tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91370446324679356272024-03-14T18:22:31.433+09:00Rehearsal Times OverIt might not be the life I planned to star in but it is mine and it is mid-act! What's posted here isn't a daily diary type blog. . . more of a collection of essays about life as it happens to me. Or about me as I live life? Depends on my mood--sometimes I'm passive and sometimes I'm active, but I'm always in the play!coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.comBlogger71125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-59730458275800430092015-03-14T22:10:00.001+09:002015-03-14T22:10:08.180+09:00and 1/2 a decade later. . . . I FINALLY figured out how to log into my blog again! <br />
It's been a long 5 years, and I look like I've aged at a rate of 2:1. . . . and feel it too. <br />
Don't worry, I didn't actually actually spend the entire 5 years trying desperately to log back on. . . I spent about a year of it flat on my face (depression) another year of it changing jobs and moving house, and the three other ones were a mix of phone counseling/bike riding. <br />
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The bike riding was the best.<br />
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Well, I wish I had something planned to blog on. . . now that I've regained access to the blog. . . but sitting here sipping a glass of wine and feeling--thoughtless.<br />
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<br />coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-88123217103917024082010-03-18T14:13:00.005+09:002010-03-18T15:49:27.953+09:00"T" is for ToothfairyOn the top shelf of the dish cupboard in my kitchen is where I keep the crystal champagne flutes that my parents gave us for our wedding toast. There is also a crystal replica of the university that my husband used to work at in Osaka. Next to it there's a beautiful Japanese tea set given to my husband by his best friend from his home town. Another beautiful tea set (this one painted pottery) given to me by my mother. The rest of the top shelf is crowded with wine glasses, beer mugs, anything breakable and valuable--and a lot of stray baby teeth. There are a lot of tiny, pearl white teeth--front teeth, bottom teeth, molars--all of them are baby teeth. My children's teeth specifically.<br /><br /><br /><br />They are on the top shelf of the dish cupboard because neither one of my children has ever shown any interest in finding out what I keep up there. When I get up there to dust, I always experience a little recoil of shock. It's like an episode of Fox's T.V. show, "Bones." The white glint of the teeth always catches my eye first. Then I remember, our family believes in the Tooth fairy, and I go about my dusting or wine goblet fetching or whatever my reason for getting up there was.<br /><br /><br /><br />The teeth are not supposed to technically be in our house anymore. They are supposed to be at the Tooth fairy's place. They were wriggled, pulled and coaxed from my children's mouths (by my children themselves) to be carefully positioned under their pillows for collection. These baby teeth are offered hopefully at dusk in trade for a shinning 100 yen coin in the morning. Each of my daughters has a special "Tooth Fairy Pillow", with a little pocket sewn on it to hold the lost tooth and the shinny 100 yen coin the good fairy will leave when she flutters in and discovers the tooth--her treasure.<br /><br /><br /><br />I grew up in America where children believe in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. When my family moved from Illinois to California when I was in the second grade the most traumatic part of the move for me was that I lost a baby tooth just after we arrived at our new home in California. Only one thought dominated my mind, "WHAT IF THE TOOTH FAIRY DIDN'T REALIZE I HAD MOVED? WHAT IF SHE HAD NO IDEA WHERE ME AND MY LOST, READY TO BE CONVERTED TO COIN, BABY TOOTH WAS?"<br /><br /><br /><br />I drew huge maps and signs and forced my father to climb up a ladder and tape them to our roof.<br /><br /><br /><br />I have no idea when my belief in the tooth fairy ended. Did I loose all my baby teeth and get too busy perfecting teenage angst to even ponder the true fate of all those baby whites? Did someone pull me aside and tell me, "hey, it's your folks that are slipping you the quarters at night. There ain't no little winged tooth fairy." If it was the later, even though I have no memory of it, I am sure it was my older brother. I do remember him destroying the myth of the Easter Bunny for me and even more traumatic--his slaying of Santa.<br /><br /><br /><br />I have to confess though, that not remembering when my faith was broken I also don't recall how it was instilled in me in the first place. And really, what a story to swallow: a little magical winged creature flying into my bedroom, after I was asleep, and taking my baby teeth from under my pillow. Granted, I was only five or so when they started talking about the Tooth fairy. At five-years-of age I also believed my brother when he told me that keeping a suitcase full of rotting food under my bed would keep the Bogey man away. I also recall believing that if I just got up enough speed running, I would be able to fly. I was positive that I could do it. Which is why I believed my brother when he told me that jumping off the jungle gym would also get me airborne. The blue paint from the bottom bar of the jungle gym was still on my front tooth when the Tooth fairy came to take it. I remember because I was worried that it would lessen the value of the tooth and she might "mark it down."<br /><br />Because the Tooth Fairy can do that you know. Mark 'em down. Especially if they have cavities. Those baby teeth fetch only half of what cavity free baby teeth go for. <br /><br />Which is probably why I decided to tell my kids about the Tooth Fairy. Even though here in Japan she is not a custom. I've been told that the Japanese throw their children's baby teeth away. Lower baby teeth get thrown up on the roof of the house (or up high) and upper baby teeth get thrown down under the house (or off a balcony or from an upper story window). Yet the Japanese keep their baby's umbilical stumps in a special ceremonial little box for life--something that Americans throw out. What the heck. My kids are doubles after all--both American and Japanese. They get the Japanese Kappa and the American Bogey Man. The Oga Peninsula's Namahage with the American Headless Horseman. And of course the Tooth Fairy.<br /><br />I think it was when I was having trouble getting my eldest to brush her teeth that I remembered the Tooth Fairy. You have to brush regularly to keep the teeth sparkling white for the Tooth Fairy! <br /><br />However, believing in the Tooth Fairy and <em>being</em> the Tooth fairy are two completely different things. Believing in the Tooth fairy lessens the pain and fear of losing something that you've grown quite used to--your teeth. Being the tooth fairy means having to stay awake until your child is deep, deep asleep so you can wrest the little Tooth fairy pillow from underneath their slumbering little head and fish out the lost baby tooth and replace it with a shiny 100 yen coin.<br /><br />I have been known to blame the Tooth fairy's failure to retrieve a baby tooth on the forever-coming-home-late Daddy.<br /><br />Should one of my daughters wail, bright and early in the morning, "MOMMY! My tooth is still under my pillow!" I reply sleepily, "Oh honey. I'm sorry. Daddy came home so late last night that I believe he scared the Tooth Fairy away. She doesn't like anyone to see her you know." <br /><br />The tooth fairy is also sensitive to weather conditions, undue noise from the T.V. (should Daddy stay up too late watching it) and she loathes being exposed to germs so stays away if anyone is contagious. Especially Mommy. <br /><br />For the most part though, I keep some shiny coins on hand whenever I see a tooth starting to go wiggly and I get the job done. Part way. I take the baby teeth from under their pillows. I leave the shiny 100 yen under their pillows. Then I go downstairs, climb up on a chair and stow the baby teeth up on the top shelf of the cupboard.<br /><br /> I don't know what my own mother did with my baby teeth. Did she keep them? Has she got them stored somewhere? I doubt it. She did everything but gut my childhood bedroom when I left for college. My Mom isn't big on keepsakes. Which may explain why I am. Why I hoard Reno and Saki's baby teeth up on the top shelf of my dish cupboard.<br /><br />I have no idea what I am going to do with two full sets of baby teeth someday. No one wants jewelry made from teeth--aside from serial killers. No one really wants a small bottle filled with their baby teeth. But throw them away? Toss them out? I can't bring myself to throw them up or down, much less <em>out</em>. <br /><br />It wasn't hard to throw out Reno's tonsils, which she had removed when she was seven years old. The hospital gave those to us. They were floating around inside a clear glass jar. We kept them for about a week and then Reno and I agreed together to throw them out. I think I put them out with the regular burnable garbage. The baby teeth are different somehow though. I remember their little pink toothless gums as babies and how they cried and fussed when their first teeth came in. I remember the joy and relief of seeing a white tooth finally push through the gums. I remember watching them learn how to bite and chew with these amazing new things called "teeth".<br /><br />How can I simply throw them out? They are what their childhood smiles were made of.<br /><br />I suspect that it will be one of many weird and bizarre discoveries my children will make about me in the future after I have passed away. They'll be sorting through my belongings, deciding what to keep and what to throw. They will get up on a chair, and reaching up onto that top shelf in the cupboard they'll find them--their baby teeth. They are all mixed up, so they won't really know which are Saki's and which are Reno's, but they'll find them all up there.<br /><br /> "She kept our baby teeth." <br /><br />I wonder, will they?coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-48162920826005153922010-01-06T15:04:00.006+09:002010-01-06T18:27:30.235+09:00Learning to Say GoodbyeI feel like that kid in class at college. The one who never spoke up. The one who never ventured an opinion or offered a plausible answer. The one, who sat quietly for week after week after week, until when, in the last week of the semester they raised their hand and attempted to speak it seemed like not only time within the classroom froze--time throughout the world did too. Everyone was waiting, with baited breath, what would The-Silent-One say?<br /><br />So here I sit trying to think of something profound to share while my house echos with drum beats like the movie Jumanji. My kids got the Wii Taiko Drum game from Santa this year. (Yes, Reno, now nearing the age of 12 STILL believes.) But, now that I've got your attention, I've got to plow on ahead and say something.<br /><br />I washed the cat yesterday.<br /><br />There, I've put something out there; admittedly it is on a par with The-Silent-One's typical end of semester question, "Will the final be blue book exam or multiple choice?", but we've got one fluffy Russian Blue in house. Who smells rather floral. And is still glaring at me every time she enters a room in which I am.<br /><br />We used to have two cats--Melon (the American Shorthair) and Happy (floral fluffy stray who looks exactly like a Russian Blue). But we lost Melon just before Christmas. She was only 8 years old, but died from kidney failure.<br /><br />Melon is currently very much still part of our household. Physically, her bones and ashes are in an urn, in a Japanese funeral urn box, in her old pet basket on top of the cat cage. In front of the pet basket is a bowl of her dry food, a cup of water (she always preferred drinking out of cups she found on the sly left on the table, rather than drinking from out of her water bowl on the floor in the kitchen), her favorite mouse on a stick toy, and several photos of her. In the pet cage, crowding around the box holding her urn, are pictures of her that the girls have drawn and several letters to her as well as one properly bound (with yarn and tape) picture book about Melon authored by Saki.<br /><br />She was cremated at a pet funeral home on the 19th of December. On February 5th or 6th we will intern her ashes at the pet funeral home. That will mark 49 days since her cremation--Buddhist tradition. I still have to check with Masa--is it 49 days counting the day of the funeral or 49 days counting from the first day after the funeral?<br /><br />If anyone had ever told me that I would pay to hold a funeral for a pet, I would have laughed, anxiously. I would have had anxious thoughts flooding my mind like, "good lord. Will my life be that pathetic? Will I treat a pet like a human loved one? Will I try to make others honor my pet as a "person" too?" Flash back to my parents' home six years ago when we visited them for three months: My father accused me of causing their dog to fall into a deep depression during my visit. Because I treated Caylie (the dog) like a d-o-g. "He's not a dog. He is much more. He is as much a part of this family as either you or your brother were when you were growing up."<br /><br />Disturbing statement on several levels which triggered anxious questions, the most immediate being, "We were like pets to you and Mom?"<br /><br />I love my pets. I have always had pets. I loved Melon and I love Happy fiercely. But I love my pets as <em>pets</em>. In fact, were they people to me, I'd probably have much more complicated and difficult relationships with them. As it is, I am free to love them unconditionally as pets. They vomit up a fur ball on the kitchen floor? I love them unconditionally. They shred a favored section of the couch? I love them unconditionally. I scream, "BAD CAT!" a lot, but the love remains unconditional.