Old Houses

For those of you who were involved in English Camp. I updated all my Camp photos onto flickr. The Camp blog is coming, I promise, but Super Tuesday has left me tired, so all I have the energy for is this post.

It was raining on Sunday. So I went for a walk. I began taking photos of an older house, sitting hushed behind a mikan tree and well-sculpted bushes.

An older woman, tall enough to barely reach my upper thigh, with one narrow tooth hanging from the right side of her smiling mouth, came toward me and asked me what I was doing.
We had the usual conversation in Japanese...
I told her that I thought her house was beautiful, and that we have different looking houses in America. (In Japanese it sounded like, "America. House. Different. Japan.")
I told her that I love rain, she seemed to as well, and I teach at Gotsu High School. We talked about a few other things and she limited the conversation to topics that she assumed I could understand. Bless her for that.
She was very patient, forgiving, attentive, and invited me in for tea. I found out that the house is over 100 years old. She showed me the wall that borders her garden. I, tactlessly, took a photo of what the rain had done to it.

Just thought I'd share with you one of many reasons why it was difficult to make the decision I made below: