В жизни как обычно нет гармонии
There was a birthday in there.

What I usually get for my birthday is mostly depressed, and have to work quite hard to forestall utter despair, but this year had its decks extra stacked against me.

Spouse had an opportunity to go to New York that weekend, and a month ago that seemed like a grand idea - I might take time off and run around town and we'd have evenings in the city together. Then with Omicron this seemed like a bad, bad idea, and I asked him if he could decline the trip and resigned myself to the notion of a quiet weekend in.

Then his work situation became more dire, and he'd had to un-decline, such that he'd leave town the Wednesday before my birthday and return on Sunday after it. But given Omicron it seemed like a very bad plan to go with.

I still took a day off on my birthday, because last year I hardly took any time off and I feel like work owes me, so I've been looking for excuses, and had asked for it along with my usual annual standing requests of Jewish holidays and conventions and the like.

So I settled in for a mostly quiet solo weekend.

A party was definitely well beyond what I thought reasonable in Omicron Times, and the weather absolutely precluded anything but lurking indoors. But a pair of my equally cautious friends were willing to come and keep me company for the evening, so this was nice. (One of them even offered to drop by early given my day off. He didn't actually manage to get here until nearly off work time, but that he had a thought in the first place was appreciated.)

The evening prior I had a craving and obsessively made a flourless chocolate cake with a rum glaze. It kept me occupied, I suppose. I read a bunch, too. Later in the evening I tossed up a last-minute zoom to see if anyone might join me to usher in midnight. A pair of folks I rarely get to talk to dropped by, as did NoLabels, so that was nice.

Spouse worked an overnight shift in NYC and got off work around 9am. His plan was originally to get some sleep and work a regular shift the next day, but evidently the final workday was no longer necessary, so he was hoping to get some sleep and drive home in the afternoon. By 10-11am he realized that sleep was not happening and decided to hit the road then.

My father called me in the early afternoon and asked if I wanted to have a drink with him over zoom. Sure, why not. I concocted a beverage of rum and sour cherry syrup. (Did I mention clafoutis are really easy to make? Well, if you use jarred sour cherries you end up with lovely cherry-water-sugar stuff you've gotta do _something_ with). I pre-gamed with him a bit and nursed the drink and a book for a while.

Spouse came in eventually utterly exhausted and tried to go get sleep. He failed. He went back to bed. He got up meandered the house. He was too wired to sleep. He was too tired to be awake. He alternated between these two states for the rest of the day. The rest of the weekend, really. Or even more really I'm not sure he's entirely recovered yet.

The Favorite Ex made me a batch of decadently fudgy brownies and, not being up for being Indoors with People, dropped them off. (The next day his wonderful wife also dropped off her excellent noodle kugel which she knows I'm fond of, and I was able to hand them some samples of Ex's brownies, my cake and the clafouti)

My guests showed up eventually. We drank and ordered pizzas and watched the Macbeth movie and talked until the silly hours of the night, and if what I needed from the evening was for my mind to be elsewhere, with their help I succeeded eventually. I went to sleep by 4am.

I woke up entirely too early the next day and was an exhausted zombie. I puttered about and read and went to sleep early and slept for 14 hours, which is pretty much unheard of for me, and puttered around and read some more through the whole long weekend.

One break from the read-and-puttering was visiting a friend who had less-than-week-old puppies. I'm really not a dog person, but she had a theory that it might do me good to interact with pre-velociraptor-phase dogs, and perhaps it was. I did pretty ok with the mom dog also. (But the other household dogs are high strung and freak me out a bit).

Meanwhile I am volunteering for the virtual side of Boskone, which is not my usual, but it's running hybrid and they need remote crew. And in person in April for CostumeCon which is in my town this year - here's hoping it's safe to have a con by then. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/355436.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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days and weeks and years
New Years' celebrations are Important to me.

They were the biggest of deals in my childhood. Some of the traditions - trees and presents and costume parties - did not translate to transitioning to the US. But greeting the year with friends was one I was not willing to let go of.

Nor cooking way too much. (If only to not have to keep doing it through the rest of the weekend when I'm probably hung over).

The Olivier salad was all but mandatory, of course. I tossed together a pair of apple kugels, cranked out a tray of rum balls (ok, vodka and peanut butter cream liqueur balls), and, by way of an experiment, a clafouti, which turned out to be ridiculously easy to make and relatively forgiving of newbie errors. Spouse also made a large roast and some vegetables to go with it.

Another of my personal traditions was to watch the fireworks - we have a Midnight at 7 event which has a display at 7pm for the kids. It appears that more people are catching on that it's a thing - over the years we used to just about have a parking garage across the street to ourselves for a view, but it was well-populated this time. Not crowded, and one could easily stay far away from other groups, but I suspect in a few years it may well be.

Favorite Ex and Wife came by later in the evening. The weather was a bit drizzly, but warm enough to spend the evening safely outdoors by the firepit. Fog gets quite spectacular in my back yard, and while the dampness meant that the fire took a bit of time to get going, it eventually burned bright and gorgeous. We had a bit of whiskey and some desserts and wonderful, comfortable conversation, and champagne at midnight.

I finished the night on a zoom with a few of my favorite people. It was nice. I did not stay up too late.

My attempt to sleep in was thwarted by Spouse's phone making bloopy noises. As it did the morning after, too, but I was able to doze off eventually.

Turkeymas was virtual again, and this year hampered a little by there being a tiny in-person gathering at the host's house, so a number of people I would like to have seen were largely preoccupied with seeing each other. Which I can hardly begrudge them, but it made for a disorganized zoom event as the remote crew, myself included, were thrown by the communication protocols of the two environments.

It was so frustrating that I left, which did give me an opportunity to go for a fabulous walk in the still-warm weather.

With my departure the host seems to have realized just how bad it was getting, and attempted to explain his logic, which I am sure was logical to him, but I'm quite sure that he wanted to host two parties at once, one for himself with his closest friends and another for the obligation of hosting, which no doubt is also important to him, but his having and eating of his cake left me with a sour taste in my mouth and a lousy mood from feeling like I was home alone and outside looking in.