<br /><br />The bottom line is: I love animals, especially pets, but I love them because they <em>are</em> animals/pets.<br /><br />Which is why this past summer when we visited my parents for two weeks, I took the opportunity on more than one occasion to fall on bended knee, look deep into their new dog's (a spirited little terrier) big black glossy eyes and say, "Tucker, you are a dog."<br /><br />Saki kept asking, "Mommy, why are you doing that?" and I told her, "Because honey, he is a dog. Isn't he a cute <em><strong>dog</strong></em>?" My Dad winced in the background, but I think he got my message.<br /><br />So if pets are pets, then why an elaborate funeral for Melon? An elaborate funeral which cost quite a bit of money no less.<br /><br />When Melon first fell sick, it was obvious that the kids were in distress. The cat was in acute physical distress, but my girls were in acute emotional distress. It wasn't the first time that Melon had been critically ill. Five years ago, when Masa was first diagnosed with RA and sent to a hospital for three months to start treatment, Melon took the opportunity to suddenly begin vomiting non-stop. I took her to the vets where they did emergency surgery (expecting to find a blockage in the intestines, "perhaps a bit of sting, or part of a cat toy") which turned up nothing. My cat couldn't stand, eat, drink or use the litter box on her own. I expected the vet to suggest euthanizing her. He didn't. When I suggested it, he was appalled.*<br /><br />So for the first month that Masa was in hospital, I was taking Melon to the vets daily for IV treatments and feeding her liquid food with an eye-dropper. She drooled non stop, couldn't stand and I had to wipe up her and her cage several times a day.<br /><br />For the second month that Masa was in hospital, Melon started to stand up, although she tended to fall over on her right side a lot. But she started to eat a bit of wet food on her own and drink some water which decreased the frequency of the IV treatments.<br /><br />By the time Masa came home, Melon was nearly normal. The vet proffered that they thought we should take her to a big Veterinary Hospital in Osaka to have an MRI done on her to determine if perhaps the cause of all of this was a brain tumor. But as Melon continued to regain her strength and her former feline self, we never did.<br /><br />Why didn't I fight harder to have her put down? The poor thing had a quality of life that was non-existent for at least two months. The vets never offered any hope of recovery. The vets couldn't even give an educated guess (except for their final, "brain tumor?" theory) as to why Melon had become so ill. It was a "mystery disease that appeared incurable."<br /><br />Because with then six-year-old Reno it all sounded so similar to the diagnosis that her Daddy had just been given. For five years Daddy had had health problems that were mysterious. Doctors didn't know what was wrong. Even with the diagnosis of RA they confessed that they couldn't be absolutely sure that it was RA and not a combination of another immune system disease coupled with a spine disease and maybe a few others. The only thing that they told us with certainty was that it was "incurable". . . but "treatable".<br /><br />And Reno made those connections. Having the cat put down seemed tantamount to announcing, "and perhaps we'll have Daddy put down next."<br /><br />And Melon recovered. And Daddy came home. And he is home and in treatment and doing well.<br /><br />But now, this past December, Melon started to vomit non-stop again. Masa was out of country on a business trip. It all felt so familiar. Back to the vets (a new vet, but like the one in Osaka, against euthanasia). This time the diagnosis was confirmed with a blood test. Her kidneys were in failure. We did IV treatments for a week. Then one day we skipped the treatment--Masa was back from his trip by now--and she spent her last day at home, in her pet basket. Saki sat next to her on her final evening and sketched her, telling her what a good cat she was, how much she was loved. That evening, Reno disobeyed my order to "go to bed!" and stayed up with Melon for about two hours, petting her and talking to her.<br /><br />In the early morning, around 2:30 a.m. I heard a terrible noise and came downstairs to find Melon dying. When she was done, I picked her up, cleaned her up, and put her in her cat basket, curled up and quiet. The girls found her that way in the morning.<br /><br />I cried in the kitchen in the early dawn. The girls cried when they woke up and came downstairs to find that she had passed on. But it was a school/work day and after the girls were off on their way to school, I took Melon's body and placed it in a towel, which I placed in a cardboard box, which I took out back and put in the shed in the back yard. It had been snowing steadily for over a week and so the chances of an outdoor burial were nil. The ground, besides being rented, was frozen and buried under snow and ice.<br /><br />We called the vet and she referred us to the pet funeral home. So two days later, that is where we had Melon cremated. Masa and I debated the merits of paying for such a ceremony. It was Masa who really decided in the end that it was worth doing--for the girls. It would be a kind of lesson in death and learning to say goodbye.<br /><br />And it has been a lesson, a progression, a process. Especially for Saki. At seven years of age, she kept asking if Melon was really dead. At the pet funeral parlor, after sending Melon off for cremation she wept and cried. As we passed Melon's bones around and put them in the urn she was silent but alert, open. On the way home, with the urn in the car with us, Saki clutched a photo of Melon to her chest and continued to weep.<br /><br />We've gone from that day of the funeral and weeping, to telling each other stories about Melon. Remembering Melon together. Saki has spent a lot of time breaking down what happened to Melon. How she first got sick, how she died, how we cremated her. Reno, more familiar with the idea of death hasn't been as verbal about it all as Saki has, but yesterday as I rearranged the letters around the urn I was surprised to discover that many of them were poems about Melon and letters to Melon that Reno has written and quietly, unobserved, slipped next to her pet's memorial.<br /><br />Masa looked over at me on the day of the funeral and told me, "It's important that they learn how to say goodbye so that they can go on with living." that and, "If they don't learn to live with the emptiness of loss then they are bound to choose bad men on the rebound in the future when they break up with a boyfriend."<br /><br />I think he was right. On both levels.<br /><br /><br /><br />*Most veterinarians in Japan are against euthanizing animals, believing that it is going against the natural order to do so. Unless a family can present an air tight case for not being able to afford treatment/care they are very reluctant to end an animals' life prematurely, albeit, humanely. Ironically, most Japanese also believe that neutering or spaying animals is against the natural order. Although most vets will gladly do it.coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-41925482854078850532009-09-19T18:26:00.003+09:002009-09-19T19:25:21.307+09:00Ordained Domestic House Goddess My AssSo. I woke up this morning (5:30 a.m.), popped in a load of wash, wandered to the kitchen, started the coffee, and began making the kids' breakfast. Quesedillas--modified to only tortillas and cheese as I can't get my hands on any chile peppers here bouts. Breakfast served, I went back into the kitchen to make some wholegrain blueberry muffins (hoping some will survive the weekend for breakfasts during the week) and continued periodically extracting wet laundry and hanging it up while stuffing yet more dirty laundry into the machine. <br /><br />Masa was busy sleeping.<br /><br />After load number three I took a quick trip throughout the house and successfully found enough hidden dirty socks, shorts, and shirts wadded up and pushed under furniture etc. to do yet another load of laundry. <br /><br />Masa by now had awoken and was at the computer checking his email. And the New York Yankees' baseball scores.<br /><br />Why is there so much dirty laundry in my house? I do laundry EVERY SINGLE day and still I have these horrid days of 4-5 loads of laundry to do. Of course on Saturday I have all the weekly school things (P.E. uniforms, bags, etc.) to wash. Sigh. <br /><br />My kids are only enthusiastic about pouring the washing liquid into the machine and after that they loose absolutely all interest in having anything to do with the laundry. <br /><br />At 9:30 a.m. I decided to take a shower and get ready for driving school. <br /><br />When I left Masa was still at the computer, working away as only a workaholic on a Saturday can. <br /><br />I made it to my 10:10 appointment for practical driving practice and the instructor today told me the exact opposite of the instructor I had on Thursday on several issues. Issue number one: where one's hands should go on the steering wheel when making a turn. Issue number two: how fast one is allowed to drive on the on-site driving course. I had fun speeding around on Thursday. Today's guy had me driving slower than a tortoise on top of which has been placed a 500kilogram weight. <br /><br />How that sort of driving is supposed to prepare me for the real world is beyond me, unless he's thinking I'm gonna move back to Osaka: city of the everlasting traffic jam. The fact that he was treating me like a moron didn't go over so well with me either. I'm 42 and I drove from the age of 16-31 in the U.S. I am <em>not</em> a first time driver. He kept telling me in this god-awful condescending know-it-all-tone that "you are a first time driver in <em>Japan</em> so you have <em>MUCH </em>to learn."<br /><br />I did a good job of not showing my irritation with Yoda at all though. I'm focused on one thing and one thing only--getting my drivers license. I'll put up with nearly anything for that!<br /><br />On the way back home, I stopped off to do some shopping for lunch. Got home, made somen with sliced up cucumbers and ham on top. Chilled tofu with natto (mixed with a crushed umeboshi) on top. Added some thinly sliced shiso leaves on top of the natto tofu. Then I started to make dinner. <br /><br />Masa ate lunch and then got ready to go out on a jog. Although a delightful variety program on T.V. caught his attention and delayed him by an hour.<br /><br />Dinner was (will be, we haven't eaten yet) zucchini & mushroom spaghetti with a mixed green salad and some garlic bread. <br /><br />Then I sorted all the pet bottles, cans, and glass bottles for recycling. That done, and Masa back from his jog, I asked him if he'd run it to the recycle center. He sighed. Deeply. <br /><br />How many bags were there? Had I loaded them in the car yet? etc. etc.<br /><br />This man works insane hours during the week. That is true. This man has Rheumatoid arthritis--also true. But this full-time working mother of two little girls and one workaholic husband wanted to strangle him like Homer does Bart. And then fling him around a bit for good measure. <br /><br />While I stood in front of the sofa looking down at him he asked again, "Did you put the bags in the car yet?" For the love of God. <br /><br />After he left with the recycling stuff (which I lugged out to the car) I headed off to the supermarket again to pick up yet more groceries as I had an idea for lunch tomorrow. Back from the store, I began making black bean vegetable soup. To go with tomorrow's beef fajitas at lunch time. <br /><br />In between all the cooking I was still dealing with stages of laundry and doing a hell of a lot of dishes. We have no dishwasher so it is all by hand. <br /><br />Looking around now what is left to be done is: (1) serve up dinner (still waiting for Masa to return, he decided to drop in the office after the recycle center. However, Reno begged him to take her with him so she could study in the University's library, so that's my guarantee that he will actually return for dinner--the daughter hostage.) (2) Force the young one (Saki) into the bath and evaluate her health condition carefully. She's been sneezing and coughing all day, but I've been too busy to pause longer than to confirm that she has no temperature. (3) Fold a huge pile of laundry and put it away. (4) Vacuum the entire house (5) pick up upstairs (6) Study for Driving school (7) Grade 22 essays (8) Grade 22 quizzes. <br /><br />Not a chance in hell that more than two or three things on that list is going to get done. <br /><br />And I forgot to put "dinner clean up" on there. <br /><br />But I'm thinking. . . . I actually know several women with RA who can wash dishes. And actually, they all work outside the home too. So, would it be so out of hand to ask Masa to perhaps, perchance, <em>do the washing up</em> after dinner tonight?