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The Kouhaku experience

Due to an extended interlude of drinking champagne and eating potato chips down in the kitchen, I missed a fair bit of the evening's rebroadcast too. Bad Kouhaku reporter. I am left to wonder about the Holstein-patterned ballgown I glimpsed at the end of the morning broadcast.

NHK introduced a few new features to the production this year.

Swoopy camera angles: The person operating the camera crane at stage left had that thing swooping in and out and, while the camera was never upside-down relative to the center of the earth, it was everything but.

Giant screen used to migraine-inducing effect: Instead of the usual draperies, gelled lights, and projected stars, the backdrop was a giant screen which appeared to be made of giant LEDS. It seemed to be a light emitter, rather than a projection screen, but it was difficult to tell because the strobing, abstract patterns, particularly during the more techno numbers, were sort of hard to look at. Seizures! They're not just for epileptics anymore.

Sky-cam: Ever wondered what a skinny Japanese guy looks like from above? Basically, a dot. I think sky-cam is more effective for sumo. At least there's more of a horizontal component to the subject.

Drag queen smackdown: No actual smacking due to admirable levels of restraint on the part of the wannabe smacker. The Chinese-opera-esque stylings of the enka number turning into the big samba dance number actually caught us by surprise, though, so points for that.

Other than those things, not a lot of new stuff this year. Not even new songs. While the enka singers are expected to turn up and sing their big hits from years gone by, the Kouhaku is nominally a showcase for performances of hit songs of the current year. Well, we saw a lot of stuff from 2007, 2006, 2005 … Come on! "A thousand winds" again? "Zun-doko" again? What have you people done lately?

One new thing: Jero's Kouhaku debut! Jero, short for Jerome, is the new enka sensation of the year: an American kid from Pittsburgh who grew up singing enka with his Japanese grandma. Sadly, grandma passed away a few years back, so she didn't live to see her grandson appear on the Kouhaku (her portrait is airbrushed onto Jero's shirt), but his mom is in the audience and is appropriately weepy.

I missed the best moments when I looked away to type up notes. Like the moment when the pheasant-feathered, leopard print ballgown was ripped away (tearaway ballgowns!) to reveal a shiny black vinyl corset, pants, and stiletto-heeled boot ensemble. Tearaway ballgowns are not new, but they are usually torn away to reveal yet another layer of ballgown.

This year, the panel of judges had some entertainment value. The Kouhaku is set up like a contest: red team (ladies) vs. white team (gentlemen). (Gender-blurring people get to pick which team they want. Some of them who appear regularly on the program switch back and forth from year to year.)

A contest must have judges, and the Kouhaku is no exception. The panel is made up of judges, usually celebrity actors and athletes, a few other notables of the year, like Olympians. They sit there stiffly in their evening clothes with rictus smiles, except for the actors who are better at faking smiles. One notable this year was a guy who had the misfortune to write a bestselling novel. You could see the thought bubble over his head: "I'm. In. Hell." During the children's number (an amazingly child-appropriate tribute to Miyazaki Hayao), he failed to wave a puppet doll in time to the music like all the other judges (Thought bubble: "I'm going to kill my agent."). He must have grown inured to the situation, however, because 90 minutes into the ordeal, he managed some pleasantries with the emcees after a production number in which a giant crab and giant animatronic snack sellers appeared on the giant screen behind the giant stage and giant round staircase which formed the shell of the giant crab, while the entire cast danced around waving fans with hearts on. A picture would definitely be worth a thousand words here, because that description sounds pretty incoherent. I tried to find a video clip, but all I turned up was somebody else's liveblogging of the Kouhaku.

All in all, a pretty good Kouhaku, and I missed enough to leave me wanting more.

And wondering: Why the chicken dance choreography in all the production numbers? Why the animal print ballgowns? How did Thelma Aoyama get down that staircase alive in her super high-heeled boots?

