Shit I'm Diggin'

The colours for 2009 are Black & Gold. The COSTUME for 2009 is the Girl Scout uniform. I'm not talking about the current uniform that revolves around a vest. BaH! What are we preparing our young ladies to become- greeters at Walmart?! NO! What I'm talking about is what I proudly wore every Wednesday in elementary school. Mary Janes, wool knee-high socks, jumper/penifore, sash & beret. You were part of the in crowd at Bromwell if you had the most GS pharaphinalia on Wednesdays....& I was pretty cool, I even had the short sleeve blouse with GS insignia as poka-dots plus the cardigan. Apparently you are hip now if you wear a version on the uniform. I have lady friends calling me from Dallas to Chicago telling me to join them in their troop.

One I saw today were the ladies from Pod Post a Mail Artists company. With these troopers you can earn merit badges from zining, book making & self-publishing. I want a merit badge with a Xerox machine on it!!!


If one of these troups give me a uniform in Burberry, I will be JAM-BO-REE-ing!!!! Check them out @ http://www.podpodpost.com

In Memory of Syd Harrison

Syd Harrison was the kind of boss that you would never wish ill will upon. He was my mentor & the one person that brought back my love for architecture from the brink of extinction. In a weird turn of "6 degrees of separation" my first interview with him lasted 3 hours when he noticed that I went to kindergarten with his daughter. That's just the person Syd was, an inspiring gentleman with a keen eye to detail. A trait that he honed in me hours spent on construction sites. Every project with him were tests to right side of the brain. Pushing my envelope for research & design; from follies for dining to converting ranch style homes into Japanese pagodas to boat haul design. He was a pleasure to work with & learn from. Being the sole employee, when I wanted a new desk chair he came back with a designer original that could of come out of the Millennium Falcon & when you turned around you could get a massage in it. An awesome man that would encourage intellectual discussion on ANYTHING. When he was sick, he would still come in to give me company & train me in the diverting rules between American & European croquet. At that time, all I had was Itchy & a scooter yet he put full trust in me. A big heart & a major love of croquet, that was Syd.
Syd passed on December 30th. A man that donated over 300 pints of blood in his life & he dies from a plasma disease. For men like Syd & my father who used quite a bit of blood this year, please donate.

SHOGATSU

Happy Year of the Cow everyone!! This time last year I was sitting around a light-bright table @ Endor (Mary's house) warming Sake on the potbelly stove & trying to convince my friends to eat the baby anchoives I had personally fried for the Japanese New Year. This year I went to celebrate the Japanese New Year with whom? .... the Japanese.

I really wanted to go to the Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens for two reasons.
1) See how they did Mochitsuki.
2) Buy getta to drive my mother nuts with. (There wooden flip-flops on stilts.)
I didn't get the getta because they wanted $16 for them & I won't bother my Mum for over $5. But I did get to see the Mochitsuki.

Mochitsuki is the pounding of the rice to make mochi, a sweet rice dessert. It is called Mochitsuki because while its worked it looks like a round sphere like tsuki- the moon.



First they put the steamed rice in this ceramic urn that they pounding into, two wooden mallets that you can see off to the left & water to keep them wet so the rice doesn't stick to them.

Then the pounding starts. You see the old Grannie in her yukata with an apron over is over seeing the work. There were a handfull of back up Grannies in the shade but no Shonen (Japanese boys) to do the pounding....I won't comment on that BUT it was good that they had back up Grannies- this one got her hand hit once by a mallet. Ouch!

Here is a slow moment where the mallet is getting wetted & the Grannie is turning the mochi. After a while during the pounding she has to stick her hand in there after ever pound to rotate it. After she got her hand hit once she started calling out when the boy could hit next.

There were plenty of other events going on. (Sorry, no fried anchoives Rachel.) But what would be a Japanese celebration without Taiko Drumming?! I would love to do taiko. It looks so ventive. But then I look at the costumes of just a bib top & think about how I would look pounding a drum with my flabby upper arms.....moving on.....The had a Shishimai dancing with the drums, i.e. a lion dancer.

Here's a list of some of the Japanese events & my definitions:

Hanetsuki Two wooden pattles & a oval wooden object that looks like a fishing lure. This would be Japanese badminton, no net though.

Fukuwarai The goddess of happiness game. Japanese Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Donkey

Jan Ken Pon Activity similar to rock, paper, scissors.

