"But this day is not like other days!"

[muckefuck]

Or so a woman told me as I was buying kabak tatlısı ("pumpkin sweet") this evening. It was in response to my excuse ("I've eaten too much today already") for not adding a piece of her homemade baklava to my plate, and even if it was little more than a good-natured hawker's line, it resonated. That was my signal intention in heading down to Navy Pier for the Turkish World Festival: To ensure that this day was not like other days. And I'm pleased to report complete success.

Of course, it's hard to succeed without a little help from your friends. Naturally, monshu deserves pride of place for committing himself wholeheartedly to realising my plans, no matter how last-minute and half-baked they may have been. But I'm also everso thankful to tyrannio, innerdoggie, and mollpeartree for letting me hijack their shopping plans, even to the point of dragging them to my chosen lunch spot.

I met them all on Devon in the midst of the India Independence Day Parade (an event whose date I've never forgotten since first stumbling on it completely by accident almost fifteen years ago) and guided them across the street to Mysore Woodlands. (It's only recently reopened after months of--who knows what, since they didn't change a damn thing inside, so it was overdue for a revisit.) The pleasure of eating butter masala dosai was only exceeded by the pleasure of introducing mollpeartree to it. "You know how we were talking about the Maldives earlier?" I asked her, "Well, the dosai here are the size of one." Needless to say, it was the size of Whoville by the time we finished with it.

After taking them on a detour to Mughal Bakery for a much-needed supply of chand cookies, I hopped the bus back home and phoned Nuphy. He'd called earlier in the day with his best wishes, and when I announced my intention to take in the Turkish world, it solidified his ambitions to catch what he referred to as the "Janissary band". Thanks to monshu's paying a cab, he and I caught the tail end of their second performance. (Don't feel sorry for Nuphy--not only did we have good seats for the evening set, but their was a late-afternoon march up and down the Pier that we weren't even anticipating.)

It was here that I achieved my apotheosis. monshu had charged off to survey the vendors while I stood and listened. To my right was a white-haired gentleman. A younger man in a natty suit had an arm slug over his shoulder and he singing, full-throatedly, along with the Mehter. It wasn't the only bit of unselfconscious affection and passionate enjoyment I witnessed that day, but by itself it was enough to make the death march the whole length of the Pier worthwhile and then some.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: tl; dr and Where are the pictures? To go on more about the delights I savoured without posting any food porn, any fabric porn, or any porn porn would only invite the evil eye (değmez inşallah!) and, besides, I'm too full of love of creation from the concluding sema to want to cause anyone suffering, even if it amounts to no more than eating your heart out.