dorchadas: (JCDenton)
Cue the Outrun music.

I had an extremely difficult time waking up this morning because it was very dark. It rained for hours last night, all in the early morning, and it was almost winter dark when my alarm went off so that I thought I had woken up at 5 a.m. I took my shower and headed outside and it was only 24° and cloudy, and while it's 28° now, the high for tomorrow is 23° and then downward from there. Next Thursday the low is 12° overnight! We were blessed to be able to open the windows for basically all of June and a chunk of July and we'll soon be able to do the same again.

I'm with [instagram.com profile] sashagee: I want a long, cool fall that slowly fades into winter. Other than this last bit of heat, summer hasn't been so bad, but I'm ready for the leaves to change. And so is Laila, since she keeps running around and grabbing piles of leaves and dumping them on her head. 🍂Emoji Kawaii heart

The first real steps of my fashion update have begun because today, I bought a white dress shirt. This seems perfectly normal but I've literally worn only black since 2017 (only black and gray since 2015) and a lot of my friends now have never seen me in anything other than black. [instagram.com profile] sashagee suggested fall colors--black, grey, dark greens, dark orange. Going to start replacing my wardrobe with more formal clothes and fewer cyberpunk assassin uniforms. As it is, I don't want to wear them around Laila lest she attack a $350 Demobaza shirt with her pasta-covered baby hands, and at least a normal dress shirt will be easier to clean. Plus, I have the body type for it. Still going to get the occasional piece like this one, though.

Haven't played Hollow Knight in a month or so since I'm busy catching up in Final Fantasy XIV and making a bunch of additions to Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead in my spare time. But I should finish that off soon and then do one of the small adventure games I've had waiting for a while, like Technobabylon or Coffee Talk, and then get on to Trails in the Sky the 3rd. I've been two hours in since I think 2020. Or Suikoden, where I've been halfway through since 2019! I don't usually just drop games like that. It's almost like a lot of stuff happened in 2019 and 2020 that changed my habits. Funny that.

Or I should do Dragon Quest I in preparation for the eventual DQIII HD2D remake that's coming "soon." Anything that convinces them to remake Final Fantasy VI in that style.

Burn to a Cinder

2023-Aug-23, Wednesday 14:36
dorchadas: (Dark Sun Slave Tribes)
It's currently 35° degrees outside and still climbing. The listed high today is 38°--the farmer's market is cancelled and honestly coming in to the office was probably a mistake. I should have taken a half day and then worked from home the rest of the day, which is what my boss was hinting at yesterday when she said she was going to do the exact same thing today.

At least I get to work from home tomorrow, when the listed high is 39°. At least after that the temperature rapidly drops: 29° on Friday, then 26° and 25° over the weekend.

[instagram.com profile] sashagee's mother and grandmother are here visiting, having arrived unexpectedly on Monday. I say unexpectedly, but it's more that [instagram.com profile] sashagee forgot about it and didn't put it on the calendar. It's not impacting me too much because I've been at the office today and tomorrow, and both have mobility issues so I'm not missing any exciting excursions, just cute Laila time. Which is sad to miss, but I miss that anyway on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I'll go home tonight and get to see more Laila having a great time with grandma and great-grandma.

Alright, time to prep to head out into the Great Erg. G-d made Arrakis to train the faithful.
dorchadas: (Dreams are older)
A couple weeks ago, [livejournal.com profile] greyselke texted me out of nowhere after years--the last time I saw her was when I went to Philadelphia in 2015--and said that she and her family were going on a road trip that would lead them through Chicago and were we free to meet up? We were, and so yesterday the planned day arrived.

[instagram.com profile] sashagee and Laila and I arrived just a little late at Yolk in the South Loop and we waited. And we waited, and we waited, and forty-five minutes later [livejournal.com profile] greyselke and family arrived--they were staying up in Skokie and had driven into the city and then taken the L but slightly misjudged the time. Fortunately, despite the larger crowds showing up, 9:45 a.m. was still early enough for brunch that they were able to seat us in a few minutes. I sat with Laila on my right and [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's elder daughter on my left, and we caught up over salmon on salad (me) and red velvet French toast ([livejournal.com profile] greyselke's elder daughter and [instagram.com profile] sashagee). I was a little worried about Laila around new people, but she's still young enough that it's all the same to her--and later on she really took to [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's daughters.

After brunch, we walked over to the Field Museum and met one of [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's family friends there, a man whose wife runs the Women and Children First bookstore in Andersonville, along with his two-year-old daughter. She was more talkative than Laila but less active--we were chasing Laila all over the place and trying to prevent her from climbing onto the dinosaur exhibits, but the other girl mostly wanted to be carried. Laila was happy to run around while [instagram.com profile] sashagee chased after her and [livejournal.com profile] greyselke talked about our lives:
Me: "So, you work for the hashtag deep state?"
[livejournal.com profile] greyselke: "Well, they have health care."
until Laila ran back and wanted me to pick her up, then [instagram.com profile] sashagee got a break. But in the end, it was [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's daughters that came to the rescue--they, especially the older one, really took to Laila, holding her hands as she walked between them and arranging a nest where they all sat in each other's laps. Even though Laila couldn't talk to them very well, or maybe because she couldn't so she was pure cute. Regardless, they all had a lovely time in the Pleistocene megafauna section until it grew too late and we had to go home to put Laila to bed for her nap, with a promise to meet up again later in Andersonville.

Laila went to bed late but she woke up early, so when we texted [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's family they hadn't arrived yet. We got Laila changed and snacked and walked down to Andersonville, and after a brief pop into Ándale Market for the Carolyn's Krisps cookies that Laila tried and loved at the farmer's market a couple weeks ago, we entered the bookstore and were followed a couple minutes later by [livejournal.com profile] greyselke and company! We all hung out in the children's book section and [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's daughters read mostly quietly while Laila ran around trying to pull basically all the books off the shelves, and when the store had ten minutes to closing, [instagram.com profile] sashagee picked out a fold-open book for Laila and we bought it and went outside, followed a bit later by [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's family friend. His daughter and wife were going home to spend some time together but he came with us to dinner--technically, it was [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I coming with them to dinner--and they followed our suggestion of vegan tacos, especially because it was literally a block away. The only interruption to our meal came when Laila was being rambunctious and I offered to go take her outside so she could run around. [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's younger daughter immediately asked if she could come, and I said sure, and then her elder daughter asked if she could come, and, well, the more the merrier, so we all went outside and they ran around and played with gravel near the trees and held Laila's hands as they walked until we were told that the food had come. [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's younger daughter didn't originally want to go back, but food drew her in.

