There has been a rip in the fabric of space-time, because today I turned the age I think of my mother as being. I don’t know how that works but I do not really feel my age.
My Day: I started by getting up early to bake a cake for breakfast, enjoy coffee and open the gifts my mother sent. Then I walked to Ueno to have lunch at Juraku before heading to the zoo. Today the new panda exhibit opened and there was a huge crowd, but since I have an annual zoo passport, I got to rockstar to the front of the 600 person long line to enter the zoo grounds. I skipped the pandas and said hello to the elephants and then strolled directly to the lower exit. I practiced juggling in the playground (oh, so close – even occasional moments of getting it, but not sustaining long enough to count). Then I enjoyed a bus ride home. I hooped in the living room for a few minutes, then put on the sleepy music (Beethoven’s Pastorale) to take a nap before going out to the Charity Art Auction at the Pink Cow. My pieces both sold, for a combined total of 4500 yen. Somehow I managed to go the whole day without a birthday portrait, so I snapped the one above in the bathroom just now. Time to put on some PJs and crawl into bed!
State of Tokyo: Restaurants and shops are coming back to life, though it is going to be hard for them to make up the losses from the last few weeks. There were lines outside popular eateries at lunch today, and that’s a heartening thing to see. The zoo was busting with kids and panda-lovers. The bus and subways were packed with people moving around and the streets were lively. Shibuya, while still dimmed to conserve power, was full of shoppers between 5:30 and 6:30 when I was there. H&M and Forever 21 were doing brisk trade in their sales. So even though there is disaster and doom to deal with daily, life goes on. That’s good to see and feel.
