Listen to the Rain

sashagee is off at an event tonight so I'm sitting at home. I just finished my exercise (70 minutes a day by the watch) and finished making a couple PRs for Cataclysm, so now I'm sitting down at my computer desk and playing Genshin Impact and watching some videos about the new WoW expansion that's coming out. Am I going to play it? Absolutely not. I'm out of WoW, and everything I've heard of Classic indicates that the way that people play is irrevocably changed and I would hate it if I went back. But the world is one of my favorite fictional worlds, so I still keep up with the story and the community around it no matter how bad things get (and they've gotten pretty dire at times).

On the other hand, I have been looking into buying Diablo II: Resurrected. I put thousands of hours into Diablo II over the years, from the summer of 2001 where uriany, sephimb, and I got together basically every single day after work and played Diablo II for hours right up until around 2017. While Blizzard botched Warcraft III Reforged to the level that it put me off continuing my journey through the Warcraft games (I reviewed Warcraft: Orcs and Humans back in 2017 and then just...never got around to any of the other games. Oops), I've heard that the Diablo II remaster was actually good, made by people who clearly care about Diablo without any of the nonsense from later Diablo games. Spell effects are way more impressive, the graphics are better, and you still have tons of runewords and synergies and so on you can make. Plus it has shapeshifting druids with nature magic, which is probably my favorite character type in any RPG. I'm going to wait for a sale, though--after thousands of hours there's no way I'm paying $40 for the same game again.

We had a Farmer's Market Dinner tonight but I sadly neglected to take a picture. It was (beef) BLTs, with beef bacon being the only non-farmer's market purchase. We used tomatoes from my parents' garden, lettuce and cucumber from Nichols' Family Farms, bread from Lost Larson, and blackberries from the farmer's market we went to last weekend out in the suburbs. Laila's plate had the most picturesque meal, all arranged together and given to her, and of course she smeared it all together within seconds of it being placed in front of her. She ate nearly everything, though.

We also ran into someone at the Farmer's Market yesterday who recognized me from Mishkan and asked if we were going to be at services tomorrow. They're outdoors, and last time Laila had a great time running around in the play area next to where people were seated, so I told her yes. We'll be there.

Thank you for your good wishes on my last couple of posts. I'm happy to say that the plague has mostly left our house--Laila is feeling much better, I have a small headache, and it's only sashagee that is still feeling terrible. She has a headache from all her coughing and a small fever, and is currently lying down on the couch trying to rest while watching spooky ghost hunter YouTube.

I took off work today because it was originally going to be the day I helped sashagee make Shabbat dinner for our guests tonight, but that's obviously been cancelled.

My mother had surgery on her leg and my father sent a video of her walking (with a walker) today! There's obviously been a lot of medical progress since I broke my leg 34 years ago, where I ended up laid up in the hospital for a month, in a cast for a month, and then unable to walk for a month while my muscles rebuilt themselves. As a seven-year-old, I had the energy to do all that rebuilding. Hopefully my mother will get to go home soon and she'll be able to see Laila next weekend.

Last Wednesday was the final farmer's market of the season, so even though I wasn't feeling particularly well, I put on a mask and dragged myself down there. Unfortunately the place I usually get my eggs from had run out and due to all the sickness in the house I had forgotten to preorder any, but I dig snag one last bag of apples and a pie from the local pie shop. Zeitlin's Deli was also there, and since they're primarily an online shop and it's unpredictable where I'll find them, I bought ḥallah for Shabbat tonight, a giardiniera focaccia which is spicy and absolutely delicious, and a half-dozen bagels. This morning, sashagee woke up and made a French toast bake out of most of the ḥallah but there's just a little bit left for the motzi tonight.

Alright, I need to get to the post office. More after Shabbat.

It's back after a long hiatus! At least for this week

sashagee and Laila are out in the suburbs right now, so that Laila's grandparents and great-grandmother can see her, so when I got back from this office it was just me. And since I was just going to the farmer's market by myself, I decided to try to assemble an old-style farmer's market dinner. I haven't posted one in a while because we kind of fell into a pattern of always eating Peking Order on weeks when she was there and getting some other prepared food on off weeks--sashagee's illness has meant that she very rarely felt well enough to actually cook, or sometimes even come to the farmer's market. Now that I'm back in the office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, though, and she's feeling better, she'll be the main one to be going to the farmer's market if we want to get things before they're all sold out. I'll have to meet her there.

