stuff in his boxes he had totally forgotten about. "Like going through memory lane," he said. I even had to help him carry some of his stuff back up the elevator, as he had just one tote bag crammed full of stuff; a bunch of other stuff in his hands; and I held a tray (which I think is used for putting his laptop on his lap) with a dew things stacked on top of that.
So, for a while after that, as Shobhit and Harshal caught up and I hung out with them, Ivan spent a fair amount of time in his bedroom, reorganizing and getting more settled into his bedroom. Side note: I only realized early yesterday morning that I had completely spaced all the crap I still had left in three of the drawers in the guest bathroom, which is now basically Ivan's bathroom. So, while he slept in the morning, I took all that crap out and found new places for it in the primary bathroom in Shobhit's and my bedroom. It took a bit of my own rearranging to pull off but I managed it, and felt better knowing I had gotten all my shit out of Ivan's way. I only realized it because I needed a wrench and the junk/tool drawer had been the bottom drawer in there. Well, now it's in Shobhit's and my bathroom.
Anyway, I then offered to make chai, and since Harshal was over and I figured Ivan would want some, I made a much bigger pot of it than usual. Once it was ready, Ivan sat in his usual spot at the end of the dining table to drink it, with some Biscoff cookies, and he also had one or two samosas once they were ready. As for the chai, Harshal was quite demonstrably impressed with it—he said he doesn't usually drink chai, but the sugar balance was so perfect (as in, not too sweet) in his mind that it made him "nostalgic" for when he was a kid and fed chai on rainy days. I wasn't even sure if I would get the right proportions with the ingredients in the larger pot (we make chai with loose leaf tea, fresh chopped ginger, fresh mint, cardamom powder, and a few spoonfuls of sugar—I actually make it far more often than Shobhit does these days, typically, and I've gotten pretty good at it), but Harshal complimented it several times. I felt pretty good about that.
So, at first, when I found out Harshal was coming over, I was kind of like "What about Discovery Park?" Shobhit said we could just do that later in the day if time allowed. I messaged Ivan, who was in his bedroom at that point, to tell him Harshal was coming over (and that he is vaccinated—we really don't want anyone unvaccinated over; a point I really want Ivan to understand as much as anyone) and to say we could either wait until later since Shobhit really wanted to come to Discovery Park too, or I could just drive Ivan and myself were he to really want, for some reason, to go earlier. Ivan was evidently fine with waiting.
Well, Shobhit then kind of killed two birds with one stone, and spontaneously invited Harshal to join us. I had forgotten Harshal does not have a car and both the last visit and this one took transit to come visit; this way, once the park was done, we could just give Harshal a ride home to his apartment in the U District. Somewhat to my surprise, Ivan seemed totally unfazed by having added Harshal to the mix; I honestly think this has a lot to do with Ivan's recent world travels and his kind of learning to be more comfortable around new people, or even in a group. Groups, historically, have seemed to be something he avoided; maybe he still does to some degree, and four people was just still small enough.
Shobhit suggested we add Ballard Locks to our itinerary, as Harshal had not only never been to them, he had never heard of them—he has not been in Seattle long. And for a series of locks that connect Lake Union to the Puget Sound and were constructed between 1911 and 1917, it's easily one of the most fascinating and historic place in Seattle, one of its largest tourist attractions, especially when you can visit for free. To my genuine surprise, while we were actually there, Ivan confessed he had never been there before either. I said, "Seriously?" and he replied, "I know, what the hell have I been doing?"
Anyway, at first Shobhit was thinking we would do the Locks first, but then we realized that if we did that, we'd have to backtrack to get to Discovery Park before going north again to take Harshal home. So, I changed the directions on Shobhit's phone (he obsessively keeps the GPS on for anywhere we go, largely just so he can gauge his time as related to the GPS estimates) to Discovery Park, and we did indeed go there first.
I've been to Discovery Park a few times now (at least five; I finally made a collection of Flickr photo albums for it last night), and although I have probably spent as much time there before as I did yesterday, say, having a picnic, I think I actually explored more of the park yesterday than I ever had before. It was Shobhit's idea and desire to park and walk down to the water and back, which was a pretty lengthy walk—and clearly something Ivan was into, as he regularly takes far longer walks than that. So, all four of us found trails and paths all the way down to the water, about a mile one way, and there are so many trails that go odd and counter-intuitive directions that I tracked our position on Google Maps to make sure we were taking the right turns to get where we wanted to go. Yay technology! Trying to figure that shit out twenty years ago would have been a shit show—not because it wouldn't be possible, but just because I wouldn't have had as much of a sense of how to prepare and navigate quickly. (Hey, remember when we used paper maps? Fun!)
