pantry journey
Okay, so, I guess it's time for the weekly Monday Review of My Weekend! And yet again, I can barely remember what I did on Friday night—because I did not have any specific social plans that evening and thus have nothing in my calendar to use as reference.
I do remember that was the night Shobhit made a huge pot of egg curry, which is basically just his term for sambar with half-chopped, fried hard boiled eggs in it. Whenever Shobhit makes a huge amount of food he offers some to Ivan, which he did this time too, but Ivan kind of turned his nose up at it. He had never heard of eggs in any kind of curry, and he wound up getting takeout instead. When it comes to "egg curry," he said, "That just doesn't sound right." When I later mentioned this to our neighbor Alexia (more on her in a bit), she admitted she was kind of on Ivan's side about this.
I actually asked Shobhit this time, after he has made this dish several times over the years—he even brought it to Olympia for Christmas one year; in 2008 he included it as part of our Indian Thanksgiving dinner—if this was an actual Indian dish or if it was something he made up. He replied that he just made it up, but I am realizing now that the "made up" part is really just the sambar, or stew, element—not the idea of making a curry dish in which hard boiled eggs are added. Turns out, you can find a bunch of egg curry recipes online. It sounds like it's more of a South Asian dish.
Also, when Sachin was over last night and had some of the tons of leftovers, he was quite excited about it. He certainly didn't think it sounded unusual. If I remember right, though, Sachin is originally from South India, or certainly further south than Delhi, where Shobhit is from.
It's kind of funny, because I had a conversation with a coworker just last week about how Shobhit really never uses the word "curry" to describe dishes he cooks. Well, I forgot that there is one exception: egg curry. And I like it a lot! We had it with frozen naans heated in the oven while we watched some TV and it was a very tasty dinner.
It was also Friday, though, that Alexia texted me asking if we'd like to come over for dinner. She included in that first text that Ivan was welcome to join us, and she clearly really hoped he would. We did establish that it was best to have the dinner on Saturday, which was also Ivan's first night off of work in some time; he'd never have been able to join on Friday, before going to work his night shift.
And to be fair to Ivan, although he acted similarly skeptical of Alexia's declared dinner of enchiladas to how he reacted to the idea of egg curry, which was objectively odd, it actually did not take long for me to convince him to commit to joining us. On Saturday morning he even asked for a reminder of what time dinner would be (6:00) and said he would set his alarm to make sure he was out of bed in time. He actually woke up a fair amount earlier than that anyway so it was all good. Anyway, when I told her she was making spinach enchiladas he was like "That sounds healthy" in a kind of dismissive tone—again, odd, given the many other foods he tries to convince me to consume because they are healthy, although I do know Ivan is not the hugest fan of Mexican food in general. Still, I assured him I was sure they would also include lots of cheese, and then he was like, "Well, all right." Still Alexia very graciously made two separate pans, one with spinach and one without, making them just cheese enchiladas. Both were very good, and actually Alexia and I agreed the cheese ones were slightly better. And guess what? Ivan had seconds—of the spinach enchiladas!
Before all that, though, Alexia took us shopping, starting in the late morning. Shobhit and I decided we would go to IKEA, which had already been at Alexia's suggestion, to look for ideas on cabinetry to place in the nook outside Ivan's room so we could organize and put away the slew of pantry crap that was basically just piling up on the floor in there. I hated the way it looked, and had told Shobhit many weeks ago how I'd like to find shelving to put it all on and organize it. Alexia had said during a previous conversation that she would even drive us to IKEA, a place she loves to go and browse and/or shop. So, I texted her that we were going to go that day, and did she still want to go together? She absolutely did, and she again offered to drive us, so we all went in her rather large car. (I'm not certain it's an SUV but I suspect it is.)
When we were at IKEA, which I had not been to since Shobhit and I took his mom there in 2008, Alexia said it's very easy to spend hours and hours there. I was like, "That's doubtful with us, because Shobhit can get very impatient." Still, Shobhit found himself having quite the good time in there, to the point that Alexia said to me, "He's like a kid in a candy store," laughing a little. She was right. That said, we still didn't waste a lot of time in there, and I don't think we even spent a full two hours in there. We did get to a point where we used a computer to basically design cabinetry, which Alexia explained would be very much like installing kitchen cabinets. She talked about having to cut away the carpeting that would be underneath it, remove the baseboards, etc—all stuff we'd have to do ourselves. As I noted later, I get a little resentful of spending this kind of money (the mockup we came up with, which was very nice and still on the low end of pricing by IKEA standards, was over $800), only to wind up still having to do a ton of hard work ourselves. I hate that.
