Back to School

School has begun!  I am a student again, which means I have a lot of homework.  I don't like having too much homework, but I really like my classes, so the homework is very interesting.

One of my classes is "History of Japanese Theatre".  My first homework assignment was to go see a performance of traditional music and dance, called gagaku and bugaku, and write a report about my experience.  I have also done a report on Zeami-san, who was a very influential man in the history of Noh theatre.  I will continue to study Noh for a while, and I'll also study kabuki, and my very, very favorite, the Japanese puppet theatre called bunraku.  (Maybe someday I can return to Kumamoto prefecture to do "research" in Seiwa-mura!)

I have four other classes, two of which are for scenic design.  I am also designing the props for a BIG musical play called "Oklahoma!", and I'm designing the set for a local theatre's debut performance of a new play.  This new play is a story set in a Japanese internment camp in California in 1943.  I am learning a lot about the experiences suffered by Japanese-Americans during WWII.  I want to do a good job to honor these people.

I also work part-time, because I want to buy groceries and stuff.  My job title is "Lab Theatre Coordinator", but basically I just build sets and take care of the school's black box theatre.  Today, I was working on a set with a young man.  I was working low, and he was high on a ladder.  Do you know what "vise-grips" are?  They are a tool that really hurts when someone drops them on your head from high on a ladder.  My head felt (and still feels) bad, but I think he felt worse.

I have a lot of homework to do tonight.  And next Monday is a holiday in America, so we have a three-day weekend.  This week,  all of my professors said, "It's a three-day weekend, so you have extra time for extra homework."  So, my holiday is going to be very busy with a LOT of homework. I don't mind so much, though. I get to read a Noh play, I get to design things and build some models.  Also, I don't have to go to my part-time job, so nobody will drop anything on my head.

This is a model I made of an izakaya in Kumamoto.

Aloha!

July was a busy month.  I went to a family reunion in Colorado.  It had been almost 15 years since I had last seen some of my family members, so it was really great to catch up with them.  We enjoyed going to the zoo, playing some great games, eating, and just a little hiking around the family cabin in the Rocky Mountains.

After that, I flew to Detroit and spent time with one of my oldest and dearest friends.  It was a very short trip, but we managed to pack the time full of activities like going to the farmers' market and having a cooking contest with mystery ingredients, a la one of our favorite TV shows, "Chopped".  We also drove to Windsor, Canada, to visit another good friend of mine.  My Canadian friend was one of the first people I met while living in Japan, and though we didn't live in the same town for more than just a few months, she has also become very dear to me.

I then flew back to Denver, where I met 2 college friends; one flew in from Santa Fe, the other from Chicago.  We went to "Casa Bonita", a crazy Mexican restaurant, and we also went putt-putt golfing.  It had been over 15 years since the three of us were together, but it felt like no time had passed.

I said goodbye to my friends and returned to my folks' place for a few days of final packing and organization, then said goodbye to them and flew to Honolulu.

I hope to say hello to friends and family when they come visit me here!  This, of course, includes friends & family I didn't get to see this summer, especially those who live in faraway places like Japan and Philadelphia...

My first week here was spent at the YMCA. (I just can't leave you, YMCA.) I rented a cheap room while searching for a place to live.  It was touch-and-go trying to get a good apartment at a reasonable rate before August 1st.  Luckily, the place I liked & wanted the most was granted to me on the 30th!  Saaaafe!

I got a car, I got a bed, and I got a drafting table that needs repaired already. (I'm very angry about the drafting table.) I have my tools, books, & paintbrushes, and I have my LOVELY Shouten Zabuton, but I don't have any other furniture.  I'm waiting 1 more month for K to arrive, so that we can shop for furniture together.

I found a Target, a place for good Eggs Benedict, and a Scrabble Club.  I still need to find a used mystery bookstore, a place for good bagels, and some friends.

I registered for classes last week and I start classes next Monday.  I just can't decide what I'm looking forward to more: being a student again, or getting chairs.

