From the Dragon’s Mouth

A year has passed in this strange place of scenic wonder now called home. Some will wonder why I dub the place strange, but in this case it is a comparative word meaning Florida has still not become a ‘home’ that fits snugly around a lifestyle long accustomed to Japanese ways. Call it a work in progress. By any name it’s a life, at times both high and low with blessings to be thankful for. I tell myself that each time sky, water and sand color a morning walk.

2011 was a good year for Scriblets and my appreciation goes to those readers who found a few minutes each week to tune in and see where the drift has taken me. Daily subjects have wandered far and wide of the original thought to focus mainly on fountain pens, ink and paper, and I explain that by citing the move from Tokyo—a veritable garden of delights for pens and such—to a small town where throwaway ballpoints are king and anything but blue ink is radical. Still an enthusiast for these things, posts on pens and ink will always find an occasional place in the line up.

In the Chinese (and Japanese) calendar, 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. During my time of living in Japan sending out New Year greeting cards was a custom I embraced from the start. The last few weeks of each December were always a time for planning a card design suitable to whatever animal was next in the cycle of twelve. Hard to do that here for several reasons, distance mainly. The card below is little more than a facsimile of the real thing and not anything sent to friends in the mail. Still, my hope is genuine that all will enjoy the harvests of a bumper year—Happy 2012 to all.

Prior to 2012, the last Year of the Dragon was in 2000. The card I made that year is shown below.