Halloween night: A haiku

It’s Halloween! And, because the duck and I don’t really have any proper Halloween traditions and we’re way too lazy to come up with any new ones this year, we decided to make use of another tradition we have on here: fauxetry in the shape of mediocre haiku that look like inspirational quotes. Here’s one to mark the occasion:
Since the duck and my Halloween will be virtual this year, same as our Walpurgis Night, the duck decided to don the Walpurgis duck costume and hide in the photo I used as the backdrop for our latest fauxetic endeavor. I can’t believe it’s already been three years since we saw the Louisville Jack O’Lantern Spectacular. Let’s hope it won’t be another three until our next Halloween-related outing!

Walpurgis duck and I want to wish you a spooky Halloween and a great week!

When the duck is sleeping: A haiku

Dreaming of cookies
Happily dancing in space
On a rainbow cloud.

I’ve drawn several pictures of the duck and cookies in the years that we’ve known each other, but there was never one that adequately depicted what the duck’s dreams are made of. There still isn’t. But this picture has come the closest so far. It had been years since I used my (too) cheap watercolors and watercolor paper, so I had forgotten how bad they are. On top of that, I forgot everything that I had resolved to pay attention to for a less blotchy result. To diminish the chances of completely ruining this picture, I decided to use watercolor pencils for the small details. It’s far from what I imagined, but I don’t mind it (enough to redo it) – that’s the mindset you need for successful laziness! The haiku is descriptive enough, anyway.
I was inspired by Ricky Baker from the film Hunt for the Wilderpeople that I wrote about two weeks ago. So far, whenever the duck and I were in haiku composition mode, we tried to adhere to the form as much as we (as fauxets) were able to in English. Ricky’s haiku, however, merely follow the 5-7-5 pattern and, instead of describing seasons or sensations, they are about his current situation or feelings. We liked that. So we did that, too.

About a pen

I’m still not sure why I decided to dedicate a whole blog post to pens, apart from the fact that I just received a box full of them and thought that that would be too weird a photo not to put on here. As you can see, the duck agreed!

Let me give you a little backstory: I’ve always been specific about pens (as I suspect many people are); the duck and I usually carry at least two pens with us when we’re out and about in case we just need to write something down – immediately! In the past I had a few pens that I liked, but most of them were promotional ones that I couldn’t just replenish easily once I discovered that I wanted more. The situation is a bit different with my current favorite pens, though. They’re the regular round BIC kind that you can buy in multi-packs at pretty much any store that has a stationery section… in America. I used to use up black pens much faster than blue ones which is why I didn’t really think of stocking up on my blue pens the last time I had the chance. But things changed: The duck and I somehow got back into studying. And because I’m peculiar about pens I just need to write study notes, that the duck enjoys highlighting, in blue (black is my color for jotting down creative ideas). When I was down to my second to last blue pen (our beloved 100 yen shop highlighters are dying on us, too) I knew that I had to do something. I checked the Internet just to discover that it seemed to be impossible to find a 10-pack of the exact same blue medium point pens that I love to use. I found black or fine point, but that wasn’t what I wanted. So, I decided to order the next best thing: a box of 60, so that the duck and I could be lifelong learners! It took our pens several weeks to arrive from America, but once they did we were ridiculously happy. I was so happy, in fact, that I wrote a poem:

A steady chocolate float ride…

This is the second time I repeat the terribly cheesy sentence that I used way back to describe my experience trying sakura flavored matcha KitKat for the first time. See, others would be ashamed of their corny attempts at fauxetry in describing the simple act of biting a chunk off a chocolate bar. Not us! The duck and I own up to all the weirdness we produce. In fact, we own up to it so much that we decided to adorn one of our leftover candle holders with exactly that: ‘a steady chocolate float ride through a peaceful matcha stream in the middle of (the week-long) cherry blossom season’, in a new installation of our bedroom beautification broject. The duck couldn’t wait for our art project to start. And, to be honest, I couldn’t, either. Being stuck inside and not being able to observe the change of seasons the way we excitedly did in Japan, the duck and I are trying to do what we can to remind ourselves of what the outside world is like (literally! As you can see by the chosen candle holder decoration theme):

Two springs past: A haiku

The duck and I have written about our love-hate relationship with spring about a hundred times. Now that we are asked to stay inside we feel our love grow stronger every day, probably because social distancing also includes distancing ourselves from some of the pollen that aggressively swarm around the neighborhood wondering where their former victims have gone… while the duck and I sit at our computer reminiscing about all the sakura we got to see in Tokyo two years ago, when the world was still a little bit less crazy and our main worry was having to interrupt our excursions from time to time to treat our stinging eyes with yet the coolest (literally!) eye drops we’ve ever used. Looking through our collection of photos from a happier spring makes the duck and me feel somewhat nostalgic and weirdly poetic. Today we have finally decided to give in to that poetic itch, took a photo from our  pollen plagued hike up Mount Takao two years ago (here’s a link to that post and video) and let it inspire us to write yet another haiku within a cheesy inspirational quote format like we did last December.
Now let me share with you the duck and my newest piece of fauxetry:

With this one we tried to add an air of acceptance to those pesky allergies that come with the beauty of spring. I hope that comes across. If not, now you know our intentions, hahaha!
Do you have a favorite season? Please tell us about it (wow, this looks like an elementary school essay prompt. But I’m going with it).

In other news:

Plastic loyalty

It is winter, the season that allows the duck and me to stay in without feeling guilty. The only outside activity that we do enjoy despite the cold temperatures (fortunately there hasn’t been any snow yet as the shoes from the duck and my totally unsuspicious trip to Hikarigaoka two years ago have finally become leaky) is going grocery shopping: When I put on my newly holey shoes, don my 108 yen winter hat and grab my tote bags I’m already in a wonderful mood for food despite the prospect of having to go outside. Add a nice podcast to the mix (Reply All is my current favorite walking to the shops podcast while I’m waiting for the new season of Flash Forward) and there’s not much that can make my day any better, apart from a lack of rain and the opportunity to use a loyalty card or app for some nice little bonus points or discounts while I’m buying my chocolaty essentials. Since my phone is counting down the days until it can retire, the duck and I much prefer physical cards; there’s just something magical about scanning stuff (I have enjoyed working at a cash register way too much in the past! I think video games may have conditioned me to feel happy whenever I hear a ‘beep’ of success).

Look! The duck has found a few physical cards to pose with! In order to share with you just how much we love loyalty programs (there aren’t many airlines we haven’t joined the loyalty program of – I suppose we’re playing their game wrong), the duck and I decided to, once again, compose a beautiful piece of fauxetry (also because we so regret not having signed up for any loyalty programs in Japan because our Japanese skills were, and still are, horrendous). This time we decided to go with a free verse poem since we’re finally embracing our laziness this year and can’t be bothered with too many rules:

Day 21: Christmas market daydreams

The duck tends to daydream a lot. And I get it. Even though you’re at home or at school or at work at your desk you can explore exciting places without having to deal with the cold outside. The duck’s favorite spot to daydream these days is the little Christmas arrangement by the kitchen table (it’s festive, it’s close to the oven, it’s warm, it’s a bit prickly, but it smells amazing).

Usually, the duck dreams of cookies, cyclists, Osakan food, or of living life as a bird. Recently, however, the duck’s daydreams seem to be dominated by the sensations of strolling around the Christmas market:

Day 9: A haiku

When the duck and I went to the Christmas market to take photos the other day we had a great time! But with my frozen hands wrapped around the camera, holding on for dear life, and the duck’s regular aversion to the cold, despite all the pretty sights, we found ourselves drifting off, escaping into a warm and cozy daydream… of being at home, you know, the home we know from Christmas cards, with a warm fire crackling underneath an excessively decorated mantle, Christmas lights adorning each window, beautifully wrapped presents scattered all over the wooden floor…Isn’t that a lovely image? We thought that juxtaposing it with a photo we took during our coooooold Christmas market excursion would give our haiku a stronger effect.

What do you think (of our most recent piece of fauxetry)? What does your perfect daydream location look like? Did you ever take a nap underneath an ornately decorated Christmas tree?

Now, please excuse us as we put on our top hat and overcoat and float out into the snow-covered fir tree forest to continue our search for the famously fabled and supposably satisfyingly sweet giant ginger gam!

Tata!

A beautiful desk light

Do you remember our old pal Cutie-pie? He was and will forever be #1 in our bedroom beautification bproject (and in our hearts) even though he is a rather old fella now. But, in order for him to truly be a #1, there has to be at least a #2 (and I don’t mean the kind you flush down the toilet. Don’t ask me why I went there. The duck and I have had a lot of work and not enough lazing around time to filter our thoughts). This is why we decided to expand the bedroom beautification to our desk lamp, using a pretty floral leftover from our days in Japan, the land of the 100-yen-shops, and the good old internet for some cloudy inspiration.

So, armed with incredibly sharp crafting paper, some super strong string, immensely powerful sticky tape and our trusty crafting scissors, we started to do what we always do when we are bored and have some paper lying around (you don’t even want to know how much fun we had the couple of times we had jobs involving a cash register, i. e. an endless paper machine) – we folded a paper crane:

An Ode to 100 Yen Shops

It’s no secret that the duck and I live our lives as perpetually penny-pinching personalities to the fullest. Therefore it is self-evident that we enjoy the casual shop at a 100 yen shop (well, ¥108 if you add the sales tax) – if we ever muster the courage to venture beyond our comfort zone (=past the neighborhood Konbini), that is.

The first time we entered such a palace of low-priced magic (which, and I think we can all agree on that, is the best kind of magic) the duck and I were impressed by the great selection of items (I’m writing food, decoration, toiletries, stationery, craft material, clothing items, cleaning products, toys, souvenirs, gardening tools, pet supplies, common household items, electronic goods, kitchenware, etc.) and the relatively good quality of most of them (which, let’s face it, you don’t always find at a Dollar Tree or Poundland). This is why we devote our second piece of fauxetry to Japan’s glorious hyaku-en-shoppus: