In front of a wood stove, Dave stashes cards from the “string of honour” into archival book while recounting tales of the wonderful folks who sent greeting cards and letters to Tsuchida Cottage.
Very grateful for your friendship and lovely correspondence.
Along with banter about:
* having several scrapbooks on-the-go at all times
* special collections and on-going correspondence
* topsy turvy start to the year
* “lap projects” like mending and scrapbooking
* thoughts about last year (lots of paperwork!)
* theme for this year (letting go)
and usual digressions, meanderings and anecdotes (i.e. hanging stereo speakers and maybe something about solar panels). Oh, there is a Dymo LabelMaker in action.
Very grateful for your friendship and lovely correspondence.
Meanwhile I’m trying to tidy up the room a little bit so here are albums of postcards/greeting cards etc., duly annotated by Dymo label.
PS if I’ve missed sharing your card I probably shared under separate cover / somewhere else, or will do another time (thinking of you Astrid in Germany who’s art is already hanging up).
New Year day in Japan is better than Christmas for postal mail enthusiasts when a big stack of cards arrives with a “thud” – complete with “magic numbers” which you look up in the newspaper to see if you won some prize, {one time I won stamps}
PS about 885 million of these special New Year’s cards are delivered on New Year’s Day – yes, that many, yes by postal workers working on New Year’s Day
Postal worker zipping around on special bike, delivering items to the Munetade shrine
PPS we sent about 250 and so much thanks to all the folks who sent festive cards to us – Will be savored, inventoried archived, scrapbook’d and thanked.
Everything old was new again / same as it ever was, same as it never was.
Ergo: L: 1987 trying to look like mix of Mike Mills of REM & SusannaHoffs of Bangles = super cute M: 1982 when basically i had one choice of frames to fit my dashing glass executive bi-focal lenses R: 2022 last week at 130 yr old optical in provincial Japan, comfy as a eccentric renegade poet/papa
Various annotations Nov. 25~27ish
Glasses: my super cool vintage clubman glasses are broken after some roughhousing with kid (and also from being old) / back up pair gives headaches & delicate. This means, going to spectacle shopping again. Yes, I’ve spent approximately 14% of my lifetime earnings on glasses.
these old soldiers, purchased in Guam 1994 with brand-new “transitions” tech, re=fitted last year but alas, the frames too fatigued and broken twice
My back-up pair (purchased in Victoria) never quite dialed in with lenses maybe because wide-ish and so my don’t call me lazy left eye is always pulling to the side ?? the frames were bought with insurance meaning came from the “b-pile” and are flimsy :(
currently wearing these specs, just not *great* though (i am the one on the left)
Circumnavigation: Progress on my poetry book project has kind of stalled out due to some logistical complications of broken spectacles. That said, I did a tremendous amount of work getting a new routine going for transcriptions and definitely have a foundation laid as I’ve sorted out my concept.
current work bench set-up for poetry book project
Visitor: And, hey! we have our first foreign tourist guest coming tomorrow since the “before times“ (we had another international guest but technically on a business visa).
So, i’ll take bus into city to meet up > streetcar to lunch with a view of the castle > coffee in the park > bus back to the house, wife will probably make tea, check out barn studio ++ make a woodstove fire nabe (stew) pot with duck meat. Mac the goat farmer & in-laws will join the festive board.
more sundry tasks of late:
new orthotic inserts for shoes, great!
made chicken stock from beauty beer can roast chicken
ordered new year cards and stamps
IV “cocktail” infusion
brought in firewood
called a friend
Further details
Specs: Ordered new glasses from a very specialized optometrist with a store started by his great grandfather in the 1800s, yes, 130 years ago. Also had an interesting assortment of clocks/watches and a Yamaha hi-fi similar vintage to mine. Head spinning from all the eye tests. Now home in bed resting.
Ole Eye guy put me through extensive battery of tests. Optometrist, ophthalmologist, opticians etc. are always fascinated/amused/amazed by my eyes. Left eye w/ astigmatism and surgery, is my weak eye but also dominant. Eyes constantly switch back-&-forth but never work in tandem.
a variety of uninspiring frames but fortunately i have a “face for glasses” so will work it out
Selection of frames was certainly * not fantastic* but over 50 years of doing this, I’m good at sorting through and finding something unique, utilitarian and features my pretty face rather than specs. Also smart enough to know chasing around to different stores is fools errand.
previous time spec shopping – didn’t buy any of these and instead retro-fitted olden set, sharing to show my consistency with documenting process
PS grew up wearing “executive bifocals” with heavy glass lenses with straight across lines like maybe your grandpa rocked. As such, I truly celebrate all advancements in optical technology. Lenses are so much lighter and thinner now. But still hard getting “centerpoint” dialed in
#daveo50 ~ 1972 / Lansing, Michigan
Have a week to wait for manufacture (incredible variety of coatings, filters and customizations possible now, not to mention the thinness of the lenses!) and then these two will retire to the crate of disused soldiers. Sigh. $10000s spent on finicky eyes. Skimping is unwise.
My prescription is really weird so lenses always come in at waaaay too much + due to the changing nature of my eyes, usually have to swap out every two or three years :( I “joke“ that I bought boats for optometrists & paid for orthodontists for the children of ophthalmologists.
i used to donate old glasses until the opticians & eye doctors told me “don’t bother, nobody is going to be able to use these, nobody” / maybe eventually will make a spectacle spinning mobile.