I got the vegan chimichanga and it was delicious. [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's older daughter got the enchiladas, but she wasn't a big fan of spicy food. Laila got a couple tacos, and a bunch of people got various flavors of horchata. We ate our food, and drank our dranks, and went out to ice cream afterwards and at last had to say goodbye. But we got [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's home address so we can at last send her nengajō and hopefully visit her in the future, and she told us if we go to Philadelphia to visit everyone (as we plan to do), to let her know.

Laila got hugs from [livejournal.com profile] greyselke's daughters. In the end, they really liked meeting her, and it was lovely to see them all too. Emoji ~ Cat smile
dorchadas: (Princess Peach Smash Wielding Toad)
I do not have pictures of all the food like I did for the 2018 Dessert Crawl because we were pushing a baby around.

We did the Fork route and the first stop was right next to check-in--Snowie Shaved Ice. I got the grape and [instagram.com profile] sashagee got tropical, and they gave Laila a free little coconut ice which I'm grateful for. She got it all over herself, of course, but she really liked eating it. We went north, stopping at City Olive for the non-alcoholic whiskey and bread with olive oil (and extra olive oil I bought) and then up to Ora for a spring roll. Here too Laila got a free spring roll, which she ate the entirety of.

We went back to the farmer's market and got our maracons, which [instagram.com profile] sashagee was pretty disappointed with since we only got half of one, not even a whole one, and a free one for Laila again, and then over to Collectivo and this was the first disappointment of the day. It was closed--even though the taste was supposed to run until 8 p.m., they had closed at the normal time. One strike. Going to Elixir for a drink and getting to finish [instagram.com profile] sashagee's drink helped assuage my annoyance. We waited for a bit at Big Jones for the next batch of fried pork-sausage-and-rice balls to be done--I didn't get one, obviously--and then continued onto Jeni's, where we were directed to the front counter and they told us they were out. Tons of people waiting in line for ice cream, you can see on that menu I linked that there were five options, and they said they were out. Strike two.

Again, though, disappointment was followed up with happiness. We got mac and cheese and Lady Gregory's and then crossed the street to Ranalli's, where we told the two women who were standing near the food that we had five places left to go and fifteen minutes to do it. They were both grandmothers, so after a bit of cooing over Laila they gave us to-go plates, told us to put their pizza and the mac and cheese in there, and then added even more pizza for us. Emoji Kirby cheering We continued on to Penelope's but they had a line twenty people long, so we skipped them and went on to Konak where I used to play board games on Wednesdays with people before the Plague Years. They had a bunch of bar food in the back under heat lamps without even anyone standing around nearby, so we took some spanikopita and fries and put them in our take-out boxes and went on to Boca Local Cantina which was...also out of food. Strike three, though more forgivable since it was almost eight. We got our mini cakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes and went back up to Penelope's, where we had the best food of the night. I admit, I was a little skeptical of how delicious vegan tacos would be, even though at Flaco's Tacos the poblano tacos are by far the tastiest, but those tacos with the matcha horchata were the best thing we had all night. They were amazing and we're definitely going back there to get tacos. Honestly discovering that plus all the cooing over Laila made the tickets worth it.

I'm definitely going to mention what happened if there's any request for a survey, though. And next year we'll start early. 3/13 places out of food is not a good look. And I'm especially annoyed at Jeni's! They "ran out"? Please.

Waka Laka for Ōsaka

2023-Aug-02, Wednesday 14:51
dorchadas: (Chicago)
Last night I went to a welcome reception for the mayor of Ōsaka, here in Chicago to celebrate the fifty-year-anniversary of the sister city relationship between the two cities. Some people I knew from Anime Chicago invited me, and the last time I was in Ōsaka was a great time, so I signed up and showed up after work. The first forty-five minutes were just mingling and music, so we chatted while people slowly showed up, a step dance troupe performed, and we drank Suntory whiskey tonics and Old Fashioneds while the hors d'oeuvres people came around with hot dogs and veggie empanadas and chicken skewers and some kind of spicy beef thing where the spicy sauce was in a small bottle you were supposed to squeeze before eating it. Since there was a giant tray of cookies behind us, I stuck to the veggie empanadas, at least until the dinner buffet. The longest--really, only--line was for the sushi, but they also had deep-fried kushiyaki (chicken, onion, and zucchini), onokomiyaki, and burgers (more a piece of steak in a bun than a burger). I loaded up on sushi and kushiyaki and tried the okonomiyaki--Ōsaka-style, sadly--and then we waited for the program to begin.

Well, it turned out the program was pretty short. Japanese Consul-General 田島浩志 (Tajima Hiroshi) gave a short speech, the mayor of Chicago Brandon Johnson gave a short speech about how great Chicago is and also how great Ōsaka is, the mayor of Ōsaka 横山英幸 (Yokoyama Hideyuki) gave a short speech about how great Ōsaka is and also how great Chicago is, and then they re-signed the sister city agreement.

2023-08-01 - Sister City Osaka Chicago signing
You can probably tell who is who here.

That was basically it. There was a jazz performance, and then afterward we went over to the Chicago Athletic Club for drinks and I finally got home at 11:30 p.m. after fulfilling a shopping request from [instagram.com profile] sashagee. It was like the pre-Plague Year days for me. But I haven't seen Laila at all since Monday except when I checked in on her last night as she was sleeping, so I'll be very glad to see her today.

I was a little surprised the ceremony was so short. Since everyone was in suits and business casual attire was recommended--I should have remembered the definition of that is different in Japan vs in America--I figured a more extensive program was in order. Some short speeches and nice food and drink were much better, though, to be honest. And the mayor of Ōsaka's English was pretty good.

Feeling hazy

2023-Jun-27, Tuesday 13:50
dorchadas: (Chicago)
Chicago's air is currently the worst major city in the world.

The sky is a whitish-grey color and my throat feels unwell. I have a slight headache and last night I kept waking up with a cough and needing to drink a ton of water, so I just closed the windows. We had them open earlier because [instagram.com profile] sashagee loves the breeze but it's too much now.

Feeling bad for the construction workers across the street!

New lunch, new me?

2023-May-09, Tuesday 13:03
dorchadas: (Chicago)
I almost never remember my dreams but the one I had last night involved zombies. That's the other part of the list for me: 1) I don't remember my dreams 2) if I do, there were zombies in them.

