Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
Image: A black cat, Willow, being beautiful and sleek on a chair.

I should be doing something with my life right now, but instead I'm posting cat pictures on the internet. I had big plans to write today, but I forgot it was Friday and got derailed by a weekly Zoom I have with some friends. I still love my Zooms? I wish more people still wanted to randomly connect via whatever video conferencing program they prefer. I used to regularly talk to a friend of mine in New York City, a guy that I used to date, way back before we both realized we were queer. I think he'd be baffled if I texted him and was like, "Hey, you wanna Zoom?" Maybe not. But this was so much more a thing we did during the isolation part of the pandemic. 

Anyway, I just thought you all might enjoy a picture of my cat. 

 
Image: A bright yellow miniature house, its wide doors open, to reveal a free small treasure.

Shawn and I are still doing our "stupid little walks for our stupid health" pandemic walks and today we came across something unique. This Crayola yellow house bills itself as a "little free treasure" house. That's a light up key fob that I put in there because it was currently empty. I think this is such a lovely idea. In fact, Shawn and I are thinking about attaching one to our current little free library so we can slowly divest our house of all the little weird McDonald's toys and whatnot we've accumulated thanks to years of having a smol in the house. In the meantime, I put together a small box of some stuff that had been kicking around on the sunporch waiting to be moved to the attic and will take it over to this existing one over the next few days. 

Apparently, you can follow this one on Instagram under @littletreasurehouse and over on Facebook. 

What a cute idea!

As I think I've previously mentioned, I changed from attending Chicon 8 / 80th WorldCON in-person to virtual. I really waffled long and hard about this, but two things factored into my decision to go virtual. First, the pandemic, despite our wishful thinking, rages on. Secondly, this weekend is the same weekend that Mason heads back to Wesleyan University to start his second year of college. Even though my son is a fully grown and capable adult, I would still have been sad to not have been able to see him off to the airport.

I made the switch to virtual just as they were sending out programming. I got an AMAZING initial, draft, in-person schedule:


Image: my initial draft schedule.

I took a screen shot of it because I figured that when I switched to Virtual that late in the game, it would be beyond hope to be accommodated. I felt that was reasonable given how much WorldCON volunteers have to juggle, I should note, though I was very sad at the prospect. So, I thought, "I shall snap this picture of what could have been and be pleased that I was in the running for so MANY super-cool looking programming items." I was especially sad, at first, imagining that I'd lost the opportunity to talk about anime film director and mangaka, Kon Satoshi.

As I posted a few days ago, I actually have a very robust virtual con schedule. I was inordinately pleased to see that the Kon Retrospective had been shifted fully to virtual. That panel is first thing tomorrow morning and I am psyched. So, I should say that going into this convention I was/am in high spirits.

Yesterday was a bit up and down for me, though.

I was able to attend the "Dress Rehearsal" for programming participants a week ago. Chicon has chosen a new-to-me online conference hosting software called Airmeet. It seems to have been specifically designed to deal with a large volume of conference attendees, and it has a couple of fun features, including a private "backstage" option for panelists to hang out in, pre live panel, to talk. My only frustration is that a new software means a large learning curve for the majority of the attendees and tutorials have been hard to come by. The session I attended, I think, tried to do too much. A lot of us writers had very specific questions about their needs and the staff tried to answer to all of them, in specific, before a general sense of how Airmeet works had really been established. But, it's mostly intuitive to the moderately internet savvy, I'd say?

But, so, okay, my con experience so far...

My virtual con yesterday was a mix of soul-crushing and uplifting, in that order, at least. Thus, I actually ended the day feeling okay about it all?

My Table Talk was the soul-crushing event. I ended up popping into one of the "lounges" that Airmeet has set up for people to gather. There is a specific kind of "help desk" one, labeled: Info. Table Talks are extra confusing on Airmeet, because they are not listed on the on-line schedule. The reason is, of course, that they're not actually PUBLIC events, per se. They're sign-up only. So, anyway, I was a little uncertain how they worked, technically, so I dropped in when no one else was in the Info room/lounge and asked the woman working there if there was anything special, mechanically, that I needed to do.

