Listen to the Rain

Saturday morning was baby Shabbat, where Laila was once again the most active child there. She didn't try to steal any food this time, fortunately, but she constantly wandered around, touched the guitar of the person leading the songs, and sat in the laps of a couple other mothers. The most hilarious part was when she grabbed me and wanted to go wander the halls outside, and as soon she heard the Motzi start and I said, "Laila, listen, it's challah time" she immediately turned and ran back into the room. She knows what she wants and what she wants is food.

She was very angry at Shabbat brunch since it took us a while to order food, but when it came she was perfectly happy. And thosesocks, maptekar, and worldbshiny all came! dinaraua was set to come but caught the plague at the last moment, but hopefully she can make the next one. And I have something to order for the next time, since thosesocks and worldbshiny both ordered the Florentino and it looked absolutely delicious. The people complaining about avocado toast have no idea what they're missing.

After Laila's nap and dinner I said goodbye to sashagee and Laila--Laila usually cries when I leave but this time she was watching Sesame Street and just said "bye bye" nonchalantly--and walked out to take the bus and train combo out to the Embassy Suites Rosemont O'Hare to attend a party. I don't have much to say about the party other than it was a ton of fun, but it was. Everyone said hi when I came in, people told me I looked amazing, I sat next to gracielizabeth for a while, I talked to staina.x about parenting, spacedragon gave me some squid snacks which I sadly had to decline, gmarchan gave me some discontinued Hakushuu whiskey which I absolutely did not decline. I stayed for three hours before the party finally ended and most people went out to the rave, but I didn't have a badge so I texted another group of friends. That led to talking to redpikachu for a few minues before she had to run off and timothy.beier for about half an hour while he caught me up on his life. I even got to see mabown, unlike 2019!

I wrote before that my days of going to ACEN might be behind me, but that might not be true. I told sashagee that the Anime Chicago people were asking me when I was going to bring her to more events, and she watches literally ten times (maybe twenty times) as much anime as I do so she is far more qualified to have anime discussions than I am. Back at ACEN 2019 I went to all the panels about translation and data analysis and tea ceremony and nothing about anime, and that's fine. There are people who go to ACEN and spend the whole weekend playing tabletop games!

On the way to Baby Shabbat we had seen that the Renegade Art Fair was taking place on Clark Street through Sunday, so Sunday after breakfast we got Laila clothed and walked a couple blocks to it. I got some more bar soap, some hot sauce--it was the Bravado Aka Miso Ghost Reaper, which led to a disaster later when I put it on my stir fry and despite my best efforts Laila took a liiiiiiiiiiiiiittle piece of broccoli off the table and put it in her mouth and immediately started wailing--and this:


They're hand-painted! The owner (co-owner?) spent some time as a pastry chef and also lived in Kyōto, and while when I first saw it I was really hoping that they were wagashi I soon came to my senses--wagashi are far too fragile to be worth the risk making for sale in most of America. They're truffles and they're delicious. We had the pandan one yesterday after lunch and hopefully we'll have another one today, and sashagee was thinking this would be good presents for my parents. My mother is not as big a chocolate fan as my father, but these are strongly flavored and I think she'd like them. Especially lychee rose, pineapple cookie, or yuzu.