The Kouhaku will not be liveblogged

I managed to miss the morning's live broadcast of the Kouhaku. Usually I sort of watch the morning broadcast so that during the evening's rebroadcast I can tell Oz (who is actively trying to block it out), "Okay, pay attention now. This bit is really horrendous."

I did get a few tantalizing glimpses during the quick review of the evening they run during the voting. Also, they had Enya, live from some castle in Ireland. In a red dress. Wow. Enya is really, really pale. Red is maybe not her color.

What did I do instead? I balanced my checkbook, cut off my ISP (we have a new one now) (so if you're someone who corresponds with me using an Earthlink address and you didn't get this morning's "hey, new email address" email, drop me a comment or a Flickr-mail, or something), cleaned out the fridge a bit, fiddled around with photographs, and not much else. This doesn't really sound like five hours worth of activity, does it? (There was coffee involved at some point … )

So the Kouhaku will have to wait for tonight.

Happy Saturnalia (and all the other holidays!)

It being the time of tasty treats, we've been busy planning meals and snacks. We are determined not to have a repeat of Thanksgiving, when we planned the feast meal but neglected to plan any other meals. By afternoon, when the turkey was roasting, we started scavenging through the pantry and fridge. "Hey, this popcorn hasn't expired yet!" "Oh, look. Here's some of last year's fruitcake in the freezer. I wonder if it's still edible."

It was. We didn't even wait for it to thaw.

We still have another brick of fruitcake, just in case our plans for other food on Christmas don't work out. I've been encouraging Oz to roast his turkey breast on Christmas Eve so we'll have cold turkey to nibble on while all the other dishes are cooking.

I'm back up in Alexandria right now. I'm working a few days this week to conserve vacation days. It seemed like a good plan, until I got up at 6:00 this morning and saw that it was 17 degrees outside. I knew it was going to be cold, I was expecting it to be about 21 degrees. That extra four degrees made the gratuitous use of three extra vacation days look like the smarter choice.

But speaking of snacks—

Why is there a run on Grandma Utz potato chips in Richmond?

(These are the good kind. Fried in lard! Bring on the trans fats!)

The last few times we've gone looking, we haven't found any. And we want some too.

Here's why:

They're great with champagne. Seriously, two great tastes that taste great together. And if you run out of champagne before you run out of potato chips, be sure to have some dark chocolate on hand, because dark chocolate and potato chips is just about unbeatable too.

Why potato chips? Once upon a time, my friend, Princess and champagne aficionado, was staying at a fancy hotel in Paris. After a mix-up with her reservation, once she was settled in a proper room, the hotel sent up a bottle of champagne and some potato chips. She didn't know what was the deal with the chips. Was it because she was American and the hotel staff assumed that Americans ate potato chips with everything? Or did the French in fact enjoy potato chips with champagne? She ate the chips with the champagne because it was what she had, and said they were pretty good. (But was that the champagne talking?)

Anyway, champagne and potato chips is good enough for Marilyn Monroe and the Princess, so it's good enough for me. And Oz is suddenly much more enthusiastic about champagne.

We've got our champagne and a little over a week to find the perfect potato chips for New Year's.

So if you see Grandma Utz's potato chips at the supermarket, please leave a bag for us!

Ah, autumn

The election is over. (Yay! Things will change … somewhat.) It would be safe to listen to the news again, except for the economic horrors. Remember that retirement you had? Even so, my friends and I are walking around saying, "I feel like this great weight has been lifted off my shoulders." You get used to the oppression over the course of eight years, you almost don't notice it anymore until the mere prospect of it ending comes along.

Anyway, autumn is my favorite time of year.

The most beautiful light.

Sunset in Libby Hill Park

Romantic vistas in lovely colors.

The namesake view

Over last weekend, I got my glimpses of autumn colors from the train south and when Oz and I went out in town. Blue skies, golden leaves, red leaves, gold and green drought-stressed pines. All that color, and more than 18 inches from my face! My eyes felt so exercised. It was lovely while it lasted. From the train north on Tuesday I saw only winter browns.

