I guess I should start, briefly, with Thursday evening: it was a group movie outing, at AMC Pacific Place, to see
Jurassic World: Rebirth. I saw it with Shobhit, Laney, and Alexia.
I felt a little bad about the seating arrangement. I suppose it's inevitable, when four people are sitting in a row, that only two of them get to sit next to two of the others, and the other two get to sit next to only one of the others, and everyone is unable to sit next to at least one of the others. Laney always books her seat on the far end of the aisle, to make it easier to stretch out her legs because of her knees. We were in the four seats on the far end of the aisle from the side the theater room was closest to, and as we all filed into the aisle, at first it went Laney, Alexia, me, and Shobhit. When we got to the seats, I said I would like to sit next to Laney.
Then Alexia was like, "Do you want to sit next to your husband?" Oh, all right! So, Shobhit sat on the other side of me from Laney, and Alexia sat on the other side of Shobhit, the opposite end of us all from Laney.
I am certain I am the only one overthinking this. I just felt kind of bad because Alexia and I were the first ones to make the plan to see this movie—she and I had watched the previous five together in a marathon before the release of the last one—and now we didn't even sit together. Laney later said she'd like to join us, and in the end I kind of chose her over Alexia. Shobhit has a lot more free time now that he doesn't work a retail job, and he also expressed interest in going, so I bought him a ticket as well.
We all chatted for just a little bit after the movie. I think we all would have agreed that this was on the bottom end of the series, with now
seven movies. It was definitively better than
Jurassic World Dominion, and still, I gave that one a C+ and I gave this one a B-. I should still note that the dinosaur action sequences in this one are pretty thrilling. Laney in particular was pretty into it, at least once the action got going, and had the most vocal reactions to frightening scenes (like the clif face sequence) or jump scares.
Anyway, we all got into the elevator, and Alexia was the only one who went all the way down to the Concourse level, to take the other elevators down to the parking garage. Shobhit and Laney and I all got off at the first floor, and walkled over to catch the bus together. Shobhit and I might have walked, but he decided he wanted to take the bus too. He had already taken a long way round to walk to my office and meet me when I got off work so we could walk to the theater together; I decided not to bike to work Thursday just so we could do that.
So that brings us to yesterday: the 4th of July. "Independence Day." Air quotes intentional. It says something that I saw two different people yesterday wearing the same white shirt with red and blue lettering:
JUST HERE FOR THE FIREWORKS. Few people around these parts are like, "Yay America!" I do love fireworks though, so you know, what are you gonna do.
Looking back on my annual 4th of July activities ever since pandemic stay-home orders lifted, I am definitely
sensing a trend: for four years running now, I have spent Independence Day with Shobhit alone. Each year, we watch the fireworks launched from a barge in Lake Union. Three of these past four years we have gone down to Lake Union Park at the south end of the lake—about a two-mile walk from home. One of those years (2023), we watched from Lakeview Blvd on Capitol Hill, a 1.6-mile walk. I thought at the time that we would return there the next year or years, but in the end both last year and this year we walked down to Lake Union Park again so Shobhit could get his steps in.
I'm a little less married to returning to that spot on Lakeview Blvd, honestly. What's the benefit? Distance, more than anything: and what's another 0.4 miles? That spot is technically closer to the actual fireworks, but only slightly. The crowd vibe at Lake Union Park is actually more fun.
In both 2020 and 2021, Shobhit and I went down to Renton to spend Independence Day with Danielle and her kids at their house, fireworks being shot around the neighborhood. Aside from Shobhit, I have spent the 4th of July with Danielle more than I have anyone else: we kind of made a tradition of it for the four years between 1997 and 2000, even driving to Seattle together from Eastern Washington in 1997. She traveled to visit me in Seattle for it after I moved here in 1998, and visited again in 1999; in 2000, she was actually living here after living with me in my studio apartment between February and June. Four years later, in 2004, she and Patrick actually had a boat, and they took us out
on Lake Union to watch the fireworks—that was absolutely the best, with fireworks right above us. We attempted this again, but missed the fireworks because the boat broke down while we were still on Lake Washington. I did not spent the 4th with Danielle again until 2020, as already mentioned; that was a solid 15 years later. Anyway, we spent the 4th together four years in a row 1997-2000; two years in a row 2004 and 2005; then two years in a row 2020 and 2021.
The Lake Union Park tradition with Shobhit actually started before the pandemic, though—the first year being 2017, the first 4th that Shobhit was home after living in Los Angeles for five years (and in New York City the year and a half before that). In fact, I was in L.A. for the 4th of July festivities at Grand Park with Shobhit the four years prior to 2017, from 2013 to 2016. I always loved going to that. 2017 was the first year I even know that Seafair extended 4th of July events from Gasworks Park (where I went only once for the 4th, with Danielle in 2000, and it was nuts—never again) to Lake Union Park. We went back again in 2018, and only in 2018 were we able to sit on the dock right by the moored boats on the water next to the MOHAI museum. Every other year they have had a fenced off area for people who bought "VIP tickets" for something like $65.
2019 was an anomalous year, because Lea lived in an apartment on Westlake Avenue and had a view of the fireworks from there, so Shobhit and I were invited to go there for the 4th. When Shobhit and I returned to Lake Union Park in 2022, we hadn't gone there for the 4th in three years. But, now we've gone there for three of the past four years. In both 2022 and 2024 we found a spot to sit at Goose Beach, across from the cove with a pedestrian bridge across it—but that bridge is closed so crowds don't gather on it, which meant walking all the way around.
It seems that with each year, we get there later than the last. Back in the pre-covid days, I would go down there hours early, stake out a spot in the grass and spread out our blanket tote, waiting for Shobhit to meet up with me after he got off work. In 2022, we got to Lake Union Park at a quarter after 7:00, giving us three hours before the fireworks. Last year, we arrived at a quarter after 8:00. This year, we didn't leave to start walking down there until 8:45, arriving at Lake Union Park at about 9:20, with just one hour until the fireworks.
I'm going to make a note on my calendar for next year that I do
not want to do it that way again. The park was super crowded already when we arrived, and the first thing we did was wait in a huge line to use the port-a-potties. There was a lot of them so the line moved quickly, but that still took a good 15 minutes on its own. And when we walked toward the fencing around the VIP area (chain link now; it used to be white picket fencing, about half the height—I wonder if people started climbing over that), and by the time we were thinking about going over to Goose Beach again, there was too much distance through too thick a crowd to make it seem worth it.
So: we watched the fireworks standing behind one row of other people standing right at the VIP area fence. It wasn't the greatest, honestly. The fireworks show itself was fine, but also nothing special, and didn't even have the standard "finale" of a bunch of them at once like usual. It felt a little tepid to me. Maybe next year will be better.
I didn't mind standing the entire time. But the view from there kind of sucked.
We did think for a brief while, actually, that we would actually be going back to Lakeview Blvd this year. Alexia had expressed some interest in joining us for the fireworks this year, in which case that's what we would have done. This way she'd be parked on Capitol Hill and find it easier to drive back to Issaquah when it was over. She seemed slightly ambivalent about the idea when I texted her to see if she was still interested, and said she wanted to get a good night's sleep and would text me "mid morning."
Shobhit and I took another walk earlier in the day, from home to PCC (where we did not buy anything) to Grocery Outlet to the Amazon Fresh store down on Jackson and back. We were walking back when I finally texted her again, at 12:30, as she still hadn't texted. After that, she was like, "What time should I come over?" But then, a few hours later, she texted that she'd had her dinner and knew she wasn't going to be able to stay up until 10:00 and would be asleep by 8:30 as usual.
Shobhit told me he liked the idea of having me to himself anyway. Not that there's anything unusual there.
I got that text while Shobhit and I were watching the very fun movie
Sisu, which I found on Peacock when looking for what else we could watch on that streamer while we still have access to it. I got very excited when I saw that one; I was unable to see it when it was released in U.S. theaters in 2023, and when it was a selection for Action Movie Night later that same year, we missed it because there was a Seattle City Council candidates campaign event to go to instead.
I think I'll finish watching
Tropic Thunder next. I had gotten 17 minutes into
Sisu when I stopped it because Shobhit would definitely enjoy it. He was watching a movie of his own in the living room, though, so I watched the first 22 minutes of
Tropic Thunder while waiting for him to finish that. I haven't watched that movie, so far as I can tell, since 2009. I was finding it still pretty damned funny.
So anyway, that about covers it for Independence Day this year. I asked Shobhit to pose for a selfie with me in front of red, white and blue bunting at a bar close to Lake Union Park wheb we started walking back home. When we got home, I edited and uploaded my photos from the day
to Flickr. I was in bed at around midnight. I slept almost until 8:00 and it was kind of glorious. Now we're doing laundry. Exciting stuff!
[posted 10:14am]
