Listen to the Rain

sashagee and I managed to get out to a destination! Her parents bought a National Parks' pass and Sunday was the last day before it expired, and since Indiana Dunes wasn't a park they had been to and gotten a sticker from during their travels over the last couple years, they asked us if we wanted to go. sashagee was feeling better and up for the challenge, so in the morning we packed up some beach gear, put Laila in a cut outfit, piled into her parents' jeep and set out for Indiana.

The trip over was a little rough. Laila refused to fall asleep until roughly the last twenty minutes of the ride, so she was very groggy and tired when we woke her up. We drove around for a further half an hour after we reached the dunes trying to find parking, finding one national park lot after another totally full and eventually had to pay a man thirty dollars to park in a private lot. Having done so, we got out, set up the baby yurt (sashagee crawled inside), applied sunscreen, and then it turned out that Laila hated sitting in the waves. She was touching the wet sand but got increasingly agitated every time a wave hit her until she started crying and sashagee picked her up.

I'm not really a sit-on-the-beach sort of person, so that was about the point where I took off hoping to find a trail of some sort. I didn't have any luck with that either--even after consulting a map and walking two miles along the roads from the National Park to the original State Park, none of the listed trails on the map actually existed, as near as I can tell. I even managed to get a phone signal and checked maps, but when I was standing across the road from a map-marked trail--next to roughly a hundred cars that wanted to get into the state park--there was nothing but unbroken forest there. Ugh.

When I finally reached the beach I did manage to find a bird-watching platform and take some nice pictures, though:


Up on the platform, sashagee texted me that people were getting ready to go, so I walked across the burning-hot beach sand back to the national park side and we left. She told me that Laila was much happier about the water when she was in sashagee's arms, but she spent most of the visit in the baby yurt except for a bit of time being fascinated by the sand and a bit of time being cooed over by some younger women playing catch just down the beach. She wasn't as angry as her lack of sleep should have made her, though, so that's good, and she got more sleep on the way home--as did I.

When we got back, sashagee's parents offered to watch Laila while we went on a date, so sashagee borrowed the car and we went to Geneva. Unfortunately, it was packed--we tried going to a restaurant called Preservation but they flatly told us there was no hope of a table--and so we walked the entire length of Third Street until we found a Asian fushion restaurant called Cravings on State Street with okay food. The "Malaysian" noodles I got weren't Malaysian in the slightest, but they were okay. sashagee was more satisficed with her bibimbap. We couldn't stay long since we had to get back to give Laila her medicine, so after we paid we went straight back to sashagee's parents' house and sat on the porch until the mosquitoes came out, then went inside, then went to bed.

The next morning we woke up late after sashagee's parents woke up Laila without us, and after Laila ate they told us about their plan to go to Atrévete bakery in Montgomery. It was apparently family day there--there were two other families with small children, one of whom was wearing the exact same clothing that Laila had worn the previous day, so we struck up a brief conversation while we waited for our pastries and cheesecake. When we got home, my parents arrived to take us to the second half of the visit, and we ate our lunch after Laila went down for a nap. I had the spinach and gruyère quiche, with half of the tomato basil flatbread--by far the superior of the two options--and a guava mango cheesecake with vanilla bean whipped cream that sashagee demanded half of immediately after taking a test bite. sashagee had a croque madam croissant and the other half of the flatbread (also her favorite), and then went up to take a nap.

While she was asleep, Laila woke up, and my father and I took her down to the park near the forest. Laila really did not want to go on the swings, but she was happier trying to climb up the playground equipment and then trying to crawl off into the forest--I'd repeatedly pick her up and move her away, I'd stand between her and the forest, and she'd keep trying to get past me and move back into the trees. It only ended when I noticed she looked kind of sleepy, so I picked her up--my parents got a little riding wagon for her that she rode halfway to the park and then refused to be in--carried her home, and put her back to bed, and then took advantage of my father's offer of a beef bacon BLT with heirloom tomatoes, a variety called Cherokee purple that they had grown in their garden. The beef bacon was nice but my father was right, the real star was the tomatoes. I had it with pickles on the side and an apple for dessert, but the real dessert came later after sashagee woke up and we had an early dinner--cherry brownies baked by my father, who had thought "Black Forest cake is pretty good...I wonder if that works with brownies?" The answer is a most emphatic "Yes!"

After dinner we went back into the city to get Laila her medicine and put to bed, and sashagee followed her to bed herself. Despite some early mishaps, it was all in all a nice weekend, though I wish I had managed to find some trails to walk.

