Sidestepping the whole debate about what to call it[1], we went to the Lunar New Year parade and celebration on Argyle Street yesterday:


We left later than I wanted to--we didn't get out of the house until 11:45 a.m. and didn't get down to Argyle until 12:15 p.m. We put in our name at Immm Rice, but when it was only twenty-five minutes or so to the parade we decided that even if we did get in we wouldn't be able to eat in time, so we tried stopping in at a bakery for some buns. The first one we went to had a cash-only sign that had been hidden by the long line, so we had to duck our and search the rest of the street. sashagee spotted one on the way back run by an old Vietnamese man and got a couple buns for Laila and herself, and they ate them while we settled onto the side of the street to wait.

I wasn't expecting too many people to show up since it was -5°C with a biting wind, but the streets were still lined when the parade stepped off at 1:05 p.m. Laila had been complaining and wanting to go home for quite a while, but once the parade started all that fell away. She watched the lion dancers and the dragon puppets, watched the floats going on, and was very excited when one of the parade-walkers gave her a lollipop! She didn't complain once as we stood out in the cold, but we left a couple floats early so we could get into a restaurant. And a good thing too--we walked in, were immediately seated, and within ten minutes or so there was a giant line waiting for a seat. We ate--with a brief detour while Laila and I walked around outside because she was getting rowdy--and by the time we were done basically all the festivities had ended, so we just went home.

Next weekend is the parade in Chinatown, but we won't be able to go.

[1]: A few years ago there was a push to call it Lunar New Year instead of Chinese New Year, since more cultures than just China celebrate it. Of course now the problem is that e.g. the Islamic and Jewish calendars also have lunar new years since both calendars begin months on the new moon, so "Lunar New Year" is ambiguous.

Title: A Case of Identity
Universe: Meitantei Pretty Cure!
Character(s): OCs
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Summary: “No one’s interested in detectives, Raymond!” she shouted above the noise. “And if they are, well...”
Length: 476 words
Author's Notes: I'm sorry that the first Precure thing I write in ages is just OC nonsense. also: external link.



( A Case of Identity )

That's what we call it during days like this. Right now as I type this, it is 17°C and sunny outside. But also, tomorrow it will be 11°C, overmorrow it will be 6°C, and then it hits freezing soon after accompanied by snow and thunderstorms.

Still, I went on a walk along the river during lunch. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my coat and didn't account for the difference in temperature in the shade, but it was still nice.

Almost five! I can still remember when she was so small I would carry her in the crook of my arm while I was walking around the condo. Every parent says that, because it's true.

Laila is expressing more preferences and wants while also being more independent. On mornings when I get up and let sashagee sleep in, I go out with Laila and give her medicine, and I no longer just make her food and give her what she gets. I now ask her what she wants to eat for breakfast. And sure, the answer is always the same thing: "pickle AND cheese!", by which she means some pickles, a bit of cheese, some fruit (usually blueberries or strawberries), and toast with butter or jam. It's what she always wants, even when she wants something else--a couple times she's said e.g. waffles or eggs, and when I asked her, "You want eggs?" she'll respond with "Just pickles and cheese." Well, I can't blame her, since I have basically the same thing for breakfast every day too.

She's also getting more self-conscious. There's been a few times when she's tripped and fallen while running around the condo and she got so embarrassed that she immediately ran to her room and shut the door afterwards. It's not like we laugh at her or anything! We just ask her if she's okay, but she's grown-up enough to be embarrassed about it. And a few days ago, she had a coughing fit, looked up at me when she recovered, and said, "It's very frustrating!"

You're right, Laila, it is.

She's settled on her new interests and moved on from her old interests. A year ago, she was very into the Cars franchise and loved Lightning McQueen, but she hasn't wanted to watch Cars in months. A few months ago it was all Bluey all the time. Nowadays it's Hello Kitty and Friends whenever we give her the choice of what she wants to watch. She'll spend almost every free moment drawing and painting with the water markers and books we've gotten her, and painting with watercolors if we let her. The other thing she loves to do lately is have us read books to her, which has always been something she likes but it's more of an interest lately. She'll grab books herself and bring them over--her favorites lately are Sammy Spider's First Yom Kippur, Little Owl's Night, Challah for Shabbat Tonight, and You Are My Happy. I got her Sammy Spider's First Shabbat but she hasn't taken to it yet.

Unfortunately, tragedy has struck. When Laila was younger she had a habit of pulling her hair, but we had mostly managed to deter the behavior...until she spent a week in the hospital, which caused her enough anxiety that it started up again. sashagee saw how thin her hair was getting on one side and was worried she'd do permanent damage to her hair by pulling out too much of it, and so to deter further hair pulling, we gave her a haircut. A significant one:


Laila...doesn't like it. It has, however, helped stop her from pulling her hair--she'll reach for where she usually pulls and it's not there--as have my comments that if she keep pulling it we'll have to cut it even shorter. They're probably going to have to cut some of it for her upcoming surgery anyway, so it's not purely a deterrent measure. And we know that if she did give herself bald spots she'd be really upset about them when she got older, but seeing her look in the mirror and silent tears roll down her cheeks is really upsetting.

