平成30年1月16日 = (30th Year of HEISEI Era, 1st Month, 16th Day) – – – – – = This week’s poem: The Way It Happens Sometimes the best Things a day can confer, Have no reason, They simply occur, And the rest Is just a blur… { From my Blog: https://carllafong.blogspot.jp } – – – – […]

Do you suppose anyone would notice if the Government actually shut down at Midnight this Friday? So much stuff flying around this week, including the snow that always panics residents of the Swamp. We got only a dusting in placid Arlington, with the heavier concentration to the east in Maryland. Traffic was predictably awful regardless, […]

Well, I suppose it was more like a phone call from Detroit, circa 1960. I was dozing in the brown chair, watching the cable news and watching the new cold air chase away the moisture of the temporary January thaw. 1960 was the year that our Scout Troop (#1032, Methodist Church, Lincoln St, Birmingham, MI) […]

It was pick-up day. The on-line auction was done, the winners notified, and man, I was sweating this one- suppose I forgot? That has happened more frequently than I like to admit over the holidays. I treasure my friends, not to mention the rigid professional obligations of the last almost 41 years of service. But […]

OK- the lights, decorations and the world’s most bedraggled artificial tree have been nestled in the storage locker with care, and it is time to deal with the Bold New Year. California got smacked again- earthquake near Berkeley and then an intense rainstorm that brought down some of the hillsides in the areas that had […]

COMMENT: Happy New Year all — I pulled this one out of the internet news data torrent, just to allow some focus on what the article reports, and, perhaps more importantly, what it implies and portends. In my experience, Japan’s mainstream Yomiuri Shimbun seems to have pretty deep source connections into the Japanese government, and […]

Editor’s Note: Fired up the old laptop down at the Farm, and look at what showed up. A long time ago, in a place very far away. I don’t think I would have changed a thing. Welcome 2018! – Vic

(Amanda, along with Brian, Laura, Jason, Sean, Arrian and Shea, kept us in good spirits for nearly two years). I must say, our merry band of Refugees have conducted a remarkably successful campaign to destroy our favorite watering holes in the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington County. Any place we like gets shuttered muy pronto. Our […]

There was snow on the ground here in Arlington when my bleary eyes popped open this morning. I have developed a new sleep pattern- in bed fairly early, then awake in the small hours to read for a while, and then taking the second installment of a good night’s sleep (GNS). Consequently, rather than rising […]

平成29年12月28日 = (29TH YEAR OF HESEI ERA, 12TH MONTH, 28TH DAY) – – – – – = This week’s poem: 大晦日の焚き火 (O-Misoka No Taki-Bi/New Year’s Eve Fire) Votives and charms, last year’s luck, Are burned at the shrine In an old metal drum… Fortune’s smoke wafts and curls Up into what will become… { From […]