it has to be damp

— छह हज़ार एक सौ तेईस — We are firmly in the rainy season now here in Seattle. I am usually all about it, except I do not have any shoes particularly well fit for really wet weather. I need to find a pair of shoes that both protect from rain soaking through and work for wearing all day (which would, for example, rule out rubber rain boots). I walked to work today under an umbrella, and barely managed to avoid any puddles that would soak my socks, but although there are no outright cracks (yet) in their soles, the bottoms of my socks are still a bit damp as I write this. It was raining yesterday afternoon and pretty much all evening too. Shobhit picked me up, and I walked down to the end of the block so he could pick me up at the intersection with University Street. My umbrella was soaked in just those few minutes, and having to collapse the umbrella on top of taking off my backpack kind of complicating getting into the car quickly. These are not the worst problems to have, I realize. He then drove us to both Costco and, after that, Hau Hau Market. Between the two I spent about $93 on groceries. I was just glad it was under the $100 budget I had for Costco alone. I am still roughly $130 over budget due to a couple of unusual, large expenses I had in October (including buying flowers to have delivered to Valerie after her husband, Scott, passed away), but my Apple Card Cash is nearly up to $100, and I always transfer the balance each time it hits that number; that will go a long way toward taking care of how over budget I am. (Mind you, I have plenty in savings as well as what I set aside for future travel expenses—hence the word budget.) — छह हज़ार एक सौ तेईस — — छह हज़ार एक सौ तेईस — We drove home and, even though it was around 6:00, I still decided to make us chai. I made a little less than usual, and used a bit less of the loose tea. I got to sleep easily once I went to bed later, which was nice. Shobhit made puris to have with our leftover dinner, and it was delicious. Shobhit had Rachel Maddow playing, and other similar programs, for much of the evening. Once I was done eating, I went to the bedroom to continue working on calendar grid photos. These calendars are a lot of tedious work every year, but I am always so happy with them when they're done. Finding photos of everyone has been a bit more of a challenge this year, though. For instance, I have not seen David, Gina's son, or his wife and kids at any family gathering since August 2025, and I prefer to use photos from the previous year. David has not been on Facebook in ages, and Jackie is either no longer on Facebook or she made her account private. Gina does not post a lot of photos, and although Beth posts more, not even they have a lot of shots of them from the past year. I actually found a great shot of David and Jackie together, but that was somewhat improbably on Angel's account (Angel, being my other sister, is David's aunt). I actually had been banking on getting a lot of good photos of my own at the Family Vacation last summer—which, of course, imploded and never happened. The last large family gathering I went to was Easter, and there were a few decent photos there, but for the most part I still found better photos to use on Facebook pages—I may be glad I left Facebook as a user, but I have to admit I'm grateful so many others are still using it. Whether it's Angel's kids or even Christopher's (particularly Nikki), a lot of them spend a lot of time posting photos of their children, which is perfect for me and their use on the calendars. Sherri does have her digital photo frame with an account we can all send photos to, and when I was at the house in Olympia for the "You Should Be Dancing" Bee Gees cover band concert, I noted that it included a ton of photos that would have been perfect. Unfortunately, though it's super easy to send photos to that frame, the only way to extract images from it is to download them to an SD card! Who the fuck has SD cards these days? So, I still have to rely on Facebook. That aside, David's family is the biggest challenge. I don't blame them at all for distancing themselves from Facebook—they did that far before I did. But, for the first time, I had to text Gina to ask if she had any good photos of them she could send me. I hope I hear back soon. And, I find myself wondering how much more I will have to resort to asking people to send me photos as the years go on. Is making these calendars going to start getting more difficult? I guess time will tell. Shobhit and I later watched Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and the introductory segment overview of the midterm elections was so wonderful I had to send Laney a link to the episode. The rest of it is about Pete Hegseth, who is already facing impeachment, thank god. I hope they get that fucking douche out of there. I was stunned to learn it was a Republican who submitted the articles of impeachment, and that this is happening before the winners of this year's election are even in office. I can only hope this is a harbinger of the way the tides are already turning. — छह हज़ार एक सौ तेईस — [posted 12:31pm]