We got printouts of a couple mockups, and then we headed out, first to DK Market, Shobhit's new favorite international grocery store in Renton—where Alexia was delighted to find savory for sale, something I didn't even know existed as a spice; all this time I thought it was just an adjective—and then back home. We had just a few hours then until it was time to head next door for dinner.
Alexia, for her part, was delighted just to be able to have dinner guests for the first time, not just since she had relatively extensive renovation work done in her condo last year, but since the pandemic began.
Ivan's presence made it kind of interesting in a way it wouldn't have been otherwise. Remember, he is on the spectrum, self-described Asperger's (but he says a therapist once told him he would likely to get the diagnosis, even though it technically isn't even a specific diagnosis anymore), and therefore has certain, sometimes subtle social behaviors that exist outside what is more typical. (Side note: Gabriel recently told me he had asked a colleague if there is a more widely accepted term in use for "autistic" or "on the spectrum," and the response he got made total logical sense, as it's something I have already been regularly exposed to: "neurodiverse." This made sense to me, given my exposure already to the term "neurotypical," sometimes through Ivan himself. I should probably concentrate more on this kind of language myself.) If nothing else, I know he isn't often particularly comfortable in group social situations, at least not for extended periods; he predictably was the first to make an excuse to excuse himself, after several minutes I had already noticed of him getting kind of restless as we all sat around the table just visiting casually.
He did ask Alexia several rather specific questions just to engage himself in conversation with her: what she does for a living, what her job results in her actually doing every day, what her interests are. He was very interested in her cat, Cassy, as he always would be; Cassy is incredibly skittish though and predictably stayed hidden under the bed the entire time we were there. I think his being neuro diverse is almost certainly a factor in how often he scrolls through his phone when we're supposed to be watching a movie or TV together, and he picked up his phone a few times to do the same at the table—I think there's a bit of an attention span thing with him. Finally, when he excused himself, he said he had someone to meet up with. I had been the only one of the three of us to bring our house keys, though, so I walked with him back over to our place. As soon as we left Alexia's condo, I asked him, "Are you really meeting up with someone?" He chuckled a little and said, "No, I'd just had enough." He then almost immediately left again to go for a long walk, something he does almost daily, and I have a theory that it's just a way for him to expend a lot of his pent-up energy.
Shobhit and I still went home almost immediately after: when I came back to Alexia's condo Shobhit was gathering stuff up to bring back home. He had also made a rice pudding to bring for dessert. There was also the pitcher and three Zevia branded mugs I've brought home for work, which Shobhit, Ivan and I all used for the cocktails we brought over even though Alexia doesn't drink (she was totally fine with it). Ivan had told Shobhit he wanted a mojito, and so he made the closest approximation of one he could with what we had on hand: lemon-lime Zevia soda mixed with fresh mint and coconut rum. I was very skeptical of this because it was so clearly not an actual mojito, but it turned out to be almost shockingly tasty, and between the three of us we finished the whole pitcher (which amounted to about two glasses per each of the three of us).
It was a lovely dinner, overall, and I am glad Ivan did join us. Alexia clearly was too. In addition to the enchiladas she made black beans and also had tortilla chips and salsa. It was quite the dinner, which I had expected and so I really tired to skip lunch—I couldn't though and so I still had a very light lunch in the afternoon. On the upside, I've been controlling my food intake well enough that my weight has consistently gone down every day since that wake-up call of a high 163 lbs on Friday. I'm down to 159.1 as of this morning, which, even though I know I should not put my weight into this context, makes me feel pretty damned good about myself. The trick is to keep that momentum going, so I can get comfortably back into the several shirts that are currently annoyingly too tight.
