— पांच हजार तीन सौ ग्यारह —
I had my monthly November Happy Hour with Laney on Friday, virtual again, even though she's back to being quasi-local—she's staying in her sister's house in Enumclaw, while her sister and brother-in-law are traveling around the Southwest for November and half of December.
I didn't bother getting a picture this time. I feel like selfies with myself and a Laney only existing on my iPad screen have grown stale. If we had done it on Skype I could have more easily done a screenshot, but I don't like screenshots in Facebook Messenger video because it shows me only in a tiny screen in the corner. Laney texted later that she realized we never got a picture, though, and noted that may have been a first. I kind of felt bad then, and said we'll have to be sure to get one next time, even if she's still in Enumclaw, which she may be.
Otherwise, we stayed connected and chatted for a good couple of hours or so. We talked about our relief after last week's election—as of Saturday, in fact, the news was official that the Democrats have retained a Senate majority. We're still likely to lose control of the House, albeit barely as opposed to the "red wave" conservatives were so convinced was coming, but even that is not yet a done deal. We've even
flipped a Washington State district blue that was long a Republican stronghold.
I had some difficultly articulating this to Laney on Friday, but after this year's election, I am particularly grateful for the structure of our country's electoral system. Laney, I think, was assuming I meant electoral
college but that is entirely different and absolutely should be abolished. The point I have is, short of a full-scale military coup, it's actually very difficult for one party to do any kind of hostile takeover of this entire country—really because of our three branches of government, particularly the legislature, and specifically the House of Representatives, of which there are 435 seats, divided by state based on population. This means that, as was the case this year, even if one region turns much redder (as in Florida, albeit that was thanks to gerrymandering—another issue of unfairness that still persists in our system), other regions may simultaneously turn bluer (as in Washington, albeit to a much lesser degree). Full control of our federal government is, in the end, up to a
consensus of literally 435 different geographical areas of this country.
I'm not saying any of this is perfect, not by any means. I'm only saying that sometimes, as in this year's election, its structure actually works as intended, and for that I am grateful. Other countries aren't set up in this way, and have government structures that make it easier to gain a stronghold.
My feelings about the Senate are much more mixed. On the one hand, it's unfair to give all states only two Senators and therefore give every vote in smaller states outsized say in Congress. On the other hand, the Senate is set up to give states, as an entity, greater say in their own governance, without which they would just get completely ignored in favor of the states with the greater population concentration. It feels deeply unfair to Democrats right now because Republicans have long had an advantage there, and so many Democrats decry the unfairness of representation. But, I am also convinced that they would change their tune if the tables were turned.
That is why, when it comes to the Senate, I see arguments on both sides of it, with reasoned arguments for keeping it the way it is, or for abolishing it altogether. This argument does
not apply to the Executive Branch, which is why the Electoral College
should be abolished, considering the President ostensibly represents us all equally, and does not represent any particular state more than another. States as an entity should not be given outsized sway in the election of the President, and yet thanks to the Electoral College votes being determined in large part by each state's number of Senators, that is functionally what happens. There's no compelling argument for that, except to give smaller states unfair advantage in determining who represents all of us.
Anyway, I'm digressing. I didn't even get into all this with Laney. We didn't spend the whole time talking about the election. We also talked about her maybe having found a new apartment to live in, in downtown Renton, and lots of other things. I had a hot chai cocktail while we talked.
— पांच हजार तीन सौ ग्यारह —
— पांच हजार तीन सौ ग्यारह —
On Saturday, I took myself to a movie, in the U District, called
Aftersun. I chose to see it because the score on Metacritic is an astonishing 95, averaged from 38 reviews. And yet, it was not able to reach me, at all really. I didn’t get it. I have theories as to why, and I guess you can read the review for more details about that.
Shobhit texted me while I was taking Light Rail back to Capitol Hill, telling me the Nevada Senate seat had gone to Democrats, and therefore, officially, we have retained control of the Senate. I opened my phone and went to washingtonpost.com to see the headline. A middle-aged lady saw me doing this and said, "What's the latest?" Remember, this was Saturday, four days after Election Day, and it took this long for the news to be official. I told her Democrats have kept control of the Senate, and she expressed happiness and relief. She said she's been obsessively checking for the latest all week. She and Shobhit should go get drinks or something.
I went back to the bathhouse Saturday night, getting back only about a month after the previous time I went. I got plenty of action, but not the kind I would have preferred, so it was kind of a mixed bag. This seems to be typical of Saturday nights, even though it's the busiest night of the week. You'd think that would help, but most of the time it doesn't. I usually have better luck on Thursdays, but I've been having other plans every Thursday this month.
Still, I was there probably four and a half hours. I didn't even get back home until about 12:45 a.m. Shobhit had been asleep for a while by then.
— पांच हजार तीन सौ ग्यारह —
Yesterday wound up a lot different from what I initially had planned. I had the Braeburn Condos theater reserved to watch
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King with Tracy, but she had to cancel due to how busy she is at work. So, the reservation, which can't be canceled online (an outdated limitation of the condo complex website that continues to annoy me), just went to waste.
Alternatively, though, after I asked Alexia if she wanted to watch a movie with me instead and she said she had other plans, she still invited me to walk with her downtown and back, as she needed to do a bit of downtown shopping. After Shobhit and I took a quick trip to Hau Hau market for some produce shopping, I went ahead and left to walk with Alexia, the kind of long walk we used to do multiple times a week during the 2020 lockdown. We hadn't taken a walk that distance in a long time; we went as far as Pike Place Market, and she even bought me an 8oz macaroni & cheese from Beecher's that served as a delicious early lunch.
She's headed to spend a week with her friends on Long Island for all of Thanksgiving Week next week, leaving on Sunday, and she bought some smoked salmon she plans to bring as a gift, something she apparently always brings. I agree with Shobhit that it seemed rather early for her to buy that, but, presumably she'll have it frozen in the meantime, and as for traveling across the country with it, I'll just trust she's got it taken care of. She's done it many times, I guess, and they're all still alive.
She also had some preordered clothes to pick up at both Old Navy and Eileen Fisher. After getting those things, we walked back home together, stopping briefly at Bartell Drugs as I needed to replace my mascara. It had gotten all gloopy and desperately needed replacing.
After that, Shobhit and I spent most of the rest of the day at home watching TV: we binged the last four episodes of season five of
The Crown. Then, this week's episode of
The White Lotus, and not long after that, this week's episode of
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
Between those last two, as I had come out to the living room expecting to turn on John Oliver, I found Shobhit on FaceTime with his niece, who is now 22 and in her final year of school at Purdue in Indiana. Her dad took her to the States initially to look at colleges, and according to Shobhit, he made this choice for her. I wonder how surprised Indian fathers when they do this, and then time spent in the United States makes them far more independent than they might be had they stayed in India. There is no question in my mind that she won't just let her father make decisions for her going forward, and apparently has already accepted a new job position in Maryland just outside of Washington, D.C.
I also kind of met her for the first time. She called him
Chacho, which I learned is specific to "dad's younger brother" (I could swear that's what she said, although everything I'm finding online says it's
chacha, so I remain confused). I asked about it, and so Shobhit showed his phone to me and I actually spoke to her, directly, for the first time ever. I was quite struck by how Americanized her accent was; I noted that if I didn't know better, I'd assume she was born in the U.S. Usually Americanizing an accent happens with only small children, and when I said, "You're not a little kid," she tried to say she was—because she's 22. Okay, we have very different ideas of what "small children" are. My point is, she was a legal adult already when she came to the U.S., at probably 18. But, I guess that was still young enough to largely erase her Indian accent—which is still thick on the part of her father, and certainly her uncle, Shobhit.
Shobhit came to the U.S. in 2000 at the age of 27, incidentally. That's almost a decade older than his niece when she came, and that must make all the difference. Well, and also Shobhit's definitive tone deafness. He even tried taking classed to learn how to speak with an American accent and really could never get it right. The best he can hope for is improved enunciation to make it easier for people to understand him. He has a tendency to talk super fast which does not help matters.
Anyway, it looks like now there is a fair chance she will come and visit us over her Christmas holiday break. She's going to be too busy with school work to come over Thanksgiving, but Christmas would be between terms and it sounds like she doesn't want to go back to India during that stretch. So, she may come in mid-December and stay through early January. She would likely come with us to Olympia for Christmas, which I actually would be fun and would probably be interesting for the rest of my family too—far less awkward than trying the same thing with Shobhit's mom, who can barely speak or understand English, at least as spoken with an American accent. Shobhit's niece, on the other hand, is very Americanized, straddling the line between cultures with greater ease even than Shobhit. That makes her a much more ideal candidate for the rest of my family to meet another relative of Shobhit's. I would kind of enjoy that. So, we'll see.
— पांच हजार तीन सौ ग्यारह —
[posted 12:32 pm]
