Thank you for the amazing night, you guys!

Just got home from a really nice night of sushi with a group of friends.  I haven't had so much sushi at once in a long time, and I am actually physically uncomfortable right now.  I even managed to coax two cups of Chinese saké down my throat and, an hour and more later, I'm still burping the terrible stuff.

Anyway, enough moaning.  I had a really good time and for once got to sit in on some nice and naughty conversation that made me think, "I should be blushing at this."  IT WAS SO COOL!!

So, I'm working on a secret project.  Only two people know the details.

Check out this instrument:  it's called a sanshin, and is both precursor and cousin to the traditional Japanese shamisen.  It was based way back then on the Chinese sanxian (notice how they all the sound the same, or similar, when you say their names?) and developed in Okinawa before it spread to the rest of Japan and became the shamisen.  If memory serves it's because of the amount of trade happening between China and Okinawa at that stage, but hey, Wikipedia would know more specifically.

This version is the traditional python skin version...

... while these two images are of 'kankara sanshin', or tin-can sanshin, made

during and just after WW2.

It really sounded like an ugly little instrument when I first heard it, until I watch a little 8-minute documentary of it on Youtube and listened to a master play a kankara.  Wow, what a sound!  I suppose it once again just goes to show the difference between amateurs and maestros.

All things bright and Cape Towny...

Last night I finally managed to get myself a nice quartz point that I plan on using to tip a wand.

This isn't it, but it looks almost exactly the same.

I have been very lax when it comes to this blog, and I actually feel very bad about it, but it's almost as if I only want to write something when I feel down or depressed.  Why is that?  What is it about writing that makes it so much easier for us to share how we feel than actually saying the words?

Anyway, nonsense in my head.  I'll come back to this at some other point.

The wand I'm planning will have a hollow core and something inside it.  I'm still trying to figure out the "how" and the "what" of it, but this is the idea.  I don't want a normal type of wand, a piece of stick with some coloured ribbon wrapped around it and a stone glued to the end.  No, this one will have the stone SET INTO the wood, and some wrapping, and a hollow core with something inside.  and I'm going to carry it around with me, so in length the wand isn't going to be so long.

Phew!  Take a deep breath!

I noticed when I got home last night that my crystal has a rainbow or two inside it.  That is so wicked!  Rainbows are good luck, aren't they?

I also have a new set of tarot babies - the long-sought after Hanson-Roberts Tarot!  I've been looking for this deck for a few years now, and here my friend the Tarot Mama brings me a deck at the last meeting!  I was so thrilled.  They live in my bag now with the Primary Deck and the Gypsy cards.  Tarot bliss much...?