It was explained to me that when the Table Talk was about to start a notification would show up under "my meetings" and then you could click to join. That seemed very reasonable and so I asked if there was any way to tell how many people had signed up from her end. The Info Woman said no, but an automatic email would have been generated if no one had signed up at all.

Okay, I thought, there's a relief. I hadn't seen one of those.

My publisher from Wizard's Tower Press, Cheryl Morgan, saw me online and popped into the room and complained a bit to Staff Lady about the fact that she had, in fact, tried to join my Table Talk, but the sign-up closed before she could get to it. Apparently, you have to sign up ahead of time by a full day, which mostly makes sense, except apparently the online con stuff wasn't fully available early morning Wednesday. Also a lot of people just coming in did not realize that they should have done so earlier if they wanted to get on Thursday Table Talks. (Cheryl implied but didn't say that this also clearly put international fans at a disadvantage, because a reasonable time to be awake and checking one's con schedule on UK time is very different than Chicago time.) Staff Lady said that they were trying to deal with this by dropping low-attendance Table Talks into the public lounge spaces so that people might be able to spontaneously join the day of, just like you can in-person.

Okay, this is all very important because: no one but Cheryl ended up at my Table Talk.

DEMORALIZING.

BUT I also did not get any kind of email saying that I'd been cancelled, so I have no idea if there were no shows or if people didn't get the joining email when they shifted me to public--because they clearly did. I waited and waited for my "join my meeting" notification to show up and it NEVER did. Eventually, in my panic, I happened to see it materialize in the public lounge spaces, so I was able to join. So, I don't know what happened there. I should have been informed if there were ZERO attendees, and the system shouldn't have counted Cheryl because she missed the official sign-in. Did the shift to public mess up some notification that everyone, including me, should have gotten? I have no idea.

But, on the other hand Cheryl Morgan and I had a lovely talk. In fact, we were able to do some business. She was wondering if I wanted paper copies available for the e-books, and I was like, "Hell yes, why didn't we do it from the start?" So, that's something we'll be doing, which is wonderful. Then, you know, we generally caught up on each other's lives, learning Welsh/Japanese via Duolingo, and all sorts of various mundane things like that. I really like Cheryl as a person? So, even though we were both staring at each other hyper-aware of the empty "room," it wasn't a total waste of time.

My reading, on the other hand, went really well. When I pressed the "go backstage" button, I discovered that my technical assistant was the Airstream Tutorial person, a person named Gail. Gail, it turns out is a HUGE fan of mine, and basically gushed at me about how awesome I am and that was EXACTLY the pick-me-up that I needed after the empty room fiasco. Also, she could tell how many people came to the reading and it was about a dozen, which is, for me, an absolute crowd. I also told Gail that she could record the reading, so if people want to check it out later, it will be available. So, if any of you reading this report are attending virtually or have access to the virtual option, feel free to check it out. 

Afterwards, it occurred to me that the short story I read at the reading should have probably come with some trigger warnings (there's sex work and implied abuse and violence), so I reached out in chat to Gail so that she could at least add those to the recording of the reading and we had another lovely back and forth and I asked her to send me her snail mail so I could send her something, like a signed copy of a favorite book, as a thank you. She was OVER THE MOON. When I got the snail mail address, it came with another lovely, long email telling me all the things she loved about my writing.

So, ultimately, this was very gratifying for my bruised ego.

I would say, in fact, that it all came out in the wash. Because the lack of a crowd at the Table Talk seems to have possibly been the result of some technical error, I don't even REALLY feel all that badly about it.  I notice right now, in fact, that hardly anyone is taking advantage of the lounge option in Airmeet. I've been occupying a table in the so called "Coffee shop" hoping that someone will notice me and drop in, but just sitting here hasn't resulted in anything. I suppose if I want to chat, I'll have to drop a DM to someone in Airmeet and see if they want to virtually hang out. That seems more intrusive than I want to be, however. 

I'm hoping other people will post con reports because I am definitely having a case of FOMO (fear of missing out) over all of this. It would actually help me to hear other people's stories of how it's going for them.

 I probably won't be able to keep up a full con report, but I thought I'd try. 