Now, that brings us to yesterday. First, I went to a movie, and actually got Shobhit to join me: we went to the 11:35 a.m. showing of The Card Counter at the Regal Meridian Cinemas. I knew that title would pique his interest, even though I also knew he might ultimately not like it that much—indeed, by the end, he was declaring the story kind of pointless. I could see how he would see it that way, although I still didn't quite agree. That said, although I did like the movie, I was nowhere near as enthusiastic about it as a lot of other critics have been.
Shobhit and I walked there, and then walked back, and just happened to stop at Out of the Closet on Pike on our way home. There, we found a cabinet that could work truly perfectly for our pantry nook—for all of $100. The many questions we had at first was how the hell we would get it home. The thing is 6'3" tall, 3'10" wide, and 1'8" deep; we assumed this would necessitate the renting of a truck. They said they had a dolly we could borrow, but by the sounds of it the dolly was too small.
Still, we placed a hold on it so we could take time to decide by the end of the day whether we wanted to buy it. I even later looked up Zipcar vans to rent—the closest available one being in the U District. It's listed as a "cargo van," now apparently all they have available for this type of thing; they used to have pickup trucks but evidently no more.
In the meantime, getting back home by 2:30 or so as expected, I had made the plan with Ivan to finally watch the premiere episode of American Crime Story: Impeachment, the premiere episode of which had aired last Tuesday. And, since I had set the DVR to record all episodes, as predicted the premiere had just been re-aired at midnight the night before, which meant I no longer had to be forced to sit through the commercials. Shobhit still left the room to read while we watched, as he still has the misguided notion that the show will somehow affect current elections of Democrats ("Oh, please," Ivan has said multiple times, and I'm with him on this), but Ivan and I both quite enjoyed it. The performances are great, although I'm still a little baffled by the casting of Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp. I know Paulson is in countless Ryan Murphy projects, but it would have made a hell of a lot more sense just to cast a woman just as talented and capable who would not necessitate prosthetics and padding. Paulson does an almost stunningly good job with her performance, but that doesn't make it any less odd a choice.
In any event, given the very mixed reviews this season is getting, I felt this premiere episode showed a lot more promise than I was expecting. Of course, I'll have to reserve full judgement until I have seen all ten episodes—God knows, Ryan Murphy shows have a penchant for truly going off the rails near the end. On the other hand, the previous two episodes of American Crime Story have a better overall track record, the first one about the O.J. Sympson being a rightful sensation, and the second one about the Versace murder being less great but still worthy, and at least that one never went off the rails.
The thing that strikes me most about Impeachment is, not just that it makes a great choice in telling the story from the women's perspective, but that it clearly is going out of its way to portray Linda Tripp as an opportunistic cunt. A lot of critics concede that even within that context, Tripp is being portrayed in a human way, and so far I would also agree with that. Ivan is no fan of Linda Tripp and he reminded me that she died last year: "She's in hell," he said.
So the reason I planned with Ivan to watch the show at 2:30 was because Sachin was planning to come over at 4:00—although he later pushed back to 4:30. What this meant, in practice, was he came and met up with Shobhit and me when we were already back at Out of the Closet, pulling the cabinet/pantry out of the store on their dolly.
I had texted Alexia for advice on this, and she even went down to the garage to measure her car to see if it was big enough to drive it home for us. That was very nice of her, but, no dice. On the upside, Alexia made us realize that removing the doors and the shelving would make moving the furniture far easier, so that was the biggest reason we went back: to gauge the difficulty of doing that part. Turns out, the doors are on hinges exactly like those on the cabinet doors already in our condo, which only needs a Philips screw driver to remove them. I didn't think to bring the one from home, but they had one we could borrow at the store, which was awesome.
Also, a new person working the front desk at the store told us the dolly they had handy, which we had previously been thinking would be too small, was used by the people who delivered the piece there to begin with. Those people had also taken the doors off and then re-attached them in the store. This was when we realized: oh, this won't be as difficult as we thought. Not only that, but we were able to put the back seat seatbacks down in Shobhit's car, push the passenger front seat forward as far as it would go, and insert the long cabinet doors through the trunk just enough so the trunk would actually close. Thus, all three cabinet doors fit in the car, along with all four of the removable shelves. This was done after I had done all the work of removing the screws, and putting them in a Ziploc bag that Out of the Closet also very nicely provided. Each door had three hinges and each hinge two screws, so it was 18 screws total.
