Tiffy Treats!

Tonight Kenji and I stopped at shoe-changer Tiffanyʻs apartment on our way home from buying kitty cat food. Tiffanyʻs plans to bake brownies had been thwarted because her brand spankinʻ new oven wouldnʻt light. The stove top burners would light ok, but not the oven. Turns out the pilot light for the oven had never been lit yet - not a problem that a little instruction manual reading and crawling around on the kitchen floor wonʻt solve, however.

So after getting Tiffanyʻs oven up and running, she was able to go ahead and make her famous Tiffy Treats!

Tiffy Treats are brownies with peanut butter and ice cream. Mmmmmm. And of course she topped off each of them with a Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookie. Mmmmm Mmmmmm.

After having Tiffy Treats, I made a rope sculpture. The End.

A Triangle of Shoe Changers!

According to the Gas House Gorillas, "shoe changer" is another name for the swing dancers that always show up at their gigs. Joe, Tiffany and I are a triangle of shoe changers because on the day this photo was taken, Tiffany moved into her new apartment. Her apartment happens to be about a half mile away from Joe, who who lives about a half mile away from Kenji and me, and we live about a half mile away from Tiffany. And that there makes a triangle. Of shoe changers.

On a completely different topic (but still related to this photo)... This evening Kenji and I went shopping for some new clothes now that spring has finally sprung. I just realized that the shirt Tiffany is wearing in this picture is a shirt I thought about trying on at Ann Taylor, but then decided it would probably look dumb on me. Doesn't look dumb on Tiff. Maybe it wouldn't look dumb on me, either. But the point is moot because now I definitely won't get that shirt since I already know someone else who has one. :P

Sunny Weekend, Finally

Yay! It finally stopped being rainy dreary and overcast!

Originally, Kenji and I planned to go visit my folks this weekend. Like us, they got a whole bunch of rain last week. Unlike us, they also got a whole bunch of water in their cellar as a result of all the rain. They are still cleaning up from the mess, and they said they'd really rather not have visitors this weekend, so here we are.

Therefore, instead of driving up to Massachusetts this afternoon, we took a little ride out to Chester, New Jersey. We chose Chester in part because that's where my work's offices will be moving in a couple of weeks, and I wanted to show Kenji where the new offices are. When he saw how long the commute would be, he agreed that it sucks.

But Chester is also a cute little town, so that's the other reason we decided to drive out there this afternoon. We had ice cream and visited funky little antique shops. I learned that I was born in between the "Johnny Carson: The Lonesome Hero of Middle America" and "Ecology Becomes Everybody's Issue: Monk Seals of Japan" issues of Life Magazine. The antique shop didn't have any issues for the year Kenji was born, so we can't tell you what Life Magazine had to say about life back then. Oh well.

On our way home, we passed a mini-golf place in Whippany, so we stopped and played some... mini-golf. Kenji started off as the score-keeper. He should never have let me touch the score card, since I made sure it would not be so easy to add up. You can also see that we didn't do a good job of following the rules as many of our holes went well beyond the five stroke limit. The course wasn't crowded though, so it wasn't a problem.

Tiny Little Hike

Today... well, I guess by now it's really yesterday, since as I write this it's 23 minutes past midnight, although I never really consider it to be tomorrow until after I've woken up from having gone to sleep for the night... Arrgh!

Anyway, on Saturday afternoon April 14th, Kenji and I went and did a little bit of Letterboxing. If you do not know what Letterboxing is, then please go visit the link I just gave you. In short, Letterboxing is like going on little treasure hunts for rubber stamps that people hide in all sorts of places for other people to find. A more primitive version of Geocaching if you will. Kenji and I have found many letterboxes in several states, including Hawaii, Washington, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and most recently, New Jersey. The letterbox we found today was at Turtle Back Rock. It was a very easy find. The picture on the right is the page in my letterboxing book where I put the stamp (lower right).

Our first clue was to follow the orange and white blaze trail to the right away from the parking lot at Turtle Back Rock Park:


The deer were not part of the clues, but we took a picture of them anyway. It looks like they are molting in preparation of warmer weather, which doesn't seem to be in any hurry to get here this year.


Anyway, after following the white/orange trail for about three tenths of a mile, we spotted the large cut stump referred to in the clue...