Despite my better judgment, I'm doing CONvergence in-person this weekend. I will say that registration was pretty slick. As you approached the registration area, someone directed you to the first table, where you showed your ID and proof of vaccine card. If you passed that first hurdle, they gave you a validation card (kind of like when you go and vote), which you then hand off to the people pulling badges. It was slow, but I made it through the line in less than a half hour. (I have seen lines for registration at CONvergence that were kind of insane, like wrapping around the whole hotel floor and then doubling back on itself.) 

The moderator of panel was willing to remind people in the audience that masks were NOT optional, too, which was nice. There was a brief discussion before the panel started where it was asked if the panelists were willing to remove their masks. I'm never willing, so everyone on the panel followed my lead. 

The panel I was on today was called "Never Meet Your Gods."  The description was: What happens when regular people interact with mythic figures, such as Lucifer or Odin? Participants: Aimee Kuzenski (mod), Larry Swain, and Lyda Morehouse.

I have to admit that I have been fighting a headache all day. (This was the second one in a row for me and since I normally don't get headaches at ALL, I took a COVID test this afternoon just to be sure - it was negative.)  So, I did not go into this panel at my very best. Plus, I don't entirely feel like myself with long hair, so I was definitely fighting more awkwardness than I normally have sitting on a panel. 

That being said, I think it went pretty well. I was surprised how many people came to the panel, given how barebones the description was. Aimee did a pretty good job moderating, though at one point I joked that some of her questions felt a bit like a pop quiz that I was not entirely ready for. Name your favorite human/god interaction!  What are the best/worst depictions of gods!? My answers all started with, "Uhhhhh...." Like I said, I was just not batting a 100. I did NOT ace the pop quiz. 

I was also easily dragged off topic because one of my fellow panelists, Larry Swain, is a Biblical scholar and that's my catnip. So, at least one point we went down a Biblical rabbit hole all the way to Simon Magus.... apparently Larry is going to be on a panel about weird Biblical stories and I might have to see if I can make that (okay, looking for it on the schedule, it looks like it's on Sunday. I may be able to stay because I think I have an early morning anime panel that day.)

Anyway, I do think that because I was easily distracted and not terribly on the ball, it was not a top ten performance? Was it a good and lively discussion? YES. Was it write-home-about amazing? Probably not. 

After the panel I hung out with some old friends for a few minutes--Bill and Melissa and Leah Cutter.

Tomorrow's panels are:

• 12:30 pm "What If" Inspired by the Marvel Comics series, What If? is an animated anthology series on Disney+. Narrated by The Watcher, the series explores alternate timelines in the multiverse showing options if major moments from the MCU films occurred differently. Participants: Robert Becka, Tim Lieder, Mark Lundberg (mod), Charlene Holm, Lyda Morehouse
• 3:30 pm "Faith & Religion in Speculative Fiction" What does it take to make faith and religion "work" in speculative fiction? Are those factors the same as those required for faith in real life? How has reading or writing about religion influenced your own beliefs and practices? Participants: Tim Lieder, phillip andrew bennett low (mod), Hertzey Hertz, Naomi Kritzer, Lyda Morehouse

Image: May Basket in a tea cup.

Sunday was Beltane (and/or May Day for you international Workers of the world,) and so Shawn and I celebrated by having a couple of friends over for tea. Tea in this case actually being more of a dinner, as it was a early midday meal that was actually fairly large... although it was made up of nibble-ly, finger foods, so lunch? Regardless of what it was called, it was an absolutely amazing time shared with Haddayr C-W and naomikritzer

We sent them both home with "May Basket" teacups, seen above. (Yes, they got to keep the cups. We picked them up thrifting on Saturday, just for this purpose.)

I took a ton of pictures, but all I really want to say about it was that the watercress and egg sandwiches are surprisingly good, it was not as much hassle as I thought it might be to go largely gluten free, and I was really bummed that I could not adequately make Beltane wreathes or fill the May baskets with flowers blooming in our garden BECAUSE NO FLOWERS ARE BLOOMING YET IN THIS HIDEOUS WEATHER.

I mean, seriously, it looks like early April out there in my yard. Only a few crocuses and brave snowdrops have poked up out of the frozen ground to bloom. 

Otherwise, since it is Monday, I thought I would show off the much nicer (though also rainy) weather in Japan. My first trip this last week was with Erika and we went to Ashikaga Flower Park in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. We were actually here before, in the winter, to see a light show. (https://lydamorehouse.dreamwidth.org/597654.html.)  It's quite a bit different, as you might imagine, in late April.