We had actually driven to Goodwill first, as Shobhit was hoping we might find another cabinet that was even better—something I highly doubted, especially after I had found a great cabinet at Goodwill for like $350 a few months ago, which definitely would have been better but was also three and a half times the price as this, and we saw yesterday that it was now gone. In fact, Goodwill no longer had any cabinets of any kind; the options were way better at Out of the Closet—which is much closer anyway!
So, off the Out of the Closet we went, and ultimately decided to buy the thing (with 10% tax, $110 even). We got the doors off and the cupboards out and all loaded into the car, and Sachin arrived just as Shobhit and I had managed to get the cabinet out the store door. Just getting it there was somewhat of a challenge, as tilting it too far would have meant hitting overhead fixtures.
Sachin arrived, though, which helped a great deal, having three people rather than just two. This made it much easier just to roll the thing all the way home. No truck or van rental needed! The store is all of six blocks away, which made the trek a slight challenge but still totally doable. The transfer on the dolly was indeed mostly done by Shobhit and Sachin; I actually took a few photos, and later posted a slideshow of the whole transfer process, including dismantling and reassembling doors and shelves, plus stocking them in the end, to Instagram (where it works best as a slideshow), Facebook and Twitter—with no additional commentary because I thought it was fun how the sequence of photos told the full story on their own. I actually considered writing the caption, "I supervised!" which I'm sure readers would find funny, except that would suggest I did none of the work, and I actually did—especially the unscrewing and re-screwing, disassembly and reassembly, plus stocking the cabinet once it was placed in the nook and put back together. And oh my god, the nook looks so much better! Sachin mentioned several times how we need to commit to not dumping more stuff just on the floor in there, which he's right about, although that applies far more to Shobhit who is apt to do that kind of thing rather than to me.
I think Ivan might have been slightly perturbed by the commotion, and he left for a while as we were setting everything up in there. Also, I did help a little during the dolly transfer over those six blocks, as tilted hills and sidewalks sometimes made it lean too far from one side to another and I had to be there to basically spot it and make sure it didn't fall over. And, once we has the cabinet inside the condo, we then walked back to Out of the Closet, both so I could return the dolly and get my driver's license back as they held it for collateral, and then drive home in the car that was still parked there, with the doors and shelves in it.
After I texted Alexia the slideshow, she texted back, WOW! It looks great. Rolled it right home on the dolly, LOVE IT. And everything fits, right price. I'm impressed. I still haven't mentioned to her, though I will soon, that I saw on one of the hinges the brand IKEA—that's where the thing is originally fucking from! It can use one or two more shelf planks, and that will make it very easy to go back there and buy some—and we'll be spending a fraction there now, than what we might have otherwise.
I stocked the shelves while Shobhit prepared dinner, and we all had leftover egg curry with an Afghan bread from DK Market, plus wine. Shobhit and Sachin later played cribbage so I bailed to the bedroom while they did that. A while later I went out into the living room just to read in their presence; Alexia had left me a Seattle Times supplement about Seattle-born (and raised and educated) architect Minoru Yamasaki, also the architect of the World Trade Center Twin Towers, about whom I had already posted on Saturday, my way of commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11 without getting to into the tragic death count. I had already posted that to social media as well.
But! Then I realized: oh shit, I haven't written the movie review! So I went to get that done before I needed to go to bed.
—Oh! One last thing. I spoke to Gabriel for a few minutes on the phone just before bed, and apparently that cabinet was the exact same one they had at their Columbia City apartment before they moved from there to their current Federal Way house in June 2020. I guess they left it behind for the new people moving in, and he was saying it would be funny if they wound up donating it and it ended up being what we purchased used at a thrift store. It's a fun coincidence regardless, but we basically proved it was not Gabriel and Lea's old cabinet by noting someone had painted a Hindu version of the swastika onto one of the shelves, maybe four inches across. Shobhit and Sachin assumed the previous owners must have been Indian.
I later texted Gabriel a photo of it, and he replied, Nope! Nope. Nope. Nope. I guess he wasn't the one who painted it then.
I think I may see if I can't wash it off, regardless. I don't think I need any lasting remnant of a swastika of any kind in my possession in an American household, my spouse being from India notwithstanding.
[posted 12:33 pm]