ah, tradition

The star and the rest of the decorations came down yesterday, along with the Christmas tree, and up went the kadomatsu pine decorations for the new year. When M asked the women at the flower shop where we bought them what they could be attached with, one of the women went completely blank, and the other suggested gamu tepu, or packing tape. We were laughing at how much people have forgotten about traditions, and looked on the internet for possible suggestions. Then our friend Ben dropped by the other day with some hemp rope that he suggested would be perfect, and it was.

The odd thing was that the next day I was walking from the station to my office, and passed three kadomatsu displays. Of course, I had to stop and check, and found that--sure enough--they were each attached with gamu tepu. I don't know, maybe it's a traditional thing after all.

digging out

Between the move and the holidays and various commitments, it's been tough digging out of the mountain of boxes (the empties now occupy an entire room--M's salon). But we have the dining and living rooms as well as the kitchen pretty much sorted out and we're finding it pretty livable. This is the first time I've lived in a house in Japan that was well insulated (I did live in a condo in Ebisu that was surrounded by other condos, but that doesn't count since it's not a real house). I'm used to waking up in the winter in the Hiroo house with the temperature around 10 degrees C (50F), but this one has so far always been above 15 (60F) even with the stove off overnight. What a huge difference that 5 degrees makes. I hope it stays like this through the nastier days of February.

The floors, both the tatami and the cryptomeria wood, stay very warm as well, and are soft under the feet. We've already tested out the softness of the wood in many places, dropping things, spilling things, making the house ours, I guess.

u-eee

I guess it wasn't enough that I have to leave the morning sunlight on Mt. Fuji and Standing Rock to begin my commute to Tokyo every morning. On my second day, just as I was putting on all my bike wear to fend off the cold, a huge flock of u, or cormorants, and shirasagi, white egrets  (about a third of them are in the above photo) came swooping in and descended on what must have been a school of fish just outside the window. They'd dive and then take off and make these huge sweeping circles before settling again in the water. I've seen three of four of the egrets before, standing in the shallow river water hunting for fish, but these were dozens of them.

all lit up

It turned cold yesterday along with very strong winds, so it was a perfect time to get the wood stove up and running. We did three break-in burns, which give off a pretty strong smell from the oils, I guess, in the iron, but the heat was appreciated--until the afternoon sun started warming the place up. I got up this morning at 6:30 to practice for Monday, when I'll have to start my commute to Tokyo, and while lighting the stove, was met with the glowing tip of Mt. Fuji, as the sun started to light the horizon.

Still tripping over boxes. I made it to the DIY center yesterday to get a long hose. I've got to constantly spray the car, bike, windows, etc., to remove the salt, especially with the high winds like we had through last night. Also picked up stuff like a wheelbarrow, legs to make M's desk from a former table, and a five-meter ladder, which I'll need to do windows, hopefully not when the winds are howling.

one again

In the midst of unpacking what seems like thousands of boxes of things we've never seen before and have no idea where we're going to put them, we took little gifts around to the neighbors to pay our respects. And before she could finish saying thank you, the wife of the old man who used to be a barber was loading us down with vegetables that she'd just been given by a farmer friend. Daikon. Mizuna. Cauliflower. Kabu turnips, and yuzu citrus. We had to go back home to offload before we could make the rest of the rounds.

The stove guys from Nagano showed up around noon to start installing the Intrepid II. They finished the chimney by the end of the day, and will be back tomorrow to set up the stove itself. It was a pretty calm day most of the time, but in the late afternoon the wind really picked up and was threatening to toss them off the roof.

m and I also found the time to set up the Christmas tree, and we got the lights going just as the sun was setting in bright orange brilliance. M and I got the wreath up at the entrance. This wreath was given to us by the mother of one of m's classmates--a hilarious down-to-earth woman who runs a flower shop in the very trendy Hiro Garden Place.

zero

One of the last things the site foreman did on the day they handed the house over to us was to cut the top off the plastic pipe that was jutting out of the earth just by the side of the house, leaving about ten centimeters protruding from the earth. It's the pipe coming out of the old well, which was found in excavating for the foundation. On the day of the jichinsai (above), when the Shinto priest made his blessings and asking the gods for their cooperation, he made a special effort at the well, which is where gods are believed to have their residences. (We've got two other old wells that have been filled in long ago, but this one still had well water in it.) So we had it filled in, but left the pipe for the god to have access, and the foreman didn't want to be the one to cut it off completely or fill it in. I'm not going to either.

