What has survived the storms

January 15, 2026JT Twissel 21 Comments

Why does this happen, I do not know. Is it cruel trickery or a happening purely without malice? I do not know. After months of dark, damp COLD days … suddenly bright blue skies and warm breezes prevail in my corner of the world. Time for flip flops and a jaunt out into the backyard to see what has survived the storms.

Perchance, a visit the local nursery is in order? Spring must be just around the corner! Time to open the old wallet and buy, buy, buy. The ground is soft, the time to plant is now!

Not so fast, Old Timer. You’ve lived in California long enough to know, it’s a trick. Often without warning, the ocean breezes will change course, and, before you can get all those plants in the ground, winter will return again. Often with a vengeance which makes Donald Trump look like Pollyanna. Now wouldn’t that be something – DT in drag channeling Pollyanna. Hello Hollywood?

The best course is to enjoy each blissful day, and if you must have a task, clean up the debris from winter storms.

This tree was dead before it hit the ground. Massive tree heart attack or some such thing. It took out a wire fence that wasn’t much good at keeping out critters anyway.

A rotting limb fell into a much younger oak. At some point it will need to come down but this is a task that’s beyond me and can definitely wait for summer.

The tea house has survived but the deck was covered with piles of leaves and other debris. I did the best I could but the wood on the deck’s shady side has already begun to rot. Another project for summer’s list. Sigh.

Underneath one pile of leaves I found the remains of some poor creature.

Ugh. Perhaps I can pretend I didn’t really see it.

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.” Ernest Hemingway, The Moveable Feast

To my blog buddies who are all as good as spring itself!

From Equinoxio

January 11, 2026JT Twissel 12 Comments

It can happen anywhere.

A Dictionary of Dictators

Where Otani Chobei buried the bottle …

January 6, 2026JT Twissel 19 Comments

Here we are just six days into 2026 and already I am more than ready for a complete and total REFUND on this year! But there is no “swap this year for another” desk so I guess I’ll quit my belly-aching. As my mother used to say, “I could complain but what good would it do?” Indeed.

On a more upbeat note, I finally downloaded Google Translate and translated (well, sort of) the legend on the map of Japan my son sent me for Christmas. Below are the literal translations of the symbols. I’m not sure how helpful they are to clueless travelers who just want to get from Point A to Point B but they sure are sweet.

The Oh Wow face indicates a view that will leave you smiling no matter what. The little house represents one of the many temples that deserve a minute of your time. The flowers and leaf indicate seasonal views. Mileage distances are given for people who were smart enough to hire local drivers. If you weren’t – sorry but I guess it will take you longer especially if you stop at all the temples along the way. If you decide to walk to a point of interest, you’d better be a man under 50 with good legs otherwise all bets are off. It could take you a loooooong time.

Also on the map there are intriguing often poetic descriptions of historic sites:

In case anyone wants to know where Otani Chobei buried the bottle, it’s apparently under a pine tree overlooking a twisty mountain road along which there’s beautiful foliage in the fall. At first I thought Otani Chobei was a famous Japanese politician who had a drinking problem but “buried the bottle.” Or a Samurai warrior who made a secret pact with an unpopular Emperor. He’d had to bury the agreement in a bottle under a pine tree lest his treachery be revealed should the Emperor be dethroned. Or beheaded or whatever happened to unpopular Emperors.

And so I googled buried bottles and all the internet had to offer was:

A month before their wedding, couples in the American South often bury a bottle of Bourbon upside down to ensure good weather on their big day. Ok – probably not related unless Otani Chobei was the person who introduced bourbon to Japan.
In Japan there’s a famous baseball player by the name of Shokei Ohtani. As to why his name popped up … well, baseball is very, very big in Japan and he is movie star cute. Sure enough, along came email offers to join his fan club. No …. I do not want a Shokei Ohtani teeshirt!
In the early 1980s a group of Japanese high school students dropped 750 bottles containing messages into the Pacific Ocean in order to study ocean currents. Interesting but I doubt those students (now middle-aged) are wondering where their dimwitted classmate hid the bottle he was supposed to throw in the ocean.

Next I googled Japanese folk tales. Well … there are thousands of ancient Japanese folk tales and I don’t intend to read them all. Thus, I may never know why Otani Chobei buried the bottle.

Unless I go there. With a local driver and on my old, bad legs, of course!

Eat, drink or perfume my undies?

January 1, 2026January 1, 2026JT Twissel 55 Comments

This year for Christmas my son sent us a package from Japan which contained:

It feels a little squishy but has no smell. I googled and Kakiyashu is a restaurant which specializes in fine ($$$$) cuts of beef. So perhaps it’s a fancy beef bar?

There was also a nice note from my son telling me how happy he is to be in Japan and if I’d like to come visit, he kindly supplied a map:

I googled the town where they live and it is along 438 which is the dark blue line slicing across this part of the island of Shikoku. I assume 438 is a highway or perhaps a toll road. But … it could be a river.

The town they live in is near the big pink tree. That should make finding their town a breeze, right? (unless the tree falls down or isn’t in blossom)

By the way, a Nazi symbol on a Japanese map indicates a Buddhist temple. After WWII the Japanese government considered removing the symbol but it has existed and had meaning long before the Third Reich and will long after. It would be like removing the cross from a church because of the actions of unprincipled televangelists or immoral politicians (and you know who I’m talking about.)

Above is a legend to help my husband and I along on our drive. I imagine the smiley face indicates places were you can find food, lodging and gas … and be happy!

If I had to guess:

The little house probably marks a rest stop (with bathrooms hopefully)
The lotus leaf, perhaps an area full of lotus ponds?
The flower symbols … gardens?
And the maple leaf … forests?

Think I’m even close?

Included was also a map of the public transportation system in case we chicken out and decide not to drive. Hum, since we would be driving on the wrong side of the road in a country where we can’t read the signs and don’t speak the language, I would say …. at the very least …. we will be using public transportation. More likely, we will need full-time babysitting and hand-holding. Particularly considering our experience in England a few years back.

I really don’t know what to make of it. Do you?

The final gift in the package was this bag of something.

It’s a very pretty bag. I may never open it which is probably the best course of action since I have no idea what it contains.

It smells like cedar trees so perhaps it’s not meant to be steeped in hot water and sipped like tea. Perhaps it’s potpourri meant to sweeten your underwear drawer. What do you think?

Take heart everyone … 2026 is here. It comes with no promises and a hell of a lot of baggage. How it will end is anyone’s guess but no one knows. We’re all in the dark together with only kind hearts and patience to see us through.

When there were wolves in Wales #ChristmasClassics

December 23, 2025JT Twissel 18 Comments

The last on my list of beloved Christmas stories is Dylan’s Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales, a piece that is best appreciated when read aloud. Below by the unforgettable Richard Burton who I was lucky to see perform on stage many, many years ago.

In case you don’t have the time to listen, Thomas paints a picture of a seaside village where there was always snow at Christmas (but no reindeer), where young boys pelted cats with snowballs unless there was something more exciting … like a fire at the Prothero’s. Where there were always uncles … “breathing like dolphins” … and postmen with roses for noses as they delivered packages. Where there were always the useful presents and the useless presents. Where young boys left footprints in the snow so huge that the villagers would surely think hippos had invaded. Back when there were “wolves in Wales.” (of course, there haven’t been wolves in Wales since the days of King Arthur but such is a child’s imagination!)

When and where I was a child, there was rarely snow at Christmas. My family lived too far from relatives to find uncles snoring like dolphins in the living room or aunties sneaking a few too many sips of the cooking sherry and breaking out in song. And we had only a few traditions: My sister and I always made chocolate fudge. She had self-control but I always ate too much and got sick to my stomach. Mother always made dates stuffed with walnuts and rolled in powdered sugar for our guests: Friends and neighbors who were also far from, or estranged, from family. But they generally arrived with bags of chips and take out pizzas, drank all the alcohol in the house and then left behind those dates.

And then, too exhausted to make a proper sit-down meal, we’d end the evening next to the fire, eating popcorn and listening to records. This song I always associate with Christmas Eve. I mean, who doesn’t?

My father was the grandchild of Norwegian immigrants. Their Santa equivalent is called Julenisse and he’s either a gnome or an elf or a troll and where do gnomes and trolls live? Deep in the woods or deep underground with all of those wolves who used to roam Wales!

Happy Christmas!

The Blaze of a Heart #ChristmasClassics

December 17, 2025JT Twissel 24 Comments

Next on my list of favorite Christmas stories that have nothing to do with Santa, is this short story by Truman Capote.

It’s the story of a young boy and his elderly “friend” who set out with $12.99 to make thirty fruitcakes for people who have been kind to them or people they admire (like Eleanor Roosevelt). They are the wards of “persons” who “have power over us and often make us cry” but who for the most part ignore them and so over the years they have figured out how to entertain themselves and, at the same time, save a few pennies here and there for their Fruitcake Fund.

 "... a morning arrives in November, and my friend as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and the fuels the blazes of her heart announces: 'It's Fruitcake weather!'"

We know little else about them. The young boy remembers no other home and his friend has never traveled more than five miles from the house nor has she seen a movie or eaten in a restaurant … but she “has killed with a hoe the largest rattlesnake ever seen in the county (sixteen rattles) … tamed hummingbirds (just try it) till they balance on her finger … knows the recipe for every sort of old-time Indian cure, including a magical wart remover.”

She also knows how to make kites and fly them in any weather. The important things to a young boy.

Nor do we know much about where they live except that it is a “spreading old house in a country town.” There’s an orchard nearby where they gather “windfall pecans” from amongst the fallen leaves, a grocery where they buy “cherries and citron, ginger and vanilla and canned pineapple from Hawaii, rinds and raisins and … oh so much flour, butter and so many eggs” which they load into his baby carriage (the thing he arrived in with little else) and drag home. However, for the most expensive ingredient they must summon their courage to visit a notorious bootlegger by the name of Haha Jones. Any guesses as to what that most expensive ingredient was?

