Well! I
last posted two days ago, when I said I was trying to stay kept up with daily events while on Thanksgiving PTO. I actually posted consistently over the weekend, which I don't usually do—and then, yesterday, Tuesday, I spaced it. Well, not exactly spaced it. It was just a full day and I decided last night that I wanted to do some other things instead of write a blog post. I watched the latest Jim Gaffigan comedy special on Hulu, which I enjoyed more than his last special, in spite of a lot of pretty typical gendered jokes about marriage and parenthood. (A lot of the stuff about having kids was pretty funny: “Children are the only thing we remove from the human body, and then keep.") I also switched Shobhit's and my sides of the bed, swapping the positions of his bedside table and my two-drawer dresser, scooting the bed a bit closer to the bay windows to make space for them. I should have done this ages ago; Shobhit often wants to switch sides and I won't let him, and now when it gets warm again he'll be closer to the fan and/or the open window that either dries out my eyeballs or makes me chilly, as the case may be.
So, I'm updating you on both Monday and Tuesday now instead. And the Big Event on Monday was Happy Hour with Laney, at The Pine Box, which I only discovered is this awesome bar across the street to the north on Melrose at Pine from La Cocina Oaxaqueña, another perennial favorite of Laney's and mine. But The Pine Box, much to Laney's and my delight, is so named because it's inside a building that was
once a mortuary. There also used to be a law firm in the building, and it was that business that used the large sign out on the corner, but evidently they moved out, and The Pine Box put up their own sign just a couple of weeks ago—only for some asshole to tag it with graffiti within just a few days. Thankfully, within just a few more days they had the sign restored, so we were able to take the great photo you see above with the sign unblemished.
Shobhit joined us, but he refused to play along with any of the fun stuff Laney or I wanted to do with the photos. It was her idea to get a selfie pointing the same direction as the skeleton on the sign—the entrance to The Pine Box is actually on Melrose—and we really wanted Shobhit to join us, but he refused. After we were inside and had our drinks, Laney suggested we flip the bird next to our drinks as a "toast" to incoming President Fuckwit, but Shobhit refused even more emphatically there—he's got a real hot streak for not engaging in anything "fun" having to do with that man, even if it undermines or makes fun of him. I actually took 11 shots at
The Pine Box, but in
only one of them is Shobhit even partially visible,
It's practically impossible to impress Shobhit with literally anything, so to me it's notable that, at the very least, he had no complaints about the place. Laney and I both loved it, especially for Happy Hour. They have a 12" pizza for Happy Hour for $12, when the regular price is $18; and on Mondays they have House Mai Tai on drat for $13, so that's what I started with. Shobhit had a beer, and we otherwise split both the pizza and the Soft Pretzel with beer cheese sauce. The cheese sauce was far too thin for my taste but the pretzel was still very good. Laney also had the cheese pizza, along with a beer and a shot, and she saved half her pizza for taking home to have for a later meal. She and I both had a second drink later, she just had a second beer, and I had the $8 Happy Hour
slushee. I don't typically like to mix liquors but on Monday I very much made an exception: my Mai Tai had rum; the slushee had tequila; and later after Shobhit and I got home we both had a hot toddy, which of course had whiskey. I took care to drink a few glasses of water before bed, along with a couple of Aleve, and thankfully I did not wake up yesterday morning with a hangover. I did wake up very much needing some water, and thankfully I keep water next to my bed for this very reason.
Anyway. Laney and I were most delighted by The Pine Box, and are eager to come back. The thing is, we clearly need it to be one of our Monday Happy Hours, and our calendar already has locations chosen for
every Happy Hour through April, and every Monday Happy Hour through May. I had to slot our next time at The Pine Box in for June. Hopefully we're still alive by then!
Side note, when I looked up the "The Pine Box" tag on my Flickr account, I discovered something I had totally forgotten: I had actually been there before! Not with Laney, but with Evan, when we were doing our "Capitol Hill Bars Tour." They had been around two years then; Evan and I went there in August, 2014. I even
posted a review of the place on my LiveJournal at the time. This was the 11th bar we did in that series, Laney had asked the bartender this past Monday and learned it from him, but I noted in the review that The Pine Box had replaced The Chapel Bar in 2011, which I said then (was I remembering right even then?) that I had never been to either. Evidently I wasn't quite as impressed by the drinks in 2014, but I quite liked the ones I had there this week. Of course, a lot can change in ten years. (Just look at American government.) I did not notice any painting of white mice this time, and I am also better educated now and understand that the "Nasty Pig" T-shirt the the cook was wearing in 2014 was just a gay men's clothing brand. Reading my take from back then, that it had "vague connotations of unsanitary conditions," is almost cute.
Speaking of politics and gay culture! We also had some pretty big news to share with Laney: we have booked our anniversary trip for June 2025! We had this done by Sunday evening.
For a while, we were actually considering going to Iceland, of all places. To my amazement, this had been Shobhit's idea. He apparently saw a travel program about it and it piqued his interest, and it was actually a few months ago when he asked, seemingly out of the blue, "Should we go to Iceland for our anniversary?" I was like, "Uh—sure!"
I brought it up again last weekend, and Shobhit started looking up airfare. Iceland would be guaranteed to be an expensive trip, and as of January we'll be starting payments on the assessment for our part of the building residing project, which amounts to something like $63,000. For now, we have punted the Iceland idea to 2026.
