Listen to the Rain

The party comes to in an air pocket in the depths of the sea, in the city of the sahuagin.

Sahuagin are kind of odd. D&D has a bunch of underwater fish-like humanoids--the sahuagin, of course, but also the locathah, kuo-toa, skum (note K), and some underwater variants of dryland monsters like merrow (aquatic ogres) and scrags (aquatic trolls). But for some reason, it's the sahuagin that have taken most of the popular D&D consciousness. They got their own book for AD&D 2e, called The Sea Devils, and even showed up in the first Final Fantasy game as SAHAG. As a child I thought it stood for "Sea hag," but the Japanese is サハギン, so the source is pretty obvious. Looking at Wikipedia tells me the sahuagin originally date from Blackmoor, so maybe they get first billing simply by virtue of being the oldest.

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I don't really like being the center of attention at an event. I don't even like being the soft center, which is why I haven't had a party for myself in years--not since high school, I think. I thought about having a birthday party this year, but eventually decided against it. Maybe next year when I turn 35, since that's more of a milestone.

Which isn't to say that I'm one of those people who hates birthdays. I celebrate every year, just quietly, and this year was no different on that score. schoolpsychnerd met me on Friday after work and we walked the two blocks from my office to Benny's Chop House for the first of two birthday dinners. It wasn't my birthday, but August 19th (until sundown) was Tu b'Av, an ancient festival that died with the Second Temple and was forgotten until the Israelis revived it as a kind of Jewish Valentine's Day. I only know about it because of the Jewish holidays calendar addon I have in my phone calendar, but it's as good a reason for a fancy dinner as any, even if half of Benny's menu is an abomination before Hashem.

The parts that are good are really good, though:



schoolpsychnerd told me that my whole face changed when I took a bite. It was probably the best steak I've ever had in my life.

The next day, I woke up to a thunderstorm just like I had on Friday, which is probably the best weather I could have wanted on my birthday. My parents came into down and met my sister, who was already here meeting up with high school friends before her flight to Costa Rica today, and we went out to breakfast at a French-Vietnamese restaurant nearby. I got duck curry, because curry for breakfast sounds amazing to me at all times, and then we went back to schoolpsychnerd and my apartment until they all left to avoid the traffic. Then we mostly stayed at home until dinner time, when schoolpsychnerd made me even more duck:



Not visible there is the flourless chocolate cake she also made, this time with real vanilla extract. It's in the recipe, but schoolpsychnerd usually left it out because we don't use vanilla for that much and it would just sit around otherwise. But my parents gave me a bottle of it for my birthday along with a few other spices, so why not use it? And I think I could taste the difference, too.

I was feeling a bit off for most of my birthday, and I think it's because while I wanted to have a quiet weekend I still ended up with a lot of stuff to do--yesterday I woke up at 8:30 and it still seemed like it was dinnertime before I had even blinked. Today has gone a bit slower, though I still haven't gotten as much time as I'd liked. But we never have enough, do we?

I got to read more The Lord of the Rings to schoolpsychnerd today and have a quiet breakfast inside with her, and even though it's taking place today instead of yesterday, it's one of the best birthday presents I could have asked for. I don't mind getting older as long as those are the opportunities that it will bring.