dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
Laila is four years old! Happy birthday Laila!

This year, [instagram.com profile] sashagee decided to have a smaller party this year, with just family. Unfortunately, almost no one could make it--her brother and my sister had to work and her parents were out of town on vacation, so it was just my parents that came. Laila didn't care at all, though, since she'd been talking for days about wanting to go spend time with papa and nana at their house and she was overjoyed at an entire day of attention from them. While I worked (at home, since my boss had offered that I could work from home on her birthday), Laila and papa and nana disappeared into Laila's room and read books, listened to stories on her Yoto (a gift from her grandma and grandpa), and drove cars around on her roadscape rug. When dinnertime came around we asked Laila what she wanted and she said tacos, so the entire family went on a short walk to [instagram.com profile] sashagee's favorite local Mexican place, placed our orders, and walked back and ate. Shortly afterwards, papa and nana had to go home, leaving Laila with more Cars cars to drive around her rug, books, and some other presents.

Laila really loved her butterfly decor:

2025-05-13 - Laila birthday dress

In more general updates, I already wrote about how we're worried about Laila's speech and we're going to get her evaluated, but she's been doing better in other areas. Today [instagram.com profile] sashagee heard noise and woke up to find Laila had gotten up and gone to the bathroom all by herself! She doing better in swim class, and while she still has a bit of trouble with waiting her turn and with not messing with the floating toys the teachers use for helping to teach lessons, she understands that the appropriate thing to do in class is to "take turns." Or at least, that's what she tells me when I ask her, so she remembers it. Getting her to do it is another thing. On the other hand, she stuck her head underwater on the lesson after the one where the teacher told me that she had been asking to wear goggles, so that's progress! Only once, but I took Laila to a lesson where the parents spent the entire time trying to convince their son to get into the water and he simply would not do it. Laila has never had a problem like that.

We used to keep her door locked at night so she wouldn't get up and get in trouble, but since we're trying to teach her to go to the bathroom on her own, we've stopped. She used to bust out of her room just after we put her down for bed all the time, but she doesn't do that anymore. She's transitioning into a period where she actually wants to go to sleep. I don't expect this to last but I'll enjoy it while it does.

Lately she's been really into her Yoto, which is essentially a radio-esque toy. It has a daily short podcast or music on it at base, and then you can buy cards that kids can put in with various short stories or songs on them. Laila has been listening to a lot of the Little Mermaid. I was initially very skeptical of it because we have a rule about no flashing lights and no interactive buttons for Laila's toys, but I was won over by being told that there weren't videos to accompany the stories, it was just pixelated images and no more than one per chapter--so Little Mermaid only has three pictures (one of Ariel, one of King Triton, and one of Prince Eric). The music only has the image of a radio. We have been stopping her from skipping chapter after chapter, though, in the same way we don't keep reading if she skips ahead in her books anymore. Teaching patience is very important, even though Laila is definitely not happy about having to learn it.

She's turning into a fashionista as well. After five years, [instagram.com profile] sashagee started wearing her earrings again and Laila immediately decided she wanted to wear them too, so we got her some shiny stickers that we use for "earrings." A couple weeks ago while we waiting for the bus, there was a woman wearing a bear of high-heeled gogo boots, and Laila physically put her hands on my cheeks, turned my head, and she, "She [I] like her boots!" Only four and she's very concerned with cuteness.

What other ways will she grow and change?

Final image: the cupcakes that [instagram.com profile] sashagee baked for Laila's birthday.

Butterflycakes )
dorchadas: (Cherry Blossoms)
Back in Japan I used to go view the cherryblossoms every year, multiple times a year. I remember sitting by the banks of the Motoyasugawa with friends, tons of people all around us on blankets at 10 a.m. on a Saturday, and drinking sake and eating kushiyaki while we chatted for hours at a time. One time we all went up to Shōbara and had a picnic in Ueno Sakura Park, where a bunch of us rented rowboats and went out on the pond. Halcyon days.

Well, we can't get that experience in Chicago but we do have cherryblossoms here, planted down in Jackson Park. The last couple of years the weather has been cold enough that they didn't bloom, and this year the weather was also pretty changeable but the blossoms were out, so on Saturday morning after [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I woke up late and ate breakfast, her parents brought Laila back from her grandparents stay, and then we all drove down to the Garden of the Phoenix to look at the blossoms. What blossoms there were--Chicago weather being what it was, a couple days prior it had been 26°, it was now 10° with chill winds. What's more, the day before there had been a strong rainstorm that had washed a bunch of blossoms off the trees, and they were on the ground and in the lake when we got there. Some trees were almost devoid of blossoms entirely! Despite that, there were still some trees to be seen:

>2025-04-26 - Cherryblossom festival

The most interesting trees were right near the parking lot as we entered. We walked around the lake, where there were some trees but only a couple with enough blossoms to bother looking at, and then when [instagram.com profile] sashagee asked me about the festival that was supposed to take place that day I said it wasn't until 1:30 p.m. (it was 10:15 a.m.), so [instagram.com profile] sashagee's parents drove us all back home and after hanging out with Laila for a bit, they left.

We put Laila down for a nap but she did not take one, and she had enough energy later in the day that she kept demanding we go for a walk, so we went. The temperature had gotten a bit warmer, helped mostly by the sun finally coming out, but that meant when we went to the park there were a bunch of people there and Laila asked to leave after only ten minutes. She still wanted to go for a walk, though, so I kept walking down to Broadway and we went down to the other park further south, and Laila ran around for a while. She told me she wanted to leave once and then changed her mind, and it turned out to be fortuitous because after we had been there for twenty minutes, some of Laila's classmates from gymnastics showed up! I actually got to see Laila play together with some other kids. The cutest part was when two of them were on either end of the seesaw, and the second-cutest part was when Laila was beneath the playground equipment and two of her classmates were up top, and they were all looking for each other. When a bubble-shooting gun came out, they all got distracted and Laila eventually got tired and we went home.

The next day was a lazy day most of the day, but in the evening I had an invite to [twitter.com profile] worldbshiny. I was also invited to go to see The Sinners in the afternoon, but I already wrote about why I didn't go. Since I handled most of that, I took the evening off and walked down to the bar where the party was being held, arriving a bit later, but it turned out that it wasn't too late because poor [twitter.com profile] worldbshiny had her car towed while she was in the movie and had to move the time back. But once I did get there, it was lovely--I spent a while talking to [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans's housemate about sightseeing in London, we all (except me) discussed The Sinners, I had a couple drinks and listened in, and after two hours I called it a night and went home. It's how I used to spend multiple nights a week that way.

I listened to Gorgeous on the way home, just like I used to on summer nights, all those years ago.
dorchadas: (Kirby Celebrating with food)
[twitter.com profile] lisekatevans and [facebook.com profile] afschifler got married! Congratulations!

I've actually never been to a full-on traditional Christian marriage ceremony before now. [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans is a deacon at Fourth Presbyterian Church downtown, so that was where the ceremony was held, in a giant church sanctuary with a functioning pipe organ. There were hymns, there were blessings, the vows were the traditional vows ending in "as long as we both shall live", the pastor gave a sermon, it was all new and strange to me. It was a beautiful ceremony, though, with the organ music and the lovely architecture of what was basically an actual cathedral, and a very long aisle for the wedding party to walk down (the wedding was well-attended but it did not have 700+ guests). It's right on Michigan Avenue, too, so at the end we processed out and waited on the sidewalk amongst the St. Patrick's Day revelers while the wedding officiants proclaimed the marriage and the bride and groom came out to greet the crowd.