<br /><br />And as soon as I have a drivers license, I am gonna start spending money on hiring someone to come in and do some cleaning to help out. Screw Masa's attitude that I am a woman, endowed with ovaries and ordained to do all domestic chores and duties.coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-68294668532574406942009-09-18T15:55:00.004+09:002009-09-18T16:10:55.215+09:00Driving SchoolSo, jittery, nervous, constantly feeling a little anxious as I force myself through the nicotine withdrawals, and my more serious psychological dependency on cigarettes, I decided that the thing to do was: enroll myself in Japanese Driving School. <br /><br />So I rushed right out and handed over the largest sum of money I have ever literally "handed over" in my life. The next 9 months of traffic and automobile safety and rules of the road lectures--delivered all in Japanese--is the most expensive thing I have ever bought for myself. I'm trying NOT to think about what kind of private vacation (to Guam! to Hawaii!) the same amount of money could have gotten me. <br /><br />I need a license though. Living in the countryside of Japan, and snow country at that, without a license has been. . . not easy. Walking and bicycling in the rain and the snow and having to turn down invitations places because "I can't drive" has been character eroding. A 42 year old grown woman who can't jump in the car to go fetch a sick and feverish child from school? <br /><br />And bringing home a sick and feverish child from school in a snow storm or downpour hasn't been fun. It's a nice 30 minute walk from our house to the elementary school. <br /><br />I can, of course, drive. I just don't have a license to drive. And no, I haven't got an American license or an international license because. . .<br /><br />REALLY wish I had a good reason to start telling you about here.<br /><br />I don't have a good reason; I have a pathetic one. I just never mailed in my renewal for my U.S. drivers license and thus, rendered myself license less. Now that my kids are in elementary school I can't afford the three months in the US I'd need to get and drive on an American license in order to be eligible for an international license and thus eligible to switch over to a Japanese license after taking a <em>really short</em> written test <em>in English</em> and of course the practical driving test. <br /><br />NOPE. Not me. I now have to take the <em>lengthily, ponderous, famous for trickily worded questions, </em>written test all in <em>Japanese</em>. And of course the practical driving test. <br /><br />I'm not at all worried about the practical driving test as you can see. I'm a whole lot more concerned about the 800 or so KANJI I will have to learn and memorize in order to pass the written test. <br /><br />Thinking about it makes me want to smoke.coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-31469984734396820042009-08-28T09:52:00.002+09:002009-08-28T10:04:32.149+09:0016 Days InI am a non-smoker. I have been a non-smoker for a total of 16 days now. I am no longer smoking two packs a day, as I was sixteen days ago.<br /><br />Why did I quit?<br /><br />Because I took my girls home to see their American grandparents--my Mom and Dad. My Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew that I smoked, so I had no choice but to go cold turkey. Plus the no smoking policy on international flights pretty much promotes smokers going cold turkey anyway.<br /><br />Korean Air lines in-flight videos on the way there and the jet lag once we got there distracted me from the withdrawal symptoms and it all seemed almost too easy.<br /><br />Then I stepped off the plane in Japan this past Monday--back home again. I lined up in a long que for FOREIGNERS whilst my husband and daughters skipped through one of the lines for JAPANESE. I dug out my iPod from my purse to entertain myself for the nearly hour wait I had in line. I was finger printed and photographed. My only subversive act was to refuse to smile (which, being Japanese, they probably appreciated) and I refused to talk (which, again, being Japanese they probably appreciated). But still, I am a smiley talkative American, so it was subversive behavior for ME.<br /><br />So. Now, suddenly, sixteen days into being a non-smoker I am dying for a ciggy. Or maybe just one PACK.<br /><br />However, second-hand smoke is not good for children, nor is it acceptable role modeling to be seen smoking by ones children. Therefore, I will NOT take up smoking again.<br /><br />I just wish I could get my hands on some Xanax.coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-5923120281817240972009-03-14T11:16:00.003+09:002009-03-14T11:31:44.832+09:00The Thin DivideFirst, I think it is so funny now that in the top left hand corner of my blog it says "cutest blog" or something like that. I just got tired of the layout design that I had here on blogger and wanted something different. So, if you are reading because you expect "cute" go ahead and click right out. Feeling very philosophical this a.m. . . .perhaps it is a weird reaction to my children's incessant bickering from the moment they awoke this a.m. Retreat into the inner mind in a desperate attempt to escape the reality of "I told you to stop pinching your sister. If I have to tell you once more I am going to pinch YOU hard!" When they make me say crazy things like that. . . So. On to broodings that I have retreated into:<br /><br /><br />You hear about Japanese men who have taken off their company armor. Left the tie on the desk, spurned their prestigious meishi, and walked away into the country side to grow organic produce, or into the mountains to open a guest inn. Maybe they have even dared to leave Japan and live outside the embryonic yolk of Japanese society. Dared to allow themselves, their dreams, their aspirations, their desires for and of life to hatch on foreign shores. <br /><br />The men who act on their dreams are amazing, unique and rare. Men who dream the same or similar dreams are not though. It seems to be part and parcel of life in the hamster maze of Japanese life style and workplace. Hard working hamsters enjoy the pathos of dreaming about what kind of life they could have or would like to have--it acts as a kind of catharsis to overcome the reality of the life that they do have. Catharsis is a good thing when it purges the feelings that cause distress. <br /><br />When it becomes an enabler to a life that violates the individual it is hard to continue rushing to the theater, you can only take so many tragedies in stride before even comedies cease to ease the soul. <br /><br />My husband has never had any "live-a-more-natural,-relaxed-life-in-the-country-side" kind of dreams. Although for a while, he did talk about returning to his hometown in the South of Japan, opening his own cram school, and living a more relaxed paced life. (I just nodded and listened, thinking, "running your own business, and a cram school at that--would be anything BUT a slower paced life style.") At the time, I think he just really wanted to exit the world in which he was working--with people always above him that he had to answer to and obey. You know, he just basically wanted to be his own boss. <br /><br />Now, because of Masa's illness, we don't talk about retirement dreams, or dreams of what life without kids underfoot will mean for us as a couple. I wish we could get the future back, but at present, we just deal with the present and maybe the future 3-5 years from now. <br /><br />The dreams that Masa talks about now are how he will change his work schedule--get home earlier in time to help the girls with their homework. He talks about getting up early and being able to drive the girls to school in bad weather and get to work on time (8:30 a.m.) <br /><br />Last semester, he would get to work at about 8:50 a.m. so I could just make my 9 a.m. class and mornings were always hurried and chaotic. <br /><br />In order to actually change his schedule, he would have to endure at least a month of jet lag like fatigue (which coupled with his RA symptoms would make life nearly unbearable.) He would somehow have to accept that during that adjustment period some things at work just would not get done, or at least, not done on time. He would have to be able to look ahead into the future, where a more regular sleep schedule and lifestyle would give him the energy to catch up, to keep up with the hectic pace of work. But when you are in the grips of jet lag--think SEVERE case of jet lag, where if you stop talking, even if your eyes are open you quickly fall into a deep sleep, being able to think ahead seems to become nearly impossible for him. <br /><br />And of course, during that first month, he would have to bear up under incredible censure at work from those above him, even from those below him, who still working till 1 or 2 a.m. at night would resent him leaving work any earlier than them. <br /><br />The rewards that Japanese workplaces shower upon those workers who are willing to sacrifice everything for the company are hard to wean yourself of: indulgence, respect, status. <br /><br />Actual change is discouraged, despite what ever legislature is passed. Laws passed to eliminate the inhuman hours of overtime employees were putting in simply resulted in employees putting in insane overtime without pay. Paper trails of overwork are actively discouraged. <br /><br />But dreaming about change, about living life to enjoy and experience it rather than to withstand it seem to be encouraged in Japanese culture. There is something about dreaming that seems endemic to Japanese workers. The work life and schedule is so demanding and unforgiving and combine that with a drive to achieve and a workaholic personality--men like Masa really struggle. I really admire those individuals in Japan that do actually work towards realizing their dreams of a life where they work to live, not live to work. Whether that means that they get out of the rat race entirely (opening an inn in the country side, working out of the home, farming, etc.) or whether it means that they are able to set boundaries between their work life and their home/private life and succeed in prioritizing the later. <br /><br />I spent years thinking that Masa would wake up and realize that he was pouring his life away. Then I decided that while I couldn't change his approach to work/life, I could change mine. And there is a fine line there for a couple. I crossed the line and separated my life and the girls' lives entirely from his. <br /><br />When I first decided to live for myself and stop waiting up nights for him, stop suffering from disappointment when he would invariable choose work or sleep over us on the weekends and holidays, I thought I could model the example of a friend of mine at the time. She lived life energetically and enthusiastically. She and her children would go to the zoo, camping, swimming, take trips to Okinawa, and back to her home country. She enrolled them in all kinds of lessons and programs and ran her house perfectly while working full-time as a translator out of her home. Her husband was basically not present most of the time, but when he could he joined them and they had some good family times (honestly, maybe only a hand full of weekends out of the year). He saw her working hard for their family, both domestically and in the work place and I think appreciate it and therefore, her. So when he did join them, she was honestly happy and he genuinely enjoyed his time with his family. <br /><br />While I succeeded in taking charge of the kids and my own life--we had our schedules, our outings, our rituals--I did not succeed in living life energetically or enthusiastically. My husband was not invited into our lives in anyway. <br /><br />That line is so thin that it is hard to even perceive at first. It is a fragile thin line of communication, of caring, and showing appreciation for each other and finally of feeling appreciation for each other that once crossed surprises you. On the other side, you see that while it was a thin divide, it is very deep, stretching down into areas that you can barely make out, decipher, see. And so I feel on my knees, on my side of the divide and pitied myself, pitied my children and cursed my husband. In my eyes, it was his culture, his country, his lack of effort or caring that unleashed the earthquake in our relationship that ended in this fault line, in this open crevice to the sight of a part of my soul that I had never wanted to confront. At the bottom of that crevice, if I strained hard enough to see, was me: a bitter woman who saw herself as wronged. A woman who was outraged at the life she found herself forced to live. A woman who resented her husband, his job, even the money that he brought home from work. A woman who lacked the capacity to feel even an ounce of empathy for her husband. There was only one figure in the drama of her life--which had of course turned into a monologue--starring her.<br /><br />How I managed to rewrite the script to include a cast--that requires more brooding than I have time to invest this morning. And this is all kind of navel gazing stuff anyway. Anyone other than my very own navel probably isn't all that keen on following the story to its conclusion. So for now, I shall scuttle away and take my navel off to the kitchen. Where I will try to appease the restless (and feisty) offspring with calming F-O-O-D. Or what a normal mother would call "lunch".coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-2605405351894032612009-01-11T18:05:00.002+09:002009-01-11T18:08:49.995+09:00It's a year early but. . .All I want for Christmas is MY OWN COMPUTER!<br /><br />The kids are all over this one now. Reno uses it for homework assignments (researching things like the nutritional value of watermelons and the names of all the prefectures in Japan) and Saki knows her way around nearly every single game site--in English and Japanese. <br /><br />Then, there's Masa who logs on for hours, working out of the home on the weekends. <br /><br />When's a girl to blog? <br /><br />Oh, and our DVD player broke,and since one can watch DVDs on this computer, that is exactly where Reno and Saki are watching them these days. <br /><br />I may be forced to become an early riser, just to get a chance at the computer!coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-38838638469786592052009-01-01T14:08:00.005+09:002009-01-01T20:14:31.412+09:00And How I Actually CelebratedJust to put everyone's mind at ease--there was no flaming bon fire with crazy woman dancing around it.<br /><br /><br /><br />That was how I would have seen the year off in the second conditional world (the realm in which events and situations are unrealistic/imaginary/have little to no chance of ever occurring).