Bonus photo of Laila at the beach discovering sand:

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:


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.

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 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 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 sashagee was still feeling well so we took a walk down to the Middle Eastern Grocery store! I offered to carry Laila but 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, 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!

It's definitely harder to find time to write when there's a baby in the house!

I'm sitting in the sun nook right now, working, but it's more of a rain nook. Summer held on a long time in Chicago--even as recently as a week ago the temperatures were above 20°C--but there's been a storm raging since last night and the wind is currently howling outside. Multiple people I know posted photos of downed trees this morning. It's only raining lightly now but everything is soaked. No more eating lunch on the balcony, at least not this week.

My parents came to visit on Saturday to see Laila, but my father couldn't resist checking on a bunch of stuff around the house. He brought me some bad news, unfortunately--his advice about the master bathroom shower was not to use it. It wasn't in amazing condition when I bought the place, but now the shower door is sticking because the top hinge is bending, the grout is in bad enough condition that water might be leaking through to the floor when the shower is on, and it's in otherwise bad shape. It needs a new enclosure and new tiling and might just need to be ripped out and put back together, which would be expensive right at a time when we need to buy Laila a crib because she's outgrowing her little bassinet. Fortunately we have another full bathroom we can use in the meantime and it's not like the plumbing has any problems, I just won't be taking a shower back there for a while. And I was so excited to have two showers when I moved in.

The last farmer's market of the year was last week, and we got there late so we didn't even really get anything. There weren't nearly as many Farmer's Market Dinner tag entries this year as there were last year because this year, sashagee really loved the Filipino food from Pecking Order, and since Pecking Order was there every other week, that's what we ended up getting half the time. And it's definitely a little harder to make delicious meals every day with a small baby! We've made bigger meals and eaten a lot of leftovers, but we actually go out to eat less than we did when sashagee was pregnant! Today we're slow-cooking shortribs and is making lunch. Yum.

Alright, back to work. Going to try to make my next post sooner than two weeks from now!

I really should be doing these more often.

Today is Laila's four-month birthday! She's asleep right after having a rough last couple of days--on Saturday we went to the beach again and while she started off enjoying it, she had a rough time later with a lot of crying. She spent parts of yesterday screaming, barely took any naps, refused to be put down, and finally collapsed into sleep an hour late. She's still asleep now, about an hour after she usually gets up. It's hard to be a baby.

People say that babies grow up too fast and they're changing so fast every day, and the reason they say that is because it is correct. A month ago, Laila didn't really understand how to use her hands. She didn't even have enough dexterity to suck on her thumb, instead just kind of shoving her whole hand in her mouth, and when we'd put her on her playmat she'd stare up at the hanging toys in front of her and ignore her hands in favor of kicking them. Two weeks ago, she had graduated to this:


The cutest thing is that she knows how to fold her hands now, so she'll be sitting in her swing and looking at us with her hands folded in front of her. She'll reach out to grab my hand if I bring it close to her, and after her last meal I was holding her near sashagee's face and she kept reaching out to touch her mother. She's getting pretty good at smiling, though she's still often expressionless in that baby way. She's also started trying to laugh, but hasn't really managed it. She knows to laugh when she's happy and having a good time, but her laughter sounds like her gasping for air. Once, I heard her softly make an actual laugh, but it was very short--just a "hehe"--and I haven't heard her repeat it yet. She will. But for the moment she's a very serious baby.

She has her preferences. She likes listening to birdsong and turns her head to look at any lightsource, and she especially loves looking at fans. A couple days ago I was reaching in to boop her nose and her eyes tracked my finger the entire way in and she turned her head away before I could get there. She keeps rolling over onto her stomach to get a better look at what's going on but hasn't quite mastered rolling back--she doesn't know to lower her head and kind of flops around and gets frustrated. She's still very cuddly and likes being held but is much more mobile now, so her greatest wish is to be held tightly while also being able to wiggle freely. She's just now trying to sit up all by herself and nearly succeeding, though she still doesn't have the balance to stay sitting up. She'll get there pretty soon.

Future updates will be more frequent!

Normally I would have posted this yesterday but sashagee and I went out to visit her parents and her grandmother yesterday in the suburbs. Her parents are going down to Florida to help her other grandparents move and will be gone for two weeks, and the grandparent who is here is in poor health. But only poor physical health--she said she didn't want to carry Laila because she was worried she might drop her, but there was nothing wrong with her mind. sashagee's parents cooked fish and made a salad with feta, walnuts, strawberries, blueberries, and put the fish on top, and most of the time we sat around and talked. At one point sashagee went with her stepmother to Costco and I sat outside talking with her grandmother until Laila got sleepy. Then Laila got angry, so I had to retreat into the bedroom to let her sleep on my lap. We can still do things even as new parents, but we're at the mercy of a tiny, very angry tyrant.

Speaking of Laila, she's able to independently grab things now! Not very well, and she can't hold on for very long, but we have some teething toys and when we hand one to her she'll hold it up to her mouth and nom on it. Most of the time. She's still figuring out her hands but as I write this she's over in her swing, holding on to her toy and chewing it. Delicious.

( And speaking of delicious )

Laila can also fold her hands, which she's doing now. It's so cute, you don't even know.

Going to walk down to First Sip, where I used to go with meowtima for weekend morning coworking sessions, with thosesocks and get some drinks! I haven't had one of their gold milk teas or ubae noir tea in years at this point. Years. Now's the chance.

They finally released the return-to-work plan and it's...well. While surveys indicated that 40% of the workforce wanted to remain at home full-time, that's nowhere in the plan at all. Currently from July to September, people are allowed to return to the office if they want and are vaccinated, from September to December people are encouraged to return to the office, and from January every has to come back. People can come either every day or a hybrid three days in, two days at home model, where Monday and Wednesday have to be two of the days in the office. That's certain a way to completely ignore your workforce's expressed preferences!

On the announcement, someone asked 1) Considering the increased transmissability of the Delta variant, will we still not be requiring masks at work as currently indicated in the plan and 2) A bunch of people moved out of state to care for relatives or save money, will they have to move again to one of the listed allowed remote-work states? It's been a few days and there's still not answer to those questions, and considering I have an infant at home and WHO suggested re-masking even for the vaccinated, I'm very curious about the answer to 1. I've talked to people in meetings that moved far away as well, like to Hawaii or Oregon, so 2 doesn't apply to me but I do want to know the answer. Further updates as I receive them.

Laila continues to grow, as babies do. She hasn't fully mastered smiling in response to happy stimuli yet but she's starting to smile at us She's also started to make noise other than breathing and screaming! Nothing more distinct than "wawawawawawa" or "ba ba ba" yet, but that will come. The cooing stage has begun!

She also had her first diaper overflow a few days ago. Babies develop in many ways.

( 🔥 F 🔥 O 🔥 O 🔥 D 🔥 )

This is a long weekend! Tomorrow we're going to sit outside with arsduo and friends, and on the 4th we're going to the beach to watch the fireworks. Going to spend some time with my family otherwise since I haven't gotten to do as much of that since I went back to work. They're both asleep right now after Laila (meaning sashagee) had a rough night and sashagee has her second vaccine appointment today. It might be a rough day as well, so they'll need the rest.

Today is my first day back to work! For the first time in a month, I went to bed early, set an alarm, got ready to get up...and then slept through my alarm and barely made it to work on time. My habit of waking up at the absolute last minute to get to work has not changed not that it takes me two minutes to do so! I spent the morning answering emails and dealing with the administrator of my leave screwing up when I was gone, so they reported to my boss and HR on Monday that I was supposed to return that day but they weren't sure that I had. When I called them again, they had a record that I had called them on May 18th to update the starting day of my leave, but apparently hadn't edited the actual day somehow? Ugh.

sashagee got her COVID vaccination today! She had wanted to wait until she was done breastfeeding, since there wasn't a lot of research on the vaccine's effects on infants, but it's been a while since she had that initial thought and now there's much more data attesting to its safety, so as soon as the two-week period after her rubella vaccine expired she started looking for a vaccine appointment. Fortunately nowadays they're much easier to get than they were when I got my first shot back in February, so she walked in, they gave her the shot while I watched and then they let us walk around the Walgreens for fifteen minutes while she made sure she didn't have an adverse reaction to the shot. She hasn't yet, and other than a bit of arm soreness doesn't seem to have any reaction at all really. Hopefully that doesn't mean that her second shot will knock her on her back.

( Food and nostalgia )

Today was a bit rough because Laila was fussy for most of the day and sashagee had a hard time with it. We track everything we can about her, so we know that today she slept about an hour less than she usually does and spent most of that time crying. Even a healthy baby with no troubles can cry up to three hours in a day, but it's different when it's your baby doing the crying. We'll have to become inured to it, especially when we're teaching her to sleep by herself or potty training her or, really, showing her how to deal with any discomfort that lasts beyond a moment, which is a vital adult skill! But learning how to do it is unpleasant and that means she'll cry. She's asleep now, fortunately, and hopefully she'll stay that way for at least a few more hours.