2025-03-15 - Kat and Adam's Wedding
Emoji back and forth dance


The ceremony done, we had some time before the reception started--and it was on the south side on the University of Chicago campus--so after a brief chat outside the church with [facebook.com profile] sam.locke.54, who I hadn't seen in five years since before the Plague Years, and his girlfriend who I had never previously met, we joined [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans's roommate [facebook.com profile] luke.beasley.262 just next door at the Four Seasons bar for an hour for a drink and some snacks. [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I spent most of it talking to one of [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans's friends who works in children's television in Los Angeles, who did one of the readings at the ceremony and who later gave a toast at the reception before our time ran out and we all snagged a Lyft and made our way south to the Quadrangle Club. We spent most of the reception talking to [facebook.com profile] sam.locke.54 again, I drank several Old Fashioneds and [instagram.com profile] sashagee drank vodka seltzers with lime, and I even had a brief civil conversation with [livejournal.com profile] tropicanaomega at her instigation--it was about her seeing me walking on Berteau and asking if I lived nearby, and me explaining that we took Laila to her swimming lessons on Mondays by that road.

The biggest draw of the reception (for me) was that they had a live band for most of it! Sure, for some parts during breaks they would play pre-recorded music, but the bride and groom's first dance, and some of the dancing we did ourselves, was done to the sound of live music. We ate dinner--I had salmon, [instagram.com profile] sashagee had the ravioli--chatted with the guests, ate chocolate dessert, and danced the night away. I even got a dance with the bride, after most of the guests had cleared out from the dance floor. We left just after ten, after a full day of celebrations, and came home and went to bed. A lovely day for a lovely couple.

Purim 5785

2025-Mar-14, Friday 15:34
dorchadas: (Judaism Magen David)
The Hebrew word משכן mishkan is usually translated as "tabernacle" and refers to the traveling tent complex that the Children of Israel brought with them in their wanderings. That's why Mishkan is named that way, since it doesn't have a synagogue building and contracts spaces throughout the city for various purposes. But, as time has gone on, we've settled on a few places that we return to again and again. So it is with the Purimspiel, which has been at the Chop Shop in Wicker Park since Purim 5780 just before the Plague Years. I even wrote in past years that the commentary on the sides was very similar. That part was still true, though I could tell that some parts were updated. The food was the same as last year, and this time Purim wasn't on Shabbat so Ta'anit Esther meant I couldn't eat until the spiel had started, as was traditional. It's all familiar.
That which hath been is that which shall be,
And that which hath been done is that which shall be done;
And there is nothing new under the sun.
-Ecclesiastes 1:9
Before I went, [linkedin.com profile] yoni-labow-5693413a asked me if I were coming, and I spent most of it hanging out with him and his wife [instagram.com profile] whoolia45. [linkedin.com profile] yoni-labow-5693413a had specifically asked if I were coming, and we spent most of the time I was fasting talking about his coming funemployment--he was quitting his job working for his parents' company and striking out on his own, which was obviously pretty stressful. He was the designated heir but the longer he worked there, he said, the more he got a sense that it just wasn't right for him and he needed make a change, so he was going to strike out and go back into sales. I'm sure he'll be great at it.

Despite what I said earlier, the spiel was different:
2025-03-13 - Purimspiel 5785
"I'll take 'bear shit' for 600."

The big joke this year was apparently based on the rabbi eating a granola bar for an inordinate amount of time during Rosh Hashanah services, which I missed because we only went to the family service and skipped the other ones. In lieu of a Hot Ones sketch like in previous years, they had a sequence where the rabbis answered question about Purim, Judaism, and...rabbits from Google autocomplete, because it turns out the most answers when you put in "rabbi" into Google are about rabbits. I learned that rabbits are prone to spontaneously dying, at least based on the number of times people google things like "rabbits just die" and so on. There was also a question about Purim Meshulash, which occurs whenever Purim falls near Shabbat--Purim is celebrated a day later in walled cities (in practice, just Jerusalem and Shushan), and while Purim itself will never be on Shabbat, Shushan Purim sometimes can. Due to Shabbat some of the celebrations are delayed until the following day, creating a three-day celebration. They had to take a moment to remember it because we're in America and it's not super relevant to our Purim celebrations here.

Brief cautionary tale--I checked what google had to say about Purim Meshulash and I got this AI overview:
"Meshulash" (Hebrew: משולח) in English refers to "emissary" or "delegate."
It's hallucinating again. The Hebrew there reads "meshula", with a chet at the end, whereas meshulash is משולש with a shin. AI just straight lying to me. Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.

I stayed through the spiel, ate two full plates of food, got an extra drink--every year I find at least one drink ticket somewhere on the floor and get another drink--and when I left, the goodie bag was being handed out by the husband from the couple I sat with at break fast after Yom Kippur. I mentioned I had seen their daughter was acting in a show based on a theatre poster, and we chatted a bit before I walked off into the night and took the bus home. Another Purim in the books.

I'll be curious to see if the location changes next year, but some traditions are good to stick to.
dorchadas: (Judaism Magen David)
Writing it that way always looks so weird.

Last week was the beginning of Sukkot, so Laila and I went to a few Sukkot celebrations. On Friday night was the usual Sukkot celebration and picnic off the 606, in Wicker Park, and since [instagram.com profile] sashagee wasn't feeling well, Laila and I went, though we ate dinner early (which turned out to be a good idea because it took us over an hour to get there thanks to traffic). Before we left, we lit the Shabbat candles, and [instagram.com profile] sashagee took this photo while I was saying the blessings:

2024-10-18 - Lightning Shabbat candles

What a cutie.

As soon as we got there, Laila took off running through the field and, of course, found the table set up off to the side with treats, so I give her a cookie and a bit of pumpkin brioche when I got a tap on my shoulder and turned to see [instagram.com profile] whoolia45 with her new baby! Only a few weeks old, but looking straight at me, and when I smiled at him and waved, he gave me a small smile back. Emoji Weeee smiling happy face We chatted about babies and joked about the holiday, I asked if it's okay to have Laila at [linkedin.com profile] yoni-labow-5693413a's birthday party (the answer was yes), and she mentioned that they were thinking of inviting us on a double date to a Chicago Steel hockey game (who play out in Geneva, near where both my and [instagram.com profile] sashagee's parents live)! I said that sounded lovely, so now we just have to wait for the invite.

After that I got in line to stand in the sukkah and say the traditional blessings. At first Laila was indifferent, and said "out" when we had been waiting there a bit, but once I shook the lulav and it started rattling that got all her attention, and she gladly sniffed the etrog. After that, when we left the sukkah and I put her down, she ran off to the baseball diamond and just ran circles around it to burn up her toddler energy. We went back over to say hi to [linkedin.com profile] yoni-labow-5693413a and [instagram.com profile] whoolia45 briefly, and then had to take the bus to go home.

Saturday we kept it light since, as I said, [instagram.com profile] sashagee wasn't feeling well, but on Sunday we went to a Sukkot party at [facebook.com profile] hannah.bloom.75's house! We arrived a bit late, since Laila slept in quite a while, and then said hi to everyone while Laila run around like crazy. I spent most of the time watching Laila so [instagram.com profile] sashagee would have time to have some grown-up conversation--including effusive praise for her lemon sweetcakes she made--but we did take a brief detour to go shake the lulav and etrog and this time Laila was into it. We were only able to stay for an hour before we had to get home for dinner, but it was a lovely afternoon.
dorchadas: (Judaism Magen David)
Last year most of the Jewish holidays were on weekends, so I already had them off. That's not true this year, but the bonus is that many of the High Holy Days are on Thursdays and Fridays, so in October I only have one full work week and three four-day weekends. Not bad.