The dark part of the year is at hand. Of course, the dark part of the year is also the part with the most pie, so one can't complain.

Just checking in

I am still employed. This job thing takes up a lot of time.

Still riding the rails and playing with the iPhone camera:

I flew out to Dayton to visit family in September:

Made it through airport security and everything.

It was a relaxing visit. I watched people play with a Wii. My hand-eye coordination is just as bad with the Wii as it is in the real world, so I was the wrist-strap referee. "Put on the wrist strap. You don't want to buy Grandma a new hi-def." "Mom. Put on the wrist strap, you don't want to buy your sister a new hi-def." "Mom. Put on the wrist strap." "Mom."

The three-year-old was actually better about the wrist strap than my mother.

Still playing with the camera:

We've had some lovely sunsets which, with the artificial lights of the ball park, are giving kind of a Thomas Kinkade effect. Now if only I were better at noise reduction. And adjusting levels for printing. And sales. I would totally have another income stream.

Still being missed by the cats:

But the gray one got to indulge in a few of his favorite things this weekend.

Monte Alban loves it when the weather grows cold and I start wearing fleece all over. Fleece pants, fleece bathrobe, etc. A fleecy lap is a lap you can really dig into.

Monte Alban loves to sit in my lap while I eat Chunky Monkey ice cream. He alternately attempts to stick his face in the bowl and, when that fails, to re-direct the spoon. He purrs the whole time.

Monte Alban loves to have his back pet while he eats. He's even woken me up in the middle of the night and led me downstairs (me thinking that he's out of food and if I don't feed him, he won't let me sleep) for some back-petting while munching and purring. I don't mind petting him while he eats, when it's sometime between dawn and bedtime, but I think three a.m. is a bit much. It's not like he's a baby and can't feed himself.

Still cooking instead of writing:

I've started listening to the podcasts of The Splendid Table on my weekly train rides home to Richmond. It's rather masochistic to listen to a foodie show while you're stuck on a train and the only food source is the Café Car, but it's a good distraction and gives me ideas. Even as I type, I'm testing a tip from the show: try adding orange blossom water in tiny amounts (like a quarter teaspoon or less) to baked goods and see how it heightens the flavor.

I added a quarter teaspoon to a half batch of butterscotch bars (the recipe can be found here, at the bottom of the page), which have just come out of the oven and are too hot to touch.

The verdict thus far: Orange blossom water smells lovely, but the particulates make my eyes burn. That mild citrus allergy can be so annoying. I may try rosewater instead. It may not have quite the same effect, but it's not an allergen.

Another tip, allergy free (at least for me), was to let tollhouse cookie dough rest in the fridge before you bake it. The baker on the show says he rests his up to 36 hours, but I let mine rest 24 hours. The reasoning is that, as the milling of flour has changed since the recipe was developed, the cookies baked today don't have the same chewy texture that tollhouse cookies did back in the 1930s. Resting the dough lets the flour absorb the moisture of the eggs and will yield a chewier cookie. This really did work. Also, because I use dark brown sugar, which has more molasses, instead of light brown sugar, I found that the flour absorbed the molasses as well, which gave the cookies a darker color and maybe a bit more molasses flavor (but I'd have to do a side-by-side comparison to be certain about that).

I just went over and sniffed the butterscotch bars. Ah, heavenly. Perhaps it will be worth the allergic reaction.

Time passes. I just went over and ate a butterscotch bar. Extra heavenly! I might use less orange blossom water next time. Or not. I'm going to have to take these in to work and leave them out in the pantry. Or not.

Real Job-iversary

I have been employed like an actual grownup person for an entire year, as of today. It's been nearly nineteen years since I managed that, if you overlook my many years of self-employment. Today, the rest of my entering team and I said, "Woo. A whole year. And we're still employed. If they were going to fire us they'd have done it last week. Only one more year of probation." And then we got back to work.

