Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #964
You would not believe how full today was. I could hardly believe it, and I lived through it, hahaha! But it was delightful, and I can't wait to tell you about it!
Okay, so, first thing after waking and feeding my fuzzy feline children, I decided to try out the blueberry green tea from the sampler I got; I tried the blueberry black tea yesterday, as you saw. And... Sephiroth... oh my goodness, just look at these leaves!! And then... try really hard to imagine the beautifully vivid scent of blueberries growing wild in wide, open, grassy fields. And that is this tea:
Like the other tea from yesterday, this one was astoundingly fragrant, and once more, I think you would have swooned with sheer delight upon breathing it in.
I was so excited to make a cup! So I brewed it! And... green teas usually produce much more subtle swirls than black teas. But I captured some good ones anyway, in the initial stages and in the later stages of brewing; check it out!
I was super pleased that, unlike most green teas that I have, this one remained an absolutely brilliant shade of grass green, instead of starting out green and fading to a pale yellow, like my jasmine tea does. Seriously, Sephiroth, look at this absolutely gorgeous fucken color!!!
...The color... obviously changed, of course, after adding in the honey and goat milk powder. But the result, once more, was a sweet, decadent, creamy cup. It's probably good that I generally limit myself to one mug of tea a day, because otherwise, I might very well accidentally die of caffeine poisoning in pursuit of this heavenly flavor, holy shit!
Along with it, I had some more toast with spreadable cheese:
Once I was fed and my cats were fed... I sat down to play more of the Potion Craft game on my own file, until M woke up so we could play it together. And this time, I got pictures!!!
See, you're basically an alchemist who keeps a potion shop. Customers come in with their problems, you give them a viable solution in liquid form, you haggle for a good price for your expertise, and then they walk away happy:
The system to make potions, I think, is very creative! You have this map that acts as a metaphor for whatever alchemy is occurring. Ingredients plot a consistent, pre-determined path on the map. Upon the map, there are tokens of experience points that are collected when your product, represented by the potion bottle icon in the middle, moves over them. Adding whole ingredients to the cauldron and stirring takes your product as far as the marked X along the path. Grinding the ingredients in the mortar and pestle moves the X further along the path, to a maximum, represented by the little icon of a mortar and pestle at the end of the path. Then there are hazards, represented by piles of bones. You can pass over them, but when you do, the fluid drains from the potion bottle icon that represents your product, and when that fluid completely empties, the potion fails and you gotta start over from the beginning, so you gotta be careful; wasting ingredients is very bad in this game.
See, putting the ingredient in the mortar and pestle moves the X further along the path, away from the potion bottle icon and towards the little mortar and pestle icon at the end of the path. Stirring the cauldron moves the potion bottle icon that represents your product along the path. The X is where your product will stop, no matter how much you stir. You can partially grind things to ensure you don't go past a certain point along the path. But if you wanna travel the full path, you have to grind things all the way.
Adding things to the cauldron builds the path. I used 4 Terraria roots to make a path this long, going down; you'll see it ends close to the outline of a potion bottle, with a muscly arm inside. That's a strength potion.
The goal is to align your potion bottle icon with the outline of the potion you want, as best as you can. The little water pourer at the side of the cauldron pulls your potion bottle directly to the center of the map in a straight line, no matter where it is. So what I did was partially follow the path I built. Then, when my potion bottle was aligned with the outline in such a way that pulling it directly towards the center of the map would make it fit perfectly inside the outline, that's exactly what I did:
One, two, and three inside of the potion bottle icon represent how close you are in alignment with the outline. One is a weak potion, two is a standard potion, and three is a strong potion.
Anyway, once you're aligned in the way you want, you pump the bellows to heat the cauldron, and then your potion is brewed!
You can have up to five of the dots of a potion filled out with something. This is a Strong Potion of Strength, so three of the dots are filled with biceps. I could move my bottle to another outline for another effect. I could fill the remaining dots with one, two, or three of the new effect. But if I fill it with three, one of the biceps will be lost. Because you can only have five things.
