It's a tree, not parsley.

Graceful branches reach
Towards the skylight, posing
Like a small dancer.
Potted nature makes me pause
Each time I mount the stairway.


Last July you may recall that despite a dismal track record,  I bought a bonsai from a man who was selling them by the roadside. 

It's ensconced on the landing beneath the skylight, where it gets plenty of indirect light and a squirt with a mister every few days and, most importantly where I can see it and enjoy it. Once a week, I carefully process down the stairs with my beautiful four year old held gingerly in my hands, immerse the bowl in the bathroom sink until it stops producing bubbles, let the water drain, let it sit in the sink for another twenty minutes or so, then process back upstairs with it. Every 90 days it gets fertilizer. Eight months later it's still alive.

Today the following appeared in the online edition of the Chronicle. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/10/FDLO1IHRKA.DTL

Discretion, valor, blah blah blah

I skipped taiko tonight - came home with a headache that would not quit and that Advil made no dent in, so I tried to nap a little with no success. I did, however, catch pleasant little  indie movie called In A Day.

I need one of these. If a cooking Laurel can show up at an event eating tuna sandwiches made with one of these on the grounds that it's "Lenten," I totally need one, because I may be a bad Buddhist, but at least I KNOW when I'm being a bad Buddhist. She said she got hers at Soko Hardware, so a trip down there may be in order. May as well look for a decent mortar and pestle too in case I get sufficiently motivated to pound my own mochi, seeing as the mochi machines are expensive.

While we're at it, I think the House of Cheerful Monkeys needs to serve tea at an event. In an educational capacity. Tea is period, just not for everyone. (Certainly "tee" was enough of a novelty in Restoration London to warrant an entry in Samuel Pepys diary.) Of course, this will require acquisition of some decent matcha, so guests can sample that along with a couple varieties of leaf tea. I will not presume to perform tea ceremony, however, the Japanese were drinking tea ground to powder in period. Hmmm, perhaps I can rope layla_lilah into this project regarding the drinking of tea in Central Asia in period too.  Oh, goodie. More homework.