Listen to the Rain

She's pretty cute.

As sashagee and Laila are heading out to the park
Me: "You didn't say goodbye!"
Laila, without even turning around: "Byeeee~~~~"

...

Laila: "Dog!"
Me: "Look, Laila, there's two dogs."
Laila: "Dogdog."

...

Taking Laila outside
Laila: " 'No! 'No! [Snow! Snow!] Wooooooooooow!"

...

After breakfast, Laila wants to be picked up. She points straight at the bowl of fruit on the counter.
Laila: "Ah-puh."

...

Laila drinks some bubble bath water.
Laila: "Why?? Wow! Poo-poo! Why!?"

sashagee is playing Final Fantasy XIV on the couch next to me, but I'm at work. So here are some quotes:

( Read more... )

Normally I'd have a bunch of stuff to talk about over the last week...but I was on and off sick! I called in on Tuesday, did things on Wednesday, then did nothing on Thursday and Friday and cancelled my plans on Saturday because I wasn't sure how I would feel, which is why I don't have a report for the Anime Chicago winter sampler this season because I didn't go. It could be a lot worse, though--my sister wanderluster_kp officially has the flu and is home sick, whereas I just was under the weather. As the saying goes:

If you think you have a cold, you have the sniffles
If you think you have the flu, you have a cold
If you think you're dying, you have the flu
If dying sounds like a great idea, go to the hospital

But I feel good now.

I mean, other than that I could barely sleep last night. I spent hours trying to fall asleep and only finally managed it around 4 a.m., so I got roughly two and a half hours of sleep. It's fine.

On Wednesday, feeling well, I accepted worldbshiny's invitation to go to Vosges in Lincoln Park for an all chocolate dinner to celebrate good news that I'm not sure is public yet. We got choco drinks--mine was 100% cacao and was delicious--with chocolate bars, worldbshiny bought a white chocolate and oat milk drink, and I bought some extra truffles that we had right before we left. Her original idea was to get the cacao elixirs, but they're designed more to be taken home, so we settled on other products. I was only able to stay for about 45 minutes, but it was lovely to be eating dinner again with worldbshiny and lisekatevans and meowtima!

Also, when I went on to Mishkan's Wednesday meditation--the message this time was on Parashat Vaera, where G-d hardens Pharaoh's heart, and about how the words are various derivatives of the root חזק chazak, "strong, powerful," like in Exodus 14:4, וחזקתי v'chizzakti, "And he strengthened," so that sometimes standing up for yourself is the right thing to do and sometimes it seems right but it's actually cruel--everyone there was incredibly jealous of choco dinner.

Thursday and Friday, I did nothing except start playing Stellaris. Due to sickness, my long mostly-hiatus from video games is over and the Serene Kingdom of Senalata will rule the galaxy!

Saturday I also played Stellaris, but around midafternoon I was getting antsy and I started texting around. worldbshiny was going to see a show, but said we should get together soon. britshlez was free, though, so I met her and her boyfriend at O'Shaughnessy's in Ravenswood and we had a couple drinks. We got into a good old-fashioned bar debate about animal rights! My position was that we can't rule that animals are equal to humans because animals are unable to uphold human responsibilities, and their position was that for most of human existence animals weren't seen as separate and beneath humans the way they are now. We agreed that meat is delicious but modern civilization eats too much of it, though. I thought about that as I had vegetarian food for the entire weekend.

Me: "Almost all of the meat I eat is chicken."
britshlez: "They used to be dinosaurs."
Me: "I know! It's vengeance. Their ancestors ate our ancestors, and now I return the favor."
britshlez: "Ancestors?"
Me: "Well, you know, our long-distant species ancestors. Millions of years ago."

On Sunday I was going to go shopping in Andersonville and look around, but I delayed playing Stellaris for too long and when thosesocks texted me and asked me if I wanted to hang out. I knew she had something she wanted help with hanging, so I asked if I could get some shopping done, and I went to the Middle Eastern Grocery Store and bought some food, dropped off an extremely overdue library book, and then went to thosesocks's apartment. We talked for a while, about some stuff that had happened at her church that day and about tabletop RPGs, and then she asked me if I could help her hang fairy lights in her living room, going from the arch to the kitchen across to the couch and back to the closet. Standing on a chair I had a pretty good reach to the ceiling, so we drilled holes in the ceiling and screwed hooks in them and then moved the lights around until thosesocks was happy with them. She was right--her apartment was really cozy with her plant lights by the window and the fairy lights strung overhead. It makes me want to see if I can get some of those flame bulbs to emulate a fire. Flicking light is incredibly comforting to me.

Me: "You call me excessively tall, but when you need someone to hang something for you."
thosesocks: "Did I say that...?"
Me: "I am quoting you."

I feel a bit out of it today due to lack of sleep, but I had a lovely weekend. Hopefully my week again takes more from my weekend and not my week.

Lots of religion in this accounting of my life, and for once, it's not just Judaism!

( Omurice and Chanukah Stories and Singing )

One more week of work and then I have two weeks off for the New Year! I'm really looking forward to having a long vacation. Maybe I'll even play a video game--it is time for me to finally get to Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness.

I post conversation quotes on Facebook sometimes, and I thought they'd be worth replicating here. I might do this more than once. None of the people here are the same people except for me:

Her: "How old are you?"
Me: "I’m 37."
Her: "Are you serious?!"
Me: "Why would I lie to you?"
Her: "I thought you were in your mid-twenties!"

...

Me: "[She] just told me she already assumed I was a Sword-Haver."
Her: "You do have that vibe."

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Her: "I can't imagine you singing and dancing."
Me: "Hey, I celebrate sometimes!"

...

Him: "Let's get these doctors killed off."
Her: "Yep. Let's get 'em dead."

...

Her: "So how many of these cases are there?"
Him: "160,000."
Her: 😟
Him: "I’m not kidding."
Her: 😧

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Me: "I tend to play elves in any game where they're available. You could probably guess that..."
Her: "I think anyone who's met you has figured that out."

...

Me: "This might be opening a can of worms, but what is the difference between Urasenke and Omotesenke?"
Him: "Oh boy."