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NIGHTS IN FROGONIA

With all this rain falling, and so protractedly, it seems as though tsuyu (rainy season) gets longer every year, making Japan very water-rich, in contrast to what's happening in the brokerage houses. And if there's one society around here that really appreciates those waterfalls of heavenly largesse, it's the myriad citizens of the ancient and honorable nation of Frogonia, fresh from the winter mud. Themselves consisting mostly of water plus a strong desire to talk all night, as the rain creates their perfectly designed home in the paddies the Frogonians have been putting on quite a show for we merely sapient neoresidents who have to build our own houses.

When I got to my house last night just after dusk (having spared countless lives by motorcycling erratically along a road that was green with frogs visiting other neighborhoods just the way I used to), despite the rain the Frogonian roar of excitement from the paddy amphitheaters was deafening as they all tried to talk at once, mostly the smaller frogs with their high-pitched and rhythmic message of "O man (pardon the necessary anthropomorphism) ain't this just the greatest thing in the world, what's happening right now!" while a couple of larger, less mobile elders in the corners were just going "Harrumph!" now and then. I couldn't hear my own "Harrumph!" till I'd gone indoors, but I didn't really mean it.