in a handful (well, two, just barely) of hours we’re getting on a train to then get on a shinkansen (super high speed train) to osaka. after a day there, via shinkansen again, off to the tokyo area for two days. then fly directly (yay) into l.a. where we’ll be for way too few days doing a ton of stuff (and hopefully squeezing in visits to my three favorite l.a. restaurants) and then back to la paz. whew. and we gotta hit the ground running there too. so much, so much!

i’ve gone back and forth between google’s chrome and firefox for years now. (haven’t had internet explorer installed on my computer since the old gateway laptop died in 2000. before firefox, i used netscape navigator. ha, what a name.)

after almost three months in japan, i’ve really gotten spoiled by the bathtubs. called ofuro, they are heaven in bath form. an ofuro is basically a super-deep bath tub with no spillover valve and with very hot water. also, (at least with our ofuro), the faucet swings out of the way once the tub is full. and since the ofuro is in a bath room that’s tiled with drains in the floor, you can splash away or duck your head under, spilling water over the edge of the ofuro, without worries. thanks to the incredibly powerful little electric hot water heater located just outside, with a handy little electronic pad located on the wall to lower or raise the temperature, one can have a steaming bath ready in minutes. so, yeah, it’s amazing.

these fabrics make me want to sew clothing for my baby girl. the matryoshka pattern merits a closer look, btw.

i never really understood why someone would send fruit in the mail as a gift. those harry and david christmas boxes full of fruit? or fruit of the month gifts? you can buy fruit at the supermarket so very easily. and why get a box of all the same fruit? knowing me, i thought, they’d all be rotting away by the time i ate even half the box. i’m generally pretty bad at eating fruit once i buy it.