I had a really delightful day with Ivan yesterday.
We went out two different times, once for a log walk to Lake Washington and back; once to go out for dinner. Shobhit would have been welcome to join for either one, but he sat both outings out, thinking he would be "in the way"—a phrase he often uses when sitting out time spent with other friends (particularly Laney) as well. That's not an accurate phrase at all, he's never "in the way." But, I will admit enjoying having some time with Ivan to myself.
I had already told Ivan I wouldn't have much money to spend at all, because his visit came up at pretty short notice and I was already wildly over budget after the trip to North Cascades National Park and Winthrop with Dad and Sherri last Monday and Tuesday. He had messaged me several days ago, "What kind of activities are we going to do?" I suggested we could walk along the waterfront as it's massively renovated since he was last year—something that most easily could have been done Friday evening but which he bailed out of at the last minute. He was hiking around Greenlake. To be somewhat fair to him, he loves hiking in parks and through trees and forests, and is clearly not a big fan of crowds, and the waterfront has predictably become very popular with tourists and locals alike. I probably should have thought of that.
A few days after he asked me that question, though, I followed up that I had gone ahead and budgeted $25 to go out for dinner at least once while he was here. He replied,
Glad you decided to splurge 🤗 🤗. I told him I was still way over budget right now but he was worth it. And I think it was on Friday, I suggested that we go out for dinner Saturday.
But also, as he had already taken many walks during his visit, on Saturday I suggested maybe we could walk somewhere together on Sunday. He had said he was going to walk to the lake on Saturday but later told me he had walked to Washington Park Arboretum instead, so I suggested we walk to the lake yesterday. I brought up the Madrona Briar Patch and its "Valley of the Gnomes," which also piqued his interest. He seemed to think he had never seen that before, although once we actually reached it, he remembered he had.
At first, I did think Shobhit would also be walking with us. But then he started asking if he wanted to walk to Howell Park and do some nude sunbathing, which he knew was an insane proposition with Ivan. I may know Ivan far better than Shobhit does, but Shobhit knows him well enough, and should have known better than to ask that. Ivan would not strip naked with us, even in a communal space, in a million years. He would never strip at a nude beach even without any friends there, let alone without us there. Sometimes Shobhit has this knack for being mystifyingly tone deaf and I don't understand it.
Mind you, if Ivan hadn't been here and Shobhit had suggested this for just the two of us, I might very well have done it.
Ivan had responded that he and I had talked about walking to the lake, which was clearly a different thing, but Shobhit still tried to convince him. I had to remind him, yet again, that Ivan had just said we were going to go on this walk. On top of this, Ivan knows full well that I have historically found him gorgeous (for the record, now that he's 40 and looking more his age, I wouldn't say he's any less handsome, but I have shifted to a much more comfortably platonic vibe with him than perhaps ever before), which, after that revelation, made him noticeably more modest. I don't think he would ever get naked in front of me, but then, he would never do a nude beach regardless.
It was shortly after that when Shobhit decided he would not walk with us. In fact, in the end Shobhit never even showered or got dressed. He spent the entire day in his bathrobe, watching TV, and eating snacks. He later declared it his laziest day in ages.
Ivan and I left at about 11:30 in the late morning, and got home somewhere around 2:00, so we were out for about two and a half hours for that walk. I took
a lot of pictures, ensuring a nice, solid photo album for Ivan's visit this time around—28 photos were taken on this walk alone.
I had suggested we walk directly east along Pine Street, as that would take us directly to the Madrona Briar Patch—which itself is preceded by three blocks of a winding, paved food path that replaces Pine as a through-street for vehicles. Ivan spied a couple of gnomes in the Valley of the Gnomes that I had not seen when Shobhit and Alexia and I walked there in April; there are two photos of gnomes I took yesterday which I added to
that photo album.
Once we got to the end of the block that boardwalk bridge is on, we had to turn left on 40th Avenue, and take a staircase down to Lake Washington Blvd. Here, Ivan somewhat surprised me: I told him we could turn down Lake Washington Blvd to the lake shore that way, or we could go take a look at the park Shobhit had mentioned (Howell Park, the nude park on the lake). I really thought he might actively avoid that, but then he said let's go see the park.