So, yes, it's time for my monthly entry.

In my walks around the neighborhood, I discovered a fig tree on the next block or so.

Figs on the sidewalk

I checked out the leaves, never having seen fig leaves in real life (paintings, yes, statues, yes, actual fig trees, no). The leaves appear to be an odd choice for Eden-wear. They are not really large enough to offer a sensible amount of coverage (more like a "why bother?" amount of coverage) and the multi-lobed shape guarantees that what coverage it does offer will be discontinuous to say the least.

iPhone! Eyestrain! (possibly these are related)

When we're not whinging about the features that the iPhone should have, we're fiddling around with them. I think the YouTube application is the cause of my sudden eyestrain issues. My elderly iBook is too slow to play videos, so I'm internet video deprived. Enter the YouTube button on the iPhone. Enter an inability to focus on anything 18 inches from my face. I had to take a half day off work and rest my eyes.

The camera is surprisingly good for what it is:

August lilies (fragrant and tall) in Simpson Park, Alexandria, VA

Now it's autumn and the colchicum are in bloom:

Colchicum in Simpson Park, Alexandria, VA

In my walk down in the park this evening (after dark, so no pictures), I discovered a tree with mysterious fruit. I've no idea what it is, something Mediterranean, I suspect. I'll have to ask the master gardener next time I see her.

The Toad Gods Are Angry

Bad karma, just what I need the day before I get on an airplane.

I was walking around up in the Monroe Avenue connector demolition site (also after dark) and saw that the demo people are making drastic inroads on my pile of dirt that I walk around on. They started gouging it away from the side towards the bread factory, leaving a big hole and a pile of uprooted evergreen shrubbery. In the light from the baseball field, I saw a hopping thing. A toad! So I started following it and saying, "I'm gonna git you, toad." Like I say to my cats. (Not that I meant it. I was not really interested in picking it up and getting peed on.) (By the toad. The cats are a bit more civilized.) So the toad hopped away across the pile of dirt and I followed it. The toad reached the end of the pile of dirt, didn't realize it, and hopped right over the edge! It tumbled down the 15 foot embankment, bouncing and jouncing. And did not hop away when it reached the bottom.

Er. Sorry about that, toad.

Sunday bananas are the saddest bananas

When I got back to Alexandria, I walked down to the Giant to pick up some bananas. Poor timing. Apparently a pee-wee football team goes in on Sunday afternoons and drop kicks the bananas all over the store. At least that's what springs to mind when one sees such a beaten up, bruised collection of fruit. I managed to find a tiny bunch of bananas which were green enough to have withstood the ravages of the Junior Titans.

The next day, I was back in the Giant and discovered the truth behind the battered bananas. It's not pee-wee football, it's the produce guy! There he was, slamming the bananas into place on their stepped display table. Ouch. He'd moved the bruised ones all down to the lowest level, presumably because it's easiest to brush them into a trash can from there, and was unloading boxes of new green ones onto the upper level.

So I've learned my lesson. Monday bananas. Never Sunday bananas.

Oz has joined the collective

Behold, he hath drunketh of the cider and joined the ranks of the Apple-heads.

Yah. We have iPhones now. Or rather, he has his iPhone and my iPhone down in Richmond. I am up in Alexandria and having to wait till the weekend to play with my iPhone, by which time he'll have rubbed all the new off his and be so over it. He ordered them a week ago and proceeded to spending his evenings staring into the black hole of the App store. I was a little concerned that he'd be totally over the iPhone before he even got it.

This weekend we'll be getting iPhone diaper bags, or whatever it is they need. Itty bitty car seats? Play pens?

I have been taking pictures

Monte Alban and his silvery whiskers
On my windowsill

Delicate clouds and demolition
At the end of Monroe Avenue in Del Ray

Trash by twilight
On North 28th in Church Hill

I am still employed

Still seems strange to me. It'll be a whole year next month.