House of cards

Finally! In my free time and there wasn't that much of it but there was enough to keep me away from my computer in a personal capacity and away from my precious blog, sorry!
I did have the time to finish my book 1Q84.
Thank you very much Mr Murakami. Despite some awful reviews from the usual sheep that would critique his works, I would like to say that I enjoyed his book immensely. I am not interested to delve in there and find something to complain about or try to unravel. I simply want to enjoy a good tale and this was one such tale. There is no such thing as perfection and anyone can look at something and find a point at which to disagree and find fault. Upon completion I found in a mental review that there were several points that I'd love to discuss with the author over a nice glass of something strong and drink it with him in a nice cool relaxed atmosphere but overall he gave me a lot of enjoyment and his very entertaining work kept me turning the pages. I was immersed into the story and if someone can say that then it must also say that they found his epic both captivating and enthralling.

What we call the present is given shape by an accumulation of the past. All the days of my life led up to today and today is without a doubt a very ordinary day.
What is an ordinary day I wonder?
I sincerely hoped it would be a good one although in truth I had no expectations of it being so other than it would probably contain a few of my usual routines such as getting breakfast ready for the Angels as they prepare for school and later I'd be making dinner for our family evening meal. I knew also that I had another looming deadline and my first submission of my last piece came back with a small rewrite request, well actually a rather blunt and frustrated demand that had me cowering in the corner!
So I was sat at the computer typing away as soon as the angels left for school! No time for tea or time for me, I just typed until my fingers became fairly well numb. I'll have to desensitize them again!
Like a caterpillar which eats up the leaves, a writer must write, write and write almost constantly to improve herself!
By noon I was done and after mailing my assignment I decided that I'd go out for coffee and enjoy a light lunch when suddenly and almost on my point of departure, Hitomi phoned. After asking after me and what I was doing or what I'd done she smiled (over the phone) and she was really glad that I wasn't busy right then because she asked if I could go pick up a package in Ichikawa, Chiba.
"Why do I need to go all the way out there?" I asked her.
"Because I've been trying everywhere to find a couple of packs of those over-sized magicians playing cards. I finally found a store that had just what I wanted and I have already paid for them over the phone, please go and collect them for me and please call me when you get home, love you, kiss kiss, must rush..."
Dial tone! The phone goes dead and I just stood looking at it accusingly as if it were to blame. How can I refuse I thought to myself and I just shrugged my shoulders and put back the receiver.

Lunch time on the roads in my city is awful. Wait! At any time when the sun is in the sky the roads are awfully burdened with traffic and at times they seem almost to the point of bursting at the edges. I took expressway three east which is an elevated roadway running above Roppongi street. This road was actually mentioned in the book 1Q84 that I've just been reading and funnily enough so was Ichikawa where I was heading towards.
How strange and how coincidental it all seems at this time after having just finished the novel.
'Well perhaps not!' Anyone living in the same city where a story in a book takes place may find that they are familiar with the territory described within the pages of the novel. I had never been to Ichikawa before and even if we never know what tomorrow brings, I don't envision going again because we have no business or friends over there and it is quite far from home.

The expressway number three runs from Tanimachi Junction near Tokyo city center, where it is also actually called the 'inner ring route' and it runs all the way down through Shibuya and on past the turn off for our restaurant and my home and it then continues on all the way down to Yoga train station in Setagaya. The road actually continues much further on past there but it is then called the Tomei expressway. As I drove from Shibuya eastwards towards Tanimachi, I became a little excited as I approached each emergency telephone pull in that I passed, imagining that I could be discovering the one in the story and the one that could have been the point in the story which was so significant and pivotal for the opening of book one, the end of book two and the finale of book three. Unfortunately none of them appeared to have had an engineering maintenance ladder behind it leading down to the ground level below and even if it did, it would be leading down to a busy road below, running in parallel to the expressway and not some quiet sectioned off suburban road with a road maintenance storage facility enclosed by a metal paneled fence.
Oh well! Fiction has license to twist the truth any way it likes but I still felt cheated in a small way because I couldn't locate it.
It may have been the other way heading south-west but a lot of that road has been renewed since 1984 and there were no advertising billboards asking us to "put a tiger in your tank" as there were in the novel.

Once I reached Tanimachi I had to navigate across a very busy Ginza and some exciting looking sales in the stores there to reach expressway six and then follow that up to the expressway number seven junction and then follow seven all the way out to Togaki. From the Togaki turn off it's a short drive up into Ichikawa. It is hardly mentioned in the book in any descriptive way and so I had no idea what to expect when I arrived, artistic license still in mind.
What I did find was a small open and almost rural town nestling on the outskirts of the city with a mix of brand new built houses intermingled with a few dilapidated old buildings some of which bore a notice of imminent demolition posted outside them along with images and artistic renditions of what the new structures will look like once built to take their places.
I had to park and walk around several times before I found the little store in a not too busy district center. Once there the very pleasant storekeeper handed me a package and I took it home and yes I looked at the several emergency telephone stops that I passed on expressway three on the route home too.

Once home I opened the package, took out the card packs and telephoned Hitomi and she told me that she wanted me to connect all the over-sized playing cards together in line with an alternate black, red, black, red...
She asked me to use the stationary binding rings from the desk cupboard and so that is exactly what I did.
Hole punch and bind!
What's it for?
Hitomi is redecorating at the studio and needs an 'Alice in wonderland' set.
Oh she's my Queen of Hearts and so I love to help her all I can.
And yes, I'm her Joker but don't tell Batman.

In other news, Yuka's sister, Misakichan, is coming for her very first Photo session at the studios. Hitomi thinks it will be a good idea to dress her like Hatsune Miku (see image). Hatsune is a cartoon in real life but she is a big hit on stage despite being a mere projection and a synthesized, sampled sound.