Ivan is the tallest of all of us; I believe he's 5'10". His legs are longer to begin with, and he already walks faster than most people even his height. He regularly had to stop and kind of turn around to wait for me to catch up—and I was often so far ahead of Shobhit and Harshal that I was only barely still within their eyesight. A couple of times Shobhit asked me to slow down. We were headed down one of the steep trails (some of which are kind of odd) and had gotten a fair amount ahead of Shobhit and Harshal, and Ivan turned around and said to me, "Couple of slowpokes!"
He still seemed to enjoy himself, though. We took one route along both paved paths and dirt trails from the North Parking Lot down to a small beach on the water called North Beach; the trails down to the water in this direction were so steep I really dreaded coming back that way. But, in the end we didn't have to! We walked along the northern short of West Point until we reached the Lighthouse, then walked a bit along the south short (where Shobhit is seen in the photo above), and when I searched for walking directions back to the parking lot, it was a slightly different route—and a far easier, less steep one at that. The entire round-trip walk, as it happens, was about 3.3 miles.
Thus, I'd say we walked around Discovery Park for about ninety minutes. Actually not quite as long as I had been thinking, until I just checked time stamps on my photos. We decided we were all still up for visiting Ballard Locks, where we did not spend nearly as much time walking, but spent quite a bit of time watching and waiting, as one lock or another filled or drained so sailboats and yachts of pretty widely varying size and quality passed in either direction between Puget Sound and Salmon Bay (which feeds into Lake Union). We were actually there about an hour.
We parked on the south side of the water, at a park called Commodore Park, as it was easier and faster than driving all the way down to the 15th Avenue Bridge and back to the Ballard Locks park on the north side; you can walk across from either side anyway. The Commodore Park side also features the Fish Ladder, which Ivan got very excited about—except, he did not bring a face mask, and a sign said no one could go in without one. The space is very large and open-air, though; I convinced him to walk through in the back section so he could see the fish swimming by. There were no people back there, and that section is the third of a three-tiered design of people to walk through, all of them wide open space. Ivan was very self-conscious about going through without a mask so he did not linger, which was obviously for the best for all involved anyway. Still, the way the space is designed, for all intents and purposes, particularly where he kind of walked through along the back wall, he was basically still outside anyway. It's not a fully enclosed space, more kind of like an outdoor pedestrian underpass. (As many times as I have been there, I have never taken a wide shot of the space myself, but this shot by someone else provides a good picture; Ivan walked through the path seen to the right, and you can see the fish ladder windows at far left, and how far away from people he would have been. You can barely see the open door at the other end to go through, in the background at center-right.)
Ivan saw an Argosy Cruises boat in one of the locks—the very cruise route Shobhit and I had taken for my Birth Week in 2019. He suggested maybe we could take one of those cruises sometime, and I was like, "I would absolutely do that!" and Ivan said, "Okay!" He suggested we wait until fall when there are fewer tourists taking the tours, which sits fine with me. I'd still prefer it be warm enough that we can go to outdoor areas of the boat, especially if it happens during this year when we know pandemic concerns will remain a thing. But, I'd still be all about it. Taking a boat through the locks was especially fun, although I'd be open to any of their cruise routes, really.
We then gave Harshal his ride home to his U District apartment, and the drove back home. While we were in the car, Shobhit actually asked Ivan, "Did you have a good day, Ivan?" and Ivan replied, "I did, thank you!" It's interesting to me how much more emotionally invested Shobhit seems to be in Ivan's welfare this time around, more than he seemed to care about in the past. Ivan does still have kind of a lot of nervous energy, and there was a moment when I wondered how much other people around noticed his "stimming" tics, walking around rubbing his fingers against each other or rubbing his hands together and such, sometimes making kind of odd faces. Probably most people aren't even paying attention. I notice it more because I'm around it more, I'm guessing.
Shobhit had sent Harshal home with the last three of the samosas he had deep fried yesterday, so, no samosas to bring to the office today. Bringing samosas to coworkers is tricker right now as it is; so many don't work in the office every day these days. Scott's on vacation for two weeks so he's just going to miss out; so far Noah isn't in today. I messaged Lynne yesterday just to ask when she'll be in the office this week, if at all, and she said she'd be in on Tuesday—so, Shobhit will fry up some more (with my help, probably) tonight, and I'll bring some in tomorrow. At least three: for Noah, for Lynne, and for Tracy, who has never had one of Shobhit's samosas. Hmm, should I offer one to Krish, since he's South Asian? or would that be sort of a weird form of racial profiling?
Oh! Speaking of . . . let's say, cultural differences, there was an interesting conversation before we all left for the parks, with Shobhit and Harshal. Firstly, Harshal is very introverted; he cracked me up when he said that once he gets to know someone he can talk "like boss"—I literally laughed out loud at that. His dad—Shobhit's cousin—really wanted to say hi to Shobhit on the phone, but Shobhit and this cousin have not seen or spoken to each other in, apparently, about thirty years. And Harshal's hesitation only had to do with him wanting to get more comfortable with Shobhit first, as before his visit in June, Shobhit and Harshal really did not know each other at all. This is only Harshal's second visit, but he was clearly more comfortable now, and after some slight hemming and hawing, Harshal finally called his dad back, and handed the phone to Shobhit so they could say hi to each other. The conversation was mostly in Hindi, but was clearly very friendly.
And this is the thing, as it all comes back to Shobhit's emotionally stunted mother. At this point, literally the entire extended family—or at the very least, the vast majority of them—are fully aware that Shobhit is gay, is married to a man in the U.S., and they are all completely cool with it. By the sounds of it, they are largely indifferent to it. Shobhit's mother knows about us too, obviously, and has known for most of our relationship, so basically a decade and a half. What Shobhit's mom doesn't know is that the rest of the family knows, because she would be mortified to know that everyone knows. So, no one else in the extended family lets on that they know, just so Shobhit's mom won't be mortified. It's just so bizarre to me. Everyone knows, but everyone pretends to Shobhit's mom like they don't know, just to avoid making her uncomfortable. Like, what the fuck.
This is also the entirety of the reason why I have never visited India, or gotten to see any of the places where Shobhit grew up, which I would truly love to see. The woman is something like 75 years old now. I'd mention what I am clearly waiting to happen in all of this now, but I'll go a little off-brand here and make the choice not to go that dark.
Okay! So, let's move on to the rest of the weekend, moving backward now. On Saturday, Ivan and I went to see The Green Knight, which was objectively better than the initial trailer makes it seem, but also nowhere near as great as the stellar reviews might suggest. Solid B. I sent Shobhit the trailer to see if he wanted to join us, and he declined, largely because it's clearly a "fantasy film," a strange thing to judge given his obsession with Harry Potter and his enjoyment of The Lord of the Rings. But, whatever. I still kind of get it; I was totally disinterested too until Ivan said he wanted to go see it. I told him I would wait for the reviews, and then he sent me the stellar review the movie got in The Washington Post. The movie is very slow and very odd, but I can see why critics love it and why audiences apparently gave it a C+.
So, Ivan and I walked together downtown to see the 1:35 showing at the Meridian, where the seats recline and are therefore better than AMC. Ivan surprised me when the movie ended by saying he "quite liked it," even though it had been "rather long"—I mean, yes, 2 hours and 10 minutes is very long when the pacing is glacial. Shobhit would hate this movie. I keep thinking I might see it again when it becomes available streaming, just because even though I struggled with it, it was clearly densely packed with meaning and I think my appreciation for it will grow with multiple viewings. I sure as shit wouldn't see it again in a theater, though.
Shobhit wanted me to look for mango powder at Pike Place Market after the movie, apparently an essential ingredient for his samosa filling, and he had none left at home. (Who knew? So many fun secrets to his cooking!) I told Ivan I would be doing this, and before I could even ask if he wanted to walk over with me he blurted out, "Okay, have fun! I have my own errands to run." And then, we wound up walking together several blocks to the west on Pike Street. At the corner by the Sheraton Hotel, where some religious nut was setting up and testing his amplified speakers (he was comically unenthusiastic, too: "They're very convincing," I said; Ivan quipped, "Sign me up!"), I asked where he was going, if we were walking the same way so far. He kind of laughed and said, "I don't know!" But then on 3rd Avenue he peeled off to go into Walgreen's—on this day he actually had a face mask with him—where he later told us he saw a guy brazenly just packing huge bags of stuff before he ran out of the store.