Sunday the temperatures dropped quite radically, so I spent the day curled up reading a book before going dancing in the evening.

On Monday I had a day off. Spouse did not, but was prevented from heading to the office by the rather dramatic snow - it looked pretty enough, but the roads were an unholy mess, and it took him an hour and a half to make his way 15 minutes down the road, turn around and return.

My birthday is coming up. We were contemplating another trip to NYC for Spouse's work, but with Omicron and cases going up in New York even more than here that seems entirely too dangerous.

So does rehearsing a live show, so I've deferred my directing project until the cases slow down.

Which leaves me... well, not much of anywhere. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/355072.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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Con Report - Discon III
[aaargh this post has crashed 3 times and I keep rewriting it and it keeps crashing so maybe it's not as coherent as its first version was].

Home from "Discon ai-ai-ai!" aka CurseCon aka The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I had an amazing time of it. For me it involved working with awesome people on accomplishing awesome things, if sometimes under less than ideal conditions, but this is absolutely what I signed up for.

Kudos and thanks forever to my intrepid Assistant Lighting Designer, without whom I could have done none of it.

( Pre-conCollapse )

( Wednesday - OpeningCollapse )

( Thursday - ConcertCollapse )

( Friday - MasqueradeCollapse )

( Saturday - the HugosCollapse )

( Sunday - Closing CeremoniesCollapse )

And now we get to do it - well, much of it - all over again, as CostumeCon is in the area in April, and for my sins I'm its Assistant Technical Director. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/354563.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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How not to make pastila
It all started when I read an article on Atlas Obscura, The Historic Russian Recipe That Turns Apples Into Marshmallows. Hmm, thought I, that would be neat.

I thought back to my childhood and realized that while many characters in books clearly found this substance delectable, I could not recall a single opportunity to have ever sampled it. So, armed with a total absence of expectation of how it's supposed to go, I started by finding more recipes. For reasons unknown to myself I searched in English, and found this other version, which is similar enough in methodology. Cook some apples. Make goo. Mix with eggs and sugar. Bake most of the goo. Peel and slice into parts, put together into layers lubricating with remaining goo, bake some more.

It later occurred to me to search for the recipe in Russian, and it turned out that nobody seems to actually bother with the whole slice and rebake thing. I did confirm that it is the authentic technique for the fancy-shmancy variety produced in the town of Belyov, which I'd never heard of before. Also that actual people make it from any random fruit, not just apples. Also that the same name applies to another substance which is more fruit leather than marshmallow, that being the Kolomna regional variant. (I have heard of Kolomna because Pushkin wrote a poem named after it. Incidentally, he was stuck in quarantine due to a cholera outbreak at the time.) Also that most recipes don't bother to annotate which variety they are going for.

The recipe calls for tart apples, and in absence of a proper antonovka Granny Smith should do, but what was cheap at the market was fujis, so in fujis went. (This might have been a mistake if apple acidity matters, which it may well.) The recipe called for 6 of them, but these particular apples were extra enormous, so I went for 5 and hoped.

They got baked for a bit longer than expected, did not squish easily, got baked some more, and then Spouse heroically and at some cost to his scraped knuckles pulverized them into something largely indistinguishable from store-bought apple sauce. Note to self, should we attempt it again, just buy a big-ass jar of apple sauce.

Let cool, said the next step, mix with stuff, and then bake for 4-7 hours. Who in the world has 7 hours? We shoved the applesauce into The Big Fridge also known as "on the covered porch", where it spent about a week waiting for us to be up for babysitting it for that long.

The subsequent weekend the sauce did not seem any worse for the wear, so we mixed it with egg whites and sugar, if perhaps not quite sufficiently. It turned out the egg whites we had were a bit ancient so we separated some eggs. Which did of course result in having to come up with a recipe for egg yolks. Maybe we should have just fried them. (The most commonly google-suggested thing to do with egg yolks is lemon curd, which is not me-compatible for health reasons.)

Anyway, into the oven it went. Forever and ever and ever. The article promised eventually the stuff would be easy to peel off the parchment. We did not quite reach that phase, but eventually decided that sleep mattered more. Back outside the stuff went, and it took another week for us to gather the wherewithal to deal with it again.

The final step started with peeling it from the parchment. This is when it occurred to us that we did not bother to lubricate it, because neither recipe said to. Many of the Russian ones do, though. Between this omission and the stuff being possibly not quite as dry as expected, whether due to undercooking or to a week of whatever humidity happened to be outside, detaching it without ripping was non-trivial. Especially about the edges where the baked goo was thinner. (Note to self, should I do this again, corral the side goo inward). The few sections that did peel cleanly looked awesome, though, and the bits that got stuck to the parchment were tasty. One really could stop at this point.

Nonetheless, we followed the alleged example of ye olde proper pastila-makers of Belyov.

One is to have reserved some sweetened eggy apple goo to use to lubricate the slices, which is pretty clever. (In the town of Rzhev, also never heard of it, they make other-fruit-goo just for that purpose, but I honestly like the apple on apple action here better.) Glopping more of it on top of the not-so-pretty parts of where the previous step's peeling left unsightly pits was pure genius, and after another round in the oven the end result looked pretty and smooth.

I'm not entirely convinced we baked _this_ step sufficiently either, as some of it turned out a bit gooey rather than airy. Also, one can optionally roll it, and we exercised that option for ease of storage, but we totally forgot to confectioner's sugar it first, despite buying the stuff for that very purpose.

Thus over 3 weeks of intermittent effort we successfully converted 5 enormous apples into one mid-size roll of concentrated goopy fluffy apple stuff. Our preparation method will not win any prizes and may be a bit too unsightly to share with company, but it's really hard to mess up the concept of "sugared apple" flavor-wise, and perhaps we might someday try that again. Just as soon as we have too many sour apples and a full day at home with no errands, whenever that might be. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/354527.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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Weekends, with life and death and memories.
Life is short, y'all.