<br /><br /><br /><br />Like everyone else, I live in the real world, so I saw 2008 out the door in a real way. With Christmas behind us, I had all the American holiday traditions over with--the stockings, the Christmas tree and decorations, the Christmas Day phone calls to friends and family, the Turkey dinner. . .so as the 31st drew near it was time to switch modes: Japanese New Year.<br /><br /><br /><br />This year we stayed up in Northern Japan. Masa's hometown is down in Kyushu, but we didn't travel home for the New Year holidays this year. We decided to stay and celebrate here. In Japan, New Years goes hand in hand with "Osoji" which is like American Spring Cleaning. Everyone scrubs, scours, declutters, organizes, shines and polishes in preparation for the coming of the New Year. Our house is full of toys, broken fans, radios, umbrellas, old pots and pans, bags of recyclables that never made it out on recycle collection days. . . my mother would probably run to a therapist's office desperate to find out "where she went wrong" in bringing me up is she saw the sty that we are currently residing in.<br /><br /><br /><br />I thought a bit about calling it a "back lash" to being raised in a perfectly dusted, highly organized, model home environment . . . I mean, the whole "back lash" theory works successfully to explain my Freshman year at college. I entered University having never done. . . anything but study and go to Church and listen to my sage parents' advice. The spring I finished my Freshman year, I was on academic probation and nearly got expelled. But I was much more "experienced" than when I entered all clean and shiny that Fall.<br /><br /><br /><br />While I mulled over the idea of unloading the state of my house on my parents' I had to admit that while I might have run wild when I was 18 for the first time in my life because I had no boundaries for the first time. . . I don't think it's an excuse that will float for failing to dust, declutter, organize, or regularly clean my abode. I toyed with the idea of throwing my hands up in the air and pleading the "I have small kids who are like hyperactive tornadoes and destroy any sense of order I try to create" line of defense. . . but then again, they are my kids. If they are messy it is not their fault. I obviously haven't modeled good habits for them and if they have far too many toys. . . well, who gave them all to them?<br /><br /><br /><br />Plus, truth be told, I am a bit of a pack rat. I like to keep things, just in case. Of course, I never use them as I can never find them (maps, information packets, manuals, pictures, books I intend to read, things I think I might be able to recycle for various uses); more sinister is the fact that when I do re-discover them years later, I still look at them and think, "Oh! Here it is! It really is a useful/nice/interesting thing. Better keep it." and throw it back into the tumultuous heaving mass of ever moving, elusive "stuff" that covers and coats every inch of my house.<br /><br /><br /><br />My youngest takes after me. Her favorite activity is to find a bag/back pack/suitcase/box and fill it with "treasures". Then she relocates the treasures to another area of the house. Recently I have discovered that she is stashing treasures (yards of twine, small picture books, photos, costume jewelry, coins, marbles, crayons) in my drawers and bookshelves. Right now her mind is still keen and sharp (not dulled by a Freshman year like the one I had) and she actually has high recall in remembering where she has tucked various valuables and prized possessions away. When ever we are looking for something, we all ask Saki. "Saki honey, have you seen Daddy's keys? Do you know where Mommy's cell phone is?"<br /><br />Her sister on the other hand, has lousy recall and absolutely no design behind where she leaves things. My theory is that she has inherited the "put it in the most convenient spot" gene from her father. Which doesn't mean, the most logical spot, or the place where you would make it a habit to stow a certain item. It means, drop the object in the closest proximity to wherever you are at the moment so that you don't have to move out of your way to put it away. It still pains me whenever I hear, "Mom, have you seen my nano-pod?" I've had a special basket on the counter for the nano-pod since the day she got it. I find that nano-pod in various places throughout the house and deposit it in that basket. She never even checks the basket--she never puts it in there, so why would it be there?<br /><br />But today--we have all tackled this heap we call home. Masa and Reno have been working on the upstairs rooms--Reno's and Saki's. Tomorrow I will tackle the bedroom where we all sleep. Saki uses it as a play room when her friends are over, due to the fact that her and Reno's room have been unendurable for months now. Reno sat on the clear storage bin that I use for my clothing and splintered the plastic lid into a zillion pieces. Saki's toys and old phones and faxes that she and her friends use when they play "house" or "school" are scattered all over. I'm guilty too. There are about 20 ear plugs scattered on the floor near the futons. The first day I used ear plugs at night was the first night I slept for longer than one hour uninterrupted. My kids talk, laugh, scream and shriek in their sleep. Masa comes home and stays up late watching Japanese T.V. programs, on which people tend to talk, laugh, scream and shriek. The earplugs get me a few hours of sleep every night, but I really have to come up with a better system than scattering them around the futon. . .<br /><br />I'm home, off of work now, till April so I will be confronting different household chores and tasks every day. I intend to even clean the windows, inside and out. Reorganize the kitchen, scrub the exhaust fan, de-mold the washing machine, clean all the drains, wax the wood floors, tame the heaps of bills/statements and other paper menace that teeters in piles on the kitchen counter. I also intend to ruthlessly throw out anything I have not used in over 6 months. Mostly. <br /><br />So, osoji, we have a handle on. <br /><br />The other parts of New Years here is the T.V. fest on New Year's Eve. We watched a little of NHK's Red and White program--a music program where two teams compete (I think it is men vs. women?). But we centered in on a program where 5 comedians try to make it through a day without laughing. When they laugh guys in black body suits come running out and paddle them on the behind. It is a lot of physical slap stick humor, but I have to admit to liking it. Very typical Japanese humor. Like putting a big cup of hot coffee on someones back when they are laying down and then watching them try to get up without spilling it--and laughing hysterically when they scald themselves. The comic wrestling show before this one was also classic. A guy and a girl (I think she was a professional wrestler, he was just a comedian) swinging watermelons on ropes around and smashing each other in the head with them. I kept waiting for the guy to get seriously injured. <br /><br />Just before midnight I brought out some champagne for Masa and I and filled the girls champagne flutes with ginger ale. Saki excelled at clinking glasses together. Masa coached both girls on how to offer the appropriate New Year's greetings in Japanese and then we greeted each other, formally bowing to one another. (This is a good example of one of those moments when I find myself floating out of body, looking down in a perplexed manner saying, "no really. Really? This is my life?" Never imagined my family would be bowing at one another at 12:00 a.m. on New Years Day!)<br /><br />This morning we all woke up late and while Masa and I were still upstairs I heard Reno and Saki arguing downstairs about what to watch on T.V. My heart grew three sizes when I heard Reno say, "Okay. Then let's try to find a program that we BOTH want to watch." (I've been despairing that they ever listen to me at all recently, and she was modeling my daily suggestion that I make a million times when they are home on vacation together.) <br /><br />When Masa and I came downstairs, I started making this year's ozoni (a clear soy sauce dashi broth soup with chicken, carrots, shiitake, diakon, spinach and mochi in it). Once that was ready we all sat down together to welcome in 2009 over a traditional Japanese New Year's breakfast--the ozoni. Then Masa called his mother and we all bowed over the phone as we offered New Years Greetings to aunts, uncles, cousins, mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-laws, nephews and nieces. <br /><br />So. I did burn a batch of mochi later in the morning, when I got side tracked doing something outside of the kitchen and forgot that I had three mochis grilling on the stove. But that's it. I swear. Nothing else went up in flames.<br /><br />Happy New Year! May 2009 be filled with good fortune, good friends, family and laughter.coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-11076167340376114822008-12-29T20:30:00.003+09:002008-12-29T21:15:08.170+09:00Top Ten Reasons to Bid 2008 a Joyful FarewellI've been dreaming up ways to celebrate the passing of 2008. Ideally, I'd like to hold a huge bon fire and throw every single thing we no longer need, don't use or have broken and can't repair onto it. This would result in a mega bon fire, nearly bigger than but at least equal to the square footage of our house. I would like to then proceed to dance around that bon fire, ipod cranked up and a bottle of tequilla in hand. There would ideally be a pail of lime slices and sea salt nearby. My children would be in the hands of a responsible adult somewhere remote from me and my bon fire. In fact, me and my bon fire would be remote from everyone, thus enabling me to dance with abandon and scream and sing till my lungs burn as hot as the flames. I would swallow that tequilla and spit out all the bad karma that has descended on me this year. I would sing at the top of my lungs songs about betrayal and broken hearts and hatred. I would sing them into the fire and out of my mind. I would end by calmly sitting and sweeping the ashes of my spent fire into a pail to haul home. The next morning I would wake up and listen to Tub Thumping (I Get Knocked Down). I would drink a huge glass of water. I would hug my children, who would be back home after their evening with the responsible adult who was not me. I would carefully store my bucket of the ashes of 2008 in the shed out back. I'd probably forget, but if I didn't, in the spring I would take it with me to the ocean or up into the mountains where I would spread it in the wind, watch it float and settle and disappear while listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter's rendition of "Why Walk When You Can Fly?"<br /><br /><strong>Top Ten Reasons to Bid 2008 a Joyful Farewell</strong><br /><br />1. I will never have to relive the past 12 months of my life.<br />2. I lost 30 kilos on the stress diet; thinner now and healthier. No, it wasn't cancer (thank you concerned doctor at the Red Cross hospital who ran me through every test possible--that one where you crammed a fiber optic camera down my throat while I earnestly tried to vomit it up for the duration of the test, in particular was fun.) it was stress. I tried to point out that possibility, "Couldn't stress, insomnia and no appetite cause a low grade fever and weight loss?" 2008 answered that one with a resounding, "Yes."<br />3. I discovered that inexplicably, it is true that apparently, no matter what happens to me, I won't shatter and cease to be. Which sucks a bit--am I the only one envious of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' lyrics, "I've had the chance to be insane, asylum from the falling rain, I've had a chance to break."? ? ? (from the song "Slow Cheetah")<br />4. Statistically, the terrible, unimaginable horrors that could happen to me that would be worse than what I endured in 2008, aren't very likely to happen.<br />5. I am no longer afraid of sudden death, which leaves me impervious to fear of earthquakes, plane crashes, car wrecks, home intrusions, in flight syndrome, etc.<br />6. I finally grew up.<br />7. My youngest will finish up pre school and start at elementary school this spring. (no more mother and me field trips, pre school sales, parades, or recitals to attend packed like a foreign over sized fish among hundreds of homogeneous sardines.)<br />8. I got back in the classroom after a five year break.<br />9. I learned that although I often feel isolated here, there are, across Japan and scattered throughout the world, friends who are there for me ready to talk, listen and support me. I also rediscovered the healing power of reaching out to help others who need a helping hand.<br />10. I discovered four new foreigners (women married to Japanese) living here in my little Northern Japanese city.coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-1023002337385958722008-11-10T18:55:00.004+09:002008-11-10T19:15:56.312+09:00Couldn't ResistI couldn't resist this. Saw it over at <a href="http://hyotenka.blogspot.com/">http://hyotenka.blogspot.com/</a><br /><br />(which is a fantastic blog by the way--her photos are AMAZING.) I love nature and I wish I had her talent at capturing it on film! Not to mention I think life in Hokkaido is fascinating and she does a great job of describing daily life there.<br /><br /><br /><br />anyway. There are very few lists which I get interested in of this type as I invariably end up not being able to check off . . . anything and go away feeling very dowdy and unworldly. But I noticed immediately on this list--I could check off a few!<br /><br /><br /><br />So, the things I have done are in bold. How about you? Obviously, from my answers I am one of those annoying Americans who has never been to Europe.