Snow in Seattle?

Yes, it's snowing in Seattle . . .

It's fiercely cold in that damp, soaks-through-to-your-bone kind of way that characterizes Seattle winters. There's a little drift of snow outside my front door and it looks so pretty against the bamboo and the red berries on the tree whose name I don't know. The snow is wet and sticky, and is clinging to the bamboo leaves. If I look at it through the small viewfinder box I've made with my fingers, I can pretend that I'm in the Chinese highlands and that at any moment a panda bear will come sauntering through the bamboo thicket. The daydream is short lived though as the neighbors whoop and holler as they revel in the falling snow. That's definitely not what pandas sound like. I can only look forward to tomorrow when it will be bedlam in Seattle - in a city unused to snow, even this little sprinkling will wreak havoc if it sticks around.

Run turkey run!

I have been remiss in posting lately, haven't I? What can I say . . . there has been an onslaught of work lately and my head is just too full of academic nonsense to post anything interesting, unless you'd really like to hear about the value of social capital in Japanese neighborhood associations or the role of the Japanese government in disaster management. I know, it's just riveting isn't it?

So, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone is eating lots of turkey or its dietary equivalent if you aren't a carnivore. Personally I love Thanksgiving for the pumpkin pie . . . yum! I love pie.

On this auspicious day of giving thanks and eating, I'd like to discuss some foods of interest. In accordance with my love of pie, I also enjoy savory dishes with pie like characteristics such as calzones, knishes, empanadas, and pasties. Basically foods that are wrapped in bread or dough are good in my book, they're so handy . . . a completely encased treat for optimal eating convenience(there are some exceptions, notably the corn dog . . . it's just scary and slightly weird). I am particularly fond of the Cornish pasty, those of you from Michigan should know what I'm talking about since one of the Upper Peninsula's official tourist attractions is Cornish pasty consumption. I'm so taken by the pasty that I'm seriously considering going to the pasty festival in Calumet just so that I can have lots of different pasties without having to drive all over the place. Another food festival that I'm curious to see is the pawpaw festival in Ohio. Anna told me about the pawpaw and I'm very intrigued, its a fruit of the banana family that is native to North America. It looks odd but delicious at the same time. Its supposed to have a custard like texture, if it tastes like custard too I'm sold! So, is anyone up for a 'taste testing' roadtrip next summer?

Poor kitty . . .

This was just priceless. I heard about it on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me this morning and despite feeling rather poorly (I have a cold. Damn those germy undergrads coughing and sniffling everywhere!), I had a giggling fit. Read it and you'll see, but for those of you who would like to keep reading this cryptic message . . . I'm as suspicious of voting machines as the next person but why did he have to use a little kitty? Then again who has a silver cat paper weight? Between you and me though, I think he could be starting a trend. Mark my words, next election day there'll be scores of paper weight yielding angsty voters. Spread the word. *smile*

She plays the tambourine

Me, disappointedly: "Anna, he plays 'sad bastard' music!"
Anna, laughingly: "Oh no"
Me: "I feel like telling him that he's going to have to take me on as his tambourine playing sidekick just so that I can rock it up a bit."
Anna: "How about playing a tambourine in a trench coat?"
Me, wryly: "Yeah, the trench coat will make it titillating because no one will know what I'm wearing under it."
Anna laughs
Me: "Actually, I think I should play the maracas instead. Tambourines are so passe."

Yes, I said tambourines are passe. You heard it here first. Really, some of the things that come out of my mouth . . . I don't even know where it comes from.

Maracas are the new tambourine. Just another Thursday night conversation at chez nous.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

I saw sunshine today for the first time in a week and I can't express to you how happy that made me. Despite what you may think, the 'shades of gray' don't refer to the Seattle sky or weather. Although it could have quite easily been referring to my state of mind the last couple of days. I knew that I was looking at a rainy winter when I moved out here, no illusions about that. But you'd think that someplace so used to rain would have the capacity to handle heavy rain, apparently not. Over the past couple days gutters have turned into streams and you can't step off a curb without looking to see how deep the puddle is and decide whether you want wet feet and shoes or really wet feet and shoes. I'm not exaggerating.

You'd think in an area where they get so much rain umbrellas would be more readily available. In Japan, umbrellas are so common they're treated just like any other accessory, like bags or hats. They have their own section in department stores and are sold year round, even sun parasols (not to be confused with beach parasols) are still quite common in Japan during the summer time. And the best part is that the umbrellas are fun! They're not all flimsy, collapsible, black numbers that are so common here. I remember the umbrellas I had growing up, they were memorable much like a favorite jacket or stuffed animal. One of my favorites had a red gingham check fabric and a wooden handle in the shape of a hippopotamus' head. And my grandmother's been using the same purple cotton eyelet sun parasol since before I was born. There is an umbrella subculture in Japan and I miss it - or maybe I just miss having umbrellas period. Why don't I have an umbrella here anyway?

