OK, I'm awake....

A boilerplate email from the Japan National Tourism Organization assures me that my entry was received, judging commences and that I will have to join a Facebook or Twitter group or keep checking their website to find out when they will announce the winners because they didn't come up with a deadline for that. "Ideally by the end of December" is not a date.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Darned if I know what I'm going to do about it.

Toast, I think. And some tea. And maybe do some sewing because Twelfth Night is all about slaving away over something so you can mop the floors of a filthy hotel with it.

Getting out of the house for the win....

Got the green silk cut out and the back seam assembled. Then I got antsy. (Well, being home sick for a day and a half in the middle of the week didn't help.)

Went into Bezerkeley intent on finding something for a specific Christmas gift because I usually see tons of used copies of it at Moe's, but wouldn't you know the shelves were cleaned out of the item in question. Or anything else I thought that recipient might enjoy. Shakespeare & Co. didn't have it either, but I did stumble on a 1948 edition of the too-adorable-to-resist Little Pictures of Japan for $16. Happy birthday to me!

Having discovered that the vandals had cleaned out my local Walgreen's of Burt's Bee's lip balm yesterday, I bought several tubes as stocking stuffers for Mom and my sisters at Lhasa Karnak. Lunch was a peppermint mocha and a ginger cookie at Peet's.

Visited some of the open studios as long as I was over thataway and picked up a lovely green bowl by Itsuko Zenitani that matches a mug I got at the Berkeley Potter's Studio about a year ago. The glaze is similar to this, but the bowl I got was a different shape. Have I mentioned that I am a sucker for interesting pottery? Because then I had to go over to the Berkeley Potter's Guild and resist the wiles of Danny Dastrup's gorgeous Mino-ware inspired tea bowls. (Or was that Danny's wiles?) Do I REALLY need more tea bowls? Especially when the one that caught my eye was $48? It was sooooo pretty though.
Puttered around over at the Sawtooth Building studios for a bit too and found at least one gift there. Also memory jogged on where I got my orange Shino-ware tea bowl.

Stopped in at the Discount Fabrics on San Pablo in search of lining material for my Twelfth Night kosode. Found actual silk habotai in red and in white for $2.49/yard! SCORE!!!!! You cannot beat that with a stick. Only now I'm kicking myself for not buying all of what was on each roll at that price....


And I shot these on my way home:
Both would benefit from the stability of a tripod, but as test shots go, they're promising.