Now that year-end holiday lights are on in town, I thought it wouldn't be too early to announce here one of My 10 Tiniest Yet Most Eye-Opening Findings of the Year 2005, which is... "Cooking dry-packed beans can vapor away the most stubborn stress." 
Okay, here's how it happened:
1. On a debilitating weekend in September, I was cooking dry-packed feijao preto beans. (instead of S&W cans, to make my first feijoada)
2. As some of the black beans started "dancing" in heating water, I immediately but carefully turned the heat low to simmer, when
3. I felt my face muscles sort of twitching. (Palsy or bug-bite?)
4. Not palsy. Not a bug-bite either. I was pouting and smirking into the pot, like a red-cheeked farmer taming little perky chicks in a barn. (Shhh...! Good, gooood.)
5. "No. Oh no. Finally I've come to that point. I mean, to bean-sit."
6. "But hey, see how my tight frowned uni-brow is going apart back into two brows at the same time? It must be that the bean-induced face-jerk reaction is not a sign of insanity, but a good sign of relieving stress! (Smirk)
And now I even wonder if "coddle your beans" has ever been/will be used as an idiom meaning relax.
写真のは Great northern beans といいます。
乾燥時の大きさは黒豆と同じくらい、けど
なんせ「グレート」なだけに
調理中「アメリカーン！」に膨らむのでは、となんだか不安。
でも結局、仕上がりサイズも黒豆どまりでした。
しかも 色ツヤも味も優しげで。
Ultimately, as far as I am concerned, learning a foreign language (English and Spanish. Si, estoy estudiando espanol!) might be all about re-appreciating my own language, Japanese.
That's what I think whenever I come across Japanese words that sound undeniably to-the-point, like Nidone.
Literally, Nidone (nee-doh-nE) means second (= nido) sleep (= ne). But don't you think how easy it is to picture this morning scene by just mumbling the word: you half-wake up to the sound of neighbors/roomies doing their I've-gotta-run stuff, i.e. microwaving, hair-blowing, door-banging... But you are in your own cocoon and you just growl, dully yet nealty pull together blankets, rolling back 210 degrees for another doze.
Well, at least it is for me. And maybe that's why I have Nidone so often, I mean, just because I want to say the six-letter word: Nidone shite (I had second sleep, so...)
No? Not a good excuse for always barely making it in time?
[ネビエちゃん]
あと、「ふて寝」「寝冷え」も
わかりやすい響きだと思います
（し、よくします）。
Saturday afternoon.
Lying flat, no contemplation.
Isn't it sort of dark for 4 p.m.?
Trying to listen to the misty rain.
I know, I've got to get up and do something more productive, but let me just enjoy this ceiling-gazing for a moment...
One more minute, one more minute, and one more of that.
もう少し、もう少しだけ を もう少しだけ
Okay, I know nothing about acting. So if I praised an actor for his performance, he might feel humiliated rather than be flattered, like, let's say, a high-school celeb girl (maybe this analogy is humiliating too, though), when she makes a grand late entrance into a lab to show off her new bohemian-like knitted stockings, to find her plain auntie teacher wearing exactly the same. So please be generous, Sam Rockwell, when I say I think you're a very talented, versatile actor.
For example, I just fall for Rockwell when he, as a puppy-eyed sensitive genius in Charlie's Angels softly kisses Barrymore, walks away, then stretches himself "grrrr" to soul music... and snap! reveals who he really is: half-psychedelic, half-sexy enemy plotting to kill her boss.
Yes, I'd definitely shake-n-bake for you, Sam!この人好きー！と言いまわりたい、でも知名度はソコソコでとどまってほしい。（＝「誰やったっけ・・・？ いつもいい味だしてるねんけど」くらい）
Had my hair chopped off this past weekend - almost 10 inches - and now I feel so cute!
One problem, if any, is that the James Brown song keeps playing on and on and I cannot get it off my mind: I feel good, lah-di la-di la-di da...というわけで 今秋のテーマは「雰囲気のあるショートヘアの女性」ってそんな歌口ずさんでたら駄目ですよね・・・