( Other people's milestonesCollapse )

Dive Bar and Grille in Savage has moved into the space formerly occupied by Ram's Head, and is an enormous improvement as far as the food quality is concerned. It was a brisk evening to dine outdoors, but the heat lamps held up, and the enormous patio surrounded by trees and lights made for a stunning ambiance.

The cocktail menu was extensive and inventive and delicious.

The crab dip was crabby and tasty and came with tortilla chips and pita both. The crab tater tots were well-reviewed by those who like tater tots, which is everyone who's not me. Having filled up on the appetizers I could not finish my ahi tuna wrap-which-I-had-as-a-sandwich, and it was still good the next day, and so were the house-made chips. All else in the party were content with their food as well. Must revisit, and might make a habit in better days.

( Two weekends of not a conCollapse ) Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/354225.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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I will report, so please you
Meanwhile, there was a play in there.

A pretty exciting play, at that - as of its conclusion my troupe can brag having performed every single play in Shakespeare's canon. And, we did it in person.

The show was Cymbeline, and if you've no idea which one that is, you're in much good company - there's a reason we'd left this one for last. But we had a cute take on it, wrapping it in a Princess Bride-style narration which allowed us to skip past the particularly wtf bits.

We did not audition for this one, but rather, the director reached out to actors with offers individually. Me, she offered a composite of a few different characters, an agglomeration of various passing lords plus the doctor much of whose job is to inform the king of various bad news.

The venue required masks on at all times, which was a bit of a challenge in terms of making ourselves heard, but we also took advantage of it by inscribing the character names on them. It worked out pretty well.

The social factor of rehearsals was not what it used to be, if only because almost all the way to tech week pretty much everyone spent pretty much every backstage minute muttering to ourselves - over the course of zoom theater we've gotten out of habit of memorizing things, and it did not come easy to everyone. (I suppose I should be grateful my lords-and-messengers collection was compact enough to fit into my brain.)

The interactions warmed up a little eventually, but beyond the first round of long-awaited reunion hugs I found the experience a bit scarce.

I did manage to make my patchwork character interesting to myself, and I got to have scenes with fun folk, so that was something.

The cast party felt odd. Perhaps a little like the good old days, although I had some trouble with the air currents that carried the smoke and the seasonal cinnamon brooms, making just about the whole house inhospitable to me. Still, I managed to stick around until near sunrise, and the moments that were good were good indeed. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/353888.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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A very Clarksville Commons lunch
More food, because the dam of "no restaurants for a year and a half" has broken, and I'm making up for lost time.

In Clarksville's Common Kitchen one of the most delightful inhabitans is a tireless enterpreneur who has opened my favorite poke joint, Blowfish Poke, first there and now in a pair of standalone locations that also serve Hawaiian . I have been promising myself to hit up the Commons and eat other things, but the siren call of poke has won since the moment it's been available. Until today, when that same enterpreneur opened her newest venture, an annex that serves mochi donuts.

(I did have fantastic ice cream and delightful grilled cheese there in the Before times; the Indian street food was a bit too spicy for me, and neither the empanadas nor the Egyptian koshary ever won the contest.)

Anyway, having sampled mochi donuts in Over Rice in Ellicott City, I had to try them here too. And, true to my resolve, I finally sampled Slurpin Ramen (which I think might be that same enterpreneur's side venture) and the Anh-Mazing Bahn Mi.

At the ramen shop we were seduced by the chicken karagge donbury bowl rather than the noodles, and it was fine - the chicken crispy and delicious, the egg and the pickled radish supplementing it nicely, but it did not quite come together as a cohesive dish for me. Bahn Mi, on the other hand, might have been the best I've ever sampled, even tastier than my ideal memory of the dish I've been trying to recapture since I've first sampled it somewhere in Montreal.

The donuts may well have benefitted from being eaten at lunchtime rather than after dinner like we'd done with Over Rice's entries; I thought they balanced better.

We also lucked into a little farmers' market in the commons, which included a winery and a pair of distilleries sampling their wares.

I was a bit disappointed by Ellicott City Distillery - a few of their things were fine, but none I'd rush out to stock up on. Urban Winery was likewise ok - they had a delightfully floral rose, but a $25 rose is more than I'm likely to splurge on.

On the other hand, Twin Valley Distillery of Rockville was an old favorite we were delightful to re-encounter. We'd had a fantastic time sampling their wares BeforeTimes, and they were equally exciting now. I scored a peanut butter rye whiskey and Spouse got a cold-brew coffee liqueur.

On a semi-related note last week I revisited Ellicott City's Umi Sushi for a weeknight dinner. Getting there at 5 we had a choice of tables, but were herded into the enclosed outdoor section, outside heaters not being run. I found it a bit cramped and loud and not comfortable enough for CovidTimes. But my chirashi bowl was the most artistic example of one I've ever encountered, a large container of chipped ice adorned with enormous abalone shells and a frosted jar with a blue LED in it. I am looking forward to revisiting it again, but I think not until spring. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/353741.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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Foodlet - Blondie's
I've been hearing about Blondie's donuts of Baltimore for months. They ain't cheap, they can be pre-ordered and delivered or one can stalk one of their elusive food trucks or pop-ups, but better hurry - they sell out rapidly.

Well, we went to check out an itsy bitsy craft fair at Frank's Nursery - a farmstand which sells their own plants, many items produced by local farms, plus some year-round produce they bring in from elsewhere. They were one of the first places to offer curbside when covid first got bad and stores had shortages of everything, and they frequently have good deals and dirt-cheap seconds.

Anyway, the craft fair itself turned out to be in greenhouses which we found way too confining and fled rapidly, but there was a donut desk right outdoors, and the lines shrank enough by the time we were done for us to see what was left of the much picked over supplies.