And the nearby rock with the number 13 painted on it...


A short ways past the 13 rock, we encountered a place where the trail passed between two large boulders, which we neglected to photograph. Immediately before the boulders, the clue instructed us to take ten steps up the hill to the left, and uncover the letterbox from beneath a pile of small rocks and leaves.

And there we have it. :)

I'm glad the clue also mentioned to look around at the rocks in the area, as they have been carved by Native Americans long ago in such a way as to resemble the markings on a turtle's back. Sadly, we might not have noticed this if I hadn't re-read the clue one last time.


From the thirty seconds of research I did about this, it seems the markings may have been meant to serve as directional guides. Thirty seconds of research really didn't produce many articles on it... only a brief mention in this one page.

So anyway, after we re-hid the letterbox and examined the carvings, we spent a few minutes playing on the rocks and looking down at the cars passing by on Northfield Avenue below. Then we left and went on our merry way. The End.

Flood!

Today was a very wet day, especially at work!

Our company is preparing to move office to a new location sometime in the next two to four weeks. This is fortunate because about a week and a half ago, our current landlord decided to demolish the semi-attached building right next to ours. After taking down the building, we discovered that our exterior wall, which used to be protected by the roof that the two buildings shared, was not water-tight. But the flood we had last week was no where as bad as the one we had as a result of today's downpour, which is what you see in the picture.

We all wasted at least an hour running around trying to grab up everything that could be damaged by water and place it on high ground. Then for the next four or five hours, the gentlemen in the picture plus a few more vacuumed, pumped and shoveled water out of our office.

Looking on the bright side, as a result of this flood, I did get a most delicious helping of tiramisu for free.

I suppose you want me to explain that...

OK, fine. The flood made the kitchen all sloppy and gross so no one wanted to spend much time in there fixing their lunches. The CFO decided that we'd order out on the company's dime. I really wanted to eat the lunch I brought today, so instead of ordering a lunch, I just ordered a tiramisu for dessert. :)

Kitties that Think They Know How to Make a Bed

Whenever I do housework, Spammy likes to help. If I fold laundry, that usually means that Spammy will lie down on top of the t-shirts and turtlenecks that I am about to fold. When I change the sheets on the bed, he thinks his role is to lie down on the sheetless mattress. So I put the sheet right on top of him and tuck it in... which makes for a rather lumpy bed.

This time, Musubi saw Spammy helping, so she decided to help too, in her own special way:

Bah! Snow!

As far as winters in the northeast go, we really haven't had much snow to speak of this season. But I'm gonna say it anyway. Enough snow!!! Go away already!!!

It began late Thursday night and continued all through Friday and into early Saturday morning, which was about the time I took this photo to the right (I think it was shortly after midnight).

It just so happened that Friday morning was my day to deliver library books to shut-ins. The roads had not gotten too terrible by the time I started and I was able to complete my route without incident. Kenji and I still hadn't gone food shopping yet since I returned from Anaheim earlier in the week, so for supper we decided to brave the nasty weather and walk to a neighborhood restaurant. We saw some motorists spinning their wheels but it seems most folks were staying indoors and off the streets. On our way home, we spotted these two kids playing in the snow in our front yard.

They weren't there anymore in the morning.

Although the accumulation was only four or five inches, the snow was extra-hard to shovel because the top layer had formed into an icy crust. This photo was taken from inside our garage, and those are my feet standing on top of the snow, rather than sinking into it. I think it took us about three or four hours to shovel our driveway and sidewalk. Because much of our driveway is sandwiched between our house and the neighbor's fence, we had to do a lot of lifting and carrying snow to either the front or the back yard to get it off the driveway. We've decided that a wheelbarrow might be a good investment to help eliminate some of the lifting and carrying.

Shoveling out didn't actually come to a complete close until today though. When I got home from work this afternoon, I found that the plow had come by and deposited a nice pile of heavy, icy, chunky snow right at the end of our driveway. :P

Escape from deep freeze!

In the wee hours of this morning I returned home after a week in Anaheim, California. Although I was there for business, it was also a lot of fun. And the most welcome part of the excursion of course was escaping the freezing cold weather for sunny souther California. When I left New Jersey on Tuesday morning, it was bone-chilling 13° outside; when I stepped off the plane in Anaheim, it was a wonderful dry 78°! Yay! And there was a nice pool and hot tub right outside my hotel room! Woo-hoo!

