— छह हज़ार अड़सठ —
So yes, only three Daily Lunch Updates (DLUs) this week: I skipped posting a DLU altogether on Tuesday, and then I did so again yesterday. I don't know how many people have actually noticed this; maybe the presumably 2.5 people who return daily?
In any case, nothing to fret about: the DLU getting skipped yesterday was for a far more innocuous reason: available time at work.
We had our quarterly in-person POS meeting yesterday, which was held for the first time here at the Central Office, making it the first time most of the POS people from the stores had even been to this location, which we officially moved into at the beginning of last September. Gabby really goes out of her way to rotate having these in-person meetings at different stores each time, but the store PCC Cooks classes are all booked up for the summer, leaving the office as the only option. This was a slight challenge in terms of space, as our largest conference room here is designed for fitting 12 people comfortably, especially with a central table in there. Gabby waffled a bit on whether to take all the tables out and arrange only chairs to allow for a little more space, but after consulting with Cathryn and me we all agreed we should use tables in there because otherwise some people may not have a place to eat the lunch she was having brought in.
In the end, she arranged the tables in a U shape in the room, four on each of the three sides so there were 12 seats actually at a table. She arranged another 6 chairs, I think, along the back wall, which would have taken us to 18. There may habe been another one or two chairs crammed in there somehow.
In any case, a bunch of them had already arrived and gone into the conference room when I finally made my way over around the scheduled start time of the meeting, at 10 a.m. Most of them sat at tables, and realizing it best to let as many POS people as possible sit at tables, I sat in one of the back-wall chairs. Amy, does not always attend POS meetings as they often cover subjects not directly relevant to her, did come in this time and join us for the whole meeting, came and sat in the chair right next to me. Cathryn only came for the first section on the agenda, and she also sat in the back row, but on the other end by the easternmost of the two doors to this room.
We currently have 16 operating stores but due to the small size of Downtown "Corner Market," there is no dedicated POS person there and thus no representative from that store in attendance; that would leave 15. I think only Hyong from Edmonds and Tina from Kirkland were sitting in that back row aside from Cathryn and Amy and me, which would mean 13 were squeezed around the tables—and that's not even including Gabby, who was using one of the table chairs at the far northwest end. There must have been 14 total around the tables.
Anyway! Gabby had Taco Time brought in to cater for lunch, for which we broke at 11 a.m. (It's worth noting that POS work very early shifts and typically are done by 2:00; 11 a.m. lunch was actually kind of late for many of them.) She had also learned of an "Ice Cream Social" being hosted by Rainier Square up on the terrace, specifically for tenants of the block, and she managed to snag 18 tickets to it! Kind of stunningly, only one POS person—the aforementioned Tina—took her up on the offer. I think Gabby was disappointed that so few accepted this offer after she's secured so many tickets, and I don't really blame her. Amy and I both happily took a ticket, though (Amy had even worried that there was one more person in the room than there were available tickets for—no need to worry about that). Gabby left the rest of the tickets for office staff, but during the lunch break Amy and I went with a few POS people to eat our Taco Time lunch up on the terrace, and the three of us with tickets got ice cream. It was from a place called
Street Treats and was pretty good.
Two other POS people, Mere from Fremont and Dylan from Central District, came with us, just to join us for lunch on the terrace. I offered to guide everyone up there, and led us all to the cushioned chairs by the elevator. We took the back way around out the office back exit and took stairs the whole way, but on the way back down I took everyone down that elevator to show them the other way, which is through the back entrance to the store and then to the office front entrance which is right next to the front entrance to the store.
There are two key things that Mere and Dylan have in common. First, they both use "they/them" pronouns, and have that listed in their default email signatures. (Side note: lots of people put their pronouns in their signatures, and I have never bothered. My decades of pointed androgyny notwithstanding, I figure I can let the continued use of "Matthew" as my first name be a natural indicator.) And second, both of them still
always wear face masks, whether at work at their respective stores (including while on our biweekly Teams virtual meetings) or when attending our in-person POS meetings. But! Since we all went up to the public terrace to eat our lunch,
both of them took their masks off for extended periods of time, something I had not yet witnessed before.
It turns out a face can look radically different if you just add a nose and mouth.
I think I'll qualify this as a Social Review point for all four of them: Tina, Mere, Dylan, and Amy. We all went and had lunch together, after all. Amy went to get in line for the ice cream as soon as we all sat down in our chairs, saying the line got really long right behind her. I finished with my soft tacos and mini crisp bean burritos at 11:11, and when I went to get my ice cream after that, Tina came with me. The line was very long but moved quickly; the booth had like four people working it. I opted for a cookies & cream ice cream cone, which resulted in a smaller scoop than the coffee ice cream Amy had come back with in a bowl, but that was fine.
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— छह हज़ार अड़सठ —
In any event, I was otherwise detained during my normal lunch break, and the POS meeting was from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Any other week, I might still have found time to write up a draft of a DLU post, but this is not a normal week. I'm getting everything I need done with surprisingly comfortable ease, but I still need all the time I can get until my two-and-a-half-week vacation starts.
We leave for Amsterdam
tomorrow. I can hardly believe it!
Full disclosure, I did spend a fair amount of time yesterday printing tickets and itineraries and related stuff just so we'd have printouts of critical documents for our trip. That took some time.
I did finally get the early prescription refills I needed for the trip, which I actually picked up on Wednesday. That was not entirely related but still connected to some of the horrible bullshit I had to deal with earlier in the week. Thankfully it's all settled now, although in a way it feels like an overcorrection: when I get these mailed to me from CVS Specialty Pharmacy, they only send a month's worth at a time. When picking them up at the Walgreens on Broadway, they provided me with two months' worth, even though I only needed one. Whatever! That's a better problem to have; I just hope it doesn't fuck up further ordering from CVS Specialty in the future.
I have to get my PrEP prescription renewed every three months from my doctor, which clearly was a source of the confusion. Some guy from Dr. Means's office clearly thought I should have plenty on hand because his information said I get three months at a time. But no, it gets renewed every three months while CVS Specialty only sends me 30 pills at a time. It kind of sounds like if I actually always picked it up at Walgreens, they'd be giving me three bottles at a time. Whatever. I have what I need right now and that's what matters.
In any case, I had really hoped to see
The Odyssey a second time this week, and I had also hoped to get Shobhit to come with me. That was only going to happen if we went on Tuesday or Wednesday because only then could I use my $10 in AMC Rewards points to cover the half-off tickets on those days of the week. But, multiple scenarios and circumstances conspired against that being possible. I am not likely to go to a movie again until Friday, August 14, at which time it will have been only one day shy of
four weeks since the last time I went. A two-and-a-half-week trip to Europe is a good enough distraction from movie-going for a while, though.
So, my evening last night, just as it was the evening prior aside from picking up my prescription, was just spent at home. Last night I did have Shobhit go through the pages of printouts I brought home, which he clearly liked being able to do. And then we finished season seven of
Curb Your Enthusiasm, which had to be the funniest season yet.
— छह हज़ार अड़सठ —
I spent like two or three minutes longer than normal to do it, but I finished my library copy of
Stand on Zanzibar right at the end of my lunch break. Perfect timing! Now I'm just hoping to find time this afternoon to go return the book at the library three blocks away.
It's all coming together. I'm feeling pretty good. And I'm very excited!
Amsterdam, here we come.
— छह हज़ार अड़सठ —
[posted 12:41pm]
