Fear the Crab

I meant to write this on Christmas Day, but I had battled a cold that kept me out of sorts for most of the week leading up to the holiday. That’s the one thing being sick does to you; it makes you miss out on all the festivities. I had to forgo attendance at many Christmas dinner parties and content myself with cold leftovers and hot tea.

Continued ~

… until we figure out what to call him.

New puppy!

Continued ~

Friday (29 May) was the last full day of Las Vegas vacationing for us. Naturally, when accompanied by people who are not as interested in gambling, the only other activities available after the sightseeing road trips are exhibits and shopping.

We met up with The James as a chance to catch up on old times, and he didn’t seem to mind tagging along. It had been over a year since I last saw him, so it was nice to get together.

Continued ~

Thursday (28 May) was another drive to another canyon, but this time the distance was much shorter. We went to Red Rock Canyon, ~18 miles west of Las Vegas, where the rocks are, naturally, quite red.

Chuckwalla

Continued ~

We arrived in Las Vegas on Tuesday evening (26 May), late enough to do little but eat and shower. Since we were staying at the Main Street Station, we ate at the Triple 7 restaurant. Tried the pale ale, and it wasn’t too bad, except I’m not a big fan of fruity flavors in my beer. I don’t recall what kind of flavor it was supposed to be, as I didn’t spend all my time studying the menu.

The reason for the quick bite and bath was because the next day was our journey to the Grand Canyon. By car. That meant waking early enough to grab some breakfast (at the Garden Court buffet) and wash up before the big road trip. We started driving at around 0700, I think.

Continued ~

Today the dog ate half a pizza while our backs were turned.

The Little Bitch

Continued ~

This year is the first set of winter holidays spent as a married couple.  It’s not that much of a dramatic change, since the “courtship” years prior saw me dividing time between the in-laws and blood-relatives.  Perhaps it is the new living arrangements, however, that makes this year seem different.

We’ve inherited the artificial tree and lights, but the decorations have been retained by my parents for use at their new home.  This leaves Maile and I with a clean slate to make this tree our own, and right now we have a total of seven decorations.

Dog not counted as decoration

Worth mentioning are two ornaments we received as wedding gifts, each a special hand-crafted item made out of an eggshell covered in reflective bead-work.  Despite its implied fragility, the glue and/or cotton stuffing keeps it quite sturdy.  A section of the shell is open so that one can insert a small photograph, while the cotton supports it from behind.  Right now Maile and I have each of our pictures inside, but later we can swap them out for others.

The other decorations are a hodgepodge of items, individually purchased or gifted without semblance of theme.  It is a habit picked up from my childhood, where the old decorations were souvenirs or knick-knacks collected throughout the years, from a variety of locations.  Some of the items were crafts from my elementary-school days, such as stocking-stuffed dolls or styrofoam sno-cones.

The overall effect was a patchwork quilt, an eclectic ensemble of odds and ends which Maile felt gave a “homey” atmosphere.  Since those decorations are not available to us anymore, we’re looking to recreate and capture that same feeling with our own collection.  We started with a few items from earlier in the year, and recently purchased two more decorations to represent 2008.  We will likely seek to acquire one or two each following year until we’ve assembled our own set of holiday cheer.

A few years ago, I expressed an interest in figuring out what my family’s kamon was, or even if we had one.  My paternal grandmother has three kimono in her possession, each given as a memento.  Two were very formal kurotomesode (picture) from her mother and her mother-in-law, worn by each at her wedding.  At the time, she told me this was the kamon of her mother-in-law:

Chou

I figured this must be the crest of my grandfather, since it came from his side.  However, my grandmother can no longer remember which kimono was whose, so there is a chance she mixed the two up.  Maybe it was this crest, from the other kimono?

Myouga

The point might be moot, though.  I learned later (through a source I can no longer remember) that women were not obligated to wear their husband’s crest on their formal kimono, so I cannot state definitively whether or not my inherited crest is the butterfly, or the ginger, or neither.

For reasons unknown, I put off the search for other pursuits, and when I resumed it recently I went back to my grandmother, who showed me the third kimono, a gift to my uncle (my dad’s brother) for boys’ day.  Since it was a formal kimono with five kamon on the sleeves, chest and back, I felt that perhaps this one was the true crest of my family:

Sasa

The kimono even had protective paper over the crests, perhaps indicating a custom-make.  However, from everything I’ve been able to glean about kimono, kamon, and my family, there is a very good chance that this kimono was simply purchased as-is, or perhaps already in possession of someone who decided to hand it down to my uncle.  Which meant that this crest could potentially be mine, or representative of a completely different family (related or not).

In order to be sure, I hired a local company that offers research into Japanese family crests.  I figured if a third-party could confirm or deny my findings, it might be worth it to know for sure.  I sent in the required data of family name and region we came from.  I even added these pictures of crests as well as the kanji for our family name, as it might help narrow the field.

