today began well. i woke up early, and kind of flowed into my activities. cleaned up a bit, and then was drawn into gardening, and its interminable chores. i weeded some of the front sections, planted the last of the portulacas, raked and cleared the next 10 feet or so of the planter box beside the house, and did a LOT of pruning, particularly on the umbrella tree in the rear corner of the house. willow popped her head over the rim of the second floor window and called out, "i love you daddy!" about then, i stopped the gardening and went in. washed up a bit, and lynn made a great, simple breakfast of two eggs sunny side up + rice + spam + hot cocoa. i laid down after that, reading a bit of john loupos's book on taijiquan (as i am thinking of creating a formal curriculum on taijiquan for my niece and nephew). then, somehow, i got drawn into cleaning out the pantry closet: consolidating, throwing stuff out, stacking cans and boxes...

at about 12:30, willow, aiden and i headed out to taiko practice. we have a performance coming up this friday. we have a small group performing (us included), and that means that some of us (me) have to step it up a bit and play songs that we're not really familiar with. in particular, i've got to work on kansha and the taiko aerobics moves. hope i can do a decent job by this friday, but, if not, it's all in the spirit of fun.

returned home. kathy, marcus and kara stopped by, and we played for a bit with some water balloon grenades that i filled up. then, we (willow, aiden, lynn and i) headed to a party for lynn's friend kat. it was at the nichiren temple in nuuanu valley, a really pretty temple with a small fish pond with live koi in it, and a pretty large downstairs meeting room with a stage and a slightly off tune piano. as always, i kinda got drawn away from the "adults" and "peers" having their conversations, and instead watched the kids. at one point, kat's daughter meadow pulled me by the hand to the stage, where she insisted alternately that i sing at the mike or play at the piano. between hackneyed versions of twinkle twinkle little star, i tried my hand at "true love waits" and "spinning plates." somehow, the piano sounded off.

we just returned home, with aiden passed out and willow fighting sleep (she's still awake, flipping pages of some book in bed). an altogether nice day.