— पांच हजार नौ सौ बत्तीस —
I nearly forgot I did not post a regular Daily Lunch Update (DLU) on Friday last week—the only day last week that I worked—for two reasons: first, I was too busy playing catch-up after taking a week off; and second, I needed my post on Friday to be the one about Christmas, which would be way too long to work on at work. I posted that
on Friday evening.
So much happened over the past week, in fact, that I never even had time to mention the movie Laney and I went to see on the Sunday before Christmas (December 21):
Avatar: Fire and Ash. It was all right; entertaining but way too long at three hours and 17 minutes; Laney said she actually got bored.
That day, in fact, was the only day within my Christmas PTO stretch that I did not do any Christmas-related event: I went to "Holiday Magic at the Fair" with Tracy the day before,
on Saturday, December 20; and after Sunday, we
rode the Clipper to
Victoria on Monday, and that day alone also went to the
Gingerbread Showcase at the Hotel Grand Pacific; explored the decor in the
Fairmont Empress Hotel lobby; saw the
Festival of Trees at the Bay Centre shopping center; went to
The Magic of Christmas at Butchart Gardens (this being the entire impetus of the timing of this trip); and viewed
The Lights of Wonder at Centennial Square. I guess technically we didn't do anything Christmas-specific on Tuesday December 23, although I suppose you could count our lunch at
Murchie's which was very festively decorated and where both Alexia and I had their
Christmas Tea Latte; plus that was the day I bought my
candy cane earrings at a Victoria shop. Then, of course, Tuesday December 24 was our trip down to Olympia for Christmas Eve and specifically
the traditional dinner at Emperor's Palace with Dad and Sherri, and Jennifer and her family. After that was
Christmas, which I have now noted to two different people is a pretty standard family gathering and kind of anticlimactic compared to all the Christmas shit I do leading up to it—but, it remains very important to me and I still love it. Traditions are my bag, no matter how simple they are, and I see lots of family maybe only two or three times a year and it's at these holiday gatherings.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ बत्तीस —
They day before yesterday, I went to another movie with Laney, which was very good but did not crack
my personal top 10 for the year:
Marty Supreme.
I also went out for spontaneous drinks with Jessica, Laney's daughter, and her boyfriend Mike, who happened to be in Seattle and at The Pine Box when our movie ended. I accepted the invitation to go hang out with them for a bit, and I did buy an unplanned margarita. It was fine. We all got to talking about taking a
group trip back to Victoria during the holidays sometime, which I thought was a great idea—Laney largely backed out of this trip to Victoria because she can only afford to save for trips with Jessica, but as this would include Jessica then perhaps it could work. I actually got pretty invested in the idea, only for Jessica to text us both yesterday morning with an apology for her "drunken plan making," saying she shouldn't have made plans for Canada for Christmas. I wasn't sure she was quite remembering correctly, as a) we had clarified that we should do it next time in early December and not right before Christmas; and b) we never made any decision about which year we would do it. Still, given the tenor of the text, it seems best for me not to continue hoping for this ever to happen, and just let it go unless or until Laney and/or Jessica suggest it again. Which I have a feeling isn't going to happen. Maybe I should take Jessica with a grain a salt when she's drinking.
Apparently they both had three Long Islands. Mike is usually very quiet and he was shockingly talkative on Saturday evening. I even said so to him while both Laney and Jessica had gone to the bathroom. He replied with how many Long Islands he'd had, and I was like,
Jesus. I had a hot chocolate with rum on Friday evening and then had a headache all morning and into the early afternoon on Saturday, and that was after just one drink (which probably would have been mitigated by drinking a bunch of water before bed, which I stupidly did not do). I can't imagine how I'd feel the day after if I'd had three Long Islands.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ बत्तीस —
Okay, this is sort of lazy but you should be used to it by now. The following is my caption to the photo you see at the
bottom of this post, from my final, PART THREE "Christmastime in the Northwest" (including Victoria) email travelogue I sent out last night. I have that photo at the bottom here because I prefer the synnetry of the top and botton photos being labdscape with the middle photo being portrait; yes, these are my OCD tendencies and you can deal with them! Anyway here's the caption:
Okay, you're right. There aren't any reindeer in this picture, and our sleigh is being pulled by a stuffed lion. The closest thing we have to reindeer here are the bengal tiger and the wolf who are wearing reindeer antlers. At least give me some credit for exposing them for the frauds they are
!
The Issaquah Reindeer Festival doesn't have that big a "festival" element to it, honestly. It probably has more of one before Christmas, when you can visit Santa Claus there. I don't know though, that guy's probably fake too. I'm going to write a letter.
The Cougar Mountain Zoo, which I had never been to and neither had Alexia even though she's lived in Issaquah the past two years
and lived there for several years when her son was young, did have lots of holiday decorations all over the place. And, to be fair, they do have a lot of
Siberian Reindeer—I counted at least twelve, certainly more than any other species they have there. Alexia was going to buy a bag of apples to feed them, but then changed her mind when she realized they've been gorging themselves all day. What do they think they are, pigs? They're reindeer!
After Alexia and I spent about an hour there, she drove me out to North Bend to view the Meadowbrook Farm elk herd. To be absolutely clear, these are not reindeer—but, to be perfectly honest, seeing them
was actually cooler. I'm still glad we went!
We can check the Reindeer Festival off our list, anyway. That was my last Christmas event of the season, the reason I waited until today to send out this email. Last year I matched my record with 20 separate photo albums on my Flickr account for the Christmas season; this year, thanks to things like the multiple holiday shows I went to with Shobhit and the many holiday-themed things we did in Victoria, I'm at
twenty-eight, a new record by a 40% margin. This is why I had to split my Christmas emails into three parts this year. I'll try and do fewer next year, I swear. I don't have a problem. I can quit any time I want!
Only 362 days until Christmas!
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I have the car while Shobhit is in India, so I just drove over to Alexia's apartment complex in Issaquah, then rode with her the three miles back to Cougar Mountain Zoo from there. She drove me in her car to the elk herd as well. I drove home as soon as we got back. Another time of year, I might have hung out a bit longer. But, every moment of my spare time at home this weekend has been dedicated to my annual year-end projects: on Saturday I posted my 2025
Book Log, which thankfully I already had ready to go as I work on that as the year goes on and I finish each book; last night I barely managed to finish my
top 10 movies of the year (and 5 worst) before bed, so I could post that on schedule this morning; Saturday morning I finished my draft of my annual "Year at PCC" email, which I also have a blog version of to post tomorrow morning. All I have left to finish now is my "2025 in Ten Minutes" video, and I really am coming down to the wire on that one: I was unable even to
start working on that until around 6:00 last night, and as of now I am about a third of the way through the year moving photos and video clips into the iMovie project. Thankfully I have no plans tonight and can dedicate all evening to it; I am seeing a movie tomorrow night but should have just a bit of time outside of that to put any finishing touches on it before I can share that one, as usual, on New Year's Eve morning (that's Wednesday, the day after tomorrow).
All of this work is of my own doing, my own design, but whatever. There will still be a sense of relief once it's all over and the new year has begun.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ बत्तीस —
[posted 12:31pm]