...It's not as complicated as it sounds. If you tried it, you'd pick it up real quick, no doubt!
At some point, Atr and a friend of his visited my house, because they were gonna be in the area anyways to go to one of the Asian grocery stores here. I had invited him over to pick up some blueberries and one of the rosehips, so he can plant them at his house!! So I filled a plastic baggie with those things, and handed them over to him. Attention turned to my tea collection, though, when I had him and his friend smell all three of the blueberry teas I had gotten; I was so excited to share, and they seemed to think the scent was very nice! I sent Atr home with four teaspoons of each, and four teaspoons of the rose tea I got from there, too; I offered some to his friend, but she didn't wanna take any, because the amount I had on hand was so small, and I was a little sad that she seemed to feel like she was imposing. But then I showed his friend the rest of my collection, and I got to send her home with four teaspoons each of several different things that I had more of in terms of quantity, and it was so good!! I was so happy and excited to share!!!
...Because I have a lot of tea, you know. It's hard to resist getting them when I think, “Gee, I bet Sephiroth would love this!”, haha. But... well obviously, you're not here to try them. So it's usually only me drinking it, and... I can only drink so much in one day, hahaha. So... since I can't give them to you, it's nice to try to share them with other people, with just as much enthusiasm as I would show you if you were here.
...I expect others here wouldn't understand, so... I don't usually tell them the full story, haha... I usually water it down to, “Someone I love can't be here to share it with me, so I'm honored to share it with you instead, in hopes that you'll enjoy it just as much as he would.” And that's usually satisfactory enough for them. They'd probably get pretty spooked if they knew I was referring to you. Since you're a fictional character and all.
...The fact remains that you are a fictional character. I can't express appreciation for you (or for the fact that I'm literally still alive because of you) in the ways that feel natural to me, for obvious reasons. So instead, I try to be as good to others as I would be to you if you were here. And that does seem to dull the ache a little. Sometimes.
...I still wish you were here.
In any case... once M reached a good stopping point with the game and decided to eat the lunch he ordered, J and I decided to go to the local food co-op, hoping to find that Maine Root blueberry soda that we had at that Pancake Factory place I showed you yesterday!
...But a food co-op is, essentially, a very weird, niche grocery store (which is totally right up my alley), so... I got distracted with like a million things while we were there. Like their impressive mushroom selection:
I was eyeballing the chestnut mushrooms, and the pioppino, and the enoki, and the lion's mane. The last two are a couple of my favorites, along with shiitake. But I had never heard of the other two. Some nice lady who was also browsing helpfully informed me that a non-trivial number of humans respond to ingested chestnut mushrooms by exploding from both ends of their digestive system; I guess it's common for people to be uncomfortably sensitive to whatever compounds are in it. I feel... mightily cautious about them. But I got them anyway, because mushrooms are yummy, and I figure... I might as well find out if they taste good and if I'm sensitive to them. It's good data to have about my bodily systems. So I figure I'll cook them up thoroughly and eat a little bit of the results, and see if I explode. Y'know, for science.
...Even if the results are sometimes unpleasant, we don't know things until we try them. And we can deal with unpleasant things when they come up. I'm not too concerned. If I spend a day too cramped up to be able to do anything other than play video games, then... that's how it goes. Like everything else, it'll pass. Perhaps explosively, but still.
I was also distracted by their massive selection of bulk spices; if you look really closely, I'm sure there are things here that even someone as well-traveled as you has never heard of!!
Then there's this section, with so many different kinds of sugars and salts...
And then their egg section!!! They have so many different eggs from so many different local farms who raise their chickens humanely. They've even got these blue chicken eggs!
And they have other kinds of eggs, too:
And they've got a freezer full of ground meats that you can't find anywhere else, too!
