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Camera Roll
Summer has flown by in a haze of herniated disc pain and heat exhaustion, both of which are finally subsiding. Despite being housebound for most of two months, I captured some of the beauty in my world. Let me share it with you via all the Instagram Stories I’ve posted.
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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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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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Sayonara, Aloha
Aloha Gardens Tateyama is a local fixture; almost everyone in the Awa area has been at least once with family or on a school trip. After a decade living here, we finally made time to visit. Just in time… Opened in 1970 as “Nambo Paradise”, the botanical garden features a long stretch of hothouses, a…
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Forest fire?
Yesterday afternoon, I thought I heard the crunch-crunch of a cat eating a mouse downstairs. But nobody had a mouse. The cracking sound was coming from outside. Maybe Kawasaki-san was doing some brushcutting? I opened the door for a better listen. No…this sounded more organic. A fire popping and cracking. Bamboo burning. I trotted down…
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Moriya Beach
Today was the last day of a very long and relaxed New Year holiday. Tod & I did just about nothing all week. We puttered around the house, made meals, and played with the cats. We missed midnight. Haven’t been to a temple yet. I didn’t even see friends’ Line greetings until today. This morning…
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Welcome 2025
明けましておめでとうございます！今年も宜しくお願いします。Wishing you a very happy Year of the Snake. This is the final design in the 12 year cycle of Nengazou in the Chinese “zoudiac.” It didn’t start out to be a series. For 2014, I drew the elephant-as-nordic-horse as a cute pastiche of the Chinese zodiac year, traditional Christmas decorations, and our favorite animal.…
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Ending Notes
Am I obsessed with death? Perhaps. Any of my friends will tell you that I am deeply aware of the passage of time whether it’s mere moments or long ago futures. I am always thinking ahead and looking back. Planning and remembering. That’s who I am. I can’t help it. One of my goals this…
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Mystery Drones over Chiba?
For the past couple of weeks, people in the US have reported mysterious nighttime drone sightings, specifically over New Jersey and now spreading along the east coast and elsewhere. There are been reports of drones over US bases in the UK, too. And last night, Tod saw flying objects in the sky over our local…
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