data nerd
So yesterday I emailed Karen with a lot of that square footage data I shared in yesterday's post—with an emphasis on the comparison between the PCC Downtown store and other downtown grocery stores; I did not send the full list of all PCC store sizes. Still, when she replied just after 7:00 last night, what she wrote kind of cracked me up:
You are so funny and such a data nerd....
That aside, Shobhit and I went to the monthly Vegetarians of Washington dinner last night. Well, monthly for them. We went three months in a row last year between November 2018 and January 2019, but we sort of lost interest for a while after that, even though we still renewed our memberships at Vegfest in March this year. We hadn't been to the monthly dinner since January.
Still, we were recognized by a few people. And, Shobhit was on it when it comes to how to deal with how bland their food can be without it: we brought a tote bag with our own salt and pepper in it. The food actually is pretty good once the salt and pepper is added. We have no idea why they insist on not seasoning it.
Also, when it comes to what they have to offer at these meals, "Vegetarians of Washington" is kind misleading. These dinners are always totally devoid of any kind of "animal product," which means it's always vegan. Shobhit and I do love our milk and our eggs, not to mention ice cream, or baked goods actually made properly. I kind of feel like we should start our own sister organization, Dairy Loving Vegetarians of Washington.
I'd say this organization might better call themselves Vegans of Washington, except at Vegfest every year, they do allow vendors who offer samples with dairy ingredients in them. There's just no meat of any kind. And I would say that the majority of the sampling on offer is still vegan, but it's not a requirement.
One thing that kind of disappointed me with this year's holiday meal was that not just one, but two of the dishes were very corn-heavy. I do like corn, but do we need this much? There was a kind of creamed corn dish with a sort of cobbler-like (but savpry) bread crumb topping that I liked, but they also had a fried vegetable dish that had lots of corn in it. The potatoes were only sweet potatoes, yuck. Shobhit and I both had multiple servings of the veggie sausage en croute dish, and I did like the salad. Mostly I like that it's a pretty good deal for about $12 a person for members, since you could go back for seconds once everyone went through the initial line. And Shobhit and I always strategically position ourselves at a table near the food, so we can be among the first to get our plates. In fact, I was literally first in line this time. Lots of people are afraid to be first, I don't give a shit. That’s such a dumb thing to be self-conscious about.
I had some interesting conversation with some of the people at our table. There was a young man named Corey, his mother Victoria, and Victoria's mother whose name I forget—all of them vegetarian, three generations. Not for very long though, apparently (at least not compared to, say, my 21 years and Shobhit's lifetime): they all started six years ago. I guess only Corey still eats some dairy products and Victoria and her mom are vegan. Her mom asked me what made my mom decide to call me Matthew; I don't remember that, but I did tell her it was a Christian name, and it means "Gift of God." This led to a surprisingly long discussion about interesting names, such as a woman she came across once at a job whose name was Dimples. I had to tell them about my Aunt Raenae, whose first name is legally Brucilla—as she was named after my grandpa, whose name was Bruce. They had apparently agreed they would name their first child after Grandpa whether it was a boy or a girl. You can imagine how much Aunt Raenae loves her real first name.
Also, as typically happens at pretty much all of these dinners, as soon as it comes up that I work at PCC, everyone became very interested, because PCC is very vegetarian- and vegan-friendly. Vicki's mom said she had been a PCC member as far back as 1969, which I found legitimately impressive. And Vicki herself told me about all the stores she frequents, and she mentioned several: Greenlake Aurora is her main shopping store, but apparently she regularly goes to Edmonds, and as of its recent opening just last month, Ballard. She gets around, apparently. I actually thought about getting a picture of them because of their super-long history with PCC, but then I totally forgot.
Shobhit and I actually left a lot earlier than we usually do. They were having the same dessert they had last year, an apple-cranberry crumble that we remembered not being all that great, so we skipped it. And we needed to get to PetCo before they closed at 9:00, so we left right after 8. The dinner had started at 7:00 officially but we had gotten there at 6:40 or so. I was totally fine with missing the monthly "talk" one of the organizers gives, extolling the virtues of vegetarianism and veganism. You're preaching to the choir here, lady!
In the past they also gave out free samples of a pouched veggie meat product, which I like a lot, and I was also slightly disappointed that this year, instead, they handed out packets of vegan protein powder. Talk about not-exciting. They also had these pomegranate gummy packets though so I grabbed a couple of those on the way out. We said goodbye to our table and we all said how nice it was to meet each other.
So then we drove from the dinner's location in Greenwood, through Ballard and down to Interbay, to stop at the Petco and also the Whole Foods right next door. We got some treats and a couple stocking stuffers for the cats. I hoped to find new collars for them but their selection was shit. Next door, we bought our first of the "12 Days of Cheeses" with a different cheese 50% off starting December 12. I got just one small block of it since it had been too late for there still to be sampling and I didn't know if I would love it or not. (I actually did go into a Whole Foods to sample the cheese the other day, but that day's cheese wasn't great so I didn't buy it.) Last year we bought a ton of these, but this year we haven't gone out of our way as much.
From there I drove us straight down 15th and then Elliott, to stop at the office and pick up another bag of samples it was too awkward to take home walking. There were four jarred samples of the New Origin Foods dosa batter; the annual large fruitcake that a broker always sends to several people in Merchandising and Scott always re-gifts his to me; and a cookie tray from another broker that Noah gave me the other day. Oh, and I saw a loaf of bread set out in the kitchen on the section of the counter food is always put for people to take, so I snagged that as well. So we got a pretty good haul last night.
Tonight's the night: The Rise of Skywalker with Gabriel. Reviews kind of exploded onto the scene yesterday, as that was when the embargo was lifted, and they are . . . not great. Kind of a shock, honestly, after how great The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi were. Lots of references to misguided "fan service" to people who were whiny babies about The Last Jedi, insisting it was terrible even though it's easily the best Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back. Also: this is now easily the worst-reviewed Star Wars film since the prequels. Also: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, was by far the best of the prequels—although that's not exactly a high bar—and its MetaScore of 68 is itself notably higher than this new movie's score of 53. And even that is one point lower than Episode II, Attack of the Clone's 54 MetaScore. I'm kind of surprised to see even Return of the Jedi has a MetaScore of only 58, and it is widely regarded as by far the weakest of the original trilogy, and for many years it was actually my favorite; I still love it.
So, I figure I'll still enjoy this new one. It's just disappointing to see this kind of response after the genuine greatness of The Last Jedi.
I thought about mentioning the reviews to Gabriel, but I have chosen not to. Of all people, he's going to want to go in with as pure an experience as possible. I mean, maybe he already knows. I'll let him say so tonight if that's the case. If he doesn't, though, I won't mention the reviews until the movie ends and we exchange our own thoughts about it. He's just a Star Wars lover that he loves all of them, even the prequels; this is one franchise he really won't lay any criticism on, even when it's begging for criticism. It's too linked to something he was passionate about in childhood. I don't have the same kind of history with it.
[posted 12:21 pm]