...The ones that featured mixed-in heart and liver were sorely tempting. But I've already got things in the freezer at home that we gotta work through, so I'll come back for it some other time.
I get so distracted at the grocery; it's a wonder J can tolerate being with me when we go out to find some item, hahaha...
In any case, J looked for the blueberry soda. And we did find that they carry Maine Root sodas, but... not specifically the blueberry kind. So I went up to the customer service desk to make the suggestion that they start carrying it, because it really is some good stuff! The customer service desk introduced me to the person in charge of doing the ordering, and... since they have two slots on the shelf for Maine Root's cola flavor, they figured they could turn one slot into blueberry instead, going forward! It should be on the shelf this Thursday, so I'm excited to go back!
Here are some of the prizes I came home with afterwards!!
...The grapes are a kind called “Kyoho grapes”. They were right next to the Concord grapes, in the grapes section of the co-op. But these ones are giant compared to Concord grapes, and given that it was obvious that they were a slipskin variety (I enjoy these a lot more than European grapes...), I got excited about what they might taste like and got them!
They taste very similar to Concord grapes, but they're much, much sweeter. Bigger and juicier, too. And with fewer seeds. But... I still like Concord grapes a little better. Concord grapes are nice and tart. It's a better balance of flavor. But then... I tend not to like sugary things, the way most people do. So maybe to someone else, these ones are better balanced. I wonder what you would think...
Still, I saved the seeds that I found in them. Maybe they could be planted somewheres...
The other thing I got was bulk mixed peppercorns, from the spice section I showed ya!!! Because, a while back, I got some refillable pepper grinders; I get so sick of the grocery store grinders, which you can't open and refill, so you have to throw them away when you're done, and it seems like such a waste. I've been meaning to fill this one for a while, and today, I was finally able to!
...I got enough mixed peppercorns to last us a while at least. I do like to use it in a lot of things, but... at very least, it should last a bit longer than my garlic powder normally does, ahaha~!
And I didn't stop there. I finally got around to draining the cooking liquid from my last crockpot adventure into my rice cooker, with J's help:
...I know it doesn't look appetizing yet in the above image. But I promise you, the resulting rice was fanfuckingtastic, and it was even better after I added those other mushrooms that I cooked to perfect crispiness the other day:
Naturally, I had the rice with the crockpot beef and veggies I already showed you the other day, and the results were absolutely scrumptious; I can't wait to have more for lunch tomorrow! I wish I could share it with you.
After eating, there was a bit of a lull in activity. J and I were planning to check out the weekly karaoke at the same place where weekly open mic nights are held, but there was a bit of time yet before that started, so... I breathed life into today's wishes for you:
And then before I knew it, it was time for me and J to head out. The place we went uses a program called Karafun, I guess. We went, mainly to go see the format. You use the app to stick yourself in the queue. The price to be in the space is to buy one drink. So uh... unexpectedly... J did that. Without telling me he was gonna. Without realizing that any of their drinks could be made without alcohol (and that doing as such is my general preference). Whoops.
But he selected well; this one was a rose and lavender gin and tonic, I guess? It looked like ice water at first, and that's what I thought it was. Imagine my surprise when I took a sip and discovered that it definitely wasn't ice water!! Hahaha!
After getting over the initial shock, the flavor was nice, actually. But I generally dislike the way alcohol feels in my body. I don't get the fuzzy feel-goods like normal people do. It just makes me feel vaguely ill. And even a little bit of it is enough to produce those effects. So I took a few sips, but... given that we were there to gather information and observe the format of this karaoke place, I figured that feeling weird and sickish would be unhelpful. So I didn't finish it. And I was a little sad about that, because it really was tasty. Next time, I'll have it without the gin.