In happier news, she's fully become a fashionista. She no longer waits for us to pick out her clothes in the morning--if we wait too long, she'll go rummage through her drawers until she finds something she likes and change into it, all by herself! The only hurdles are that if she's wearing shorts as part of her pajama set she'll sometimes leave them on under her pants and, the bigger one, if we let her she would wear a half-dozen outfits throughout the day. She'll forget to roll up her sleeves when washing her hands, get the sleeves wet, and then go back to her room to change into a new shirt because she can't stand having wet sleeves. If we didn't stop her, she'd change her clothes a half-dozen times a day and sashagee would have to go laundry basically every single day.

I also make her carry her own food plate to the table. She may have issues focusing on things sometimes, but when it's her food, she can keep her mind on it. Though she does carry it at a very dangerous angle sometimes.

What other ways will she grow and change?

Alongside Noro Kayo, Ohori Megumi, and Sato Yukari, Kohara Haruka was one of the early AKB48 members moved over to SDN48 on 22nd September 2009, joining former SKE48 member, Ichihara Yuri in the two months before she up and quit, presumably over the move, and a host of other older members who later went on to become SDN's first generation.

Originally auditioning for AKB in 2007, she passed and quickly became a member of the kenkyuusei, appearing on their recording of Oogoe Diamond as well as appearing on the recording of Shonichi that appeared on Namida Surprise!, having been transferred into Team B in early 2009.



2009 must have been a tumultuous year for Haruchan. Originally promoted in Team B in January, she was then moved into Team K in August during the team shuffle event, however, before she could even debut with her new team, it was announced she was one of the members comprising SDN in September. I'm not often critical of decisions made during early AKB because I mostly have nostalgia goggles on, but this passing around of older members like they were a hot potato, and, indeed, the final fate of SDN remains a real sticking point for me.

Regardless of Haruchan's inability to rank during the first five senbatsu elections, two of which she did not participate in, when it came to the smaller circle of SDN members, she came in ninth place and, as a result is present in the lineups for all of the group's releases, from GAGAGA, to Ai, Chuseyo, to MIN・MIN・MIN, to Kudokinagara Azabu Juuban duet, a duet with presenter and television personality, Mino Monta, for which she appeared as Wcentre with Yukarin, and, at last, Makeoshimi Congratulation.

It feels frustrating even now that Haruchan and other members of SDN did not get more recognition. It's not as if she did anything wrong, in early AKB, she appeared during the second stage performances by Himawari-gumi, the multi-team lineups that included many of the Kami 7, she put in shifts in the AKB48 Café & Shop, and she took every transfer to every new team like it was a chance to really show what she was made. AKS let Kohara Haruka down, just as they let all of SDN48 down.

Following her graduation, Haruchan went on to work in gravure before joining a number of former SDN members—Kazue Akita, Okochi Misa, and formerly Kimoto Yuki, Fukuda Akane, and Fujikoso Yumi—as the idol group R, whose releases are really hard for me to find, but whose singles I would love to have copies of. Look at how awesome they all seem in their promo photos!

In 2021, Haruchan got married and gave birth to her first child. She's still a member of R, and whilst the group doesn't seem to be doing much as of 2022, I really, really hope we get to see more of them again any year now!

AKS may have let SDN48 down, but I'm going to continue to support these members no matter what!

I haven't mentioned her at all before because she's one of Laila's classmates, and on Friday night we got invited to her birthday party.

We've been to birthday parties before but this was second time we've been to a birthday party for someone in Laila's class and the first time it was at their house (the first one we went to was at a zoo). Because of that they had all the standard party games for young kids--they painted pictures, they played pin the tail on the donkey, hit a piñata, danced to songs from K-Pop Demon Hunters!, the works. They ate pizza and cake while the adults ate fajitas and drank margaritas. It's the story about kids' birthday parties that we didn't realize was happening while we were young but heard about after we grew up.

Laila...was a bit of a handful. She didn't really play with the other kids very much, and she kept running around and grabbing balloons, so we couldn't just trust her to hang out with the other kids. One of us always had to follower her around and keep track of her to make sure everything was going okay. It was a smaller house with a bunch of kids, though, so some chaos was expected. Near the end she started getting even more wild, but she had been up since almost 6 a.m. and it was past her bedtime, so it was definitely time for her to go home.

sashagee talked to Amelia's mom at the party a bit and maybe we'll get a playdate set up! The parents were mentioning how they were a bit disappointed that it seemed like no one had set up any playdates. I talked to a couple of the other dads in the kitchen--one of the parents is French, so we chatted about being in a country where you don't speak the language at all (him when he came here, me in Japan) until I had to run away because Laila was on a rampage again.

Also, sashagee did get some vindication, though! One of the other parents mentioned that they also were offered the option of half-day preschool for their four-year-old, so it's not just us. The school officials acted like this was a mistake that we had made and everything was all our fault, but nope! They screwed up their intake forms. Well, at least now we know.