rinsemiddlebliss

White abstract glyphs on black background

rinsemiddlebliss

"At the mercy of the geography"

A perennial garden post

by AK Krajewska

I spent most of this weekend in the garden. What I meant to do was to anchor some shelves to the walls so they don't fall down in case of an earthquake, and to do that I had to go to the local big box hardware store, which in these parts is Lowe's, to buy some specialty screws and attachmenty... Continue reading (678 words)

A garden with a stone path on the right side with tall sage and geranium pushes against, leading to a garden shed. In the back, a wooden bench. In the foreground grass and patches of dirt with mesh baskets protecting some plantings.

Fort McDowell on Angel Island

Sea, sun, and plants reclaim a former military outpost

by AK Krajewska

The remnants of Angel Island's military base buildings have been partly preserved, and partly allowed to gracefully decay. Slowly, water and plants wear them down. Clearly, some kind of work is being put in to keep the structures from becoming so unsafe that they'd need to be completely fenced... Continue reading (941 words)

A photo of an abandoned building with empty windows seen from above among trees and coastal chaparral with blue ocean behind it.

Acorn woodpeckers of Angel Island

by AK Krajewska

Angel Island is a park and nature sanctuary in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. It used to be an immigration and quarantine station and a military base, and now it's a park with interesting historical features. You can only get there by ferry, and while you can camp there, the only people who... Continue reading (730 words)

A photo of a huge pile of coast live oak acorns lying on the ground

The best damn udon in San Francisco

My udon quest led me to the surprisingly good Stonestown mall

by AK Krajewska

In 2020, I made a New Year's resolution to find the best udon in San Francisco. I thought it would be easy and fun. I planned to go to restaurants and order udon and decide if I liked it or not. Almost all the udon I've had in San Francisco has been disappointing, and a resolution to find the... Continue reading (1734 words)

A closeup photo of a bowl of udon topped with finely sliced beef, scallions and crunchy tempura bits

Neither waffle nor a cold open

In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg is my model for topic introductions

by AK Krajewska

It's hard to write a good first sentence these days. Apologetic preemptory waffle is the reflexive post-traumatic response to having said, or even witnessed someone else say, something on social media that got picked up by reply guys, well- and ill-meaning scolds, and people who missed the point... Continue reading (1311 words)

A photo of a waffle topped with a sliced banana and nuts and decorated with a purple orchid flower rests on a plate. To the side stands a small bowl of fruit salad with of a slice of fried American bacon next to it.

Breaking down Breaking Dawn

I accidentally reread the Twilight Saga and I have thoughts

by AK Krajewska

Breaking Dawn, the last book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series about a teenage girl and her vampire boyfriend who wants to eat her but doesn't because that would be immoral, represents a structural and dramatic break from the previous three novels. Hello, I accidentally... Continue reading (1636 words)

A Lego model of an upscale contemporary house with a red truck parked prominently in front of it and several Lego people figures standing all around. This is the LEGO Ideas Twilight The Cullen House Set.

Magic balls, psychic aliens, and part-time yokai

The versatile sources of magic powers in Danadan

by AK Krajewska

The residual effects of demon possession, a traumatic encounter with space aliens, and touching magic balls are some of the charming and unusual ways that characters in Dandadan (ダンダダン) get their magic powers. Dandadan is a delightfully bizarre anime about... Continue reading (1316 words)

Escape from the horrors

by AK Krajewska

I'm watching my cat sleep as I write this. She keeps shifting between various cute, curled up positions on her warming pad. My favorite is the slightly goofy one where she puts her head down sideways directly on the pad, which seems to be a new one she's invented recently. Her favorite, based on... Continue reading (713 words)

A small tabby cat is curled up on a gray heating pad with her head pressed sideways against the pad.

Learning hiragana

The easy part of Japanese

by AK Krajewska

Three days into my week in Tokyo I got tired of being illiterate. Four or five days into it, I figured out what to do about: I would reverse-engineer the accessible syllabic writing system from train station announcements. Despite my passion for decoding secret writing and dedication to sounding... Continue reading (1156 words)

A screenshot of part of a chart showing hiragana together with their romanji and katakana equivalents.

Fushimi Inari Taisha

Kyoto's famous Shinto shrine

by AK Krajewska

I took one trip outside of Tokyo while I was in Japan, and that was to Kyoto to visit the famous Shinto shrine there, Fushimi Inari Taisha. It takes just a bit over two hours on the Tokaido Shinkansen line from Tokyo, plus you get to ride the Shinkansen and if... Continue reading (1782 words)

A stone alar framed by two stone foxes wearing bibs. A straw chain decorates the stone torii behind the foxes.