Speaking of being back in the office, it's been okay! The office is even more empty than before, which makes me wonder exactly how things are going to go--my division is only in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and quite a few people are permanent work from home. The entire member services division is now work from home, which is a quarter of the floor. We paid for the naming rights on the building, and I expect that the upper management are going to want to keep going into the office as often as they can, but the rest of us? I don't know. Two days in/three days out is my preferred schedule, so I'm happy that's what we settled on--it lets me spend most of my time with my family while also giving me a couple days to go downtown and really buckle down and get work done. Today I went for a walk on the riverwalk and found that the overpriced gelato place I thought had closed forever was still open! The gelateo was still overpriced, but it was definitely delicious.

( Food pictures! )

Slow rest of the week, hopefully. I started reading an actual book on the train to work--Andrzej Sapkowski's The Last Wish--something I've sadly been neglecting for most of the pandemic. The beginning was really good, to the point that I'm probably going to finish it within the week. I used to read eighty books a year before the Plague Years! I don't think I'll get back to that again until I'm retired, what with a daughter to look after and sixty-percent-fewer train rides during the week, but maybe I can do half that. We can hope.

That was the slogan of the Thai restaurant I used to go to in Hiroshima City whose name I no longer remember and which Google can't find. Time marches on.

( Rice )

All in all, a harder farmer's market dinner. Maybe next time I should make my own onigiri, though I can't get rice at the farmer's market so it wouldn't go in one of these posts. With Argyle so close I can source all the ingredients there and make them myself with pickles and miso on the side. That might be a good post.

Normally I would have posted this yesterday but sashagee and I went out to visit her parents and her grandmother yesterday in the suburbs. Her parents are going down to Florida to help her other grandparents move and will be gone for two weeks, and the grandparent who is here is in poor health. But only poor physical health--she said she didn't want to carry Laila because she was worried she might drop her, but there was nothing wrong with her mind. sashagee's parents cooked fish and made a salad with feta, walnuts, strawberries, blueberries, and put the fish on top, and most of the time we sat around and talked. At one point sashagee went with her stepmother to Costco and I sat outside talking with her grandmother until Laila got sleepy. Then Laila got angry, so I had to retreat into the bedroom to let her sleep on my lap. We can still do things even as new parents, but we're at the mercy of a tiny, very angry tyrant.

Speaking of Laila, she's able to independently grab things now! Not very well, and she can't hold on for very long, but we have some teething toys and when we hand one to her she'll hold it up to her mouth and nom on it. Most of the time. She's still figuring out her hands but as I write this she's over in her swing, holding on to her toy and chewing it. Delicious.

( And speaking of delicious )

Laila can also fold her hands, which she's doing now. It's so cute, you don't even know.

Going to walk down to First Sip, where I used to go with meowtima for weekend morning coworking sessions, with thosesocks and get some drinks! I haven't had one of their gold milk teas or ubae noir tea in years at this point. Years. Now's the chance.

They finally released the return-to-work plan and it's...well. While surveys indicated that 40% of the workforce wanted to remain at home full-time, that's nowhere in the plan at all. Currently from July to September, people are allowed to return to the office if they want and are vaccinated, from September to December people are encouraged to return to the office, and from January every has to come back. People can come either every day or a hybrid three days in, two days at home model, where Monday and Wednesday have to be two of the days in the office. That's certain a way to completely ignore your workforce's expressed preferences!

On the announcement, someone asked 1) Considering the increased transmissability of the Delta variant, will we still not be requiring masks at work as currently indicated in the plan and 2) A bunch of people moved out of state to care for relatives or save money, will they have to move again to one of the listed allowed remote-work states? It's been a few days and there's still not answer to those questions, and considering I have an infant at home and WHO suggested re-masking even for the vaccinated, I'm very curious about the answer to 1. I've talked to people in meetings that moved far away as well, like to Hawaii or Oregon, so 2 doesn't apply to me but I do want to know the answer. Further updates as I receive them.

