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Basically last night was Black Panther Night: Shobhit, Tracy and I all met up at the Seattle AMC 10 in the U District to watch
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a 161-minute movie at minimum half an hour too long, with a 6 p.m. showtime but it was probably nearly 6:30 before the movie actually started. This made it a lot easier to deal with Shobhit not arriving until right around 6:00, both Tracy and me waiting outside the theater entrance, and Shobhit surprisingly quickly deciding to do as Tracy did and just park in the pay lot across the street—which cost him nearly $15! I had already spent roughly that much on his ticket to the movie, which means that between the two of us we spent around thirty bucks for him to see it.
It was absolutely not worth that much.
Solid B? As I've said many times already, that's good enough to make it worth seeing a movie myself; not quite good enough for me to recommend to others. When we all left the theater, Shobhit was the first to note that it was not that great, and even he said, "I would give it a B+ at most." And as we left, I really thought I would be giving a B+, but by the time I'd had some time to think about it, and I wrote and posted the review this morning. I felt I had fairly settled on a solid B. Which, by most measures, is fine—but when you compare it to the original
Black Panther, which single handedly proved an MCU movie could be made that transcended all the restrictive MCU trappings and actually reached toward greatness, a solid B qualifies as a disappointment.
I had taken the bus home from work, leaving early at 4:00. That gave me enough time to heat up leftovers to bring for dinner, as well as prepare some cocktails for Shobhit and me to drink. I had a bit of a hectic moment in the middle of this, just as I had finished boiling hot chocolate on the stove, at a point I hoped to head out soon. This part was totally my own fault, as there was slightly more left in the pot than could fit in the to-go tumbler I had filled. So, with just enough to fit in the shot glass I had used to add two shots of peanut butter whiskey, that was where I poured the last of it—only to have it splatter and scald by hand, causing me to drop the shot glass in the sink, thereby splattering even more of it onto the white sections of my black and white shirt. Shit! I didn't see the sense in finding a new shirt to wear, there was clearly no time to wash it, so I just wiped my shirt with a damp towel and then scraped the spots with an ancient stain remover bottle we have in the washer/dryer closet. It was while I was rushing to get this done that Guru started puking on the carpet in the bedroom. Jesus fucking Christ!
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I still got everything cleaned up, my hot cocktail in one tumbler and Shobhit's cold cocktail in another, plus reheated to-go boxes of magi that Shobhit had cooked the night before, the only sensible option for us to have for dinner at the movie instead of having to wait until 9:30 to eat. I added some grapes to another container, and set out with my shoulder bag over stuffed with all this shit, holding my library book in my hands just so I could actually close the lid of the bag properly.
I got to the theater pretty early, and then figured it would be right around 6:00 before I saw either Shobhit or Tracy, both of whom were actually driving directly from work. Only minutes after I arrived, I walked right past Tracy at the parking lot pay kiosk, at first only registering her as some lady because I wasn't expecting her there yet. Then she said "Hey!" and I sort of woke up to the fact that it was her.
She was actually there earlier than even she thought, because she thought she had time to go home to feed her dog first, discovered she didn't, and came straight to the theater instead. So, we stood and chatted while we waited for Shobhit to arrive, which he did at 5:57. He actually tried looking for street parking, as I suggested, but gave up on that within minutes because he couldn't trust that he was in a place he could park legally.
In this case, I very much relied on the extended amount of time the trailers take—something that makes reserved seating quite the convenience. Shobhit needed to use the bathroom, and as always he wanted to get cups of water for both of us (which I never drank), and Tracy waited in line to get her own dinner at the theater itself. Shobhit and I sat down a while before Tracy as she waited for her food to be heated, and he and I immediately set to eating our magi. Shobhit asked if I thought he should get popcorn, which I absolutely did not think he should get. I noted that I brought grapes, and pulled those out once we were done with our dinners, and I had a good number of them but he ate most. And then, maybe an hour later, he got up and went to get popcorn anyway.
This is a huge, huge part of the challenge of shedding the weight I have regained. It's a little crazy making. Having food and snacks around me at all times at work is one thing, an unavoidable hazard of my job. And controlling your environment is a big part of this, the very reason I was able to lose 30 lbs a decade ago—Shobhit was living in New York, and I could severely limit my food consumption without him around to have food around me at all times. And not just sitting in cupboards unopened, but opened and being actively eaten, right next to me, as was the case with this fucking popcorn, which wasn't even very good, but of course I probably ate somewhere between a quarter and a third of. Somehow, my weight was actually down today, by all of 0.1 lbs. I'd love to get some weight lost by the time we go to Australia next year, and in the meantime I have the holiday season to worry about on top of this shit.
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[posted 12:28 pm]