I ended up oversleeping by an hour. Maybe the zombies got me. Emoji Byoo dood

I've changed up my lunch lately. I used to have the same lunch at all times--chicken, egg, spinach, and two vegetables--but lately, due to repeatedly not buying the chicken in time to make it beforehand combined with a single package of chicken lasting a week in the pre-Plague Years but now I only go into the office two days a week, I've moved away from chicken. Some weeks I brought in pita, vegetables, cheese, and hummus, but lately I've settled on another salad. The AMA gave us our own branded lunchbox a while back that was a bit like a bentō box but more obviously designed for salad--there's a single big container, and then an insert over it that has two compartments and a third one with a sealable container for dressing. I didn't previously put dressing on my salad because I didn't want it to get soggy, but now I have a few to avoid that so I have a new salad: spinach, two vegetables, sun-dried tomatoes, almonds, feta cheese, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing. I can add apples to this if I want, change up the vegetables. The vinegar is delicious. I think I can stick with this salad for a while.

I went out on the riverwalk today and noticed that at long last, the restaurants down there are open, though the overpriced gelato ($7) place still isn't open. I also saw multiple couples getting photos taken by professional photographers, or people getting friends to take photos for their instagram. Everyone is hoping that spring will have, at long last, come to Chicago. It's been cold until now and we already lost out on the cherryblossoms, which started blooming during early warm weather in April and then almost all fell off in the chill that followed. Now that it's sunny and slightly warm, people are going to take advantage of it. I certainly will.
dorchadas: (Chicago)
I slept through my alarm an hour late today, but managed to make it to work on time through a quick shower and not shaving. And just like every other time I've slept in too late, I feel incredibly relaxed and refreshed. My sleep tracker shows that I didn't even wake up when my alarm went off, so I guess it's a good thing that I woke up an late (after a nice period of deep sleep) and then immediately got out of bed, ate my breakfast, and left. Laila's not going to like how scratchy my face is, though. Emoji Smiling sweatdrop

The weather is lovely now! Over the course of about two days, the temperature went from 12°C to 23°C and the weather went from cloudy to sunny. Laila didn't have to wear a coat when we went to the park on Monday and yesterday I didn't even bother bringing a coat to work. I went out on the riverwalk at lunch and while none of the businesses are open yet--the restaurants just say they'll open in "spring", which in Chicago starts in May when the cherryblossoms finally bloom--it was packed full of people eating lunch, going on walks, and otherwise enjoying the weather. It'll be back down to 8°C by next week so we have to enjoy the burst of warmth while we can. Portland already had their cherryblossoms, DC already had their cherryblossoms, but it'll still be a month or longer before we get ours. The reason Chicago summers are so jam-packed is that we pack a whole year's worth of activities into those three months.

In further news, Laila made friends with a polar bear:

2023-04-11 - Laila and a polar bear

My parents came out on Tuesdays as they usually do while I was at the office and picked up Laila so [instagram.com profile] sashagee would have some time for herself. They took Laila to the zoo and she had a nice time, since this time the animals were out and wandering, but what she really loved were the polar bears. My parents took a video of her laughing and giggling as this giant head that's almost as big as her whole body gets to within a few inches of her. She has no fear, which is certainly one of our problems to solve as parents. I want Laila to be brave, but not foolhardy!

Looking forward to taking her to the park today and making some stir-fry. Pesaḥ ends tomorrow night, though late enough that dinner will still be unleavened. On Friday, though, it'll probably be burgers.

Weekend Report

2023-Mar-21, Tuesday 10:05
dorchadas: (Maedhros A King Is He (No Text))
We had set an alarm to wake up at 8 a.m. on Shabbat morning, and I did indeed wake up when my alarm went off at 8 a.m. on Shabbat morning...and then proceeded to lie in bed for thirty minutes until I heard an excited "wah!" from Laila's room. This proved to be a mistake, because we got out the door later than we wanted to (out into the -11°C wind...) and just missed the bus by two minutes. We sat in Dunkin Donuts while [instagram.com profile] sashagee drank coffee and Laila marveled at all the donuts behind the counter until the next bus came, and then we boarded it and made the trip down to Ravenswood to Mishkan's main office for baby ShabbatRise and Shine.

Last time I was at Rise and Shrine, Laila spent the first half of the service very nervous and only really got into it around the halfway mark. This time we didn't even arrive until the halfway mark, so Laila spent all the time hanging around us. She only got braver once the actual service ended, the singing stopped, and the people thinned out. Then she latched on to [facebook.com profile] rabrams210 for hugs and ran around for a bit before it was time to go. By the time we left, it was 11:20 a.m. and [instagram.com profile] sashagee was pretty hungry, so we walked down the street to a place called Early Morning Delight for brunch. Shabbat brunch is not really a thing the way Sunday brunch is--generally, Jews go to each others' houses on Shabbat rather than out--but I like [instagram.com profile] sashagee's suggestion that we make it a tradition to go out for brunch after Rise and Shine. Especially if we find more places like Early Morning Delight. Before we even ordered, they brought us out a churro cake slice with nutella and fresh strawberries, which Laila absolutely loved, and then:

2023-03-18 - Early Morning post-services brunch

The fruit cup came with the omelet without me needing to order it! Now that's service. Emoji ~ Cat smile It was very good, much better than the Greek omelet I got a couple weeks ago where I asked them to remove the gyro meat and it turned out that gyro meat was all that was holding the omelet together. This was the artichoke omelet, with artichoke, roasted tomatoes, spinach, caramelized onion and goat cheese, topped with pesto. It was delicious (which was good because every other omelet on the menu had was treif) and I ate the whole thing. We got a children's quesadilla set for Laila and she ate most of one quesadilla and took at least one bite out of each of the other. She obviously had to make sure they were all just as good as the first one.

With brunch eaten, we took advantage of already being in Ravenswood to go to the Chicago Vintage Fest March Market a couple blocks to the north. Right inside, we found a Thai woman selling jewelry who was happy to hold Laila while [instagram.com profile] sashagee picked out a little purse and some barrettes for her, and we bought them before looking around more. It was mostly clothes, which definitely wouldn't fit me and which [instagram.com profile] sashagee wasn't that interested in, but we did get a set of iron butterfly sculptures that we can hang out on the back! At that point it was approaching 1 p.m., so we waited for the bus, it was a ghost bus, we started walking to the L when another bus came, and we caught that bus and a second bus and made it home and put Laila down for her nap.

Near the end of her nap I noticed that [instagram.com profile] thosesocks had messaged me very early in the morning about not having any plans, and after some consulting with [instagram.com profile] sashagee we had an impromptu Shabbat dinner of leftover chicken nikujaga with hamantaschen for dessert. We all got Laila hugs, I talked with [instagram.com profile] thosesocks about how we'll both be working downtown about three blocks from each other, and everyone went to bed a bit happier.

