Posts from — June 2003

The view from the back of priests playing drum, flute and cymbal as dancers in red headdress perform Ayako-mai, a precursor to kabuki.

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Attention, large-footed gentlemen: I have just received shipment of a pair of these cushy, hand-made Brazilian loafers in black, size 13 American, but really they are size 12 (that’s 11 UK, 45? in Europe) and just a bit too small for me. Not even a scuff on the bottom, I didn’t even step outside in them, just tried them on in the genkan with socks. I can send them back to Land’s End no problem, but I figured some other big guy in japan might want some. Â¥5,000 and I’ll send them COD.

at Funahashiya at the Sanjo Street bridge. I just like this old arare (sembei, rice cracker) shop, and keep photographing it from different angles. If Kevin is reading this, the shop has a mascot (perhaps Mynah) bird named Mame-chan who sits out front in good weather. The weather was, in fact, good today, so Mame-chan was singing and speaking for the customers.

Sagimori Jinja is our neighborhood shrine, which means it is where our twice-yearly “shrine fee” goes. One of the responsibilities of living in a house rather than apartment is that you have to support the nearest shrine. Not by government decree, obviously, because Japan has the same separation of church and state, but by overwhelming social pressure, a Japanese forte. Sagimori is nice, but it’s not on any tourist must-see lists. It does, however, commemorate a duel of one of the baddest of bad-asses, Miyamoto Musashi. He reputedly won 60 duels before retiring to become an artist. He also apparently ended up with a restaurant in Detroit (scroll down for bio). His portrait here is less flattering than the dashing hero portrayed in the current NHK-TV series.

If you were wondering why God couldn’t spare you any good luck recently, she was taking care of all these people.

and she is “in a family way” once again. Our window is getting crowded with generations of her offspring, they have to hunt in shifts. If you pull back your head from the screen a little, perhaps you can make out the two pink eggs showing through her skin and the frosted glass, perhaps you can’t. They are easy to see directly with the eye, anyway. I’m guessing the mysterious Mr. X is the culprit here.

On her birthday (June 23rd), I present a little placard made by Mom with some aphorisms. Are these from Dale Carnegie or Norman Vincent Peale? I don’t know, but this was hanging in our house for as long as I can remember. it must be at least 30 years old, I think it was a flower in the middle. Some things here that I should remember more often. Instead of burning incense in front of her altar, I put regular dry (sencha) tea in an aromatherapy burner, and lit a candle as usual under it. Great way to give your home a nice tea smell.

The person who invented Sobe Green Tea should be dragged out into the street and beaten. Not to within an inch of his life, but enough so that he remembers to never ever do such a thing again. Bad! Bad inventor man!

The same goes for Sobe Oolong Tea.
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