And Speaking of SHOCK...

...or surprise, at any rate...



This is a nice, spooky, nighttime snap of the tangled web community which has sprouted in my backyard. The pale-colored blob you can see in the very center is a female kogane-gumo (related to the black and yellow garden spider of North America and the St. Andrew's Cross spider of Australia) with a body almost the size of my thumb. Her web is surrounded and crossed by at least three other webs woven by males, which are much smaller. I guess you could refer to this as "web dating". (ba-dum BUM). I have to duck under it to get to the raw garbage bin out back or to the storage shed (the building you see in the background). When I first learned of the existence of this web community...by walking right into it (at night, to boot), it was a bit of a shock.

Actually, there have been a number of surprises lately, both good and bad:

The annual Fureai Land poster contest has just been held again. Basically all the kids of all the elementary and junior high schools in our city and several neighboring ones participate. The object is to make a poster dedicated to the Fureai Land Park here in Namegata City. (The park includes some playground equipment, a water park with water slides, a pool, and water guns, a water science museum, a pedal boat dock and sightseeing docks along Lake Kasumigaura, and the famous lookout tower.) Each school then chooses a number of representative works to send to the main contest.



This was my son's contribution. No, it's not the most skilled work of art; my son took a lot of chiding from his mother while he was working on it since he pretty much can't draw to save his life. But it was kind of an interesting idea, being based on the Fureai Land's annual fireworks display. I think the fact that my son used mixed media (his idea), something that was very unusual, got the judges' attention. That little gold rectangle on the lower left corner is an award. Specifically, it is an "academy award" bestowed by a non-profit group that cares for Lake Kasumigaura. Few if any other works from the schools in our area got anything, so it was a pleasant surprise. (In my wife's case, demanding as she is, it was almost cause to faint.)



Here's the proud, little guy. He was pretty blown away by it, too.



This was his older sister's contribution. It's certainly colorful, but... She spent a LOT of time on it, but she didn't get anything (except for being chosen as a representative of her school, which I guess is something). She wasn't very happy.



Here's a shot of my son from the Water Science Museum looking toward the tower that was the centerpiece of his poster. Yes, he was happy...ya think?

This was the most pleasant surprise of the past couple of weeks. I'm not so sure about these, however:

• Pouring a nice, ice-cold, expensive, premium beer into my favorite, artistically-sculpted beer glass...and having it suddenly shatter, sending the beer (and glass) all over the floor.
• Having someone from Kashima City Hall call me at Ye Olde Academy and say, "We have a festival coming up on [date] with a live music event. We're unable to fill one half-hour slot starting at 11:30. Can you have your school jazz band perform then?" I replied, "We're committed in the morning on that day, but we could..." "Okay, bye!" interrupted the voice on the other end followed by an abrupt click. (Gee...are we the local space filler?)
• Having my father-in-law suddenly tell me and my wife that he wants us to make a name and address list for the people he knows that attended my mother-in-law's funeral...all 690+ of them. (He already has a very good mailing list program on his computer, one intended for New Year cards, that I have already shown him how to use three times now using his notes from his computer class! He still insists that he can't do it because he doesn't know how and is too busy [drinking tea] to figure it out.)
• Double-checking the schedule and seeing that I have plenty of time to return my students' exams and double-check the grading with them...only to find out that there was a change, and I was supposed to have had everything finalized the day before.
• Suddenly being told that the Kashima Philharmonic (aka "the Titanic, post-iceberg") expects me to store and handle the big mass of promotional fliers and posters for our next concert.
• Watching the more serious and dedicated members of the Kashima Philharmonic (cue "My Heart Will Go On") suddenly start getting fed up and jumping overboard one by one only about a month and a half before the next concert.
• Watching oil prices double and then almost halve again...while gasoline prices go up 50% and then come down only about 20%.
• Watching what almost seemed like the end of the world as we know it (cue R.E.M.) only to see it start bouncing back again...we hope.

Of course, not all the surprises have been sources of stress. The Roland MIDI controller my wife gave me for my anniversary is a nice, fun toy and a very useful tool to use at work!

(A bit different from what I gave her, but oh well.)