a delightful day with Ivan

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]

The Last of Ivan / Seattle Pride in the Park 2022

Shobhit, Ivan and I all went out for pho' for dinner Friday night, basically our last "traditional" dinner type with Ivan for who knows how long—he flew out to Philadelphia on the red eye late last night. Back when Ivan lived with us, both of the last two times he did actually, he would often suggest pho' for going out for dinner. Pho' was just one of his things. I rarely think to get pho' on my own, but I do like it and was nearly always down when Ivan suggested it, just as he did for Friday. In fact I kept my calendar free Friday evening with the full expectation that he would suggest going out for dinner, and it's not at all surprising that he suggested pho'. Shobhit did say he'd like to join for pho;, texting me from work on Friday, clarifying that it was fine if I wanted to get my last dinner alone with Ivan. I saw no particular need for that, though, so when Ivan messaged me asking if we could do dinner at 6:30, I told him we needed to wait for Shobhit and so he shifted it to 6:45. That gave us basically just enough time for Shobhit to get home, change is clothes, and then for us to walk over there and meet Ivan, although we were about five minutes late. We actually ran into him on a corner on Broadway a couple of blocks from the restaurant we were aiming for, so we walked the rest of the way there. Ivan always liked going to this place across the street from Broadway Market on Broadway called "The Pho'." We got there, only to discover the place has been converted into a new, Korean restaurant—even though the "The Pho" sign was still on the wall above the entrance. I had no idea The Pho' had closed, or when; it appears to have been just recently, albeit with the same owners who took over The Pho' in early 2020. But, they are Koren and apparently always wanted to make and sell Korean food, so now that's what they're doing. That's not what Ivan (and I) wanted, though, and none of us really wanted Koren. Ivan and I both whipped out our phones to find another pho' place, and found another one just a couple of blocks further north. It's called Pho' Than Brothers, and guess what? Their pho' was excellent, notably better than The Pho's ever was. That said, that block on Broadway was striking how much had changed. We noticed for the first time that Wedgewood II Vegetarian Thai has also closed, as of May 1; and we were fairly shocked to see even that blocks' Pagliacci Pizza closed, although I must have already known that and forgot, because that location's planned closure was covered in 2019 and they have a new location on Pike Street. Nevertheless, it was striking to see three storefronts in succession on the same block, no longer looking like they all did for many years. Once we got over to Pho' Than Brothers, we all got different sizes, making me think of us as the Three Bears, just in sizes instead of temperature: I got the small vegetarian pho' (which is frankly already in a plenty-big bowl); Ivan got the medium; and Shobhit got the large. They even have an extra large, but Shobhit wound up putting half of his in a container to bring home as it was. At Shobhit's suggestion, we then walked over to Pie Bar on Olive Way off Bellevue, for dessert. "I always have room for dessert," Ivan said, and so off we went, walking in the very light rain. Ivan got the mud pie, which he let me have a bite of; it was delicious—but, even though it's exactly what Shobhit and I had the last time we were there, I was almost unprepared for how spectacular the slice of multi-berry "Desserted Island Crumble." Holy fuck, it was good. Neither of us really needed to order cocktails along with it (Ivan didn't have a drink), but we did. Shobhit's, a chocolate concoction, was much tastier than my "apple pie toddy." I think these might also have been the same drinks he and I ordered the last time we were there. Anyway, it rained only slightly heavier, but still lightly, as we walked home from there, and then spent the rest of the evening watching the new Hulu film release Fire Island, which I then reviewed and posted (solid B) yesterday morning. I didn't expect to see much of Ivan yesterday, even though he was going to be around all day before his red eye; he had initially booked a winery tour that included a stop at Snoqualmie Falls, which apparently he'd never been to, yesterday. But, he fell behind on his last-minute errands Friday and so he called them to rebook for yesterday instead. That made for quite a busy last day for him, I'm sure. His tour didn't leave until 10 a.m., though, so I got a bit of quiet time with him after Shobhit left for work but before Ivan left for his tour, which was nice. There was a brief period there when I thought I might actually be attending Seattle Pride's first "Pride in the Park" since 2019 (excluding the very similar event they held there last October) with Alexia, Shobhit and Ivan. Shobhit really went back and forth, but after his tire replacement could not happen until Tuesday which meant not even being able to leave work on the bus until 5:30, he wound up not coming, especially after he texted to ask me if it was worth it and I said it was the same as October, just more people. Ivan really just followed a typical trajectory here: telling me he was interested in joining for something, continuing to say so, until bailing at the last minute. He messaged me later yesterday that he was running behind and suggesting Alexia and I go on without him and he "may stop by briefly," and I knew then that was not going to happen. But, whatever. At least I had Alexia to go with, and she seemed to have a pleasant enough time I'm just glad we're back to holding traditional in-person Pride events this year. Pride's website has a great resource list for Pride events all over the region all summer, actually, so my Pride collection of photo albums this year may wind up being of record size. I've already got my "Seattle Pride in the Park" photo album, anyway (in the past they called it "Volunteer Park Pride Festival," but whatever), although it only yielded 25 shots. These 'Pride Picnic" photo albums never wind up being very big anyway. The whole thing was, as I already noted, striking similar—virtually identical—to