The reason I went to California was to work at the Natural Products Expo West, once again serving up all kinds of delicious pies, cookies, tea breads, crumble cakes in the exhibit booth of the company for which I work. Standing in the booth all day for three days in a row is tough on the feet, but it's nothing a little soak in the hot tub can't cure. ;)

The day before I left for Anaheim, I did a little research to see where I might be able to go swing dancing, since I knew there is a very active Lindy community in southern California. To my extreme delight I learned that Orange County was hosting a Lindy exchange the very same weekend that I would be in town. I didn't have a whole lot of free time in the evenings, but I did manage to sneak out on Friday night for some dancing at the Atomic Ballroom. I don't know whether the size of the crowd at the Atomic Ballroom was larger than usual (it's a regular weekly event) due to the exchange. Either way, it was quite a large crowd, and it seemed to me that there were a good number of quality dancers there. Folks seemed quite friendly too, so I can safely say that I enjoyed dancing with southern California quite a lot.

Fake Rock Climbing!

Yesterday, Kenji and I took an introductory rock climbing lesson at NJ Rock Gym, an indoor climbing facility in Fairfield, NJ. I call this post fake rock climbing because the walls at the gym aren't really rock.

This was a first time for both of us. The instructor at the gym, Margo, taught us how to tie the appropriate knots and how to belay. The belayer is the person who holds the other end of the rope that the climber is tied to, and makes sure that the climber won't get killed if he or she should fall off the wall.

It was fun - we each did probably around six or eight climbs during and after the lesson. The gym walls were probably only 25 or 30 feet tall - tall enough to give us an idea of what it's like. The walls we climbed were not especially difficult, but there were some walls at the gym that I'm sure we'll needs lots of practice before being able to tackle them. I think I have more upper body strength than I expected I would, but I still got tired pretty quickly. As the belayer, when you are ready to let the climber come down, you have to let the rope slip through your "brake" hand - this was the part I liked least, as my right hand are very wimpy and began to feel raw after belaying only few climbs for Kenji. I wonder if wearing little half gloves to rock climbing is a wussie thing to do. After all, I didn't notice any of the other climbers there wearing anything on their hands.

Favorite Kitty Toys

Yesterday I vacuumed the house. When I moved the living room furniture aside to vacuum the floors beneath, I found the usual treasure trove of kitty cat toys that went missing since the last time I vacuumed under the living room furniture. Only one of the toys was actually purchased intentionally as a cat toy; the rest were stolen orange juice and milk jug caps, rubber bands, little paper cranes, and an assortment of tiny stuffed animals that came from my former workplace in Hawaii. One of those little animals is a moose, and he happens to be Musubi's favorite toy. She named him Moosoobi.

Spammy and Musubi definitely have their own favorite toys - toys that one kitty will play with like crazy, yet the other kitty is disinterested. Moosoobi is one such toy. Spammy couldn't care less about Moosoobi, but Musubi will bat Moosoobi all around, and then pick him up and take care of him like he's a little kitten.

As I type this post, Spammy has just dragged one of his favorite toys, Stick, all the way up the stairs and dropped it on the floor by my chair. I wrote about Stick in a previous post, back when Spammy would play fetch. It's funny that he drags Stick all over the house to us because he barely plays with it anymore when I pick it up and wiggle it for him. Yet he'll drag it up and down the stairs at least four times a day. Spammy also loves to play with Cowie, which used to be a cute little Gateway cow obtained at some trade show, but now is a dirty gray disgusting, half-torn to pieces cow. Like Stick, Spammy will pick Cowie up and carry him around. He also chucks him in the air and wrestles with Cowie from behind table legs and atop of scratching posts. Spammy also enjoys Fiber Optic Toy - another trade show giveaway. Fiber Optic Toy is a useless but fun bit of technology with a handle containing batteries and multiple colored LEDs
that illuminate the fiber optic strands that extend about four or five inches from the handle. When I wiggle Fiber Optic Toy, Spammy likes to chase it and grab it in his teeth and try to yank it out of my hand, which I usually let him do. Then he'll carry it to some place near or under the dining room table and wait for me to pick it up again so he can grab it from me.

Long time, no write

It's been a while since I've updated my blog because I guess I just keep doing other stuff. Today is a dreary Friday - when we woke up this morning, there was torrential rain falling and the sides of our street looked liked riverbeds. When I was out this morning, there were little waterfalls coming off the hillside next to Mount Pleasant Avenue. I am quite happy that my book delivery week was last week and not this one!

Since the last time I posted, Kenji finally came home for good after a six-week stint of paper-pushing in our nation's capital. He was able to come home on most weekends, and for the last two weekends, I drove down to visit him. While I was there we visited several museums, including the Museum of Natural History (where the picture of Kenji and his fellow paper-pushers was taken; also current home of the Hope Diamond), one of the art museums (I forget the name), the International Spy Museum, and the United States Botanic Garden. It was especially cold the two weekends I was there, particularly in light of the mild winter we've had, so it's safe to say my favorite museum to go into was the Botanic Garden. It was warm and humid like Hawaii, and a lot of the plants looked like Hawaii, too.

Usually I'm not that big a fan of humidity, but it's been so dry the last couple months, and I've had quite enough of my hair rising up from my shoulders and sticking to my face, having scarves stick to me like Velcro, and being shocked every time I pet the kitties or kiss Kenji.

We are enjoying our new car. I really really like keyless remote entry. :) It's also nice to be able to plug our iPods into it. My only complaint about it is that the around-town gas mileage is not as advertised. On the highway I get around 37 mpg, but in day-to-day driving it's more like 25-30 (25 if I have to sit in traffic for a while). I think the Civic more consistently got 30 mpg around town, and maybe as much as 33 on the highway.

The Country Store

I've been wanting to add a photo of this picture on our wall to my blog for a few weeks. Because the print is under glass, I couldn't take the picture in the evening because the flash would cause a reflection, so I had to wait until a bright, sunny day. And when it was bright and sunny out, I kept forgetting to take the picture, until today. This was about the best angle I could get, to avoid reflections from windows and such.

My mommy and daddy sent this to me for my birthday. It's a print of a painting by Frank Bly of the Country Store in Petersham, Massachusetts. Petersham is pronounced "Peters-ham" and Frank Bly doesn't seem to have a web site, which I find annoying, because I like his paintings. My Uncle Jack is a painter, and he has a web site; Frank Bly should get one too!

Anyway, I like the Country Store in Petersham because it's a great place to go have lunch or ice cream. For a while it was owned by real nice guy named Chuck. I think it took him a long time to sell the place because he wanted to make sure the next owners would respect the building and business and keep it small-town quaint, the way it should be. My dad and I used to come here for sandwiches when we would go for little hikes and stuff at the Quabbin Reservoir or Harvard Forest.

The Fit is Go

As of Thursday, we have a new car. Here it is:

It's a 2007 Honda Fit, and it's still shiny. And it's blue. We didn't think we'd be able to get a blue one, because the dealership called to tell us that no blue ones were available. Orange was the other color we wanted, and they also were not available. So we said we'd take the red one, if they sweetened the deal a little. They took $400 off and also said they'd install the Honda Music Link, so that I can hook my iPod up to it and use the radio's controls to flip through songs and stuff. Then it turned out that they got a blue one after all, so we got the color we wanted, as well as the discount. Yippee.

I already drove it to Washington DC and back to go visit Kenji. It was fun to drive, much nicer than my old civic. Whee!

Happy Half-Birthday Spammy!

Somewhere around the end of January is Spammy's half-birthday. We don't know Spammy's exact birthday, because unlike Musubi, he was not born at the shelter. Instead, he and his little litter-mates were dropped off at the shelter just days after they were born, which was at the very end of July 2005. So that makes Spammy one and a half years old.

It was also my birthday recently. I'm a bit older than one and a half. I'm more like 25 and 144 months old. You do the math.

Anyway, this evening, shortly after I got home from work, the UPS guy came to our door and he had a mystery box for us! The kitties and I opened it up, and this is what we found! We're not entirely sure who sent us this nice comfy kitty cat carrier, because the packing slip didn't say anything about who sent for it. But we have a sneaking suspicion who did. >:) The kitties and I say thank you very much! (Well, Spammy and Musubi say "prrrr prrr prrr bllllp! meow!", which means "thank you very much!")

Musubi gave the kitty carrier a try too, and she also approves.
Musubi especially needs a sturdy kitty cat carrier because the last time she went to the vet to have her shots updated, she clean busted out of the cardboard carrier that we brought her home in from the shelter. It wasn't that the box was too small for her; rather, it was that she was too determined not to be in a box. At a traffic light, I had to stuff Musubi back into her box, and then drive with one hand holding the box shut, while the other hand took alternated between steering and shifting! Hopefully Musubi won't figure out how to use zippers...

Should have added this to my last post...

I just noticed on ReverbNation that you can add widgets to your web pages. Here's some stuff from the Gas House Gorillas for those who are interested...

Just a Bunch of Gorillas, and I Get the Top Bunk

Kenji was out of town this past week and through the weekend, and with the exception of my ten-minute date with Petco to fetch more food for the kitties, I've spent pretty much all of my evenings in. New Jersey finally got a smattering of snow this week - just enough for me to take a broom to dust off the sidewalk and driveway, but not enough for me to take a picture.

I also fell ill in the middle of the week with a sore throat. I thought for sure I had strep, so before the symptoms got out of hand, I visited a doctor. She did a test and said it was not strep, though it might be too early to tell, prescribed an antibiotic for me just in case my symptoms got worse, and sent me on my merry way. I guess I'm turning into a hypochondriac, since my sore throat was already gone by Friday night and now I'm just battling a bit of congestion.

Saturday night I had planned to go with my friend, Tiffany, to see our favorite fun local band, the Gas House Gorillas play way the heck down in Long Branch, NJ. The Gorillas are a favorite among the NJ swing dance community, so this is probably the seventh or eighth time I've seen them play. This time the venue was the lounge at the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, which was nice because it has a plethora of comfy chairs, and the band got to play with a boat as a backdrop. This lounge has no dance floor to speak of, but at least it has a dance carpet, which gives your legs an extra-good workout. In the picture to the left, Hiro Suzuki is on the guitar, Joe Geary on drums, Rick Fink performing vocals, "Handsome" Dan Alvaro on the saxophone, and somewhere in the background behind Dan is Crusher Carmean on the upright bass.

The Gas House Gorillas have a blog of their own, but it seems there's been some kind of controversy over it and therefore will be going away. I teased them last night that I brought my camera so that I could continue the blog on my own blog, but I know I'm just to lazy to make this a regular thing. Plus I don't have the same penchant for witty prose that "Handsome" Dan has (he was the keeper of their blog), so I'll just share a few shots from last night, maybe say a few words about them and then call it a day.

During the break between the first and second set, Tiff got to hear some of the funny music Crusher listens to. In this one photo of Tiff and my forehead (proof that I really was there), I got to listen to some Crusher's music too. I forget what the song was, but it was about worms and dirt, and it was delightfully ridiculous in a manner similar to one of my favorite bands, They Might Be Giants. Haha, a quick Google search for "worms make dirt" reveals that the band is The Aquabats!, and the name of the song is Worms Make Dirt. How wonderfully silly.

Moving right along - here are the Gorillas performing my favorite of their songs, One of These Days. I hesitate to add that link because it's one of those annoying links that forces your browser to resize itself... so I apologize if you already clicked it and were annoyed.


Note the pretty boat in the background. :)

Hiro rockin' the house!

During the third set, the Gorillas were joined by two local blues artists, Jen and Gary. I forget their last name, but Tiffany has their business card, so maybe if she reads this she can leave a comment saying who they are. They were great, and it was a real treat to watch them jam with the Gorillas.

And of course there is a little story that goes with this photo of Tiffany wearing "Handsome" Dan's hat. Following the jam session with Jen and Gary, Dan managed to knock his mic out of its stand with his saxophone (he was obviously rockin' the house). Not only did the mic fall out of its stand, but it also became disconnected, and when Dan reconnected it, it didn't seem to work quite right anymore. Or at least that's how it seemed to me. So he took off his hat and threw it on the floor in front of the band. Rick (the vocalist) then picked it up and handed it to Tiff. Then she put it on. Then I took a picture of her. The End.

