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About the barn
While we were building the house, we’d set aside extra materials, our purchasing mistakes, and crazy ideas “for the barn.” It became a running joke. For example, the bathroom window I ordered that was too small? No problem, we’ll use it in the barn. A light fixture that didn’t suit the kitchen – save it…
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Surprises in the Overgrowth
This Mountain Day morning, I decided to take my coffee outside and walk around 555. We’ve had a couple days of windy rain and I wanted to pick up any fallen branches in the driveway. A small daily joy is to wander around in my nightgown and garden boots. I am definitely a member of…
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Kozuka Art Festival 2025
I feared my offering would be a failure. I had concerns about getting to the venue safely. I was worried that my poor Japanese would be a burden for everyone. I was intimidated by comparing myself to the other artists. I was sure that I’d be a punk misfit in a mix of hippies. Only…
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Summer Attractions
Summer in Japan is full of festivals and events. I feel like a sweaty social butterfly. Kamogawa Citizen’s Fireworks Although we’ve lived in Kamogawa for a decade, this is the first time we’ve taken in the beach fireworks. They were quite spectacular – lots of multicolored rainbow explosions reflecting on the water and waves. We…
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Mediatinker is 25 years old
A quarter of a century ago, I wrote my first blog post back when Mediatinker was an experiment hosted on Blogger. Today’s Weather in Tokyo: hot and humid. (It is summer after all!) It was quickly followed by a second post where I described the state of my urban garden. And here I am a…
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Professional Designosaur
I have been a designer for a very long time – 40 years or more. Today I realised what a dinosaur I am. Recently as I was working on a client project, I encountered a strange way of indicating bleed in an Illustrator template – a layer of 20mm rectangles on the edges and overlaps…
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難しいけど
Japanese is hard. I struggle through conversations with awkward pauses, misplaced modifiers, and incorrect verb tenses, not to mention my garbled pronunciation. “I’b leaning moor. Good spek…homework maikey. Existence toward Javanese.” That’s how I sound. The ideas are there but meaning is open to interpretation. Wide open. I am lucky to have people around me…
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Camera Roll
Life is flowing along from rainy season into summer. Every day brings beautiful, memorable, and wonderful moments. Here are a few from recent weeks. There were two notable human interest articles in the local paper – a profile of me now that I’m on the Oyama Senmaida board, and an interview with Iku-chan about her…
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Herniated Disc
In mid-March, I injured my spine in an unexpected movement where my legs twisted and my torso did not. Ouch! I hoped it would heal itself, but after eight weeks had passed, it seemed to be getting worse rather than better. So I went to the doctor at the beginning of May. The orthopedist’s exam…
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No Kings Protest
Our last day in the US coincided with the No Kings protests and I was happy to find that there was one scheduled in Gloucester, the next town over from where we were staying. I signed up. I spent some early mornings turning paper plates and cereal boxes into protest signs. I had conversations with…
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