The next day [instagram.com profile] sashagee wasn't doing super well, so we spent most of the day relaxing and playing with Laila. As I wrote in the baby update, Laila's latest new obsession is drawing. She'll go over to her play area, look down at the paper, and then look over at us while making the baby draw sign and saying "doraw? doraw?" over and over again. She did that a big chunk of Sunday, and I got a video of her drawing with a black marker. Like abba, like daughter. Please ignore that I used the black marker because she drew so much that the other markers temporarily weren't working.

Monday always feels a little like the weekend is leftover for me since I work from home, but because I had to work we didn't have big plans. The biggest plan was take Laila to the park, where she hadn't been in weeks, because the weather see-sawed up to 10°C and it was sunny out, so just after work we got Laila all dressed up and walked to the park where we saw Rabbi [linkedin.com profile] jonathanposner613 and his daughter Baila! Baila was very shy--[linkedin.com profile] jonathanposner613 said she's going through a phase where she's extremely leery of men other than him or her grandfathers--but we chatted with him a bit. I mentioned that I hadn't immediately recognized him because his beard had gotten much more magnificent since the last time I saw him at the Mishkan baby group. Laila and Baila didn't interact but--Laila reached out to Baila once or twice but Baila didn't respond--but I was talking to [instagram.com profile] sashagee about how cute it would be if they became friends. They're the same age, their families go to Mishkan, Laila's name means "night" (from Hebrew לילה), Baila's name means "white" (from Yiddish ביילא)... but one thing having children teaches you is that the blank slate theory is completely nonsense. If they want to be friends, they will.
dorchadas: (FFVIII Rinoa And I need you)
Before the Plague Years, I used to go to theatre performances if not weekly, then at least biweekly. Between Locked Into Vacancy, Starlight Radio Dreams, invitations I got from [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans or [twitter.com profile] worlbshiny, public invitations from actor friends on Facebook, or whatever else I decided to see, there was a significant portion of my free time dedicated to attending performances of one sort or another. The Plague brought an end to all of that and indeed to a lot of the theatre companies I used to go see, but one of them survived--Whiskey Radio Hour, a mostly-quarterly variety show. Their tenth anniversary performance was Wednesday, their twenty-fifth show--presumably they skipped a few here and there along the way--and since [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans offered me a ride and [twitter.com profile] worlbshiny was performing the Foley there for I think the first time since the Plague Years began, I arranged my absence with [instagram.com profile] sashagee (who had done [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans's hair that afternoon) and went to the performance over at Chief O'Neill's Pub in Logan Square.

I'd been there once before, to a Shanty Shipwreck show that it looks like I didn't write about, but I had forgotten that it was almost St. Patrick's Day and Chief O'Neill's went all out. It was probably the most consciously and overtly Irish place I've ever been and I've had a drink in Teach Ósta, the pub on Inis Meáin. Fortunately(?) that was just the anteroom, however, the actual performance was in the other room in the back, to which [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans, [facebook.com profile] afschifler and I all went and sat down at the last open table and ordered drinks while we were waiting for the show to start.

Whiskey Radio Hour performances are short one-acts or skits that are submitted to the show, who finds a director and then leaves everything up to them. This time the performances were:
  1. Numbers Game by Kat Evans, directed by Hannah Blau: I'd actually heard this one before, back at Gateways before the Plague Years. It's about a future AI dating service that is designed to help form real connections, but it's mostly about the stories humans tell about themselves to each other and what counts as promoting your own #brand vs. lying. The interesting part for me, though, was that because I had heard this before I could compare it to the old performance, which was much more robotic. The actor playing the AI had a lot less emotion the first time I saw it, but this time the interaction between the human and AI was much more playful and I thought it worked better. When the AI kept asking whether the human wanted to cancel, in the original it just seemed like an offhand question. The AI seemed invested in this performance.

  2. Peace on Earth by Joanne Freeman, directed by David Krajecki: This one was odd. It was nominally about the relationship between a father and his daughter, and the way that he seemed to keep secrets. It was also about aliens--about a close encounter kind of incident where the father's secret was that he worked at a nuclear silo, not actually as an engineer, but the second secret was that one night there was a ring of light over the silo and all the missiles deactivated, then went into launch mode, then deactivated again. There was no conflict so it was more of a mood piece, but I didn't really get a lot of mood from it either. It was more of a "here's a weird thing that happened to me," which is always hit or miss.

  3. Biscuits and Bones by Janet J. Lawler, directed by Alexander Trice: This was a comedy short about a first date in the park where it turned out the woman was a little too into acting like a dog--sleeping in a dog bed, etc.--and she had decided to go on a date with the man because she caught him eating dog biscuits out of the bag. A match made in (dog) Heaven! It was funny, and fit well with "Numbers Game"--represent yourself honestly and maybe you'll find your true match.

  4. Alabama Mermaid by Jessica Wright Buha, directed by Rory Jobst: I really liked this one, though the people I came with did not. It was tonally very different than the other pieces, since it was horror and it was mostly musical. A woman walking with her son near the river has her son snatched by a mermaid, and after asking the townspeople, none of whom help, she grabs a mermaid out of the river and asks how to get her child back. The mermaid says the child's soul is free and she'll need to build a new body for it, and so the woman dives into the water and, as her skin turns clammy and her hair grows long and weedy and her unblinking eyes grow wide, the woman builds a new body from parts of stolen children, but her son's soul has traveled on and cannot come back. At the end, all the mermaids sing for their children, implying that all of them were once humans who had children stole and became mermaids in the course of trying to get them back. I always like stories that are about how the supernatural is a terrible thing for humans deal with, and I really liked the music, so while my friends were surprised they decided to end on a musical horror piece I was happy with the placement.
The whole section was surrounded with a framing story by the usual characters about one of their "hexadecaversary" with their wife, and so he needs to get the traditional wicker gift from a "wicksmith." This involved a lot of puns ("Local wicksmith is a basket case") and a call to a Wiccan, thinking they were a wicksmith.

Live Foley was provided by [twitter.com profile] worlbshiny, notable especially for the tearing sound of the mermaid getting body parts created by ripping up a head of lettuce. [facebook.com profile] afschifler originally thought it was cabbage, but, we were told, ripping up cabbage is more for severe pulping wounds and less for tearing ones. She would know.

