daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
Went deluxe on today’s hot dogs. Hebrew Nationals, Jarlsberg cheese, onions, tomatoes, pickles, jalapeños, yellow mustard, and Sriracha. I usually don’t dress up my dogs like this, but we had leftover fixings from last night’s burgers. This was a really yummy hot dog!
Just another yummy dinner! This one was bought pre-made, but still delicious.
I haven’t gone for a run for about a month now. There’s nothing wrong with me physically; I haven’t had the motivation or desire. Sunday, though, I found some motivation and had time, but instead of running I decided to just walk. And also I left my phone at home and took my camera. I’ve run this same route around the neighborhood many times so everything is familiar to me and I wondered if I would find anything of interest to photograph. My initial thought was that I wouldn’t take any pictures but surprisingly, I did see a few things that I wanted to preserve to pixels. Here are three of the photos I made:
There’s a neighborhood pond and fountain that some people fish at but because of the drought, it has been pretty low. Still, there was enough water to support all the plant life there.
The most interesting part of this route is a path that runs through a wooded area. The late-afternoon light filtering through the leaves was pretty nice.
My first walk while taking the camera was a positive experience. I guess it was kind of an experiment too… would I be able to convert this exercise-focused running route into a photo-walk route? The answer is yes! It’s exciting because it kind of opens up more possibilities for photo-walks. And I also benefit with a bit of exercise, fresh air, and sunshine!
This photo was taken near my wife’s mom’s old apartment, on one of the many routes to the train station. I really liked the old mailbox and wooden door. Wonder what it is like inside…
I had such high hopes for NHK’s Mare まれ, the 92nd asadora from NHK, but overall it was disappointing. Tao Tsuchiya (土屋太鳳) is one of my favorite Japanese actors and the story of her quest to become the world’s best patissier showed promise, so I was really looking forward to watching. Unfortunately, the story got derailed by too many sub-plots and consequently never got too deep into the main plot, which was by far the most interesting.
The story had a solid start, establishing that the family “fled” Tokyo after going into debt, and was looking for a new home. We learn about Mare’s personality and her feelings about ambitions and having dreams. So far so good. The story got even better after Mare moved to Yokohama and started her apprenticeship at the patisserie. The relationships she had with the head chef, sous chef and assistant were interesting and fun, and just when it seemed like the the story was going to the next level, the silly sub-plot of the Wajima lacquer appeared and it got booooriiing! What an incredible and effective way to put the brakes on an interesting story – introduce the passion that is Wajima lacquer. Zzzzzz… It seemed like there were a few times when the story went back and forth between being intriguing (and returning to pastry-making), only to turn yet again into a snooze-fest. There’d be a glimmer of hope, only to disappear. Boy, the middle weeks of the drama were really a struggle!
Here’s a short list of the subplots that they should have cut from the script:
There were several other subplots that wasted airtime, but I’d rather not spend any more time thinking about them. On the other hand, here are the things they should have kept exploring:
My last rant has to do with the plot trying to span too much from a time-frame. For instance, Ittetsu gets married too quickly and has kids. Let’s imagine that he didn’t get married or have kids. The show would have been exactly the same! What a waste of screen time. And then, Mare also gets married and has kids. Too much.. too soon. I know that family is one of the main themes of the show, but really, they could have developed the family theme more quickly and strongly without bringing in kids. The theme of having both a career and being a mother seemed forced, especially since it was introduced so late in the show. They should have kept the theme simpler… sacrificing your career for your spouse’s, which was a theme from earlier on.
In the last couple weeks of the show (when the plot became interesting again), a couple of the characters point out that Mare has lost 8 years of her patissier life… I kept thinking that the show lost 8 years of plot development! That’s a real shame because I think the actors, particularly Tao Tsuchiya, did a great job.
If you take a look at the character chart below, you could pretty much keep the top row of characters, the Yokohama crew in blue, plus Mare’s grandmother, and you’d have a much better show.
