— पांच हजार एक सौ अस्सी-सात —
Relatively busy weekend, though truly nothing compared to
the previous weekend, which was stretched over five days for my trip to visit Barbara in Louisville and take day trips to both Indianapolis and Cincinnati. This past weekend was a lot less social, though there was still a little bit of that, and had far more to do with Shobhit getting back from India.
I do kind of wish Shobhit would take more pictures on his trips to India.
Past trips have yielded anywhere from 60 to 100 photos, but the last three have yielded very few, ranging from 10 to 13 each time. The only reason I managed to get the photo album for this latest visit he took up to 13 shots was because of two photos he sent me from the Delhi Airport on Friday, and two photos I took on Saturday of the
mass of Indian foods, snacks, and products he brought back.
So anyway, that was basically my Friday evening: shopping to prep for Shobhit's return. I went home from work, and was home long enough to make myself dinner. Then, I took his car and went shopping, at three different places: Costco (where they
still don't have red onions), PCC Central District, and then even Trader Joe's. I guess Shobhit's cheapness has truly infected me, because I was thinking just this once I would actually get the vegetables I need from PCC. But, something like 92% of our produce is organic—something we regularly brag about to our core customer base—and frankly I think nonorganic produce is generally fine, and I knew how wildly cheaper it would be at Trader Joe's. So, even though it has annoyed me countless times in the past when Shobhit added Trader Joe's to the list of places we stopped for grocery shopping, I then did exactly that on my own. And I got several vegetables.
Once I got home, I had six tote bags full of groceries to take up to our fourth-floor condo from the parking garage. Usually Shobhit and I shared that burden. I thought I might have to take two trips, but challenging as it was, I hoisted two bags over each shoulder, carried two bags in each hand, and actually managed to get it all upstairs in one go.
Shobhit's flight landed at SeaTac at 2:34 in the afternoon, for a flight scheduled to get to the gate at 2:30. Sightly delayed, but not by much. He flew Air France for all his flights for this trip, and thus had his layovers in Paris. He once again commented while texting me from there that the customer service in Paris was horrible. I often think of that delightful scene in
French Exit where the Paris restaurant waiter is ignoring Michelle Pfeiffer's character and so she quite effectively gets his attention by setting the flowers on her table on fire. I love that movie.
Anyway! So much time elapsed between Shobhit's plane touching down and his actually getting outside with his luggage, I truly need not have worried about feeling like I was "running behind" by not having an ETA until 2:56. That was exactly the time at which I reached the cell phone parking lot—thankfully open again; it hadn't been when we picked up Ivan at the airport last summer—and it was 3:42 before he was actually outside at Arrivals with his luggage. I literally could have waited another hour to head down. Oh well; I brought a book, and
a delightful one at that. Unlike the last book I read, which I still enjoyed by it took me three months to finish, I can barely put this one down.
Shobhit had only texted me the luggage was
starting to come out at 3:21, so it was still another 20 minutes before he was outside. He had to go through Immigration between deboarding the plane and getting his luggage; he had to go through Customs with the luggage, although the latter part was surprisingly quick.
He was very happy to see me. Alexia had asked if I wanted to watch a movie with her that night, and I said probably not, because Shobhit was arriving. I did say I might be able to if jet lag had Shobhit falling asleep, which did eventually happen—just not for long enough. It was odd, too, because he seemed so truly awake and alert when I picked him up. He talked about trying to stay awake until 11 p.m. so he could get back on Pacific Time sleep scheduling, but he was zonked out on the living room couch by probably 6:00. He slept for a couple of hours and woke up again, though, and I didn't want to try sneaking out to go next door while he was sleeping. Alexia and I actually made a plan to see a movie last night instead, but she ultimately had to cancel because she had a work presentation she needed to work on.
I spent a lot of the rest of the day on Saturday doing laundry and putting all the stuff Shobhit brought back from Indian away. That was when I
dropped and broke his boxed 2-set of Hermes Perfume for Men, cracking the larger, 2.5oz bottle all around after it fell from counter-height to the bathroom floor. It took a minute even to realize how much it was leaking, because it was soaking into the box, and so tightly fit into the box that it took a long time to get it out and try to salvage any of it. I salvaged maybe a tenth of what was in there, in the end. There was also a tiny, separate 0.42oz bottle that was still intact.