Wisteria at the flower park in Japan.

It was drizzling a bit this day, which is why there are not a lot of other tourists in these shots. Also, of course, in order to make these live tours even vaguely available for North American tourists, the tour guides often have to be early birds. I think this tour happened around my 5 pm, but it was her 8 am (the next day.)


Brilliant red, pink, and white azaleas against a stormy sky.

We used to have an azalea bush in our front yard and I kind of miss it. I was not good at taking care of it and it was in a very difficult spot to keep well watered. Perhaps I'll try again, because looking at these makes me really miss how brilliant these bushes can be in the early spring. 

I could fill this post with pictures of the pretty flowers and the famous wisteria tree, but I feel slightly compelled to show you the more unusual sites. I will say that I have realized with these HeyGo tours that I am much more fond than I would have thought of strolling through random, out of the way gardens. Perhaps because I am not on any kind of schedule. I suspect that if I were actually paying to travel to Japan right now, I would be desperately trying to chose what to go see and a lot of these odd, quiet, out-of-the way places would not make the list. I honestly think that this is the strongest case for HeyGo. It's a great way to "travel" to the places you would never make time for if you only had two weeks (or however long) to spend in Japan.

So, in keeping with the theme of "places I would probably never put on an itinerary," I next visited Tomonoura in the Hiroshima Prefecture with Toshi.


View from inside the temple...

For anime fans, apparently the town of Tomonoura was an inspiration for Miyazaki's Ponyo.  The Wolverine with Hugh Jackman was also filmed here.  It is a quaint little port town that I would probably never visit in a million years. There is an old lighthouse there and an amazing hillside shrine with a cemetery I would have loved Toshi to explore more, but we were already over time at that point.

The only other picture that I want to share from this HeyGo was the picture of the suge-dama outside of the sake brewery we passed in town. 


Image: an odd twiggy, brown ball hanging off of a second story awning.

I honestly live for information like this. So, the suge-dama (杉玉) is a ball of cedar branches that signals the freshness of the sake. Sake, though we refer to it as "rice wine" here in the West, is really more like beer. Most sake does need a maturation period of about a year, I guess, but the brewers will put out a green ball when the newest batch is ready/fresh for the season. This one is obviously past its prime. :-) Although, I found another article that suggests that the brown might be an indication that the sake is actually ready: https://sake-world.com/sugidama-sake-lore-of-olde-cryptomeria-balls/

At any rate, I found this little detail very fascinating. 

I went on another tour in hopes of another spectacular view, but the clouds conspired to rob us of a good picture of Mount Tsurugi from Himi City. (If you go to this site and scroll down to the second picture, that was what we were hoping for: https://www.snowmonkeyresorts.com/activities/tateyama-mountains-top-3-viewing-spots/)

Instead, the best we got was a close up of that little island:

Image: a cool little island in the sea.

So there's your weekly dose of Japan, if you are interested. I did not do any vintage lunch recipes today because I got caught up working on my novel instead.

 
Image: A torii gate surrounded by cherry blossoms (near the Ayato-kunaka-jinja Shrine, Minami Ward, Kyoto.)

I will probably tire of these some day, but, right now, I'm still finding a lot to enjoy. 

First up this week, the demon tour guide, Makoon, took us to a World Heritage site, Tenryū Shiseizen-ji  at sunrise. This was a very special tour, because the monks at the temple allowed Makoon in hours before the gates officially opened, so it was just us (really just Makoon and his livestreaming gear.) 

I've talked about this guide before, because he has distractingly long fingernails. In an anime, this would totally be a clue to the big reveal that he is secretly a demon or part-demon (or a demon working a part time job!!)  I spent a weird amount of the time trying to get a good shot of this man's amazingly demonic fingernails and I do think I managed to get a decent one.


Image: Not the best, but you can see a bit of the sharpness on the nails on the bottom left hand side.

His hands are lovely? He's a great guide? It's just that the fic writer in me really would love a universe where, you know, this nice young man is living an alternate life as a demon. Is that too much to ask?? I mean, it does add a certain something to the tour to imagine that at any minute a Hell Gate could open and Makoon would be forced to transform into his True Self in order to protect the universe from the denizens of hell, aka his colleagues. Meanwhile, he's just living his best life pretending to be human. 