<br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>1. Started your own blog</strong><br /><br /><strong>2. Slept under the stars</strong><br /><br /><strong>3. Played in a band</strong><br /><br />4. Visited Hawaii<br /><br /><strong>5. Watched a meteor shower</strong><br /><br /><strong>6. Given more than you can afford to charity</strong><br /><br /><strong>7. Been to Disneyland</strong> (<strong>in Tokyo and LA</strong>)<br /><br /><strong>8. Climbed a mountain</strong><br /><br /><strong>9. Held a praying mantis</strong><br /><br />10. Sang a solo<br /><br />11. Bungee jumped<br /><br />12. Visited Paris<br /><br />13. Watched a lightning storm at sea<br /><br />14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (knitting, photography, many others)<br /><br />15. Adopted a child<br /><br /><strong>16. Had food poisoning</strong><br /><br /><strong>17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty</strong><br /><br /><strong>18. Grown your own vegetables</strong><br /><br />19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France<br /><br /><strong>20. Slept on an overnight train</strong><br /><br /><strong>21. Had a pillow fight</strong><br /><br /><strong>22. Hitch hiked</strong><br /><br /><strong>23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill</strong><br /><br /><strong>24. Built a snow fort</strong><br /><br /><strong>25. Held a lamb</strong><br /><br /><strong>26. Gone skinny dipping</strong><br /><br />27. Run a Marathon<br /><br />28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice<br /><br /><strong>29. Seen a total eclipse</strong><br /><br /><strong>30. Watched a sunrise or sunset</strong><br /><br />31. Hit a home run<br /><br />32. Been on a cruise<br /><br /><strong>33. Seen Niagara Falls in person</strong><br /><br />34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors<br /><br /><strong>35. Seen an Amish community</strong><br /><br />36. Taught yourself a new language<br /><br />37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied<br /><br />38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person<br /><br /><strong>39. Gone rock climbing</strong><br /><br />40. Seen Michelangelo’s David<br /><br /><strong>41. Sung karaoke</strong><br /><br /><strong>42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt</strong><br /><br />43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant<br /><br />44. Visited Africa<br /><br /><strong>45. Walked on a beach by moonlight</strong><br /><br />46. Been transported in an ambulance<br /><br />47. Had your portrait painted<br /><br />48. Gone deep sea fishing<br /><br />49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person<br /><br />50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris<br /><br />51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling<br /><br /><strong>52. Kissed in the rain</strong><br /><br /><strong>53. Played in the mud</strong><br /><br /><strong>54. Gone to a drive-in theater</strong><br /><br />55. Been in a movie<br /><br />56. Visited the Great Wall of China<br /><br />57. Started a business<br /><br />58. Taken a martial arts class<br /><br />59. Visited Russia<br /><br />60. Served at a soup kitchen<br /><br /><strong>61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies</strong><br /><br /><strong>62. Gone whale watching</strong><br /><br /><strong>63. Got flowers for no reason</strong><br /><br /><strong>64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma</strong><br /><br />65. Gone sky diving<br /><br />66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp<br /><br /><strong>67. Bounced a check</strong><br /><br /><strong>68. Flown in a helicopter</strong><br /><br /><strong>69. Saved a favorite childhood toy.</strong><br /><br /><strong>70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial</strong><br /><br /><strong>71. Eaten Caviar</strong><br /><br />72. Pieced a quilt<br /><br /><strong>73. Stood in Times Square</strong><br /><br />74. Toured the Everglades<br /><br />75. Been fired from a job<br /><br />76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London<br /><br />77. Broken a bone<br /><br /><strong>78. Been on a speeding motorcycle.</strong><br /><br /><strong>79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person</strong><br /><br />80. Published a book<br /><br />81. Visited the Vatican<br /><br />82. Bought a brand new car<br /><br />83. Walked in Jerusalem<br /><br /><strong>84. Had your picture in the newspaper</strong><br /><br /><strong>85. Read the entire Bible</strong><br /><br />86. Visited the White House<br /><br />87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating<br /><br /><strong>88. Had chickenpox</strong><br /><br />89. Saved someone’s life<br /><br />90. Sat on a jury <strong>(no, but I got called for jury duty many times, just never selected. If I remember correctly, I was always the person just after the last person selected.)</strong><br /><br /><strong>91. Met someone famous.</strong><br /><br />92. Joined a book club<br /><br /><strong>93. Lost a loved one</strong><br /><br /><strong>94. Had a baby</strong><br /><br /><strong>95. Seen the Alamo in person</strong><br /><br /><strong>96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake</strong><br /><br />97. Been involved in a law suit<br /><br /><strong>98. Owned a cell phone</strong><br /><br /><strong>99. Been stung by a bee </strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>and I'm adding one of my own for an even hundred</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>100. Taken the Japanese Shinkansen</strong>coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-76489013574631290162008-10-14T10:02:00.003+09:002008-10-14T10:45:12.403+09:00Bears Begging in ParadiseI'm so tired right now I probably shouldn't be blogging. Today is my fourth day off in a row and I am exhausted. I can tell I am getting old because these days I think about the great relaxing holidays I'll be able to take in the future when my kids are older. . .<br /><br />My kids get so excited about having a day off of school that they pop awake about 2 hours earlier than usual on Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays. Sigh. Daddy is allowed to sleep in, because basically you could re-enact the American Civil War on top of him and it wouldn't wake him up. <br /><br />The girls have long ago given up on 2 things: 1. trying to wake up Daddy, 2. any pretense of being quiet in order not to "disturb" Daddy. This means that I, the world's lightest sleeper (did a down feather in the comforter shift? the ear splitting clamour of it all!) get the joy of being awoken early most mornings. My one chance at sleeping in usually comes with flu season when they are so exhausted from vomiting all night long that they sleep past the dawn. <br /><br />So this weekend saw me stubbornly trying to indulge my adult appetites every evening(watching non kid suitable T.V. shows, reading, drinking red wine, trying to stay up for some time alone with Masa) and then having my puffy, sleep deprived face rubbed in it the following morning when I was forcibly evicted from my futon by my robust, extremely vocal and energetic offspring.<br /><br />Yesterday we took them on a road trip to view the fall foliage. Before setting off Masa had called the local tourist center there and inquired into "kid-friendly" activities in the area. They recommended a "Bear Park." Okay. So we drove up and took in the amazing scenery--glorious fall foliage--brilliant oranges, reds, golds, greens splashed across mountain valleys. We kept the kids under control by reminding them of the end destination (at the end of the afternoon): Bear Park. <br /><br />Now, up in what can not be called anything other than "Nature", I expected this Bear Park to be a kind of reserve. I mean, look to the left--a cascading waterfall, look up to the right--snow pack just above a brilliant splash of crimson. Look down at your feet--a daddy long legs making a dash for it, over across the top of your Nike and off to the mushroom the size of your hand by the side of the path. Crystal clear blue rivers flowing down into an emerald green lake. How could anyone keep a bear up here and not put it in a "natural" environment? <br /><br />We got to the Bear Park and saw a small concrete entrance gate/booth. Two old Japanese women were inside. They looked like they were fighting off frostbite, wrapped in several layers of different ponchos/blankets. (Up on the mountain it was about 10 degrees Celsius). Nothing looked. . . very. . . .good. The one window on their booth was cracked and broken. All the exposed metal was rusted. Uh oh. I instantly pictured forking over our money only to pass by the concrete box and find one poor bear locked up on one small cage. <br /><br />That would have been a good thing it turns out. <br /><br />What we found on the other side of their cement outpost still disturbs me. It will always disturb me. <br /><br />In three small outdoor concrete pits were bears. Maybe 60? 70? There was also another small series of cages in which were crowded more bears. In these concrete enclosures the bears had: each other, concrete and some pools of water that looked like they were filled at the mercy of the skies overhead rather than any hose or pump. No trees or logs to climb/play with. NOTHING green anywhere. Basically: nothing. No feeding troughs, no toys, nothing to climb. . .<br /><br />As soon as the bears saw us they started to stand up on their rear legs and clap or pray. They had obviously learned what humans think is "cute" in order to get food. The two elderly ladies at the entrance had sold us two bags of apples just for this purpose and my family began to desperately huck apple after apple into the bears enclosures. I think even the girls felt a bit like they were in the middle of a starving crowd dispensing Red Cross supplies. <br /><br />My usually stoic husband looked panic stricken. He hurried back up the hill to buy more apples. In fact, during our short time at the Bear Park, he went back up the hill about 4 times to buy more apples. In fact, we bought ALL the bags of apples. <br /><br />When we left the bears were still clapping, praying and holding onto their toes (another cute pose that they had learned). <br /><br />On our way out Masa asked the ladies at the gate a few questions. They seemed very, very defensive. He wanted to know where the bears slept? What did they eat? (other than the over priced apples tourists bought to throw to them) What happened to them when the winter snows came? Where were they from originally? What kind of bears were they? <br /><br />Their caregivers didn't give many answers: they are bears. We got the first two from Hokkaido. They sleep in their cages. Rain? Snow? They are bears. <br /><br />When we left Masa noted that the two elderly ladies were locking the gate and leaving with us. "I guess no one stays with the bears." he said. Then, "I guess no one is going to take care of them tonight, you know feed them, check their water. . . " <br /><br />I reckon not. <br /><br />Maybe their caregivers were thrilled when we bought the last bags of apples to disperse among the bears--their feeding duties for the day were over. <br /><br />Just outside the Bear Park there was a beautiful outdoor vista area. In the middle of it was a natural hot springs foot bath. Before going into the park we had made plans to stop and take in the sun setting on all the foliage with our feet in the hot steaming mineral water. . . but after saying goodbye to all those bears, all those bears packed together, begging together from their concrete cages. . . we decided we didn't need a foot bath. <br /><br />With the Bear Park about two kilometers behind us, I reached for a package of crackers and started to unenthusiastically (my mind was still trapped on hard concrete back with the bears) offer them to the girls. Reno looked at it and then looked carefully at my face, "Mommy. After seeing the bears, it makes you kinda not hungry, huh?"coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-42692768825402675702008-09-19T13:57:00.003+09:002008-09-19T14:06:02.269+09:00blogging just to blat.blat is a form of "blog and chat" combined.<br /><br />Friday---now that I am working Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Friday has redeemed itself in my eyes as the most glorious wonderful day of the week. I celebrated today by buying 2 new drinks on the way home. The first was a Tomato/vodka drink in a can. It was a disappointment. I added it to my all veggie lunch (you know, as my liquid veggie) but it barely tasted like a tomato at all. In the future, I will just buy myself an extraordinarily big juicy tomato (no matter what the cost, even out of season) slice it up and pour vodka on top. Then I will throw on a splash of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Tabasco</span>. It would be a HUGE improvement on the icky, too sweet, weird cocktail in a can I experienced this afternoon. Next I moved on to drink number two--well, I am on drink number two right now with the plan of completely <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">sobering</span> up prior to Saki's arrival home on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">youchien</span> bus. It is a winner. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Kuro</span> Cocktail, grapefruit tonic. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Veeeryyy</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">smooooooth</span> and bitter. Love it.