This cylindrical box of gum comes with a tiny pad of papers for making tiny notes.
Or perhaps they have another purpose?
Notes On Etiquette
Oh, the Huge Manatee!
A good friend in Japan is mad for manatees, but hasn’t managed a trip to Florida yet. So we went looking for some on her behalf. We found a place in Crystal River on the west coast of Florida that knows where the manatees hang out and they let us swim around with them. Big grey sausages with elephant skin and half the energy of a tired sloth (the manatees, not us).
As amazing as it was to snorkel with these world champion nappers, it turns out that manatees are not that hard to come by in Florida. They love shallow canals, and if there is one out back of your b&b you can just walk down after breakfast and see ’em.
A manatee in Crystal River.
Manatees love a canal.
These were steps from our b&b.
This bunch joined the others, slowly.
Click through for video of manatees frolicking most un-slothfully.
Specially Preserved Extravagance
Japanese English (sometimes called Japlish) is not new anymore, but it can still be surprising. Sometimes it is merely delightfully naive, but often it over-reaches, yearning for grandiosity and ending up bewilderingly senseless. And it is simply maddening when basic mistakes slip past a “proofreader” and end up on a billboard or all over a line of products.
Why there is a never-ending stream of it (and where it comes from) is a constant source of fascination for native English speakers in Japan. Here are two recent examples that caught us by surprise and made us laugh.
Florida Fauna: In The Water
Continuing with our Florida Fauna posts, here are the things we saw lurking in and around the water.
Continue reading “Florida Fauna: In The Water”
Florida Fauna: Birds
Rhymes with “late regret”.
Terns and gulls, Daytona
Royal Terns, Miami
Cormorants? Anhinga? Key Largo
Ibis, Key Largo
Yard birds, outside our B&B, Miami
Fancy feathers
Squeezable
Technically not a bird. Endangered Key Deer outside our camper, Marathon Key
Great Blue Heron (aka Crazy Legs)
Black Vultures, Everglades NP
Can’t identify either of these, but that thing on the left looks dangerous.
Puffball
A while back, on a walk in the Ontario woods with Keith’s mother, we found a big food. We couldn’t just leave it there. We like to think we rescued it.
Click through to discover its fate.
Continue reading “Puffball”
On Pizza?
You know we love black garlic.
Takes about 3 weeks to make. Consistency like jellied dates* and sweet but still very garlicky. Turns out it’s very good on pizza, which surprised exactly no-one.
Inclement Weather Leads to Cocktails
Our mizuna barely survived.
Drifts of it built up in corners.
Pretty.
Pretty.
Pretty.
Even during the heaviest moments, relief was in sight.
Sunshine again.
A box of hail in the freezer.
After all that, it’s time for a drink.
Hail Caesar!
Tim Gerwing: Adagio
As many of you know, Tim Gerwing makes some amazing music.
We have one if his recent albums, Adagio, in heavy rotation at our house. Here’s a montage of samples from it:
Middle-Eastern and Spanish jazz guitar with Tim’s characteristic electronic edge. Just beautiful.
Visit Tim’s site to hear more of his music: lascaux21.com
Sad Nixon
We thought this broken planter could be a poster for a movie about Richard Nixon and the secret sadness he kept hidden from everyone.
We posted it to a discussion forum a few weeks ago and someone out there on the Internet liked it so much they made this: