Wish Upon A Star
Today's Tanabata, Festival of the Stars, in Japan. It's a lovely story of two stars, separated by the Milky Way (which is called Amanogawa, Heavenly River, in Japan) who get to meet once a year, on this day. To celebrate, you write wishes on colorful strips of paper and then decorate a bamboo branch with them,, along with origami cranes, paper chains, tin foil stars, etc. Sort of like a Christmas tree. The irony of it all is that in the Western calendar, used in Japan today, July 7th is smack dab in the middle of rainy season, so there are usually no stars to be seen. In the Old Japanese Calendar, July 7th would have been about a month later and just right for a summer festival.
I should go get an oak branch or something and make a Californian Tanabata Tree. My wishes would be: continued health, a tsunami of adventures, a little more rain for our thirsty State…
We did get a nice cooling sprinkle this morning here in our little valley. Last week, the heat wave hitting the interior warmed up the coast quite a bit, too, and we had highs into the 90's for an hour or so in the height of the day, but it's cooled off back down to normal temps. Which MUST be why we're leaving tomorrow for the interior! We MUST be crazy enough to want to drive into the scorching heat. Neither Big Dog nor I like it that hot, but we're all set to leave tomorrow. First stop, Yosemite.
Big Dog is such a Boy Scout. He's been gathering our camping stuff for days and even did a practice "load-in" to see if it would all fit into the back seat of our truck. Not having a trunk can be a problem!
It's a free-form road trip, with a basic outline: a loop that goes from here to maybe Yellowstone, up north into Canada, then back down through Washington and Oregon. It will be good to be on the move again. It will be good to see new sights. It'll be GREAT not to have to watch NBC night after night. (I have no real dislike of that network over any of the others, except that it's the only channel we get out here at the ranch, and Big Dog likes to have the tv on before he goes to sleep so I've seen all too many episodes of Law & Order. Dum-dum.)
Our ranch, above, after the rain. Tanzer's saying, "You call that little drippidy-drip 'rain'? Give us something to get the grass growin', man!" Keep wishing, Tanzer. Keep wishing.
I should go get an oak branch or something and make a Californian Tanabata Tree. My wishes would be: continued health, a tsunami of adventures, a little more rain for our thirsty State…
We did get a nice cooling sprinkle this morning here in our little valley. Last week, the heat wave hitting the interior warmed up the coast quite a bit, too, and we had highs into the 90's for an hour or so in the height of the day, but it's cooled off back down to normal temps. Which MUST be why we're leaving tomorrow for the interior! We MUST be crazy enough to want to drive into the scorching heat. Neither Big Dog nor I like it that hot, but we're all set to leave tomorrow. First stop, Yosemite.
Big Dog is such a Boy Scout. He's been gathering our camping stuff for days and even did a practice "load-in" to see if it would all fit into the back seat of our truck. Not having a trunk can be a problem!
It's a free-form road trip, with a basic outline: a loop that goes from here to maybe Yellowstone, up north into Canada, then back down through Washington and Oregon. It will be good to be on the move again. It will be good to see new sights. It'll be GREAT not to have to watch NBC night after night. (I have no real dislike of that network over any of the others, except that it's the only channel we get out here at the ranch, and Big Dog likes to have the tv on before he goes to sleep so I've seen all too many episodes of Law & Order. Dum-dum.)
Our ranch, above, after the rain. Tanzer's saying, "You call that little drippidy-drip 'rain'? Give us something to get the grass growin', man!" Keep wishing, Tanzer. Keep wishing.
posted by bad-dog at 11:02 AM
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