I haven't been the best at reading other people's posts, but I'm trying to get back on track! I hope everyone has been doing well.

I'm more well-rested and cuddled because we managed to get Laila to sleep in her bassinet! When I came in at 3:15 a.m. or so, I suggested that we wrap her up in her sleeping sack and see if she'd tolerate sleeping apart from us. sashagee told me that she'd been thinking the same thing, so we put her in the sleeping sack and Laila quietly accepted being swaddled up and then laid down to sleep. She muttered a few times but never cried, and sashagee and I got to sleep in the same bed, without her nest of pregnancy pillows!

We tried it again tonight and she cried, and sashagee has a headache so Laila is asleep on my lap. Parenting is like that.

( Pre-made foods )

I've been slowly plinking away at Final Fantasy VIII over time, but it's hard going. The Japanese is a lot more complicated than it was in Final Fantasy VI, so it takes me longer to get through a conversation, and every once in a while I'll hit a point where I'm faced with a giant brick of text and my brain melts. That happened when I played through the Timber Owls mission, where I had to decipher the instructions given to go on the presidential car heist, and most recently it happened when I was in the Shumi village and I was slammed with a full-screen dialogue box about how amazing mumbas are. It was like 2:30 a.m. when I hit that and Laila was asleep on my lap, so I read the whole thing, then immediately thought "that's enough," went to the save point, and just read RPG blogs for thirty minutes until Laila woke up.

Speaking of Laila sleeping on my lap, I'm having real trouble as I write this. I've never been diagnosed with anything but I have restless legs, and while fortunately they usually don't keep me from sleeping (though I do very occasionally have to get out of bed and tired my legs out), the symptoms get worse when I'm sleepy. Early in the day I can have her sleep on me without any problems, but as the day goes on it gets harder and harder. Sometimes I even have to pick her up and walk around because it's the only way I can prevent myself from having to clench or twitch my legs so much that I'd wake her up, which of course has its own danger of possibly waking her up. I'm not sure what the solution is yet, other than the obvious one of getting her to sleep in her bassinet more. It'll take some doing.

Another post where my awake in the night icon might make sense. I feel like I'll be make more and more of those.

I've been having weekly meetings with my boss, trying to train her on what I do so that she can take it over while I'm out on paternity leave. That means that she finally has first-hand experience with what I've had to deal with over the last year, and along with the meetings I've had with some of the other management, hopefully that means that change is coming. Even if it's another database, which is what happened when the last new database turned out terrible...though obviously that's a monkey's paw wish considering that the current database is somehow even worse than the last database, which was already light years worse than the custom program written for us twenty years ago.

My current productivity is roughly 10% of what it was in 2016. So much for the advance of technology.

We've been more social lately! I was originally planning to go to the Anime Chicago sampler on Saturday, at least for a bit, but instead I ended up cleaning the house for a couple hours and then going to an early Shabbat afternoon dinner at maptekar's place! She cooked a giant meal for us, with Brussels sprouts, roasted potatoes, baked lemon chicken with onions, salad with hearts of palm, and a giant bowl of fruit for dessert. She and sashagee commiserated over how annoying it was to cook for me and having to keep dairy and meat separated, we talked about our lives since I haven't really seen her other than her dropping off some parenting books since we all went to Sea Ranch last summer. sashagee got to meet maptekar's cat Lily--who is extremely fluffy--and we made havdalah at the end before we left. It was a lovely end to Shabbat!

Then on Sunday, sashagee's parents came into town and went out to brunch with us at A Taste of Heaven, a local place where we had wanted to go with aaron.hosek a couple weeks ago but which was closed on Mondays. Not on Sundays--I got walnut caramel pancakes, far outside the usual savory breakfast that I like. It was good! Definitely sweeter than I usually eat, but as an occasional treat I'll take it. And yesterday, lisekatevans came over for dinner and to have sashagee cut and color her hair, for her first haircut in over a year. I made some beef stir-fry with fresh basil and rosemary picked from the herbs that sashagee and I went to go buy a couple weeks ago and it was delicious. No drinks this time, in a rarity, but that day will come again.

sashagee has been feeling kind of isolated lately since she's been at home all the time. Under normal circumstances, she'd get a ton of social interaction through her customer service jobs and then use her time at home to unwind and relax, which is why she's been a homebody. But nowadays she's not working so the only social interaction she gets is with me, and even then less than usual because she can't sit on the couch for very long so she can't really play games or even sit with me while I work. I've been trying to do more social activities so she can get social interaction, especially since we're going to have a baby soon!

sashagee is at her parents' house right now doing laundry because we're stillwaiting on the association to get back to us about reimbursement. Hopefully this is the last time we'll have to do this!

Because 14 + 8 is 22, see?

I haven't gotten super far in FFVIII because I've been playing FFXIV--I'm just after Edea shows up and takes Seifer away--but some people mentioned being curious about further differences between the Japanese and English and there were some points that stood out with me. I'm pleased to report that both Rinoa's introduction and Selphie's train song are the same in both languages:

リノア「君が一番カッコいいね。ね、踊ってくれない？もしかして、好きな子としか踊らないってやつ？ふ～ん……私のことが……好きにな～る、好きにな～る。ダメ？」
スコール「……踊れないんだ」
リノア「だいじょうぶ、だいじょうぶ。知り合いを探してるの。１人じゃダンスの輪に入れないからね」
Rinoa: "Oh, you're the best-looking one here. Won't you dance with me? Or maybe, you only dance with girls that you like? Well... you're...going to like me... you're...going to like me... No good?"
Squall: "...I can't dance."
Rinoa: "It's fine, it's fine! There's someone I'm looking for and I can't go dancing alone."

-------------------------
セルフィ「あたし、乗り物好きなんだ～。きしゃ～♪きしゃ～♪はっし～れ～♪ぼっくらをのせて～♪とおっくへ～♪ぼっくらをつれて～♪みら～いへ～♪　気持ちいいよね～。あ、先に部屋はいってて。あたし、もうちょっとここにいるから」
Selphie: "I love trains. Traaain, traaain, go go, take us away, to a far away place, carry us to the future. Isn't it wonderful? Oh, go on ahead, I'll be here for a bit longer."

I really expected more from the Rinoa scene but the original translation was spot on.

In about ten hours of play (ignoring the three hours or so I spent grinding fish on the beach to get No Encounter and various Refines), I've only seen a single instance of Squall actually saying "...whatever." It's on the train to Timber just before the first Laguna temporal flashback, when Zell is getting hyped about the train room and Timber and asks Squall if he knows about the history of Timber. The two choices are どうでもいい and いや、別にいいよ, both of which could be translated as "...whatever" or "I don't care," though the first is more dismissive than the second.

Squall is still a huge jerk, though. He blows off Quistis when she's trying to confide in him:

キスティス「何か言ってもらおうなんて思ってないわ。話を聞いてくれるだけでいいのよ」
スコール「だったら壁にでも話してろよ」
Quistis: "I didn't want you to say anything! Just listening to me would be enough."
Squall: "Then go talk to a wall."

and he tells Rinoa after the failure of her capture President-for-life Deling mission that it's better not to care about anything because then you'll never be disappointed. He's still unlikeable and I'm curious to see at what point the redemption occurs.

More news as I discover it.

---

In Final Fantasy XIV, I beat the Stormblood main scenario through 4.0 three weeks ago--it's not as good as Heavensward because the split between the Othard storyline and the Ala Mhigo storyline harmed the narrative, I think, and the main villain was far less compelling--but I've just been leveling jobs and doing side content since then. I did the Return to Ivalice raids together with sashagee, and by our powers combined we understood all the references--she's played FFXII but not FFT, I've played FFT but not FFXII--and just last weekend we finished the Omega raids. I've unlocked all the non-Shadowbringers jobs and delved into Eureka, the Stormblood area that's designed to replicate the experience of older grind-heavy MMOs. And I did grind--I fought a bunch of monsters, I opened a ton of lockboxes, and just last night I pulled out this sleek boi:


Now I can move on from Eureka Anemos to Eureka Pagos, which is apparently much more annoying (though far less now that it's been nerfed into the ground as old content!). I guess I'll find out.

Haven't posted in a bit because there's not that much to report.

