Friday Vacation Day Is Much Appreciated

John Deere gave us an extra vacation day last Friday. It ended up being perfectly timed.

It was dreamy. I went to the jeweler and they fixed my mom's favorite necklace that she ripped off her neck while raging in the ER. They fixed it on the spot and did not charge me. Then I went to pick up some salmon teriyaki plates for dinner. Then I took the long way home and happened to see that the doors to the record store were open. Wheeee!!!

I made a beeline to the back room where they keep all the stuff I like. Turns out that they had a vast number of Japanese records, and even two records of sumo wrestlers singing (which is a genre). I bought them both, even though I suspected that I already had a copy of one of them. I intend to give that extra to clam dip (who I think does not appreciate her nickname).

I totally scored. I doubled my collection of Japanese LPs with smoking dudes on the cover, bringing the total to four. And some of the music was actually good. This Spanish guitar record with a Japanese twist was excellent.

Here are the singing sumotori records. Kotokaze, in orange, is a former ozeki (second highest rank in sumo) who retired in 1985. I really like his record, which you can find here.

And the other guy is Masuiyama II, also a former ozeki. From looking at old posts I can see that I do have his record already, so I look forward to gifting it to clam dip. You can hear the record here.

I won't go through the rest, but this cover really struck me. She's a Japanese woman with a big tattoo on her leg. Isn't that just for yakuza? Had to have it. Showed it to mrguy, who said "She's trans". Oh! Still didn't understand about the tattoo, but sure enough -- her name is Maki Carrousel, and she was one of the first openly trans women in Japan who had gender confirmation surgery, and she was one of the first people to have her gender changed in the official family registers. Super cool! I love that her website lists her blood type. Maybe that's a thing.