Park and Trucks (and cheese): While I was doing my thing at the old-timey optical, my darlings hit up a park for a session & a snack.
Now one of them is snoring next to me :)
Tea ceremony: In another topic, my darling wife went to a special ceremony tea today // she was the only one they are under probably 70 years old… They all adore her for carrying on the tradition of making tea, rocking kimono etc. She came home with all sorts of treats including yuzu miso(!)
my tea teacher
this little selfie snapshot hardly does her justice but I just love that she keeps me in the loop with her activities when she’s out and about.
Oh here is wagashi:
yes, wagashi “sweets’ at tea ceremony. plating is important
She’s gonna host her own tea ceremony here at the house this month… I really look forward to her doing more in the future… {Now if we can just get that land and make our own tea house & garden hmmm}
I also told preschool wanna be Santa Claus again this year but have to make a few changes. Last year was lots of loud music, bright lights as well as 1-on-1 interaction with the kids which basically gave me a virus salad that laid me out for a month and a half. :( #delicate
Letters: Two absolutely fantastic and heart-touching pieces of mail today from domestic correspondents, yep, from inside dear Japan archipelago from folks “met” here on beleaguered Twtr. Just read both and a little bit spun out by the thoughtfulness and candidness.
New Year Cards: In a sorta semi-related topic: going to try to keep nengajyo / New Year’s cards to 100 domestic and 100 international this year. Ordering the “special magic number“ ¥63 stamps for domestic + ¥70 stamps for international as post office doesn’t generally have sufficient stock.
2021 Insta-Lindas New Year card
Anyhow, I’ve ordered the New Year’s cards and really looking forward to sharing with you.
2020 Time Traveler New Year card
The “usual“ in that there’s fantastically cute picture on the front and quirky poetry and stamp art on the back / but you know, sort of different, I guess :-) the thing that’s different this year is did them all digital and outsourced printing. previous years made all analog and printed at home running through cartridges and making extra complicated this year is a tiny bit more clip arty but will all be hand-addressed/finished w/ <3
New Years Greetings / 2019 + Reiwa 2
The previous “Linda Lindas/Insta“ and “Time Travelers“ and *pink collage* were pretty solid. I hope it makes its way to your refrigerator with a very nice magnet.
The photo we are using this year has been circulated before but was just too good to pass up the chance for a print run with it :-) #hint
Lit mags: Annnnnd I finally received the poster for my Paris Review subscription (which i bought instead of renewing NHL live :)) / glad it was properly shipped in a tube as well
paris review poster (need to find a quality poster frame plan as i have a lot of posters)
I really love getting high-quality print magazines in the mail. Alas, the postage to Japan often makes us a little bit expensive for a pensioner like me but still…
As for Ichiro: 29 months old now, really understanding he’s learning “two codes“ with a different languages/ we’re reading Tintin books (among many others) and in the bath he asks me to do voices for Snowy, Tintin and Captain Haddock (“Blistering barnacles! Thundering typhoons!“)
my lil superstar, at the optical, wondering when he gets specs
Easier: Nov 26
Dear Wonders,
Caught up dishes and laundry, and took out compost.
Plus had a pleasant phone conversation and transcribed one draft poem.
Now resting in bed eating a dried persimmon.
“Things are gonna get easier…“
Ty, dvo
For you & me “Ooh Child”
Bonus:
My pal Trevor sent me a photo of Maca in his record room {pic taken by his daughter Mary} so I immediately did my best to gaze into the distance in front of records like a good sir might.
Sharp peekers maybe caught the preview in “Post’d: New Years “nengajyo” in process” and now fresh from various post office trips with stamping goodtimes comes our best wishes to you for a pleasing 2022 in the form of a card from Tsuchida Cottage featuring us in ‘The Linda Lindas” shirts and swag. Note the details.
You may be shocked that I did not *accidentally on purpose* steal the post box/pen holder but I did use the stamps at the post office to decorate the postcards because, that’s what the stamps are for – specifically featuring the coming year’s zodiac sign, the tiger. Yep, cute tigers coming on your New Year’s cards.
130 out to foreign address and around the same in process to domestic Japan (with different back and includes Japan Post special “raffle” cards) as of this writing Dec. 27 (hurry hurry printers!)
I hope one of them is for you. I’m doing my best.
Fondly from Dave, Ryoko and Ichiro
PS On the back is a poem by me (naturally) with a few sentiments about adapting to situations and using the unexpected to reinvent as well as expressing empathy.
All the Time
Reinvent
Re-create
Replenish, even Rejuvenate or Rejoice
Adapters plant seeds
and watch the trees tell time,
over decades
There’s no hurry
We’re here forever
Go slow
We’ve got all the time for you
Records, flowers and paints
Fresh coffee with a view
If you’ve had a hard year
We’re here with our ears
Pack your steamer trunk and be ready for queen tides, we’ll spark the woodstove
Ramble forth, possibly fret, maybe cry but
know – even without *believing* – light is here as needed
Always fondly.
By Dave Olson, Tsuchida, Okayama
