Today my amazing IT guy (James) moved my recipe blog to WordPress. It’s a change I have wanted to make for awhile. So click here to go to the new Vanilla Carrots.
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I love the humor I find daily in this city. There is just enough English on the signs to keep me from going crazy. I can actually read many signs and menus if they are in the simple Japanese forms of Hiragana and Katakana. Today when we were looking for a place for “lunch†We saw this “Launch Menu.â€
I love the giant paper clip on this sign for Tokyo stationary shop.
Every December since we have lived in Tokyo our building manager comes to my door with a gift from the property management company and every year it has been coffee. So every year Rick takes it to the office and gives it to his assistant. So this year I was surprised when there was a small bag from Living Motif on the top of a box. I tore it open and found a darling Santa ornament made with felted balls. Hurray, they finally got it right! P.S. They gave us coffee, too. American=coffee drinker
Late last week I noticed that the international grocery store down the street had received their shipment of real Christmas trees. There were several lined up outside the florist shop in the parking lot. Â Today when I walked by there were only about three left. This totally shocks me and I’d really like to know who buys them. They are beautiful but you have to look at the price tag and understand that 47,250 Yen=$560.80! This is for a tree that is going to die and lose all of it’s needles in a few short weeks. Crazy!
After several days of focusing on the Relief Society Christmas Activity that was last night I was ready to get out and about. I woke up to a torrential rain storm and decided I was destined to another day in the house. About mid-morning the storm was gone and there were clear blue skies. I walked through the park and took more photos of the leaves. The storm blew most of them off the trees so I saw a lot of this:
And since the autumn photos are getting a bit old I thought I’d post something for Christmas. There is a KFC in a shopping center near my house. Outside the door there is a life sized Colonel Sanders. Normally he is just in his white suit, but at Christmas he becomes quite festive. (Personally, I think the life sized Colonel Sanders around the city are a bit creepy).
In The Warmth of Other Suns Elizabeth Wilkerson”has documented the sweeping 55-year-long migration of black Americans across their own country. She has challenged the dismissive assumptions that are sometimes made about that migration, treating it as a briefer and more easily explained event.” Read the NY times review
Since 2001, the books I tend to love the most are about life in the southern United States. I have long held To Kill a Mockingbird as my favorite book and I read it every couple of years. In 2001 I took a course at the University of Houston titled African American Psychology. The course surveyed and we discussed African American literature and since that course I have been drawn to books like this one, The Help, A Lesson Before Dying, Cane River…the list is endless. My fellow class members were mostly African American. They were at the campus in Houston and I attended by video from The Woodlands. During one discussion I discovered that they were still very angry about slavery. I remained quiet, there wasn’t anything I could say. I hated the idea of slavery. The professor finally said, “Vanalee, you have been awfully quiet, do you have anything you would like to say?’ I said that there was nothing I could say. I told them that my heart ached and that I hated what had happened, but I couldn’t truly understand because it hadn’t happened to me. I was truly sorry that it had happened at all. Suddenly, the class remembered that I was there. This course opened my eyes. Â It was my favorite class of my long university studies.
My heart breaks at man’s inhumanity to man. A young activist friend’s blog detailing her efforts on the Thai/Burma border often brought tears to my eyes and aching to my heart. My visits to Cambodia and India this year opened my eyes a tiny bit to the poverty and suffering there. What can an aching heart and tears do to help? I don’t know the answer yet, but there is longing inside of me searching for some small way I can help someone. A way to serve and help lift the hands that hang down…Hebrews12:12.
With Andrew and Leigh living in the midst of Appalachia in a cabin on top of a mountain, I never know know what we will see next. Last winter was so bad they couldn’t get either of their four wheel drive vehicles up to the cabin. They hiked in with their groceries and laundry in back packs. So when I saw this photo of Rorey on Facebook I wasn’t surprised. I really think I remember buying a crib for her…hmm. Isn’t she adorable!
Japanese children in elementary school all wear the same type of backpacks. The color is determined by which school they attend and it is part of their school uniform. I saw these in a shop and am amazed at the price, 39,000 yen is the equivalant of $464.00! I used to make my children use their $20 JanSport backpacks for several years. They had to be falling apart and beyond repair for me to buy a new one.