The thing is, though, it was less that financial consideration that pushed our change of mind for 2025 than the discovery that World Pride, which
since 2012 has occurred on average every two years with the exception of the three years between Toronto in 2014 and Madrid in 2017, will happen next year in Washington, D.C.—a city I have
long wanted to go back to for a proper vacation visit. The last time I was there for more than a day was the trip, with quite similar aims, for
the Millennium March on Washington in 2000 (and, pretty awesomely, the actual March occurred on my 24th birthday). Ten years later, in October 2010, while Shobhit was living in New York and Barbara still lived in Arlington, Shobhit and I
took day trip by train there and Barbara took the subway to meet up and hang out with us. That, to date, is still the extent of Shobhit's experience with the city, and he is eager to spend more time seeing the countless historical sites and government buildings and points of interest there. Washington might be the best city in the nation for museums, all of them along the National Mall being free. And even though Shobhit is not into museums, some of these might interest even him. And I particularly want to see the National Museum of African American History & Culture, which didn't even open until 2016 and I have heard great things about.
All of that is, of course, aside from
World Pride 2025, for which there will be the annual Capital Pride Parade, on Saturday, June 7; and then the International Pride March on Sunday, June 8. I was actually a bit relieved these two things were happening the same weekend; at World Pride Sydney in 2023, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade and then the World Pride March were a week apart, which was why we took two separate legs to Sydney on that particular trip.
Still, when Shobhit began saying things like he wanted to tour the White House, I was like: even with Trump there? We're both kind of on the same page with that: what can you do? We'll take opportunities where we can take them. And this means we'll have tons to do even when it's not Pride Weekend. Again to my surprise, in the end Shobhit was good with booking
six nights for this trip. I even agreed, in the end, to do a red eye flight there, just like we did to Toronto this year, which is going to give us basically six full days there as well. We'll be busy with World Pride stuff Saturday and Sunday, and we can sightsee on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Monday.
You might notice that this trip is a whole lot more focused on World Pride than on our anniversary—but that's okay with me! We fly out late in the evening on Tuesday, June 3; and fly back on Tuesday, June 10. Our anniversary is June 14, and as long as we get a trip of some kind in June, I'm happy.
And? World Pride
2026 is in Amsterdam. Shobhit was just talking about how that's highest on his list of cities he wants to see in Europe. Well, shit! We may have to bump Iceland again.
And that finally brings us to
yesterday, when Danielle and I had talked about hanging out. She's at a place in her life where scheduling too far in advance with definitive plans gives her anxiety, largely because having a teenager still at home is too much of a potential disruption. So, when we figured out we'd both be available on Tuesday, I said I would follow up when the day was closer.
I meant to text her on Sunday and then forgot. I texted her Monday evening, but didn't hear back. I called her yesterday morning at 9:40, and she was just waking up, after sleeping after four days straight of 10-hour shifts, which is understandably exhausting. We had talked about going to the cat cafe in Wallingford, "Seattle Meowtropolitan," but when I got her on the phone yesterday, while she was still open to getting together, she wanted to do something "more low key." I can't imagine a cat cafe being "high key," but maybe she just didn't want to have to specifically schedule or book something within a time slot. She wanted to get up and have coffee and get ready and said she would call me back.
We got on the phone again at 11:07 and by then I had a good idea: why don't we just go down to the Fairmont Olympic Hotel so she could see the Seattle Festival of Trees? She loved this idea, both for its own sake and because it required no scheduling and was free.
Shobhit worked yesterday from 2 to 6:30, later having his shift extended to 9:00. Either way this allowed for Danielle to park in our spot in the garage, another positive for her. She texted me ar 1:12 that she was on her way, and got here roughly 40 minutes later.
She hadn't eaten all day, so when we headed out as soon as she had her car parked, she wanted to find a place to eat. We just walked down Pine until we found a place that sounded good, and she was all about trying Danbo, the insanely popular ramen place on Pine off of 12th that usually has a line out the door. But, this was a Tuesday at 2:00 so there were actually empty tables available. I had planned to skip lunch but wasn't going to just sit and watch Danielle eat, and besides, now I wasn't spending money on the cat cafe, so I spent money on lunch instead. I had the vegan ramen and it was delicious.
Then we walked the rest of the way downtown via Madison, and made our way to the Fairmont. I had not expected to go for a second visit to the Seattle Festival of Trees this year, but here we were: and I got some of my best photos this time, several not even of the Christmas Trees, just of Danielle and me in front of the holiday decor. This added another 21 shots to
this year's photo album for the Seattle Festival of Trees, bumping its total up to 68, now that largest
of the photo albums for the past four years.
It was a lovely time, in any case. We both took several pictures, and to be fair, six of the shots added to the album were actually taken by Danielle with her phone, and she later texted them to me.
We walked back to my place, and at her request, I made us chai. We lounged and chatted and it was nice just catching up. She had already told me over lunch that she now has her 21-year-old nephew renting out her basement, which would be the biggest news of late in her life that I did not yet know. The biggest news I had to share with her, as I had with Laney on Monday, was the booked plan to go to World Pride D.C. next June. The airfare was surprisingly reasonable, nonstop roundtrip flights for two totally barely more than $900; I've paid for that already. The hotel, which we took agest to nail down as the best option for the best value, came to $1,985 for six nights, but at least for that I can pay when we get there. It was kind of nuts though that we stayed at hotels for more than twice the number of nights in Australia last year, for $1,952—slightly
less the cost. That's kind of nuts, but, whatever. I'm just delighted that, already, this soon after returning from Phoenix, we have our next travel planned and booked. I always like to have at least one such trip planned so I always have something to look forward to.
[posted 9:57 am]