I would read the f*ck out of this manga, honestly.

Anyway, back to what REALLY happened on the tour, which was that we walked around a very serene garden of the temple, which is located in Susukinobaba-chō, Ukyō Ward, Kyoto, Japan. 


Image: a classic scene of a stone lantern perched on a moss hill, framed in light pink cherry blossoms.



Image: The tahou-den constructed in 1934 (though built in the Kamakura Period style.)

The thing that was funniest to me was the amount of time that Makoon explaining to us the purpose of meditating and then sitting in front of a crystal clear lake encouraging us to do the same. I mean, I was eating dinner? 


Image: The Sōgen Pond with a reflection of the mountains on the still waters.

The next HeyGo tour I went on last week was to Hiroshima with a new guide: JJ (Joy) Walsh. Joy is an interesting tour guide. She is another expat, who is apparently (if I understood correctly) originally from Hawaii. English is her first language, but she speaks at least some Japanese. She also has a YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JJWalshInboundAmbassador/videos in which she focuses on sustainability issues in Japan. As part of this she interviews a lot of people (in English, though in at least one video she also hired/has on a translator.) I have to respect this a lot.

She lives in Hiroshima with her family and she took us for a lovely riverside walk among the cherry blossoms.


Image: a lovely path among the cherry blossoms in Hiroshima.

I took a TON of postcard pictures of this walk, but it seems silly to try to share them all here, since they are variations on what you see above. 

Joy also took us over the Miyajima Island, also known as Itsukushima. You have probably seen pictures of this particular temple complex, because of the famous red, "floating" torii gate in the sea. Unfortunately, the gate itself is under construction, but we did wander around the rest of the floating temple. Because so many of the tours have to be in the early morning in order to catch North American and European viewers, the tide had no entirely come up yet, which was kind of fascinating in its own right. You never think of the fact that you could walk up to that Tori gate when the tide was out.

At any rate, her is a picture of the Five Story Pagoda which is also on the island.


Image: Miyajima Island's Goju-no-to (Five story) Pagoda through the cherry blossoms

Here is a shot of the floating shrine at low tide:


Image: Floating shrine at Miyajima Island

The island apparently has a lot of lovely hiking trails, as well. Joy recommended that if we ever decided that we wanted to see this place that we should actually find a hotel on the island somewhere. Even just walking up to the pagoda, Joy ran into one of the locals.


Miyajima Island deer.

Apparently, they used to sell crackers you could feed the deer at the train station and so visitors used be mobbed by the hopeful deer. A few still come looking for handouts, even though they stopped selling the crackers some time ago.

Then, I went on another cherry viewing walk, near the Lake Biwa canals of The Philosopher's Walk, Tetsugaku-no-michi.  

Image: the cherry blossoms in Kyoto

This is a tourist destination. It's called The Philosopher's Walk because two 20th century university professors, Nishida Kitaro and Hajime Tanabe, apparently took this path as part of their daily exercise. But, it just a lovely path that walks along the canal and past a number of shrines. This was another walk where I took a ton of postcards, but they really basically all look exactly like this. I mean, we did see a couple of ducks swimming in the canal, but, you know, I will not bore you with that.

I suspect this is already a LOT, as the kids used to say.

Fortunately, we have reached the end of last week's various tours. I have a lot of other stuff I want to tell you all about that happened over the weekend, not the least of which is that I got my hearing tested. I passed with the caveat of "for someone my age," which means I have lost a bit of the upper register, which was pretty much as expected. I went in because I am turning 55, and because there is a lot of "did you hear me?" at this point in out lives in this house of aging women. But, that's not what I wanted to tell you. The whole test was so weird. I mean there were beeps and such, like I remembered, but then there were bits that had me half expecting to have my inner Winter Soldier awaken, since, as part of it, they have you repeat these very unrelated words. Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak... I mean, obviously not those exact words, but it was totally like this!  Then there was a section where I had to repeat a very odd phrase that was long and complex, as best as I could, but with louder and louder "cafe babble" happening in the other ear. That one was straight out of Blade Runner, because the phrases were like, "In a dry, lonely desert, the man came across a turtle on his back." I was tempted to start shouting, "My mother? I'll tell you about my mother!!" *table flip*  But, the audiologist said I did better than a lot of people, and I think that was entirely due to the fact that I found the phrases like weird little story prompts and so they stuck in my head.