Both Locked Into Vacancy and Starlight Radio Dreams did not survive the Plague Years, but Whiskey Radio Hour did. I'd been seeing invites to its events for literally years, posted on Facebook by one theatre friend or another, but before now I'd never managed to make it out there. It was so lovely to attend show again!

(I started this before Shabbat, but now I've finally finished it!)

I hate Illinois nazis

2023-Mar-08, Wednesday 13:13
dorchadas: (Wolf 3D Kill All Nazis)
So this person lives in my neighborhood.

Hades FUUUUUUUUUU
Hades is, of course, the most Jewish of the Greek gods.

There's a Nextdoor post about it too, where the person said they contacted the building management and the alderman. A lot of Chicago leases have a "no signs or displays in the window" clause, and while eviction isn't particularly likely--tenant rights in Chicago are relatively strong--no management company is going to want the headache of having Nazi flags displayed in their building because it obviously makes getting desirable (non-Nazi) new tenants difficult. So I'm confident that the person won't live here much longer, but in the meantime I'm going to be casting a few more suspicious glances at the people I pass in the street.

I'm remembering today how the story of Purim ends with us killing 75,000 of our enemies. A good start, I think, but we still have work to do.

Snowless

2023-Mar-03, Friday 16:32
dorchadas: (Chicago)
We're supposed to get a massive storm sweeping through Chicago today, dumping up to seven inches of snow on us, but right now there's nothing. The sky is a little grey, but it's 2°C and the ground is clear. I'm heading out to the suburbs by train to meet up with [instagram.com profile] sashagee and Laila, who her parents already came into the city to get, and earlier I was worried about the trip. But it's looking like I basically don't have anything at all to worry about.

Hopefully that stays true. 🪬

Election Day

2023-Feb-28, Tuesday 14:31
dorchadas: (Chicago)
Today is mayoral election day in Chicago, as well as the election for sixteen new aldermen. One of them is the alderman for our ward in Edgewater and Andersonville, and there are ten people running to replace him. Our mailbox has been stuffed full of election ads for weeks, all of which we immediately tossed into the recycle bin, but over the weekend my ballot came. I did some research online, filled it out, and then yesterday I went on a walk with Laila down to the armory where the early voting was taking place. I dropped off my ballot and boom, democracy has been enacted. 🇺🇸

It won't be the only election, though. Chicago requires a runoff for mayoral candidates who don't achieve an absolute majority and the race is currently split. If no one wins a majority--and unless the polling is extremely wrong, no one will win a majority--we go to a runoff in April and then if it's close there might be a recount and, well, election season won't be over for a while. I'm not super excited about any of the mayoral candidates but I definitely don't want Lightfoot to win again. Treating the CTA as her personal feudal domain and shutting it down with zero warning during the pandemic means I have a grudge that cannot be alleviated. Lightfoot's big problem, from my point of view, is an inability to admit that she's ever wrong. This is an enormous problem in American politics and culture, but I specifically remember her refusing to open up the beaches even after it was obvious that being outdoors in the hot summer air was much safer during the Plague Years than being indoors at a bar, even if the bar was well-ventilated and everyone was wearing masks. I wrote back in the day about people on supposedly-closed beaches (I was one of them) and it reminded me of the old military adage to never give an order that you know won't be obeyed.

Ah, well, I didn't vote for her.

Laila was back at the hospital today for an MRI, just a checkup on her health. She had one a long time ago, when her seizures first showed up, and they didn't find anything back then, but she was only six months old and her brain has gone through a lot of development since that time. [instagram.com profile] sashagee told me that she had no problem waking up after the MRI and ate lunch just fine with minimal complaining. We have no reason to assume they'll find anything concerning but it's good to check. It meant that I got to take the bus with them but it also meant I was late, so I need to stay a bit late at work. And I had better get back to doing that and save the other post I was going to write for later. Or maybe tomorrow. We'll see.
dorchadas: (Maedhros A King Is He (No Text))
I'm forty years old now as of last Saturday! I'm an old man, finally matching the 👴🏻 emoji that [instagram.com profile] sashagee uses in her phone for me. Except not really, because I'm still in great health and people I meet all assume I'm ten years younger than I am, so I'm doing pretty well for myself. I own a home and I have a baby, so I'm hitting my so-called milestones. And I still have all my hair.

I'm not sure I'm going to have a mid-life crisis, but [instagram.com profile] sashagee says Laila was my mid-life crisis, which is as good an argument as any.

On Saturday, my parents came into town to see us--they were originally going to come the previous weekend but [instagram.com profile] sashagee wasn't feeling well--and give me my presents, which were mostly extremely-dark chocolate. [instagram.com profile] sashagee got me a neon Kirby sign Emoji Kirby cheering, which we can put up in the kitchen area of our future home. And then we went out to eat at a local restaurant called Gadabout, which used to be a wine, cheese, and bakery specialty shop, and before that used to be an organic grocery store. I give them props for the server knowing exactly what was involved when she asked about dietary restrictions and I said I kept kosher--she told me up front they couldn't accommodate that but they'd keep the meat and milk separate--and anti-props for naming the shakshuka "baked eggs." But when it came all was forgiven:

2022-08-20 - Gadabout Shakshuka -Baked Eggs-

The potatoes were delicious too, with toasted shallots and a bit of some kind of creme on them.

My parents stayed until Laila's second nap, delayed due to the restaurant trip, and then they went home, but not before telling me that they had put a considerable amount of money into Laila's college fund. More than some people's entire college costs (but not enough to cover a single year at Penn >Emoji Uncertain ~ face). They don't expect to live long enough to see Laila go to college, or if they have, they don't expect to have all their faculties. But they want to make sure that Laila can go anywhere she wants. As a high school student, my father got into Stanford but could not afford to go and so went to USCD. He's determined that no one in his family will have to make the same decision.

The rest of the day we took it easy so that [instagram.com profile] sashagee could rest.

On Sunday, her parents came to visit and we got food from the exact same restaurant, and I ordered the exact same thing since it was so delicious the previous time. [instagram.com profile] sashagee got a chia pudding and a chai cinnamon roll since the French toast she had ordered the last time wasn't really that great, even though she had thought she would love the horchata-based sauce it had. We didn't go anywhere or do anything exciting, just ate and talked and let Laila crawl around while [instagram.com profile] sashagee's mother held her and her father played with her, and at her second nap they left to go home--fortunately against the Air and Water Show traffic. This time, though, we did not rest the rest of the day since we had another scheduled event--ribfest!

