Hi...

We found five kittens, found homes for four of them and kept one. His name is Ebi, which means shrimp in Japanese, because his coloring resembles that of a cooked shrimp. He's really cute, but has some bad habits which seem to be hereditary, because all his brothers and sisters do it, too. Or maybe its just a kitten thing to pretend your caretaker is a tree, and climb on them. Or climb on the table, the drapes, and other places where you tell him repeatedly not to climb. Or sleep on your caretaker's face...Ebi isn't as bad as his brother Angel, who actually sleeps ON my friend's face, he chooses to sleep next to my face, and in between Shinpei and I on one of our pillows. He is actually a really adorable kitten, and he has made our lives so much more peaceful just by being around.

On another note, Turkey Day came and went. So fast. And I didn't have any turkey. Grrr.
Hopefully there will be one at a Christmas Dinner... I did get my pumpkin pie fix, however, thanks to Costco!! Thanksgiving Day is an interesting holiday to teach in Japan. It was fun to make turkeys with the elementary school kids and teach them words of thanks in their lives. I think that we all forget how much we have, and it is important every day to reiterate some little place in your life that you are thankful for. Thanksgiving is just a reminder to do that.

Too bad the day that was chosen by my country to praise life, was the day that the Massachusetts Puritans chose to massacre 700 men, women and children in what was also referred to as the Piquot "War". (This is just one example of the lies that the country tells to protect the Church. Children are never taught, for example, what all of the Missions in California were really for, either.) I learned about it while searching for information on Thanksgiving. I knew the holiday was probably not as happy as it seemed, from what I had learned in college about the number of natives who died due to Small Pox and other European illnesses when the pilgrims came, but I had no idea that the actual naming of the holiday had this dark of a history.

Well, if we were to dwell on all of the horrible things that have happened in the past, we would never be able to move on. It is important to know what happened, so that one can understand the present, and one can possibly prevent future similar occurrences. It is also crucial to a positive and healthy progression to forgive what happened 200 years ago, or 20, or 2, if the aggravation is no longer occurring, to move on for one's own health.
Today's lesson; to forgive and forget so that we can move on. Much harder when it is my own skin, but nonetheless important...

Last night we watched the Golden Compass. Shinpei commented on how fractured the plot was. We discussed why there might have not been a sequel, when one was promised. And then he commented on the anti-Christian angle of the film. I looked it up online at that point, and lo and behold, the story is based on a series of books called "His Dark Materials" by Phillip Pullman. According to Wiki, He won several medals for the series and is considered one of the best authors of the past 50 years, but the series has a very anti-religious sentiment. How it got into Hollywood is beyond me. The film went through a lot of change, because I guess people didn't read the script before they OK'd it... So that explains the choppy plot; a bunch of it is missing. And after it was made, with plans for a sequel, it got canned due to the anti-Christian aspects of the series, almost imperceptible in the film. Secular people complained that the religious aspects had not been addressed, and the religous people complained that the film was based on something that they didn't approve of. So the sequels won't happen. The books are available on Amazon, however, and I am going to order them asap. I want to know what all the hubbub is about, and hear what Mr. Pullman's religious viewpoint is. Is he a devil worshipper? Is he flagrantly insulting to the Church and the Heavenly Father? Why? Novels are better than movies anyway...

Iceberg

My husband and I talk about a variety of things everyday. We do all sorts of things together. Watch "Harold and Maude"(1971). Discuss global warming. And the scary educational advertisements by AC (look it up on youtube). Swim at the pool. Go to amusement centers. Search for and photograph fungi, insects, and other living things. Go to the Nagasaki Biopark.

Anyway, today, I was talking to the Kyoto Sensei (Vice Principal) at my junior high school, and we were contemplating what would happen with global warming. This week 24 children died on the East Coast of the US because they were left in cars in the heat. How horribly stupid of their caretakers.

I was wondering about the climate change and how it would affect different areas of the world when he mentioned the caps melting. Now, this is a common belief, that the caps will melt and raise the ocean levels. However, my husband is convinced that this will not happen. He says, "Take a cup of water with ice in it. The ice melts, the level doesn't change. The world is just a big version of this." OK, I can understand this about The North Pole, because it is all ice. But Antarctica lies on a land mass. Just a bit of scientific contemplation...

La Trampa, continued

Do not justify anything. Do not exalt yourself. Be objective. Speak of people, of things, of the good and the bad, without additions, without deceipt. Relate your experience, what you have done, without using adjectives or seeking palliatives. Bread to bread and wine to wine.

Revise your life from beginning to end. And relate it. Tell the truth. Short chapters, curt. I sincerely believe that you don't know how to write.

La Trampa - A beginning translation

I have decided to begin the translation of my grandfather's greatest work, the novel "La Trampa", or "The Trap". The novel consist of 461 dense pages of Spanish literature, his life autobiography until he was encarcerated. This includes the years during the rebellion in Cuba, the fall of Batista and the rise of Fidel Castro. The Bay of Pigs. His debauchery and use of women. His love of his country and family. His escape in the night from death. Days of starvation on a raft. I do not know how good I will be at this, but it is something that I have thought of doing for years, and now is as good as ever to start. If you are interested in seeing pictures of him or his paintings, look him up on the internet.

"LA TRAMPA" by Manuel Penabaz. Zoom Publishing, Miami 1983. Library of Congress Card No. 83-50033.

Youth is for making history,
old age for telling it, and childhood for listening to it.

This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Manuel Penabaz Solorzano, and to my son, Manuel Ranulfo.

IN THE WAY OF A PROLOGUE
My dear Manolo,
I received your letter. Thank you for remembering me. I am very surprised at your rapid conviction. Not because I think you are innocent, but after looking into a street full of criminals, it is difficult to comprehend the velocity with which they took your case. I do not understand it.
Of course I will aid you in what you request.
As for the book, having analyzed it, I reccommend the following. Write the truth. Write it all, fall who falls. Do not attempt to justify yourself and do not embellish anything. Do not write literature, because you know nothing of that.

The Windblown Seed

A log set to drift...
An insect in a typhoon...
A seed carried to another land...

Sets root
as only it can
and it can only
survive in another land
where its leaves might grow strangely
or its flowers face another hill
against a sun
from another angle

But it sets root
into the earth
determined
by destiny
Set out to live
Punishment
and blessings
Life
as only can be seen
from this angle

Grow
Grow little seed
into that sun
into that mountain
It is the same air
the same sun
and the same Earth
in perspective

10-05-12