For Cara

My cousin Cara is gone.  She was 16.

Last Saturday night, in the wake of a thunderstorm and under a rainbow, she left.  Those who love her know that the grief of losing someone so precious is tempered by the knowledge that she has finally found peace.

A friend once told me that the Japanese love sakura above all flowers because they symbolize the transience of existence.  Like rainbows and shooting stars, their beauty is all the more breathtaking because it is gone before we are ready to let go.  

These are for you, Cara.

With love, forever and ever,

 Maggie

In Pictures

Photos courtesy of Heather and Suzie

at Oyama Jinja in Kanazawa

not sure why, but I can see our 6th grade selves in this picture

our new friends at a festival in Takaoka, Toyama

I'm in love with the kid in the front.

total popstardom

 the old man who pulled some curious-looking strangers in off the street and made them tea

The cheapest tea kettle: $300 

The most expensive tea kettle: a good year's salary

Drinking tea with him: priceless

Creighton, me, and Heather in the back of Adam's somewhat petite car. 

Suzie, how on earth did you get shotgun?

random temple in the Noto

To get to it you must first pass through the Stairway of Gloom without disturbing any of the many minions of the High Priestess of the Creepy Crabs.  The Japanese townsfolk seemed surprised to see us return whole.

Impressions of Japan

Heather and Suzie spent a week with me in Kanazawa before heading off to find more adventures in Kyoto and then Tokyo.  I asked Heather to write something about her trip for my blog.

Impressions of Japan
By Heather Albrecht


When I grow up I want to be an old Japanese tea kettle shop owner who pulls curious-looking strangers off the street into the comfort of my cozy tea kettle shop and makes them tea from one of my many kickin’ tea kettles. And since I’ll be an old Japanese man I won’t have to wear any crazy fashionable strappy high heeled shoes.

Well, I guess the man part isn’t so important. I would very happily be a friendly old Japanese woman with lime green highlights who regularly leads lost, curious-looking strangers to the places they are trying to find.


Yes, definitely lime green highlights.

And I’ll be old enough that I can get away with fashionable flats.

Problem solved.


As a friendly old Japanese woman with lime green highlights I will eat soba noodles, ramen, and curry all of my days and drink tea from a kickin’ tea kettle given to me from my tea kettle shop owner friend and not miss rhubarb and apples so much because I wouldn’t know what I was missing. Maybe.

I will also be an active, spritely old woman who regularly runs through thickets of vermilion torii gates (I will never be able to run through them all because they don’t really end—they just continue on past Fushimi Inari shrine into the clouds) and bamboo groves and cool off from my run with thirteen of my favorite zen rocks. I will have to live in Kyoto.

I will divide my days between carving wooden ramen ladles and rice paddles (the ones that fit perfectly in your hand and make you want to sing) which I will sell in a pottery/chopstick store and gardening in one of the top three gardens in my prefecture. My specialty will be tree bending. I will do this with Tiny Tim Cratchet crutches. Tall ones. No tree will be safe. I will shape them all to my will. All of them.

I will be very happy with my life and think fondly on the days when I wasn’t a friendly old Japanese woman with lime green highlights. Indeed, I will have very strong memories of my first trip to Japan and then my return to Minnesota where the corn fields look like lush, overgrown rice paddies minus the paddy and the meadows turn gold and purple as the sun sets and give off a sweet smell that smells interestingly like tatami mats.

June: the first half

I was wondering how it could possibly be July already.  I mean, really?  July?  Inconceivable.

So I checked my calendar just to be sure, and it turns out that it is definitely July.  It is the beginning of my last new month in Japan.  After July, it is all old hat for another year.  What my calendar also reminded of was how obscenely busy June was.  Here's a not-so-brief recap of the first half of June.  Up next, Heather and Suzie Visit, SobetsuPROM, and How I Acquired a Kitten.

The first week of June I was visited by Amy and Mike.  Amy is a friend of mine from Warsaw, and Mike is a friend of hers from college.  They were spending a couple of weeks in Japan seeing the sights via friends' couches.  They stayed the 2nd and 3rd before heading back to Tokyo on Friday the 4th.

 on the most photographed street in Japan

Mike, Amy, me, and Loki eating ramen at Ippudo, an important stop on any Japan trip.

