Guilty pleasures

The guilty pleasure I'm indulging in this Sunday is most definitely sloth. And I feel guilty as hell about it. Even as I try to enjoy not leaving the house and lounging in jeans, flip flops and my favorite bright green cashmere cardigan, I feel regular waves of guilt.

The weekends have become a little to precious. They're this holy space, whose every drop should be used to the fullest. "What if I knit most of the day, but don't really enjoy it," I wonder. "Will I have wasted my weekend?" "Shouldn't I have been outside pulling up our unsightly shrubs, or, worse/better, pruning the rose bushes?"

I'm coming along quite nicely on my second sock pal sock, so I should be able to finish up just in time to get it to the post office by 4:45 p.m. on Tuesday. I suppose that isn't very slothful.

But then, again, what about the rose bushes?

As for the picture, I wanted to post one more Japan food photo. I read about omusubi (hand-pressed rice) in "Washoku Kitchen" today, and the author, Elizabeth Andoh, relates her first experience with Japanese food: Omusubi at a train station filled with pickled plum. Me, too!

We have mere minutes before catching the train from Tokyo to Kyoto on our first day in country and Dave ran in to one of the many shops at the train station, grabbing a couple of foreign objects he hoped would be edible (and some lovely green tea to wash it down, of course). One of the treats, the triangle thing, happened to be rice pressed around a tangy, tart umeboshi. The whole thing was wrapped in nori. As we shared it, we knew we were going to fall in love with (most) of the food we'd be eating.