one travel after another

— पांच हजार नौ सौ इकसठ — Last night Shobhit and I booked the third set of plane tickets for the year—this time, for someone else: we're bringing Barbara here for my 50th birthday. Shobhit met me at work, after taking a huge, long walk to up his step count, and first we went over to Target so I could finally buy deodorant and cotton balls—I kept forgetting, for several days. They have all their deodorants in locked cases, which is stupid as shit, and in the past I've had terrible experiences waiting for someone, anyone, to come by and open the fucking case door for me. Well, this time Shobhit caught the eye of a staff guy within seconds, and not only did he find the brand of deodorant I was looking for immediately (it was on another deodorant shelf, in another case, one aisle over), but he also quickly looked up what aisle I could find the cotton balls. "That was maybe the quickest and best help I've ever gotten here," I said. My saying that seemed to immediately stick with Shobhit, because he decided as we headed to the registers up front that we should find that guy to thank him for being so helpful. I had no idea where he was so I didn't think we needed to worry about it. But, then we happened to pass him on our way to the self-checkout, so Shobhit thanked him for being so helpful as we passed by. It probably would have made more of a difference to compliment him to his manager, but whatever. We then walked home together. I like to cut over from Pike to Pine on Melrose, which is what I do every single time, same route both going to work and returning, when I walk by myself. But, Shobhit insists on walking up Pike all the way to 13th before cutting over to Pine. It's six of one, half dozen of the other in terms of distance. I don't know why he's so insistent about it. I made chai, and finished making it right at 5:30, which was when Barbara and I agreed over text in the morning she would call us on FaceTime. We had tried to call her Tuesday night but there was no answer. Barbara told me later that she's often napping just because it's so cold in Louisville right now (just as I type this, it's 25° there; they've been having lows in the single digits, and I suspect Barbara doesn't use her heat much). Weather be damned, Barbara will never quit smoking, and she was on her way outside for a cigarette when she called. And then she got distracted for several minutes in the lobby of her building when some other old man (the building she lives in is for seniors, kind of like where Laney lives except without the LGBT focus) asked her to help him figure out how to take his phone off Airplane Mode. This gave Shobhit and me time to look up flights on Expedia anyway. Barbara was all about leaving on a flight as early as possible. Shobhit worried about how she would get to the airport, and she was just like, "Uber." Later she added, "I am a normal person, sort of." Well, after several minutes, we got it all set and booked. I really wanted her to be here for the family birthday party I'm having Saturday May 2 in Olympia, but if I'm flying her out anyway, I figured I'd have her here for my actual birthday too, which is Thursday April 30. Thus, we're flying her out on Wednesday the 29th. Her departure out of Louisville that day will be 8:30 a.m. local time and 5:30 Pacific; it's a 94-minute flight to Chicago where she has a 2-hour, 43-minute layover. Then she has a 4-hour and 37-minute flight from Chicago to Seattle, landing locally here at 2:24pm. I've already started tentative planning for points of interest during my Birth Week, but had to shuffle a couple of them to accommodate this itinerary. We fly her back out to Louisville on Monday May 4, leaving Seattle at 11:16 am local time. Her layover is again in Chicago, and when she lands in Louisville it'll be 11:27 p.m. local time, but her full itinerary that day will be just over nine hours. This is what happens when you live in a second-tier city with no direct flights to any major city far outside your region. Anyway. This will allow Barbara to accompany me to potentially as many as six of my planned points of interest for my Birth Week this year—the theme this year being 50-year-old landmarks. Because I am turning 50! I actually found two new great ideas for this just last night, including Olallie State Park, which was renamed and expanded in 1976 (I already went there with Shobhit in 2021 during that year's Washington State Parks Birth Week theme, but that's okay; I'm betting Barbara has never been there), and a place southwest of Olympia in Thurston County I can't believe I've never heard of called Mima Mounds Natural Area Preserve. It sounds fascinating and looks cool. I'm leaning toward doing that the previous weekend, when I already plan to stay the night in Shelton at Jennifer's house. I have found it somewhat of a challenge to come up with ideas for this theme, but I finally thought to google what parks opened in Washington in 1976, and that was how I found these two spots. I bet Barbara would be interested in Mima Mounds too. Maybe I should consider just staying the night in Olympia on the 2nd, and going to Mima Mounds the next day. Hmm. Shobhit won't be crazy about staying overnight, but Barbara would like it and we don't currently have cats; this might be more efficient. Lots to ponder. So, these are now the three flight itineraries we have booked for 2026: Barbara's visit in late April / early May; Shobhit's and my trip to The Netherlands in July and August; and Shobhit's and my (along with Jennifer and Matthew's) trip to Albuquerque in October. — पांच हजार नौ सौ इकसठ — — पांच हजार नौ सौ इकसठ — I did discover something a bit inconvenient recently, regarding both what had heretofore been the planned timing of our next trip to Australia, and World Pride in Cape Town. We have long been aiming to head down to Australia in December 2027, hopefully to spend Christmas in Adelaide with Uncle David and Mary Ann and then New Year's in Sydney so we can see the massive fireworks display all aroubd Sydney Harbour. This would have us returning home in early January 2028. Well, World Pride typically coincides with whenever the host city's annual Pride is typically held, and I just learned Cape Town does their pride around Mardi Gras, just like Sydney does. This means World Pride Cape Town is likely to occur at the end of February 2028. This would be less than two months after returning from Australia. I brought this up to Shobhit last night, and he suggested we just move the Australia trip to the end of 2028. This would be easier financially for sure. The problem I have is how many times we've already postponed a third trip to Australia. Our first and second trips were three years apart; it'll be three years since the second trip just next month. Granted, we thought last time that it could be the last time we go—but then we learned about New Year's in Sydney and it really motivated me to want to come back again. My concern is the passage of time and Uncle David's and Mary Ann's age. By the end of 2027, they'll both be 80 years old. That's already kind of pushing it, and by the end of 2028, they'll both be 81. Grandma and Grandpa Minor both died at the age of 82, so pushing it like this makes me nervous. We have the ability to see them at least one more time before they pass away, and I'd like to do it. Something else occurred to me this morning, though. The overall cost of a trip to Cape Town won't likely be as expensive as either the trips to The Netherlands or Australia. Both of those trips are scheduled to take about two and a half weeks and involve three different hotel stays (in two different cities in Europe and at least three cities in Australia). I wonder if it would be easier to stay on schedule with Australia December 2027 and South Africa February 2028 if we consider doing, say, only a week and a half for the latter. I don't feel like there's a ton of places in South Africa outside of Cape Town that we need to see anyway, and this would be significantly less in hotel and incendental travel costs. Maybe Johannesburg? We could fit both cities even with a roughly 10-day itinerary—assuming we need to be at World Pride events two weekends apart like we did or will have in both Sydney and Amsterdam, we could skip over to Johannesburg for two or three nights mid-week. It would still be far easier to save for all of the above if we bump Australia another year, of course. I'm just really tired of having to bump it, and I'll be deeply disappointed if Uncle David and Mary Ann pass away before we can return at least once more. — पांच हजार नौ सौ इकसठ — I just had my biweekly Teams lunch with Karen. We usually do it on Fridays but she had a conflict tomorrow and so we pushed it back to today, and starting at 12:30 rather than the usual noon start time. That's why this entry is getting posted a solid hour later than usual. We spent most of the hour talking travel stuff. The conflict tomorrow is actually her departure to Brussels for a week, where a university is giving her an honorary doctorate, which I think is really awsome. And since Shobhit and I will be in Brussels this summer, she can maybe give us some recommendations or pointers for when we go. I also shared a whole lot of new travel related news since we last had a virtual lunch: booking the Albuquerque trip; booking Barbara's flights; putting together my ideas for this year's Birth Week. We talked through the whole Australia / Cape Town issue, and even she seemed to think it likely best that we postpone Australia another year—for her, less because of the financial consideration than the idea of taking two trips to the other side of the planet only six weeks or so apart. Now, she demured a little when I noted that Cape Town can be significantly less expensive, but that doesn't change the challenge of doing that kind of travel twice so close together. I'm kind of back to leaning toward postponing Australia. Plus, that makes it far easier to consider a holiday season trip to Vancouver in December 2027. So there's that. I was also thinking that if it's just a one-night trip like we did to Victoria then I could even do it this year if I covered the cost with my "Christmas Events" budget I already have, but there's lots of time to consider that. Right now I've got bigger travel fish to fry. — पांच हजार नौ सौ इकसठ — One final thing to mention about last night: Shobhit and I watched One Battle After Another, so he could consider it for the Actor Awards. I had long hoped to see it a second time in theaters, but theatrical windows are so short now that it was on HBO before I knew it. I long wondered if I would love it as much on rewatch—and I absolutely do. I stand by it being the best movie of 2025 by a long shot. I love everything about it. I could watch it a third time right now. We did have to take a 90-minute break for Shobhit to attend a Zoom meeting for the DAMN theater organization. He'll probably take part in their next set of short plays in November. Most of them will probably not be very good. But whatever, I'm all about Shobhit getting so involved in local arts again. His first rehearsal for The Foreigner is February 11. I'd love for the play to be my first exposure to the story when I go see it opening night, but I suspect I'll have to read it and run lines with Shobhit before then. It'll be fun to see it with other people though. Jennifer already bought 5 tickets for opening night for her entire family, which I thought was amazing. I've got my comp tickets booked for both Opening Night and the March 22 Sunday matinee, which I'll be seeing with Alexia. I think at the very least Gina and Beth will also go Opening Night; I'm not yet certain about Dad and Sherri. — पांच हजार नौ सौ इकसठ — [posted 1:38pm]