Laila continues to grow, as babies do. She hasn't fully mastered smiling in response to happy stimuli yet but she's starting to smile at us She's also started to make noise other than breathing and screaming! Nothing more distinct than "wawawawawawa" or "ba ba ba" yet, but that will come. The cooing stage has begun!

She also had her first diaper overflow a few days ago. Babies develop in many ways.

( 🔥 F 🔥 O 🔥 O 🔥 D 🔥 )

This is a long weekend! Tomorrow we're going to sit outside with arsduo and friends, and on the 4th we're going to the beach to watch the fireworks. Going to spend some time with my family otherwise since I haven't gotten to do as much of that since I went back to work. They're both asleep right now after Laila (meaning sashagee) had a rough night and sashagee has her second vaccine appointment today. It might be a rough day as well, so they'll need the rest.

Part of parenting is flexibility and that means that Farmer's Market Dinner is on a Thursday this week.

We went to the farmers' market at the normal time and met aaron.hosek there! We were thinking of meeting him there last week but he had to go get his car cleaned, but we did meet his girlfriend there by happenstance! This week we walked over and met him there, he got to meet Laila, he bought dinner--pizza and donuts, but from the farmer's market so they're obviously much healthier--and we bought the ingredients for burgers because that's what sashagee wanted! I made curry last weekend and then a couple days ago I made fried rice using chicken hearts and livers that we also got from the farmer's market, and sashagee is still a bit sensitive to food, so I have a lot of leftovers to eat. But burgers? Those she can do.

( Burg )

That's all for today--I have a bunch of extra stuff to do so I need to get to it! I do have to go get a birth certificate tomorrow, though, so I may have more to write then (or after Shabbat), depending.

That time has come again!

I'm currently sitting with Laila on my lap, wrapped in a blanket and sound asleep as I write this. She's still refusing to fall asleep without direct contact with one of us--it turns out that humans needs to be taught how to make themselves fall asleep--and we haven't accomplished that yet, so one of us always needs to be up so we can hold her to let her fall asleep. The pediatrician that sashagee went to on Tuesday recommended just plopping her in the bed and letting her cry, and while it's true that we shouldn't come running every single time she makes a noise since learning to self-soothe is a vital human skill, that doesn't mean that a week-old-baby needs to be abandoned to learn that life is cruel. We'll be tired for a bit and try to gradually teach Laila that her bassinet is not a cold place where she's all alone and that mommy and daddy are right there with her. But until then, well, I slept four hours last night and sashagee is asleep right now. Hence my insomnia icon--I think it's never been more appropriate.

( Dinner )

That's it for this post--I made time for the farmer's market but it's hard to have time for much else. sashagee's family came to visit so I met her grandmother and mother finally, and they gave us a four-hour nap on Sunday which was probably the greatest gift they could have given us. Her parents are coming again this weekend, and then my parents next weekend. I have a feeling that we'll be seeing a lot more of both in the future, because this is the first grandchild for both sides and she's probably going to be spoiled rotten. There are worse fates.

I was all set to write here about the beautiful fall weather and the falling leaves and how much I love going out and leaf-viewing, but when I went outside it was 24° and sunny, and even after the sun set I was still sweating when I brought home the farmer's market haul plus the additional food that sashagee requested. And the food I got, since when I saw that they had apple fritters at the farmer's market, I had to buy a package. Then I had to get a cabbage because I was almost out of vegetables at home, and pretty soon I had two full bags in each hand and my muscles were burning and it was a struggle to get everything home.

But I did! And I also met up with arsduo and britshlez at the farmer's market, after almost an entire summer of trying to arrange going to the farmer's market at the same time and only managing to once. And I learned that next week is not actually the last week of the farmer's market, it'll be some indefinite time in the future. Not all of the vendors are going to be back, but two of the ones I go to pretty frequently will, as they told me when I went to pick up food from them. I'm not sure if there will be enough to construct a weekly dinner the way I've been doing for the past few months, but at least I'll still be able to pick up some of my favorite foods. Like the chicken chorizo I got from Green Fire Farm today when I saw it on their sign--that's going in curry.

