This is an overly long saga about my broken finger. I’m calling it a saga because it began at Saga-Man’s house. Mark Queijo can drive to the local drugstore to buy dental floss and return with a publishable memoir. In fact, he can’t drive to the drugstore without coming back with some kind of this-could-only-happen-to-me tale.

****************

Logging day at Mark Queijo’s country estate follows a well-established routine. Every family member and every friend with an arm to twist arrives after dawn and chooses a specific task. Topple trees, tumble cut logs to the log splitter, split those logs, burn brush – anything but stand around and supervise.

Mark’s wife, Jan, and I manned the log splitter. Though a frighteningly powerful machine, the splitter is a safe tool because it minds its own business. Circular saws have a habit of snuggling up against their owners but this thing is like a one-command genie out of the bottle. Issue an order, stand back, and watch its piston driven wedge effortlessly cleave logs that would dull Paul Bunyan’s axe. As Jan says, “I feel so powerful.”

For a while there, we were quite a team. Our voices smothered by engine noise; Jan and I communicated at first by hand signals. I’d drop a log in front of the iron wedge, she’d engage the lever that would send the wedge forward, and I’d signal when to release and retract it. We’d both grab the oak sections and together we’d heave the halves at Mark’s feet where he’d stack it as cordwood. Soon Jan no longer needed hand signals and the wood it-was-a-flying off the splitter. We were a flawless team until I reached to rotate a knotted log as she engaged the lever. My left ring finger snapped like a sun-ripened pea pod.

****************
I arrived home with my left hand in a bag of ice and Diane insisted she drive me to the emergency room. I shrugged her off (like she needed another afternoon in a hospital?), slipped into a warm bath, then dressed in decent clothes and packed Ed’s most recent book loan – “Ice: Stories Of Survival From Polar Expeditions” – and two New Yorkers. I hoped to be home by dinner.

But this was my lucky day. My competition for the medical staff’s attention was an eleven year old hockey player with a head injury. I thought surely my bent finger would take precedence over his vomiting and even if it didn’t, I’d be home in an hour. Sure enough, moments later I sat talking to the pretty, Eau de Something Erotic-smelling x-ray tech, lead apron still on my lap.

“You’re all done.” She said. The x-ray’s readable. I’ll walk you back to your room.”

“How about my finger? Is it broken?”

“You know I can’t answer that.”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask.”

“No it doesn’t,” she smiled. As we neared my room she said, “You know I’ve got a friend who’s going to split logs this weekend. She thinks nothing bad can happen. I might show her your x-ray.”

I read Ed’s book until the emergency room physician, reserved, Germanic Margaret entered. She ordered a finger splint, explained why she thought I’d need a pin or two (“The way it flopped over.”), and quizzed me intently on how the injury occurred. You see, she too intended to use a log splitter over the weekend. Suddenly log splitters are as common as vacuum cleaners. She also referred me to Dr. Jeffrey Brown, a plastic surgeon. Dr. Brown, I remembered, saved Adam’s routed finger. Whereas others would have lopped the tip off, Dr. Brown shaped the mushy flesh like wet clay, and today Adam has a fully functional middle finger.

****************

Jeff’s a handsome guy at six feet tall, with traces of gray in his brown hair, and a solid frame that suggests daily workouts. We quickly developed a good-old down-home rapport. We talked about the mellow Midwest – he’s from Michigan – his family, his Christmas plans, the book I brought with me ( “Ice”), hardy folk of yore, the weather on the Great Lakes, college football, and what to do about my finger.

“You pin it or you plate it. A plate will allow you to bend your finger and use it right away. However, I don’t have experience with plates that small. I’m not sure they are even appropriate in this case, but I could refer you to an orthopedic surgeon.”

I mulled that one over for about three seconds. Not only had Adam raved about him, but the ER nurse had hollered, “He’s good,” as I turned to leave.

“A referral would mean I’d have to start all over, which means waiting around for another appointment, all with no guarantees. I’ll stick with you and the pins.”

