I keep this blog for friends, family and students in Japan& the U.S.

Since Spring '07, Zen and Taka moved to California full time for Zen's basketball career. I'm in California most of the time right now too. Almost every day I go to help my Grandmom. She was born in 1919. Taka and I also get to work for Uncle Lynn's landscaping company. Santa Cruz, California. As beautiful as ever. However I still feel homesick for Japan~~

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Trashing~ and Building~ in Santa Cruz County

Taka and I went to the DUMP.
The seagulls I love...I know many people think of them negatively~because of THIS. Here at the dump, I have to admit feeling uncomfortable about those birds. Can you see how they are EVERYWHERE?!!
  How this works is that we pay beforehand. We drive up to this space- large space of land- and back in. Taka's on the truck unloading our household wastes. The cute, young, woman next to us had paid to empty her car of her mattress and bed frame~
At this dump we also paid to trash the broken washer and dryer.
Since in our new home, we don't pay to have dump tucks take our trash away, we pay much less by doing this by ourselves. It's a very "enlightening" experience, seeing how our trash gets managed.

In another vein~~

A little while ago, at the mobile home park where Grandmom lives, a new home was being trucked in. We got to watch it being assembled. It was a long process~ and crowds gathered to watch the event.
The first half of the house had been set in...

...we got to see the second half lowered in.

Quite a production!

This is how it looked the next day:
Perhaps two or three weeks later, after all the landscaping...two cars could also squeeze into the parking. Grandmom swore she couldn't see how they could do that!

Grandmom and Uncle Lynn

Grandmom gets Uncle Lynn's landscapers taking care of her yard~ (including Taka)

Friend, Bethany, whose mom lived across the way from Grandmom, her kids Kayla and J.J.
went with me on some dog walks recently! J.J.'s got Charlie Brown, and Kayla's walking Peppermint Patty

I loved that Kayla and I happened to both be wearing butterflies on our shirts!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Gorgeous old friends!!!


A day at CARMEL "by the Sea"
To see- NONE OTHER THAN~ the VERY first FOREIGNERS I met when I moved to Japan in 1986!!!!  EIKO AND JOHN!!!! Allllll the way from Honolulu....

I got to see one of their boys with them, Jackson. Handsome, sweet young man that he is now! It'd been 12 years perhaps since Taka and I had visited their family in Honolulu.
Today they will drive Jackson to his University in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In Carmel is John's relative's home which they have helped to keep up~
"The Bark House"
If I remember correctly, a female architect designed this home back in the early 1900's.
Now it's an historic landmark. The best other info I could find so far was this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/from_linda_yvonne/2299130898/
"The bark house
Built in 1922, this unique cottage was conceived with the ocean spirit of Carmel summer days in mind. The facade of the house was made of redwood-bark boards.
The current owners maintain this exterior by retreiveing and storing fallen pieces from the forest sof nearby Big Sur"
Now back to getting Zen ready to move into an apartment in Monterey, only minutes from Carmel- for College!