Make it wild!

It felt good sitting on the train coming home again. I was relaxed and not too disappointed and Hitomi of course made me smile. My initial reason for traveling to Kobe was to see about the possibility of a change of career once my current contract ends on October 31. Two weeks ago I traveled down to see Miss Hayashi in Tokushima, a contact given me through Hitomi's agency. After that meeting had proved quite successful she had invited me to her office in Kobe for a second interview and assessment. All I can say at this point is that I don't feel that it proceeded well but it was kind of her to see me and give me some of her time. I think more than anything else I have begun to understand a little more about myself and perhaps the levels of my own commitment regarding such an uncertain future. I feel a little puzzled like I am unable to proceed until I have more information. I am flooded with doubts and I perplexedly and questionably appear to stand alone surrounded by an ambivalent bewilderment quite possibly of my own devising!

After my meeting and still feeling a penchant towards all things French, we tried to get seats in 'Patous' a rather nice looking but full French restaurant for our lunch. However it was fully booked and we were apologetically refused entry by a quiet voice and the well practiced sad looking face of the floor manager. Heading back up the hill towards the train station and passing Jamaican and Turkish restaurants, neither of which really appealed to us, we chanced upon "Kondotei", a café rather than a restaurant which proudly displayed the sign declaring that they served 'French cuisine.' Full of anticipation we entered and sat. It was clean and simple and I felt quite comfortable at once with such a polite service that appeared more genuine than other places I have visited. We had the tomato and mozzarella salad followed by Filet Mignon aux Oignons avec Gratin Dauphinois, which is, once you take the French away, pork and onions with large baked potatoes, topped with a little crème and Swiss cheese. It was wonderfully delicious and the dark aromatic coffee that came afterwards was served with some little dark chocolate truffles that melted across our tongues. We had no room in our tummies left for desert. If you didn't look out of the window you would have been certain you were somewhere in Paris. I would recommend this establishment to any of my friends who are visiting Kobe.

Outside the train station we saw a photographer taking pictures of what appeared to be some young model. Of course not many would stop and watch because everyone naturally concentrates on their own business but we were quite early for the train home and stood to watch. I elbowed Hitomi to take notes! The young girl looked rather new to modeling, her loud photographer was constantly calling out direction. Finally he put his camera down quite aggressively and shouted "Give me a wild look!" and he really tried to show her on his own rather bland visage what he wanted, he gave her 'wild'. He looked more like a Neanderthal man imitating the mating call of the Siberian Mammoth and the sight of him had Hitomi and I laughing quite loudly. He turned and looked at us and we just bowed sorry and turned to enter the station.
The train was very crowded and Hitomi and I kept saying "Give me a wild look!" to each other and we'd make silly faces all the way home.

	Pixie Lott - Here We Go Again
	Shake it with Jazz

I knew it would happen!
I received three emails from people asking me why I had blocked them from my blog. Luckily they knew my mail address, I have no idea about any of the other regulars that don't know it!
One of these three even had the thought that since they read my blog often and I knew that they did, they would not have to ask me for a pass because it would simply be given!
Sorry, I needed and asked for Google accounts to be put on the allowed list! No exceptions!

I also received the oddest of emails from some guy in India who insisted that my sister April and I were somehow connected along with his Uncle of installing camera's in his room to spy on him!
I normally wouldn't mention something at bizarre as this except he mentioned people that I know.
You meet the strangest of people on the Internet!

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Lucky Hitomi has a week in Thailand next week as part of her job assignment. She's an international jet-setter! 'I hope she makes it wild!'
Meanwhile dear Jazz who missed out on visiting both the autumn 'Tokyo girl's collection' and the 'Kobe collection', has been given the 'rooms 19' assignment which is a three day trade show and starts this Wednesday. I should not complain about what I do and do not cover - it's nice for others to have the chance.
Still - I have the strangest feeling that work is winding down as the end closes in.

I was watching a program on TV and the best guesses of scientific theory is that the change in our climate will cause a rise of one or possibly two meters by the year 2100. It doesn't sound a great deal and from way up there in orbit it doesn't look like a great deal either. When we zoom into parts of the coast-lines that we are familiar with then we may worry a little more. Looking at this map, we see places that we know disappear under the waves. Places like Niigata, Hiroshima, Guangzhou, Ho Chi Min City, Bangladesh, the Netherlands, Charleston and New Orleans. Because these effects are slow as we try to observe them we tend to dismiss them. Sadly it seems that we need a flash flood to convince us of it being a disaster. If it’s a slow rise flood then we don't notice it until it breeches our defenses and floods our roads. The weather will get worse and it is we ourselves living the way we do that is probably contributing to this change. We consume energy greedily and we do not make provision for the needs of the future. Even with the best predictive models about anything, we tend not to believe it until it hits us. We assume tomorrow will be more or less like today and next week like last week and with all of our assumed consistency across our days and weeks, each year our prayer is that the new year will be better for us and our loved ones. 'Better than the one before' implies a desire for change because for most the passage of time has become routine and 'humdrum!". We don't seem to be good at large scale preventative medicine if the malady we envision is at best only theoretical.