He still didn't get naked, of course. But there were indeed several people there, sunbathing in the nude—one naked guy was out in the water. So if nothing else, this made it the first time Ivan and I were together around naked people. There's nothing sexualized about this place, of course. And Ivan did appreciate the view from there, which is quite pretty, of the lake, and the forested shore on the other side, and the Bellevue skyline just beyond that. We were standing right on the beach and I had taken a photo of Bellevue using my zoom; Ivan then stepped in front of me and declared, "
picture!"—something he used to do a lot when we went out places back when he lived with us in 2021 and 2022.
Then I said, "Should I get a selfie?" He said, "Sure!" and the above photo resulted. Ivan even put his hand on my back when I took the photo, a pretty rare kind of physical gesture for him, he's not usually much for physical touch. I quite like how the photo turned out.
We were only at the park for a few minutes. As we walked out, there were at least two fully nude guys I saw who were incredibly hot, but I didn't say anything about it. I did tell Ivan, though, about how I had discovered this park for the first time in 2014, when Shobhit still lived in L.A. I had just gone for a walk, and taken this exact route, and saw this park for the first time and walked in. I was quite shocked that particular time, to encounter a bunch of people in the nude.
We got back to Lake Washington Blvd, and I asked Ivan what he wanted to do: go back the way we came, or walk further up the road? "I want to walk along the shores of the lake!" he said. And so we did.
I got eight of my photos from that portion of the walk, including one of
a long floating alongside a pier, which had no fewer than five surprisingly large turtles lounging on it. There was no access to get closer for a photo, which I lamented, and then Ivan noticed one
right on the shore quite near us.
We kept walking, and I finally asked how much further Ivan wanted to keep walking. He said he didn't care and was good with going back whenever I wanted—then he noticed Leschi Park right across the street and suggested we walk through there.
It was here that we had by far my favorite moment of the day, and of this visit, and probably one of my favorite moments ever in the 11 years I've known him. I saw a swingset, and I immediately said, "Okay, I have to swing!" And he said: "Okay, me too!"
We both got on the swings that were right next to each other and swung for several minutes. Ivan said he hadn't gotten on a swingset in many years, and he clearly had a blast doing it. I got a great brief video clip of myself swinging and him swinging next to me, which I now wish were a bit longer. I keep thinking about how he laughed as he swung, and told me several times to get pictures. "Take another picture!" For several moments after I stopped recording the video I took, he laughed with a kind of unselfconscious abandon I'm not sure I have ever witnessed in him, a totally free, childlike joy. It was a beautiful moment, which I expect to be a very fond memory for many years to come.
We wound up walking through the park back to Lake Washington Blvd almost by accident, but then we saw a different staircase up the hill that Ivan suggested we take. I said, "Okay, though that's not the way we came." He said: "Well we don't have to go back the way we came!" I said: "No, we don't." We proceeded to climb what must have been five solid blocks of staircases before we reached the top, which was pretty tiring. On the upside, as opposed to Pine St, which goes to Martin Luther King Jr. Way in a valley so you climb a pretty steep hill either direction, once we got to this vantage point, even MLK Way was much higher up and there were no more steep hills to climb the rest of the way. I think we were on Marion Street once the stairs ended and it finally turned into a through street.
Shobhit had made a fair amount of food, and later tried to convince me to stay home rather than go out for dinner to save money. Again, something he was failing to grasp: Ivan and I had made this plan and I did not want to bail on them. Besides, I had also already told Ivan about Tandoori Flame, the Indian restaurant just up the road on 15th, which has food just as good as Saffron Grill but far more reasonable prices. (Granted, I budgeted $25, and my Shahi Paneer plus garlic naan still came to about $30.)
We had spent a few hours of the afternoon at home. Shobhit burned through several more episodes of
Foundation on Apple TV, which I am really enjoying, and we got through the penultimate episode of the first season. It was right before 6:00 when we finished that, and Ivan and I had agreed on 6:00 for going to dinner.
Dinner was lovely too, of course. The food was fantastic. The restaurant clearly relies heavily on takeout, probably far more even now than they did before the pandemic. Their dining room is never full. There were only two other booths with people in them when we got there, so clearly I had no reason to worry about making a reservation. I had the server
take our picture.
On our way back to the condo, Ivan broke off and walked the other way, after saying, "I'm going to go for a walk around Capitol Hill. Is that okay?" I said of course, and I walked my small amount of leftovers, with a quarter of a naan, to Shobhit. And of course we proceeded to watch more
Foundation. Ivan was on that walk for another pretty long while. It occurred to me later that maybe he misses Capitol Hill, at least somewhat slightly, and he wanted to get one more walk around the neighborhood before he leaves for his next stop in Bellingham today.
[posted 8:40am]
