Normal?

As in am I back to normal?  Let's see:

Wrist felt progressively better throughout the day yesterday. By the end of the work day I could turn a doorknob and use a manual hole punch (just as long as I didn't overload it). Slept in the brace last night just to be careful. So far this morning have gotten through a shampoo and typing this un-braced and without pain.

Got my hair trimmed and received a scolding from the little Asian woman at Great Clips for letting it go for so long - except when I said, "Go ahead, knock a good four inches off." (Pretty normal.) She sprayed some leave-in conditioner on while she was at it. I went down to the other end of the mall, balked at prices and the idea of buying a liter of shampoo at a time when one has a tiny bathroom, then managed to find a small bottle of Biolage leave-in conditioner that I could actually lift without wrist pain and bought that for future use.

Came home in time to find out that Walter Cronkite had passed away. I grew up knowing that if he said it, that was the way it was. They don't come any better or classier than Mr. Cronkite.

Went to didjiman 's book signing for a little while last night and now am the proud owner of an inscribed copy of "Full Circle." It solves the problem of (a) having been unable to choose one of his photographic prints to own and (b) having no place to hang it anyway. Leave-in conditioner resulted in my pulling out hair barrettes in the middle of trying to look at another photographer's book. (Wore a cute rust silk dress, my jade beads, silver earrings, sandals and did not get hit on in a crowded gallery. Definitely normal!) I managed to squeeze through the hordes at the gallery to admire the photographs of Fan Ho, then melted away into the night when agoraphobia (yup, normal) began to set in. (To see some of Fan Ho's work, go here. You will not be disappointed.  Maybe I'll get up early on Sunday and take the camera in to Oakland Chinatown.... Or not.)

The mother-swiving mosquito-or one of his friends- was back. Argh. Woke up itching in a new spot, heard the whine zip past my ear and dragged the sheet over my head for the duration.

The one I forgot to post: Kyogen at the Asian Art Museum

Went to see this Thursday night with layla_lilah .  Three short comic plays were presented by members of the Izumi School. 20th head master since 1995,  Izumi Motoya, his sisters Izumi Junko (first professional female kyogen actor) and Miyake Tokuro (second professional kyogen actor and the first to inherit a stage name, her grandfather's) and Junko-san's six year old daughter Izumo Kyoko. The Izumi school dates back to the mid 15th century when it was patronized by an aristocratic family whose name I cannot recall at the moment. Patronage passed to the Tokugawa shogunate in the 17th century.

The three plays were all performed in Japanese, in traditional costume. Bonsan tells of a man who envies his neighbor's collection of bonsai and decides to steal one. When the owner hears noises and comes to investigate, the thief hides behind one of the trees. Recognizing the friend who has been begging him for years to part with a tree, he decides to tease him. "Oh, I thought it was a thief, but it seems to be a dog!" The thief howls like a dog. "No," the owner comes a bit closer. "Not a dog. I think it's a monkey!" The thief shrieks and scratches like a monkey. "Ah, now I see! It is a sea bream!" The thief uses his fan as a dorsal fin but is otherwise stumped when the tree owner says, "But the bream always cries when it puts up it's fin!" The thief jumps out from behind the tree crying "tai, tai, tai" and flees with the owner chasing him.

Ne ongyoku means "horizontal singing." The Master of the house calls his servant Taro Kaja to come sing for him. Taro Kaja claims he can only sing when he is drunk. The Master brings out sake and Taro Kaja drinks. And drinks. And drinks. The Master reminds him he's supposed to sing. TK now says he can only sing well while lying with his head on his wife's knee. The Master pats his knee. TK rests his head and begins to sing. The Master then asks him to try while sitting up, but TK croaks horribly and begs off. The Master offers his knee again. TK bursts into melodious song. The Master begins raising TK up and down, At first TK's voice cracks when he approaches vertical and returns to melodiousness when he lies down, but he quickly becomes confused and starts mixing the positions up as he becomes dizzy with drink. Forgetting himself completely, he gets up and dances while singing - and is eventually chased from the stage by his angry Master .

Kojidawara, or "The Tangerine Bag" A buyer shows up early to pick up his order of fruit for the New Year. The grower asks him to come back later because he hasn't packed them. Although the order was pre-paid, the grower had sold the tangerines to someone else. He takes his child (Izumi Kyoko, aged six) , tells him the problem and asks him to get into the bag. The child is kitted out with a demon mask and told to take advantage of his earliest chance to run away from the buyer.

The buyer returns, marvels at the size of this year's bushel, particularly when the grower helps load the burden onto his back, assuring him that he has the best fruit this year. On the way home, he begins to tire and tries to put down his load, only to hear a voice cry, "Don't put me down!" He looks around, but there's no one there. He decides it's best to hurry home. "Don't hurry!" commands the voice. Realizing it's coming from the basket, he puts it dow and tries to flee, only to hear "If you don't let open this basket right now, I shall eat you!" Demon is freed from basket, buyer flees and demon chases him.

Even without knowing Japanese, the stories were comical and easy enough to follow, even though the vocal presentation and stage movements are stylized. I'm glad we got to see them.

I'm also glad we got to have a look at the Lords of the Samurai show (second time for me, first for my companion). One of the noh robes is displayed laid out on a table. There are seams at the tops of the shoulders and sleeves, something I haven't seen in traditional kimono construction. Although I could not see the back of the garment, what makes the most obvious sense is that the seams are there so that the decorative pattens of phoenixes are right side up on both sides of the garment.

I also picked up a CD in the gift shop, Japanese Masterpieces for the Shakuhachi.

Taiko - now with more cowbell!

Dinner at El Huarache Azteca in Oakland was at layla_lilah 's request based on something she'd seen on "Check Please, Bay Area!" It's a couple blocks from the Fruitvale BART in a Latino neighborhood (where I felt very tall and very gringa), it was well worth the visit. I'm a wimp when it comes to hot food. The salsa verde was zingy without being painful. When I picked the Huarache Mole, our waitress mentioned in heavily accented English that I could have a huarache made from nopales (prickly pear cactus) instead of corn meal, so I went for it. It arrived a brilliant green peeping from beneath the chicken swathed in dark mole and lumps of cheese, and was a nice change from the usual maza. layla_lilah 's huarache with carne asada looked great too. She opted to have it with some huitlacoche (a corn fungus) on top. I tasted it, the flavor was very earthy and much better than I would've expected. Inexpensive, easy to get to and they serve Mexican Coca Cola if one wants the Real Thing with sugar.

From there, we made time for a stop at Nieves Cinco De Mayo, right across from the BART Station in the Fruitvale Public Market on 12th street. Featuring hand cranked ice cream in a dizzying assortment of exotic flavors (corn! garlic! pine nut and cheese!), the proprietor was very friendly and quite willing to offer us taste after taste while we dithered over final choices. I had a scoop of cinnamon (for $1.25!!!!), Ellen got a scoop each of coffee and cinnamon and mixed them together. The good news is it's close to home. The better news is it's just out of the way enough I have to make a slight detour to get there, so I maybe won't make a detrimental-to-diet habit of it. SO much nicer than that chi chi place up on College Avenue with the expensive ice creams.

Then it was back over to Alameda to check out Maze (as in MAH-zeh) Taiko at the Rhythmix Cultural Works. Six ladies rocked the refurbished warehouse with high energy and distinctly non-traditional mixes of rhythms and instruments from all over the world. I'm not kidding about the cowbell. Or djembe, marimba, hammered dulcimer, electronic keyboard or squeaky toys.

Several pieces in the second set were inspired by a collection of poems and paintings written by internees at Heart Mountain that had been  found in leader Janet Koike's grahdfather's garage.  They're well worth catching.