My recovery continues--I went to see the surgeon who did my appendectomy last Friday and the visit lasted approximately two minutes, which is a good sign. He talked to me a bit and took a look at my wounds, which are healing pretty well, and told me that I should probably avoid heavy lifting for another couple weeks just to be absolutely sure. The med who spoke to me briefly before the surgeon said they'd be able to take my glue off, but that didn't happen. Not that it bothers me that much--one of the three wounds has already lost all of its glue, and its peeling off the main injury near my belly button too. I have one more doctor's appointment today, which includes another look at my injuries and a general physical too, and then I guess I'll be done until I'm fully healed! Hopefully it's soon, since it's sashagee needs a lot of help and it's been very hard for her to try to do everything. A couple days ago we went to the grocery store and I carried most of the groceries! It's been weeks! I helped her get off the couch a couple days ago! That's a victory.

That guy who was commenting on my seven-year-old post seems to have gone away. Thanks to tcpip for citing the specific section of the German criminal code banning the display of Nazi symbols.

I've started playing Final Fantasy VIII along with two podcasts I listen to, Axe of the Blood God and Square Roots. I tried to do a bunch of graphical mods for it, akin to the Moguri Mod for FFIX, but it turns out that none of those mods work if the game is set to Japanese text, so I'm playing with highly-detailed player models and original-scale backgrounds. It's pretty jarring, to be honest, but I can handle it. The part that I can't handle is how sluggish everything feels. Did controlling Squall always feel like you were steering a garbage scow? The game doesn't even have tank controls and I feel like I can only rarely get the party where I want them. Ugh.

I'm still pretty close to the beginning, since now that I know the game is level-scaled I'm planning to use Card to break the game, but I've already noticed that Squall isn't as emo as the English translation made him feel. The bit where Quistis says she's joking around with him during the Fire Cavern test:

Quistis: "You know, the boys often choke on this test when I come with them. I guess my charm makes them nervous."
Squall: (...Whatever.)

in Japanese is:

キスティス: 私とここに来ると、いつもの実力を出せない生徒、多いのよね。私の魅力ってやつかしら。
スコール: なんて教師だ
Quisitis: "There are a lot of students who can't hack it when they come here with me. Maybe it's because of my charms."
Squall: (...what kind of teacher is this?) or more figuratively, (...this is teaching?)

Right from the start he's not as dismissive. I think I'll like him better this time around even if it takes me more time to get into the game due to engaging with Triple Triad earlier. I forgot that NPCs take your cards if you lose! Ugh.

I'm still playing Suikoden on and off, but I admit that I can't really get into it. Even when I was playing it in 2019, that was true. Maybe I just need to play more...but I'm over halfway through the game, so where's the hook? Suikoden II is the one that everyone loves, though, so I'm trying to power through so I can get to that one day.

Alright, back to work. I had to get up much earlier today since my doctor's appointment is at 4:15 and it wasn't worth taking a whole day off for that, but that means I'm kind of sleepwalking through my day. It's a good thing I don't actually have anything important to do today!

And I could have done without it, to be honest.

So fortunately my father is a lifelong Democrat who once deliberately drove to Washington so he could sit in on a day of the Nixon hearings, but sashagee's father isn't. Her stepmother usually shuts down any discussion of politics, but the most recent time we went to visit them he was very interested in talking about them. He's currently without a job--he used to be a master carpenter, but decades of doing that has taken its told on his body, and he was doing ride-share but not not anymore--so he's been watching a lot of YouTube and you can probably see where this is going.

The first time he said anything objectionable, sashagee's stepmother shut down him pretty quickly. Last time, while sashagee was getting a haircut, he started spouting some of the usual conservative bullshit that I'm sure I don't need to repeat because if you're American, you've already heard it. I pushed back on what I was confident about:

• The reason only a tiny portion of the recent COVID-19 bill was dedicated to coronavirus relief is because it was an omnibus appropriations bill.
  
• Cops are not even in the top ten most dangerous jobs in America. The two most dangerous jobs are lumberjack and ocean fisherman.
  
• A private company banning people, however worrying it is, is not violating free speech, and as a member of a minority religion I'm not really interest in an intellectual debate between "All Jews should die" and "I want to live."
  
• The one person of color and one gay kid in his school in the 70s might not agree that they were treated the same as everyone else and no one cared about their differences from the majority.

There was other stuff but misinformation doesn't need to be spread.

sashagee is worried about him--she says he's turning into someone she doesn't recognize. On the plus side, apparently he's willing to accept pushback and doesn't get angry about it...yet. And he's not a QAnon cultist or a Proud Boy or something similar. But the algorithm on YouTube is pretty much tailor-made to produce neo-nazi terrorists, so I'm not sure that I should be celebrating yet. I'm also not sure what to do--I've only met him a few times, and if sashagee thinks there's reason for concern...

I'll have to see what happens but I'm a bit pessimistic about it.