First I'll briefly mention the first thing I did today that was outside the home: I met up with Laney for our second-Saturday Happy Hour, and we went to The Pine Box—our second time there; the first was in November of last year. I took a lot more pictures at last year's visit. Also, Shobhit joined us last year, but he had an event of his own to go to today. It's too bad, because it would have been better for me to eat only half of the $12 12" Happy Hour pizza I ordered, but, whatever.

I think maybe we were there about three hours. We each had two drinks, and I took Laney's advice again and had only one of the specialty cocktails ($14, honestly way too much for my so-called "Naughty Toddy") and then had one of the well drinks which were only $7. And then, guess what? I nice boon for me: I asked what was in the "Seasonal Mule," and I was told I had a choice of either passion fruit or pomegranate. I ordered the latter. The bartender made my drink, and when she was done, she suddenly said, "I'm so sorry, I made the passion fruit." Then she made a jokey-sly "secret" hand position next to her mouth and said, "You want it for free?" Sure! And then the drink was far more tasty than I expected. I gave her a 30% tip.

As always, Laney and I had no shortage of things to talk about. She even read me a copy she had on her phone of a letter her mom had written to her only a couple of years before she died, and it was actually very touching. We talked about all the possibilities I still have for a 50th birthday party next year, and whether I will have it in Olympia or in Seattle. We talked about lots of family stuff. I updated her on the healing wound of my cyst removal, and the horrid phrase "beefy red tissue." Actually, somehow I misremembered this already, after only one day, and what I said to Laney was "meaty red flesh." I only saw when re-reading my blog post from this morning that it was "beefy red tissue." Gack!

Anyway. I did ask Laney if she'd have any interest in joining me for the Green Lake Pathway of Lights, which I did not expect her to say yes to, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask. It was relatively warm today, no rain, dry. Perfect day for it! But, Laney declined.

Had Shobhit not had other plans, I'm sure he would have gone with me. He would even have walked all the way around the lake, just to get a ton of steps in. For my part, after arriving at the Green Lake Community Center, I only made it as far around the lake as the Seattle Public Theater on the northwest side of the lake—that alone was 0.8 miles. I had already walked from Roosevelt Station, which I took Light Rail to from Capitol Hill, so that total distance was 1.6 miles. Round trip, that was 3.2 miles of walking. It would have been one thing had I driven straight to the Community Center and just walked the 2.8-mile loop around the lake, but I was already walking slightly more than that distance when coming from the station, and I was not especially up for a total 4 and a half miles of walking, especially when factoring the insane crowds they had there tonight.

This event hadn't even been on my radar until Danielle mentioned it, as she'd heard there were going to be hot air balloons and was interested. She didn't realize it was in conjunction with the Pathway of Lights event until I discovered it online, and we said we might go together. But, when I texted her a reminder a few days ago, she had forgotten about the date and made other plans. But, I decided I wanted to go and check it out anyway. This is an annual holiday season event that's been going on "for over 40 years" (I can't find any source noting the exact first year), and I only just discovered that the hot air balloons have been getting inflated at it every year since 2018.

What I also did not know was that they only inflate the balloons for the first hour—4:30 to 5:30. It was nearly 6:00 when I arrived, and there were no visible balloons anywhere. What there were, were insanely thick crowds. I had hoped I could find free refreshments like at Holiday in the Park at Volunteer Park or Twinkle Twinkle Freeway Park, but all I could find were booths—several of them—with people selling things, or at least that was how it appeared. One big booth was actually a PCC booth, which I did not expect to see, though in retrospect it makes sense since Greenlake is the single neighborhood in which we have two stores. That also looked like the stuff was for sale and not free, but I could have been wrong. I didn't want to go up and say "Is this free?"

There were multiple stages set up for performances. I'm kind of amazed I had never been to this event before, as it's clearly a longstanding predecessor to Holiday in the Park or Twinkle Twinkle Freeway Park. It made me wonder if the annual events at that park will be as insane 25 years from now. Granted, Green Lake has been a beloved Seattle Park in a way the other parks are not for many years, decades even. People love that park. They love visiting it, they love cycling or jogging the path around it (hmm, I should take my bike up there sometime), and they really love just walking around it with luminarias lighting the path on the second Saturday of December.

