Update From Japan

I'm afraid there isn't a whole lot going around here at the Watanabe house.  We haven't gotten out much, we haven't taken pictures.  In general we stick close to home and spend a lot of time watching Japan's dismal news on TV.

We probably have the same information that everyone else in the world can get about Japan's latest earthquake but day by day the news and the coverage reveal that it was so much worse than we thought it had been when I last posted.  I had written here on this blog that we didn't get any shaking where we live but it turns out that was incorrect.  There hadn't been any shaking at the POOL or in the building that we had been in but numerous friends in the neighborhood whom I talked with later, and Marlene whom I saw the next day, reported that they certainly DID feel the earthquake and were concerned that it would get stronger in our prefecture.  I have no idea why the pool building didn't get shaken.  Built on rockier soil?  A stronger foundation?  Anyway, there were tremors in our area even though we live quite far away from the epicenter.

On January 2nd, Tetsu and I went over to Marlene and Kohei's in the evening to have dinner with them and to play cards.  (By the way, I have always used the excuse that because I am a foreigner I don't know how or have the custom of cooking traditional Japanese New Year's food.  Marlene has proven that it is a lousy excuse because though she and I have lived in Japan the same amount of time, SHE DOES cook traditional Japanese New Year's food, so I guess I'm just lazy...)  Anyway, as we played cards we had left the TV on so that we could hear what was going on about the earthquake, when all of a sudden the news changed to live coverage of the Haneda Airport.  Something about a collision...  Marlene had just mentioned to me that her son and daughter-in-law were at Haneda flying off on their honeymoon and so with the news of the accident Marlene set about trying to contact them and find out if they were alright.  It took a few tries as other friends and family members were calling to check on them too but when we did finally connect, they said that they hadn't been aware of an accident and were minutes away from boarding their airplane to Miami.  Well, they did manage to board their plane but as shortly after that Haneda closed down completely, they had to disembark a couple of hours later and they spent the night and most of the next day in the airport with all the other stranded people.  The last I heard, they did get to Miami though they missed connections to travel onwards as they had planned.

Holding cards

On the drawing front, I have signed up for another Skillshare class this time making interactive journal pages...  Because it's a journal, I'd like the pages to be relevant to the day so I got involved with painting playing cards for this lesson.

Laying them down.

We keep eating and eating and with all the opening and closing of the refrigerator I modeled my next page on my fridge.

Closed

And open

If I'm not drawing, I do get in some sewing and I finished another long-term project.

At home in a warm living room I've been working on another labyrinth quilt and the last stitches finally got sewn in.  This has been in the making for quite awhile because not only was there a lot of reverse applique but also because I quilted along the applique edges with 6 ply embroidery floss which was rather hard on the fingers.

I used various colors of floss which made this a fun project.  I consider this a prayer labyrinth and trailing my fingers over the path to and from the center is a walk with God in praise and intercession; a laying down of burdens as my fingers travel to the center and on the return trip, of being thankful.  Actually the whole process of winding around and around as I sewed and quilted and then returned to the outer border was a few months of prayer.

I guess that's about it for our first January days.  I am still on winter break but school starts on the 9th so I'll be back at the freezing cold crosswalk soon.  It has been so nice to be able to sleep in these past two weeks!  No snow yet though the mountains are getting it.