Well, the show didn't actually end after that song, but after the show did end, Tiff and I stopped at the diner on the way home. I saw the word diner on the sign, but I say that was a misnomer. In my book, it's not a real diner unless it is open 24 hours, and this one was not - but we made it there just in time for milkshakes, bread pudding, and Tiffany's ambivalent bacon pancake:


Because the show was way down south on the Jersey Shore (well certainly not as far south on the Jersey Shore as it could have been), we knew this was going to be a late night. Before I left my house earlier in the evening, Tiffany suggested I stay over at her house afterwards so I wouldn't have to drive home by myself at 2-3:00 a.m. She sealed the deal when she said she had a bunk bed, and I could have the top bunk. Woo-hoo!

123456 and Uncommon Conversions

While out for a shopping excursion to Wegmans today, our car surpassed the 123,456 mile mark on its odometer! We would have taken a picture, except we forgot to take the camera with us. It probably wouldn't have made any difference though, since we also forgot to look at the odometer when it happened. If we'd had the camera, the picture would have been of 123,459 instead. I think cars should be equipped with odometer alarms that will alert you to moments when your car is about to reach a milestone figure in its odometer reading.

Before Wegmans, we had brunch at Le Peep, a cute little "cookery" in Edison, New Jersey. They have yummy crepes and French Toast with granola on top. On the front of their menu is the following list of "Uncommon Conversions". Parenthetical comments are my own:

2 pinches = 1 bit
4 bits = 1 smidgen
3 dollops = 1 gaggle
1 gaggle = 2 glugs (so 3 dollops is the same as 2 glugs?)
2 glugs = 1 blanket (and a gaggle is the same as a blanket??)
3 blankets = 1 smothering

What I want to know is how many smidgens are in a dollop? I have an idea how much a pinch is, and therefore can figure out about how much a bit and a smidgen are, but I guess I'm on my own after that. The list on the menu is followed by the disclaimer, "Volume may vary with altitude." When I first read it, I thought it said "Volume may vary with attitude," which makes more sense to me since I suppose it must depend on your attitude when you have to decide how large your dollop is.

Best Mac and Cheese Ever

Today, Kenji and I went into the city on a secret mission. Finding a parking space in the East Village was a challenge, so we were very hungry when we finally got out of the car.

We were quite pleased to find Sarita's Macaroni & Cheese right across the street from where we parked. As you can imagine, this little eatery, also know as S'MAC, has many, many kinds of macaroni & cheese. And it's real, real tasty.

Kenji had the Cajun:


Cheddar & Pepper Jack cheeses, andouille sausage, green pepper, onions, celery, garlic and, of course, some genuine Cajun seasoning.

And I had the Brie:


Creamy Brie, roasted figs, roasted shiitake mushrooms & fresh rosemary. The menu says it's addictive. I am addicted. Lucky for my waistline I don't live or work anywhere near the East Village.

Volunteering

Shortly after we arrived in New Jersey, I took up volunteering once a week at our neighborhood school, tutoring a first grader. That ended with the school year back in May, and I'm really not sure whether the tutoring program is even up and running again during this school year. I would think that if it is, the organizers would have kept the tutors' contact information, as they may be the folks most willing to sign up for the program the next time around. I never received a call from the organizers, so either no one organized the program this year, or else they decided they didn't like me as a tutor!

Either way, it doesn't matter. I probably wouldn't have done the program again, now that I work Wednesday afternoons.

This year, instead of tutoring, I've started volunteering for our local library, driving books around town to shut-ins. Today was my first day, and I had about eleven elderly folks to whom I made deliveries. Several lived in the same elder-care complexes, so I really only had to make seven stops. I saw only five of the eleven people; the other six simply wanted their books left with the front desk of their building or by their front door. The folks I did meet were all grateful to see me, especially since they'd already finished the books they had been reading, and were itching to get new ones. I enjoyed the experience, and look forward to driving more books a couple of Fridays from now.

Making Origami Paper

For our wedding, Kenji's mom and dad folded 1,000 cranes out of shiny gold-colored paper squares, and had them arranged in the shape of the family crest, mounted on a black matte background and framed. It hangs in our living room, above where the sofa corners up with the love seat, and looks like this.