****************

The pinning process was a rather casual event. The day surgical suite required only that I remove my shirt. A Johnny covered my pants and booties my work boots. And like my knee scope, I was fully awake, but without the cozy Valium blanket. Jeffrey numbed my hand by injecting it with Lidocaine in four different places. As I lay on my back, arm outstretched, the surgical nurse bathed my hand in Betadine, Jeff responded to my earlier statement, “We could do this at my house.” “See, this is why your kitchen wouldn’t work. The procedure’s messy and we need an x-ray machine””

With a numb hand (And believe me, this is just like dentistry. Until they drill into you and there is no feeling, you’re never really sure you won’t leap out of the chair or in this case, off the table), Jeffrey pulled the end of my finger back in place – I felt the tugging on my arm – drilled into my finger – I heard the whirring – and inserted two pins.

“Okay, maybe not my kitchen but how about my shop? It sounds like I’m at work.”

Jeffrey and his assistant chattered throughout the procedure. I heard constant updates about how things were going and believe me, it didn’t sound good until the very end, when Jeff said, “That’s perfect.”

“Aaah, Dr. Brown, I hate to tell you this, but if the homeowner’s around I say the exact same thing. I don’t care if I’ve hung cabinet doors upside down. Half the job is how you sell it.”

His assistant offered, “You’re a woodworker right?”

“Yep.”

“How does within a thirty-second of an inch sound?”

“Like it’s time for me to go home.”

****************

In spite of the perfect x-ray and the proclamations from all, when I returned the next week for my first office visit, and the splint was removed, my ring finger looked like it was in love with my pinky. It had turned around to face it’s new friend and bent over as if to give it a hug. By my description, you’d a thought there would be no discussion about repair. Break it and re-pin it. However, we debated for so long, I finally said, “Okay, Dr. Brown, in my line of work if there’s a question about the quality of a material, or the design of a project, I’ll say to the homeowner, “If it were my house… .” How about if it were your finger?”

“Let’s get a second opinion.”

****************

Dr. Feldman, an orthopedic surgeon, saw me later that same day. In sharp contrast, he is thinner and darker than Dr. Brown, without the Brad Pitt short hair look, but he’s equally personable. We talked about frivolous lawsuits, malpractice insurance, comparisons between carpentry and orthopedic surgery, how different his practice in Lowell is from his wife’s in Concord, growing up in Newton, living in Carlisle and my finger.

“It has to be re-done, but you know, we don’t get too many shots at this.”

I laughed – two plain-speaking regular-guy surgeons in a row. How could I be so fortunate?

“I wouldn’t be worried about this finger if I hadn’t already done this.” (I held up my right hand showing him the missing top of my index finger and the thumb that bends only with help).

“Who would you like to do it?”

I wavered. I hoped to retackle this project with Dr. Brown, but Dr. Feldman reminded me of the basketball player who demands the ball in crucial situations.

“Dr. Feldman, I should know the answer to this, but why was I referred to a plastic surgeon in the first place?”

“Jeff works on hands too, but I do more of them. I only do hands.”

“Then when can you do mine?”

He put his head in his hands and hesitated, “ I think I can do it tomorrow.”

“I hate to keep making comparisons between your profession and mine, but when pushed, I always promise more than I can give. Deep inside I know I’ve shoved out of my mind the six other reasons why it would be impossible.”

“Give me your number and if I can’t I’ll call you tomorrow.”

****************

My second pining in two weeks took place the next day as promised. So close in time leaves room for nothing but comparisons. Lowell General’s approach is crisper than Emerson’s – similar operating rooms, but the staff felt more caffeinated. After Staci, the OR nurse, swaddled me in that fresh-out-of-the-oven warm blanket, I drifted off. As I do in the dentist chair. It’s something about the prone position that puts me to sleep.

“Mr Miller … Mr. Miller.”

I opened my eyes to see Dr. Feldman hovering over me.

“What?”

“Were you up all night?”

“No (Actually I had been but I couldn’t think fast enough to simply say yes.) but how often does someone tuck you into bed? With a warm blanket no less?”

“You mean your wife doesn’t do that.?” It was a rhetorical question which didn’t need answer. He was laughing too hard to hear me anyway.

Dr. Feldman removed the two pins Dr. Brown had inserted and drilled one right down the center of my finger, through both joints to where the tip of the pin just kissed the knuckle joint. I’d been peacefully zoning in and out, but he snapped me back to the present.

“Raise your right hand.”

“You talking to me?” Remember they also tent your head so there’s a certain feeling of remove.

“Who else would I be talking to?”

He wanted to compare my two hands. I opened and closed my right hand and he looked to see how my fingers lined up. Dr. Feldman then tore a hole in the blue blanket and raised my left hand so I could see it. He twisted my wrist this way and that, asked me to straighten my fingers and then make a fist.

“How does your finger look to you?, ” he asked

“Straight,” I answered.

Behind Dr. Feldman hung a screen with my latest x-ray. The pin almost perfectly bisected the first two digits in my ring finger.

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Place that pin so perfectly? My friend, Adam, is the best woodworker I know and he couldn’t have done that with a clamp, a drill press and nothing at stake.”

“What can I say, I’m good, but there’s one more thing I could try.”

“No, let’s call it a day.”
****************

I’m not dragging this on much longer. The night before my office visit after the second pinning, I removed my splint to see my ring and middle finger lining up like pickets in a fence. Rather than write about that visit, I’m ending with an email from Bill Lewis, longtime friend, sometime camping partner, and the missing character in “Cheers.” Bill could have occupied the bar stool between Norm and Cliff. Anyway, he’s on our email distro list, so he gets sporadic updates to which, curiously, he rarely replies.

Mike,

I sometimes feel out of the loop with a lot of what you guys are doing, but let me see if I get this straight. You were out chopping wood‚ with Q’s wife, and when she pulled the trigger, you got a broken finger. This has started an on-line dialog between Mark and Jan, presumably because they no longer talk face to face. You get an x-ray showing chopsticks protruding from the afore-mentioned digit, looking more like an apprentice carpenter gone wild with the nail gun than something done in a Boston hospital.

The worry in the whole situation centers around your ability to play the dealer in some sort of low rent ESPN Texas Hold tourney, with no one mentioning the obvious fact that a more clean cut would have given you a pair of halves.

Meanwhile, the banter continues in a syrupy cyber exchange that sounds about as sincere as a Shoe Box Get-Well-Soon card. Even if I got a few facts jumbled, be sure you know that even Bill Lewis cares.

Bill

Dan Downing (a.k.a. smiling)

At the other end of Chris’ musical / celebrity adoration spectrum is where I live.

My butt found itself comfortably ensconced in the third row Orchestra at Caesar’s Palace for Elton John’s Red Piano extravaganza last October, spitting distance to where Elton planted his.  The Colosseum was full of screaming, delirious fans, many of whom paid $250 for the privilege.  I paid zero, this being part of the computer conference package I attended.

Baffling to me was the apparent adoration of this overweight, aging rock star and of his music.  Baffling again was the evidently turned on audience in last evening’s NBC’s telecast of this same concert. With the exception of a couple of his hit songs (Daniel, Rocket Man), his music, to me, is not in the same class as that of my musical heroes of the 60s (Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, Buffy Saint Marie, Joan Baez). I loved their music, but did not fawn at their stages nor identify myself as a fan.

In fact, the whole notion of celebrity adoration is very, very, very baffling to me.  Yes, I can admire both form and content of a Jewel at the Boston Opera (attended by a subset of the usual canoe-group suspects in 1999?), but people that can put their feelings and life insights into thought-provoking poetry, sing them lucidly, and accompany them with understated guitar chords so you can clearly hear the words and get the message, are relatively few.

And very baffling to me also is that anyone would pay dearly for an event like this in a theatre as large as the Colosseum for a view that from most seats requires binoculars, and requires sullying yourself with that weirdest destination in the Universe, Vegas.

But that’s me; clearly left behind in a gentler subset of my 60s generation.

Mike,

Have a look at APOD (below) and compare it with the original Adams picture Link (below that)..Even if you convert the color picture to B&W and fiddle with the overall contrast, gamma, andbrightness, you can never get that magical glow of light above the mountains that Adams somehow created. And the contrast in the mountains where the snowfields and glaciers were is just incredible. (Admitedly therewas more snow in 1948 than now.)

Ansel must have dodged the moon in the darkroom to make it so bright relative to the mountains. Nothing like a comparison of amateurs and professionals to show the difference between them.

Amateurs

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4848982″>Ansel’s

-rakkity–Just another amateur

Mike,

Tonight at dinner, Mukul brought down a bottle of sake that he thought we should finish off, since “Sake always goes better with dinner, right?” So after finishing it off along with dinner, I decided to go for a walk in the night. Being well insulated and especially well lubricated, I headed for the 45-m dish, which is well lit even in the wee hours of the morning. It appears to be only about 100 m away, but when I got further down the road, it didn’t seem to be any bigger. Like a mountain in the distance, it seemed to remain the same size as I walked. But after 10 min or so of walking, it did seem to loom larger. 

I had this idea that I’d shoot a picture of it with the moon over the big dish, but as I got closer, the idea lost all its practicality, as I’d have to tramp into the snowy woods about a km off to the left to get both the telescope and the moon into the same frame of my camera. Then I was under it, and it looked like the spaceship in Chicken Little. When you peered up, it was all there was.. But back in the direction I had been walking from I could see Mt Nobeyama ski area with all its photogenic but light polluting beacons on the slopes. “That should make a good picture, combined with the massive support structure of the telescope”, I said to myself. So I found a good support for the camera and took the attached picture. I think it’s one of the most interesting shots I’ve taken here. But that may just be the sake talking. I’ll be glad to hear any contradictions.

Shamaru

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Rakkity/Shamaru

The space-time confusium

Let’s see now, as I write here it’s 8:40 pm JST; that’s 6:40 am EST, so this email is arriving at Central St blog factory just before dawn. It’s Wednesday here, so it’s Tuesday there. These are my thought
processes as I write to my intern back at Goddard in MD. (His name is Rick, and he’s a recent graduate from UMd.)

Every day Rick sends me some figures that he’s made for the paper we’re writing together. If I write in the morning, he doesn’t get that email till the next day, which is really the previous day, and if he writes to me in the afternoon, I get it in the morning of the same day. Right? Except when I write to him late at night, and he is at work and actually gets the message in near real time. When that happened once, Rick asked, “How did you do that?”

So when I critique his work, he has to figure out what I’m talking about. Is it the figure he just sent, or is it the one he sent yesterday? Or maybe its the one he will send tomorrow, and I’ve got advance notice of it.

I don’t know how we’ve done it, but together we’ve actually done some productive work in this time warp.

Mike’s the only person that I’ve been able to quasi-IM with. But Mike’s always in a time warp. (That’s due to the Black Hole in the library.) Time is only a coordinate that measures the distance between blog entries, right?

Photos of Joe wrestling his opponent at tonight’s meet between Acton Boxborough and Lincoln Sudbury. Those pictures pretty much show the whole match, except for the end when Joe pinned the guy. Matt calls him a “beast,” and now I know why.

Diane enjoyed Saturday night’s Leon Russell concert; I say, put the poor wretch out to pasture.

The Bull Run in Shirley is a dinner theater. The dining room’s a perfect rectangle seating three hundred people. The so-called stage is not elevated, and this night’s opening act, a banjo and steel-guitar-playing rockabilly soloist, disappeared below the heads of those diners in front of us. His music disappeared too. He touched on those famous locomotive cord sounds, but the train never arrived.

During intermission, Leon’s drummer and two guitarists set-up largely unnoticed. Then Leon, with his ghost-like flowing white beard and hair, and wearing a jacket, white fedora and dark sunglasses, limped to his keyboard from a nearby stairwell. There were no introductions, nor much time for applause. Leon laid his thick fingers on the keyboard and from that moment on, he pounded out unremitting wake-the-dead material.
I turned to Diane, pulled her head close, and screamed, “This is what the first act lacked,” but she couldn’t hear me. I gave up, pivoted back and waited for the quiet break between songs – except there were no breaks, because there were no intros, no repartee with the audience, and no intelligible words. With his lips pressed against the microphone, and the volume and treble maxed out, Leon rasped his way through the entire set like a hack saw screeching through a rusty Studebaker fender.
Two hours later and a single song before the end, his band stumbled away to recover while Leon played on. Stiff back, seemingly frozen at the mike, Leon shattered ear drums until his mates returned. Together they banged out a final number, after which Leon stood up, said, “Thank you,” and walked away.

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By Chris

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I think I first became a Bon Jovi fan back in the early 80’s in college. Not just because Jon Bon Jovi is so adorable, but mostly because of that. Mark is a fan as well and my friend Shelley, like me, has gone from fan to fanatic. I love his music, his tight pants, his New Jerseyness. He makes me smile, and has for some 20 something years. We have seen him many times over the last several years and I never cease to be 21 again at his concerts. And he and I are the same age, so we’ve grown up together. At least I think I’ve grown up.