"Away in a Manger"

Do you know this Christmas carol?  It's a very soft, quiet, and lovely song.  The tune sounds very much like a lullaby, and in fact, the lyrics of the song are all about little baby Jesus going to sleep.  As the story (basically) goes, a very pregnant Mary & her husband Joseph were traveling.  They couldn't find a room the night that Jesus was due to be born, but an innkeeper let them sleep in the barn behind the inn.  Jesus was born, and they put him in the manger, which is a box of hay used to feed the animals.

Why am I talking about a Christmas song in July?  I'm getting to that point.  One moment, please.

The second verse of this sweet & gentle, soft & quiet, lullaby-like song starts like this:
"The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes..."

Now, I have heard and sung this song every year for decades.  And every time, the sweet & gentle, soft & quiet, lullaby-like mood of the song has filled me with a sleepy feeling myself.   Even when singing "The cattle are lowing," well, "low" even sounds like "low volume" or "low tension" or at least just nice & quiet.  Even though "the Baby awakes", he doesn't cry or fuss or make extra noises, so "the cattle are lowing" really doesn't sound so bad.

WRONG.  OH,  MY  GOODNESS,  I  WAS  SO  VERY  WRONG.

My folks have a pretty big field right outside the house, and they let some local ranchers keep their cattle in the field for a few days as they prepare to drive the cattle to the summer pasture.  These cows don't say  "moo" in a sweet & gentle, soft & quiet, lullaby-like tone.  They say "MRAA-OO! KK-CH-KAOO! PRA-ZAGAAA!!"  And they say it at about 5a.m.  And they all say it. All 100 of the cattle.  The cows, "MRAA-OO!"  The steer, "MRAA-OO! KK-CH-KAOO! "  Even the cute little baby calves on spindly legs throw back their heads and say, "PRA-ZAGAAA!!"

And let me tell you, this baby cries.  5 o'clock in the morning, three or four mornings in a row is enough.  "The cattle are lowing" no longer sounds sweet & gentle, nor soft & quiet, nor lullaby-like to me.

This Christmas, when I hear "Away in a Manger", I'm not going to want to sing sweetly & gently.  I'm going to want to grill some steaks.

Ga-o-o-o! Gr-r-r-r! Yea-a-ah!

Stress. It isn't fun.  It's also hard to get rid of sometimes.  Some people do yoga, some people go to the hot springs.  Some people go to karaoke or just hang out with friends and enjoy chatting.

My favorite way to relieve stress is to go to the hot springs in Mikawa, but since I can't do that since I moved back to the States, I have to release my stress in my second-favorite way.

First, let me explain one thing: I love sharks.  I love crocodiles & alligators. I love really big marine animals that could potentially eat humans.  I'm not sure why I love them so much, but they make me happy.  They make me so happy that I too want to attack things and bite stuff.   I also LOVE movies about giant sharks or crocodiles or alligators, or dino-sharks or dino-crocs, or... well, you get the idea.

When I'm really stressed out, and I can't go to Mikawa, the best way for me to release my stress is to watch these low-quality movies.  I drink beer and yell at the movie.  I complain when there's a scene with too much talking ("Come on!  I didn't rent this to see you!  Shut up and show me the shark!!"). I cheer when someone gets chomped in two ("Yea-a-ah!  More of this, please!").  These movies always follow the same basic pattern.  They always have a crusty charter boat captain, who'll help hunt the beast, but he'll only do it by HIS rules.  There's always a pretty scientist lady, and her creepy, jealous, overbearing boyfriend who gets eaten by the shark/croc/etc.  There is always, always,  an old drunk guy who stumbles around near the water and sees the creature.  Usually he survives to tell the townsfolk (there are always townsfolk to tell), but nobody ever believes him.  Sometimes he doesn't survive, but before he becomes dinner, he'll say something like "I gotta quit drinkin' this stuff."

These movies are so stupid.  They aren't original at all.  But because they're so-o-o bad, it's easy to enjoy just how silly and preposterous they are.  After 90 minutes of shouting and cheering and laughing (and drinking), I always feel relaxed and refreshed, and ready to take a bite out of my agenda.