Wednesday night was Erev Rosh Hashanah and Mishkan did a livestream, but since Laila was awake I missed most of it and by the time she was asleep there were only thirty minutes left, so I skipped it. The next day, though, we woke up bright and early thanks to Laila, ate breakfast and got dressed, and took the bus out to the Copernicus Center for Rosh Hashanah services. While the last time we all went, we were able to go into actual services because Laila was small enough we could hold on to her and she could enjoy the singing, that was never going to work this time. We went for the Rise and Shine service (for kids 0-4), and then went over to the "Museum of Awe" where Laila immediately ran over to Toddler Town and started trying to grab all of the stamps. She was full of energy, so we didn't stay very long, but we did say [linkedin.com profile] yoni-labow-5693413a and [instagram.com profile] whoolia45 with their new baby! They were heading in to services with a very asleep baby, just like we had been a couple years ago, but we chattered with them a bit and then headed out to lunch at a drive-in diner that also had Korean food (I got a teriyaki chicken pita. It was delicious) before heading home.

The next day [instagram.com profile] sashagee wasn't feeling well, so while we originally all planned to go to the second day picnic, it was just Laila and I who went. I packed up a lunch for her and we got on the bus to go to Welles Park. We arrived just in time for the Shema, and while she initially squirmed a bit she calmed down once the singing started. Once it ended and the rabbi started talking, though, she immediately lost all interest, so we left the main area and went over to the part of the park where the kids activities were. She really went in on the activity sand, and while she still doesn't quite know how to interact with other kids, she waited her turn until she could get close and played very nicely with them. She even took a turn at blowing the shofar! When we got back home, [instagram.com profile] sashagee was asleep, and while Laila woke her up when we ate lunch, she went right back to sleep when Laila laid down for a nap. She was really wiped out, so I took Laila to the park for a bit and let her rest of the day, and when Laila went to bed so did she.

There is one other thing we did, though. We didn't get to stay long enough at Welles park for the ritual of Tashliḥ, the symbolic casting away of our sins, as it is written:
Who is a G-d like you,
who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnant of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy.
You will again have compassion on us;
you will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
-Micah 7:18-19
So we went to the lake to do it. Laila loved the actual throwing of the bread on the water, but she wasn't interested in anything else. She didn't want to run around on the grass, she didn't want to look out over the water, she didn't do anything. She did smile briefly for a picture, but that was it:

2024-10-04 - Tachlich


And then we went home.

Saturday we had two things scheduled but neither of them was until later in the day, so we had a nice slow morning where we all got to eat breakfast and sit around watching Kiki's Delivery Service until closer to 11, where we walked to the bus and went to Lincoln Square for Applefest. I went to it back in 2019, and then in 2020 and 2021 there was no Applefest, and in 2022 and 2023 we were out in the suburbs on both weekends, but this time we could go and a bunch of our friends were there too! The festival was twice as big as the last I was there, from Lawrence all the way down to Sunnyside on Lincoln, and the weather was beautiful but that meant it was a sunny day and I was carrying Laila for blocks up and down while we looked at the shops and got a bit of apple pie, some breakfast sandwiches--[instagram.com profile] sashagee wanted a smashburger, but we were warned that it was a thirty-minute wait time so she got a breakfast sandwich too--and ate them while Laila ate her apple waffles. We got apple cookies and looked at the artisans, and chatted with our friends--Laila was obsessed with [twitter.com profile] spacedragon's dyed hair and kept asking her to hold her--until 2 p.m. came and we needed to get home to rest for a bit. It was already too late for Laila's nap, but we could still go home and rest.

Around 4:30 p.m. we left again for our second event, [instagram.com profile] thosesocks's housewarming, with apple pie and Laila in tow. We went out to the bus and the tracker said "no scheduled arrival times," so we had to walk all the way there--it was only a mile or so but it was a long way after all our earlier walking and while carrying Laila. When we got there, [instagram.com profile] sashagee talked to [instagram.com profile] thosesocks while I chased after Laila, which proved to be the theme of the evening--at one point Laila went out on the balcony and ran up and down, since it was laid out lengthwise along the entire building. She did that a couple dozen times, full of way more energy than I expected, except for some brief interludes to dip a cookie in ranch dressing and eat it and trying to steal chocolate-covered pretzels. After an hour or so, right when [instagram.com profile] thosesocks was concerned about Laila being so energetic, it was time for us to go (Laila needed an early bedtime since she skipped her name), so we said our goodbyes and went home. We didn't get a slice of that apple pie but the chocolate-covered pretzels were delicious.

Sunday morning was a fast day, Tzom Gedaliah, so I woke up before anyone else to eat breakfast before the sun came up. When I was done, I opened the door so Laila could escape her room, we all got ready, and I took Laila out to Hebrew school. This time went better than the first time, where she was overwhelmed by all the people. She still wasn't very interested in the songs, but she was much more focused on the crafts. There was a craft to make a "Bug Sukkah" and that was what Laila focused all her energy on:

2024-10-06 - Laila Hebrew School Bug Sukkah

Sadly, it did not survive the trip home on the bus. While Laila wasn't interested in the songs, she did stay at the craft tables for much longer than many of the other kids did, who got bored and wandered off to sit with their parents and read books or something. She really loved those bugs, and we stayed through the closing songs and then left to go home...except the bus wasn't coming for 35 minutes so I walked most of the way home, carrying Laila the entire way, and then spent much of the rest of the day sitting down because she's heavy. She's a big girl now!

This coming weekend is Yom Kippur, so even more holidays ahead.
dorchadas: (In America)
I'd love to say that we had great weather for the weekend, with sunny skies and warmth, but it would be a complete lie. It was cloudy and rainy for the majority of the weekend, with even the least-rainy day (Saturday) still having some rain. Sunday it thunderstormed for most of the day, and there was rain the middle of the day on Monday too. [instagram.com profile] sashagee spent a chunk of the weekend lying down with a headache, but thanks to her parents taking Laila for a ton of fun adventures, we had a baby-free weekend and plenty of time to ourselves.

Saturday, we went to [twitter.com profile] cillic and [facebook.com profile] heather.eisele's Memorial Day barbecue and in the evening, to [facebook.com profile] afschifler's birthday party at [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans's place, and on Monday we went to [facebook.com profile] maptekar and her boyfriend's place out in the suburbs for a last-minute barbecue. A lot of travel involved--train and bus to the fist barbecue, bus and train (actual rail) to the suburbs, and some walking--but worth it.

There's not a lot to actually write about here, though, because most of what happened was "we talked with people and had a lovely time." One of the people who came to the Saturday barbecue was married to a Japanese man, so she brought a soba noodle salad that was delicious (disadvantage of most barbecue--I can't eat it since if it's not pork, it was probably cooked together on the same grill as pork), as well as a farro salad and a bunch of fresh fruit, plus some delicious seven layer bars inside. At the birthday party, while [facebook.com profile] joseph.harnden was telling [instagram.com profile] sashagee how much better I looked now that I was wearing more colors and how she was such a good influence on my fashion, [facebook.com profile] hazel.flowersmccabe was talking to me:
Hazel: "You're wearing...colors."
Me: "Well, I'm a dad now, I changed up my style."
Hazel: "You can be a goth dad."
at the barbecue on Monday, we met someone that [facebook.com profile] maptekar had met through Bumble BFF (which I didn't realize was a thing). She was very reserved, but she's also Romanian, so I figured it was just her being from Eastern Europe. [facebook.com profile] maptekar's boyfriend made some chicken with a honey and vinegar glaze and I had it with a bunch of salad. We would have stayed longer, but since it was a holiday weekend they were running holiday trains, so we had to get back to the city on the 7:32 p.m. train. Next time we'll be able to stay longer.