In Japanese culture, it is tradition for the bride-to-be to fold 1,000 paper cranes before the wedding. This is meant to teach her patience. I'm not sure what it means if the bride-to-be's in-laws fold the cranes for her -- so I've been making up for it for the last two and a half years by folding tiny cranes out of the little paper napkin rings that come on the flatware at some restaurants. At least the wait staff is patient with me while I fold instead of review the menu.

Getting back to the family crest - I don't know anything about it, such as its origins or whether it has any particular meaning. Kenji says he's only known of the crest for about ten years, so he really doesn't know anything about it either. Perhaps Kenji's mom or dad could leave and informative comment to this post if they happen to know some more information. ;)

Anyway, after this weekend, I am about 22 cranes closer to my 1,000. Two of them I folded at Chevy's in Clifton while we waited for our lunch on Saturday. But the other 20 were a result of me playing with Adobe Illustrator all weekend, recreating the crest as a vector graphics file. I have an evil plan for this file, hee hee hee. Ok, it's not an evil plan, it's just a plan. But saying I have an evil plan is more fun for me.

What was not part of my evil plan was deciding, after printing the crest, that it might be cool to fold into a crane. I was very pleased when I finished to find that the family crest is especially well-suited for this. If folded correctly, the leaves align themselves nicely on the wings, the lines in the leaves look like ribs and a spine, and the small circle in the crux of the leaves becomes a collar bone around the base of the crane's neck. As you can see from the photos below, I experimented with making the crest two or even three different colors.

Using three colors results in a bird that has one color for its breast, another for its wings, and a third for its back and base of the tail.

My first few cranes had only the large crest on them (not shown). Then Kenji suggested adding smaller crests to the wings to dress them up a bit. I decided to add the mini-crests to all four corners of my origami paper, which resulted in a nice decorative head and tail.

I now have a template that prints twelve 2.5" origami squares on an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper. Although my template also prints little crop marks, I find the biggest challenge is cutting the sheet to make the pieces as square as possible. Anyway, fun-fun-fun. Now I just have to find something to do with all these colorful cranes!

Christmas, and dinner with an alien!

It's very plain to me that although I take my camera with me lots of places, I really don't do a very good job of actually using it.

Take this holiday season, and our short visit to Seattle to see Kenji's folks. I started off right - got a nice shot of Kenji at the airport in Newark, with the check-in sign displaying the date just above his head.

Anyway we arrived in Seattle late on Christmas Eve, just in time to go to sleep actually. On Christmas morning we enjoyed a lovely family breakfast at home of Kenji's aunt and uncle and cousins. There were biscuits and gravy, egg and sausage casserole, and my most favorite - French toast casserole! It was so yummy! We also met Spammy and Musubi's two kitty cat cousins, Mr. Cuddles and Lily Cuddles. They share Spam and Musubi's love of Christmas trees, and the ornaments they contain. It was very entertaining to watch Kenji's cousins open their Christmas gifts.

Later on in the day, Kenji's folks had a good-size get-together of friends and family at their house. Again, the food was delicious. Many photos were taken of various family members, though unfortunately none using my camera. Of course it might have helped if I remembered to take it out of my coat pocket! Photos or not, it really was nice to spend Christmas with family for a change. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this was probably the first time in six years for both Kenji and me.

On the day after Christmas, Kenji and I went with Kenji's brother and girlfriend to the Uwajimaya store in Seattle. It was fun because it reminded me of Hawaii, sort of like a cross between Shirokiya and Daiei. My camera magically found its way out of my pocket at Uwajimaya to take this picture of Spam Musubi. I show this to the kitties to remind them that they better behave... or else!

Later in the evening, Kenji's mom treated everyone to dinner at Cucina! Cucina! Italian Cafe. Again it was Mom & Dad, Kenji's brother and his girlfriend, "our house" Grandma and Grandpa, and Auntie, Uncle and cousins. "Soapy" Grandma should have been there also, but she refused to let us abduct her
from her home earlier in the day. She protested some silliness about it being too cold to go outside. Perhaps the problem was that our abduction skills are simply not up to par. Ironically, as it turns out, we did meet an alien at Cucina! Cucina! I bet he has excellent abduction skills - I'm sure we could have learned a thing or two from him, or maybe even have brought him along with us when we stopped in to visit "Soapy" Grandma. Oh well.