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v Dorie worked at the Greenlake store on Aurora, starting in 1999 . . . until earlier this year. She had a retirement party at the Greenlake store yesterday, the first I have attended at a store rather than at the office, but she hadn't actually worked since beibg diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. She was out for several months, first with an issue that resulted in a hysterectomy, and then apparently they found lung cancer. She has since undergone chemotherapy and apparently she's all good now, the one major difference still apparent being her very, very short and now very gray hair.

In fact, I commented on her hair as soon as I saw her, totally forgetting that she'd had cancer. She said she had lost it all and for a while looked like a hairless cat. "You weren't as creepy as a hairless cat, I hope," I said.

I was there maybe two and a half hours—quite a bit longer than I expected. But, I'm really glad I went, and that Amanda and I got there shortly after it started at noon. After about an hour, the Greenlake Store Director, Tyler, started a kind of hosting duty, allowing people to offer comments and stories on Dorie's 16 years at PCC. Apparently, she had already planned to retire this year and put in the paperwork at the start of the year. Then the cancer happened, and she got through her treatment, then just came back for this party. I guess she hasn't actually worked since before her initial diagnosis. My favorite of the video clips I took, which runs a solid three minutes, features her daughter Sara, who is currently the Human Resources Director, talking about what it was like to work at the same store as her mom when she first started at PCC, and then about how much PCC took care of their family while Dorie was sick.

I'm very fond of that video clip, as it offers a record of a lovely bit of PCC history. We've had several examples of children of PCC employees also working here; when Dorie spoke about Sarah, she said, "And then I gave her to PCC!" Sara has actually worked at PCC longer than I have, and only one year less than Dorie: she started in 2000. That actually puts her at two years more than I have, but I often trick myself into thinking I have been here longer because Sara did not move from the store to the office—she started as the Receptionist—until shortly after I started, maybe 2003 or 2004. So to me, at the office, Sara was new. But, at the time, the vast majority of office staff started with jobs in stores, and I was an anomalous staffer who was hired straight to the office.

I never did actually work directly with Dorie, but I have a kind of long, if spotty, history with her. Our work positions rarely crossed because she was the HBC Coordinator, which is no my department, at one of the stores, while I work at the office in Grocery. But! I was very familiar with Sara by 2007, which was when I first met Dorie, who happened to be Shauna's duplex neighbor at the time. She was sitting outside that July, when Hadley was trimming Shauna's hair for her, and I took Dorie's photo, my first of her, when I learned that she was Sara's mom and she also worked at PCC. In my caption to the photo on Flickr, I noted all these things, and also said, "I found her to be completely hilarious."

Also, when I looked up what photos of Dorie I had a few weeks ago, after getting the invite to the retirement party, I had not looked at these old photos in ages. 2007 was eighteen years ago, which means at the time Dorie would have been somewhere less than a decade within the age Sara is now—and I was stunned to realize for the first time how very much Sara looks like her mom. (Sara even mentions this in that video, how people regularly thought she was her mom at the Greenlake store.)

It was quite striking to see Dorie yesterday with such short hair, as it had always been quite long, and with it so gray, as she had been dying it brown (she told me yesterday) for many years. I kept thinking it had been so long since I last saw Dorie that enough time had elapsed for her to go gray, but nope: she simply hasn't died it again after losing her hair due to chemotherapy. She looked great yesterday, to be clear; Amanda told me this morning that she had visited Dorie over the summer and she looked way better yesterday than when she visited.

I did take another look at my Dorie photos on Flickr this morning, though; before yesterday, I had 23 shots of her, dating back to 2007. With yesterday's party, that number has now more than doubled, to 49. I also had a bit of a forehead-slap moment, as it clearly hadn't been that long since I last saw her: she was at the Co+nvergence conference I went to in Saint Paul in 2023! She's in this group shot we had taken, middle row, about four in from the left. You can see her relatively light and very long, brown hair there.

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I was telling Shobhit about this party last night, and he was like: "Do I know her?" I said he probably hasn't ever met her. Well! Shows how shitty my memory is: she's actually been to our condo—twice! She was at our housewarming party in December 2007; and then she was at my Oscar Party in February 2008—here she is posing in her "Oscar gown" on the "red carpet." It's unlikely Shobhit has seen her since then, though, so having not seen Dorie in 17 years, I would certainly not expect Shobhit to remember her. But, for the record: he has met her. It's Sara he's probably never met, although I have far more consistent history with her as she's been in the office so long.

Anyway, as I noted in yesterday's post, I left work at 11:25 in the morning to catch the Light Rail at Symphony Station and take the 13-minute ride to Roosevelt Station, where Amanda and I had made the plan to meet at 11:45 and she would drive me from there over to the Greenlake store. She wound up being 10 minutes behind schedule due to a phone call with a broker who apparently never shuts up, so it was just a few minutes after noon when we arrived. Amanda and I walked up the stairs and Dorie was right there; she got a look of genuine delight and surprise when she saw me, which was rather nice. "I can't believe we got you out of the office!" she said.

I don't hear that often, but I suppose it's fair. My job never takes me to stores, and the only time I work at stores is for "holiday helper" shifts, which I have managed to get out of every year since 2021, the last year I did them. Even when I do them, though, it's at the Central District store; I'd never have done them at Greenlake.

The last photo I took there was at 2:11, which was while Amanda and I were trying to leave—I got a selfie of Dorie and Amanda and me, about 15 minutes after I had somone get a shot of Dorie and Sara and me, which I thought turned out wonderful: that's the shot at the bottom of this post. Amanda then dropped me off at Roosevelt Station, where I had nine minutes to wait for the train. It was probably a quarter till 3 at least, by the time I finally got back to the office. I accidentally walked out of the far end exit of Symphony Station; I need to learn how to get quickly to the 3rd & University exit, which is only a block and a half or so from the office.

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Okay, now some updates on my leaky incision, which was mostly what yesterday's post was about, and right now picks up at a moment while I was still at Dorie's party: I got a concerned text from Gabby at 1:43: Checking on you. I heard Andrew's comment about your back. [sad face]. everything okay? Anything I can do to support?

I felt kind of bad; I assumed she'd know that I was at Dorie's party because it was on my shared calendar. Granted, even if she had, she was working in-office yesterday and as I was gone shortly after overhearing that exchange, naturally she might wonder. When I told her where I was she replied, Oh phew! Okay. I was worried you were at the hospital.

Not yet! In the middle of my writing this, I did get a call back from Dr. Wancata's office. I sent in a surprisingly clear photo of the spot on my back via the patient portal last night, and although they can tell it's not infected, the guy said it may be "broken down a little," so Dr. Wancata does want to take a look at it. I now have an appointment at 9:30 tomorrow morning. I sure as shit hope I don't have to get any more of those fucking burning local anesthetic injections. Probably not. I suppose I could have asked while I was on the phone but I didn't think to. It doesn't seem likely but I can't help but worry about it a little bit.

I took myself to see Zootopia 2 (fine, not great; certainly not as good as the first) at Pacific Place at 5:15 as scheduled, as the leakage on my back had basically stopped since the morning. I still kept a napkin on top of the site, under my shirt, which came away mostly unspoiled when I got home after the movie, and took my shirt off almost as soon as I got home.

Then something really gross happened. Shobhit wasn't home, he'd gone out for a drink, so I set up my phone's camera timer on my bathroom sink to get a photo—I did a great job getting the shot, all things considered. It does look pretty gross but if you really want to see the photo you can find it here. This was taken after the grosser thing that happened.

You might even guess what happened. I took the band-aid I'd had over the incision site since Saturday off, and when I pressed the skin near it, not even very far, a pinkish fluid squirt right out of the center in a long line, like a clam spitting out of a sandy beach. "Ugh!" I said, pretty disgusted, as it splashed against the right-side bathroom sink and even part of the mirror. I had a lot to sop up with toilet paper, which I also pressed against the incision in my back, several times soaking up the pink fluid until it stopped coming out.

Some of it also dripped down my back. Once I got all that wiped up, I took the photo. Then I put two new band-aids over it. No further leakage of note through the night, though I did take the band-aids off this morning and press a little bit out with toilet paper again, before adding fresh band-aids again. I've put folded tissue over the band-aids and under my shirt, and, so far so good: no seepage into the tissue, much less today's shirt.

Not to speak of, anyway. After writing the above, I pulled out the tissue and saw two very tiny spots of what this time looks more like a yellow-ish fluid—some kind of pus, perhaos. But again: just tiny little dots of it, and only in the tissue and not in my shirt. So far, so good on it being way better than how things went yesterday. I just need to keep this up now until the doctor takes a look at it tomorrow morning.

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[posted 12:32pm]