We were asked at one point if Memorial Day barbecues were a tradition in my family and I said no. But maybe I should reconsider.

ACEN 2024

2024-May-19, Sunday 14:19
dorchadas: (Enter the Samurai)
It's been five years since I made one of these posts, since ACEN 2019, and boy has a lot happened since then. COVID cancelled ACEN 2020 and ACEN 2021, and by the time ACEN 2022 happened I had a family and couldn't just run off for a weekend and leave a nearly-invalid [instagram.com profile] sashagee at home with Laila, so I went just for Saturday night to see people and then came back home. I did the same in 2023, but now [instagram.com profile] sashagee is feeling well enough that she could attend the entire con, so back last year I bought her a badge too, and we got a hotel room sorted out, and she got excited about doing a family cosplay. Well, I'm not going to bury the lede--we did:

2024-05-17 - Family Ponyo Cosplay


And now, here's the rest of what happened at the con:

Thursday )

Friday )

Saturday )

Sunday )

It's been five years since I last went to a full con but the experience was still the same! Always being on your feet, seeing old friends, traveling from place to place to place and collapsing into bed at the end of the day. It was different this year since we had Laila with us, and we kept telling people how she would run through the skybridge shouting "DRAMA-MA-MA-MA! DRAMA-MA-MA-MA!" but she was only there for half a day of the real con, and a good thing too. We took her through the dealer's hall on Friday morning and she was getting overstimulated already--if she had been there on Saturday she would have had real problems, but instead she was having tons of fun with Papa and Nana while we were wandering around the con.

[instagram.com profile] sashagee had a great time is already planning how to have an even better con next year, starting with bringing sneakers. [instagram.com profile] sashagee and [personal profile] dorchadas con-goer arc has begun!
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
"Three old!"
-Laila
Happy birthday Laila!

[instagram.com profile] sashagee has very strong ideas about theming and decorating, and she wanted a mermaid/ocean theme since Laila loves fish so much. So when Laila went to bed on Saturday night, we spent a while decorating the room, putting up jellyfish-balloons and opalescent streamers and balloons and inflatable mermaid tails, and when Laila woke up, after breakfast [instagram.com profile] sashagee put her in her very cute party dress:

2024-05-12 - Laila cute birthday outfit

A bioluminescent mermaid. As usual, I took multiple pictures and when she was looking at me she wasn't smiling and when she was smiling she wasn't looking at me.

The cutest little girl in the world )

Her black eye is because she can right into an open drawer before [instagram.com profile] sashagee could stop her. And true to form, she cried for a bit, then said "All better" and went over to go draw on her easel.
dorchadas: (Chicago)
Last week Wednesday, I suddenly received a Facebook event invite for that night, at 4:15 p.m. for an event at 5, that [facebook.com profile] fang.the.tall would be at Portillo's for one night before he went back to his homeland (Malaysia). Before I texted [instagram.com profile] sashagee that I wouldn't be home for dinner, someone else said "Is this tonight?" and [facebook.com profile] fang.the.tall posted that Facebook had messed it up and it was next week (aka yesterday). So I told [instagram.com profile] sashagee about it, and we made plans.

Yesterday I finished work and wandered around the nearby Nordstrom and attached stores--the mall on Michigan Ave is obviously not doing well, being kept alive by that Nordstrom and maybe a couple other stores there--until [instagram.com profile] sashagee and Laila arrived on the L. We needed to keep Laila occupied, so we went to Eataly to pick up these particular candied fruit sauce in porcelain jars that [instagram.com profile] sashagee likes, had some dessert before dinner (fruit tart and tiramisu), and then went back to Nordstrom so Laila would have an open space to walk around in. We spent most of our time in the perfume floor, where Laila charmed the saleswomen by taking all the testing strips that [instagram.com profile] sashagee used and stuffing them in her shirt. When it was all done, we headed over to Portillo's.

I haven't seen [facebook.com profile] fang.the.tall in eight years, but we follow each other's lives on Facebook--I've seen him arguing about asshole Malaysian politicians, he's freaked out that I got to see Sun-mi in concert, we've argued about hanzi vs kanji--and so he knew about [instagram.com profile] sashagee and Laila. [instagram.com profile] justpearlstuff and [facebook.com profile] bradford.bensontaylor were there too! I haven't seen them in four years either, since before the Plague Years. I introduced my family, we all caught up, and we ate Chicago's finest Italian beef for an hour before Laila got too restless and we had to go home to get her to bed. Apparently the party went on for hours after we left, but that's the life of a parent--you show up when you can.
dorchadas: (Maedhros A King Is He (No Text))
Friday morning [instagram.com profile] sashagee went out to her parents, and I followed after work. And then Saturday morning, we woke up at 6:15 a.m.--well, Laila woke up at 6:15 and so we also woke up--we all ate breakfast, and then we piled into her parents' care to travel to Indiana to go visit her family. The last time we were supposed to go, I got what turned out to be COVID and stayed home while [instagram.com profile] sashagee and Laila went, so I hadn't yet met most of her cousins and their children yet. She gave me a bunch of warnings that they were loud and might be overwhelming, and was I ready?

The car ride went fine. It was Laila's first long car ride as an aware being, since the last time she was seven months old and just slept the whole time, and she did okay. We stopped once at a place called Fair Oaks Farm just off the highway and let Laila run all around while we bought milkshakes (or at least, I bought a milkshake and [instagram.com profile] sashagee's stepmother got ice cream), and then got back into the car and finished the drive to Muncie. We went over to [instagram.com profile] sashagee's birthday grandmother's for a few minutes and then borrowed the car to visit her mother and other grandmother, which is where we spent most of the evening. [instagram.com profile] sashagee's mother had broken her foot a few weeks ago and wasn't mobile at all, so Laila was a bit bouncing off the walls there, especially since [instagram.com profile] sashagee's mother has two small dogs. Laila kept trying to grab their toys, climb in the cage, wandering around her small apartment, and it was only when the paper and pens came out and she could color that she finally slowed down.

When we got to [instagram.com profile] sashagee's grandmother, [instagram.com profile] sashagee was at first worried she wasn't home because she was so used to other people always being there, but there was nothing to worry about. Her house was very homely, laid out length-wise so you could see from the family room at one end through the kitchen to the living room at the other, and it just screamed "Grandma's house" will the jars labeled "Flour" and "Sugar" and "Tea" and the pictures of descendants framed and placed on nearly every flat surface.

At this point Laila was slowing down, so she spent a bit of time running around but started to get tired, and we spent the last half an hour watching Ponyo until we knew we had to get back to the hotel. Even with that, Laila did fall asleep on the way back, though B"H she woke up when we got back and didn't fuss while we prepped her for bed. Back at the hotel I spent an hour in the hotel's exercise room getting in all the Apple Watch exercise time that I had missed out on during a day of driving and visiting, and fell asleep not that much later.

