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Futsu cape and the Kanon
December 31, 2019. Beautiful blue skies and a high of 21C. The ideal day to go on a little adventure. Futtsu Misaki is a needle of land reaching into Tokyo Bay. It’s captivated Tod since we lived in Tokyo; he even figured out to to travel here without a car but we never made that
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Kamogawa Magic Club Show
Kamogawa has a magic club made up of grandparents. Today was their annual Christmas show – free charming entertainment for families and us. One by one, the magicians took the stage for a ten minute set. Dressed in their most magical costumes, they made scarves appear (sometimes unintentionally), foam balls multiply, knots come undone magically,
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Flourish 2020
It’s theme word time. This year, I feel like December has snuck up on me. We’re halfway through and I am not prepared to end my year with any forward looking anything. I can barely register what’s on today’s To Do list. Despite that, this tradition needs to continue. So for the past week, I’ve
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Dinner with cats
We walked to Mika for dinner tonight. It’s the closest restaurant to our house, about a kilometer away, 11 minutes on foot. It is also 11 minutes on four feet, if you are the cats who came along with us. They trotted through the back roads all the way there. I kept expecting them to
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Kozuka’s finest
Today our neighborhood policeman received a potted plant as an annual recognition for work well done in patrolling our neighborhood. We happened to be in the village and I asked to capture the moment. Everyone lined up for a photo, some a little confused at what this foreign woman was doing. After I snapped this
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Cat stairs
They may look like shelves in the laundry area, but these are cat stairs from the roof. Tod rewired the outside light to fix the dangling mess of electrical cables the cats had torn from the wall as they would half-slide, half leap from the roof. Then we put up shelves strategically to give the
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Unexpectedly Thanksgiving
The weight of loss upon me, and plenty of work deadlines to meet, I was not planning to celebrate Thanksgiving with a feast. My morning yoga class had a theme of kansha, appreciation, and I arranged our yoga mats in a circle like a table. Good enough. At breakfast, Tod and I discussed dinner plans
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Grey days
Literally and figuratively, these have been grey days. On the literal side, we have had more clouds than sun for the past couple of weeks, including a 50 hour non-stop rain. Enough of that, please. On the figurative side, I should have believed people who said after Mom died, “The holidays are the hardest.” I
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Wild yoga stretches
Our morning yoga group has been meeting every day for more than two months now. We are all getting stronger and more flexible. In class, Naomi and Miako display balance and trust. After class yesterday, Suzanne and Naomi use their strength and agility to gather persimmons. While Miako gets extra stretchy to reach one last
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A radish
Inspired by a photo of Dan’s, I drew a radish. I enjoyed layering the colors to get the right shade of pink.
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