I had a chocolate-glazed donut and it was airy and creamy and moist and quite pleasant, and the chocolate ganache was chocolatey enough. Was it worth $4? I am not sure, but it was worth having. Spouse had a sweet pecan-praline roll, and says he enjoyed it enough to warrant the $8 tag, but I'm not convinced any roll is worth that.

I will definitely grant that they obviously use good ingredients and that baked goods are at their prime within a few hours of baking. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/353290.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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re-review: Umi Sushi
When first we tried Umi Sushi in downtown Ellicott City it had been open for a handful of weeks if not days, and we found it relentlessly terrible. The miso was underseasoned and salad dressing excessively so, the fish was simply not fresh enough to eat, and the dessert was some previously frozen monstrosity, not entirely defrosted.

Over covid, though, it was universally reviewed as stellar, so as we're feeling more up for venturing to restaurants these days - at least outdoor ones - we decided to give it another go.

Umi's storefront is in the middle of EC's historic downtown area, and one can traverse a few steps down into an alley and a few steps back up to their deck. Going through the restaurant I believe one may make the same journey without steps, but I would not attest to it - fewer steps certainly, but I don't know if it's accessible.

Much of the deck is enclosed with an open-topped wall which may be pleasant in less plague-y days but which I found too confining, but they also have a few fully outdoor tables with umbrellas and heaters.

This time the miso was still a bit on the subtle side - I frankly preferred my husband's take on the dish, which adds dashi until the flavor is distinctly hearty. The salad was fine, although I thought their generosity with the dressing seemed excessive.

Sake was available, including by the flight, and the trio I got was interesting enough to find interesting pairings.

We opted to split a "lovers'" combo of 8 sushi, some sashimi and a couple of rolls. Predictably but disappointingly the fish was a bit monotonous, with the same easy favorites appearing in multiple forms, but that is I suppose to be expected. Next time I will return I will try the chirashi bowl or a single-person combo and judge the variety on that. And there surely be a next time - most of the fish tasted exactly right.

We split a tempura banana dessert; the breading was a bit heavy but the flavors came together well otherwise. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/353088.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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Dis pre-Con, and also food near con hotel
Worldcon is coming up, and it's in DC.

This is a big deal for me.

It's in my city and I've been looking forward to it for years. It's inevitably an opportunity to spend time with delightful people, largely of fellow tech variety.

But... My approach to the pandemic has generally been on the paranoid side of risk-avoidance, and I've been less than comfortable in public spaces and surrounded by people. I've hardly ever had to spend more than a couple hours masked. The idea of confining myself to a hotel where I spend 14-16 hour days in a mask around people who may or may not do so effectively has seemed like a less than a wise one. I am anxiety-prone; going to the con would be recipe for a disaster, would it not?

I've been on this anxiety train ride for months.

So... there was an in-venue meeting to have a walkthrough and to get on the same page and confirm the scheduling and logistics and things. And I thought, maybe even if - especially if - I can't handle being at a con, going to the meeting will be like a tiny micro-con with the people I'd want to see the most. So, after much angst and indecision I made my way to the Omni Shoreham hotel.

The parking situation for the con proper will be atrocious, but I scored a magical spot free for the day across the street from the hotel doors and spent my "one perfect parallel parking job per decade" luck on whooshing into it.

At the desk they directed me to a ballroom which was nearly empty....except for a handful of techs gaffing down cables, so moments after entry I grabbed a roll and gave one of them a hand - it does go much quicker as a two-person job.

("I found the techs!" I texted Spouse. "Are they staring at the ceiling?" he quipped. "Floor at the moment" I replied.)

The rest of the group rolled in. There was some time to exchange hugs with the techs as well as with Werewulf before the official proceedings.

These started with an icebreaker. Name, department, and "what are you looking forward to at the con". I considered dodging out of the nearby door to avoid the matter, but then I had the perfect answer. I gestured at the assembled techs. "Lurking at the tech desk with my family".

Some folks about to investigate lunch invited me along, and were amenable to meandering the block to see what we can see and know what's around. The weather was perfect for it, and we had a good stroll before zeroing in on Bistro Bites, which purveyed crepes and dosas. (A mango crepe with mango ice cream was delicious if not entirely filling.) I was pleased to find an Ace Hardware and a little "NYC-style" corner market store within a block of the hotel.

In a break the TD and I took a walk to check out the main ballroom, and I took the opportunity to talk to him about my con apprehensions. He suggested I be there before it opens on Tuesday and also consider the Masquerade which would confine me to a nearly empty ballroom for most of the day - both prospects that seemed manageable - and play the rest by ear. His understanding was a relief.

The meeting part of the meeting was fine, although the choice to run meetings between departments via zoom with breakout rooms seems to have been ill-advised, especially as there was little foresight on who's to use what room, so the names were not indicative of content, and I heard a few reports of not finding what one needs. Having multiple zoom clusters in a large ballroom was also a bit distracting.

Eventually dinnertime came, and the techs fell into the trap of saying "We should talk dinner" only to promptly be distracted by talking of other things. This proceeded until one particularly frustrated diner-to-be exclaimed loudly and emphatically, "Federalist pig!"

This turned out to be his suggestion for a BBQ joint, which in no way prevented us from exclaiming that at any new person to meander towards us. Which did rather extend the time for the takeout order to be placed, but also added to the merriment.

It took far longer than expected for the dispatched party to return with the food and a report that an order for 14 broke the eatery, and they advised that next time we call a day ahead with a catering order. We were not impressed. Nor were we particularly impressed with the meal itself.

On the other hand the dessert was from Sharbat, an Azerbaijani bakery, and it was fantastic. I usually find baklava a bit one-note and over-sweet; this one - although still a bit rich for me - was best balanced I've ever tried, and a pastry with pumpkin filling was perfect.

After dinner a few of us decided to do one more walkthrough of the main ballroom. On we walked through the abandoned hallways and dark corridors and vacant rooms. We stared at the ceiling indeed and poked at buttons and peeked into wall panels. We found a set of swinging doors with signage reading "block doors" on one side and "do not" on the other - in the reasonable order, but this did not reduce our amusement in the least. It was delightful and joy-filled and amazing.

Then we went up to the party and I quite rapidly crashed - too small a space, too many people in it, and besides if I wanted to make it home it'd be a good idea to get started on that. (I did score a potential crash space had I decided at the last minute to stay - another delightful aspect of tech tribe - but it would have been in the party suite, and that was far too daunting.

As I made my goodbyes I was asked again and again and again if I'll be seen at Philcon. It felt good. (Alas, I don't think we're up for venturing to a convention in another city quite yet. But I gave it far more serious consideration than I would have expected myself to feel capable of. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/353008.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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Country roads...
I did not expect another chance to get the heck out of town again this year, but Favorite Ex surprised us with an invitation to his cabin in the mountains of Virginia. We've spent a weekend with him last year, and it was lovely, so a return sounded marvelous.

And it was... Although made slightly more complicated by the fact that I had the next round of dentistry on Tuesday prior, this time to insert a post for the implant. I have therefore been on antibiotics (so no wine for me, sigh) and ibuprofen, and while I could chew food carefully, it has been quite unpleasant when something knocks the surgery site, so I have been trying to stick to soft stuff just to minimize the impact. (Now, a week later, I've graduated to biting with near-impunity, although food with sharp edges, like chips and un-soggy cereal flakes, are still unpleasant).

Anyway. We drove out Friday after work and had a pleasant evening of loafing about and chatting.

We did not rush our start on Saturday morning - we'd intended to hike a particular scenic trail, and by the time we got there the parking was over-full so we decided to try it again the next morning and check out some other things in the meantime.

By then it was lunchtime, so we stopped at a diner with outdoor seating.

To something of our surprise the menu - otherwise exactly what one would expect from a diner in a one-traffic-light town in the middle of a very rural vicinity - had a selection of vegetarian-friendly options like fakeburgers and jackfruit, as well as several items annotated as gluten-free.

Most curious menu item, however, was a entry saying nothing more than "Unicorn".

This turned out to be a whitefish of some sort, which I deemed likely me-compatible under the circumstances. Alas, the waiter promptly returned with an apology - the chef failed to omit the item I'd asked omitted, and they were remaking it. I requested that the gentlemen's meal not wait for me. As their brisket sandwiches came out (smoked on premises, accompanied by house-cooked chips, and delicious in the tiny bites I braved if entirely impossible for me under the circumstances), another apology came - the unicorn has self-destructed on the grill, and they were just not up for trying it again. So, it remained as mythic as ever, and I made do with pairing my decadent banana milkshake with a grilled cheese I cut the crusts off.

While I was finishing those, the guys sampled the pie selection; Spouse in particular had a peanut butter pie with an extra-dense meringue top, and the bite of it I stole was decadent, too.

Anyway, we spent the rest of the day with Ex driving us around the vicinity, showing off some of his favorite vistas. We zoomed around the ridges and valleys full of stunning, spectacular views until we got to the Highest Point in West Virginia and walked around a while. Virginia was getting autumnal, with just enough gold and occasional red to make the mountains look extra stunning. West Virginia was quite firmly in its fall phase and with foliage at its most gorgeous. The whole day was breathtaking, and it was wonderful to observe my friend guide us through things he clearly loves.

The next morning we attempted the hike again, and the trail was not over-full... but Spouse's ankle got extra cranky and we decided to not risk it. Instead we drove around to some more vistas and overlooks before dropping off Spouse at the dwelling, and Ex and I took a stroll around a nearby lake. It was beautiful and relaxing and the weather got warm and I enjoyed every moment of it.

After lunch before hitting the road we went out to a nearby ice cream stand. It was staffed by a very enthusiastic but rather scattered youth. I requested a kiddie cone's worth of ice cream with marshmallow and magic shell in a cup. This perplexed him briefly, but rather than the obvious solution of dispensing the ice cream into a cup and tossing the shell over it, the youth decided that the way to go is to coat the bottom of the cup with the shell. The result was an improbable but delightful ridiculously thick layer of chocolate cup rather generously full of goopy ice cream.

The scenic route home offered many more picturesque vistas before the sun went down and we turned from twisty backroads - including one actually named the Back Road - onto the highways. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/352528.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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food: Facci, Decadent Desserts
The way the weather's going I doubt I'll be doing very much more dining out, but I did sneak one more in, in the form of Facci, a pleasant Italian in the vicinity of Fulton. I think I might have had lunch there once.

The goal was an outing with Ex and Wife, and they chose the location for intersection of our peculiar requirements with a solid enough awning to handle a promise of a rain. The terrace was well-ventilated but not exceedingly well-heated, which over the course of the evening became increasingly pertinent, but we were all dressed to expect it.

I had a seafood pasta in a creamy wine sauce. It had a few shrimps, a good number of scallops and a generous sprinkling of crab, and it was decadent - I'd easily come back for more. I was less impressed with Spouse's gorgonzola and pear sachetti with figs.... normally I'm a sucker for this dish, but it just did not feel like it was coming together.

Service was very well-meaning but a bit confused. Some slowness was expected, and we were largely there to enjoy each other's company, but occasionally when one was short a condiment for the thing in front of one, one might hope it would arrive soonish.

The menus were on paper. The wine list - in a traditional thick booklet - was not offered until I asked for it specifically. Halfway through the wine I discovered a chip in the glass; it - and the refill - were kindly taken off the menu.

Dessert menu took a while to arrive, including a longish interlude where the waitperson came in and asked if we decided what we wanted, to which I had to respond that we wanted the menu. We did not converge upon anything that encouraged us to stay longer, though, and instead decided to grab take-out from nearby Decadent Desserts in Fulton....

Which, to be honest, seemed a whole lot more decadent on the website. Maybe another day their cake selection might have been more exciting, but nothing seemed particularly interesting. They had cupcakes and cookies, neither of which I particularly like. Curiously - but not my thing - they had something like rice krispie treats, but made out of Count Chocula and its sibling berry cereals.

