The COVID Chronicles #73: Hina Matsuri or Japanese Girls' Festival

 Good morning and welcome to another edition of the Covid Chronicles! The time is currently 5:27am and I have been awake since approximately 3:30am. I was just starting to fall back asleep when my 5:15am alarm went off and since I did not want a repeat of a day last week where I ignored my alarm and then didn't wake up again until 7am, I decided I would get up. 

Normally at this time, I'm sitting in my living room, sipping a cup of coffee, and thinking about my life, but since Wife and I are out of coffee, I'm here on the internet blogging about my life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tomorrow, March 2nd, is officially Hina Matsuri or Girls Festival in Japan. Traditionally, girls are given a set of dolls at birth and each year these dolls are set up and displayed so the family can pray for the life of the daughter. This year, and many years of procrastination and loving neglect, Wife and I finally made a stand for her to display her dolls. Here's a picture not of the stand, but of the doll display itself. 

To celebrate Hina Matsuri, we invited our international consortium of friends to our house yesterday afternoon for a lunch and some social time. We were all masked, except when eating, and we did our best to eat as far away from each other as was possible. We had planned to eat outside, but since the wind decided to blow like the dickens yesterday which made eating outside impossible, so we ate inside. Wife made a dish called "chirashi zushi" which is traditionally eaten on Hina Matsuri. I also barbecued 2 whole chickens, & our guests provided a bowl of vegetables (broccoli, green beans, & peas), and root beer floats for dessert. 

After eating, the women dressed up in kimono and dressed their children up in kimono and we took pictures in front of the pictured doll display. For our entertainment, we watched Day 2 of the Arizona Virtual Japanese Matsuri on a YouTube channel, and then an artsy film by Akira Kurosawa called "Dreams" which I rented from Amazon Prime. 

All for this morning...

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