And speaking of food:

( Farmer's Market Dinner )

sashagee spent basically all day playing Genshin Impact after her father and brother called her yesterday when we were playing Final Fantasy XIV together and asked her to play with them, so she downloaded the game last night. It looks a lot like Breath of the Wild, from the slightly cartoonish aesthetic to climbing ancient ruins to to gliding down from high places to grassy fields filled with goblin-like creatures. It has a lot more anime boob witches than BotW does, though, and I haven't been paying enough attention to know what the story is. Maybe I'll try it out, if I can figure out exactly how the monetization works. I'm leery of free-to-play games.

I did not watch the debate because why would I? There is literally nothing in the world that could possibly make me vote for Trump. If Biden had torn off his skin-suit and revealed that he was an advance scout for the Q'kani Annhilators, here to bathe our world in cleansing flames and incorporate it in their empire, I'd say, "Well, at least they'll get the plague under control."

Monday was Yom Kippur, held entirely online. It was pretty rough, to be honest--the best part of Yom Kippur services is the feeling of community, and being all together in the same place makes the fasting easier. Last year was one of the best experiences I've had at Mishkan, spending Kol Nidrei there and then spending the entire following day praying and singing and learning with hundreds of other people and then going to Break Fast at the end. This year sashagee wasn't feeling well and everything was streamed, so I stayed home, I spent most of my time in the office staring at a screen, listening to pre-recorded songs and live (?) talks by the rabbis, and it felt more like something I was just getting through. As I said in a meeting yesterday, I spent all of Yom Kippur in a room, watching a screen, and it felt like a normal work day except I was fasting. It's supposed to be separate, but it really didn't feel like it.

My book group today just finished Mortal Kombat, the novelization of the movie, which was...certainly words on a page. It started so promisingly, with the creation of the world and then Kung Lao in China 1500 years ago, and then it turns into multiple character introductions and random fights and effectively the character select screen and splash page with Techno Syndrome playing over the top of it. I mean, with dialogue like

"Nice try, but between the two of us you're the Lao man on the totem."

...when Kano fights Kung Lao, what else do you need? Characterization? A satisfying ending? A plot that isn't derived from a video game strategy guide? FINISH HIM.

( Farmers' Market Dinner )

sashagee hasn't been feeling well lately due to, in her words, "feminine problems," but she's on the mend now. She couldn't do much other than sleep at the end of last week, but now she's eating soup behind me as we both play Final Fantasy XIV. Right as the weather turns to real fall, too. When she's feeling better, I want to go back to Horner Park where I heard the shofar over Rosh Hashanah for leaf-viewing and a picnic before the weather gets too cold.

Fall slammed into Chicago like a freight train on Monday, when the weather went from late-summer sunny and 30°C to the current cloudy, rainy, and 20°C with 16°C nights. It's just a brief bit of cold weather, though--real fall begins next week, when the weather will be 15°C nights and 27°C days. Fall in Chicago is basically summer during the day and winter at night, through the end of September and sometimes even October. But I just ordered a bunch of autumn-themed tea and I'll take advantage of the chill while I can.

The movie trailer for Dune came out! I've already watched it multiple times, and while the first time I was a bit unsure, seeing Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides ratcheted up my excitement, and everything after Paul said "Fear is the mind-killer" was fantastic. By the end, I was internally chanting, "Show us the Worm, show us the Worm, show us the Worm!" and they did not disappoint.

I'm also glad they seem to be focusing on the philosophical end, with much of the early part of the trailer being the gom jabbar and the meaning of humanity. I've already seen some people online questioning whether Dune is another white savior narrative and I really hope that the movie goes is true to the book's message that basically all saviors are bad. Paul doesn't save anything--he destroys galatic government, he destroys the Fremen culture, his children destroy the ecosystem of Arrakis, there's basically nothing but bad results from his Jihad. If the movie casts Paul as a glorious hero instead of a tragic figure trying desperately to avoid his destiny, it'll have failed even if it looks amazing. Dune is one of my favorite books of all time, so I really hope that this movie gets it right. It goes both ways, though. I've similarly seen people who clearly don't understand the book say they hope the movie isn't full of "SJW bullshit."

The casting is great, though. Oscar Isaac, yes, but Zendaya looks fantastic as Chani, and Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho (the true protagonist of the Dune series!) works far better than I thought it would.

