Random Thread ～Owaranai Insomnia '25 ver.～

[TotallyUncool]

That's almost long enough for everything in the box to become an out-of-print collectible!

[esm]

There’s an Armenian Arts & Food Festival in Alexandria, VA this weekend. I might go down and check it out since Alexandria is pretty during the fall.

[erilaz]

^ Enjoy! St. Gregory's Armenian Apostolic Church in San Francisco apparently had an Armenian food festival last month, but it was just online ordering and drive-thru pickup. Not ideal, since I live on the other side of the Bay and don't have a car, even if I had found out about it in time.

[esm]

There are so many cool events going on all the time in this area. I save Saturdays for doing nothing related to work because it’s already so overwhelming. Even the experienced teachers are extra overwhelmed this school year. I’ve taken multiple days off because I really did not feel like coming to work.

I might be go see a movie tonight since I only have trainings tomorrow, no teaching.

[TotallyUncool]

I'm still not getting out except when necessary, because I've got a couple of unvaccinated family members. But I know that I'm really, really lucky that I can work from home. It sounds like conditions are very hard now for too many people who have to work on-site, including teachers, health-care professionals, and people in similiar vital-but-too-easily-taken-for-granted jobs. It doesn't have to be that way and it shouldn't be that way - I hope things start to improve soon.

[erilaz]

That's crazy--it seems unbelievable that the tracking ID would even still be in their system!! :00

Apparently it wasn't. I looked at the tracking today, and the earliest information there is that the parcel shipped from San Pablo (presumably their East Bay sorting facility) earlier this week.

esm: If you go this weekend, keep an eye open for trchnakir (թռչնագիր, bird letters) in the "Arts" part of the Armenian festival. They're capital letters formed mostly from images of birds, which originated in illuminated medieval manuscripts. I think that's something you'd appreciate.

[esm]

It was nice, but I mostly walked through it. I wanted to try some food, but there was just one tent that serves a whole boxed meal of stuff and the line was long, and I wanted to try a hot dog place in the area anyway so I skipped the Armenian food. I did go to the Armenian cafe with a friend yesterday though (had a slice of their version of a Napoleon cake with condensed milk).

Edit: Oh, apparently this other place is Azerbaijani

[TotallyUncool]

I really want to try the food from just about every region in the Caucasus - I know it all has to be good!

[erilaz]

So much of it is really multi-ethnic. My Chomakloutzi relatives call most of the staples of Armenian cuisine by Turkish names. They call stuffed grape leaves yalanchi sarma (Turkish yalancı 'imitation, false', sarma 'wrapped') and cheese börek penerlee (Turkish peynirli 'cheesy'). In some cases, they'll use the Turkish name even when there's a native Armenian word available, e.g., shish kebab instead of khorovadz.

[esm]

Got my booster shot! I got the J&J vaccine originally so I’m eligible for the Pfizer booster.