Truman Capote aka Buddy and his friend Nanny aka Sook

Okay – it’s whiskey! Any of my baking blogger buddies use hard liquor in their fruitcake? I’m thinking of giving it a try. It’s been just that kind of year!

Me … after gobbling down too much spiked fruitcake.

Sobs, sniffles, and smiles #ChristmasClassics

December 13, 2025JT Twissel 19 Comments

Published by the Picture Book Studio of Austria

One of my treasures is a copy of The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry published in 1982 and illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger. I treasure the book primarily because it is beautifully laid out (written in script!) and the illustrations are enchanting.

The story was written in the early 1900s by a fellow who wrote under the name O. Henry. He used other aliases as well, probably because he’d spent time in jail. That would be an asset in today’s publishing world but it definitely wasn’t in Victorian times. He also wrote The Ransom of Red Chief which inspired the Christmas classic Home Alone and came up with the terms The Cisco Kid, Banana Republic and Baghdad on the Subway.

For those of you who’ve never read The Gift of the Magi, Della has only managed to scrape together one dollar and eighty-seven cents to buy her beloved Jim a Christmas present. And so she sells her most prized possession. Given their dire financial circumstances, she probably should have bought something practical with the money she earned but she doesn’t. The irony is, Jim does the same thing and so they both end up with gifts they can’t use.

Or did they, as O’Henry postulates, receive the best gift that can be given?

The cemetery where O’Henry is buried reports that – for over thirty years! – they routinely find envelopes containing … one dollar and eighty-seven cents on his grave. Doesn’t that fill you with sobs, sniffles and smiles? It does me.

“Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles with the sniffles predominating.” O.Henry

The Twelfth Month

December 1, 2025JT Twissel 36 Comments

I always begin the month of December with trepidation. Years ago, when I was still working and the kids were in school, December always brought an overwhelming round of activities which foolishly I struggled to excel at. As a result, I generally woke up Christmas morning sicker than a dog. Now it’s the ending of another year and the realization that far, far fewer lie ahead than behind. A real pity fest only cheered by the overindulgence of chocolate and the cheer of good friends.

One thing I can say about 2025 is, I’ve enjoyed starting each month with a new page from the Washi Calendar.

Which one was your favorite?

Oh I almost forgot.

The berries are probably some variety of Nanten or Nandina berries. Their deep red color is believed to keep misfortune, sickness, bad dreams, and EVIL away during the winter months.

May you all be protected from misfortune, bad dreams and evil through this holiday season!

My favorite book to get into mood for the Holidays! What’s yours?

Don’t grieve me, I’m not gone

November 30, 2025JT Twissel 21 Comments

I’ve seen two of the former Beatles in concert: Paul McCartney probably in the mid eighties and George Harrison a few years later. The McCartney concert was meant to wow with a laser light show and a fast paced presentation of old and new songs. In some concerts there are quiet moments when the performer speaks to the audience in an attempt to connect but we left feeling no closer to McCartney than before. Perhaps he was having an off night. Who knows.

On the other hand, the Harrison concert was all about connecting. We felt like a friend we’d known a long time had invited us into his heart once again. I think the only Beatle-related songs he sang were While My Guitar Gently Weeps (which he changed to While My Guitar Gently Smiles so as not to offend his audience) and Something. Sadly many folks who came expecting a Beatles concert left or took a breather when Ravi Shankar joined him for a few lively ragas. What dolts. But George took it well.

Flash forward to the end of November, 2001. I’d just parked my car at work when I heard the announcement on the radio that George Harrison, formerly of the Beatles had died. I wanted to cry, to blubber like a baby, and then run back home to bed with the covers over my head. And then, a rainbow appeared in front of me, spanning the San Francisco Bay. Not a wispy here and gone rainbow but a solid arch. Directly underneath this rainbow a bird sang from the top of a spare and leafless tree. I must have sat in the car for five minutes or perhaps an eternity or perhaps just the blink of an eye … mesmerized by the sight.

Do not grieve me, I am not gone.

Anyway, that was a long, long time ago.

Pea Soup and Mushrooms

November 28, 2025November 29, 2025JT Twissel 23 Comments

This has been the view from my house for the past couple of days. Pea Soup. It’s not your normal coastal fog but something called “radiation fog.” Basically: Cold Calm Night = Persistent Fog. This grey blanket of misery will persist until early afternoon and then, if you’re lucky, the sun will break through.

You know who really likes this muck? Mushrooms.

I have no idea what type of mushrooms these are but I think I’ll pass on giving them a taste.

We had Thanksgiving Dinner (actually a lunch) with people who were not born in this country and their children and grandchildren. On the way home we heard about the National Guardsman (actually a lady) who died and the actions our supposed leaders plan to take to punish more immigrant families as a result.

It makes me wonder how long before this document, which my Swedish great-grandfather earned the hard way and treasured his entire life, means absolutely nothing if you can’t prove you were born here? How long do you think?

At any rate, the Twelfth month will soon be upon us. Can you believe it? I can’t. What a year.