The trailer does feature the extremely-cliché "slowed-down epic version of pop song" soundtrack over it, in this case Eclipse by Pink Floyd, but I can forgive it because Jodorowsky wanted Pink Floyd to do the soundtrack for his version of Dune.

( Farmer's Market dinner )

I just got back from lisekatevans’s balcony, where she invited me for drinks. The original plan was to sit out on a pedestrianized section of the street she lives on, but it's too cold and rainy for that. She made me a gin cocktail, we talked, and I took the train home becuase my leg is bothering me a bit. Now I'm waiting for sashagee to get off work.

I just ordered that book this year--time to read it.

It's currently the month of אלול Elul, which means the High Holy Days are almost upon us. It seems like it was just recently that I was at the Mishkan Purim event and now Rosh Hashanah is in three weeks! This really is a weird year.

Everything is virtual this year, of course. I haven't found a lot of satisfaction in most of the virtual offerings that Mishkan puts out, to the point that I basically stopped attending on Shabbat, but it doesn't have anything to do with Mishkan's efforts. It's entirely me--it's how virtually we can't sing together, and how there's no sensation of community from a bunch of squares on a screen. I go to morning minyan because it's a small audience and I see the same people, and honestly because it's always the same so the comfort of the process is nice. Despite all of that, I signed up for basically every single High Holy Days offering available: A mindfulness session called "Creating Days of Awe," another Mish Mosh small discussion group, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services, and the gift box they're sending out for the High Holy Days (Mishkan mask and kippah, Mishkan-branded coffee, etc). I might get the break fast through Goddess and the Grocer, too, I'm not sure yet. Normally I'd get High Holy Days tickets for free for being a member, but I think it's different this year thanks to the plague. Well, I used to watch livestreamed Kol Nidrei before I joined Mishkan, so this is coming full circle.

I did the boring adult thing for my birthday and just asked for money so I could put it towards new cookware. I have a 10-inch non-stick frying pan that I think I got at the local hardware store and some pot that I got from...somewhere? The non-stick coating on the frying pan is finally starting to go, so I definitely need to stop using it before Telfon becomes a major component of my diet, and the pot still works fine but is really banged up. So I bought two stainless steel replacements in the same size as my current pot and pan, and I'm going to make sure to keep them clean as long as I can. I'm doing a lot more cooking now that sashagee basically lives here so I need cookware that can hold up. A generic non-stick pan isn't going to cut it anymore.

( Farmer's Market dinner )

I've been thiniking about rearranging my home. Right now I have the TV in the sun nook, across from the sofa and with a coffee table in the middle, and normally there's a recliner that used to belong to my grandfather sitting facing the windows so I can watch the sunset, but I moved it into the office so that sashagee can sit on it when we play games together. What I want to do is put a loveseat in the office, move the TV into there, and then put a couple more seats on ther other side of the coffee table, making the sun nook a little gathering area where people can sit and talk--you know, once we're allowed to get together and do that again. Then the office can be an entertainment and gaming room and the living and dining area will be more social. Right now I'm looking at this loveseat, probably in that grey color. I like the burgundy but I'd almost rather paint the room that color and have a grey loveseat pop out rather than have a burgundy loveseat in a grey room.

I also want to put some glass shelves in the weird cut-outs in the walls, and the local hardware store does custom glass cutting. Then I can move all my Zelda amiibo to the shelves and give them a better display spot.

Well, now I'm a real adult--I just paid my mortgage again today and I'm talking about rearranging and remodeling. Soon I'll have a favorite brand of dish detergent!

Dinner took too long to make so I didn't go to meditation, but I've been playing games this evening and drinking water to deal with my headache. It's supposed to get much cooler this weekend and I, for one, am here for it.

Not much time and not a lot happened that I haven't written about, so this post is mostly just about dinner.

( Farmer's Market dinner )

Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm planning to meet some people in a secluded park for a little party. Bring your own cocktails, wear your finest goth attire (britshlez called it "A Walk in the Dark"), sit on your own little tarp, and see some people I haven't seen in months. Then I took Friday off and sashagee and I might go to Starved Rock for hiking, or we might go out to Route 34 Drive-in where they're playing Footloose and Grease, both of which I've already seen (amazingly), but not for decades. As plague birthdays go, I think it'll be a good one.