Lots of people walk with holiday lights wrapped around themselves in one way or another. It was the closest thing there was to any lighting of the path, besides the luminarias in paper sacks which were low to the ground. It was otherwise very dark and if there were any obstruction it would have been easy to trip over or run into it. I did see a few people wearing this weird, brightly lit backpack light thing, and those were so bright it blocked out a lot of the vision of anything else around it, ironically. I hated them.

I found it overall to be kind of a madhouse event, just due to the throngs of people—all around the booths concentrated around the Community Center; virtually anywhere on the path around the lake; certainly around the Public Theater. Although in that last case, some of the crowds were added to by the people there going to see A Die Hard Christmas. In any case, I found the densely packed crowds far more frustrating than fun, and for that reason see no reason to add this one to my annual event rotation. I may still go again just next year, if I can manage to get there right at 4:30 so I can see the balloons. The crowds might even be thinner that early. I'll probably have to carefully plan next year's second-Saturday Happy Hour with Laney around it too though, in that case. But, we'll see.

[posted 9:49pm]

I'm already into the working draft of my second travelogue email of the season: "Christmastime in the Northwest (PART TWO)," with three events covered and four photos already used in it—the most recent a last-minute addition, from yesterday: "Twinkle Twinkle Freeway Park." I happened to notice a flyer for it while Shobhit and I walked from my office to my latest appointment with Dr. Wancata, the woman who surgically removed the cyst from my back three weeks ago, cutting through Freeway Park on the way. It just coincidentally happened to be scheduled on the evening of the very day I noticed it.

At first, I had other plans: I was going to meet Laney at Pacific Place for a movie at 4:50. When I discovered this event at Freeway Park, I still made the decision that I would leave work just five minutes early and go check it out for like ten minutes, in a slightly roundabout route to Pacific Place. I wound up having much more time for it, though, because Laney had a temporary personal issue that caused her to have to cancel. This movie is getting mixed-to-bad reviews anyway, and I already had plans to watch and review another movie on Netflix last night anyway. So really, this worked out great for me; I had her cancel both our tickets for the movie (she can book for both of us as our AMC A-List accounts are linked).

I'm going to sidetrack for a moment, though, and pivot to that doctor's appointment. Dr. Wancata was actually impressed with the job Shobhit is doing, twice-daily redressing the wound in my back. He was so concerned by Monday because the hole was actually bigger than when I last saw Dr. Wancata last Friday, but as of yesterday at least, she felt it was actually progressing as desired. I still leak slightly bloody fluid every day, but it seems to be either a tiny bit less or no more than the day before. And here was the kicker from yesterday: "You see that beefy red tissue? That's good."

Beefy red tissue? What a horrible phrase. I told her I'd never expect to hear that phrase in the context of it being good, but apparently it is. God knows how long this is going to take to heal fully, but basically I'm living every day with this small hole in my back, which Shobhit fills with a cut-off piece of gauze dampened with a syringe of distilled water; then the rest of the piece of gauze is folded into a small square, put over the filled hole, and covered with tape. That tape is the most painful part of the daily process, actually, as its removal is like getting my hairy back waxed. We've systematically learned the ideal length of tape to use so it's long enough to be secure but short enough to minimize the pain of being stuck to my back hair.

Another concern had been the fact that Shobhit leaves for a three-week trip to India on the 26th, which will leave me to fend for myself with this. Dr. Wancata had me demonstrate how easily I can reach the wound spot on my back, though, and she said that by then i should be able to simply cover it up every day; she didn't seem to think it will still be necessary by then to fill in the hole. Honestly the thing that makes me happiest right now is that I have the dressing supplies and know-how to reliably prevent any more staining of my shirts.

Anyway, as soon as Laney and I finished texting and we established that I would not be going to the movie, I texted Shobhit to see if he wanted to meet me at Freeway Park, as the event lasted from 4:30 to 6:30. This was perfect timing for me, given that I leave work every day at 4:30. I had half an hour to spare when I texted him, which would have given him just enough time to get there and meet when I arrived. But, when I got no reply or even indication that my text had been seen, I did a rare thing and even tried to call him.