I felt really bad. I posted about it before Shobhit woke up. He was visibly disappointed when I confessed after he woke up, but tolerably so; it was very akin to how I might have reacted were the roles reversed. But then, he had this delayed response, and for some reason decided to wait until Laney had come over yesterday afternoon to literally spin bullshit right out of his ass about this, saying he thinks I did it deliberately, even if subconsciously (still not the case), because "I hate smells," and I truly don't even know what the fuck he was talking about there.
I get really sick of this shit. Shobhit has a history of embarrassing me or being an asshole, almost pointedly while we're around my friends or family. I kind of laid into him about this after Laney left, and he just said "I'm mad about the perfume," as though that's just a perfectly good explanation. It fucking isn't. He makes mistakes just as bad as this on occasion, and I am consistently far more understanding,
and I consistently mention during those instances how much worse he would be treating me if the roles were reverse. "That's exactly what you are doing right now," I said. Which he could not deny.
And this is the problem. I think Shobhit exists in his day to day life as though his triggered anger problems are just a fact of life that we have no choice but to accept. I reject that notion wholesale, and he's got another thing coming if he thinks I'm going to just live with it the rest of my life. You know those couples who shock the shit out of everyone around them by finally divorcing after thirty years? That's truly going to be us, if this shit never changes. There will come a time when I just can't take it anymore, and god help him if he thinks I'm going to spend my twilight years wasting the end of my life being treated that way. Shobhit blithely lives his life as though it doesn't really matter how he alienates everyone around him, and I am increasingly convinced this applies to his professional life and is a relevant factor in his inability to get back into project management. I truly cannot imagine having him as a boss in a professional setting.
If Shobhit truly wants to be more successful in life, he needs to learn how to treat people with decency and respect—and not just when he thinks they deserve it. He needs to learn how to do that, crucially, even when he thinks they don't deserve it. When it comes to me, he has this notion in his mind that the motivation behind most of his life decisions is that I be taken care of, especially after he's gone (because he is convinced he will die first), and that should be enough. It's not enough, and it never will be.
He totally got it, understood my arguments and even generally agreed with them, by the time our argument-turned-discussion ended yesterday. We need to get to a point where he can understand logic before his triggered anger has even dissipated, because that lag time can go way too long. I remain convinced we would benefit massively from couples therapy. But, we have dual, significant roadblocks there: I think he's terrified it will just convince everyone involved that we should not be together (although if the unchanged behavior results in us breaking up eventually anyway, then what's the difference? at least this way we'd have a better understanding of what's best for us), and I am daunted by the idea of merely trying to find a therapist I am comfortable with. I can't even find a hairdresser I want to stick with. So, we reach an impasse, and we wind up back here again.
I still love my life way too much to want to blow it up, though—even with all of this in mind. And the kind of emotional pain that it would inflict on both of us still feels way out of proportion, to be honest. Even with that in mind, if I felt strongly that it was the right thing to do, I actually would leave him. That's how I make decisions: if it feels right. That's not where I'm at. My fear is that eventually, I will get there.
— पांच हजार एक सौ अस्सी-सात —
— पांच हजार एक सौ अस्सी-सात —
As I already noted, Laney came over yesterday. She had suggested she take Light Rail up and watch a movie at our place. Her hip was not feeling great and so she wound up driving anyway. I actually moved the car out onto street parking so she could park the van in our spot, but then when we realized Sunday parking is free and she quite easily found street parking on 15th that's a lot easier to get in and out of, she went for that instead. When I went down to meet her, she got into the car with me as I drove it back into the garage to put it back into our spot.
Laney is on a very strict, no sugar and no wheat diet, but was open to it when Shobhit suggested she have lunch with us, if we made salad. As per usual, we took a Costco salad mix bag and that added a bunch of stuff: broccoli, celery, onions, mushrooms, even sauteed veggie hot dog (chopped) and black beans and pinto beans. It was quite good actually, and all three of us had more than one helping. The whole batch was done by the time we were all through with it. Usually when it's just Shobhit and me, we have leftovers.