* * *

One month later, I get the result:

Meyui

For me it was completely from left field.  I did not expect a totally different crest, though perhaps I should have, given the rather arbitrary mutability of kamon historically.  I wish the researcher who found this crest included some kind of statement, even if it was as simple as “I don’t know whose crests the others are, but this one is actually yours.  I found it at Someplace, Somewhere.”

By “arbitrary mutability,” I mean that kamon often underwent small changes as it passed from father to son and beyond, usually an indication of the later generations attempting to establish their own significance.  Kamon also held more weight in the past, but with time people kept taking new ones or making them up as they went along. It stands to reason that at some point in my family’s history, someone somewhere picked up this crest.  It could have been adopted a very long time ago, or as recently as those that sailed the Pacific to settle here.

I still can’t definitively state that the above is actually my family’s crest.  Even though the result comes from a third-party, it’s possible that they just slapped any old design on fancy paper and called it mine.  Or they’re completely legitimate and after extensive and thorough research via family temples and graveyards, they have discovered that this is the true kamon of my familial name.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.  What does the kamon represent?  Is it a link to the past?  Does it regale with legends of old, of battles won and lost, of honor and glory found?  Is it something I show to people and say, “Hey look, this is my crest, it means awesome?”

If the kamon is a representation of the family, I think what matters more is what I do with it now.  Perhaps the true significance of kamon is as a visual symbol of how I lived this life, what values I upheld and what people remember of me.  Perhaps the kamon is as much a reminder as it is a symbol, that what I do and how I treat others has consequences.  Like the corporate logos of famous brands, people may associate this kamon with my current and future deeds, and that is certainly something worth remembering.

I helped my dad figure out some of the light switches in his new house.  Apparently between the design documentation and actual implementation, some of the wiring got switched around.  The documentation itself isn’t very thorough, either; some switches simply have “N/A” when they obviously do something.

One of the strange things about the light switches is that, while all are of the “rocker” variety, some act as toggles and others act as dimmers.  Again, without the documentation, it is not very intuitive to determine which switch is which.

Some rocker switches were split into two or four pieces, with each piece controlling a certain aspect of the lighting.  For example, one would turn on all lights in the area, whilst others would only turn on a specific section.  However, some of these “keypad” types only had one switch active, while the rest apparently did nothing.

We even tried holding down these inactive switches, thinking they might be dimmers, but we were still left in the dark.

The benefit of documenting the light switches properly is that we were able to identify possible alternatives for light configurations.  For example, there was one switch by the back door that turned on all the lights in the house; all of them!  Why it’s by the back door and not the front is a mystery, but after finding a seemingly unused switch by the front, we can ask the electricians to reroute functionality there, where it makes more sense.  I’m not an electrician, though, so I don’t know how difficult something like that would be.

* * *

There are plans in the works for my mom to have a voice-activated phone system.  This will give her the ability to make calls by saying something like, “Phone on!” as if she is a Wonder Twin.  She should also be able to answer the phone from her bed, so she doesn’t have to struggle to get the phone receiver or struggle to push buttons, nor do we have to construct some Frankenstein’s monster of a set-up around her bed.  The plans even call for a similar device to be hooked up to my mom’s wheelchair, giving her added mobility in her vocalizations.

Anyway, all this means is that I don’t have to worry so much that she’ll be left in peril should my dad suffer an accident.  Of course, until such plans are actually put into place, there’s a significant risk.  I know I’ll feel better when this system is up and running.

I think my dad starts his radiation therapy sometime in mid-August.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s the best time to begin.  I should be done with my high-priority project at The Office at the end of August, when the Fall semester starts; actually, I’m supposed to be done, no ifs ands or buts.  Or else it’s my butt.  There’s not a lot of room for delays when the Chancellor wants this thing up and running.

Anyway.  The reason I figure it’s a good time is because conceivably, the first couple of weeks of therapy are the easiest for my dad, and he won’t need much help.  After that he might start seeing the side-effects, notably the exhaustion.  If I’m done with my project by then, I should have enough free time to run whatever errands he needs, or take him to the hospital.

I’ve been accumulating some extra hours, too, so I will see if I can turn those in for leaving early on other days.  I’d rather have the ability to take off from work than earn a bit more money from overtime.

Hopefully I will not be put on any further time-sensitive projects so soon after this recent one.  I’m sure if I mention the situation to my boss and boss-boss, they can allocate “resources” to accomodate (read, us workers).

* * *

I’ve been having a hard time sleeping, lately.  Can’t seem to relax in bed, can’t seem to get comfortable.  Sometimes if I focus on them, I discover that parts of my body, particularly my neck and jaw, are very tense and it takes some effort to try and release that tension.  It seems oxymoronic, in a way, that I have to physically and mentally force my body to relax.

Typically I’ll retire at 2100 hours, but I won’t actually fall asleep until 2200.  Then I’ll wake up around 0100 or 0200, shift a bit, wake up at 0300/0400, and fall back asleep until my alarm hits.  At 0500.

Last night I didn’t sleep until 2300, because some fool up the street had their outside-dryer running.  Nothing ruins rest like the sound of metal buttons clack-clacking away in the inner drum of a humming machine.