This time Laila slept in until 8:15 a.m., and we all got ready and then went out to eat the hotel's complimentary breakfast of scrambled eggs, French toast, bagels, and coffee/tea (the tea was awful, the rest of the food was fine) and then went back to [instagram.com profile] sashagee's birthday grandmother's before we split off again to go to visit her mother and other grandmother and drop off USB drives containing every picture we've taken of Laila for the last three years--both of them have Android phones and thus aren't on any of the photo albums--and then head back to the party.

The warnings were unnecessary! I didn't get interrogated and it wasn't as loud as I was warned, though apparently this was also because of the circumstances. [instagram.com profile] sashagee said that one whole branch of the family was basically out sick, so there's another two dozen people who could have showed who didn't. I had some nice chats and spent some time chasing Laila around, but we only ended up being able to stay for two hours. [instagram.com profile] sashagee's estranged sister was there too, but I didn't talk to her at all--she didn't talk to anyone in her family until [instagram.com profile] sashagee's father tried to talk to her, which apparently didn't go well--and even ignored Laila when Laila went up to her. Well, her loss. The rest of the party was lovely!

Very different from my small family but a fun time. I'd be happy to go back again.
dorchadas: (Judaism Magen David)
Chinese food.

Yesterday we went to Ming Hin, where [twitter.com profile] arsduo in years past had held his Erev Christmas gatherings. He's moved to Toronto to be with his partner, but I decided after three years to take up the mantle and continue the tradition. I invited a bunch of people, some of them could come, and at 6 p.m. we met up for Chinese food:

2023-12-24 - Ming Hin Erev Christmas 2023

Delicious.

I was hoping to have a Russian-speaking contingent there (shoutout to [personal profile] aguart), since [facebook.com profile] tom.hen.12's wife is Russian, [instagram.com profile] dinaraua is Khazak and speaks Russian, and [facebook.com profile] maptekar is Ukrainian and speaks Russian. But both of the latter couldn't come, so my plans were foiled. Someday!

After dinner, the others stood around outside while I gave [instagram.com profile] sashagee some time to have a grown-up conversation and chased Laila around--she saw a maybe seven or eight year old jumping from small stone bench to stone bench and demanded that I help her make the same jumps. Then we went to Uni Uni for boba, I got a coconut milk taro tea with coconut milk jelly that was AMAZING, and we all went home. Laila didn't get to bed until 10 p.m. but by 8 a.m. she was awake and demanding to be let out...and then took a four hour nap. So it goes.

Today, as our first full day back at home, we did absolutely nothing. I was going to go shopping, but I was foiled by Whole Foods being closed, so we...ordered Chinese food. The Halaḥah is clear--while it is permissible to eat it on the 24th, the 25th is praiseworthy, though there is a maḥloket on some issues:
While the rest of the questions above are good she’elot, poskim generally hold that the food must be either purchased from a Chinese restaurant or recognizably Chinese, but ideally both. If your food is in one category but not the other, the accepted practice is to eat a fortune cookie (the symbol of American Chinese restaurants) in order to rule out a safek of any kind.

So if you’re on a diet, sushi would be fine (b’dieved) as long as it was purchased from a Chinese restaurant and not a specifically sushi establishment, as long as you also ate a fortune cookie.
Judaism is like that.

Merry Christmas to all my Christian friends!
dorchadas: (Judaism Nes Gadol Haya Sham)
Last week, [linkedin.com profile] yoni-labow-5693413a and [instagram.com profile] whoolia45 invited us to their Ḥanukah party. I asked if I could bring Laila, and they said yes, and we were prepared for that. Then [instagram.com profile] sashagee suggested that Laila spend the weekend at the grandparents, so we could paint the kitchen cabinets, and since her parents hadn't had a Laila weekend in a while.

Well, long story short, we did not paint the cabinets because when we went to the paint store, they mentioned that cabinets with a veneer need special paint and prepping that's more expensive than just "buy paint, put on" and since we just bought a whole new set of kitchen appliances we decided not to go through with it just yet. What happened instead is that I spent most of the weekend playing Genshin Impact trying to catch up with the story to finish it in time to do the new event quest because it suggested that I do the story before doing the event, which was a lie and I should have just done the event and beaten Hollow Knight instead so I would have hours of my life back. Anyway, it was fine. The longer I play the game--which I still play because it's basically the only game [instagram.com profile] sashagee plays these days--the more the parts that are specifically designed to be elaborate money-extraction machines make themselves obvious. Dailies, events that feature particular characters that just happen to be available to pull for, the inability to skip dialogue animations (in spent in-game directly correlates with money spent), etc. I'll keep playing it for the moment because like I said, it's basically the only game [instagram.com profile] sashagee plays now. But I'm getting closer to flipping the table.

Once I did that, though, I got through the White Palace and the delicate flower delivery in Hollow Knight. I need to beat the Coliseum of Fools, finish up the Grimm Troupe quest, find a couple more ghosts to finish up the Dreamnail story, and then I'll beat the game. My review should be up before the end of the year.

The party was lovely! There was a "Dreidel Corner" with dreidels and markers and paper and [linkedin.com profile] yoni-labow-5693413a and [instagram.com profile] whoolia45's nieces and nephews and we totally could have brought Laila, but we still had a nice time. I didn't really know anyone else other than the hosts, so we spent some time talking with each other until I ended up talking with [linkedin.com profile] yoni-labow-5693413a and [instagram.com profile] sashagee talked with one of his bowling buddies. We ended it talking with [instagram.com profile] whoolia45 about the true meaning of Ḥanukah--a civil war between religious and secular Jews that the secular Jews lost, the king who called himself "The God Manifest" (Ἐπιφανής) that the Jews punned into "The Madman" (Ἐπιμανής), conquering neighboring countries and forcibly converting the inhabitants--and how of course because of that we're like "THE OIL BURNED FOR EIGHT DAYS IT'S A MIRACLE." It's also about avoiding forced assimilation, and that's why we remember it. But I'll wait until Laila is older before we talk about the other parts.
dorchadas: (Kirby Celebrating with food)
To [instagram.com profile] very_strong_and_cool (possibly the best Instagram name of all time).

202-09-22 - Brit and Nick wedding
Clink.

[instagram.com profile] sashagee and I left with plenty of time to spare and then traffic was the worst I've ever seen, so we arrived fifteen minutes late and missed the opening drinks. We got there and saw a few people standing outside the ceremony area holding angry toddlers--separated from the rest of the hall by a curtain--and slipped in to find [facebook.com profile] tom.hen.12 reciting the sheva braḥot, the traditional Jewish wedding blessings. There was only another ten minutes or so left after that, with the traditional vows and the kiss and the party proceeding out, and when we were standing out with [facebook.com profile] tom.hen.12 and his wife eating the hors d'oeuvres, he said that the ceremony was the shortest he'd ever seen and we had honestly barely missed anything.

[instagram.com profile] britshlez had originally told me she was going to seat [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I at a table with her friend [instagram.com profile] pinktokki1004's parents (who only speak Korean) with the idea that we could still communicate with them, but when we actually checked the seating arrangements, it was the two of us, [facebook.com profile] tom.hen.12 and his wife, and [instagram.com profile] kjtrujillo and his boyfriend and the other two seats were taken up by a couple who never showed. That meant I got two pear and goat cheese salads and two dinner rolls, which was pretty nice because the main course (I had requested kosher) was a veggie burger seemingly straight out of the 90s--it was a thick lump, slightly rubbery, and nothing like modern veggie burger technology. I ate it, of course, because what else was I going to do? But [facebook.com profile] tom.hen.12's wife and I spent some time commiserating over how bad it was.