the event they put on last October, even with the live music stage in the same grassy area over by the Volunteer Park Conservatory. This is clearly because the remodeled Volunteer Park Amphitheater still isn't opened, due to the concrete workers strike. The latest I have found online is that, after an initially published opening date of 2021, they expect to open in June of this year! I'll be surprised if that actually happens, but I guess we'll see. No other Pride events are scheduled for this park, incidentally; all the "Capitol Hill Pride" events on Pride Weekend occur on Broadway or in Cal Anderson Park. So, Alexia and I just made the rounds through all the booths—there were more booths this time, for sure, than there had been in October; but plenty less than in previous years—and grabbed freebies wherever we could. I got a couple packets of applesauce. Exciting! Shobhit would be a lot more aggressive with this stuff, but there still wasn't as great a loot on hand as there has been in the past either. Whatever, it was fine. In a couple of cases there were lines that were just too long for us to have time for, such as for the "Lovers" sex toys booth, where they were, I think, giving away masturbatory devices. I even got a largely unreadable shot of that booth's hanging letters that spelled out MASTURBATE. I actually went back into Flickr this morning and captioned all the photos in the photo album. Most of my Birth Week photo albums remain uncaptioned, but at least this one is done. It's so hard to keep up with the captioning anymore. The one long line Alexia and I did stand in was for dumplings at the Dumpling Tzar food truck. This was well worth it; my potato dumplings topped with melted cheese and shredded cheese were delicious. We sat at a semi-secluded picnic table to eat, and then we walked home, with the aim of getting back before Ivan would be headed out for the airport at about 7:00. Ivan was still packing when I got home, which was kind of astonishing. He left with just three bags, all of them rollers, but two traditional suitcases and one he could carry as a backpack. It was still just around 7:10 when he was ready to go. Because it was raining more heavily then, he was going to get a Lyft, but Shobhit suggested I offer to give him a ride to the Light Rail station, so I did—even though once again I would be driving on the spare tire, but at least the station is only half a mile away. Besides, quite unlike when he left for Victoria on May 1, this allowed for not just a proper goodbye, but a private one between just the two of us, which left me feeling very satisfied with his departure. He actually did also give Shobhit a hug when we left the condo, which was sweet. Shobhit was like, "Have a nice life!" Ivan just said thank you. When I pulled up to the south entrance of the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station, pulling to the curb on the nearby side street between the station and Cal Anderson Park, I got out and helped take all of his bags out—one out of the backseat (set atop a bunch of the stuff that usually goes in the trunk but won't be put back until the tire is fixed), and two out of the trunk. With the slightly nervous laughter that he always accompanies his major goodbyes (and reuniting hellos) with, Ivan gave me one last hug, and said yet again, "Thank you, for everything." Then he also said something somewhat surprising and odd: "I'll see you in two years." He even held up two fingers when he said it, in a tone that suggested that was his current plan. He'll come back for a visit in two years. I told him that as always, so long as there's no one else staying or living in the guest room when he visits, he always has a free place to stay. As for his "two years" declaration, though, take that with the tiniest of grains of salt. Ivan can change what his plans are by the hour, let alone by the day or by the month. How he envisions his 2024, which is far further off than anything he ever definitively plans, might very well be wildly different next week than it is now. Based on his historic patterns, though, I do feel it unlikely he will go more than two years before visiting again, but, you never know. He's spent so much time focusing his attentions on the West Coast, has for many years in fact, but now he has his sights on Upstate New York and New England. In all likelihood, he'll get a nursing job, feel okay with it for a few months, then get sick of it like he does all his jobs, and randomly choose some other place to go. For all I know, he could visit again within the year. Probably not. But if I've hard-learned anything about Ivan, it's that there's no holding him to any of his plans for any extended period of time, at least not until he has actual tickets booked. It's for this reason that I feel less sad about this goodbye than previous ones: I am far more sure than ever that I will see him again. I just don't know when. I still think I am likely his longest-lasting close friend at this point, and he knows I can be relied upon as a friend. He would not go out of his way to say such a thing to me, ever, but that's fine. I'm content to know it to be true. So, once I was back to the condo, I texted Alexia that we were ready for her to come over and watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. She and I basically made a plan for her to wait to come over until Ivan and I had said our goodbyes, just so we didn't add any stress or pressure to Ivan on his departure with yet another person present. I think this was a good and effective plan. Alexia brought over goodies: a fruit salad she suggested I blend to make piña coladas for Shobhit and me, which I did indeed do and they were fucking delicious; and a box of many sugar cookies, which I ate too many of. I weighed in at 168.9 lbs this morning, which is about enough to give me a panic attack. I need to lay off the sweets and the alcohol for a while. Jesus Christ. Watching the movie was a lot of fun, as expected. We all already have tickets booked for opening night of Jurassic Park: Dominion on Thursday evening after work. We're all looking forward to it. Alexia has delighted in all of these films, only the first one of which had she ever already seen. And, it has been a lot of fun rewatching them all with her. [posted 12::08 pm]