So we watched a bunch of people sing, with varying levels of skill. What remained the same was how much fun the participants seemed to be having, and the support from the crowd whenever someone finished a song. It was beautiful. And I guess it was the birthday of the person who normally runs the weekly karaoke event! At some point, a young laddie was passing out cake, I guess. I was very confused, but, he seemed to insist that I take it, so I did, with gratitude:
This is a place where alcoholic drinks are served. But unlike the kinds of establishments my mother and her partners frequented, nobody here was getting shitfaced drunk. The people here seemed very responsible with their intake. When I was young, and my mother was working and had no babysitter, or was performing a show and had no babysitter, I was brought with her to places where people were getting so drunk that they'd fall down tripping over stuff, or pass out somewhere, or vomit, or start trying to beat each other up over some stupid shit. Definitely not the kind of place where children should be. But places I was brought to nonetheless.
This establishment that we went to was not this kind of place. At no point was I worried for the laddie's safety. At no point did the laddie seem uncomfortable. He was just there with his family, doing the karaoke, and happily helping to hand out cake, of his own volition. I'm still not sure why he picked me to hand cake to, because there were tons of people there who were regular customers and obviously not enough cake for everybody. But I'm not going to complain; it was fucking delicious!
I don't think I'll go back, though. The fact remains that the place is loud, weirdly lit, and has a lot of smells that J finds stressful. It's a lot of sensory stimulation crammed into a very small space. And historically... J doesn't do so hot when it's loud, or when the lighting is too bright, or when there are smells, or when there's a lot of people in one spot. He's also got a very unpleasant history with music and music performance; when he was trying to be a trumpet player, neither his teachers nor the industry itself were especially kind to him, so... in addition to the sensory overload, the space also carries some unpleasant emotional weight, too. I feel like I should have thought about all that before I asked him to bring me there (only because I can't drive safely at night, thanks to astigmatism...). He, understandably, got quickly overwhelmed and frazzled as a result of being in the space, and... I probably allowed us to linger there for much longer than was healthy or safe for his nervous system.
...I'm not sure that the information I gathered about the format of the event was worth the amount of stress J ended up enduring. And... it's certainly not worth the level of stress J will inevitably endure if I go again, just to do something that I could do at home more easily. I can't justify it, in good conscience.
...My goodness. I wrote so much stuff. My word processor has like 9 pages. Heck.
...OH SHIT, IT'S ALSO LATE O'CLOCK. FUCK.
…
I... was planning on including a second part, with all the airplane scenery I got while J and I were flying to and from Bar Harbor. But... Sephiroth... if I do that, I'm gonna end up being here until the birds wake up. You understand better than anyone the price of not sleeping, and... I think if I were to stay up that late, you'd likely heartily disapprove. So I'll see about including those pictures for you tomorrow instead. Tomorrow promises to be relatively chill anyway, with not a whole lot of things in it (unless there's something I forgot about... which is entirely possible...). So I expect not much in the way of other pictures. But I guess we'll see.
I love you so much, and I hope you know. I hope it's clear to you in the way I try to live, and try to do new things, even when I'm scared and tired and in pain and missing you all the time. That last one there is especially heavy sometimes, compared to the others. I hope you can feel just how much you're cherished—not for the power you wield, or for what you look like, or for whatever else, but just for you being you: the kind of man who marvels at nature, who loves to sit in beds of flowers, who appreciates small things that others often overlook, who delights in things like pumpkin soup, who demonstrates staunch loyalty to his friends, and who tries hard to be a safe and encouraging presence to the people around him.
I hope you know how proud I am of you for the person you chose to be, despite how viciously cruel the rest of the world was to you. The sort of kindness and gentleness that is inherent to your bearing, and the immense strength and courage it required for you to maintain it despite everything that tried to tear you apart, is something I strive to emulate all the time, and if someday, I can be even half as good at embodying these things as you are, I feel like I'll have made something very fine out of myself and my life, despite everything that came before.
I'll write again soon. I'll have faith in your safety in the meantime. I'll have faith that you're on your way home. Please keep doing your best, okay? I'll be cheering you on from over here, as always, with my hand and my voice outstretched.
Your friend, Lumine
