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After the rain
Yesterday our rain gauge captured a record amount of daily rain, 179.9mm. It wasn’t a typhoon, but a hard, steady rain all day long. Around town there were floods and landslides causing road closures until they were cleared. Landslide evacuation level 4. Perhaps an abundance of caution, but after last month’s linear rainband causing 8…
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Senior Discounts, Japan-style
Respect for the Aged holiday is coming up soon (3rd Monday in September) and if you are over 60, 65, or 70 you might be able to snag discounts at restaurants and shops. In the US “senior discounts” are a standing joke but now that I am the right age for them, I wondered if…
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Kamogawa’s High Taxes?
A recent comment from a neighbor about Kamogawa’s taxes being high piqued my curiosity. Does Kamogawa charge more tax than other places? The answer is complicated, but I learned quite a lot about how taxes are levied and also what might have been behind the feeling that our taxes are high. Residence Tax 住民税 Jumin…
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Camera Roll
Another couple of months in photos from my Instagram Stories. Week by week the seasons change while daily life remains “same-same but different.” Scroll to see nature (including my best ever photos of a snail and a grasshopper) and art. Always plenty of cats.
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Festival Spider
When my sister read my previous post, she wrote some encouragement to me. Not a classic “you can do it” message, instead it reframed my perception of my role at Kozuka Art Festival. You are the spider of the festival. You have put yourself in a shady spot where there are trees and tenderness to…
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Kozuka Art Festival 2026 (first half)
Art festival in the forest! A magical week full of artists arriving and displaying their wares and their work. Restaurants come to us on a daily rotation. There are performances and impromptu encounters. Workshops, crafts for sale, art on display. It’s very cool. But from my point of view, its been a lonely four days.…
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Haruka Ueno, 1929
Last December I was shopping in the thrift store for picture frames. I am always on the lookout for interesting old frames with ugly art in them. I repurpose the art and use the frames for my own work. One frame had a rough-hewn rustic look, with cracked glass and nails holding the back on.…
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Waterfall Deluxe
There’s great delight in encountering a place for the first time and for over ten years now, Kamogawa has been revealing new treats. This week was a waterfall that took my breath away. Yomogi Fudou Taki is about half an hour from home and it rivals Yoro Keikoku, the famous river valley up in Otaki,…
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My First Pride
I have a long and complicated history with my sexuality. I’ve tried it all; I’ve had mixed feelings about most of it. Knowing what I know now about neurodiversity and my personal spicy blend of mental traits, that makes perfect sense. But allowing myself a label is relatively recent self-identity that I shared when I…
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The Mysterious Awa Agricultural Highway
This week we explored the “will it ever be completed?” agricultural highway that is slated to open the mountainous area of southern Boso to commercial traffic. 安房地域広域農道 or Awa Region Wide-Area Agricultural Road is a massive project that’s been built in short stretches since 1991 (35 years!) and it still isn’t done. But it’s not…
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