Stealing Valentines

[dorchadas]

I mean, not literally.

Yesterday I took advantage of two Valentine's-Day-themed events with friends--the first food-related, the second flower-related. A couple days ago I saw that Hanabusa Cafe posted an instagram message about their fluffy creamy special Valentine's Day soufflé pancakes and I immediately sent it to my pancake partner, my fuwafuwa friend, my soufflé sidekick, my hotcake henchwoman, worldbshiny and asked if she wanted to go sometime this weekend. We spent a while hammering through our schedules and when the pancakes were on offer--only the 13th through the 16th, which ruled out going on Wednesday--and eventually settled on Thursday. worldbshiny had a company lunch that day, and a task she had to complete at 3 p.m., but she squeezed me in as her dessert date. I arrived earlier, ordered two sets of pancakes so they'd be ready closer to when she got there and to build up a bit more food credit, and sat by the window. She arrived a few minutes later, and the pancakes arrived after that:

Also with strawberry syrup containing real strawberries!

We ate our pancakes, I ate some of her pancakes when she couldn't eat them all, and she told me about the preview production of Titus Andronicus she was going to see where, in preparation for it, the theatre company had bought all of Wildclaw's stage blood. Hopefully she avoided the splash zone!

Me: "I don't really like saying that something is garbage when I write about it."
worldbshiny: "I've noticed."

We only had an hour for lunch due to both of us having to go back to work, but I'm glad we found a time for limited-edition pancakes.

Then I went back to work and left almost immediately afterwards, because I came into work two hours early and left two hours early so I could meet britshlez at Wilson with enough time for flowers. Despite some earlier worries about whether we'd have to take the train and walk due to her car battery dying in the Chicago cold, she got a jump from a coworker and she was waiting for me at the L stop. I hopped in the car, managed to open her glove compartment so she could set up her navi and radio, and then she drove us to the Chicago Botanic Garden so we could go to the Orchid Show After Hours!

After britshlez successfully haggled parking down to $10 from $25 and we walked through the cold and the snow, as the sun slowly set over the snow-covered frozen lake:

Serene.

We walked to the hall where exhibitions were held, britshlez got distracted by some of the small displays in the outside area, and after I showed the tickets and we entered, we walked over to the bar. She ordered red wine--pretty much the only thing I've ever seen her order--and seeing that they had a Singapore Sling, I had to get it. Every time one is on the menu wherever I go, I always try it so I can check if it's as good as the one I had a decade ago at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. And of course they're not, but this one was particularly wrong.

Of course, that meant that when she tried it, britshlez told me it was the best of any of the cocktails I've ever drunk around her. There's no accounting for taste.

Drinks in hand, we walked through the main doors and into the orchid show proper:

britshlez thought this would be amazing if you were Honey I Shrunk the Kids-sized, so we talked about making the light area a river and how it would look if you were sailing down it. There were several parts of the "river" where giant leaves drooped over, and she got extra excited about those--she'd keep pointing out all the giant leaves we passed by, so the idea of a leaf as big as a boat was extra enticing. As we talked about it, I started to think about this Reddit post about someone helping an old woman with a VR rig where she'd just go around in Google Earth and look at places and how amazing a tour of a shrunken-down world like that would be in VR. You could go down the river, hack through the "forests" of the moss and small plants on either side, climb into the orchids and rest...I'd pay to do that. I've played Beat Saber and as far as I know I don't get VR motion sickness.

I don't get any kind of motion sickness that I know of. Not reading in cars, not on ships, not roller-coasters, nothing. I'd say that I'm lucky, but it probably makes me really easy to poison, so I guess after writing this I'd better be careful what I eat.

This was my favorite orchid of all. Pink fading to white at the edges, strong contrasting colors between light pink and white and dark pink on the bottom, a splash of yellow in the center. It's beautiful.

I preferred the orchids with strong contrasting colors, while britshlez preferred the orchids with spotted patterns and a pitcher-plant-esque "lower jaw." Though I should say that we liked almost all the orchids out there. The only ones we really both united over disliking were the completely white ones. Not even a splash of yellow or pink? Oh well. You tried.

I don't remember those neon light tubes from the other times I've been here, but everything is better with a neon glow. I wish they had put up more neon, honestly, to add an extra cyberpunk aesthetic to everything. As it was, it was this, the previous picture, and a couple other areas, but I feel like most of the garden was in shadow. I guess it's actually pretty difficult to achieve both a neon aesthetic and not have all the colored lights affect the orchids' colors, but I would have preferred they try. People who didn't want the neon glow could have come during the day.

Plus, you know, I would have liked a slammin' synthwave soundtrack, but you can't have everything.

I like these orchids too, though not as much. The reason I like this picture so much is because of the contrast between the sharp lines of the pink orchids in front and the slightly-blurry, much fuzzier plant behind them. Don't ask me what it is. Much like wines, I know what flowers I like when I see them, but I couldn't tell you their names.

After the orchids we went into the desert area where britshlez, who grew up in California, told me how many of the plants there grew in her parents' yard and we talked about how most of the plants looked really toothsome, we checked out the gift shop where sadly there was no orchid tea available, and then we left, thankful that we had avoided the larger crowd just entering as we were leaving:

Me: "Want a snack bar?"
britshlez: "No, I'm...well, what kind?"
Me: "Kind bar. Dark chocolate and nuts."
britshlez: "Oh! Actually, yeah. I thought you were talking about, like, Nature's Bounty, not the good stuff!"
Me: "Madam, you insult me!"

I've been to the orchid show before during the daytime multiple times, but I've never gone during the night. I honestly don't even know if they had nighttime openings before this year, but from a brief googling it looks like I was right and the neon lights and cyberpunk aesthetics are new this year. I hope they keep it for next year, but if not, I'm glad I experienced it now.

Hooray for yesterday!

Comments

[weedpizza]

The pancakes are adorable, and that strawberry syrup sounds so good!

I love Kind bars! Much better than a typical candy bar, in my opinion!

All my comments are food comments, lol.

[earthspirits]

Gorgeous photos, and sounds like fun times indeed.

My favorite is the winter tree one, but they're all great. Orchids and food great too!