And here we are, now in one of the three "extra" days I tend to tack onto my Birth "Week," for two reasons: 1) I just have too many people to spend time with! and 2) I take the week off of work every year, which means I have two weekends on either end available—and that totals, okay,
nine days during which I am not working. But, I also tend to do my first Birth Week activity the evening of the Friday on the week prior, so that adds another day, and takes the total to ten.
I've only ever confirmed plans with friends or family for nine of the days this year. But, I still have one more "viewpoint" I want to go to on Sunday, and I presume Shobhit will happily walk there with me. Assuming that happens, this year's Birth Week will have included three different days in which Shobhit was my only activity companion: Wednesday and Thursday, for our trip to Portland and back; and then Sunday. He's also coming with Alexia and me to the Mt. Rainier Gondola at Crystal Mountain Resort tomorrow—where it's still open for skiing, I understand, and the forecast high on the mountain is 34°. I already knew to plan to dress in warm layers, though. I'm only a little bummed that the forecast has it mostly cloudy tomorrow, but, we'll see I guess.
Plus, I actually have
two friends scheduled for tomorrow now—both Alexia for the morning and afternoon, and now Shauna at the Smith Tower Observatory Bar at 6 p.m. tomorrow, instead of 6 p.m. tonight as originally scheduled. Why? Because someone booked a wedding at the Smith Tower this evening, and they bumped us, even though I booked the tickets weeks ago—April 12, to be precise. Who the fuck got married and did not already know they wanted to do it on May 2, anyway?
The Smith Tower just auto-rebooked our tickets, for 6 p.m. tomorrow. I had to text Shauna to see if she was available, and thankfully she is. Alexia and Shobhit and I just need to be sure we're back to Seattle by then, and I think we should pretty easily be able to. I'm still really annoyed by the inconvenience of it all. Tomorrow was supposed to be just the day trip to Crystal Mountain. The Smith Tower fine print says there are no refunds or exchanges, except they just exchanged the dates
for me; I have a feeling they might have accommodated me had I asked to reschedule to another date.
But, knowing Shauna is available tomorrow evening as well, I just settled for that. Still, I also took Shobhit's advice and contacted the Smith Tower to ask if I can get any kind of coupon or discount for the inconvenience. I meant to walk into the Smith Tower lobby today—I literally went right by the building to take pictures of it, as it's only a couple of blocks from the Columbia Center—but I totally spaced it, as I was also headed down to the Pioneer Square light rail station to wait for Danielle to arrive. I'm not sure what they would have been able to do in the Smith Tower lobby anyway, as they are just hired workers probably making minimum wage. As of now, I have simply emailed them. We'll see if anything comes of it.
In any case, there was a bit of irony as a result of all this, in terms of how today went down. Back when I thought I might spend time with Lynn and Zephyr on Sunday, I had approached scheduling Danielle for my Birth Week in much the same way I had approached Gabriel: knowing nailing down a date early would not be likely, and so I scheduled everyone else first. I had Smith Tower Observatory Bar scheduled with Shauna tonight at 6:00 at first, and I asked Danielle if she was working on Friday, May 2–she was not. So, she penciled me in tentatively for an afternoon activity. She even sent me a screenshot from her Google Calendar, in which the calendar event was written as "Matthew's leftovers schedule. Only daytime on Friday! This is all I get 😤."
Well, after she had to cancel last minute last year, and has spent a lot of time since talking about how being more spontaneous works better for her, I did not feel like I could reliably nail down a date with her this week. But, I did know she did not work today, and just hoped we could make it work out. And we did! In fact, after a couple of ideas were thrown around—including her suggestion of ziplining in Bellevue, but when I saw it cost $90
a person I declined that suggestion—I asked if she'd want to do the Sky View Observatory at the Columbia Center with me. This was initially my idea for Sunday with Lynn and Zephyr, and even when Lynn asked if we could get together the following weekend instead, she was actually moderately interested. But, I really wanted to keep Columbia Center within this week so it could stay on-theme with the travelogue emails I send out, and I won't want to wait another week to do that.
I wasn't even thinking, when I first finalized this plan with Danielle, about the fact that she and I had already been to the Columbia Center observation deck together before—twice! Both the other times were for the Big Climb for Leukemia, and for those we actually climbed the stairs. We took the elevator this time. Now we've been up there together three times, spread
over 23 years: the first time was in 2002; the second in 2015 (I was shocked to realize that was now that long ago); and now a third time in 2025.
It's actually been quite a long time since I was last up there—I took Tristen, Becca and Tyler in 2016. Nine years ago. Today I discovered a Sky View Observatory significantly renovated since then, to such a degree that this was my first time up there where you can observe the view around all sides of the building, not just three sides. Back then, they still had a certain area walled off for, if I remember right, traffic report observation. It seems the $25 renovation happened all the way
back in 2018—the same year as the major renovation that occurred at the Space Needle. Sky View Observatory must have felt they needed to up the ante to compete.
Tickets at the Columbia Center used to be dirt cheap. The tickets today were $23.33 each, and that was with a slight Groupon deal. (Space Needle tickets are still nearly double that, depending on the time of day. Both are timed entry tickets.)
It came as no surprise that Danielle ran a little late, but I didn't fret about it at all. Our tickets were booked for 1:00 this afternoon, and she had done park-and-ride at the Tukwila Light Rail station, her train arriving at Pioneer Square Station at about 1:20. At that time on a weekday, even a Friday but I'm sure it being early May was also a factor, there was no line at all at the ticket counter in the Columbia Center main lobby. The young man at the desk wasn't even looking up, so I said, "Hi," and he jumped in his seat because I startled him.
Danielle and I were there all of about forty minutes, from 1:30 to about 2:10. I still managed to get
over 50 photos in that time, part of the day's photo album that in the end had 67 shots added to it. Because, once we got back down to ground level, we walked over to Pike Place Market and spent some time at Old Stove Brewing Co at Pike Place Market. I had suggested we pack lunches and she loved the idea, but in the end only packed some salted and peppered cucumbers. She said she had planned on making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, then discovered her peanut butter was moldy. So, she ordered a burger at Old Stove, and asked if I would have any of her garlic fries. Of course! Their garlic fries are amazing.
I ordered a cocktail. It was delicious,
but small, and massively overpriced, at $17. With tax and tip I figured out that would come to around $22, which was close enough to the roughly $23 Danielle still owed me for the ticket. So, we just called it even.
After that, we spent some time strolling along the waterfront, including some time on the floating dock next to Pier 62, and then lounging on the chairs
on Pier 62. We even
snoozed for a bit there, the weather occasionally a challenge for me—I really should have brought a light jacket or a hoodie, but thought I would be fine on a day with a forecast high o 67°. I was indeed fine when the sun was out, but when the clouds blocked it occasionally, combined with the breeze, I was a tad chilly.
After a little while, we walked south along the waterfront some more. We went into the Waterfront Market with lots of art for sale, which neither of us had ever been to. I walked her down to the waterfront swings by the ferry terminal, hoping they were finally open again—they were not, still chained together so people can't swing on them. Bummer. Then I walked her to Pioneer Square Station again, and we took
photos of each other from opposite platforms, as we waited for trains going in opposite directions. Our trains actually arrived at the same time, and I walked home from Capitol Hill Station, finishing up my posts on socials commemorating the outing.
It was nice having some extra time free in the evening, actually. Now I've gotten this post written! Shobhit made some minestrone soup and now I shall have some, thinking about what a lovely day I had with Danielle today.
[posted 8:37pm]
