Thank your for your well wishes, Cole. August is, I repeat, IS my most favorite month of the year.

Last night (Aug 1st Jpn time) we had dancing in the streets in Matsumoto--the Matsumoto Bonbon. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred dance teams, some 20~40 persons per team, danced for three hours. It was reportedly attended by some 26,500 people, and the whole center city is closed down to traffic. I used to go every year, drink beer til I couldn't pay for it, and crash in the car...but nowadays (even though I'm still a young and kicking 25 years of tender age (at heart, you see....hee, hee, hee...) it's just too much trouble (and I can't drink that much anyway).

Next week we'll have our big annual seminar BBQ blast at my place. All my seminar students who can come, will come out (along with another teacher's first year seminar students) and spend all day. I'll have the badminton net up out in front of the mon　(meaning 'gate') BBQing inside the mon, by the kitchen, and darts, chess, and cards in the dozo (and soccer for those who are into it, down by the garden spot).

I'll try one link here to see if you all can get a look at the mon. This place is called the Matsuzawa House (it has history) and is one 'sightseeing spot' on the Zenkouji kaido (Zenkou temple route). The mon is point number 15 on the road map, and is the third photo from the left among the photos at the bottom of the page. Here is link--I hope it works.

This is THE month in Japan for fireworks, and on the 24th, we'll head over to Akashina for the annual display (we go every single year). (Akashina fireworks festival) As I need not mention at this point, but will anyway, just to make a point, the beer is always draft there, and I always get the little lady of the house to drive us down...hee, hee, hee.... (she physiologically cannot handle drink, so doesn't)

Oh...but I forgot...though...I do have to work hard to get my sons to help with mowing the lawn in front of the mon and below the rock wall, and the old rice fields and back yard, while I swing the weedeater around in the other areas that I do make an effort to keep up (some of the land is loaned out to others, some has become jungle). There is the repair work (having old houses do that [recall the movie 'The Money Trap?'] too.

And the BBQs with the relatives and a group of my music friends (once built a stage in the backyard and had 8 amateur, & /simi-pro bands perform with some 60 people in all). Easy early mornings...no need to go in to work every day (only here and then)...peaceful evenings with the frogs singing their hearts out down by the stream back below the house place. Folks shooting fireworks here and there. And of course, that occasional drive up to the Japan Sea for a good swim, a little sun burn, and a nice view (and yes, that does include the girls on the beach [hey, I'm 25, you see....]).

Yes, I love August !! I hope you have a great one too, mister kitten; and that all of the rest of my fellow forum posters do too !!

kanpai !!! :a-ok:

thanks mr kitten-
KJ, you really know how to entertain! part of indian culture of course...i am immune due to faulty upbringing.

tonight we roasted corn on the roof (chat pe). we looked down on the cement work being done to make a ramp for the new auto bought by one of the brothers in the household. so many celebrations coming up this month-on the 5th is rakhi for hindus, the 7th is shabrat for the muslims, 15th is independence day for all indians, and i am having a birthday (hate birthdays, never celebrate). but i love august because i know if i make it this far i have survived the worst weather of the year and winter is not too far away.

I don't like agust very much, the summer ends, school starts and it rains. But it can also be kind of cosy with hot chocolate, new fall fashion:shifty:.. And as I always say: "for each day that pass by, you're one day closer to Christmas Eve" (or christmas day, if that's what you're celebrating. Or some other holiday if don't celebrate christmas, you get the picture)

Thanks.
I hope you have a mighty fine August yourself Cole.
Regards,
Dan.

Hello Cole, what is the significance of the pearnut butter? I is an obsession of mine of which I had to give up, &^#$!!!! There may not be any significance other than just "you like it too". Just curious?

William

Haha, William, nooooooooooo signifigance at all. For me anyways.
I only like peanut butter when it's next to jelly and in between bread.
I vaguely remember posting this. Hehe.

August is the last of the dead months. The snap-frozen dew, forged onto everything that can be bitten by the gales of antarctic winds, which dry even the puddles left by the rain yesterday. Nothing is so significant that it warrants recognition, for it remains either uncompleted, delayed or abandoned. There are still great feasts of foraging, frolicing even fanfare but it is favoured by fanciers, friends or family.

August is the delay of short hours of light, cold evenings, brisk adventures all ready over and dinning in. No two days are alike or any different, from the next. The sun isn't warming and the wind bites in the opposite direction. When it is cloudy, the rain wont come to force you inside and the wind still grips you on the opposite side of its force. It is a long month.

25 augustus 2009
25 december 2009

+/- 125 days

Mmmmmmm time is a most mysterious muse.