Unpact

Well, shoot.  I broke my promise -- one more pre-Japan posting, at least.

The thing is, the tea garden thing may not happen, so I'm taking all that back, for now.  There's a medical situation, I hope not very serious, and my friends are unable to meet me at the tea garden and it's their thing, really.  So, if there's to be a tea garden it apparently isn't going to be that one on that day.  Too bad.  It's just an opening for some other unexpected thing, though.

Worth reading, IMHO

I also meant to mention the book I'm reading, The Teahouse Fire.  It's about Japan, Japanese culture and Japanese history, and it's about tea and tea culture.  It's also a lot about relationships between women.  I'm not trying to sell it or anything, but I'm having a great time reading it.  One of many reasons I'm so involved in the book is that the author, Ellis Avery, appears to have the same interest I have in immersing herself in Japanese culture, though in her case it seems confined, for purposes of this book, to the second half of the 19th Century.


And to clear up the issue of Ganesh's personal pronoun, I did a little looking. When you're dealing with reincarnation, I think talking about some static concept of gender is dicey at best.  In this case, yeah, Ganesh does have many forms, so I offer this actual photograph of Ganesh in a decidedly not-male form, for what it's worth.

Ganeshani

I know we're supposed to be talking about Japan and not India but Ganesh is going along, after all.

  Ok now.  See you in Japan.