We didn't get much of a chance to talk to [instagram.com profile] britshlez during the night, because that's how weddings work. Even beyond the ceremonial parts, she had to go through to all guests, thank them for coming, chat with them for a few minutes, all of that. Most of the rest of the night was [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I dancing together and chatting people as the guests gradually thinned out, and just after midnight our table were the only ones left. [instagram.com profile] britshlez said that she and [instagram.com profile] very_strong_and_cool were going to the Billy Goat Tavern downtown and invited us, but after some internal discussion we decided to give them some time alone, so we got a cab with [facebook.com profile] tom.hen.12 and went back home and straight to bed.

IIRC [instagram.com profile] britshlez and [instagram.com profile] very_strong_and_cool aren't going on a honeymoon right away, they're waiting until a bit later. But hopefully they have a lovely start to their married life!

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.
dorchadas: (Maedhros A King Is He (No Text))
On Friday, which I took off because it was the first day of Shavuot, we went to the Field Museum with my parents for a couple hours so I could check out the First Kings of Europe exhibit and my mother and [instagram.com profile] sashagee could wander around the animal exhibits with Laila, and then then took Laila with them back out to the suburbs so that they could have some time with their cute granddaughter and [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I could have a weekend to ourselves!

Unfortunately, [instagram.com profile] sashagee was sick for part of the weekend, so we didn't actually do that much and she spent a large chunk of it resting. Emoji dejected But we still managed to do some things. On Friday we went out to dinner at Uvae:

2023-05-26 - Uvae Drinks
Mine is in front, with gin, creme de peche, and elderflower. [instagram.com profile] sashagee's is in back, with non-alcoholic pea flower, lemon, and grapefruit juice.

We originally had seats outside but it was weirdly cold for even the end of Chicago May--wind gusting at like 13°C, far too cold to just sit outside. We saw another couple move indoors after just a few minutes outside and then we asked if we could do the same, which the waitress was happy to arrange.

I was a little worried that we would suffer the Parent Problem where on a night out without the kids we'd struggle to think of what to talk about, but we didn't. Other than [instagram.com profile] sashagee worrying about Laila being away from us, we had a lovely conversation, ate our salad and meals and drank our drinks, and wrapped up around 6:30 p.m.

2023-05-26 - Uvae Desserts
Vanilla panna cotta in the back and cheesecake in the front with compote by local company Twiddly Bits.

We paid and left and I said goodbye to head to my next event--I went to Friday night Shabbat services because it was Rabbi Deena's last day. Since she had a special blessing for Laila's mikvah visit I wanted to see her off and leave a note for her, and after services ended I walked up to some of the people I knew. [linkedin.com profile] yoni-labow-5693413a, once he had completed the traditional telling me his name again because for some reason he always assumes I don't remember him--maybe I give off "Who is this guy?" vibes?--invited me out to a bar with his wife [instagram.com profile] whoolia45 (the OneTable sponsor of the dinner I went to at Milt's pre-Plague Years) and some friends. I said I had to talk to [instagram.com profile] sashagee about and by [linkedin.com profile] yoni-labow-5693413a's reaction I knew it was fine if she came, so I told her where we were going and she hopped in a Lyft and met us there. It was more of a bar and grill so it had live music, children playing pool, and closed at 10 p.m. so we had our one drink--I had an Old Fashioned as is my custom, [instagram.com profile] sashagee got a Lunacy beer--everyone met [instagram.com profile] sashagee finally, we got an invite to [facebook.com profile] aaronhparker's outdoor Shabbat in two weeks, and everyone got to see photos of Laila. [linkedin.com profile] yoni-labow-5693413a invited us to a Shabbat dinner too, though I don't remember when it is.

Man, my posts are always filled with tons of referential links to my friends' online presence. I'd say this is a Sign of the Times but mostly it's because I don't want to use people's names unless they already put their names out there on the internet. Regardless, it's not going to get any better in the rest of this post.

Saturday we did mostly nothing while [instagram.com profile] sashagee rested and napped and I caught up a bit in Genshin Impact, but in the evening we had an invite to [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans's house for [facebook.com profile] afschifler's birthday! [instagram.com profile] sashagee was all dressed in a cute sundress and was planning to wear heels since heels are half her shoe collection but she hasn't gotten to wear them in years, but since the weather was 20°C and sunny I suggested walking. We had Some Brief Discourse™ on my suggestion but in the end we left with [instagram.com profile] sashagee in flats and walked through side streets filled with flowering trees for thirty minutes until we arrived at the party, [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans handed us some drinks, and we spent a while chatting with people and eating tavern-style pizza and tres leches cake.
Me: "Tres leches. That's Spanish for 'three leches.' "
[instagram.com profile] sashagee: 🤣🤣🤣
The benefit of having a fiancée who is not Too Online is that this is the first time she's heard these jokes.

Sunday we once again mostly rested and played games, and then Laila came back in the evening and was happy enough to see us but it was clear that she had an extremely fun time at Papa and Nana's--after they left, she grabbed her toy bag and walked over to the front door while waving bye-bye at us! I can see many more grandparents' weekends in the future--Laila and my parents both are getting older and need as much time together as they can get. And I think it was really helpful for [instagram.com profile] sashagee and me too.

As the saying goes, the only real parenting hack is having grandparents who live nearby.
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
Laila is two now!

[instagram.com profile] sashagee really loves themed birthdays, and online she found an invitation for a "groovy twos" birthday, so she got a bunch of peace and flower themed stickers, balloons, and garlands and got the house all decorated. We were originally going to hold it in a park by the beach, but the weather report kept calling for thunderstorms and changing when in the day they were going to be, so to be cautious we moved it to our house. The weather turned out fine, if a bit cold, but we had plenty of room for people so it all worked out.

Laila had a great time:

2023-05-13 - Mama and baby at party
Twinsies!

We didn't have any birthday candles, but we did have a leftover Ḥanukah candle, so we used that. Laila doesn't have a grasp of blowing out candles yet but she knows what they are since we light Shabbat candles every Friday night.

The party was mostly adults but someone else we originally met at the Mishkan baby group came with her older son and her daughter Laila's age. Laila and her played together with the Sesame Street toys that Laila got--Laila's favorite is the Count; she can already say "Two! Ah ha ha!"--and the other girl's favorite is Elmo, though she also uses Elmo to mean "a Sesame Street character." That meant they spent a while trading characters back and forth and having a great time. I was a bit more worried about the older boy since he was the only person there his age, but he turned out fine. We have a ball pit that's also full of stuffed animals and he immediately went over there and just melded into the ball pit. Even with around twenty adults milling around he was doing fine.

Laila had a great time running around, checking out her presents, eating tacos while sitting on her grandmother's lap, and seeing everyone. Emoji Kawaii heart

In Laila news, she's using more words. Just today she was in the bathroom and looked at the bath and said "Not now?" and when [instagram.com profile] sashagee confirmed that it wasn't bath time she ran away laughing--[instagram.com profile] sashagee thinks she's happy she was understood. Yesterday I took her to the park and she ran around for fifteen minutes and then decided she had enough--she walked over to the park gate and said, "Go. Go. Gooooooo" and we left. She's started finding foods that she likes and foods that she doesn't like. She's a huge fan of meat and bread, and likes blueberries and bananas. She likes broccoli and cucumbers too but not as much, so I spend some time feeding them to her. Her latest thing is that she's decided she doesn't like sitting down in her chair for meals anymore, she wants to sit on our laps. It makes it much more difficult to eat meals but we know that there'll be a day when she doesn't want to sit in our laps at all anymore, so we let her sit there now. She decided that's what she wants to do one day, and some day she'll change her mind.