<br /><br />I also celebrated today because my husband is back on the island! He has been abroad on business for the past 11 days. (that is 10 nights, 11 days). I don't know why, but just knowing that we are in the same country again seems to have freed up my breathing and made me want to. . . sing? (I never sing. Must be this incredibly <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">delish</span> cocktail in a can) Although even when <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Masa</span> is here I pretty much single parent--it still feels fantastic to know that there is a "second string" back in town. Great. I can now get run over by a truck and no longer worry over who would look after the kids while I was being scraped off the pavement!coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-89867417884996477592008-09-17T15:36:00.003+09:002008-09-17T16:14:28.459+09:00Blogging without a PurposeI am blogging without a purpose here at the moment. Just because I started to feel like the blog was, well, suffering. Like the fish do when the kids loose all interest in them and start forgetting to fed them and don't even contemplate cleaning their tank. <br /><br />Maybe a comparison to a virtual pet would be better: My Blog--the Adult Tamagochi. <br /><br />My kids had those tamagochi things for a while and guess who became obsessed with making sure that the tamagochi went to school, ate regularly, went to the toilet, etc.? ? ? ? Good lord, I even discovered "Tamagochi Town" on line and started taking them on virtual vacations! <br /><br />Standing next to another mum at Saki's preschool my daughter's tamagochi and her daughter's tamagochi's alarm went off at the same time. So we confided our addiction to each other and laughing about becoming a slave to a virtual pet helped liberate me. <br /><br />Standing there and commiserating about how embarrassing it was to be constantly chained to an electronic toy and swapping stories about the trials and tribulations of tamagochi transformations--how you have to try so hard in order to get them to transform into the tamagochi you want them to be (example: send it to charm school a zillion times a day and it'll turn into a cute little strawberry looking creature. Forget to send it to school, or send it too infrequently and it'll turn out looking like a little nasty onion creature.) I realized: Oh my God, I have turned into an idiot.<br /><br />So after that, I let them die off, one by one. <br /><br />It's a sad ordeal too--those people who design those things know how to pull emotional strings--but die they did and then I refused to get replacement batteries when MONTHS later the girls noticed that their virtual pets had gone feet up in the air. <br /><br />Any way. . . back to blogging with out a purpose. I have been READING blogs with a purpose. A lot going on out there--people making significant life choices (marriage, moves, job changes) and people celebrating important events (arrival of baby, announcement of pregnancy, the divorce finally came through. . . etc.) and I have been sitting here feeling a bit like a cicada must feel during those years in the dirt. I am going through a lot but no one around me can see it. I am working hard on transformation but it is still all in the dark. <br /><br />However, I am feeling very. . . content sitting here in the dark focusing on all these inward changes. And honestly, when I poke my head out (to go to work, to go to school events, to go buy milk at the grocery store) I come back rather fatigued and ready to refocus again, on me: in the dark. <br /><br />Dark does not equal (=) depression. Dark equals me tuning out everything that I feel I can safely tune out for the moment--chatter, bustle, much ado about nothing. If it is not going to do grievous damage to a friendship of great importance, if it is not going to affect my professional career, if it is not going to end up fodder for the psychologist's couch in my children's' futures. . . then I probably am not all that caught up in it at the moment. I am very focused inward and then in graduating degrees on that around me--starting with the closest moving slowly and deliberately to the outer areas of life. <br /><br />Spontaneous is obviously an adjective that I have rarely met with. If I did it most likely shocked me and sent me scurrying back home. <br /><br />So the seasonal change suits me quite well this year. Summer is on its way out. Our evenings are finally cool and even chilly towards the early morning hours. The leaves on the trees haven't started to turn yet, but the rice fields are now swollen ponds of gold. This morning, standing on campus looking out at the trees and lawns surrounding the building I teach in, I was delighted to find dragon flies (both blue and red) hovering above the chestnut trees. Fall is coming. <br /><br />I can't wait until the trees explode in yellow, brown, red and orange and I wake up realizing that I need mittens and a scarf. <br /><br />And then there will be the snow, the ice, the chill northern winds of Japan. Snow festivals. Hot nabe. Waking up at 5 a.m. to turn on the furnace. <br /><br />And eventually spring will come, when cicadas dig their way out of the dirt, new creatures, transformed.coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-82503709255059741692008-08-07T11:11:00.006+09:002008-08-07T17:55:52.223+09:00August 7th, 20087:00 a.m.<br /><br />I wake up because Reno has set an alarm clock--on a summer break morning! The real offense is that it is going off NOW. I had intended to sleep until 8:00 a.m. when I need to wake up Masa. Damn. I get up off of Saki's futon and gingerly step over Reno who is sleeping blissfully through the assortment of wild bird songs (alarm clock). I look over at Saki who is sleeping on my futon. I got shoved off of it at about 5 a.m. when she decided (as is her habit these days) that she wanted to use me as a human pillow.<br /><br /><br /><br />I don't enjoy being used as a human pillow, especially when it involves being rhythmically kicked and kneaded.<br /><br /><br /><br />I decide to give up on sleep and head downstairs to brew some coffee to make iced coffee. It is already quite hot inside the house and the Japanese summer sun is shinning down in samurai ferocity. Today the predicted high is 30 degrees Celsius (85 degrees F). Which shouldn't be such a hardship for a girl raised in California but it's the 66% humidity index that does me in.<br /><br /><br /><br />Today is trash collection day so I need to wake up and get the trash to the trash collection point by 8 a.m. anyway.<br /><br /><br /><br />We are by the way, completely thumbing our nose at the traditional natsu yasumi taiso regime. We have not even "thought" about getting up at 6 a.m. and down to the local neighborhood park to line up and perform early morning stretches and exercises to the nation wide broadcast summer taiso program.<br /><br /><br /><br />Saki comes down the stairs about 5 minutes after me and sidles up to the computer where I am checking my e-mail and reading the U.S. news. She doesn't say anything but looks meaningfully at me.<br /><br /><br /><br />"Good morning! What would you like for breakfast?"<br /><br /><br /><br />Saki nods her head.<br /><br /><br /><br />"Banana with sprinkles?"<br /><br /><br /><br />"Yes. And milk. In a baby cup."<br /><br /><br /><br />I go chop up a banana, sprinkle it liberally with the trans fat free cake decoration sprinkles that my sister-in-law sent from the States and fill a Playtex toddler cup with milk.<br /><br /><br /><br />Saki will be 6 this October but still insists on the "baby cup." Mostly so that she can break the eating/drinking rule of "stay at the table" and wander the house drinking milk/apple juice/water/tea to her heart's content and my consternation.<br /><br /><br /><br />When Reno awakes and descends the stairs I take her breakfast order. While I am frying up her bacon and scrambled eggs I help myself to a bowl of kabochya, tofu miso shiru. I offer her some and she predictably refuses it--she hates Japanese pumpkin (kabochya). She also hates Japanese style breakfast which has always puzzled me as I love it. Grilled fish, Japanese pickles, natto, rice and miso shiru is my favorite breakfast. But since I am the only one in the family who will eat it I usually only get it on vacations when we stay at Japanese style inns (ryokan).<br /><br /><br /><br />Masa simply doesn't eat breakfast, unless it is served at 11:30 a.m.<br /><br /><br /><br />While I am standing in the kitchen doing the dishes (which involves, emptying the drying rack of last night's dishes, washing up the morning's dishes and then setting them in the drying rack--like most Japanese households, we have no dish washer) I mentally flip through today's dinner options.<br /><br /><br /><br />Shyogayaki pork with a nice chilled shredded cabbage, cucumber and tomato salad and some fresh shishito. Wiping a bead of sweat from my nose, before it drops on its own onto the dishes I'm cleaning, I decide to add chilled tofu to the menu. Today is going to be just too damn hot. Rice of course, for the girls and Masa. . . and miso shiru with. . . daikon and wakame in it.<br /><br /><br /><br />I look at the time on the gas heater on the wall (gas stove, gas heated hot water) and realize that it is nearly 9:00 a.m. If I want to beat the trash collection guys (who actually hop off the truck and manually dump garbage bags into the back of a truck that to my eyes doesn't appear to have any trash compacting abilities) I had better get the trash taken out.<br /><br /><br /><br />Outside it is HOT. Not as hot as inside though. And although we do have two air conditioning units, they are Japanese wall mounted ones, that work just fine as long as you stand directly underneath them and don't move a muscle, they will keep you rather refreshed. The furnace effect inside is more because of our cats. We live in a rented house and the screens aren't normal. They pull down out of the window frames. . . hence, if our cats tear the window screen I can't fix it. I have searched all over and I can't find out how or where to fix screens like ours that have been damaged. The first summer here the cats damaged all but four of the screens (out of 10 or so). So now, unless I bother to drag out the cat cage and stuff the felines in, we stay indoors with the windows closed all year long.<br /><br /><br /><br />Every morning I vow to set up the cat cage and stuff them in. Then the heat sets in and I lose all desire to drag out and assemble anything. Plus they just look at me accusingly when they are in the cage.<br /><br /><br /><br />I have to walk about four blocks hauling the trash. Today I see a tear in one bag and do my best to hold it far away from me. We have a steel bowl like thing in our sink that is for "nama gomi" which roughly translates as "raw garbage." Into which goes fish bones, left over eggs, fish heads, tofu, vegetable peelings, fish guts, chicken skin and fat, etc. Living in Northern Japan it isn't so disgusting most of the time--but in the months of July and August here, in the summer heat of our area it is DISGUSTING. I empty it frequently and double bag the contents that I empty out of it before I put them in the trash but MY GOD DO THEY REEK.<br /><br /><br /><br />I even bought some handy "orange oil" spray to hose them down with but it just smells like oranges in a rotting heap of food.<br /><br /><br /><br />I manage to get to the trash collection point without any disgusting-gomi-juices getting on me and I unlatch the metal cage door (we have 2 threats to the trash: crows (the biggest threat) and bears, who I have never seen and hopefully never will see in our neighborhood.) and deposit my family's garbage among the garbage of our neighbor's. I carefully shove the metal door up as I slide the bolt across it to close it. The first year here I didn't know that trick and I scrapped about two inches of flesh off of a finger one morning. "Gaijin certainly do have blood curdling beast like yells don't they?" was probably said casually over many a breakfast table in the neighborhood that morning.<br /><br /><br /><br />Heading home I hope that my torn garbage bag doesn't rip further and spill. I was on garbage duty the past two weeks and luckily nothing like that ever happened on my watch. I just passed off the tongs, the dust pan, the broom and other "minder of the trash" things to my neighbor last night. If my bag rips open she's the one who will have to clean it up. I like her so I hope it doesn't rip. Plus, there are nearly always tell tale signs of whose garbage is whose and I'd hate to have her start looking at me with ". . .and I suppose you honestly couldn't spare the extra 200 yen to buy the heavy duty garbage bags? The one's that don't rip like wet tissue?"eyes of accusation. . .<br /><br /><br /><br />I open the door intending to wake up Masa straight off, it's 9 a.m. so he's overslept already by about an hour, but I find him downstairs mumbling good morning to the girls, who are fighting with each other over something significant like space on the sofa. I suggest to my bickering brood that perhaps they should get outside and start filling the pool.<br /><br /><br /><br />Masa is out the door and off to work long before the bickering brood has settled the sofa dispute much less begun to take any action towards filling their pool. I finish up the breakfast dishes and start on the laundry. First I have to bring in all the laundry off the line from yesterday and fold it and put it away. Then I have to start hanging up the load of wet clothing and towels that I did this morning. Half way through taking in the first load of clothing to fold and put away I realize that I am dripping with sweat. No, not figuratively, literally. I swipe a hand towel out of the fresh laundry and drape it around my neck and swab my face off with it. It's 10 a.m.<br /><br /><br /><br />I finish off the pot of iced coffee that I made earlier. I was up until about 2 a.m. as Reno has dedicated every bone in her body to staying up as late as possible during summer vacation and last night Masa came home about 10:00 p.m. He usually gets in later, anywhere between 11:30 p.m. and 1:00 a.m., but after seeing the results of Reno's 5th grade kanji test on Monday evening he has been trying to get home earlier in order to help her with homework.