I was a little bit worried when I first arrived and saw all the pork, pork ribs, bacon, even bacon-infused whiskey, but while waiting in line for a spot that had a brisket sandwich I noticed the rabbi was also in attendance, which made me feel better. When we arrived, we met up with some people from the Anime Club who were nearby--we had missed a house party the previous day due to the aforementioned resting--but pretty quickly got separated from them [instagram.com profile] sashagee picked a particular booth with an extremely long line. According to [twitter.com profile] spacedragon, this year was the first time back after the Plague Years, and the vendor situation was weird. Only six stalls seemed to be even serving ribs and at least one of them was out by 6 p.m. We talked to a couple in line ahead of us after Laila grabbed the man's shirt, and they said they were originally in a different line until the booth announced that no ribs would even be ready until 6:30 p.m.

The brisket was okay. Not worth the hour we waited for it. Laila liked it thought! And the ribs--if she wants to keep kosher it'll be her decision, and we're prepared for "But abba doesn't eat lots of food!" with explaining to her all the rules I follow and asking her if she wants to follow them too. We'll see where that leads.

All in all, a good birthday weekend spent with family.
dorchadas: (Chicago)
A few years ago, [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans, [twitter.com profile] worldbshiny, [twitter.com profile] meowtima, and I were out at a restaurant--Margie's Candies, I think--and over conversation I mentioned that I was always confused by the name praline for food since it sounded to me like it was referring to some kind of fish. [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans thought it was hilarious and talked about "saltwater pralines" and "freshwater pralines," and when we said we should do this dinner thing again, we named our group chat "Saltwater Pralines" and met up at least once every month-to-month-and-a-half for dinner until the Plague Years began and ruined all meetups.

I looked through my archives to try to find if I'd written about it, but surprisingly I can't find anything. Emoji embarrassed rub head

Anyway, sometime in late 2019 we went to a tiki bar called Three Dots and a Dash and had a lovely time, and it was suggested that we get back together there on Talk Like a Pirate Day, in September 2020, to buy the $350 Port Royale, a giant pirate ship filled with rum, and drink it all. Well, you know what happened in 2020, and in 2021 (plus Laila), but now that [twitter.com profile] meowtima has accepted a new job and is moving away from our fair city, we didn't have any more time to wait until September 2019, so yesterday we assembled once again.

After walking down the pedestrianized Clark Street, filled with pop-out tables set up on the street, and turned two corners to enter the alleyway leading down to to the bar. When I got to the table, it was dominated by a giant bowl in the middle with five straws poked into it, so I took a few sips and ordered an Old Fashioned, the signature drink of Chicago. But at a tiki bar, well:

2022-07-13 - Old Fashioned

Those are peanut-dusted banana chips in the background. I had a papaya salad and spring rolls to go with them.

The giant drink ran out shortly after I arrived, so we decided to order another one. We briefly discussed getting the pirate ship, but it was instead decided to unleash the kraken--the "Shotstapus," with five shots of 151 demerara rum mixed with fijian rum and fruit juice. Shot is a misnomer since each glass was maybe 2.5 shot's worth of drink and we all sipped them because we didn't want to die, but honestly they were better for sipping anyway. The point of a shot is to get drunk faster and at this point it was only 8:30 p.m., so we sipped our drinks, sipped our shots, talked about Pittsburgh, I talked about Laila, [twitter.com profile] worldbshiny talked about her job, and we had a lovely time. At the end of the night, the discussion turned to dessert, and [twitter.com profile] meowtima cast the (weighted) deciding vote for Portillo's so that was our next destination. Most people got milkshakes but I just got fries, since I didn't really want to overload my stomach. At this point it was only 9 p.m., and [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans suggested we go to a place she knew called the Drifter. We walked a few blocks, leaving the heavily-populated Clark Street area and walking through a couple empty streets, before we found a place called the Green Door Tavern. [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans led us through the bar, down the back stairs to the restrooms, and opened a hidden panel in the wall to lead us into the Drifter, a genuine speakeasy still in operation today.

The menu is printed on Tarot cards:

2022-07-13 - The Drifter card recipe

That was the drink I got, and I sat and drank it in the dim light while the bar slowly filled up, the waitress snuck behind me to open the curtains, and a burlesque performer came out and began her act. I have no comment on it, since my back was to her, other than that the music drowned out her singing, which was a shame since it was "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" which sticks in my memory thanks to playing Fallout: New Vegas.

When she was done, the waitress closed the curtain--manually--and at that point it was about 10:30 p.m., so we closed our tab, walked up to the L, and went home. I don't know if this will happen again, since even though I know [twitter.com profile] meowtima will come back to visit we'll all have to have free schedules during that time, but I'm glad we can end the Saltwater Pralines on a bang. Emoji ~ Cat smile

Astound(ingly bad)

2022-May-10, Tuesday 10:33
dorchadas: (Office Space)
I realize I'm in the glorious elite for not having only one (1) internet choice, but nonetheless I must complain.

One reason American internet is laughably bad is the lack of competition. Most places have only one provider, or two if you're lucky, even in major cities. A provider in a major city might not service the whole city--I can get RCN but [twitter.com profile] thosesocks can't, even though we live only about half a mile apart. And even with RCN, it's only in the last few years that my internet in one of the largest cities in America has reached the speeds I routinely got over a decade ago in Chiyoda, a rural mountain town, where my house was literally surrounded by rice paddies. Until recently, though, I've had mostly good experiences.

Yesterday, the internet went out at 2:30 p.m. and as of this post it is still out. I call every few hours or so and every time the story is the same--there's still an outage, we can't tell you what caused it, we can't tell you when it will be fixed, we're useless. I had at least one person I talked to run some modem diagnostics, have me try some things, and tell me what they were seeing on their end, but I think that's balanced out by the person who literally speed-read a canned script at me and then immediately hung up. No one can tell me anything worthwhile. There was just a Comcast truck outside, maybe providing internet to former RCN customers, though DownDetector tells me that there was also Comcast outages on a beautiful spring day with no weather problems.

Pretty sure Chiyoda had maybe one internet outage in three years, and this is a place where literal wild animals could have been chewing on the cables.

Fortunately, we have other internet technology. I'm working from home today because [instagram.com profile] sashagee has had a rough few days and I'm able to do it through phone tethering. Cell service to phone tether to work VPN so the data is still protected. It's not as fast as my wired internet but it's plenty fast that I can still check webcomics on my iPad (which is also tethered) while I work. [instagram.com profile] sashagee is watching Youtube thanks to us having an unlimited data plan. Just have to keep calling and seeing if there's an update, and demand a bill credit when the internet is back.
dorchadas: (Cherry Blossoms)
Chicago is not a city you'd usually think of for cherryblossoms thanks to our weather--yesterday it was 10°C and rainy on the first of May--but there is a grove of them near the Museum of Science and Industry. The Park District has a dedicated website for the cherryblossom forecast that started in 2019, but that year about half the buds didn't open because it was so cold through most of the year. And, well, we all know how 2020 and 2021 went.

But this year, [instagram.com profile] sashagee is starting to feel better (about which more in another post) and Laila is doing great, so I told basically everyone I knew about the cherryblossom festival on May 1st (moved from April 24th due to rain), we woke Laila up from her nap at 11:45 a.m., and drove down to MSI for the afternoon.

ExpandBlossoms are falling )

A fine spring weekend

2022-Mar-23, Wednesday 10:02
dorchadas: (Cherry Blossoms)
Haven't done a generic update in a while.

Last weekend--originally it was going to be Saturday but we moved it to Sunday--we went with my parents to the orchid show at the Botanic Gardens. The last time I went was to the neon-lit night orchid exhibit in 2020, and I'm glad I saw that then because this weekend was back to normal. It was also packed--we nearly didn't make our ticket time because we arrived at the gardens early enough and then joined a long line of cars trying to get in and parked. Everyone wanted to get out into that warm, sunny, 21°C weather. There was someone directing traffic inside the orchid exhibit, which I've never seen before--it's always been popular but still sparse enough that it's easy to move around in. This time it was packed, but no so packed that we couldn't stop for papa to take some family photos:

2022-03-20 - Family portrait at the orchid show

We brought a stroller, but papa was happy to carry Laila most of the time. It's only fair--when he's over at our home he's usually working on some task and doesn't get to interact with Laila was much as nana does. This time he showed Laila all the orchids, she kept trying to grab and eat the orchids, and a good time was had by all, even with the crowding. Someone even called Laila a beautiful flower. Emoji kawaii flower

After we saw all the orchids and the nearby desert exhibit, we were going to go check out the Japanese Garden or the prairie area, but [instagram.com profile] sashagee wasn't feeling her best--we stopped by the smoothie station but it was closed for the season, so we headed home instead and my father got more of a chance to do some dad things, installing a gate at the top of the stairs so Laila won't take a tumble and putting some paint swatches on the wall. Soon our home will be [instagram.com profile] sashageeified! I was fine with just having white or off-white walls, though admittedly that was mostly based on me rarely being home. Now that I'm home all the time, and will be home more often in the future even after the end of the Plague Years, maybe some more colorful walls would be nice. And Laila will certainly like them more.

On Monday [instagram.com profile] sashagee was still feeling well so we took a walk down to the Middle Eastern Grocery store! I offered to carry Laila but [instagram.com profile] sashagee pushed the stroller, because she said she wanted to be the proud mom pushing a cute baby around, and we did get several people telling us how cute Laila was! We stocked up on hummus and pita and halvah and then stopped by at George's on the way home, so we could get one last ice cream there before they close for good at the end of the month. They didn't have the spicy whiskey and green tea combo that I used to get, but the strawberry and maple nut I got was delicious too.

Sadly, [instagram.com profile] sashagee doesn't seem to be responding well to her medicine. She started it on Saturday, which was why we were able to do so much the last couple days. But yesterday her symptoms started up again, and while today they're better, they're still there. She probably just needs her dosage adjusted, but it's a bit disheartening that after she finally thought she found a solution she's feeling worse again. Hopefully a bit of change is all it takes and then we'll be going on family walks in the sunshine! Emoji happy flower
dorchadas: (Chicago)
It's been a long time since I had enough stuff happening to write a full post about it, but this last weekend I did! [instagram.com profile] sashagee asked me to take Wednesday off because Laila had a doctor's appointment where she would get her first round of vaccines, and she was worried that Laila would have a bad reaction to it. And since my boss had called me on Monday and basically said "Hey, you have six weeks of vacation, please take them," I took Thursday and Friday off too so I had a full long weekend filled with events!

ExpandJust like old times )

It was a little rough on me--this used to be every weekend for me but it's been a long while since that was true--but it was a lot of fun! Next weekend will be lower-key, but I still do have a lot of vacation to use. Let's see what I can do with it before the Delta variant wreaks its vengeance upon us.
dorchadas: (Chicago)
Not sure "politics" is the most appropriate tag on here, but.

On Friday morning I went downtown to go pick up a birth certificate for Laila, since I'm changing over my work insurance to include her and therefore I need to prove to the insurance company that I'm not trying to run a payment scam on non-existent patients in cahoots with a doctor or something. I wasn't expecting it to be a particularly onerous activity, and it wasn't...but it certainly took a long time! When I got there, there was a line extending about halfway down the block, so I went to stand in it. When I finally got to the door, I was let into the Vital Records line that snaked around the inside of the building, and then when I got to the door of the Vital Records office they let me in to the third line inside for vital-records-only activities. All in all it took me about an hour and a half to get through all the lines, though I was cheered by the couples waiting to get their marriage licenses. One of them had matching T-shirts!

The comforting thing is that once I actually got to the desk, actually getting my birth certificate took five minutes, so the problem was the sheer number of people needing assistance, not any deficiencies on the part of the workers. I had two copies printed, took the L home, and [instagram.com profile] sashagee took a well-deserved nap.

Today, we went for [instagram.com profile] sashagee's post-birth checkup. I originally expected to stay at home with Laila, but last night was rough so she wanted me to come with her. Surprisingly they let me come too and stay in the exam room, so I kept Laila distracted while the nurses looked [instagram.com profile] sashagee over. She got a clean bill--not totally healed, but everything is healing up nicely! Hopefully soon she'll be back to 💯!

Winter has come

2021-Feb-19, Friday 13:15
dorchadas: (Chicago)
There's been a lot of snow here--more in the last couple weeks than we usually get over the course of an entire winter. It's also been bitterly cold to the point where it's a good thing that we don't have to go outside and can't go anywhere. Both [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I have been holed up in the office, doing work, and right outside the window is this massive pillar of ice:

2021-02-19 - Office Window Icefall

I was pretty worried about this falling and hurting someone until I went to take the trash out and on the way down to wade through a meter of snow in the back alley. When I stepped out the back door I noticed that it's not an icicle, it's a giant pillar of ice extending almost all the way down the ground. That's might end up causing damage to the building, but at least it's strongly anchored enough that it won't fall on someone immediately! And it's supposed to warm up to above freezing next week, so hopefully a lot of the snow will melt. Good thing, too, since [instagram.com profile] sashagee's car is so buried that it's currently not even visible under all the snow. With me still recovering from surgery (though I'm almost back to normal!), it made it much easier to justify ordering grocery delivery.

