Dead Cormorant and Boiled Sardines

Okay, I'm doing this a little bit at at time, teasing with the Standing Rock photo. At least here, it's clear--there's even the pine tree on the other rocks in the background. Next time I may throw Mt. Fuji in at the horizon, where it would be on a clear day. Sunday was an incredibly warm and windy day, and m and I spent a lot of it climbing around those rocks and trying to keep from slipping and getting soaked. There was a dead cormorant washed up on the beach. I've never seen one of those up close, and the neck was incredibly long. Some tourist kept picking it up by the head, swinging it like a lasso and flinging it into the surf but it kept washing back up at his feet. He did that four or five times before getting bored.

Our friend Mark came over later in the day, and we ended up going to one of the local restaurants that I've stayed away from because it looks too touristy. But it was surprising: local ingredients and healthy portions. The big treat was shirasu, the tiny baby sardines that are about half an inch long and as big around as a toothpick. If they're not fresh, you need a mouthful to get any taste at all, but these were local--they dry them on big screens in the sun--and flavorful, both as the topping on a bruschetta and on top of a green salad. They're transparent when raw, but these were boiled, so they had turned white.

You can tell there was some wind on Sunday from the picture above, and it got worse during the night, rattling the windows and doors even after I'd closed the storm doors. m slept throughout it all (M stayed in Tokyo for school), but I'd wake up and try to think of ways to lessen the noise--such as jamming boards against the door frames. Nothing worked. It's nights like these when I realize that however nice these old doors are, the way the winter winds blow, not to mention the typhoons of late summer, we're going to need double pane aluminum doors if we're going to live (and get some sleep) right on the sea. It's dramatic and exciting, and I don't mind feeling the earth shake when a particularly large wave crashes, but when a strong gust hits just right, it sounds like someone is hitting the doors with a baseball bat. It gets so bad sometimes that you can see sand blowing in through the cracks in the old flooring.