<br /><br />Just after he came through the door I put his dinner on the table. His last blood test showed that he is dangerously close to becoming officially diabetic so he is being force fed healthy fare. Last night was grilled fish, a side dish of long onions with fish flakes, soy sauce and sesame oil dressing, grated daikon, the kabochya and tofu miso that Reno spurned this a.m. and rice. I keep intending to switch him over to brown rice but the girls protest it so vigorously that I'm beginning to think I'll have to buy a second rice cooker--one for the simple carb crowd and one for the health conscious procreaters of the simple carb addicts.<br /><br /><br /><br />Although Masa kept begging me to go on up and sleep with Saki (who BLESS her little soul collapsed and passed out at about 10:45) the American in me wouldn't succumb. I was going to stay up later than my 10-year-old even if it killed me. Masa and Reno worked on math and kanji at the kitchen table till about midnight when I did finally fall asleep on the floor downstairs. I woke up at 1:00 a.m. and enjoyed some adult only time with my husband before going up to bed at about 1:40 a.m.<br /><br /><br /><br />Japan's work practices seem diametrically opposed to family life and specifically, they seem designed to extinguish any "adult time" that couples might have after having children. Take my two chores this a.m.: the laundry and the trash. The trash is supposed to officially be out by 8 a.m. Without clothing driers (most Japanese household still don't have a clothes dryer) the Japanese housewife needs to get up early and get her washing done in order to get the clothes out on the line to dry before the MIND MELTING heat of the day sets in.<br /><br /><br /><br />I, by the way, am about 2-3 hours behind all good housewives. A good housewife has the laundry done and out by say 6:30 a.m. so that she can focus on making her husband a bento and creating a six dish breakfast for her children. I cheerfully offer my kids toast and hard boiled eggs and bananas and Masa doesn't take a bento to work with him. I always feel victorious when I succeed in hanging out the laundry without fainting from sun stroke.<br /><br /><br /><br />But you can see that basically a Japanese housewife's daily chores demand that she be an early riser. Work practices demand that husbands work late or if not working in the office that they go out drinking (the social/business drinking that is part and parcel of the Japanese workplace/way of doing business). Either way they come home far later than their European or American counterparts.<br /><br /><br /><br />I used to not wait up for Masa and it meant that we had nearly no time together, alone, as adults. When we were both awake and together it was always in the role of mother and father. Rediscovering time with my husband as just him and me has been so rewarding that I am sporting a permanent living dead sort of appearance.<br /><br /><br /><br />Besides, if I didn't stay up to see him in the evenings two things would happen. A) he'd revert to an all ramen diet thus hastening the onset of diabetes. B) I'd end up living in a world where my conversations would be dominated by themes appealing to only 10 and 5 year-olds.<br /><br /><br /><br />I have a few local friends but no one that can pop in for a visit on the spur of the moment and no one that I can just call up to chat. The local friends I do have are like me, juggling a career and child care and that basically makes owning a phone nearly purposeless. Unless you find a friend who stays up past 10 p.m. and wants to talk late at night when the kids are asleep.<br /><br /><br /><br />Part of the reason I can't really have decent phone conversations is that even if I get the kids out the room, that doesn't mean that they can't hear what I am saying. So there again, all the conversations I can have while they are awake are child censored ones. Our house has four bedrooms and pick one, any one, and you can hear whatever is going on anywhere else in the house. When I escape with the cordless out the front door it invariably ends with two children frantically calling out "Mommy! Okaasan! LAURA!" until I am found.<br /><br />At noon I make tuna fish sandwiches for the girls. Reno's has cucumber mixed in: Saki's only has tuna and mayonnaise. I hope she thanks me when she accepts her Oscar. The child can look ill, peeked, swoon and if need be, vomit on command. She can also detect even the most finely diced and concealed piece of vegetable--any vegetable--in her food. If it wasn't for vegetable fruit juice mixes she would be a complete anti-vegetarian.<br /><br />I have to skip any lunch today as I am off for a CT scan at the local Red Cross hospital (my mother naively asked, "Are all the doctor's American? Do they all speak English?" isn't that cute?). My doctor is trying to discover why I have been running a low grade fever since February. I keep looking at her and cheerfully suggesting, "Stress?" But so far she isn't buying it. She's shoved a camera down my throat (I tried violently to vomit it up for the duration of the procedure but failed) to check out my stomach, ordered lung x-rays and a multitude of blood tests. All the tests have come back negative so far--I am one healthy, low grade fever sporting poser. At least that is how all these tests make me feel--no answers except, "you're a poser."<br /><br />After today's CT scan maybe I should fess up to my chronic sleep deprivation. Actually, the real reason she is so test happy is my recent weight loss. I have lost 24 kilos in less than 5 months. But, honestly, the reason, as I told her, is STRESS. I stopped eating, because I had no appetite due to STRESS.<br /><br />Anyway. I haven't lost anymore weight since I saw her a month ago. Maybe that will settle her down some. She's threatening me with a camera up the bum next. I am so excited to be 24 kilos lighter than I was in February/March but to escape the camera up the bum test I have even consumed several Snickers this week.<br /><br />And so, at 1:35 I cheerful wrap up my blog post and head off to the hospital. I already pity all the other patients as I have to take my incredibly LOUD and ACTIVE offspring with me. I pray to God that while I am in the CT scan machine they don't burst into surgery in process, knock any frail elderly people down or drive patients waiting in the cardiology department to have, well, a heart attack.<br /><br />Speaking of which, I better go hunt down their DS games and soft ware. The irritating noises and tunes of the software will drive people near them batty, but the games themselves will keep my two stationary at least.coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-44368825963599276282008-06-26T15:17:00.004+09:002008-06-26T16:13:37.322+09:00It's Tough to be a tadpole: or The Circle of Life our Family's StyleIt's <em>really</em> tough to be a tad pole at our house. Reno and Saki have been marauding through the local rice fields and have taken captive a dozen or so poor little wanna be amphibians. Those that have now succeeded in sprouting legs are currently being rounding up in a Barbie house in the drive way. I just gracefully exited the scene saying, "When they stop moving, they're dead."<br /><br />Not that I am a callous cold woman--I was trying to shock Saki and her friend into listening to me. I had just spent a good three minutes trying to explain that today is very hot and sunny and that these are just little bitty baby frogs with soft wet skin. I was cautioning that they really shouldn't be handled too much or forced to jump for say over a minute or so. But Saki and her little friend Yuki went right on screaming at the little green blobs that were desperately trying to escape Barbie's dream house.<br /><br />So, my youngest, who is currently torturing frogs in the drive way, surprised me last week by locking herself in the bathroom to weep over the death of one of our goldfish. (All the gold fish have by now departed this planet--some kind of deadly fish fungus.) What surprised me was her completely sincere solemness about it. She cradled the dead fish in a piece of tissue, holding it gingerly to her chest. She moved in a slow stately march to the bathroom. She took a deep breath. "I am going to close the door now and I want to be alone."<br /><br />Hmmmm. I stood outside wondering what exactly she was up to. When the door opened a good five minutes later I asked, "What were you doing? Did you flush the fish?" She nodded quickly and left to go play at a friend's house.<br /><br />When she came home I found her standing in the genkan staring at the empty fish tank. She looked up at me. "I was crying in the toilet. For the fish. For the poor fish." And I could see her eyes glistening and threatening to fill with tears again.<br /><br />Now, why was I surprised? Because I have gotten used to pets being unceremoniously chucked once they have given up the ghost. I remember gearing up and readying myself to break the news of the death of Reno's first pet to her. I was so worried and tense. It's such a blow to lose a beloved pet--so senseless, so raw so, well, <em>emotional</em>.<br /><br />But Reno at the age of three, when told that her hamster Hannah chyan had died, blinked at me intently and responded with, "so can we get 'nother one?" No tears. No remorse. No singing songs in honor of the dear departed little fuzzy companion.<br /><br />Me? I would have been gathering flowers and elaborating laying them on my pet's grave for MONTHS. In fact, that is what I did when I was three. I was in the fourth grade when I started bringing flattened snakes (road kill) home to bury in our backyard. I had a plot for all the poor departed creatures that I happened across. I wept for them. I prayed for them. I loved them beyond their life spans.<br /><br />Now, when an actual REAL family pet died--I was inconsolable for LOOOOONG periods.<br /><br />So when Reno greeted the demise of her first pet with a quick, "can we get 'nother one?" I was flabbergasted. Then I got disturbed.<br /><br />Fish came and went and no matter how pleased she seemed with them at the time, still, death raised only one question in her mind, "Can we get another one?"<br /><br />Her ojiichyan (Japanese grandfather) died and thankfully, she was content to just sit quietly through the funeral without posing the dreaded question. I expected her to be upset about losing a grandfather but she seemed a little more intrigued with gaining a portrait at the butsudan to light incense for, to put out little ceremonial cups of sake and leave tiny bowls of rice for. She was only five-year-old at the time, so perhaps I just expected too much. She was just still too young to wail and beat her chest yet like her dramatic mother.<br /><br />Reassurance came on an attempted flight back home from the States later that same year. We had to de-board the flight home due to Saki suddenly spiking a fever just before take off. In the airport, clutching a screaming and feverish Saki to my chest I looked down to see Reno sobbing uncontrollably. "Oh honey, what's the matter?"<br /><br />"Melon. Melon is waiting for us, but we aren't going to be coming home to her!"<br /><br />Melon was a one-year-old American short hair cat, our current (and happy to say still currently alive and well) family pet.<br /><br />Reno continued to sob--tears welling up in her eyes and pouring down her cheeks while her chest heaved. Saki wailed, although for a completely different reason--Otis media in both ears.<br /><br />All the way to the local ER Reno continued her mournful monologue about Melon the abandoned cat. She had been missing her the whole three months in America but had always told herself to be strong, she would see Melon soon. She missed petting her; she missed watching her eat. Now she wasn't going to get to see Melon soon.<br /><br />Normally a crying five-year-old and a shrieking one-year-old in the back of a taxi that was taking a good 45 minutes to get us to the ER that was supposed to be just 15 minutes from the airport would have pushed me over the edge. However, this time I was happy. My eldest daughter had a soft spot for her pet cat. The universe was back in alignment.<br /><br />If there is one thing I want my daughters to learn from me it is a respect for life--for all life. I get upset when I see little boys pulling the leaves off of trees-stripping branch after branch nude. I want to take in each and every stray cat and kitten that I see, I want to save the whales, the harbor seals and rain forests and everything in them. I'm a bit of a bleeding heart really. But it is one weakness that I am not ashamed of. Seeing connections between all the living organisms in my life--from the towering dandelion weed in the front yard to the soft grey cat curled up at the foot of my futon, to my daughters, our neighbors, the world--makes me feel safe and whole. We are all in this together. Albeit my beloved daughters may spend half their time together locked in near mortal combat, and that weed at the front of the house really needs to be whacked down and ripped out by the roots--still, we are all on the same ride.<br /><br />So I want my kids to learn to respect that and to learn that when someone gets off this ride it doesn't take anything away from you to pause and recognize and mark the loss. In fact, learning to mark the connections between the universal "you" in all it's varied forms strengths the individual you. You are part of something bigger than yourself.