What the Yab Yum and I have

I mulled over getting this for a week. Do I need a Japanese screen? I really like it though. Online research indicates it was made in the 1950s. There was one just like it in the Yab Yum. What's that? See below

There is a small field of sunflowers near my house

not apparent in this photo but the landscape is 3D

Real life landscape. Find the monarch

there it is

and here. Unlike the swallowtails, they feed with their wings closed. I have plenty of flowers but they preferred the zinnias

Last week, in a far corner of the basement of my favorite resale shop buried under quilts, I found the above Japanese screen. Every month an item goes unsold, the price is reduced another 10%. If I could hold out until yesterday, the price would be 30% off. As it was still there, I bought it. Groan from Steve but he made several purchases from the nearby paper store. Why would he like paper? Because they sell wrapping paper made from ancient maps of New York City so now we have 2 more of those. Maybe one of them can replace one of the 3 world maps we have mounted in the den?

He found a very similar screen on-line at a dealer from Amsterdam who said it was from the Yab Yum Gentleman's club of the same city. The price was 36x what we paid (he is liking the screen more). So the Yab Yum was an extremely expensive brothel full of deluxe furnishings.  It has since been converted to a museum with most of the boudoirs intact. Plenty of photos online though I couldn't find my screen. I haven't found a god place for it but once we replace the overstuffed ginormous, old sectional we have, it can be used as a room divider. And I do love cranes.

So it's my 8th cancerversary and I am still alive. Yay! There is now very little chance of recurrence though what conditions that set me up for cancer the first time still probably exist. But I still remember the terror I felt when they kept repeating the scans over and over and finally a radiologist came in to do an ultrasound. And how she sighed impatiently at my many questions that I was too shocked to articulate quickly enough for her.. A year of doom and gloom. Why couldn't I just concentrate on the 70% chance I had of survival?

And my friend whose odds are much worse, found out that she has an irreversible  lung condition yesterday. At best, with lots of drugs with lots of side effects, they can stop it from spreading. She is understandably devastated.

Another factor I neglected when I made trip plans the other day. My California friend was coming to see me. Turns out we will have only 2 days of intersection. I must plan things better. Where we are going is a work in progress. The tufa sculptures of Mono lake look real cool...