As they left for Tokyo, I packed a bag and headed in a different direction: the ALT Soccer Tournament in Nagano, a biannual event in which hundreds of foreigners descend upon the small mountain town of Sugadaira.

 You can't see the snow-capped peaks that surrounded us, but they were there, and it was awe-inspiring.

I had been to the last tournament in November as a spectator (and I brought all of our most creative Macalester cheers with me) because, well, let's face it.... I am not particularly athletically-inclined, nor do I particularly care. My friend Loki likes to make fun of me for flat out refusing to run unless it becomes absolutely necessary. What can I say? To thine own self be true.... I don't run.

See Karen run.  See Maggie stand.

Once upon a time, I did give soccer a go. It was the fall of 8th grade, and we had just moved to Poland. A new country, new friends, a new sport... it seemed like a great idea. In retrospect, I was a tall, uncoordinated Minnesotan girl trying to play soccer for the first time with a bunch of Europeans. I didn't make the team. Fair enough, Mr. Erni. I'm sure I looked an awful lot like a baby giraffe with inner ear problems learning to walk.

But that was then, and this was now, and here I was in a new country with new friends and a new resolution to do new stuff, and they were asking me to play and promising that no one would be cut and that everyone (with a few notable exceptions) would be beginners, and all the cool kids were going to join, and wouldn't you like to play soccer too?

So there I was, baby-giraffing it up and trying to remember why I had thought it was such a brilliant idea to play a sport that required not only that I run, but that I run while simultaneously trying to manipulate a round object in a direction of my choosing, (ummm, what? seriously?), when Stacy (organizer, MVP, and general team-holder-togetherer) came up and asked who wanted to fling themselves in front of hurtling soccer balls, to sacrifice life and limb, to be the last thing standing between the opposing team and our goal.

"Ummm, so, you basically don't have to run, right?"
"Pretty much."
"And you get to catch the ball with your hands instead of your feet?"
"Most of the time."
"Fabulous. I'm in."

And that was how I became the women's goalie for Ishikawa FC.

 Yes, I am defending the goal while wearing gardening gloves.

Turns out there is slightly more to being a goalie than standing around and neatly catching balls that are passed straight to you, but thanks to the patient coaching and question-answering of Stacy and a few of the guys, by the time the tournament rolled around I knew most of the rules and was looking somewhat less giraffe-esque.

We finished the tournament elated to be in third and got a tacky trophy (with a man on it... come on Title IV, where are you when I need you???) and a case of beer for our troubles. Despite the fact that Stacy (our golden ticket) and several other great players are leaving us, I am excited to go back next year and see what we can do.

Next year I will remember to put sunscreen on the backs of my knees. 

(These shots may have been taken during warm-up, but they still look pretty sweet, thanks Bill!)



(Unfortunately, the men's tournament is less a bunch of inexperienced and ragtag  ALT teams and more a league of semi-professional middle-aged men's teams that practice weekly or more... Our Ishikawa men, though greatly improved from November, took last.)

With only 4 days to recover, the next Friday was a joint birthday party/potluck/karaoke/sleepover extravaganza down in Komatsu. We ate, we drank, we sang, we did purikura (my first time! they are now decorating my phone, as they should), and Saturday afternoon we went further south to Kaga to play with some orphans.

 I was in the paper airplane making group, but my job description quickly morphed into "will hold hula hoop over head so that adorable small children can attempt to throw paper airplanes through it (re:at your face)". The orphanage is gorgeous and full of light. I don't know how the social stigma is or the reality of their everyday lives, but at the very least they have great facilities.

The kids were all so sweet. I got hugs from a couple as we were leaving. I wish we could have stayed longer.

*None of the photos in this post were taken by me.  Thank you Amy, Bill, and Caroline!

I have a cat?

I acquired a cat. Yesterday.  I have named her Picasso, and aside from a gross eye infection which the vet gave me medecine for, she is beyond cute.