Miho's favorites

photo credit: stock pinks via photopin (license)   Having social face is considered as very important to have good friendships/ relationships in our social life. Depending on the country, there may be different habits though, in Japan, it's believed that saving face is required to have good social life depending on the situation.   Especially in the places which are related to business or work which belong with the customer service industries, social face is everywhere.   In the private life, I sometimes heard from people saying they are having problems from showing social face.  Example 1.  According to the person "A" , she (A) was just being nice to her friend and her friend's husband and complimented her husband's looks a lot and etc.., as social face, but her friend took it as serious and thought she is interested in and crazy about her husband.  Now the person is very frustrated because her friend didn't u

Have you ever bitten your cheek or tongue while having a meal accidentally ? I sometimes did it and it's usually when I was thinking something else while eating foods. It's painful and it usually continues about a week to be fully recovered.   Last Friday, my husband accidentally bit his cheek quite hard while eating his lunch at work. He said usually after 2 to 3 days, from his experience, the pain gets worse , then it heals. and he didn't say anything about it to me until Sunday afternoon, when the symptoms got worse and I didn't know about it . He looked fine until Sunday afternoon. I was giving him a massage in the afternoon and soon he fell a sleep. He said after he woke up from the nap,  he was getting pain from the cheek. and I noticed that his cheek was getting swollen, as if there was a ball in the side of the lower cheek.  and his face and his body had high fever.  I've never seen and heard that one's face could get so swollen from biting one

Last night I was reading recent news which was about a well-known Japanese  cartoon writer and his roller-coaster life . The cartoon writer, who we will call 　 "Y" , 　got huge success with his cartoon in the 1970s when he was 20 years old and his cartoon series was shown on TV every week. Y got married when he was 23 years old, after he became successful , and had two children and bought a house and also a condo for his office in Tokyo, Japan. He was earning about 40 to 50 million yen /year from the series of the cartoon for about 6 years. He also started to make other cartoon series, but for some reason, Y started feeling pressure to draw and write and get ideas for cartoons and he was unable to get another hit from his other cartoons, after his only cartoon which got big hit series had completed. From the stress, he started escaping from his work of cartoon drawing /writing,　and he got addiction for gambling and went to night clubs every night. and he s

One of our plants, a Pakira was growing too much and it grew too high almost went to the ceiling, so we cut several stems. and planted them with organic starter mix earth in a container last month. After one month past,  buds appeared from the stems and babies started growing every day !!! When I was an elementary school student, there was a subject on how to do planting, but since then I have never done it.   It's inspiring, and so happy to see it's growing every day. It's Arizona here, so soon it gets dry, so I am giving them water every morning. and I've heard Plants love the music of Mozart .  So I often played Mozart's music.  and also Liszt, Chopin and Tchaikovski . Also many dancing music as well. I feel many of Mozart's music has healing power. In the past, my husband was not listening to Mozart's music, however when he came back from the hospital 2 days after the surgery, his body was still sensitive from it.  At th

There are so many great pianists in the world. However when it comes to Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.2, which is one of my favorite Piano compositions, it was difficult to find a pianist who can play it in a way which filled my satisfaction.   and I've been looking for a great pianist for that piece.  My husband and my taste are often the same so he was also looking for it.  and finally, finally we found a very gifted pianist !  Her name is Tiffany Poon .  She is definitely a genius pianist.      Tiffany Poon - Hungarian Rhapsody No.2     Very expressive and unbelievable talent.  We both feel so great to listen to this performance.  Her performance is very dynamic, with many ups and downs, flowing with emotion based on the music story.  Maybe her way of performance matches with our image of this composition's story ? and matches with our taste ?  And when we watched all her other performances, they are all fantastic, ex

Today I would like to talk about my favorite hot disco music since 1970s - 1980s. ( mainly late 1970s to early 1980s )   There are more of my favorites, such as     Abba's "Lay all your love on me" , "Gimme Gimme Gimme " , " Summer night city " and "Himiko " by Passionata ,    these four are my all time favorite disco songs and I already wrote about them in my past post.     ( http://miho-entwistle.blogspot.com/2013/09/tribute-to-abba-and-to-olivia-newton.html  ) So in this post, I'm listing only music that I didn't list before.  These are all my favorites & unforgettable disco songs.  Arabesque    I love many of their songs in that generation and my favorites are  * Midnight dancer  * In for a Penny, in for a Pound  * Friday Night  * Fly High Little Butterfly  * Rock Me After Midnight  * Peppermint Jack  Their songs were extremely popular in Japan and in late 1970s to early 1980s,

I made French cinnamon toast and also hot apples for brunch last weekend. I'm not usually crazy to eat sweets for breakfast or brunch but this French toast is special. So yummy !!! I feel like I want to eat it every weekend. I have made French toast only once when I was still single. I remember it was very delicious, but since then, I don't know why but I forgot about it. This may be one of my favorite sweets. My husband also loves it so much.    How to make French cinnamon toast and hot apples ? It's super easy ! French Cinnamon toast Ingredients * 4 sliced breads ( I used French bread baguette ) * Egg   - 1 * Organic brown sugar  - 30g * Milk  - 80 cc * Cinnamon * Sugar      * Butter How to make it ? 1. Mix egg, brown sugar and milk in a bowl and shake it. 2. Slice a piece of bread with about 0.5 inch thick. 3. Dip the sliced bread all over into the mixture of egg and brown sugar and milk. 4. Push the bread with fork