Security guard: "Good morning, [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. "

I'm back in the office! Tuesdays and Wednesday from now until the next change happens. We'll see when that is.


On Friday I went to I think the first concert any SO has ever invited me to when sashagee took me out to a kpop concert. I know basically nothing about kpop other than the existence of some bands--Girls' Generation, T-ara, BTS, etc--and that whenever I listen to Korean my brain misfires and interprets it as "Japanese but where I can't understand any of the words," so I had no idea what to expect. I posted about it on Facebook and a friend asked me who I was going to see. I replied "Someone named Sunmi" and got a couple 😮 reactions from people for whom that was a big deal. sashagee played some of her songs for me in the week leading up to the concert, I got used to the sound, and then on Friday afternoon my parents came over to watch after Laila, we got on the bus and went a few stops away to the same theater where I saw Heilung, got drinks, and took our seats.


I think this was the first concert I ever went to with a dance routine, so the actual technical performance surprised me. Some of it was lip synched, of course, since it's hard to sing well while also doing the dance moves, but some of it was live--and obviously so, since Sunmi was clearly winded while singing. I assume this is normal, but I was still impressed. Though the internet tells me that some singers actually pre-record tired vocals to create the illusion that they're fully live in case they needed to take a breather! Who knows.

The music was good! Some songs I liked more than others--the one in the listening section, "pporappippam," "Heroine," the ones with a bit more of an EDM or city pop vibe. Of course, I understood none of the Korean lyrics and still have not looked them up, so I'm certainly missing some kind of deep symbolism or meaning. The Youtube video comments mention that "Siren" is about someone who breaks up with their boyfriend because she can't match his idealized version of her and is tired of trying but I only understand that now, having looked it up. Still, the experience of the music without knowing the meaning was fun.

In writing this I learned that despite dumping hanja for hangul for most things, Korean names still have hanja attached to themselves. Sunmi's is 李宣美 Lee Sun-mi.

After the concert, we took advantage of the time to go out for dinner. sashagee asked me about some restaurants as we walked north and when we reached Rakkan (楽観, "Optimism"), which I had heard about a couple days before from worldbshiny, and that's the one she settled on. They're a Japanese chain, and their main selling point is that all their broth is vegetable-based--very rare in Japan where tonkotsu broth is king. I ordered the "spicy garnet" ramen, with chicken, and when it came the chicken was in a small bowl on the side so it would stay crispy. I put it in the broth and:


It was delicious. worldbshiny and I are definitely going there, and sashagee and I are definitely going back. There's a creamy-spicy limited-time ramen on there that she wants to try.

We got home and my parents went home, but little baby Laila--who had been very calm while they were there and had gone down to sleep without much fuss--woke up right as they left and took out her annoyance that we had missed her bedtime on us. She was up, crying on and off, for two hours. She finally got to sleep around 1 a.m., after which I could finally go to sleep as well.

Saturday morning we took it easy and after Laila's second nap, we went over to Margate Park where arsduo was having his birthday party! He lives in Toronto now, having just recently signed a lease, but comes back every once in a while to visit family and friends. WE didn't actually get to talk with him that much, though, because we didn't stay that long--we showed up, arsduo's boyfriend meakoopa's gave us a bunch of food, we tried to make sure Laila didn't choke herself on bread, and talked to a woman named Marian about feeling out of place. She told us that she had moved here from Germany basically as soon as she could arrange it, and it was nice being able to totally reinvent herself, knowing that everyone who new the old her was an ocean away. She also told us that she knew a Jewish couple who lived nearby, and would probably love to meet us, but were currently away traveling and wouldn't be back for quite a while. sashagee gave her her number, and according to what she said, we'll get a text in eight months or so letting us know that Aaron and Hannah are back in town.

Sunday we didn't do anything. We were originally going to go to cillic's annual Labor Day barbecue, but sashagee had a stomachache for most of the day so she spent it lying down.

On Monday, she felt better, though, and Sunday lisekatevans invited us to a dinner party. I had warned her that I wasn't sure we'd be able to go with the way that sashagee was feeling, but she rallied after the morning! Laila did not--she had a tummyache that kept her from taking her second app at all and made her extremely cranky for most of the afternoon--but everyone was feeling well later, so around 4 p.m. we drove over and sashagee got to see lisekatevans's new place! We ate vegetarian lasagna and garlic bread, Laila mostly fed herself after sashagee cut up the lasagna, and I talked with worldbshiny about how I've been in the last couple months and with with a film professor about D&D, board games--I recommended the game Android and the RPG Blades in the Dark--and about Japanese. It turned out that he was taking private tutoring and planning to take N4 this year (I passed N3 back in 2018), so he's going to text me about my studying strategies. It was so lovely to go to a party and talk with more adults! sashagee told me that she, lisekatevans, and worldbshiny are going to go out for drinks sometimes, I'm going to Rakken with worldbshiny when she's available next, and we're going to brunch with lisekatevans next Saturday!

Assuming everyone feels well enough, anyway.

When we got home, I started vacuuming so everything would be clean for when I was at the office today and I noticed some water on the floor. What's worse, there was glistening on the floor under the cabinet next to the refrigerator, and long story short the water line leading into the fridge was dripping. I pulled the fridge out, shut off the water, sashagee and I cleaned everything up, and we ordered a water pitcher. We're going to get the pipe fixed eventually--B"H it's just the copper pipe from the valve to the fridge, not actually in the wall--but for the moment we'll do it the old-fashioned way. But it's okay going to be some strange-tasting matcha until then, I think.