Someone on the FFL was reviewing The Man in the High Castle and remarked on the odd English used that was supposed to suggest either a second language Japanese speaker or a rendering in English of what people were saying in actual Japanese, neither of which sounded likely to them. I noticed none of this when I read it so many decades ago, so I got ( Read more... )

I am going to make it through this book/ month/ year if it kills me. The second two will take care of themselves but the first... I dunno. I succeeded in finishing a mystery on the weekend but I had to renew the loan to do it. Abandoned another book unfinished but because it's July I can't remember what it was. Elizabeth Ferrars are fast reads ( Read more... )

Met SND out with her new pup, name of Oliver. The theory is he's part chihuahua but his markings are, I'm told, more Jack Russell terrier. To my untutored eye he looks like nothing more than a miniature beagle. J says one can do DNA tests on dogs now: always a market. I'd only do that if I suspected herd dog DNA so as not to be surprised by herding ( Read more... )

The partial eclipse up here was nothing much. The sun was behind a cloud so no wonder if things looked a tad pale. Even the full eclipse in 2017 didn't do much except leach colour from the world. I was expecting, yanno, a twilight darkness or something like in The Last of the Wine ( Read more... )

Coherent dream last night of being back at what passed for my Japanese dorm which was a much more upscale place with french doors leading out to a garden. It had been snowing heavily-- several feet worth-- but the blessed Japanese staff had cleared it all away so I could go catch my train no problem, because the garden was also the platform for the ( Read more... )

Let me say to have it said, I hate waiting for people to call me back. I never did like it but in my current socially feral state, the thought of the phone suddenly ringing when I'm not prepared gives me the cold grues. I hope my doctor is on vacation, and I bet she is because it went immediately to voice mail. Don't care if my hernia is bulging ( ( Read more... )

Annoyed that this morning's dream didn't stick long enough for me to note all the details of what was apparently a Japanese chanbara/ schlock samurai TV show or movie, in which I was a young Japanese girl in disguise somehow in the company of an middle-aged ronin/ disguised shogunate spy/ basket-wearing shakuhachi-playing disguised spy (truly, a ( Read more... )

Crapshoot weather. Will we have ice pellets, freezing rain, wet snow or rain rain tomorrow? Put down a sprinkling of salt on steps and walkway as a prophylactic to guarantee the last. And by luck, as I was doing so one of the Chinese nainais rattled by with her shopping buggy and collection of beer cans etc. My porch is dark so she didn't see the ( Read more... )

Heat melts the brain so I've forgotten what yesterday was like, only that it wasn't as hot as today. Only went out to put out the garbage and ask Mrs. Professor if she knew what the tall plants in the front garden are. She thought it looked like a savannah grass. Googling suggests that it is indeed quack grass and impossible to root out ( Read more... )

In these cold April mornings of 'bed is so warm let's just stay here' sleep-ins, I have very vivid, very detailed dreams that never carry over into full wakefulness no matter how much I rehash them when I believe- erroneously-- that I'm fully awake. But I do know that I'm almost always Japanese or in Japan. (Oh, right: today's was about the extreme ( Read more... )