I did very little work yesterday, and we went to lunch in a sports bar. This is probably my least favorite kind of restaurant, because of the noise level, and it wasn’t better in an exotic locale. However, we still had good conversation, and there was creme brulee with caramelized bananas, so that was a plus.

We revived ourselves after this experience with Kose lotion masks. I could get used to those. They are hard little disks like checkers which you saturate with lotion, whereupon they bloom into a mask with a brightening agent, whatever that may be. The nice Japanese woman who sold these things to us in Little Tokyo explained to us with gestures and a few words of English that these masks would instantly hydrate our complexions and remove age spots. “Hydrate,” “brightening agent,” and “age spots” were in this woman’s English vocabulary. The rest was accomplished with gestures.

Thus, we had no idea how to use these things, and all the directions were printed in Japanese. We didn’t let this bother us. I have no idea whether we used these things correctly or not, but we decided that the thing to do was to put them onto our faces, giggling because we looked extremely funny in them, and then lie down on sofas for ten minutes.

We then removed the masks and congratulated one another on how dewy and bright we looked. I think lying down for ten minutes was probably the main value of the things.

All over this town there are fans with water lines attached so that they create a mist you can walk through to cool off. This is very snazzy. The natives here are suffering from the heat, but I am from the subtropical South, so I’m finding it mild and pleasant.

So last night’s performance at the Traditional Music Gathering, which took place outdoors, featured four suffering sweaty Angelenos and me. It went well, actually, and was a lot of fun.

We were preceded by an Irish band with a full-sized harp, very nice, and followed by a band of pre-teens who did very well. They had a ten-minute set of original tunes including the instant classic “Produce Aisle” (“Little girl, don’t eat all the carrots in the produce aisle…”) and received a standing ovation.

Today we have no plans at all, as far as I know. I may loll around and read.