In addition to the other toddler at the party, Laila played with a kid at the park! Little kids are so funny when they're playing since they don't really know how to interact with each other, but there was a little boy who wanted Laila to draw on the slide with chalk, so she did that for a bit. Then she wandered off and the boy was obviously sad she left, but he couldn't talk yet, so he kind of yelled incoherently at her and Laila was clearly like "I don't understand you" and wandered away. Even when he got her attention and handed her a chalk again, she held onto it for a moment, gave it back, and then left. Social skill are skills--they need to be learned.

I'll need to change the tag. She's not a baby anymore!

Bayla and Laila

2023-Apr-18, Tuesday 09:13
dorchadas: (Warcraft Night Elf Free)
I said previously that it would get down to 8°C but I didn't go far enough--it was actually 1°C when I woke up today! I brought a smaller coat because the sunlight means it's going to warm up enough later that I should be able to go for a walk on the riverwalk again, but after it being 27°C on Saturday it was quite the change. I'm glad that I don't have to plan anything for this upcoming week. דער מענטש טראַכט און גאָט לאַכט, as the saying goes (der mensch trakht un Gott lakht, "Man plans and G-d laughs"). Or maybe 来年の事を言えば鬼が笑う (rainen no koto wo ieba, oni ga warau, "When you speak of next year, demons laugh"). It's a pretty universal concept.

On Sunday went to a birthday party! Laila got an invitation from the local rebbetzin on behalf of her daughter Bayla, for her second birthday, so we loaded up Laila into the stroller and walked down to the Anna & Fred Doppelt Base Andersonville house at 10:15 a.m. and arrived basically first of anyone. Bayla was very nervous at the beginning but Laila wasn't--she immediately started walking around and smiling at Bayla's grandparents and looking around the house. As more and more people arrived, [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I got pulled into separate conversations. I met someone who actually lives on our street just north of us, though sadly they'll be moving a couple miles west in two weeks. I don't remember the husband's name, but he told me about a pizza-by-the-slice restaurant called Pizza Mania very nearby that has delicious pizza. We talked about languages--the wife works as a bilingual Spanish/English kindergarten teacher--and then a German guy sat down and we talked about soccer, all the while Laila and [instagram.com profile] sashagee were drawing at the back table. Bayla eventually lost her shyness and started roaming around, and Laila made a mom very grateful to her because she sat in her lap, and then the mom's son Shimon, who was about eight months older than Laila, got jealous and wanted to sit in his mom's lap in a way he hadn't wanted to do in months. That's Laila, always bringing people together. Emoji Kawaii heart

When we left, Bayla waved and said "Bye Laila~." Both sets of parents are hoping they'll become friends with each other!

Alright, big project in so now it's back to work.

Purim 5783

2023-Mar-08, Wednesday 12:26
dorchadas: (Judaism Magen David)
I wrote a much longer post for Purim 5782 (including fun Purim trivia), but this year is going to be much shorter because the trivia remains true and the actual Megillah reading was exactly the same as last year. Including the commentary on the side, which in previous years was different. The Megillah is the same as it's always been so there's not exactly that much innovation I should expect, but it was still surprising.

The spiel was funny, though. My favorite part was the rabbinical Hot Ones, with kosher vegan chicken bites, asking each rabbi seven questions of which six were the same, that began with the following exchange:
Interviewer Zach Weinberg: "The Book of Esther is the only book of the Bible in which G-d is not mentioned. Do you think G-d is mad about that?"
Rabbi Steven: "I don't think G-d has feelings. I don't know, does G-d have feelings?"
[cut]
Rabbi Deena: "Yes."
Rabbi Lizzi: "No."
Also of note were the questions asking them to use their years of formal Conservative Judaism rabbinical schooling to name all of Haman's ten sons (no one got it right and Rabbi Steven outright refused to try). There was also this:
Interviewer Zach Weinberg: "[Da Bomb hot sauce] tastes terrible."
Rabbi Lizzi: "Yeah, why would anyone eat this?"
Interviewer Zach Weinberg: "This one I think they actually don't."
Rabbi Lizzi: "Why would they make it?"
Interviewer Zach Weinberg: "To hurt you."
I sat next to [facebook.com profile] aaronhparker and watched and drank my drinks--three this time after I found an extra ticket on the counter, my tradition of getting extra drinks continues--and then left when the spiel was done to get back to my family. The Executive Director was giving out hamantaschen on the way out so I took a couple for myself and a couple for [instagram.com profile] sashagee and Laila and got on the bus to go home.

Listening today is this Purim-related Steamed Hams meme.
dorchadas: (Maedhros A King Is He (No Text))
Blah blah hard to find time to write blah blah.

We've been taking advantage of Laila's youth and easy distractibility as long as there's food around to try to go to friends' for meals, since she's not old enough to get bored when adults are talking about grown-up things. On Saturday, [facebook.com profile] bunnydelfuego invited us over to a combination Havdalah/birthday celebration, so we took Laila and grabbed a bottle of wine on the way. When we got there, Laila was fascinated by the layout of their apartment--unlike most Chicago apartments (and our own condo) which are a long corridor with rooms along their length, [facebook.com profile] bunnydelfuego and [facebook.com profile] benjieweiss's apartment is laid out in a square. Laila was fascinated by this, and she spent quite a while just crawling or walking through doors in a circle trying to find out where the "end" was. Emoji Kawaii heart [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I traded off watching Laila while the other sat at the table and engaged in grown-up conversation. Laila spent a lot of time in the bathroom touching the tile or the fuzzy bathmat, briefly met Nugget--the rabbit in residence--and gave everyone hugs. We ate gyōza and bruschetta and drank gin punch and got Laila home in time for bed!

Sunday we went out to brunch with [facebook.com profile] aaron.hosek at Pauline's, a diner that's one of his favorite local restaurants. He expected it wouldn't be crowded but the lovely weather (20° and sunny) meant that it didn't matter we were late because the table wasn't ready until we got there. It was another lovely meal, though Laila got a little grumpy towards the end. The stand-out part was when she turned to the table of people next to us and shrieked, just a deafening scream (at baby scale), and when they turned to look at her she was just like Emoji ~ Cat smile Oh! Emoji ~ Cat smile Hello! Emoji ~ Cat smile How are you? Emoji ~ Cat smile Very cute but we're certainly going to have to civilize her a bit.

Perhaps uniquely, I didn't spend last night doomscrolling on the election. I have achieved zen detachment--無心 mushin, one might say--and thought that I had done what I could do and would have to let the world do what it could do. And B"H it turned out that the news is very good. In Illinois we put the right to collective bargaining into the constitution, the governor candidate who made repeated abortion/Shoah comparisons lost, and even the collar counties went Democratic which almost never happens. It turns out that the average voter is able to connect creeping fascism with the problems the country faces.

Does this mean I'm going to stop urging [instagram.com profile] sashagee to renew her passport, and stop plans to get Laila a passport? No. There's a saying that "Jews don't have roots, we have legs" and it's always good to have a plan. I remember reading a tweet from a Ukrainian back in February saying that a couple days prior she had been laughing and chatting out at a sushi restaurant with friends and now she was eating cold sandwiches and happy she had that much. Things can change very quickly.

