unbottled cat

You've finished your chores--washing the salt off the windows, washing the car, finally hauling the boxes out of the closets, stacking old photo albums, trying to ignore how young you were in those old photo albums--and there's nothing left to do but lay your chin down on the dining room table to stare at the cat and the sunset.

happy new one

IN THE MIDST OF UNPACKING and unwinding from the last year, we were far enough along to settle in with new year activities and begin some traditions that will color our new life. Some neighbors, who have two little daughters, invited us to pound some rice with them and their friends. This was m's second mochi tsuki taikai of the year--since there was one at her new day care center--and we met a lot of local people. They didn't seem to have a lot in common other than that they were all very laid back, and seemed rather proud of goofing off as much as possible: going fishing, kayaking, surfing, laying around. No one seemed to be suffering from the lack of a work ethic, but I'm sure it's not as easy as it looks. We ate a lot of the mochi, and got some for the kagami mochi offering to put in our tokonoma. A bit rough, but it stacked fine, and was a perfect size for a tiny citrus topping.

M spent a lot of the last few days preparing the New Years food, which she's never done before. A lot of time on the phone with her mom, and getting faxed recipes. We were going to go to the local shrine after midnight, but m was starting to pass out, the winds were still blowing like banshees, and it had gotten very cold. From previous years, we know the lines are going to be very long: fun when you're in the foot stomping, fist pounding mood, but . . . we weren't.

I've never been a great fan of a lot of o-sechi ryori because I find it too sweet, but M always goes easy on the sweeteners so the food on the morning of New Years Day was perfect. She swears she's going to up the menu each year, and I'm looking forward to it--a treat considering how people rely more on convenience stores and groceries for their osechi these days.

Then we made it to the shrine to pay our respects. The Akiya shrine sits high up on the side of the hills overlooking the sea. It's old and weathered, and it was almost empty when we stopped by: only one or two other families, and we chatted for a while and played with an old, one-eyed pug named Cherry. I didn't ask what M and m's wishes were, but I presume they were pretty close to mine--that the gods look kindly on our joining their neighborhood.

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.