We watched
Turning Red on Disney+, which I had already texted her to recommend after
reviewing it and giving it a B+ last month. As I expected, Laney seemed to really enjoy it. Apparently she hadn't watched any Pixar films since
Coco came out, which was in 2017. That was five years ago now! Can you believe that shit?
After Laney left, and Shobhit and I had our argument (partially fueled by his visible irritation that I nuked the apple cider he had asked for instead of boiling it on the stove, even though I have literally never heated it or even seen it being heated that way so why the fuck would I know that was what he expected, like, Jesus Christ), we actually had a pretty chill, pleasant evening mostly watching TV the rest of the day, after Alexia texted that she had to cancel. We were behind on several shows, and still are a bit, but we watched the last two episodes of
The Gilded Age, which I liked a lot more by its end than I had at the beginning; and three episodes of
Minx on HBO Max, which started while Shobhit was in India and, since they do two half-hour episodes per week, we still have three more episodes of that one to watch before we're caught up—which we won't have time for until this weekend, after which there will be yet another two episodes released on Thursday. We also still have the final two episodes of the latest season of
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel to watch.
— पांच हजार एक सौ अस्सी-सात —
In other news, I talked to Dad for a little over half an hour on the phone last night. I called him, actually, to see if they were considering going to the Tulip Festival this year, as by some miracle Shobhit has both days off work this coming weekend and we're likely to go. He wants to go every year anymore, even though it's always the same but whatever. Turns out Dad and Sherri will be on a weekend trip to the Columbia River so meeting up with them is out, but I am still suggesting we take a day trip and drive up through Whidbey Island—and finally make do on my promise to Shelley, Mom and Bill's former PSR worker who now lives there, to come and visit her. I guess Friday is Shelley's birthday so she's unsure what her weekend plans are, but it sounds likely we can stop by and say hi to her if we do this on Sunday.
The biggest reason I even bring up the call to Dad, though, is news regarding the Easter get-together that will be doubling as the celebration of Sherri's 70th birthday—as the two days fall on the same date this year. I made a blithe reference to Christopher (my brother) and how I really didn't expect him to make it. And Dad said, "He told me he's coming!"
What?
According to Dad, Christopher plans to bring all three of the boys—my nephews Tristen, Christian and Braeden—and stay with Becca and Tyler that weekend. And they all plan to come down to the family gathering on Easter Sunday.
This got me very excited. I truly didn't think this was in the cards. Now mind you, if something comes up that prevents him from making it, I won't be in the least bit surprised. But as of right now we can assume it probably
will happen. And if it does? It will be the first time all four of us kids (Angel, Gina, Christopher, me) have been together since 2003 (also
on Easter Sunday, incidentally). Nineteen years ago!
You know what else this means? Not only will all four of us kids be together, but all of the grandchildren will be together (another thing that hasn't happened since 2003),
and all of the great-grandchildren will be together—in terms of the ones now having been born, something that's not yet happened at all. They actually tried over Christmas, but Nikki and JT couldn't make it over to Olympia to make their two kids part of
the photo that was gifted to Dad and Sherri. That photo thus had to include only Angel and Gina's grandchildren—all the great-grandchildren on the Western Washington side, basically.
Well, I already knew that Nikki and TJ were confirmed to be coming for Easter and Sherri's birthday, so I already knew, also, that we'd have a new opportunity for a photo of all of the great-grandchildren. There's either ten or eleven, depending on how you count (Alex, Angel's youngest, is not married, and his girlfriend has a little girl from a previous relationship ... who, upon looking now, may not be in that photo from Christmas).
Anyway, I said on the phone to Dad, "We're gonna have a lot of group photos to take!" He was like, "We are, huh?" Uh, yeah! We need a photo of Angel, Gina, Christopher and me together; one of all of my nieces and nephews (I'm the only one with no children); and one of all my grandnieces and grandnephews. Maybe even others that include spouses and significant others. The more the merrier! Certainly one of the whole lot of us.
It'll be deeply disappointing if this doesn't get pulled off. If it does, I'm thrilled just to be able to look forward to it. And Sherri has already stated all she wants for her birthday is to have the whole family together. To be honest, if that does happen, it won't likely happen again. Probably not until a funeral, if even then, and we don't particularly want one of the people in a group photo to be dead.
— पांच हजार एक सौ अस्सी-सात —
[posted 12:29 pm]