As for Friday, that was when a group of four of us went out for dinner, at Saffron Grill—the one person different being our neighbor Alexia, instead of Harshal. This was initially a plan with Alexia, as we had talked up this place as the best Indian restaurant in town, the place that catered our wedding in 2013, and where although we did takeout from them maybe three times over the course of the pandemic lockdowns, we had not eaten seated in their restaurant since Shobhit's birthday, October 30, in 2019. Alexia was very interested, and since she was moving her mother into an assisted living facility all last week, she requested we plan for last weekend so she'd have something to look forward to in the midst of all that stress.
I told her I would probably invite Ivan to join us, and after all I had told her about him, she was eager to meet him. And, Ivan was totally up for it. Although he learned very late that we'd be driving; he was clearly assuming we were walking to an Indian place somewhere on Capitol Hill. Nope! Saffron Grill is in Northgate. Alexia was driving over from her mom's place in Issaquah so we met her there.
I had made reservations for 6:00, something neither Shobhit nor Ivan were big fans of, but, oh well. The whole point here was to have dinner there with Alexia, and Alexia had said she preferred earlier over later, and asked for that as the ballpark time, so that's what I did. She was already there when we arrived, and apparently the guy I spoke to when making the reservation misunderstood and gave us a table for six even though we were only four; I tried to tell them we didn't need a table that big and they said it was fine and kept us there. The table was against a booth seat on a wall, two chairs on one side, but in kind of a nook so the booth seat wrapped around the ends as well. Shobhit and I sat on the long side, with Ivan and Alexia at either end, so we all were on the booth seat.
We ordered three different kinds of naan to go with the two main dishes we shared: shahi paneer (my favorite) and baingan bharta (the also-delicious eggplant dish). We actually got two orders of the shahi paneer, because Ivan and Shobhit wanted it spicier and Alexia and I wanted it mild. Even Ivan said the "spicier" one was not that spicy. Shobhit ordered a separate dish for himself to go, bhindi masala, which is an okra dish that I simply cannot stomach, and this way he could make it as insanely spicy as he wanted. He even tasted it and then asked them to add more spice, as is nearly always what he has to do at any Indian restaurant in the U.S., they are so used to toning it down for Americans.
Ivan kind of didn't understand that the rice dishes that came with the main dishes were also meant to be shared, and just kept one full dish of rice to himself, but that was fine; we had two other dishes of rice to dish from. All of the food was spectacular, as always, although Shobhit, Alexia and I all had the chai, which Shobhit said was not as good as they have made it in the past. I thought it was great, except that they constantly refill your cup and that makes it impossible to gauge how much you drank—and as a result neither Shobhit nor I would sleep very well Friday night. I took the longest time to get to sleep, and then regularly woke up over and over again after that. This very much contributed to my occasionally nodding off during the movie on Saturday.
Ivan and Alexia were suitably impressed with the food at Saffron Grill. Ivan was very quiet for a fairly long while after we arrived, but he got more chatty as the dinner pressed on. He had been so annoyed with his work that evening, but I think how great the food was kind of cheered him up. Shobhit asked me to drive there and back, and I kept noticing Ivan in the rear-view mirror, not only looking contented and satiated, but often even smiling to himself. I don't have a clue what specific things he was thinking about, but his mood had clearly improved.
That is, until later that evening. Ivan had suggested we watch a couple of episodes of The Leftovers, and in retrospect just one episode would likely have been more ideal. He was laying on the love seat, and he later said he just couldn't keep staying in that one position any longer. "I was restless," he said when I brought it up again the next day. I wish he would just ask me to stop playing the show in a scenario like this, but instead he just bounded off the love seat, and without a word within a few minutes he had his shoes on and was out the door, headed out for a long walk that he spent nearly three hours on. Shobhit and I had so much trouble sleeping from the chai that we wondered if something was wrong and found ourselves kind of worried about Ivan, he was gone so long. (In the Before Times I might have wondered it he'd had a spontaneous random hookup with a guy, but his mood when he left was clearly not in line with that sort of thing, and I already know he goes on long walks nearly every day.) Maybe he also fell back into thinking about how his employer had annoyed him and he just needed to get out and walk and blow off steam. I mean, who knows.
I did ask if he wanted to watch any more last night after we got home from the parks, but he wasn't interested, even though he did tell me on Saturday he still wants to continue with the show. He's the one that got me hooked on re-watching the thing, dammit! But, for now, I guess I just wait until he again suggests watching more of it.
[posted 12:49 pm]