This is the last post from the Tokyo house. The trucks are due in sixty minutes, and the next time I'll turn on the computer will be 61.3 kilometers from here. Bye.

one

Fourteen hours until the moving trucks arrive. Surrounded by boxes and stunned by the complexities of this move (what a difference a family--and moving 70 kilometers away--makes), it seems like a good time to procrastinate and pay homage to the old house again, in this, one of my favorite shots by Ben. (Click on it to see the whole picture.) If this new house can give us any fraction of the enjoyment I got out of the old one, we're going to have a great life.

Speaking of 70 kilometers, I had to turn in my resident registration to the company admin to get them to pay for my rail pass for commuting. I didn't know this, but the company regulations allow payment only up to 70 kilometers. I had to juggle the lines I'll use to commute since several ways put me over the limit. I finally found a way that puts me at 69.3 kilometers, so I won't have to pay out of my own pocket. I will, however, pay plenty with my ass sitting on a train seat for 3 hours a day, so I guess we're even.

two

The stone backing for the wood stove has been laid, and the stove is scheduled to be put in later in the week. We'll have two days living there without it, but don't see a real problem. We're in the chaotic middle of packing but have to take the television, one computer and phone down today so the cable company can set them up. TV, internet and an internet phone are part of a package from the same company. I'm getting a little tired of driving back and forth, but damn it's getting close to the time when that will be behind me (mostly). I'm almost looking forward to the train ride, where at least I'll be able to read.

threeeeee!

I'm beat. Loaded up the little Honda and made a round-trip to the site, unloading stuff that we didn't want or need the movers to handle, like my not quite antique glass collection, futons, fans, vases, etc. It was kind of cold in Tokyo when I left but a few degrees warmer in Akiya, and toasty warm in the house--almost like someone left a heater on. Then came back to the Tokyo house, and spent hours packing, and putting out trash for tomorrow's pickup (we left a mountain of almost embarrassing volume).

m went with some friends on a mikan picking trip, and M's mom was a huge help in packing. She is such a pro that I couldn't find anything in the kitchen; we're trying to use up all the stuff left in the refrigerator, but when I made pasta (knowing I could make it at brain-scorching heat since m was not around), I couldn't find anything: no collander, no chilis, no carrots--so I added whatever hot sauce I could find in the refrigerator, from tabasco to some shit I couldn't even read the lable on.

four

Today was the hiki-watashi day. We gathered at the house at 10:00am with (from left) Yamada-san, the sales rep, Yoshimura-san, the site foreman, and Takahashi-san, the architect. We sat down in the tatami room and did the formalities--including receiving the keys--that made the house officially ours.

I got kind of emotional. There's still a few things that have to be done: fixing the handrails of the second floor windows, etc., but the house is in our hands, and coming a day after my birthday, it's a rare present.

They said they were all kind of sad to leave this location--that everyone who'd worked here had a hard time finishing the job and walking away.  Suzuki-san, the master carpenter who built the house, raved about the location so much that all the carpenters of the company held their annual summer barbecue on the beach in front of the house, and they've decided to come back every year. Yoshimura-san told us he'll be bringing his kids here in the summer, and Yamada-san lives only a few minutes away, so we hope we'll see him fairly often. We've become friends with them all in a very short time.

Back in Tokyo now, packing up a storm. Four days to the move.

five

 The contractor added earth and placed the stones according to a diagram I drew out for them for the walkway and the driveway. These are the Sajima-ishi, the stones from the quarry down the coast that were used as the foundation of the old house. Half of them were carried away, but we still had plenty for this. I wish we had kept more of them because they make such good stepping stones. In the photo above you can also see the koushi, the latticed wood over the windows. This was another feature that we went back and forth on whether to do it or not, but I'm glad we decided to at the last minute. It goes well with the latticed feel of the front door. It also means more staining--one of these days, when we get around to it.

