open house

THE ELECTRICITY IS on. And it highlights the house in all kinds of ways that we've never seen before. (This is the light fixture for the genkan entrance, the one that we insisted on having even after the architect and electrician said it couldn't be done.) It could, and we think it represents the house exactly, the smooth lines of the design and the rough image of natural materials.

We were in a hurry to get down to the site today. Today and tomorrow are open house days, which the contractor uses to bring potential house builders and others who are in the midst of their building process to come by and see what the results might look like. We had to go down anyway, because not only were the refrigerator and washing machine being delivered, and the air conditioning people and cable TV/internet/phone person coming by, but we had to empty the car of all the cut firewood that M's father had given us so we can pass on the car to its new owner.

Because it was open house day, this was the first time they removed the covering of the wood floors. They also had cleaned the whole place and put up several displays, including posters showing how the wood was harvested in a sustainable way and how the wood is cut using old joinery techniques. They had laid out a display on the floor of all the types of wood posts that were used in the construction and the president of the company was there showing people who dropped by what had gone into making the house. It was a very laid back, relaxed kind of salesmanship, and the president had a great sense of self-deprecating humor that had us appreciating once again our choice of contractor.

It was a long day with a lot of things happening, and we were lucky to have dropped m off at her friend's place. But with the electricity and water and everything working (M was the first to use the toilet), and the warmth that we felt from the setting sun even long after it had receded into the Izu peninsula's horizon, it was very, very hard to leave.

shock and awe

 I FORGOT TO mention. The move is three weeks away. From today.

bowl-a-rama (II)

A rare faux pas by the contractor: for some reason the faucet was stuck in front of the bowl that was created by M's mom, which kind of detracts from the whole (in the tiny upstairs toilet). They didn't imbed the bowl into the wood, which is what we first asked for--but after looking at it, we decided we like the whole bowl sitting there in all its glory. The only problem is that faucet blocking the bowl, so they'll move it behind the bowl in the corner, and fill in the wood with a plug. I guess we can find something to hide the scar, like a soap dish or a hookah.

them apples (II)

We had one of very few free days away from the beach house site that we've been able to have recently, once again making the drive up to Hotaka, Nagano prefecture, where M's parents live. It was, unfortunately, a very short visit, but the occasion was the annual apple picking day, and just like last year, we had a picture perfect day: warm, clear, and full of laughs and apples.

Once again, we were all baffled by the number of apples that can come off of one small tree about my height (177.5cm) but a lot wider by several meters. No one counted them but there surely were close to 500 apples, including the one or two bags of fruit that had been a feast for the birds. ("Those are the best ones," said the orchard owners. "Birds never eat the bad apples.") Of course, it's easy for us, the pickers, who just go up to harvest the ripe fruit. But the orchard people have spent hours with the tree, worrying about the bees polinating them, culling the number of flower stems so the remainders have a chance to be full-blown, fat Fuji fruit, and protecting (most of) them from birds and worms.

The photo above only shows half of the harvest. We were lucky enough to be given a couple of boxes of these crunchy, crisp apples by M's mom and dad, and then got an extra prize: an all-we-could-carry load of apple tree wood and cherry that M's dad had sawn and split to the right dimensions for our wood stove. (Being at the foot of the Northern Alps, his stove takes logs twice the size of what we need, but he was kind enough to cut them to the size of our Intrepid II.)

So we drove back to Tokyo with a Spike full of firewood and Fuji apples, the car hanging low on its axles as we drove through the glittering lights of Omotesando and the new Nike store celebrating shoes as a liberating experience. And M and I had a good laugh on a bet that any of the other cars driving through this area would have the same cargo. I've no idea how we're going to settle that one.

panes in the glass

THE ELECTRICIAN WAS finishing up installing all the fixtures when we got to the site yesterday. And with the washi paper lamp shade (ball?), the tatami room just continues to look more and more like the room in the former house, as in this photo below by friend Ben.

We were also really happy to find that the light we'd picked for the genkan entrance was in place. We'd been told by the architect that it couldn't be put in because it had to be inserted in the wall, and we'd have to pick another one. But we begged and pleaded and there it was. The electrician told us he'd had to cut into the wood beam, but he'd checked with the carpenters and they'd told him it was okay. He looked as happy as we were when he saw how happy we were.

The ashiba scaffolding towers, both interior and exterior, are now gone. The atrium is finally visible in its stained, plastered, finished state. But we haven't finished cleaning the windows after the staining, which reminds me that we're going to have to get a long ladder, first to install the blinds on the upper windows, but also to keep all these panes of glass clean.

see spike go

Just got a call from the dealer saying he was looking at our new (used) car that we bought off the internet. He wanted to confirm its condition, and told me that it had a number of scratches, but no dents. This was not good news: dents were the one feature we had specifically asked for since neither I nor M wanted to be the first person to put one in it going in and out of that damn narrow driveway.

The new (old) car is a nine-year-old Honda Vamos, one of the tiny minivans (600cc engine) that were made originally for commercial use, but have increasingly been adopted by people looking for a cheap ride that's easy to navigate down narrow roads. (Every one of the carpenters who worked on the house came in one of these, as did almost every other workman, from plasterer to plumber to electrician. Sometimes the yard would be full of them, all utilitarian white, sitting there at all angles like tossed dice.) Unfortunately, the popularity has kept the price of used ones higher than expected. The photo here is of a new one, and is almost actual size. Ours is dumpier and funkier and dirtier, but tiny like this one.

Since the dimensions and economics are perfect for what we need, we went ahead and sold our two-year-old Honda Spike to our contractor, who needed a car to take his clients around.   I'm sorry to see the Spike go. It's one of the least attractive body designs I've ever seen on an automobile, and reminds me of one of those ugly fish with the protruding bottom lip, but the interior was huge for a small car, and we had no problem filling it to bursting point on the weekend runs to the beach house. It got great gas mileage, and a cult following, so of course they stopped making it this year.

countdown

FOUR WEEKS TO GO. We're to move on December 16, and it's starting to reach critical stage in many areas. Sell the car; buy a smaller one. Recycle all the stuff we won't be taking: bookshelves, beds, kitchen utensils that are duplicated by the stuff we had at the old place and are now in storage at the contractor's warehouse. We're sleeping on the floor on futons now, but it's cold without tatami. Most of the DVDs, books, etc. have been packed except for what I need for work. We're making final arrangments for appliances, since the ones we have now came with the rent (which saves on moving expenses, but means we have to get them somewhere). By next year, it's been announced, the entire country of Japan will have access to high-speed optical fiber cable--everywhere, I guess, except Akiya. So we'll have to have regular cable for phone, internet and TV.

The schedule is tight. We're giving up the Tokyo house completely on the 18th, so we'll have to make sure all the connections are in place in Akiya. The site foreman doesn't want us to have things delivered until after they clean the place thoroughly and have the official final building check, but we're going to have to override him on a couple of things. Like the refrigerator: all the new models have come out, and there's no model that fits our space perfectly. One of last year's series does, and they're disappearing fast and prices are rising, so, sorry Yoshimura-san. There's going to be a big box in the middle of the dining room pretty soon.