Sorry guys - we went on a camping trip for the week. It was SOOO nice to be away from cell phones, texting and drama for a while! So lets see . . . SD and I have deep talks about boys, sex, responsibility, pressure, priorities - you name it - ALL the time! It's pretty much a nightly standard - we both look forward to it. It's difficult though - she knows all the 'right' things and can talk and agree with me on all the 'right' things, but when it comes down to it I don't really believe that she will do the 'right' things. The 'wrong' things can be so much more fun and so much more in sync with what everyone else is doing, and at the end of the day I don't know that all my talking and explaining will keep her from going down the path of her mom. I guess this is a standard concern every parent has, but it's so much more in my face because of her mom's example. With regard to SD's sister - yes, we are very worried. We're trying to come up with a way to alert her father as to what is happening without throwing SD under the bus at the same time. More to hopefully come on that. Yes, SD is there for a week at a time for summer break. She is already talking about not wanting to be there for extended weekends once school starts, but mom isn't so thrilled about that. We could attempt to go back to court for it, but I'm hoping once BM gets tired of the driving and SD's complaining things will work out that way naturally. SOOOO - fast forward to today. DH and I met with BM to talk about SD's abundance of time with her (SD's) boyfriend and share our concerns about things we've learned/noticed about him. That part went okay - BM didn't really 'get it' until we started talking, but I think we made our points. Then DH broached BM's dating and pulling SD (and her sister) into it so early on. BM totally doesn't get it. She thought it would be best to let SD decide when she wanted to meet the new men. DH said no - this isn't a choice for her to make. It's not safe, it's not setting a good example. etc. I explained further than SD will look to her mom on dating since I am not, so we want to make sure she has a good picture of appropriate for age 14 dating. BM kind of laughed that she could be the what not to do role model, and I replied maybe SD doesn't need to meet all the 'misses' and just meet the 'hit' when you KNOW that he is - then she wouldn't have an idea that BM was doing something 'not to do.' BM thoughtfully seemed to agree with that. OH - I forgot to mention. Since last Monday - 7 days ago - BM dumped the guy from the weekend, met a new guy online and has seen him three times already - already took her other daughter to the zoo with his kids. Her theory, as she told us, is that her daughters are her world so she wants a potential BF to meet them right away. GOOD FREAKIN' GRIEF - seriously?? How about sheltering them from your need to get your hump on? Though the talk ended on a good note, she was understandably a bit put off. It wasn't easy to bring up her dating life, and we treaded very lightly. What left DH and I shaking our heads is how clueless and self centered she is . . . and the fact that she will NEVER see that. Just to listen to her is mind blowing. Me Me ME! I guess I feel a little better, but I know BM won't change. At least now we can tell a judge we tried if it comes to it. I just worry every day about what SD will pick up from her, and what I don't even know about that I can't counter-attack. Teen age girls are hard enough - teen age girls with a suddenly trampy, self centered mom are hell!! :)

It reminded me of Jonathan Adler..a very colorful guy in all senses..rather, him saying in one of his books he doesn't like neutrals-unless they're from nature, like clay, or yarn, or stone, or wood, or.. When in nature-whatever it might be-we're deeply touched by very different settings ..I don't know why but let's pretend that's because there's invisible hand of the Master that put it all together, and we don't know another worlds, not yet, so we are touched by ours. When in home-if one can get one seventieth of that Master's touch..it changes our general connotations. Because there's texture, variation, light, all this, yes-plus something made by hand, taking this natural things, clay and wood, etc, and working on them, and loving them while working. Simple things-yet they all get to sing. I know this because for example I also have variated terracotta tile in the bath-and it's less variated, just three colors..and it's textured custom too..and we were there when the guys from the shop were working on color and texture , working on samples, showing them to us..we waited with them, we were witnesses to that process, and you see the real excitement and passion that goes into creating and playing with things like that. (they liked the pallette themselves and made a sample of it for the store, and called it "April's". lol) And this excitement, passion and patience is what probably makes what was clay and wood shine under that light. It brings together what they are-natural materials-and what people with passion and patience wished them to be, and got them to be. So. That's why I love my grays and my browns.. Even though my house is pretty colorful-no one will call it neutral It's true, they remind me some scenes from my childhood which I percieve as happy. And all sorts of things. The juxtaposition. Of course I prefer certain grays and certain browns, that's normal. For example I love mostly very warm grays. And (surprize) mostly warm browns)) But also because some of them, I witnessed to be made, I knew them to be painstaikingly made, or I knew nobody made it, it was created like that- and I was just lucky to spot it, like a piece of gray marble with golden rusty streaks..and it makes it a bit more magical. Sense of discovery can come in many shapes. It can be quiet and subdued. And nothing we generaly like even maybe. Yet it still will be a sense of discovery. I would love to do truly neutral room one day, just like a challenge even. yet I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to pull it off..

Lars, yes, lots of people but even then it is surprisingly quiet compared to the U.S. I didn't really notice it until we got off the plane in LA. Americans are so noisy! Even in Tokyo, walking the streets it wasn't noisy. Even their horns are quiet. One of our taxi drivers got irritated by people in his way so he honked at them, really funny the tiny noise his car horn made.

My pieces. I was surprised they came out so good. They fire them and glaze them after you leave. You get to pick the glaze you want and then they mail them to you. My cousin had them mailed to his house. Not sure if he has received them yet or not. Stone sculptures outside.Lunch was delicious and massive. So massive I had to share with Isamu. The pretty blue ceramic dish in the upper left hand corner had the most delicious dish in it. A kind of seafood stew. Custard-like on top with chunks of seafood on the bottom. Probably my favorite thing I had there.Mito park, swans (black and white), egrets, carp, swan boats, famous Shogun statue (not on my computer so I couldn't post it). The round thing on the right side of the picture in the middle of the water is a fountain. Every so often it would turn on. We got there late in the afternoon so no swan boat rides. Just looked around, took pictures and went to eat conveyor belt sushi with Isamu's wife.