Happy Hanukkah!
Hope people had a good Thanksgiving yesterday, too! It was pretty weird and nice to have both on the same day. We went to our friends' place like usual for Thanksgiving. Ended up being 6 people this time. We brought some pickled herring, crackers, and dolmas (stuffed grape leaves) as appetizers. And, a salad with the main dinner. Salad had mixed spring greens, cherry tomatoes, dried cranberries, and shredded carrots. They smoked their turkey again. Also, there was homemade cranberry relish (which I don't care for), cranberry sauce from a can (I love this stuff!
), stuffing (this time they didn't have a second one without the chestnuts. Had to pick out a couple of them, but it was still good), latkes (potato pancakes. A staple for Hanukkah), homemade applesauce (to go with the latkes), asparagus, sweet potato pie (nasty to me
), and another thing I'm probably forgetting. For dessert we had homemade pumpkin pie, homemade brownies, and for the first time in a while store-bought whipped cream. They usually make their own whipped cream for the pie. I don't think their homemade one has much of a taste. It's very bland. So, this was pretty nice. We started with lighting the candles for Hanukkah. The hostess had just recently found a dragon menorah. It was pretty cool looking. She decided to give that one to me to light. She used a smaller and more traditional looking one. I couldn't remember the melody for the blessings over it right away.
For a lot of holidays, you sing it a little differently than usual. I remembered the one for the second blessing, at least. After that, we got to chat for a while, giving time for the host to get things ready. After dinner, we played a round of Trivial Pursuit. I thought, like usual, that I wouldn't get a lot of them. But, this time was different. I was on a roll. A lot of the answers came to me really quickly. My team won!
Yay! The hostess had brought out some dreidels to play with for after Trivial Pursuit, but it was too late by the time we finished. I'm hoping to get to it at some point during the holiday. We have raisins I can play it with. Heck, some people use matchsticks. But, I'd like to use something I could eat. Makes it more fun.
Tokyo Bandwagon has been really interesting. They pack a lot of stuff into each episode. And, everyone seems to be connected in some way. Even the 'situations' that are brought up don't seem like they'd be connected until towards the end of each episode. I'm really liking it so far.
I'm liking Toradora more than I expected. Plus, I like that the voice actress who's the voice of Taiga, is the same one who voices Kagura from Gintama. Gintama is one of my fave anime shows. But, it sounds kind of funny for some reason coming from this character. She acts somewhat similar to Kagura. Anyways...This episode was truly hilarious. They made really good use of facial expressions. Hopefully, it continues or gets even better with its humor.
Finished writing the 3rd short story from my nightmare anthology. This one ends a bit abruptly, but it could be like an endless loop if people read from the beginning again. That's a bit scary in itself.
The original nightmare it's based on didn't have that element. Each story has something quite different to it so far. But, I think that's a good thing. Keeps the readers guessing as to what will happen next. Next time I'll start writing the 4th one. Cool that I'm that far into it. Not sure how that one will play out, either. Been playing my clarinet. Yesterday was the only day I didn't play. Today, I played some Hanukkah songs. Then, I did some klezmer tunes. Sounded pretty good. As I played the Hanukkah songs, they were playing inside my head. It's weird when this happens.
Sometimes, I try to play the way it is in my head, and then I mess up. So, for things like this I have to tell myself to actually look and pay attention to what's written.
日本語
Studied 3 kanji today. The first one was: 庭. When by itself, it's pronounced as にわ (niwa). When in compounds, it's usually pronounced as てい (tei). It means: garden, courtyard, yard. The second one was: 笛. When by itself, it's pronounced as ふえ (fue). In compounds as: てき (teki). It means: flute, bagpipe, clarinet, piccolo, pipe, recorder, whistle. The third one was: 鉄. When pronounced as くろがね (kurogane): iron. As かね (kane): money (although the most common usage for money is 金, pronounced the same), metal. As てつ (tetsu): iron (Fe); strong and hard (as iron); (abbr) railway; (pref) railway enthusiast. 地下鉄 or ちかてつ (chikatetsu): underground train, subway.
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