Daruma Otoshi A stack of wooden blocks are hit from the bottom up with a hammer into a box with a dragons head in it. The object is to hit them all at the dragon without the stack falling over.

Karuta Japanese card game similar to Memory. Do you remember that?

Omikuji Japanese fortune telling sticks. I did this & my stick said that I was going to have an excellant year. It better be right!!

Miss you more than the chance do Kakizome & the Sado Tea Ceremony,

V

SHOGATSU

Happy Year of the Cow everyone!! This time last year I was sitting around a light-bright table @ Endor (Mary's house) warming Sake on the potbelly stove & trying to convince my friends to eat the baby anchoives I had personally fried for the Japanese New Year. This year I went to celebrate the Japanese New Year with whom? .... the Japanese.

I really wanted to go to the Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens for two reasons.
1) See how they did Mochitsuki.
2) Buy getta to drive my mother nuts with. (There wooden flip-flops on stilts.)
I didn't get the getta because they wanted $16 for them & I won't bother my Mum for over $5. But I did get to see the Mochitsuki.

Mochitsuki is the pounding of the rice to make mochi, a sweet rice dessert. It is called Mochitsuki because while its worked it looks like a round sphere like tsuki- the moon.



First they put the steamed rice in this ceramic urn that they pounding into, two wooden mallets that you can see off to the left & water to keep them wet so the rice doesn't stick to them.

Then the pounding starts. You see the old Grannie in her yukata with an apron over is over seeing the work. There were a handfull of back up Grannies in the shade but no Shonen (Japanese boys) to do the pounding....I won't comment on that BUT it was good that they had back up Grannies- this one got her hand hit once by a mallet. Ouch!

Here is a slow moment where the mallet is getting wetted & the Grannie is turning the mochi. After a while during the pounding she has to stick her hand in there after ever pound to rotate it. After she got her hand hit once she started calling out when the boy could hit next.

There were plenty of other events going on. (Sorry, no fried anchoives Rachel.) But what would be a Japanese celebration without Taiko Drumming?! I would love to do taiko. It looks so ventive. But then I look at the costumes of just a bib top & think about how I would look pounding a drum with my flabby upper arms.....moving on.....The had a Shishimai dancing with the drums, i.e. a lion dancer.

Here's a list of some of the Japanese events & my definitions:

Hanetsuki Two wooden pattles & a oval wooden object that looks like a fishing lure. This would be Japanese badminton, no net though.

Fukuwarai The goddess of happiness game. Japanese Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Donkey

Jan Ken Pon Activity similar to rock, paper, scissors.

Daruma Otoshi A stack of wooden blocks are hit from the bottom up with a hammer into a box with a dragons head in it. The object is to hit them all at the dragon without the stack falling over.

Karuta Japanese card game similar to Memory. Do you remember that?

Omikuji Japanese fortune telling sticks. I did this & my stick said that I was going to have an excellant year. It better be right!!

Miss you more than the chance do Kakizome & the Sado Tea Ceremony,

V

Boca Raton Boat Parade

I wanted to start out my first 2009 blog entry with a little bit of the holiday cheer. This is a picture of the bourbon balls that I made using Mrs. Carrel's recipe. It called to dip the balls in chocolate using tooth picks. I searched & searched the grocery store for toothpicks & they weren't anywhere. Once again I had to use shish kabob skewers for something other than skewering meat.

Here I am in Florida with the parents. One of the traditions down here is to go to the Boca Raton Boat parade. Local boat owners deck out there boats for Christmas and then parade them down the intercoastal. This year Dad's handicap tag on the car got us prime seats at a park on the canal. We were just popping in for parking when the attendant told us that the parking was only for handicapped...ah ha! We are handicap! So we got front row seats in the bleachers. My parents never knew that this existed, they always went to other parks & just watched as they ate a picnic.

The first boat was the fireworks boat that seemed to propell itself with a constant stream of fireworks. It was my favorite & Itchy's least.

You have to excuse the low quality of photos. Its not as simple as you would think to take photos of moving boats at night. -- So, some of the boats had a more Floridian approach like this one of a marlin following some dolphins. They were judged on size classes, I think the rowboats were judged on how fast the rowers rowed:)
This one was my Mum's favorite. They're a group of people dressed up as wooden soliders lined up on deck & when the ship fired its cannon, all of the soliders fell down. Cute.



And it wouldn't be a boat parade if someone didn't have Santa reeling in a water-skiing dolphin.