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A Social Weirdo
The other day, I was talking to Tod about how seeing people’s summer festival photos on Facebook makes me sad. There are a lot of interesting little festivals in Japan – creative events combining music, camping, and flow arts. I rarely go to them, even though they seem interesting and many people I know go.…
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Building a Geiger Counter
Meet bGeigie #2209. We built her yesterday. Tod soldered 179 points. I did the non-soldering bits. The build took us most of the day, but it wasn’t too hard. I think some of the time was taken up awe, making comments like “Wow, we’re adding the smallest disk drive ever” and “This tiny thing is a…
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Me, the Sea, and the Sunrise
One of the quiet delights of camping on Niijima is a morning walk to the beach. This year, I saw several sunrises emerging blood red from the ocean. For some of them I was busy hooping while Rob filmed me for our video project. Sunrise. I am sitting atop a 4 meter high koga stone…
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Niijima before camp
You know I love Niijima, don’t you? We have been there so many times to enjoy living a slow life in nature. I’ve lost count. 10? 12? There is something magical about the island that brings us back again and again. Guru-guru Camp, our annual 2 week camping/hooping trip, is coming up again during Golden Week…
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Roller Coaster Weather
Almost every day last week, I discussed the weather forecast with Heather. It was making unpleasant predictions for her hanami party on Sunday. It declared High: 11 – too chilly for infants to enjoy a picnic – and each day brought new doomsaying of rain with varying percentages of chance. At one point it told her it…
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Hanami 2014
Rob & I get together for a hanami lunch in the Ayoama Bochi every year. Today was the day. It was beautifully mild and our hilltop picnic spot was eye-level with the blossoms. We were showered with petal snow as the winds blew clouds in. The rains begin tonight, so I think Tokyo’s hanami season…
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Kafunsho already?
The hayfever forecast says we are only barely feeling the effects of cedar pollen, but my body is ramping up with itchy eyes, a sore throat and sneezes. Even my skin itches already! Gone are the years when my allergies were still tuned to the pollen of Pennsylvania. I am fully allergic to spring in…
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Strawberry Fields Forever
Ichigo-gari with Heather and Zio yesterday in Tochigi yielded 1.6 kg of berries. The berries are grown in long hothouses through the winter. Another month or so and strawberries will be off the local produce menu until autumn, so I am glad to have picked some this season. We’ll have frozen strawberries for summer smoothies. Tod was…
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Chika-hatsu
On a chilly Tuesday holiday you must get out of the house and go somewhere fun. So yesterday we made our way to the Subway Museum in Kasai. Riding the subways every day, you get to love them and we’ve wanted to visit the 地下博 for many years. Finally, we did and it was great.…
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Snow Day
I am delighted by today’s snowfall. It’s been drifting down since morning and about 20 cm have accumulated. This is the most snow I have ever seen in Tokyo. The city is quiet. We took a walk in the afternoon, and families were in the parks throwing snowballs, building yuki-daruma, and making kamakura snow houses.…
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