I ended up going for a square of what would have been a pecan pie had it been baked in a pie tin rather than on a sheet (which is superior as far as I'm concerned, because I don't like crust). It was alright.

In other news, I have been dancing with my partner a bit. We've not quite regained our peak condition, to be sure, but we think we might be getting worn out a hair less soon?

Plus I snuck a waltz in with lonebear before his surgery, and that was nice.

On another dance front, NoLabels is in a play which features his character's nuptial first dance, and the director seems to not know enough about dancing to provide guidance.

Of course I am happy to provide a dancing crash course given the least excuse. Not knowing the degree to which the director was not waltz-clued, I assumed they'd be taught the modern box waltz, and started there. A few days later the proposed music became available, and it was a whole lot faster than modern can accommodate. Clearly, time to simplify from the pattern to walking to music while shifting weight on each beat. With smaller steps. Nope, smaller than that!

Then Unlabelable and his show bride decided to meet for a practice session in the vicinity of where I lived, so I offered my deck and dancing tips to the happy couple. They forwarded the director's next iteration of music - annotated "this might be simpler" and sped up to what I consider to be about the top of my peak-condition dance speed.

I facepalmed, simplified further to a step per bar rather than per beat, and concentrated on keeping them together and looking suitably cute for their scene.

And had an utter blast of it! For all that I'm rusty, I have clearly missed teaching dance as much as I've missed dancing it. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/352363.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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Der emmis in a lign
I auditioned for a zoom "radio play". Vocal stuff is not mega my forte, but I thought I did some pretty cool things during the audition. Not cool enough - the director's rejection included a note to consider varying voices if I read multiple characters. Which I certainly thought I was doing - but I guess it didn't read. That's discouraging.

District Merchants is done shooting, and today's when I get to see the results.


( Ramble theatrical and not particularly optimisticCollapse ) Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/352135.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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Food: Over Rice, Phoenix Upper Main
There's a native fruit in my neck of the woods called the pawpaw. Looks like a little green mango thing, tastes like a creamy banana custard. It's pretty much impossible to store or ship, so one can pretty much taste it mostly if one knows people where to find them.

Anyway, a friend took me on a hiking trail where a few pawpaw plants grow in the hopes that we can find some before the season's over. The pickings were slim, but I got enough to be able to share with a couple friends. On the way I also got introduced to spice berries, a particular variety of edible rose plants, barberries, and also mushrooms that looked really cool but when I texted a picture to my mushroom expert the verdict was 'not edible'. (This same mushroom expert has given me a bounty of chicken-of-the-woods, which I still have a bit of left.)

New restaurants have been sampled.

Phoenix Upper Main has outdoor seating in a little area between it and the next building; it was alright except when passers-by were smoking as they strolled along. (I have never been to Phoenix in their old location - whenever I walked in, the downstairs was loud enough that we always fled. The restaurant needed to move from their previous location due to the Main Street floods a few years back, and a month before the pandemic hit it merged with Ellicott City Brewpub with the result supervised by Gordon Ramsey. I had found EC Brewpub inevitably mediocre whenever I ended up there for a group outing.)

The menu is a QR code - a trend which I understand, but I've come to abhor it, because the last thing I want is to rely upon scrolling the tiny phone through their website which has (srsly) not been optimized for this pursuit. They were able to offer a laminated menu of the food but not of the beers, the inconvenience compounded by beer prices not being published, requiring that one recalls the selections one is interested in and inquires of the waitperson. The menu was pub basics - the truffle fries I pilfered from a friend seemed fine, and she quite enjoyed her burger. (I do enough cooking of burgers that I'm rarely motivated to pay restaurant prices for them). I went for a pair of appetizers. Chicken strips were fine, their honey mustard sauce pleasant. Pretzels came with an interesting cheese sauce and an in-house mustard, both of which were worthwhile. There were several interesting desserts on the menu, but by then I was way too cold to stick around, and had to flee in disappointment.

We also tried Over Rice in KoreaTown. Btw, the strip of Rt 40 where many of the Korean restaurants and businesses are is now designated KoreaTown, with cute little gate-signs along the sides of the road. (I'm not sure just how the signs designate the boundary, since most of the restaurants are to one side of it but the supermarkets along with clusters of yet more businesses are to the other side.)

Anyway. Over Rice offers just two things on their menu, poke bowls and mochi donuts. The poke bowls were fine - Blowfish Poke has both an interestinger variety and better prices at equivalent quality. (That said, I am THRILLED that poke now exists in our area and comes with options. Ever since I discovered the dish in Vegas I'd been awaiting its arrival on our coast, which took a couple of years, so I'm beyond thrilled that it's now landed quite definitively.)

As far as mochi donuts... I'm yet to find anything made with mochi that I'm not instantly addicted to. Glutinous rice dough always feels luxurious and comforting to me, whether wrapping an ice cream or a filled pastry or enhancing a soup or just about any other application. The donuts in this case consist of eight little dough balls stuck together in a ring and glazed with a topping. I have found that the texture of the donut is very much my thing, but the flavors and glazes, which vary by day and range from expected to adventurous, don't do an awful lot to enhance them further to my particular palate. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/351944.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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Freilach zol zayn
I hosted a party!

Given my general inclination towards paranoia, I had some trepidation about inviting people. I've had as many as 2-3 people in my space on previous occasions, and hosted a handful of very exclusive firepit nights, but for the past few weeks despite the weather being perfect we've not felt up for even that much.

For past few years - minus 2020 - I've had a tradition for holding an outdoor party for the holiday of Succot. The celebration involves building an outdoor structure and having meals in it; we've generally had a barbecue in the afternoon (with people opting to have a bite in the structure or not as they pleased) and the firepit going at dusk. We can do this, I thought.

Normally I invite dozens and dozens of people, and in years past the event topped out at 30-40 people passing through. This time we capped our invite list at about 30, figuring that maybe half of that would make it. We turned out about right, with 17 guests.

