前々号で誕生日にもらったものを
披露したが、夕べもうイッコもらったから載せる：
芋けんぴ
意味不明であるが、くれた本人いわく、
美容のためのビタミンC補給に用いろとのことである。
なるほど、それなら分かる！というほどの説明でもなかったが、
プレゼントしようと思ってくれた気持ちは気持ちだから
ありがたく頂戴した。
食べた感想を記述すべきところであるが、
今日は朝から絶食して健康診断に行き、
帰宅して昼ご飯を食べ終わった頃、バリウム検査後飲んだ下剤が
効き始めたら、そこから未だにものを食べる気持ちになれなくて
まだ食べていない。
ところで、夕べその場にプロのカメラマンがいたのだが、彼が
芋けんぴ贈呈者および筆者と芋けんぴの記念撮影をする、
と言うからカメラの前に並んだら、とてもプロとは思えぬ
いつ撮ってん？！ てか ホンマに撮ったんか？！
というほどの投げやりな撮り方をしやがって、
あとでPCに送ってもらったのを見ると、
筆者の写り具合が案の定、救い難い感じであったので、
筆者をこんな感じにしか撮れないようではとても
ピューリッツァー賞は狙えまい、と返信しておいたが、
返事はなかった。
＜英語版＞
In addition to the birthday gifts I posted the other day,
I got something else last night.
This:
A bag of imokenpi ―fried and candied sweet potato sticks.
I have no idea what he was thinking when he bought this for me.
He said I can use it as a source of vitamin C for my beauty.
That still didn't make much sense, but the important thing is
that he bought something to celebrate my birthday,
however slightly.
So, I thank him for the gesture.
As to the taste, I dunno, cos I haven't tried it yet;
I had a health checkup today, and that awful barium I ingested
for stomack X-ray is still deterring my appetite.
By the way, when I got this last night, there was also
a professional cameraman with us, who said he wanted to take
a photo of the guy who gave the imokenpi to me, me and the imokenpi.
We posed in front of his camera, and he shot it with such an
undermotivated attitude with no "cheeeese" or any other cue that
I even doubted he really pushed the shutter release button.
I came home anyway and saw the photo on my PC to which he sent it, and,
just as I expected, I looked like hell, well, like a cookie-cutter shark,
more accurately.
In a return Email I told him that if he takes a photo of me
and I come out lookin' like this, he was some zillion miles away from
winning a Pulitzer Prize.
He never replied.