Urban Planning

This a little city my kids and their cousins created. I would not be opposed to living here or at least painting my existing city more colorfully.

Drawers on the Lawn

School started and I lost track of the things I was doing. Every day and all tasks suddenly revolved around my kids' school. Then, sometime around mid October, I remembered my blog. Now, sometime near Halloween, I post, finally!

I took these images at my husband's great aunt's house. She and her only daughter have passed away. The task of clearing the house has gone to extended family. Here are the drawers to a dresser we are moving to our house. The other image is of the view across the road.

A Horse of Course

Today we went to the Little Buckaroos event at the Crocker Art Museum here in Sacramento. There, the kids got to make very simple, but very inventive crafts: a cowboy hat, a fake mustache to go with the cowboy hat and this horse (consisting of a paper horse body, button eyes, feathers and two clothes pins.) None of it required glue!

Each craft station was held in a different part of the museum. There, in the middle of the modern art exhibit were a dozen children on the floor creating horses. It made one feel a bit nervous to see the kids so close to priceless art, and yet, it was also very good to see the kids in such close proximity to the art. Making art surrounded by art...

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.