This is a picture from about a year and a half ago, taken at an exotic BBQ in Amakusa.  Here, I'm turning the tables, and I'm the one eating part of a crocodile! It was delicious.

Father's Day

How does your family celebrate Father's Day?  Do you go out for dinner or have a party?  Do you get together with grandpas, too?

Father's Day, as you know is always on a Sunday.  My dad is a minister, which of course means he works on Sundays, so in our house, Father's Day has always been an evening addition to the regular routine of going to church in the morning, having a slow-cooker lunch, and then taking an afternoon nap.  When we lived in Wyoming, we'd grill burgers on the hibachi in the backyard.  When we lived in northern Minnesota, we'd go to Jay Cooke State Park to grill sausages over a campfire and take a little hike around the woods.

After I graduated from high school, Father's Day was a phone call or something sent in the mail.  My father and I would have contact, and I'd tell him "Happy Father's Day!"  However, we were always in different states or different countries, and we couldn't spend the evening grilling or hiking or anything like that.

This is the first Father's Day in about 20 years that I actually spent with my dad.  What do you think we did?  Yep, we fired up the grill!  It was really windy, so while I made burgers (with tofu... don't tell Dad) and marinated portobello mushrooms, Dad pulled the grill into the covered area just outside the front door of the house.  It isn't a porch, it's just a small cove barely big enough for my dad and the grill, but that was all the space we needed.

Next year, I'll be in Hawaii on Father's Day.  Who knows? Maybe it'll be another 20 years before we grill again.  I sure am glad that I got to spend this past Sunday with my dad.  It wasn't just a "Happy" day for him; I was pretty happy, too.

Bond is back!

I really like James Bond.  I enjoy reading Bond books and watching (most of) the movies.  I haven't read a James Bond book for a long time, but I just found out that a NEW Bond book will be released in the US this week!

The first Bond book was "Casino Royale", written in 1953 by Ian Fleming.   James Bond became so popular, Ian Fleming wrote many more books.  After Fleming passed away, other authors wrote Bond novels & short stories.  Many of the Bond books became movies, and some Bond movies were written before their book counterpart.

If you want to read & learn more about James Bond, I recommend the "Simple English" Wiki page

(http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond)

If you want to learn more about the new novel, and practice your listening, I recommend the new 6 Minute English page on BBC's Learning English website

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/sixminute/2011/06/110608_6min_english_james_bond_page.shtml)


Of course, I recommend reading the books and watching the James Bond movies, especially earlier Bond films like "Goldfinger".  You can get ready for the next Bond movie, which is supposed to come out next year.

Long time no eat!

After a long visit to Minnesota, we returned to Colorado and hosted a very short visit from my aunt, uncle and cousin.  It had been about 5 years since I last got to see my cousin, so I was very excited for the chance to catch up with her.

Despite having always lived in different states, my cousin and I are very close.  We don't see each other often.  We don't call or write e-mails or use Facebook to keep in touch.  However, whenever we do get the chance to see each other we have a great time.

Last night, while our parents were chatting in the living room, my cousin and I enjoyed chatting and making dinner together.  I had picked up some ingredients at an Asian market in a big city on the way home from Minnesota, so we made a LOT of Japanese food:
-tofu (with ginger & soy sauce or with taberu rayu)
-chicken & leek skewers
-sauteed spinach & natto
-potstickers
-burdock root, eringi mushrooms, carrots, onions, & chicken boiled in broth
-tea-on-rice with pickled plum & seaweed
-roll cake with fresh fruit

My folks & aunt & uncle drank wine, but my cousin and I drank potato spirits on the rocks.  I was so happy!  This was my first time to enjoy a Japanese dinner since leaving Japan.  Of course, my cousin and I didn't cook things as well as my friends back in Japan can cook them.  However, just smelling the dashi and seeing the natto's slimy strings made me feel like I was back in Japan.  Then, drinking the potato spirits made me feel like I felt when I was in Japan (Hey, heyyy, kampaaai!!!).

It was also really great to hear my family say how great the food was. It was their first time to eat burdock root and natto; I'm glad I got the chance to share some of my favorite Japanese food with them.  My uncle said, "It's nice to be introduced to new dishes, something other than the usual teriyaki & tempura."

My cousin's family left this morning.  It was such a short trip, but we'll remember last night's dinner for a long time.

The Twin Cities

My folks and I spent about 3 days driving from southern Colorado to Minneapolis-Saint Paul (a.k.a. the Twin Cities; this is how the baseball team got their name "The Minnesota Twins").  We'll be here for about a week visiting my brother & his family in Minneapolis and my sister in Saint Paul.

Driving across the country was long and tiring, but it was also neat to see so much of the country in springtime.  The last few times I visited home it was winter, and both Minnesota and Colorado were covered under tons of snow.  This time, I saw green, green grass and lots of wild animals, such as deer, coyotes, rabbits and whistle pigs.  It's also calving season, so all of the cattle fields were full of lots of big cows and even more little baby calves.  (I forgot how cute calves are, and I was happy to see so many.)  Today, in the suburbs of Minneapolis, I even saw a big turkey walk along the side of the road!

We are having a good time chatting with my siblings and my nieces and nephews, but it's a shock to see how big the kids have gotten.  Yesterday, we all went shopping together at IKEA, and this morning we went to hear my brother's homily in church.  Tomorrow, I might go to my favorite hardware store, or maybe I'll go get a new tattoo.  There are so many things to do in the Twin Cities!

One of my favorite things to do is eat, of course, and eating is always a big part of family reunions.

Last night, my sister and my folks & I went to a wine bar/cafe for dinner.  We had a lovely time talking about lots of stuff, especially the food we were eating.  My favorite dishes were a chickpea & avocado crostini, a re-e-e-e-eally good polenta with mushrooms and spinach, and a pizza with beets and blue cheese.  We picked up dessert on the way home, and the chewing and chatting continued.

Here's a picture of the polenta (with the pizza in the background):

Tomorrow I plan to go to my favorite bagel shop for lunch, and I plan to eat a billion bagels!  However,  since I weighed myself this morning, I think I'll skip dinner tonight.

Monte the Bronte

I've been home for about a month now.  I'm in the process of sorting through boxes and boxes of all of my old stuff. I have A LOT of stuff, about 30 years' worth, just waiting to be sorted.  I've thrown away or recycled old papers and clothes, I've reboxed heirlooms, reread old letters and looked at old pictures.  I've opened boxes that held embarassing memories and quickly threw them into the garbage bin.  I've also opened boxes that held treasures about which I'd completely forgotten...

When I was younger I loved dinosaurs, especially the apatosaurus.  (Another name for the apatosaurus is brontosaurus.  The brontosaurus was a huge vegetarian with a long, long tail and a long, long neck.  Scientists think they were as heavy as 4 elephants, and that they could crack their tails like whips, and that the sound of the whipcrack was as loud as cannon fire.)  I begged my mom to please, please, please make me a stuffed brontosaurus! ...And she did.  I named him "Monte the Bronte" and I loved him as much as anything.

The other day, I was opening box after box after box.  I was getting very tired sorting through all of my stuff.  But then, when I opened yet another box, who was staring up at me? My darling dinosaur, Monte!

Back then, my favorite movie was called "Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend".  I remember that it wasn't a very good movie, but I loved it anyway.  It was a story about a couple who find a brontosaurus family living in Africa.  Like "E.T." and many other movies, they have to protect their new "friends" from military scientists and so on.  As I said, It wasn't a great movie.  However, this was made before CGI was common, and so all of the dinosaur effects were done with puppets.  Dinosaur puppets!  This was a movie made for me. I haven't seen or thought about this movie for over 25 years, but since I found Monte, I think I'll try to rent it and watch it again soon.

Life in The Valley

This photo shows the sleeper logs I talked about last time, but they're gone now, and all that's left is the bare earth...

Life is very different for me now.  Not just different from living in Japan, but also different from all of the cities that I've lived in here in the U.S.  This is a picture taken from the porch of my folks' house:

It is really beautiful here, especially on days like today, when the sun is shining and the wind is calm.  However, you can see that there aren't any street lights or neighboring houses, no city trams and no McDonald's or kaiten sushi.  Which means, at about 8:00 p.m. the house is surrounded by blackness.  On a clear night, the stars are big and shiny.  On a cloudy night, you can't see anything. 

Lately, I've been getting up and going to bed with the sun.  That's just what people do around here.  People make phone calls at 6:00 a.m.  People are in bed by 9:30 p.m.  People are much more casual about time and appointments in general.  People aren't bothered if your plans change, so they assume you aren't bothered if their plans change.  Sometimes, they remember to tell you when plans change, but usually, people figure nobody cares, so they don't bother to update eachother.  If a store has a slow day and there are only a few customers, the staff will close the store whenever they want.

This is a big departure from what I'm used to.  I can understand wanting to close a store on a beautiful day like today, but I still can't believe that people really do it.  Life is very different for me now.  I can't say that it's better or worse, but it is very different.

Before & After

This is a picture of the 110-year-old bunkhouse that the old ranch-hands used to stay in on my family's ranch.

Although it snowed about 10 centimeters last Monday, all of the snow was gone by Wednesday, and it has been sunny & warm, but very windy.

As you can see, the bunkhouse was not in good condition.  This past week, my parents decided that they want to build a storage space and greenhouse in this location.  So, I've spent most of my time helping my dad tear down the old bunkhouse.  

We took each log off one by one, then removed about a bazillion nails from each log.  We carried the logs to a trailer and loaded it up, then drove the trailer to the place where we keep firewood and other old scraps of wood.  Once again, we had to lift the heavy logs off of the trailer, and stack them neatly.  It has been a lot of hard, sweaty, painful work, but it has been a lot of fun!

Now the old bunkhouse is gone.  All that's left to do is burn the old sleeper logs (the logs that were under the bunkhouse) and flatten the area so that we can start building the new structure.  I hope we can finish the project before I leave for Hawaii.  I really enjoy building stuff!

I've also been helping my mom in the kitchen.  I've made a lot of meals, and I baked muffins, 2 loaves of bread, and a lot of cookies (and I've eaten most of what I've cooked).

I should have taken a "before" picture of me, too...

Denver

As a kid, almost every summer was spent with relatives in various parts of Colorado.  Whenever we visited my aunt's family in Denver, we inevitably went to Casa Bonita for Mexican food (we really went for the atmosphere - cliff divers, Black Bart's Cave...check it out: casabonitadenver.com) or we went to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

I just moved back to the US a few days ago.  My folks planned to drive to Denver to pick me up at the airport; it's about a 5 hour drive from their house. Since I probably won't drive up to Denver too often this summer, I requested to go to the museum for old times' sake.

So, on my first day back in the US, we went to my favorite museum with my aunt & uncle and one of my cousins.  I hadn't been there for about 25 years!  I was looking forward to it very much.  They have a GREAT dinosaur exhibit, and a lot of other exhibits like Egyptian mummies, space, geology (my uncle's favorite), and many many more. The dinosaur exhibit was, of course, my favorite. But I wondered if my other favorite part of the museum was still there...  

At the entrance to the museum, there used to be a big saber-toothed cat replica.  You could drop coins down its throat, and it would roar at you.  I loved it!  My cousins and I would always beg our folks for coins to "feed the cat".  After 25 years, would the saber-toothed cat still be there?

I wasn't disappointed!  Not only had the museum expanded, and added lots of new exhibits (check it out: www.dmns.org/), but it still had the cat! 

I suddenly realized that I only had Japanese yen in my pocket. Once again, after 25 years, I had to beg my mom for coins to feed the cat.  Yep, he roared like he used to!  I was so happy- I felt like a kid again.

(photo courtesy of Aunt Mary)