Tanka challenge 11/16/08

The evening fog spreads
Like a shroud across the bay
And into the hills.
Vanished are the city lights
And the house seems too quiet.

Adventures of a - yawn

Breakfast at the Crepevine. I love their pumpkin spice pancakes - but can never finish them. Elaine had the "Santa Rosa" scramble with assorted vegetables. 

We did a driving tour through Berkeley - since it was Sunday and nothing much was open. Even the Ashby BART flea market wasn't in full swing. So we ended up down at the marina and walked out on the pier.  It was a beautiful day, but there was definitely fog on the bay - you could barely see Mount Tam and the Golden Gate Bridge. The city skyline, the Bay Bridge, even the AT-AT cranes at the Port of Oakland were only silhouettes.

Dropped Elaine off at the airport a little after 1 PM. Came home, selected a movie On Demand - and promptly fell asleep in front of it. I will have to order Renaissance again as it looked interesting.

Juzu in medieval Japanese portraits

Upon further reflection and the dearth of information on historical juzu that I feel like I can take to the bank, I may have been premature in planning to make a short 27-bead juzu.

So far I have been unable to turn up any extant period juzu of any kind.

This portrait of the nun Eshinni clearly shows her holding a long juzu with end tassels, most likely one with the full 108 beads.
http://www.terakoya.com/hongwanji/rekidai/eshinni.jpg

My friend Tosenin is holding a juzu that also looks long enough to be a 108-bead juzu.
http://www.wodefordhall.com/tosenin.jpg

This one is a puzzler. Oinu appears to be holding beads in her hands, possibly a short juzu, possibly looped. Unfortunately, the image in the book is not very big and I haven't found it anywhere else.
http://www.wodefordhall.com/oinunokata.jpg

There are several additional portraits of women holding juzu in Japan's Golden Age: Momoyama and the 108-bead sets appear to be the norm.
http://books.google.com/books?id=l6z-BAf7UiwC&pg=PT79&lpg=PT79&dq=tenzuiin&source=bl&ots=7VZxgsdPMf&sig=lBy3Yc90oI_3RXuCklV2GjKktRU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPT84,M1

More as I learn it....