I knew that in all likelihood he just wasn't close enough to his phone to notice, but that didn't stop my brain from going to other possibilities. We had established the last time I saw him that, due to the movie I was going to see, I wasn't likely to get home until at least around 7:30. Did he go for a walk? Did he go out for a drink? Was he maybe hooking up with someone? Any of these things was fine, but I wondered anyway. When I finally got home, he was cooking dinner in his bathrobe. He just hadn't seen my text or heard the phone ring when I called. He probably didn't hear it because of the sound of the fan over the stove. He made a delicious liquidy vegetable dish with potatoes and tofu, by the way, along with scratch-made parathas. It was an excellent dinner that we ate while watching Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery on Netflix. I need to cancel my membership so it stops before renewing on 12/22, thereby ending my two-month subscription for the season; I don't think there are any more major Netflix releases that I need to watch and review.

In any case, I simply walked the three blocks from work over to Freeway Park, and I went to "Twinkle Twinkle Freeway Park" by myself. I was there for a half hour, which was honestly longer than I expected being there by myself. I found it utterly charming, though, and have already marked my calendar for next year. Honestly this makes me wonder how many other parks around the city have similar holiday events, not to mention how many other smaller-scale holiday events like this happen all around downtown, which I have far easier access to now that my office is also downtown.

This is very similar to Holiday in the Park at Volunteer Park, but with some key differences. Freeway Park does not have a Conservatory, so no space to deck out in elaborate holiday decor like the Volunteer Park Conservatory. Holiday in the Park also has a two-hour program of entertainment featuring four different half-hour performances by local caroling groups, long-established and pretty well-oiled machine; Twinkle Twinkle has live entertainment too, but just one group: The Dickens Carolers. They were great, though, and even took requests. I was going to suggest my favorite, "Carol of the Bells," and then that was what they sang next anyway. To the even greater delight of the crowd that had gathered by this point, they then honored a request to sing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer."

The one thing Twinkle Twinkle has over Holiday in the Park—and it's a significant thing—is in the refreshments department. Holiday in the Park offers free cookies and hot chocolate, the latter of which is usually not nearly hot enough. Twinkle Twinkle really ups their game in this department: they offer small plates of s'mores ingredients, which you can then assemble and roast over one of several small fires assembled in this area of the park. I knew these marshmallows would have gelatin in them but I had one anyway. Don't tell anybody. It was delicious. But that's not all! This event also offers free hot chocolate (not nearly as flavorful as at Holiday in the Park, but at least this was actually hot), even with mini marshmallows to add (which I did not even notice until after I was done with my cup); small candy canes; even small brown paper sacks of popcorn. No one was really taking the popcorn, which I think is only because the volunteers were not making clear what these closed-up paper sacks were. I only found out because I asked; I didn't have any because I had already consumed a s'more and a cup of hot chocolate.

Had I been there with Shobhit or a friend, I might have sat next to one of the fires and hung out a bit longer, but as I knew I also wanted to get home and watch a movie that's 144 minutes long, I left the park at about 5:10. This involved going through the rest of the park, away from the one section where the event was happening, near the corner of 6th and Seneca. Deeper into the park, there is an underpass under 8th Avenue where several homeless people have set up tents; I had wondered how that might go over in the same park where this event was happening, but the park is long enough (it's a freeway lid, hence the name "Freeway Park") that they were pretty far removed from the event at 6th and Seneca. Still, they must have more delicate considerations like this than the organizers of Holiday in the Park do. There are no homeless encampments at Volunteer Park, presumably both because there aren't as many homeless people up there (notwithstanding the many camper trucks parked along the east border of the park on 15th Avenue E) and because local neighborhood people are more pointedly diligent about keeping such people out of the park. (Cal Anderson Park, also on Capitol Hill and much closer to where Shobhit and I live, goes through cycles of being a different story—but, each park has a different "Trust" of people who presumably have slightly varied priorities).

In any case, I found the event delightful, and really hope to come back with someone rather than going by myself in future years.

I cut through the park toward the Convention Center, getting a couple of photos looking back toward the event area over the freeway along the way. I went in through an open door of the third floor of the Convention Center, and cut through there to Pike Street and walked the rest of the way home.

[posted 12:34pm]