asakiyume: (squirrel eye star)
Walking home from the supermarket in the dark around 6 pm, I saw in the Western sky something brighter and larger than a star but not quite as large as a streetlamp light. Could it be Venus? I wondered. That big? Maybe?

Or would it start moving and reveal itself to be a plane?

Not an asteroid, probably--we'd have heard (or would we???)

So I kept my eyes fixed on it as I walked, saying, Please don't be a plane, please be Venus, please be magnificent morning star evening star Venus, please don't start blinking red or blue lights at me, Please... until I had to turn my back to it.

Just now I searched "bright object western evening sky November"1 and lo, my prayer was answered:
Throughout November, slowly but surely, Venus is becoming increasingly prominent in the western evening sky. It will become a dominant object calling attention to itself right on through the upcoming winter months.
--Joe Rao,"The Brightest Planets in November's Night Sky: How to See Them (and When)," November 1, 2024, space.com.

1 Using this nifty page that will do a search without AI results, YESSSS
asakiyume: (feathers on the line)
We're watching The Makanai (舞子さんちのまかなないさん; Maikosanchi no makanai san)on Netflix; the present-day story of two sixteen-year-old best friends who leave their northern Aomori town to go to Kyoto to train as maiko (pre-geisha). One of them, Sumire is exceptionally suited to it; the other, Kiyo, isn't--but Kiyo finds her feet as the makanai, the cook, for the house.

In the episode we saw the other day, the mother of the house is walking with a male friend, and she's talking about all the good-luck charms and talismans she has all over the house. "Isn't that kind of burdensome?" her friend asks. And then she gives such a great description of why it's not, and how she feels:

explanation in screen caps )

I love everyday beliefs like this.

Later on there's a hilarious moment when Sumire asks the accomplished geisha Momoko, whom she's been assigned to as a helper, what Momoko was praying for earlier in the day, when Sumire happened to see her at a shrine. Momoko is super sophisticated and a very cool cucumber--but in that moment she's tired and drunk. Nevertheless, she comes up with the perfect answer:

There's only one answer to that question )

In another entry maybe I'll talk a little about Kiyo, who manages to be preternaturally sweet without being cloying--I have theories about why, or at least, why for me she hits that balance.
asakiyume: (cloud snow)
A Twitter friend tweeted a post that said "Explaining a funeral to a 5 year old. He wants to know if the priest will 'do spells.'" She said in reply, "I would hope so!"

So I wrote this:

With this spell I do create
A chalice made of feathers
To hold your grief so softly
And uplift and honor it

and with *this* spell I do create
A lantern for the light
Of memories of the deceased
Carry it home with you
And may its shining comfort you


In other news, it's still snowing, and now the wind is whirling the snow around and carving sharp edges in it and hollowing out other parts, so I'm doing what I've always wanted to do: I've put some objects in the snow--a piece of wood and a plastic sign, plus a pile of shoveled snow, and I'm going to see how the wind makes the snow flow around them. Stay tuned for pictures, eventually.

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asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)
asakiyume

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