At least Chicago is used to extreme weather and the city is prepared, unlike all the people in Texas. I've been getting pretty annoyed at the people on the left who are mocking Texas for its troubles--the electricity problems are due to deregulation, sure, but also because Texas has no reason to expect weather like this. It reminds me of the West Coasters I saw laughing at DC during the 2011 earthquake without realizing that California buildings are hardened against earthquake and DC buildings are not--a brick building doesn't take much shaking before it becomes a broken pile of bricks. Emoji shaking fist

I didn't have any effects from the COVID vaccine other than a sore shoulder. My father, who also got the first dose of the vaccine not that long ago, said that he had a fever the first night and a sore shoulder, which makes me worry what awaits me. Emoji Oh dear

Purim is coming up next week, which is a little weird. It'll have been almost a full year since Purim 5780, the last indoor Jewish event I went to. I remember the rabbi talking later about how risky it seems in hindsight, with a scythe hanging over us waiting to fall, but as far as I know, no one there was infected and we didn't end up spreading the plague. This year Purim is online, which isn't ideal but it's still nice to have a community. I already got a Purim box from Mishkan, mirroring the Chanukah box that I got a few months ago. We ate the hamantaschen today and they were delicious.

We don't have anything planned this weekend other than just relaxing, cleaning, and shopping. Maybe when the weather warms up next week, we can go for a nice walk--[instagram.com profile] sashagee is feeling better but not back to 💯, so we're still mostly at home. Those warm temperatures might at least let us sit out on the balcony for a bit!

Keep the outside out

2020-Nov-11, Wednesday 09:39
dorchadas: (Chicago)
It's been unseasonably warm in Chicago, the warmest stretch of days in November on record, with most days over 20°C and people spending time out in the parks or on the beach. When I wrote about people dancing in the streets, they were mostly doing it in short sleeves! So for weeks, we've had the windows open and both the heat and the aircon off.

Well, today it's 1°C, and that was almost a big problem because when a lightning storm rolled in yesterday I went to close one of the windows in the sun nook and noticed that one of the corners was bowed outward and there was a draft coming in. Who knows how long it has been like that--I hadn't opened that particular window since I moved in, and while [instagram.com profile] sashagee has, the blinds and the screen made it hard to see what was going on. I only realized there was a problem because it's a casement window and the lever came detached from the window so I had to remove the screen to replace it. I eventually managed to force it closed by taking dental floss and pulling the outward corner of the window in until it was close enough to engage the lock and force it shut, so at least it's mostly sealed and can keep the cold out!

I'm going to have to do something about it eventually, but hopefully not until May or so. At least now turning on the heat won't be a total waste. Emoji Kirby la
dorchadas: (In America)
I'm not online for Shabbat, but I still knew exactly what was happening yesterday. It's unseasonably warm in Chicago, above 20°C for days, and so we had the windows open and we could hear cars honking and shouting and cheering from outside. [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans texted me at 11:30 a.m. telling me that it was basically over. Later, I went out for a walk to see the fall colors and see what was going on, and when I walked into Clark Street there were cars going up and down the street, honking their horns and cheering:

2020-11-07 - Andersonville Celebrations

Brought to you by gay communists for socialism. There were literally people dancing and singing in the streets. As I've seen multiple places, it was more like the population celebrating the fall of a dictator rather than the election of a new president. Which isn't half-wrong--with Trump's repeated statements about not accepting the results of the election, and maybe seeking additional terms past a second one if he was elected again. He was very clearly angling for additional power and the Republican Party and their voters was perfectly happy to let him.

That's the real issue here--the environment that gave rise to Trump still exists. More Republicans voted for Trump in 2020 than in 2016, meaning they looked at incipient fascism and decided that they wanted more of it. Deliberate cruelty as the primary driver of government policy. As the tweet says:

We have to show that their attitudes are unacceptable while allowing them an opportunity to change their mind. As frustrating as it might be, giving them no path back means they'll just double-down repeatedly. A lot of them will do that anyway, but it's important for the future of the country that we reduce the prevalence of fascist beliefs in the Republican Party without compromising our own. Progressive policy did well in the election--people want change that helps them. A big chunk of them just apparently want a tyrannical blowhard to do it.

Still, we are in an objectively better situation than we were a few days ago!
dorchadas: (Enter the Samurai)
As always, here's the shows we watched and my impressions of them. I've ranked them in the order of me being likely to watch and more of them.

Expandアニメ )

Summer extension

2020-Oct-14, Wednesday 19:28
dorchadas: (Autumn Leaves Tunnel)
I was all set to write here about the beautiful fall weather and the falling leaves and how much I love going out and leaf-viewing, but when I went outside it was 24° and sunny, and even after the sun set I was still sweating when I brought home the farmer's market haul plus the additional food that [instagram.com profile] sashagee requested. And the food I got, since when I saw that they had apple fritters at the farmer's market, I had to buy a package. Then I had to get a cabbage because I was almost out of vegetables at home, and pretty soon I had two full bags in each hand and my muscles were burning and it was a struggle to get everything home.

But I did! Emoji ~ Dancing Meow And I also met up with [twitter.com profile] arsduo and [instagram.com profile] britshlez at the farmer's market, after almost an entire summer of trying to arrange going to the farmer's market at the same time and only managing to once. And I learned that next week is not actually the last week of the farmer's market, it'll be some indefinite time in the future. Not all of the vendors are going to be back, but two of the ones I go to pretty frequently will, as they told me when I went to pick up food from them. I'm not sure if there will be enough to construct a weekly dinner the way I've been doing for the past few months, but at least I'll still be able to pick up some of my favorite foods. Like the chicken chorizo I got from Green Fire Farm today when I saw it on their sign--that's going in curry.

And speaking of food:

ExpandFarmer's Market Dinner )

[instagram.com profile] sashagee spent basically all day playing Genshin Impact after her father and brother called her yesterday when we were playing Final Fantasy XIV together and asked her to play with them, so she downloaded the game last night. It looks a lot like Breath of the Wild, from the slightly cartoonish aesthetic to climbing ancient ruins to to gliding down from high places to grassy fields filled with goblin-like creatures. It has a lot more anime boob witches than BotW does, though, and I haven't been paying enough attention to know what the story is. Maybe I'll try it out, if I can figure out exactly how the monetization works. I'm leery of free-to-play games.

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