July photos

Well, we had one full month, 31 days, of rain in Japan this July and we are waiting for the rainy season to end.  The weather bureau seems to be able to tell us that that will start from this Sunday and it has been a long time in coming this year!

So...  Finishing off the month with random photos...

My neighbor's granddaughters were visiting the other day and he had set up candles in his carport for them to play with some fireworks.  Obviously, this would normally be an outdoor playtime but as it was threatening to rain the session got held in the carport (no cars parked!)  Hand held fireworks are very popular during the summer in Japan, though there is no set day for them like Independence Day in the States.  The girls wore their simple jinbei outfits which are much like cotton kimonos but in two parts and usually with shorts. 

Remember when I mentioned that John watches TV and likes to bark at dogs and other animals on the TV screen?  Well, he seems to also like to watch Japanese sumo wrestling!!!  I wonder what is going on in his head...  When the humongous sumo wrestlers crouch down into the starting position, facing each other off, John flies at the TV barking.  Does he think they look like elephants or is it the crouching position when they are down on their fists and look like four legs where he mistakes them for some other animal?  And he often bang his long nose on the screen when he comes to bark at the wrestlers!

Today was the last day of the elementary school's second term and summer vacation starts.  It is starting late this year and will only last two weeks so that hopefully the children can catch up after missing two months in April and May.  The Japanese sweet shop has some beautiful flowers at the corner where I do my crosswalk duty.  These Rindou (Gentian) flowers are rather unusual because they are usually only one petaled whereas these have multiple layers of petals.

I finished making another block of the McKenna farm Block of the Month that I've been working on.  The last block is the one with the goat and pigs and geese.  I am a bit concerned about how I'm going to quilt this eventually....  The blocks could have been made up into separate wall quilts but I've chosen to follow the instructions to put all 9 blocks together in one big quilt.  This means that I'm going to have an awfully big quilt (and stiff with all the fused fabric) to quilt eventually.  I had considered trying to quilt-as-you-go meaning quilt each block and then connect them later but that's not what the instructions say and I couldn't figure out how I was going to get it to fit nicely...  I'm delaying the dilemma until the future when I'll probably wish I'd taken a different course...

Ah...  The sunflowers are out in the fields now!  So pretty.

Speaking of sunflowers...  I have now be bullet journaling for two months...  I'm not sure how successful my new "hobby" is.  I hope to be more mindful about things and get more done and the first month I just wrote things down in the journal I had bought...  Boring.  In July I fancied it up a bit by adding a little color.  Hmmm.  That was fun...

And for August I got inspired by the sunflowers and decorated things up quite a bit...  Well, I want to be productive, not spending time trying to be more productive.  Simple is best?  But the cheeriness of the pages does prompt me to come back and record more things so maybe I'm being productive after all...

One more bullet journal page...  Most of what I write down is thoughts about Bible reading and every day I choose a word for the reading...  At the end of this month I have 31 words to reflect upon.  I sort of like this idea...

With the end of the rainy season the dew won't sit on the rice fields as it has done all month.  We will be in for hot humid days though!

Visiting the Oya rock quarry

I had a natsukashii outing today.  Natsukashii means nostalgic.  Today the ladies in my English class and I visited the Oya rock quarry museum together and enjoyed the underground atmosphere of a now un-mined rock quarry.  And why was it nostalgic for me?  Because the last time I visited the Oya rock quarry was 9 years ago when I was down at the bottom of it when the Tohoku Earthquake hit on March 11, 2011.

Just walking from the parking lot to the quarry the air turned cool and misty.  The underground keeps a constant temperature at around 50 degrees.  We made sure we brought our jackets even on this very warm summer day!

So many memories of the day nine years ago came flooding back as I descended into the quarry with my friends.  During the past 9 years, the quarry, which was already a tourist spot back then, closed down directly after the earthquake and I could boast for a while that I was the last person of the public to leave the quarry immediately after the earthquake. 

Then about 5 years ago, the town of Oya re-vamped their efforts to bring more tourists into the area by making a lovely park near the mouth of the quarry and by renovating the souvenir shop that had held run-of-the-mill trinkets into a trendy cafe with a local hand-made crafters' shop.  For the next couple of years the cars were lined up to get into the museum and quarry and the bus stop had an overload of tourists coming in and out of the area.  There was no way I was going to visit the quarry or take people there again as it was just too crowded!
But since the pandemic, the crowds have thinned out considerably and my friends and I discovered that the trendy coffee shop was a nice place to visit where we could sit outside and be social-distanced from anyone else.  We noticed that there didn't seem to be the crowds of people going into the quarry either and so today we went down underground.

This picture was taken at the entrance to the quarry after going in through the stairway tunnel.  Along the left you can see the route down into the various chambers marked off by the yellow chains.  I was at about the second light on the left there, and ready to come out of the quarry when the earthquake hit.  I remember hearing a low roar that got louder but didn't realize it was an earthquake until I noticed the yellow chains swinging.  My friend Lorraine and I raced up the stairway and out of the tunnel and we were the last ones to leave!

Of course not much has changed in the quarry from 9 years ago.  Same walls and pillars and hole leading up into the outer world.  I took this same picture 9 years ago.

It seemed like there were more special effects of lighting in the quarry now.  Historically, after the rock was no longer mined, the caverns were used to keep military equipment during the war and more recently it has been used for rice storage.  There also have been numerous movie and television scenes filmed here as the eerie, mystical qualities make for interesting backgrounds to science fiction and adventure stories. 

I have heard that musical artists will make use of some of the caverns for concerts as the acoustics are wonderful and I think even a few art shows, fashion shows and weddings have been held here also.

 It was interesting to see the few places where natural light comes in from outside.

But most of the caverns are in darkness except for the strategically placed light.  The steps there along the wall were made in the lower regions of the quarry but traditionally, a walk way was built into the wall hanging over the quarry base.

Sorry, this was a picture from the museum that I didn't get in good light.  A couple of years after the earthquake I went down into another Oya quarry owned by a friend and walked along a similar (hopefully sturdier) walkway drilled into the walls.

This is the way the original planks were set into the rock walls and the walkway was laid over the planks.

When the quarry was first being mined, each of the blocks of stone were hand chiseled and levered up and away from each other but with the inventions of rock cutting circular saws, rock mining was automated.  There are marks left in the walls where the stone was cut into widths and then the circular saws cut through two layers at a time.

Ah!  Greenery out there in the real world!  The mist comes from the cool underground temperature meeting the humid summer of Japan.

Oya really is an interesting place.  As we left I mentioned to the ticket ladies at the entrance that I had been in it during the earthquake and that nothing fell inside (outside there was mountain crumbling) and thankfully the lights stayed on throughout the ordeal.  Can you imagine being down here with no lights!!!

If you are interested, this was one of the first blog posts I wrote after the earthquake and described escaping from the quarry on March 11.

Earthquake experience

And this post is about my friend's rock quarry, the REAL thing and getting down into the dark hole with him.

Rock quarry again
　

Hugs and Kisses all around!

Hmm..  It seems that blogger has changed how to create a post...  I know they've been telling us that things are going to change but I had thought I had made the changes and could just step in and write again.  I've just spent 10 minutes trying to figure out where the starting point is for writing a post...  But as you can see, I've found it!  Now if I can just remember the next time...

Ah... But the next question is how to get to the HTML view where I edit lines and colors etc....  I will persevere but if the post seems different today, you will know why!

I have been upstairs sewing again.  This month I have had 5 sewing projects lined up to work on.  McKenna, Log Cabin, 25 Weeks (something new) Hugs and Kisses AND Hugs and Kisses in Blue! 

The Hugs and Kisses Quilt for Tony and Leiya is at the quilting stage and I enjoy the peace of hand quilting it in the evenings.  Can you see the heart pattern in the yellow border?  (At the bottom).  I found a pattern and I spent a few hours making a stencil out of plastic and with an Exacto knife.  On the fabric I went over the stencil in pencil which frees me from trying to trace the pattern with a light box (which I don't have and instead tape a quilt to the window.  It is a horrendous job!)  I was worried that the pencil lines won't disappear but maybe with numerous washings only the stitching will be visible...

And speaking of Tony and Leiya, we talked with them today as it is Leiya's birthday today.  Happy Birthday, Leiya!

We feel sorry for Takumi because in the month of July we have my birthday, Tetsu and my wedding anniversary, Tetsu's birthday, Leiya's birthday and Julieta's birthday!  Poor Takumi has to keep everyone else's dates in his head!

Anniversary reminds me so show the Pandora heart charm that Tetsu ordered for me for our 40th anniversary.  Actually I picked out 5 or 6 charms and told him to choose from there (he can't figure out the website by himself.)  There was another charm that said something like "Love you always and forever". 

"That one's nice." said Tetsu.  "What does it say?"

Well, if I have to tell him what his message to me is supposed to say then I'll cross that one off my list!  I'm glad he chose the heart though...  Who else is going to give me a heart charm!

Wait...  I was talking about sewing...

I decided I liked how the Hugs and Kisses quilt was turning out so much that I put together another one last week!  This is going to be for a friend's baby who will be born in October and the parents already know it will be a boy. 

Leiya and this mother-to-be were good friends in elementary school and our families traveled together to California to visit respective grandparents.  Leiya and Y-san would sit together on the airplane, Takumi and the elder son would sit together somewhere else and their mother and I would pass the youngest between us during the flight!  Y-san got married last year two weeks before Leiya and Tony did and now the two old friends will be having babies within a couple months time!  I liked the idea of the new babies having similar quilts (even though they will live on opposite sides of the world.)

Now I've got to buy some backing for this quilt because I don't have enough yardage of one fabric in my stash (and as it is a gift I don't want to piece a backing).  I have already been to three fabric stores but patchwork is really out of style these days.  Almost no 100% lightweight cotton fabric though I could find broadcloth which I find to be too stiff...  I DREAM of the wonderful fabric stores in the States and feel very sorry for myself not having a good fabric shop nearby...

Citizenship

Leiya recently has an interesting problem/situation... 

Takumi and Leiya have dual citizenship.  They were born in Japan and through Tetsu of course they have Japanese citizenship but because of my American citizenship and because I made the effort to register them, they also were entitled to American citizenship.  This worked out very well for both children because neither had any problems when going to America in their teen years nor did they have any of the visa/green card rigamarole that foreign students have to work through.  They were also eligible for scholarships in college and they didn't have to apply for work visas etc. after graduating from college.

However...  Japan only recognizes dual citizenship up until age 22.  After that point, people with two citizenships are suppose to choose and return/renounce one.  America, on the other hand, and many other countries in the world, recognizes dual and even triple citizenship.

We have always known about this legal quirk but have hoped that, what with how global Japan is becoming, that the laws would change before the kids had to actually think about turning in one of their citizenships.  This is sort of fudging the law because as long as they have valid Japanese passports, the Japanese government never questions nor checks up on whether a person has more than one citizenship...  and a passport is good for 10 years...

Leiya's Japanese passport expires soon so she contacted the Japanese embassy in the States requesting renewal forms or something and she was questioned as to WHY she was in the States to begin with... and in the course of things the embassy became aware of her dual citizenship.  And they are strongly suggesting that she choose either the Japanese (for which they hope she'll do!) or the American, because of the Japanese law... 