I think we have to add more stones to the driveway. It's okay for now, as long as we park perfectly balanced on top of them, but it's going to be pretty muddy until we get some planting done, which means we'll be landing in a mud pile every time we get out of the car in the rain.

seven

The police called. They wanted to inform us of the results of the trial of the man charged with the horrific hit and run of m last February. It seems that, in spite of the fact that we didn't press any charges, or appear as witnesses, or do anything other than give our statements in the few days following the accident, the man has been given 10 months of jail time, followed by one year of parole.

We had no say in the matter. The police and prosecutors were hellbent on nailing him, since he not only ran away from the scene, but never showed remorse or made any kind of attempt to apologize.

I think it was such a shocking scene, yet with such a lucky outcome, that we--m, M and me--have been fairly quick at getting it behind us. I feel sorry for the guy, but I'm kind of torn, knowing that I would have to deal with some serious feelings of retribution if m had suffered any kind of serious injury.

eight

M was at school and m was deposited (bad word for it, but apt) at a friend's house, so I was able to spend all Sunday on my knees putting the stain on the downstairs flooring and with my neck crooked at a 45-degree angle putting in the blinds. I spent more than thirty minutes shooting with the Nikon to show M and m what an impressive job I'd done with the floor and the blinds, then jumped in the little Honda, and rode the sewing machine engine back to Tokyo only to find that although I'd filled the back with empty cardboard boxes from the blinds, I'd left the camera somewhere--hopefully in the house, but possibly in the mud outside the door.

Still, here's the study as seen through the atrium from the master bedroom after doing the stain before  putting in the blinds the day before. I first got the idea of putting in the old glass windows from fear of having the raw salt wind attacking computers, etc. Now I'm not sure whether there's any way to really protect high tech products, but I'm curious to find out--hopefully at not too great a cost.

The architect who's reformed the beautiful little kura storehouse down the road was walking on the beach and waved while I was in the middle of wrestling a recalcitrant blind from its package so I gave an awkward shake of a flap of the cardboard box, hoping he'd see it as some kind of a not-too-alien reply.

10 days and counting

My knees are killing me. Yesterday was a blustery day that started with light sprinkles and turned into a downpour, turning the dirt yard into a mud wrestling stage. We spent the entire day at the site, first with the official explanation from the komuten, that really wasn't necessary given the time we've spent there, then with deliveries and installations: 3 air conditioners, a gas dryer, etc.

We also started waxing the floors with a natural finish that is called "clear," but it does bring out the grain of the wood, and the color, especially the reddish areas of the sugi. We were putting in on with a roller, but it requires a good hard rub after that to soak up the excess and that means a lot of time on your knees. We finished the upstairs, since we thought we'd practice on the lesser seen parts, and left the downstairs dining space (which is where the entrance opens on to) for me to do later today.

It was a cold day, too, and luckily we took down a tiny space heater that was enough to heat the tatami room so that m could stay there and play.

better come on into my kitchen

I haven't asked M exactly what she was thinking here, but I'm almost sure what Yoshimura-san, the site foreman is thinking: "Please don't make any changes. Please don't ask me to make the sink bigger, or smaller, or higher or lower. Please accept everything the way it is."

But we're perfectly happy with the kitchen. The counter top is 10cm higher than usual, which is something I begged for, since I already have a permanent bend in my vertebrae thanks to years of low sinks.

During the open house, a number of the grandmothers of the neighborhood came by, and spent a very long time going over every bit of the house. Most of them were about as high as my chest, yet every one of them immediately noticed the height of the sink and gushed and gawed over it. Which makes me think that the bent-over grandmothers all over the country are actually much taller, but have shrunk after endless hours at low sinks.

There's a flimsy partition that comes down out of the ceiling, that is only there as a bureaucratic "let's pretend." Every room with an open flame is supposed to have a divider from the ceiling separating it from other rooms. Well, when the inspector comes in a few days, we will go through a whole pantomime with him and us pretending that it's a solid piece of wall. Then they'll pull this down and restore the openness of the room. It's the same reason we won't install the wood stove until after his departure, so I guess he'll also have to ignore the stack of firewood that is just outside the window.