A Brief Note and A Random Photo

Nearly three weeks ago I broke our computer by using the wrong power cord. In less than a minute, I fried the mother board. It dawned on me only last night that perhaps I could use my phone to post. Here's my first attempt. I'll keep it short for it takes me a long time to type with my thumbs on my phone's mini keyboard.  Also, I'm not sure how to spell check yet.

Something Nicer

When we moved into our house, it had many wallpapered walls--wagon wheels in the kitchen, black in the dining room, and black in the bathroom. In fact, the bathroom was covered in a black wallpaper flocked with a repeated image of those Chinese terra cotta soldiers, near their Chinese horses and a Chinese tree, all in gold.

That was the only room we didn't remove the wallpaper from right away. We lived with the gold Chinese soldiers for awhile and then decided we should tackle a minor bathroom redo. We removed the wallpaper and then lived with drywall for a year and half. ("Lived with" is a nicer way to say:  "Lazily left the drywall")

Finally this summer, my husband tackled the rest of the job. We haven't redone the floor yet and hopefully some day the counter can be replaced, but at least the gold flocked terra cotta soldiers are gone as is the bare dry wall.

As for these little vases, I have had them for 13 years now. I got them on my first trip to Japan. They have been sentimentally hidden away in a box for a long time now. I hesitated to take them out of their hiding spot. I have not been using them out of fear of something happening to them. But, I often go through this argument with myself: saving versus using. And I know the right answer. Don't save. Use and enjoy. So, here they are...enjoying a spot in the newly freshened bathroom.

Finally, something a little nicer to look at.

  

Every Year, Obon

Every year Obon comes around. Obon is the Buddhist festival honoring one's ancestors. It involves dancing and lanterns and kids in kimono. At least, that's somewhat of an outsider's interpretation. I am glossing over the more spiritual aspects. The lanterns, the colorful kimono and the setting of a warm summer evening always make the festival a beautiful one to be part of.

Every year, the church holds dance practices the week before Obon. Every year I say I am going to attend the practices, but fail to. Next year, for sure, I really am going to participate. This year, I did as I usually do...take pictures, eat a snow cone. (Snow cones are also part of Obon, but I don’t have a picture of that.)

 

A Visit to the Bazaar

We visited the Walnut Grove Buddhist Bazaar last weekend. Walnut Grove is a small, old river town south of Sacramento. It once had a thriving Japanese and Japanese-American community. Now, there is a historic street to remind us of the once large Japanese presence in town.

I am not sure how common bazaars are, but since I moved to Sacramento, I’ve been to many. Is it a Japanese-American thing? I’m assuming not, but all the ones I’ve been to have been organized by various Japanese churches: Buddhists, Methodist and Shinto.

This one in Walnut Grove was no different. First we go for the food. There was the prerequisite teriyaki chicken, sushi and noodles. There were the carnival-like games for the little ones that cost a quarter. The funniest to me is always the “fishing” game, where the child flings their line over a plywood panel painted like a fishing scene, then a person hiding behind that panel quickly clips a goodie bag onto the child’s “hook.” Surprise! They caught a prize! I should ask my daughter next time how she thinks that prize got there.

Also, this bazaar stood out to me because it had bingo, which we did not win, but had fun playing. Actually, the girls did not really enjoy me playing. I think they thought I was being a little neglectful of them as I was paying a lot of attention to the bingo numbers. I can see how that game can get addictive.

The girls did not enjoy the heat--even the snow cones and quarter games could not remedy the 100 degree heat. And because of the heat, we didn’t stay long. Although it was only twenty-five minutes from our house, the Bazaar felt much farther away. A tiny break from, if not the heat, then from our usual routine.

Summer Time

As it does, summer has brought with it a change of schedule. I didn't really see it coming. I thought summer vacation was a thing for parents with older children who needed a break from homework. It's been a while since I've felt the time shift of summer.

Still, I've noticed that I have been staying up late and sleeping in more. My kids are sleeping in a bit (we’re making it to 7am some mornings!) which lets me sleep in (I'll take any excuse to sleep late) and then the late light of evening keeps me from turning in. During the winter and spring I was trying very hard to go to bed early. Every night I would go into a panic around 9 pm--fretting that I wasn't already asleep. Now, that feeling has relaxed a bit and eleven or twelve sneaks up on a still-awake me. That’s when I think, oh well, it’s summer.

Another sign of summer is this Kool-Aid Ice Art. This is a project my daughter did in school the other day. Then, while walking through the grocery store, she spied the kool-aid shelf and wanted to do it at home too. I appreciated the very little prep work required on my part. Tear open some kool-aid packs and get out some ice. The resulting colors are rather intense considering they come from something meant to be consumed by children. And the raspberry lemonade flavor stained our table. Nevertheless, it does seem like a nice, wholesome summer activity. Like sleeping “late” into a summer morning.

Now I'm Sweating

It is hot now. Suddenly the cold spring turned into 90 degree summer days. The girls are in their tiny pool telling me that I'm not allowed to look at them or listen to them. (They don't want me to hear them playing "princess." Which, I can hear (because I'm roughly two feel away) involves playing "Cinderella" while "swimming" in the ocean and arguing about who has to be the prince.)

Train Time

 

Last weekend some friends visited us from out of town. They suggested we all visit the train museum in Old Sacramento. I had heard that the train museum was worth a visit, but it took out-of-towners to get us there. It really is a neat; lots of history brought to life--really brought to life, for some of the decommissioned trains really rock as you walk through them and they have mannequins "playing" the part of the long-gone train employees.  (including a looped recording of them "talking.")

Our kids were a bit young to really enjoy it. The real, full-sized trains were big and a bit frightening for them. The historically-dressed, talking mannequins were eerie. The parents among us tried to impress upon our children that this place was cool. But our oohs and ahhs did not convince them. We still had to carry them most of the time we were touring the place.

They did enjoy the train sets (shown in the bottom two photos) set up for them to play with at the end of the tour. There is something simply magical about miniature trains and miniatures tracks. I'm trying to put my finger on it...I know it's related to dollhouses and miniature golf. I'll get back to you when I figure it out.