This is still somewhat up in the air.  I'm not surprised but I'd sort of hoped that she could continue in this limbo state (as is Takumi, as are other friends' children who have dual citizenship) until Japan changes its policy because it would be a shame to turn in the citizenship and a few years down the line have duality recognized.  It would not be that easy to GET the Japanese citizenship again.  (Which I DON'T have, by the way.  I'm happy having only American citizenship.)

There are SO many foreigners living in Japan the past few years and there are SO many international marriages and children who start out with dual citizenship...  But Japan is notorious about their slowness when it comes to change...  So maybe Leiya isn't going to be able to wait it out... 

Animals... and rain...

A neighbor asked me this morning what I do with my days and I was sort of at a loss to give an answer...  What on earth am I doing?  Why do the hours get away from me before I know it!

For the past two weeks it has been raining steadily and it is rather difficult to take John for a walk.  John doesn't much like going for a walk to begin with and when the ground is wet or when it is raining out he gives me the evil eye and threatens to growl...  When I do get him out he often just sets his feet like a mule and I can't get him to budge.

This dog was supposed to be my walking buddy but he says he wasn't informed about that title!

Not a great photo but I took a selfie of me wearing my uniform on rainy days.  I've got my regulation summer shirt on and jeans (shh!  I'm supposed to be wearing the regulation slacks) and then the regulation rainwear pants and a regulation long rainwear coat with hood flung over the regulation hat.  No umbrella allowed thus the hood.  And of course nowadays I have to wear a mask... which means I can no longer blow my regulation whistle, BUT I have a regulation flag that also has a buzzer button on it!  Let me tell you, even in the summer this rain get-up is like a sauna suit!!! 

The walking path up to the school through the forest.

Back home, Mi is watching the yard from the back window.  Can you see what has Mi so enthralled?  There are two pigeons out there at the bird feeder and they share the meal with numerous sparrows.

And this is a bad photo of one of the pigeons wallowing in the bird seed dish!  This pigeon has adopted up and brings over one or two of his friends and when he has eaten his fill he flies up to this larger feeder and SITS THERE!  For almost an hour!  And he doesn't much care if we come up to his hideout and peer in.  AND I'm almost positive that he is the same pigeon that then walks to our front porch and poops there...  It is very odd that every morning we find bird poop in the exact same place where there are no trees around to even perch on.  I think the feathered fellow has just decided that our front porch is the place he has declared is his bathroom.  He has a faithful schedule and he is the only culprit around here who makes himself so much at home!

I can't end my post on the subject of bird bathrooms and so here is a pretty butterfly that was making her rounds in the rain!

Wedding anniversary!

Our days go by normally though for some reason the last two weeks have seemed long...  A lot of rain.  Not getting out much...  life is quiet in our area.

In Japan however, the rain has caused flooding and landslides and the southern part of Japan is in a state of emergency.  And evacuation centers are trying to cope with Corona issues at the same time.  It sounds like a nightmare...

I went to the pool yesterday to swim but there was a lot of grumbling in the locker room before and after I went for my swim.  Of course we are required to wear masks when in the building.  Lockers are assigned and cleaned after every use.  But now there are no talking signs posted in the pool area and also signs reminding people of social distancing.  I tried to greet an acquaintance I hadn't seen for four months and she zipped her mouth and whispered, "if the life-guards catch us talking they'll caution us."  It was true, every time two or three people got too close to each other, the life-guards were waving at them to step apart.

Once in the locker room the ladies were complaining that it is like in a jail with guards standing over us all and monitoring interaction.

"I get stressed out just being in the pool area!  At least here we can talk without a lifeguard (all men today) stepping in and shushing me!  It isn't any fun at the pool anymore!"

On my way out of the pool facilities I also ran into one of the housekeepers who are always wiping things down and setting the locker room right.  I waved and asked her how she'd been during sheltering down and she whispered, "I'm sorry.  We're not allowed to talk to anyone while in the building."  I went on my way feeling like ignoring people was going to be the only way one can not get into trouble...

I stopped in at a fabric store on my way home and the store announcement had a continual warning going on over the loudspeaker.

