I recently saw an article on this on the Internet, and in preparation for this blog I googled the following Japanese words out of...

How is everyone at the winter solstice? My husband and I no longer “do” Christmas as in past years – without kids, Christmas seems empty....

November 22, 2022 I am reminded that today is ii fufu no hi (Good Spouses’ Day), a pun on the numbers 11.22. I am also reminded that next...

October 18 2022 Today is my 41st wedding anniversary. Those numbers do mount up. Who knows where, when and how we will be celebrating our...

The Autumn equinox is upon us, complete with one typhoon after another and increasing chill, especially at night. Soon it will be...

On September 9, I got up early. To be honest, I had been awake since midnight, as usually happens when I have something to do very early...

In the old Sesame Street cast of characters there was a cowboyish guy called Forgetful Jones, who was, you guessed it, forgetful. These...

(I must add a caveat to this blog – some of the conclusions I have reached may be other than what you yourself think or feel. These are...

Happy Solstice, everyone! We in the Northern Hemisphere are now at the top of the Ferris wheel of the y ear. Midsummer… everything is...

I wish you peace, when the cold winds blow Warmed by the fire’s glow I wish you comfort in the lonely time Arms to hold you when you ache...

While assisting two old ladies from the local work service to weed the garden on a recent cool and cloudy day, one of them looked up and...

(The picture accompanying this blog is of one of my vegetable “cages”. I cultivate vegetables inside a cage in order to discourage animal...

Photo courtesy of Ulena Switucha, circa 2009 (Happy Spring, everyone! Please check out the new photos on the website. I have now been...

Happy Spring Equinox! (for northern hemisphere dwellers) Two years ago this month, my son’s family, with Covid snapping at their heels,...

(The picture is an illustration from my children’s book My Awesome Japan Adventure (Tuttle 2013), showing women in kimono sitting in the...

Hello friends, please forgive me for not writing in a while. Late winter is really hard for me to get through, so I have scheduled a lot...

Happy New Year 2022 to everyone who reads this blog, and to your families and loved ones. Please excuse the long silence. I have been a...

I started out to write an article about online anger. How I feel when I “weigh in” to arguments on social media; I stay away from...

By Julia Otowa and Rebecca Otowa Ok, so some of you may have been thinking, “How are those two cats, Boris and Daisy doing?” Well, I’m...

Our family temple is about 300 years old, and is famous for its garden of (azalea). When I first came to live here in the 1980s, it was...