One of the guests brought the ritual plants for the "shake a lemon at god" aspect of the festivities; that was a nice surprise.

Unfortunately, as the party always falls on Renaissance Faire season, a significant portion of my guests who intended to come over after Faire did not show. There is always some attrition in that particular way, but I am nonetheless a bit disappointed.

Meanwhile, my theatrical adventures involve two projects of more than average degree of excitement.

One is a Zoom production of District Merchants, which is a modern reinterpretation of Merchant of Venice, this time set in Washington DC in the 1870s in the aftermath of the Civil War, and with a twist that the "Venetians" are Black, which makes for a rather interesting interaction dynamics. I am playing Shylock in it, which is by far the biggest and most complex role anyone's ever trusted me with. It's been a challenge, to be sure, but the director likes the places I'm going with it.

(We're pre-recording it, and will be broadcasting in October. If anyone feels inclined like catching it, Oct 9th at 8pm and 10th at 2pm.... but I really don't expect very many people to, because it's real-theater money for digital theater, and as proud as I am of what I'm doing with this production, I don't expect anyone to pay that. But, for my plugging obligation, October 9th: https://tinyurl.com/zk4w88vv and October 10 at 2pm: https://tinyurl.com/u9nurezr )

The other production is with my usual group, which is rehearsing Shakespeare's Cymbeline. The rehearsals started online, but we're working on making it be a live show. We are rehearsing it in person now... but more about that later. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/351523.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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Restaurant review: Clove & Cardamom
One of the new additions to the Merryweather district is Clove and Cardamom, which brands itself Indian/Mediterranean fusion.

The outdoor seating is a cluster of umbrellaed patio tables on a wide patch of sidewalk - I'm not sure it'd have been separation enough on a busy weekend, but an early Tuesday night worked quite well.

I am a spice wimp with food intolerances, and was hoping that the waitperson might help guide me through the menu; unfortunately she didn't seem much more familiar with the dishes than the somewhat sparse menu descriptions.

I went for a tandoori salmon, that often being a safe option, and Spouse got a Mediterranean platter, which included a three-way sampling of hummus, some alleged falafel and some mixed vegetables over saffron rice and with lentils.

Despite my request to make everything sans onions, my salad featured them quite prominently; they took it away and replaced it with a far superior creation of finely chopped mangoes and seasoned corn over shredded greens. Alas, my salmon turned out a little too sharp for me, but the beet and mint hummuses and the mango in my salad helped bring it down a bit. (Had I thought of it, I could have asked for a raita, but I didn't.) Meanwhile Spouse reviewed the falafel as inadequate, but allowed how it would have been much better had he thought of it as an Indian lentil ball of some kind. For myself, I am not a falafel fan, but liked this instance, which I suppose is an indictment in itself. Portions were plentiful, and a good half of everything came home with us.

I had a cocktail made of amaretto, rye and fruit juices, which was delightful. Except that it attracted a particularly persistent bee, who at some point finally fell right in. With some help it extricated itself via the tiny straw and tottered along the rim of the glass. We parked a cocktail napkin I accidentally spilled the beverage onto next to my glass in the hope of tempting it away, which mostly worked; the waitperson was amused by our cunning as we asked to leave the soiled napkin in place.

The desserts were particularly outstanding. Spouse had a mango lassi sundae, which was more like a mango lassi float with tutti fruti and coconut shards, which was a brilliant thing to do to a mango. Mine was the clove apple cake served with a cardamom pistachio ice cream (which was a pleasant surprise, it advertised just cardamom, but the pistachios really tied the whole thing together.)

I'm not sure the food here is me-safe, but deserts are delightful enough to warrant a return for at least those. Maybe next time I'll try something with paneer. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/351484.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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Surprise mini-vacation - Rehoboth Beach
I am not very observant. No pun intended, although it is also true in the Jewish sense, but I merely meant that it took me until Thursday-Friday to realize that the week during which I took off Tuesday and Wednesday for Rosh Hashanah was also the week of Labor Day Monday, so I was about to embark upon a five day weekend.

Not that I had much by way of particular plans for the long weekend. It seemed nice to commence it with an outing to a drive-in movie theater. They had a triple feature of Jungle Cruise (more charming than it has any right to be), Shang-Chi (every bit as charming as it should have been and recommended for anyone even slightly into comic books or kung fu movies) and Free Guy (as charming as one would expect from Ryan Reynolds being Ryan Reynoldsy, if not particularly dimensional, and with some casting choices I wish were otherwise). I watched a movie and a half from a lawn chair before hiding in the car for warmth.

On Saturday I suddenly realized that as any services we'd be willing to attend would be virtual anyway, we had could get out of town, and somewhat randomly poked about hotel bookings in Rehoboth Beach. An opportunity presented itself.

But first we had an outing with Favorite Ex and his Lovely Wife to Ten Oaks Tavern in Glenelg.

The outdoor seating is a tent in a parking lot, but they've gone to some trouble to make it cozy. My friends have spent much of the evening pointing out surprisingly copious classic cars driving past. The waiter was helpful and considerate, if a bit frazzled. Their specials feature a pair of seasonal cocktails; I had one involving bourbon, lemonade and cranberry juice, and it was quite pleasant. The food was alright - I had a spinach feta salad with grilled tuna with perhaps more feta than I'd ever encountered in a similar salad. The waiter was particularly enthusiastic about the dessert of the day they get from a particular bakery; none of us were into that, but Ex got a slice of chocolate cake which was as fine a sample of it as might be had from generic food service.

Sunday went by quietly, and on Monday we embarked in the direction of Rehoboth Beach.

( Vacation reportCollapse ) Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/351092.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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На соленом как вобла пляжу & Dok Khao Thai
Last time we've gone anywhere was a workation weekend for my birthday in January.

So, when a friend invited us to join her at a vacation rental in Ocean City it was very, very tempting. She intended a Friday through Wednesday stay. I am absolutely not good at the sorts of vacations that call for staying put and "relaxing", but my craving to skip town was sufficiently desperate that resigning myself to inactivity seemed appealing so long as it was anywhere but at home.