I voted weeks ago. How about you?

Have you voted today? If you haven't you should because you know what they say, use it or lose it. It may not be today or tomorrow or even 10 years from now but if we don't get out there and exercise our right to vote, they might decided we don't really want it or need it and take it away. Call me crazy and paranoid if you want but I don't think the idea is too farfetched. Just remember that those of us who live in the US and can vote are a relatively small portion of the world population that has the option to vote for who and what we want, let alone to vote without the fear of the repercussions for voting the "wrong" way. So, get out there and rock the vote!

It's all mini - mini pizzas, mini celebrities

Alright, Irfan this time you actually did have a starring role in my dream - how happy are you? *grin*

Here's what happened, Irfan and I had to go get lunch for ourselves and 8 friends (apparently they weren't important enough to be in the dream although the number of people was very important). So, we drove around debating which grocery store we should go to and finally we decide on one with a super tiny parking lot (only room for 4 cars!). Once inside we split up because I was in charge of beverages and Irfan was in charge of food. For whatever reason I decide that we don't really need beverages and decide that I should help Irfan pick out food. I find Irfan in the deli section, except it wasn't so much a deli as it was 6 giant stainless steel industrial ovens in a cluster. Irfan is, as usual, super excited about his selection of food and insists that I take a look inside the box he's prepared while he gets something out of the oven. I look in the box and find that Irfan's selected 8 tiny slices of pizza, each could fit in the palm of my hand, and 2 tiny burritos, which for some reason aren't folded up but instead stuffed into Dixie cups. Obviously at this point my eyebrows are raised and I'm giving Irfan a cynical look, "That's it? This is what you chose to feed 10 ravenously hungry people?!" Meanwhile, Irfan is excitedly heating his own mini pizza slice in the oven but insists on watching it with the oven door open, which incidentally, he happens to be laying on as though it's a piece of furniture. At this point I say, "Irfan, careful you don't burn your eyebrows off," to which Irfan replies, "Don't worry, I won't do that again." In reality I don't remember Irfan having ever burned off his eyebrows so I don't know what that's about. Irfan, that hasn't happened to you, has it?

Anyway, at this point, as can only happen in dreams, we're instantaneously transported back to wherever it is that we came from. I still can't see the other people that we're hanging out with but we're sitting at a rectangular table that in my mind is most definitely a poker table. It actually looks sort of like a foosball table, because the center is sunken in and the sides have a considerable lip. The surface is green like a games table and everyone's cards are propped up against the lip of the table facing outwards so that you can see everyone's cards but your own, bizarre no? Anyway, the strangest part was that as part of the game there was a miniature Owen Wilson frantically running around the table moving everybody's cards! Not a robotic miniature but a real live Owen Wilson who was only 3 inches tall! And that's when I woke up.

How weird is that? I don't even know where to start . . . except to say that if I could, I really would like to have a miniature Owen Wilson. And I wish I could remember what this bizarre version of poker was because the whole idea of playing an entire game without seeing your own cards seemed crazy and yet wildly exciting.

There's no accounting for taste

It's the wee hours of Friday and I feel that it's only appropriate that I should start the day off with a lovely list of 5 random things. Today's list will be . . . five foreign musicians or bands that are hugely popular in Japan (to this day) for reasons that are beyond me, well that's not entirely true . . . but oh whatever.

1. ABBA
2. The Beatles
3. Queen
4. Elvis Presley
5. The Carpenters

Doesn't that seem like an odd bunch? The only thing that they have in common is that their songs all have relatively easy lyrics, in the sense that even if you didn't know what the words meant you could still recognize them. They're all of a certain era too. And they're not all necessarily very quality writers either, not that I'm knocking their skills but have you actually listened to ABBA lyrics? They're certainly catchy but they really make very little sense.

On this list I find Elvis' presence to be the most amusing. Not only is he an American icon but he also happens to be the former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi's favorite musician. In the heyday of Koizumi's popularity he released an album of his favorite Elvis tunes. Mind you, Koizumi didn't actually sing or do anything on the album besides pick out the songs. Isn't that bizarre? And of course how can we forget that he burst into song while visiting Graceland with President Bush . . . oh such priceless moments. I can only hope that the new Prime Minister Abe comes out with a compilation album of his own.