We took Laila to the dentist yesterday and she did great! She obviously didn't like having her mouth messed with, but she didn't cry and she still gave the dentist a hug afterward! What a good baby.

Labor Day weekend

2022-Sep-06, Tuesday 09:35
dorchadas: (Chrono Trigger Campfire Scene)
Security guard: "Good morning, [[personal profile] dorchadas]!"
Me: "Good morning!"
Security guard: "I was starting to think they didn't have you work here no more."
Me: "They sent us home for like three months."
Security guard: "Oh my G-d. emoji V smile"
I'm back in the office! Tuesdays and Wednesday from now until the next change happens. We'll see when that is.

We did things over the weekend! )
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
dorchadas: (Azumanga Daioh Chiyo-chan bus gas)
As a one-year-old, Laila is no longer a little baby and so the nomenclature must change.

On Friday night, [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I drove out to her parents' place in the suburbs to spend the night so that we could properly get everything ready for the party. The suburban location meant that most of my friends couldn't come--a lot of live the true city existence and so don't own cars--but weather was going to be so lovely that the backyard was certainly the best place to hold it, so we did. On Saturday [instagram.com profile] sashagee and I blew up balloons, her parents hung up the "🍓 HAPPY 🍓 BIRTHDAY 🍓" banner, and [instagram.com profile] sashagee baked the cake that Laila would be eating.

I had never heard of the whole smash cake thing and neither had my parents--when I asked if my father knew about it, his answer was just "No" and when I explained it, he elaborated, "...why?"--and Laila didn't really do any fun kind of smashing. She saw some food in front of her and she immediately set about doing what babies do to food--eating it. No extra movements, no fuss, pure predatory efficiency. She ate the whole thing and then spent a while crawling around the yard, with no apparent effect from all the sugar (though [instagram.com profile] sashagee picked a mostly cream frosting so it wouldn't be incredibly sugary). She did stay up until almost 4:15 p.m. but the excitement from a lot of people probably led to that.

There are plenty of photos up on [instagram.com profile] sashagee's instagram but here are a couple more!:

Two pics of Laila )

Here's to many more happy birthdays in the future! Emoji Kawaii heart
dorchadas: (Judaism Magen David)
Yesterday and today is Purim (פורים, "lots" in the fortune-telling sense) and it's the first one since Purim 2020 that I've attended in person. It was even back at the Davis Theatre again, with the food out in the bar area, just like the first Mishkan Purimspiel I went to. The reader who did voices for the different characters was back!

[instagram.com profile] sashagee couldn't make it. Even if we had found a babysitter, she was too sick to go, which was a bit awkward when the rabbi emailed me on Tuesday and told me how happy she was to see our names on the guest list after everything that has happened in the last few months. She found me at the party pretty early (I'm very easy to spot) and expressed her regrets for everything we had gone through this year so far. Then she gave me a hug. Emoji glomp

The spiel was mostly pre-recorded video this year, and the real innovation is that it was a bunch of small skits put together with the aid of the Neo-Futurists, performers of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind and Chicago's best theatre group according to TimeOut magazine! And also very Jewish, apparently--the reason this happened is that there were at least six or seven Neo-Futurists in the audience at the Purimspiel. My favorite short was the first one they played, a parody of Seasons of Love called "Married to Mishkan" about being the partner of a rabbinical assistant and the "525,600 emails" they have to deal with, but also shoutouts to "My Dad Blows It Again," about the father of the presenter who literally wrote the book on shofarim, "Shofar Sho'Scary" chronicling how the team tasked with recording Mishkan's 2021 Rosh Hashanah services did not bring a tripod (and thus a parody of The Blair Witch Project), and "Mishkan: Reloaded," which was a Matrix parody by the technical director and ended with:
"I am one with the livestream.

"I am the one.

"I am...אחד." (echad, "one")
There was also a lot less innuendo than in most years:

2022-03-16 - Purim Slide

The one problem I had with the event was that they put out the dinner food before the Purimspiel, and the dessert food after...which meant that anyone like me, who's keeping Ta'anit Esther, couldn't eat any dinner food since the fast ended in the middle of the spiel. I grabbed a plate of a few things and brought it into the theatre, so my dinner was asparagus, mushrooms, a bit of salad, and cheese from the cheese plate eaten about halfway through the spiel, and then the hamantaschen from the goodie bags on the empty seats on either side. And then I walked three miles home because I missed the bus. Honestly, the walk was nice--I used to walk miles home alone at night all the time, back before the Plague Years when I had a full schedule and was out doing things all the time--but a full meal would have helped.

I did get flagged down by [facebook.com profile] bunnydelfuego, who recognized me from running into me at last week's Shabbat services, and it turns out she and her partner live nearby! Maybe [instagram.com profile] sashagee and her will get to meet soon like [twitter.com profile] thedukelord suggested.




For future reference, and if anyone is curious, here's some points from the traditional Jewish understanding of Esther's story that aren't necessarily obvious from a straight reading of the text (Heb: פשט‎ pshat).

Knowledge Within )
dorchadas: (Dreams are older)
I'm almost 40! And even though I'm objectively getting old and have a child now, I don't feel that old because people keep thinking I'm 30.

I don't have a lot of special plans for today--having a baby means I simply can't have a day all about me--but I do get to have curry tonight! [instagram.com profile] sashagee told me I could pick anywhere I wanted for dinner and so we're going to Indie Cafe, the Thai restaurant that also serves sushi (as is the custom for basically every Chicago Thai restaurant). It's in walking distance so I'll carry Laila, [instagram.com profile] sashagee will get some more exercise, and at twilight we'll head out for some delicious food.

I did have exciting plans last weekend, though! On Friday night [instagram.com profile] thosesocks came over after work in order to get some practice with babies, and stayed until [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans came over for dinner, so we opened a bottle of wine, played with Laila, and [instagram.com profile] sashagee cut [twitter.com profile] lisekatevans's hair extremely short for her upcoming theatrical role. And then on Saturday, [instagram.com profile] britshlez and [facebook.com profile] tom.hen.12 came over for dinner, I made chicken teriyaki, and we played Exploding Unicorns! [instagram.com profile] britshlez won after we used all of our tricks to stop [facebook.com profile] tom.hen.12 from winning, as tends to be the way of these things. All in all, I learned that at least while Laila is still young, it's relatively easy to have people over to our house for dinner--Laila's good at sleeping through things and she goes to bed around 8 p.m. We can definitely send out more invitations.

I also learned that I'd been pronouncing [facebook.com profile] tom.hen.12's name wrong! It's a transliteration problem--his name is תם חן, and when he moved to America he realized that transliterating his surname as "Chen" would give everyone the wrong impression, so he went with Hen. I changed it in my phone to Ḥen so I'd always remember...and then changed it to the Hebrew. My Japanese friends are in my phone with their names in Japanese, I should do the same courtesy for everyone else.

Homemade meal )

I'm sorry that I haven't been keeping up with people's posts! I managed it for a bit when Laila was smaller, but now that she's interacting with the world more and now that [instagram.com profile] sashagee is healed and we can do stuff together again it's a lot harder to find the time to sit down and read when there are so many other things competing for my time. I'm going to start reading again after Shabbat, though, and go as far back as I can. I hope everyone's been doing well!

Profile

dorchadas: (Default)
dorchadas

June 2025

M T W T F S S
      1
234 5 678
9101112 131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30      

Syndicate

RSS Atom