Tonight we weren’t sure we were going to make it due to the weather, which fortunately let up by 4:00 enabling us to get to the FleetBankNorthBostonGarden Center or whatever it’s called now. We met Shelley and Paul there. Imagine my surprise when I saw a small platform set up right in front of us. ”Bon Jovi will be singing two songs there” was the rumor. I certainly never anticipated being that close to him, ever. We were in loge seats and not that close to the real stage. I must say the entire first part of the concert was spent anticipating the arrival. About two songs before his, for lack of a better word, ascension, security lined up at the aisle. ”Don’t grab his ass” were the instructions to those of us closest to this platform. Soon a microphone was brought out and the giddiness I was feeling was something I haven’t felt since the Sox won the Series. And then he was there. Guitar strapped on him and the first song he sang was Blaze of Glory from Young Guns. Because he was facing the larger audience his behind was facing us. This was not an issue, trust me. But then he turned around. He’s as attractive as he looks on TV, very petite but with muscular legs and arms. That hair and those lips. I couldn’t take a photo I was somewhat frozen. Then he sang song number two, Bed of Roses, and then he turned around to sing to us and started shaking hands. So my right hand touched his and I swooned. I was like those girls you see in those Beatles clips in the audience at Ed Sullivan some 40+ years ago…crying and shaking. Shelley was too. Mark couldn’t contain his laughter. Jon Bon Jovi has very soft hands, which surprised me given he plays guitar for a living. I would think he’d be callused. But no matter. I wish I had gotten some better shots, but these give you a sense of how close he was to us.

A fantastic evening all around. I had a chance to go see him tomorrow night as well and I declined. Nothing can come close to this.

Chris

How’s your hand?

Ed

---

The worst thing, beyond not being able to work, is how hard it makes typing.
Which only reinforces your god-like status..

Mike

---

You are a better typer than I am, so reverting to one-hand typing is much worse for you than it is for me. But some things are impossible with one hand–ctrl/alt/del for example. I did find that I could press3 keys simultaneously using one hand and a chopstick in my mouth. Not that I’ve needed to do it here, though chopsticks are easier to find in this country.

Ed

Just before we headed out the door, Deguchi san explained what he wrote in thenote at the desk. He described the camera, the black pouch, and the blue bag.”What blue bag?” I asked. “Your blue bag on the bench. I put your camera in the pouch, and then into the blue bag”, he explained. “But I had no blue bag. That must have been someone else’s.” Deguchi san was crestfallen. “Then it was my mistake. I put your camera in another bag, and the owner must have taken it away. Wait here, I’ll go look around.” He headed off into another part of the volumnious lobby area and disappeared for awhile. I wondered what he was doing. Maybe looking for someone with a blue bag? In less than 5 minutes he came back with the camera! He said, “I saw someone with the bag and asked them if there was a small camera in it. And there was. The person who had it was very apologetic at having your camera.

On the way out, he was still crestfallen at having made the mistake. I patted him on the shoulder, and said, “there’s an old English saying, All’s well that ends well”.

So here’s some bath pictures. You can see Mt Fuji in the background. And there will be new pictures in the following week (which is my last one in Japan).

Shamaru
The Baths
Towel Racks

rakkity shamaru

Saturday Dec 9, 3:00 JST

Mukul and I met in the cafeteria and waited for Degushi san, who was going to take us to a nearby hot springs. Promptly at 3, his little grey car drove up to the entrance, and Degushi waved us in. Degushi san is a balding, thin, professorial type, who’s part of the Nobeyama “cosmic” staff, as opposed to “Solar” staff, like Shibusaki san. Apparently he’s working with one of his students using the 45-m telescope (the biggest in Asia) to observe the mm spectrum of galactic nebulae. While we waited for Mukul, still backin the shoe room, tying his boots, Segushi san asked me my first name.

I said, “Ed. That’s short for Edward.”

He repeated the nickname and the name, which were both new to him. He’s on a first name basis with Mukul, but it takes time for a Japanese person to use a gaigin’s first name, so I didn’t ask him his first name (which is Shuji; you can google him using deguchi nobeyama).Mukul entered the front passenger seat, and we sped out of the lot.