The other thing I want to share is that I was able to attend a livestream of a theater play in Portland, that stars my god(dess) daughter, Naomi. So much fun! But, I want to give that one a bit more context so I will save it for tomorrow.

See you all then!

By chance, I was trying to find one of my older fics. You would normally just go to AO3 and start scrolling, but I have a lot.

I mean, A LOT.

So, it is actually sometimes easier for me to just Google my own work. So, I popped in the title I was looking for and discovered that TWO of my Bleach fics were featured on a PODCAST.

"Berry Barista" and "The Loss of More Than Power," were called out as part of the "Ichigo's Harem" by The One True Podcast, Episode 19 (you will have to scroll down, I could not find a direct link. Not that I expect anyone but me cares to listen to this whole thing). The first part of the podcast just explains what Bleach is and why there are so, so many ships that sail with Ichigo, the main protagonist. The story that the guest speaker talks about wishing she could write, is, in fact, "The Loss of More than Power." and then she gets into her recs. And, let me tell you right now, there is literally nothing quite like being simultaneously called out as "I don't think they have updated in a long time," and "It is so good. SO GOOD." 

Yep.

My fan fic career in a nutshell. 

At any rate, the other thing I forgot to tell you all about is that as part of Shawn's work, she is doing a course in "Design Thinking." It's one of those certification programs that requires a lot of projects. One of them was to design and BUILD a tinfoil hat, I have to admit that I kind of dig the craft parts of this course? Previously, Shawn and I had to do a brainstorming session with post-it notes. I mean, I say "Shawn and I' because technically these are supposed to be "team" projects, but, of course, no one is in the office right now. So, she's been tapping me to be her team.

The good news is that I kind of dig it.

Here's me modeling the cooking tinfoil hat, for the discerning conspiracy theorist who likes to cook and is fond of anglerfish.


It has a recipe hook, a fancy fish tail counter weight, a spoon holder, drip pockets, and so much more!!

Also, as my friend Laurie Winter pointed out when I posted this to Facebook, the other feature of our hat is that the aliens can not implant their recipes into your brain!  Bonus!

We sent a series of these pictures to Mason, who left for college and Connecticut the day we sat down to do this with, "Here's what happens when we are left with an empty nest."  We got back, "??? ARE YOU OKAY?'  

 
Image: good doggo posing for Sakura Season pics in Matsuda (Kanagawa Prefecture), Japan

It's moments like these that I live for on the HeyGo tours.

For my new subscribers, I recently stumbled upon a virtual touring company called HeyGo. They do livestream tours around the world, and I have long been fond of Japan, and so I started going along as people walk through the streets of Osaka or Tokyo or in the countryside. Cherry Blossom season is just beginning in Japan, so I've been following a particular guide, Eriko, as she travels (often with her mom) around the Japanese countryside.

On Sunday, Eriko was in Matsuda Town at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Nishira Park ( 西平畑公園). The park's parking lot has a view of Mount Fuji. We were once again quite lucky to see it on a clear day.


Image: Fuji-san showing off her icy peak, framed by early-blooming Kawazu (ornamental) cherry trees.

For reference, here's Wikipedia's map showing the location of Matsuda:'



The festival grounds were crowded. But, Erika is a pro at keeping the camera trained on the sights, so I only noticed the number of people in passing. Erika is particularly fond of the color combination of the pink cherry blossoms and canola (rapeseed) flowers. This is the second tour we've been on with her this year where she showed off the brilliant yellow canola blooms.


Image: cherries and canola (a nice alliteration.)

The other tour I went on, on Saturday, was with a new-to-me tour guide, Toshi. Toshi took us to two different places, the Oyama Shrine (山神社,) in Kanazawa (Ishikawa Prefecture) Japan and then just down the way to Gyokusen Inmaru (aka Kanazawa Castle Park). 

The shrine's grounds were my favorite part (and, apparently, the only thing I took any pictures of.)  But, I was very enamored of the stepping stones and zig-zag bridges, which reminded me of the Japanese garden here in St. Paul at Como Zoo. 