"Keep distant from other customers and staff.  Please don't touch things unless absolutely necessary.  Please refrain from speaking to anyone as much as possible."

Yes, enjoyment has gone out of pool activities but maybe that is true of everywhere.  "Don't sing in church, just listen."  "No screaming or waving of hands at any theme parks.  Sit in a ride silently.  Don't talk when in a restaurant."

Well, it is the way of the world now just to keep as many people healthy as possible.

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Onto a happier theme!!!

Tetsu and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary!  Yeah!  That is a big one!  We went out for lunch...  I have requested a Pandora charm to commemorate the milestone (Tetsu can't buy things online without my help...)  And Leiya sent us t-shirts!

Here's what we looked like 40 years ago.  I sewed the wedding dress from a pattern and wide lace that my mother had sent me from the States.  The kimono was loaned to me from an English student whose father-in-law had been a famous painter who painted it for HER wedding apparel.

 And here we are 40 years later in Leiya's matching t-shirts!

I seem to have more fluffy hair than in my younger days and Tetsu has a lot less!

Progress on my Works in Progress

Ye-ah!  I am happy to report that I have completed AND EVEN SENT OFF the Partnership Quilt block for next year's Tokyo quilt show!  The deadline for sending the block in was July 31 and I am well within the time span given!

Guess what this year's Partnership Quilt theme is...  Love The Earth.  I couldn't get any closer to the theme than this could I? 

Not too original but I was really stumped.  It just seemed too narrow a theme and I can imagine thousands of 6 inch squares with circles (depicting earth) and hearts (depicting love).  I'm not sure what else there is but it will be interesting to see where other people's imaginations lead them.  (Though Julie has already proven me wrong by making her signature cardinal on a solar system background).

The other sewing I've done this week is the Hugs and Kisses quilt.  The blocks had all been made and the fabric for the stashing chosen and so yesterday I sewed it all together to make a flimsy.

I'm thinking of hand quilting lines inside the hugs and the kisses and maybe putting a design in the sashing...  Right now I'm considering lots of hearts there...? or will that make the quilt a bit too lovey-dovey?

Two Happy Villages!

Not long before Corona changed our lifestyle a young lady in my district started coming over to learn tatting.  I showed her (PUSHED tatting on her!  "Wouldn't you like to learn tatting?  Here, let me teach you!") how to make the basic stitches, lent her a tatting shuttle and a book and she went home to practice by herself.

The next time I saw her she had figured out how to make flowers and then we worked on another simple pattern.  This continued for a few weeks until she was making edging and decorations.  Corona hit and we stopped getting together for two or three months which was just as well because there wasn't anything more I could teach her about tatting.  She had bought her own shuttles and book and was making things with different colored threads.

I really enjoyed being with M-san as she seemed to be an eager learner about just about anything and so a couple of weeks ago when we had all relaxed a bit about Corona, I invited her over again...  But as I'd exhausted my tatting lessons I decided to push fabric collaging at her...  ("Wouldn't you like to learn fabric collaging?  Here!  Let me teach you!") in the form of a Happy Village quilt!

We each decided to make a Happy Village and chatted (in English!  M-san is excellent in English!) while we collaged.  The first week we got the basic shapes applied.  The second week we put on roofs and windows and I showed M-san how to do free-motion quilting on the sewing machine. 

Today M-san arrived with presents for me that she had made herself.  She was already an expert in macrame and she brought me a pretty necklace and small accessory bag. 

She also brought me a tatted and beaded bracelet!  Tatting with beads is advanced work, let me tell you!!!

Today M-san finished quilting her small quilt and even got a label put on.  It was the first time for M-san to play around with thread drawing.  Didn't she do a great job?!  I'm sure proud of my excellent student. 

She looks pretty proud of herself too!

And this was MY Happy Village...I planned a little farther along and left room for a border...

Now what shall M-san and I do for our NEXT project?