Well, here it is Sept. already and I didn't post anything in August! August was a vacation month in that there were no classes, no knitting only the garden in which I harvested green beans, tomatoes and crook-neck squash every day.
We have had our fill of Bruchetta as the basil has grown like a weed and the tomatoes that our neighbor planted have been plentiful for the last month.
We've had several parties under the persimmon tree out in front. It's been like a hidden garden with the brick half-walls and the persimmon tree. I've been complaining because so much of the persimmon crop has fallen, little by little. I'll let you know in Oct. if we have a crop to harvest.
But it was as if we were in another country ( Italy comes to mind) as we ate and drank outside under the beautiful, spreading persimmon tree.
A couple of things have come up. One, is that my neighbor and I are going on an Art's and Craft's tour of Hokkaido and Northern Honshu at the beginning of Oct. Of course that occasioned rethinking the travel clothes - so after research, I bought a travel vest from
Scottevest. Look at the travel vest for women, black in color. Don't really like to carry a purse, but even less do I like to wear something with pockets on the outside. This vest is perfect and I have made several trips into S.F. wearing the vest with no purse in sight. I have memorized the pockets I put things in and it works! Have to admit that I don't fill all of the 22 pockets.
I have the vouchers to visit the Ghibli Museum - My neighbor Totoro has absolutely won my heart. When our youngest grandson from Japan was left in my care the time the rest of the family went on an outing, the little guy cried himself silly until I put on the video of Totoro. The sounds of Japan soothed him and he got caught up in the story. I still remember the feeling of this little child completely relaxing as he watched the movie (in Japanese). The Ghibli Studio has created wonderful movies. My daughter wants me to buy a black cat from the movie "Kiki's Delivery Service" which I will do of course.
In April, I left the Shodo and entered in the Pen shuji portion of our clase. I've included the July class assignment where we get judged as to the level we should be in. If you understand Japanese, you'll see that I moved up a level. I was in the 5th and now am in the 4th.
I have been studying Kanji at Sakura Gakuen for the past couple of years but am changing to another class as the Pen Shuji is teaching me more in a more relaxed fashion. Besides I love the teacher and all my classmates. So at Sakura Gakuen, I'll be focusing on conversation. (I hope)
Well in an abbreviated form that brings you up to date on a few things. I'm not doing the cooking that I have done in the past. These days we go to two tennis matches a week and one football game. All at High School level but our grandkids are so involved we just have to root them on.
My other past-time is playing scrabble with my neighbor through an app on iPod Touch. That is soooooo much fun.
Cheers to you all. Write if you have a mind.
Summer is beginning for me. The weather is finally cooperating, the garden is showing signs of vegetables, classes are finalizing and I'm feeling very light. We took off for a 3 day get-away to Fort Bragg/ Mendocino a couple of weeks ago and it was wonderful. I love the ride to the coast. Our little car(stick shift) is like driving a sports car (which it isn't) and it took the curves so well. The mountain country was lush, drove through some coast redwoods, saw vineyards in the rain on the way back. The weather on the coast was perfect. I walked the headlands and took beaucoup pictures of wildflowers. I only know the name of one of them and hope to research the names of the others. Maybe I'll get around to posting them & someone will recognize them.