Image: Oyama Shrine's zig-zag bridges, apparently called yatsuhashi, eight bridges,(八橋).

I took a bunch of pictures of the scenery of these grounds, but probably the most delightful moment was when we were joined by a pair of ducks.


Image: ducks in the shrine's pond. Birder friends, ID? I have no idea.

Probably someone in the chat ID'd the particular type of duck this is, but I have been turning off the chat function. I used it when I first started doing HeyGo a LOT. It is strangely thrilling to be able to say, "Hey, Toshi-san, what's that to the left?" and have the guide turn and try to identify what it is you're curious about. I really can make a person feel like they are actually visiting Japan (or wherever.) However, the problem I have with chat is twofold. First, there are always annoying people who pop on to a tour and don't seem to know even where they are and so they'll ask, "Where are we?" And, I dunno, my patience for that kind of stuff waxes and wanes. The second issue I have with chat is that it's a moving scroll off to the side and I am already trying to take in video that is sometimes jostling along as someone walks. I don't need that kind of vertigo-inducing malarkey.

The shrine is dedicated to this dude, who is depicted here in a rather atypical fashion. I don't know why, but I don't associate these kinds of statues with Japan. 


Image: a guy on a horse, ffs.

But, to be fair, parts of this shrine--the gate in particular--were designed by a Dutch guy. At any rate this guy was Maeda Toshiie a general during the Sengoky period and beyond. He has famous wife who is also enshrined here, Maeda Matsu. Apparently, because their relationship was so dynamic and influential, people often come here now to be blessed with a happy marriage (of equals, one might assume.) At any rate, it's kind of cool to see this lovely place dedicated to an original "power couple" of ancient Japan.

The Gyokusen inmaru was fascinating, if only because I spent the entire time trying to figure out what was up with the grass and the trees. The trees, I eventually figured were being shaped. The grass? I'm still not sure if this is intentional (as in seasonal) or if this is part of the construction that is ongoing.


Image: what is up with this grass?

As a Minnesotan, I have seen grass that looks like this? Every spring, but it seems unusual for Japan which is much more moderate in terms of its temperature. So, I dunno. Experts out there are welcome to correct/explain.

If you're curious where in Japan Kanazawa is, here is another handy Wikipedia map:



So, that was my weekend BEFORE I fell on the ice. Today is "What are you reading?" Wednesday, and I am not reading much at all at the moment. But, while resting my back in bed, Shawn (my wife) and I did manage to binge ALL of the first season of "Staged," which is a comedy starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen during the pandemic, directly following their success in Good Omens (which I loved.) I feel like, if you wanted more of their chemistry, this is a wonderful way to get it. Highly recommend. The reviews are mixed about season 2, but I am up for giving it a try.

 
Image: Kawazuzakura Blossoms in Minamiizu, (Izu Peninsula in Kamo District, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan) along the Aono River.

Obviously, I did a HeyGo last night. Eriko (and her ever-present mom) are doing a trip around Japan to follow the cherry blossoms as they open. Last night (or rather, their morning,) Eriko and her mom were in Minamiizu town, which is fairly far south (see Wikipedia map, below). Apparently, the blossoms that are open now are a very specific type, Kawazuzakura (that last part sakura, simply means cherry blossom, the 's' changes to a 'z' sound in combination, sometimes,) that were developed in that region. The link takes you to a beginner's guide to all the different kinds of cherry blossoms, but if you scroll down to early blossoming trees, it is the second one listed. 


Image: Minamiizu on the map of Japan. Yoinked from Wikipedia.

Erika is always a good tour guide. Her signal was only pixelated at one point, and, while I was a bit frustrated, I said to Shawn, "When you consider that this is happening, live, right now, halfway around the world, this is actually pretty amazing." And, really, the blip only lasted for a few minutes, tops. I will admit that, since this happened over dinner time, I did not listen to all of Erika's patter. I watched on my iPad and propped it up so Shawn could watch, too. 

