Nujood Ali

The little girl was waist-high, so small that the lawyers, clerks and judges hurrying through the courthouse almost missed her.

As lunchtime arrived and the crowds of noisy men and women cleared away, a curious judge asked her what she was doing sitting alone on a bench.

"I came to get a divorce," 10-year-old Nujood Ali told the judge.

Her impoverished parents had married her off to a man more than three times her age, who beat her and forced her to have sex, she explained. When she told her father and mother that she wanted out of the marriage, they refused to help. So an aunt provided her with bus money to travel to court and seek a divorce.

Within days of that April 2, 2008 encounter, Nujood's tale and the plight of child brides in Yemen made international headlines. And thanks to the efforts of human rights lawyer Shada Nasser, who took up her cause, the girl at the center of the story has begun to overcome her trauma and dream of a better life.

Publicity surrounding Nujood's case prompted calls to raise the legal age for marriage to 18 for both men and women. Yemen's conservative lawmakers refused to take up the issue. But the case sparked public discussion and newspaper headlines.  "This case opened the door," Nasser says.

Nujood says that at first, she felt ashamed about what had happened to her. "But I passed through that," she says, eyes narrowing beneath her black head scarf.

"All I want now is to finish my education," she adds, her mouth curling into a smile. "I want to be a lawyer."

The above is an excerpt from an LA Times article dated 6/11/2008.  I found Nujood's book at the swap meet this past Saturday.


If you want to read about this brave girl, I'm pau with the book, and you can have it.  Let me know . . . JalnaA@aol.com.

Photo taken of Nujood by Stephanie Sinclair for the National Geographic Magazine

Samurai Actors From Back in the Day

The other day I watched 13 Assassins.  I really  liked it.  I watched it twice.

Here's a YouTube trailer.

Matsukata Hiroki was in it, and it totally blew my mind.  I remembered watching samurai movies when I was a kid, and he was in a lot of um.  He looked exactly the same in 13 Assassins as he did back then. And he fought the same . . . he looked great . . . not like an old man.   I was confused at first . . . and then I was just amazed.

I checked him out online.  He was born in 1942 and started acting when he was 17 years old.  Here is how he looked back then. He looks the same, yah!  I got to wondering if some of my other favorite actors were still alive.

 

Okawa Hashizo (1929 - 1984)

Nakamura Kinnosuke (1932 - 1997)

Otomo Ryutaro (1912 - 1985)

Ichikawa Utaemon (1907 - 1999)

Tsukigata Ryunosuke (1902 - 1970)

All of the above actors were in a 1961 movie called Ako Roshi, a star-studded adaption of the 47 Ronin story.  I would love to see it.

Giveaway Coming Soon!

Stay tuned.

Here's a clue.

Where Oh Where is the Bird Feeder?

See what happens when you fight over your food and don't wanna share.

You end up on the top of a mango tree with nothing to eat.

My Bird Feeder

The bird feeder that I bought at the swap meet hung on our tangerine tree for over a month before the birds came.

 
I thought I would have a variety of birds, but only these Java sparrows came.  And they're noisy and mean.  All they do is squawk and fight with each other while they're eating.  And worse of all . . .


They hang out on the next-door neighbor's rain gutter.  Aiyaiyai!!!


So I cut the feeder down. 


And put it on a bucket in the middle of our back yard.


This was one of the first birds to come. I looked him up . . . he's a house finch.


Anyway, the last of the bird food is in the feeder now.  When it's all gone, and it won't take long, I'm gonna trash the feeder.  Too much squabbling not good for the feng shui.

A Preschool Test for You

Swap Meet 1/6/13 and 1/12/13

I gotta get me and Aunty ready for work and day care, so this is gonna be fast kine swap meet post.

 
On Sunday 1/6/13 me and Sweetie went to Aloha Swap Meet.   These ukes were $60 each.


I bought this for $1.


Sweetie is planning to do some mosaic work with these tiles.  They were $3.


She's gonna add these in too.


I bought this frame for $1.


The lady said this was a lamp.


I got this for $2.  Pretty, yah.


These grafted Meyer lemon plants were $30 each. 


Sweetie said that this will take care of the toe jam in your shoes.  I think it was about $2.


This guy is from Ghana. He carved the statue that Sweetie's holding.  She bought it for $45.  It's for good luck and harmony.


Geri and I went to Kam Swap Meet on 1/12/13.  Isn't this frog guy so cute! I bought it for $5.  He's watching over my lemon plants right now.


We already have the Japanese cook book but it's all bust up, so I bought this hard-cover version for $1 to replace it.


This was $2.


I bought this for $3.  Was kinda boring.


Geri bought this.  It was $5.


She also bought these wood chiselers for $3 each.  She's gonna carve some of the wood blocks she has at home.


I bought these scissors for $2.   I think they're to shred.  Anyway, that's what I'm doing with um.


The seller also had this.  We couldn't figure out what it's for. 


This is what happens when you squeeze it.


I bought two of these abalone shells for $1.


I think I'm gonna display some of my marbles in um.


I also bought this vase to display my marbles in.  The whole case of 12 was only $3 so I bought the case.


Here's what it looks like on my shelf.


Me and Geri also dropped by an antique shop on the way home.  Wait to you see the marbles I got!!

From Nijiya Market

Here are just a few stuff that I bought at Nijiya Market recently. 

This cheese cake was almost $7.  I was hoping that it would taste like the one from Kulu Kulu Cake.  But it didn't.  It didn't even taste like cheese cake . . . it was more like a butter pound cake . . . and it tasted good . . . but still pound cake is pound cake and cheese cake is cheese cake.



This ume turned out to be really good.  I think it was $6 something.  I kinda like to eat it as a snack instead of with my rice.  I been liking rayu with my rice.


Speaking of rayu . . .  turns out Nijiya makes its own rayu!  It was $5.  It was kinda good, but I think I like the Marukai one better. 


This inari sushi was really, really good.  It was $4.49.


This Tako Karaage was $3.49.  The flavor was good, but it was kinda tough.  If it was tender, it woulda been winnahs.


Mmiissee recommended Nijiya's vegetable salads, so I grabbed this tofu salad.  It was only $2.99.   It came with a shoyu wasabi dressing, and it was yummy.  I must admit though that the wasabi stinged my nose and made me cry, but it was worth it.  Hahahaha.

Kilowatt Hours

We are able to monitor our solar panels and their energy production via our computer.  Isn't that just amazing??!!  Unfortunately, I don't really understand all the technical stuff.  

Judging from our recent electric bills, I think we've been averaging about 50 kWh usage per day recently.  So, I think with today's solar panel production of 41.6 kWh, we're doing pretty good.  But I'm totally guessing.  I don't know how to tell the amount of electricity we're actually using though, so I'm not real sure how much we'll be saving.  We'll see.