But first on Friday evening I had a visit from a friend from Connecticut, and it was lovely to spend a few hours chatting before hitting the road.

( Vacation adventures withinCollapse )

The final indulgence of the vacation was a Thai meal in the just-opened restaurant in the new Merryweather complex. (Spouse could not quite wrestle web ordering into submission and called it in from the road).

My usual default meal, chicken pad see ew, was in a rather sweeter sauce than I'm accustomed to, but as I enjoy sweetness in my savories, I did not mind it for something different. Ginger sesame beef was decent. The experimental dessert, sticky rice with custard, was pleasant, but I think I'll stick with mango on my rice in the future - not quite enough contrast in the flavors. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/350809.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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Выплывают расписные
In the continued adventures of one very domesticated Leia Feline, a friend of hers took her out kayaking.

Said friend has learned to do so this spring, and has been into it avidly enough to buy her own and to want to drag along anyone willing to be dragged - which I was, enthusiastically.

The particular marina we found in Annapolis (which was a whole lot easier to drive to than DC) was not the most stunning of lookers, but being on the water was pleasant enough even if most of the shores were lined with docked yachts.

I am in small to medium amount of "I used WHAT? muscles" pain the day after, but unless it's not kicked back in first, I might have gotten off easy.

It might have helped that said friend kept suggesting technique refinements, each of which required different sets of muscles. Towards the end I was locomoting with some confidence... but never did get the knack of not splashing a noticeable amount of water onto my person, and the ways to add power rather reduced control. (No doubt a factor of learning curve, and the weather was pleasant enough for it.)

We then shared an utterly decadent meal at McGarvey's Pub in downtown Annapolis. Fried oysters were amazing. Fried pickles ok. Raw oysters are not normally my thing, but friend shared some, and I found that I hate them rather less with horseradish in addition to copious lemon. The steamed seafood platter came covered in old bay; upon my dismay they remade it for me, and every single thing in it was excellent. (The outdoor seating was rather in the path of foot traffic, but I comforted myself with the thought that nobody lingered for more than seconds.)

Also I went to a party for a couple who joined the troupe last March. They just barely met the rest of us, and had no opportunities to entertain until one of them got an out-of-town job, so they wanted to meet at least some people they've virtually worked with through the year.

Their rooftop boasted a fantastic city view. All the guests were theater folks - one of them new to us, and it was fascinating to find out her height! (I was almost right, I pictured her as slightly shorter.) And for a bonus the stadium on the horizon had a fireworks display.

I drove to both of those solo, Spouse not having felt up for it... And it was a bit alarming to discover just how timid I was on the highway, especially in the dark or when it started drizzling. The commuting habit will need to be rebuilt. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/350637.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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A long long weekend
I had misgivings about 48 Hour Film Festival this year. My usual team was pretty conscientious about wanting everyone vaccinated, and we eventually decided to skip the Friday night writing session but be there for the Saturday filming.

Then our producer and our director both had a covid scare, both being exposed to someone who was diagnosed, and, their tests not having come back yet, they cancelled.

Then one of our actors piped up: can the rest of us still try and do it? She was enthusiastic, and she's a good stage director and a lovely person, and has acted in these festivals before, but never crewed it. Clearly this was a project in need of a cat-herder, so off we went to the writing session on Friday. (Mercifully she lived half the distance of the previous project).

NewDirector told us about an idea she had which involved a realtor showing a house to a couple. Hmm, went we, our damn rental is still vacant - how's _that_ for a perfect place to shoot.

We had a remote contingent hoping we could zoom them into the writing session. I have, in theory, a room mic, but I could not find it. We struggled with hearing each other, and spent more time on "can you hear me now's" that on actual script progress. I endeavored to keep us on a semblance of a track, and we arrived at something resembling an outline rather late in the evening. A remote volunteer offered to do the actual writing, and I hear was done by 3am. (We cut out by 1, tech call being 9:30 in the morning.)

It felt pretty good to get ready for a day of shooting.

It felt less good when 9:30 came and went, and so did 10, and the director kept sending getting more delayed texts. The lighting guy was nowhere to be seen, nor the guy who had cameras. The director arrived at 10:30, and promptly realized the amount of stressed she was due to this venture.

I spent the next half hour talking her through how we were going to get through it (with me taking all the logistics, and her in charge of artistic decisions, because frankly I didn't want to try to do both at the same time.)

I rather refused to try to cope with the actor who lived half hour away, had no car and an early evening deadline, and would have needed a chauffeur there and back, taking another person out of circulation for the time they would have spent on it. (I am more than slightly cross at people who consider their presence a sufficient boon to the world that everyone else must do logistics for them to be blessed with their presence. They're a good actor and a person I enjoy interacting with, but I have long since run out of patience with people whose unconstrained choice for urban life makes it my problem when they can't venture to suburbia.)

It became apparent that we were not going to get enough people on set to shoot. (Had I been more experienced, I'd likely have managed to come up with a list of shots swapping operators every which way to catch everyone else, but it was not an exercise I was up to right then.) We could not even get started on establishing shots for lack of gear.

This was just not going to happen, and my pep talk reversed directions to it being ok for us to pull the plug right then, and we should not be feeling the failures for not being capable of doing the job of a dozen people by ourselves.

We announced throwing in the towel; a few minutes later the "got the real cameras" guy arrived with coffee and donuts. We spent the early afternoon decompressing and coming off the adrenaline rush. Four donuts and any number of rounds of emotional labor (not at all begrudged but still exhausting) later I needed to go fall over, the end.

Coming up next: a lead in a virtual show with not my usual crowd and a reasonable role in the Rudes upcoming crossing-fingers in-person venture. Originally posted at https://leiacat.dreamwidth.org/350308.html. Please comment either there using OpenID or right here. I read both with the same distracted semi-frequency.

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