In my opinion, the thing that is lovelist about the Hanami (a celebration that translates literally as "flower look") is that really, this is the point of it. To spend time sitting under a cherry tree and just look at it. People bring picnics, of course, and those can become a BIG (commercial) deal, as witnessed by this cherry themed BEER that Erika showed off--


Image: Cherry flavored beer? I hope not, probably just decorated for Hanami

--But, the whole point of it is to slow down, take a breath, sit under a tree and ADMIRE it.

Do we have holidays like that in the US? Possibly the closest we get is Thanksgiving, which, in its purest form, is a holiday about eating something yummy, but there's a bunch of other weird colonial stuff attached to it that makes it less... I dunno, just about something SIMPLE, like admiring nature. 


Image: blossom close-up


Image: Aono river with cherry trees in bloom

Anyway, with piles of snow coming down today, seeing cherry trees in bloom has been a lovely treat. 

The only thing that kind of amuses me is that Erika was explaining at one point that the plumes of white smoke we were seeing from the far bank were from sentos (hot springs,) and I suddenly wondered... does most of rural Japan smell like Yellowstone? Which is to say, like a fart?

Apparently, I am not the first to google this because the quick answer seems to be "yes, but it's a light scent." So, maybe not so surprisingly strong like in Yellowstone. I just remember when we went to Yellowstone this was the thing that NO ONE had mentioned. That the entire town of Coby and all of the park smelled like a rotten egg. I mean, it doesn't diminish the beauty? But, it was a detail I was NOT expecting, you know?

At any rate, happy Tuesday to you all. 

 
Image: Senso-ji and Tokyo Skytree through the plum blossoms

Believe it or not, I actually broke out of my Japan obsession to try out a few other locations this last week. I briefly stopped into a tour in Reykjavik, Iceland. My favorite part of that tour was actually the tour guide who was doing is introductory patter and said something about how he'd been away from tours for awhile, but decided to come back. Like that famous saying, he said, you know the one, "I went away, but I missed you, so here I am."  I was like, ? Until I thought, oh, right, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." 

Honestly, I liked his version better.

I did not get a lot of "postcards" on that tour, because most of it was indoors in a museum and I am less interested in those kinds of tours as livestream? Like, if I were in Reykjavik, I probably would have enjoyed it? But, shaky cam always hits me harder when the tour is indoors for some reason.


Image: Reykjavik winter lights festival

Once again, feeling random, I checked out a tour happening in Yellowstone National Park. The tour guide was hoping to catch Old Faithful, but the geyser was not being especially timely. She actually picked a spot at one of the other acid lake spots to view it from and so I got a nice picture of those horrible, stinky hell pits that people are forever throwing themselves into and melting.


Image: Yellowstone Death Pit

Also, for Shawn, we once again followed Ian in the Cotswolds around his town, Burford. He walked us around town, showing off a lot of really interesting old buildings, including the longest running pharmacy/apothecary in the Britain, and the Norman era Church of St. John the Baptist. You can see the traditional view of it on the Wikipedia article, I've linked, but here's a cool look at one of the doors.


Image: Norman era door of a church in Buford, Cotswolds, St. John the Baptist.

I did do another one of the Japan ones, a tour of the exterior of Osaka Castle, which was... fairly awful. The tour guide was very anxious about making sure we had all the information and, thus, gave us a bit too much, including pictures and diagrams, which she held up to her camera. I mean, I get the impulse? There but for the grace of god? But it all goes into the file of what I would and would not do as a guide if I ever decided to do something like this.


Image: An amazing view of a woman taking her doggo for a stroll in an honest to god stroller. Also pictured, Osaka Castle.

There is also apparently a high school nearby, as we saw a whole troupe of Japanese high school boys doing their physical education on the grounds of the castle.


Image: Sit-ups in gym class are awful no matter what country you are in.

I mean, we also saw the castle grounds? But, I was far more interested in the random bits of life we saw around the monument. 

Those are the livestreams I watched this last week. I did spend a weird amount of time imagining characters from Bleach as HeyGo tour guides, especially after we had a no show at the canals of Tokyo. I kept thinking, "Oh, obviously this is Ichigo's part time job, and he's had to run off to save Karakura Town from Hollows again." I have another friend who has been taking a lot of these tours and I spent hours writing one sentence ficlets with her about who would do what kind of tour. It's the most fannish I've been in a while.

Anyway, I hope you all are safe and healthy out there. My thoughts are especially with my Canadian friends.