We drove towards Kiyosato on the same roads I had taken on my snow-biking tour. Just a few 100 m before I had given up and turned back home, we turned right at the “Nokyo” sign (one I recalled as the only English sign in sight.). We drove past hundreds of discreet apartment-like buildings, mostly hidden behind pine trees. Degushi said they were condos. About 15 minutes after we started, we were driving up to Yatkasutake ski area. My ears popped, so we had climbed a lot, and suddenly there was a great view of a spectacular mountain like Mt Adams or pre-eruptive Mt St Helens. I asked Degushi san, “Is that Fuji?”, and he said that it was. So one of our objectives had been accomplished. we’d be able to see Fugi san from the baths.

But the baths were not at the ski area any more, so we headed down hill to another town about 15 min away. Behind a parking lot with about 30 micro-minivans and and many non-Toyota-Honda-Nissan, nondescript, blocky cars that would never sell in the USofA), was a flat-topped building like a bowling alley. Inside, there was the mandatory shoe corral, where we dutifully shelved our shoes. We stuck 1000-yen bills into a machine (Y700 apiece), which expectorated 3 tickets. Five m away, we proffered the tickets to a little lady at a desk, and walked through the inviting lobby to another machine that, after some touch-screen finger gymnastics, popped open a locker for our use. We put in our keys and wallets, and proceeded to the men’s locker room.

Up to that point, we were about as far as you could get from the ancient steam baths of the Shogun era. But the locker room was partially modern, partially traditional. In the middle of the room were wooden stands with bamboo baskets for your clothes. On one wall were lockers where you could stash your clothes (all of them, no bathing suits allowed) and take the key with you on a bracelet. On the other wall were sinks with modern plumbing and mirrors. But out the door you could see a darkish, steamy room with stone walls and a big pool.

We entered the dim room, each with a towel draped modestly in front. Degushi san scooped up some water from the pool and poured it over his head. He indicated the showers on the left wall where some old guys were industriously washing with soapsuds and sprays. We stepped into the hot pool and looked at the view. A large glass wall on the far side of the pool kept out the wintry winds, but allowed us a good display of Fuji san off in the distance. The pool was just hot enough that you had to go in slowly, but it was wonderfully relaxing. We chatted a bit, and I observed that there was another pool right outside. Maybe we could go out? We waited for Mukul again, and shortly after he arrived, we decamped for the outside pool. After a few minutes of soaking, I told Degushi san that I wanted to take a picture, and went over to the bench where I had left my camera.
With damp hands, I carefully extracted the camera from its little black pouch, and got a good shot of the submerged bathers with Mt Fuji in the background. Deguchi san offered to take a picture of me, so I handed him the camera, and pulled back into the depths. After he took the picture, and verified with me that the picture was good, he put the camera back on the bench, and returned to the pool with us.

We chatted and soaked for about half an hour, and decided to head on back to the lobby for a drink or some ice cream.

DISASTER! END OF JAPAN BLOG PICTURES!

My camera was nowhere to be seen on the bench. It had nominally been in sight all the time we had been bathing, but all of us had been looking at the view, not at the bench. Deguchi san said, “I’ll ask at the desk.” He donned some shorts and disappeared out of the locker room. It took me a little longer to go out to the lobby, since somehow I had managed to drench my towel in the pools. But when I got out and met him, he downcastedly said that the desk people hadn’t heard or seen any camera.

We sat around on one of the benches numbly eating ice cream (a box of chocolate-covered ice cream bonbons for only Y100. Great stuff!) Deguchi san decided we should leave a note at the desk with names and phone numbers, in case someone returned with the camera. “Sure”, I said, disconsonantly. My faith in the honesty and reliability of the Japanese had been shattered. But at the desk, Deguchi san wrote up a detailed description of where he put the camera, what it looked like, and all the circumstances, including the blue bag that he had put it in. This was all in Japanese script, so I had no clue what he was writing until he told me afterwards.

We sat some more, and I bought another package of ice cream bon-bons for my dessert back at the dorm. I thanked my lucky stars that I had taken the 512 MB memory card out of the camera this morning, and was running on camera memory, so no pictures were lost–except the two of us in the bath! So I was crossing my fingers. Maybe one of the bath customers would call Deguchi san and say that he had taken the camera accidentally. It was a long shot. I’ll tell you later if we get a call. Unless someone calls, this is the end of the Japan pictures.

To be continued

rakkitty/shamaru

rakkity/shamaru

Mushrooms

Houses