<br /><br />Of course, those poor little tadpoles stewing in their portable interrogation box, I mean bug catching cage, are probably wishing that they could be disconnected from my family. But last year, I remember taking the fully developed frogs back to the rice fields with the girls and watching my girls' faces as they let each bright green frog hop off a finger tip into the tall rice--I celebrated that connection present on their faces. And don't worry, the seige on Barbie's Dream house ended before the little guys "stopped moving."coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-771634675585676122008-05-28T14:46:00.005+09:002008-05-28T15:36:58.428+09:00Why I Wish I Were a Fiction WriterI have never been very talented at writing fiction. I took a seminar in it once at university and while I passed the class, I found it to be exceedingly difficult to weed out my life and my experiences and perceptions and use them to infuse a sense of reality into my fictional stories and still keep the stories fictional. I tried my hand at writing fiction again in graduate school and encountered the same problem. My stories that were best received by the professor and my peers were inevitably those in which my name and the name of others had been changed, the location modified and events fiddled with.<br /><br />But now I find myself in a weird ethical bind. I want to continue writing creative non-fiction prose. And I know that creative non-fiction prose isn't necessarily the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth but . . . Why do I feel this insane urge to go public with all my deepest innermost thoughts and turmoils? Why do I feel like to write from any position but the one in which I find myself mired in is a lie?<br /><br />Obviously when I write, now and in the past, I choose what to omit and what to include. Omission isn't lying, at least not outright lying and many times you have to decide what to omit to help strengthen the emotional or artistic impact of a piece of writing. Just as what you decide to include is important, to me what you leave out is of nearly equal importance.<br /><br />I always think of Virginia Woolf and her struggle in her quest to write a true stream of consciousness. Trying to represent reality in all its complexity is beyond our reach. Even now, sitting here at the computer typing I am not aware of everything going on at this exact moment. Yes, I am listening to my ipod (to Gwen Stefani). Yes, I am drinking a Starbucks Ice Latte (venti size--I have young children so I need the caffeine). Yes, I am trying to decide what word to write next and what word should come after that word and mostly I am struggling to repress the urge to just delete it all. And I just left out at least 20 other things going on in my mind and in my environment and they have all changed or been modified in some way in a 100 different ways already so I have already lost the ability to transmit them exactly as they occurred to me.<br /><br />I guess the gist of it is that not only did a profound life changing event happen to me but it has changed the ground from which I experience my life. When I walk down the street now, I have different impressions of people, different thoughts flit through my mind than previously. If I were a telescope either someone has swung me round and pointed me at a new star field or they have tampered with my lens and my whole outlook has changed.<br /><br />And that leaves me puzzled about how to write. I always just wrote from here, from me. While I always had to consider what to omit, what to reveal, what to elaborate on, what to hint at. . . I never had to consider where to write <strong><em>from</em></strong>. I knew the center of myself and I knew which perspective I was writing from. My filters were established and fixed.<br /><br />It's silly really. If I write, "I took off my youngest daughter's training wheels yesterday. It felt like releasing a hawk--off she sped down the street, pedalling frantically and triumphantly away from me, her mother." You still read it the same, don't you? But the person saying it has changed dramatically. The insecurities that watching my five-year-old speeding away from me stirred up in my maternal chest were augmented by the other insecurities incubating there.<br /><br />I define myself as a mother. I define myself as a wife. I define myself as a foreigner. I define myself as a woman. I define myself as a teacher. I define myself through my experiences. I'm a big believer in life shaping and molding us. If we choose to react to an event or if we choose not to react to an event we have been changed by that event. It forced us to make a decision and that decision leads us along our individual path of life to the next event awaiting us.<br /><br />So I used to be strolling along, narrating bits of my experiences and observations about what I saw along the way, when suddenly my path disappeared. I'm still finding my way, testing the ground at it were, looking for my footing, watching each step. And writing on this hill side of broken rock just seems foolish. I miss the solid ground. I miss the safety of knowing where I stood, knowing exactly where I was positioned in life.<br /><br />Of course that was probably just an illusion. But like a night light left on in a child's bedroom it gave me the peace and the illusion of security. No monster dares enter a room where a night light is on.coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-7950437843133265672008-04-15T20:57:00.002+09:002008-04-15T21:01:13.596+09:00Just can't blog/writeWell, I constantly think that the ability to write will return to me so I put off <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">admitting</span> that it has left. However, I feel guilty when I get those reports from the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">site meter</span> telling me that people are still dropping by--probably expecting to find something to read. <br /><br />What can I say? Write? Obviously nothing. <br /><br />I basically have gone through a life changing event and it has left me changed. Unfortunately, it has left me wordless, unable to put any of myself on paper. <br /><br />However, it hasn't left me hopeless. So I'm <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">keepin</span> the blog for a bit longer. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, a new writer will emerge from the mess that is me. <br /><br />Cheers.coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-78062120300165935802008-04-07T19:51:00.002+09:002008-04-07T19:59:43.810+09:00WTF?????I'm sorry, but <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">WTF</span> is up with the Japanese criminal courts? After reading <a href="http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080407p2a00m0na026000c.html">this</a> I'm still sitting here. . . wondering. . . WHY? They got him in 2000 for killing and "mutilating the corpse" of one <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Filipina</span> and now he's gone and done it again? WHY was this guy let out in the first place? How long was his previous jail term and since when did murder and twisted, warped, seriously sick behavior(corpse mutilation/body dismemberment) merit just a turn in the slammer?<br /><br />Okay, someone out there more up to date with the criminal system in Japan please answer the following question: If he had killed and dismembered a young Japanese bar hostess the first time around, would he have been let out to do it again?coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-17219878379514876902008-03-25T19:04:00.002+09:002008-03-25T19:10:53.275+09:00Of Doctor Fish and Ika<p>Our family seems to have a personal goal of visiting as many aquariums as possible through out the world. We've been to aquariums in America. We went to aquariums in Australia. We went to the aquarium in Singapore. We went to the aquarium in Osaka. Several times. We have been to the aquarium in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Masa's</span> home town now several times too. In February we went again.</p><p>I am really sick and tired of looking at fish, sharks, octopus, sea <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">anemones</span>, brine shrimp, sea stars, anything with gills that lives in the water. Otters I still like. They are like the ocean's cats: frisky, cute, playful. Seals stink and penguins are overrated. Dolphins are cool but I am bored watching the dolphin shows--you'll have to slap me in a wet suit and dump me in the actual tank <em>with</em> them before they regain my interest. </p><p>My youngest daughter, Saki however is fascinated and thrilled by the sight of a dolphin. Which is why on our recent visit to the Kagoshima City Aquarium she kept rushing into the otter viewing room and tugging at her older sister's, Reno's sleeve and shrieking in her extremely I'm-so-excited voice, "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">IKA</span>! <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">IKA</span>! <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">IKA</span> show! COME ON!" </p><p>Now "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">ika</span>" in Japanese means "squid." While I find them tasty, I don't particularly fancy looking at them alive and swimming around with their large eyes perched next to their <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">tentacles</span>. . . Disney knew what it was doing when it made that bad guy in Pirates of the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Caribbean</span> II look like a squid face. I prefer otters to palatable monsters of the deep. </p><p>Saki however would not give up. She continued to race back and forth between the "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">IKA</span> SHOW" and the otter viewing room until suddenly it dawned on me what she was saying. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Ika</span> SHOW? What the hell kind of SHOW can <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">ika</span> put on? My interest aroused I directed Reno to follow her <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">agitated</span> sister to the show pool of the aquarium. As soon as we entered it I realized what was going on. There were no trainers holding up hoops with squid jumping through them. No one was standing next to the pool blowing a whistle and directing two lines of squid to dance on the surface of the water with their tentacles. </p><p>It was a dolphin show. In Japanese, dolphin is "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">iruka</span>". <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Saka</span> had mixed up squid for dolphin. We stayed and the kids were overjoyed to leave dripping wet from the fabulous full belly flops that the dolphins performed with the express purpose of dousing the crowd--or at least those silly enough to sit in the front rows. </p><p>We then proceeded to look and gawk at every other sea creature that the aquarium had to offer. None of them <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">particularly</span> interested me and I was letting my thoughts wander to how much more interesting the afternoon would have been if we had just wandered around the downtown streets of Kagoshima when something in the lobby on our way out snapped me out of it. </p><p>First it was a display that you can <em>touch.</em> I may be 41 years old, but things that you can <em>touch</em> rather than just look at still get me kind of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">shrieky</span> excited. I rushed over. It was a tank of tiny little fish, they looked like minnows, with holes in the lid so that you could stick your finger in. I stuck my finger in. Suddenly, at least 40 of the fish swam eagerly over to my finger and started, well, sucking on it. It tickled. The girls shrieked with joy. Reno stuck her finger in another hole. Saki wailed in distress until I picked her up so she could stick her finger in and have the fish suck on it too. </p><p>We stood there and stuck our digits in the tank for about 20 minutes at which point <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Masa</span> approached us to say in a quiet disgruntled voice, "What are you doing? You're embarrassing me." Startled, I thought he meant that we were hogging the sucking fish and should give other people a chance at them so I corralled the girls over to a rest bench across from their tank. While we sat there <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Masa</span> pointed to the tank of sucking fish and said, "Watch what normal people do." </p><p>I watched for about 15 minutes and it appeared that normal people approached the tank, apprehensively stuck in a finger, squealed in fright when the 40 or so fish began to eagerly suck on their digits and then quickly withdrew their fingers and proceeded to a sink to wash their hands with soap and water. It didn't mater what age they were, young couples, grandparents, mothers and fathers, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">high school</span> children, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">grade school</span> children, they all pretty much proceeded in the same way. Babies cried. </p><p>There was a lull in traffic past the sucking fish tank and Reno and Saki <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">immediately</span> raced over to thrust their fingers back in. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Masa</span> sighed. "You guys haven't even thought to wash your hands, have you?"</p><p>I left <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Masa</span> to his canned coffee and cigarette and went back over to the tank of sucking fish. This time I paused and tried to read the sign above it. Apparently these minnows were called "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor%20fish">Doctor fish </a>" and they are actually used to treat people with skin problems and diseases. The "sucking" sensation" is actually their little teeny mouths feeding off of old skin. There are <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">onsens (hot springs)</span> in Japan that have imported them and cater especially to eczema suffers. I immediately wanted to whip off my shoes and socks and stick my feet in the tank. The tank was about three feet off the ground though so I had to admit defeat. It was impossible not to mention against all propriety to stick my winter calloused feet into that tank. </p><p>On the drive home the kids and I touched each other's fingers and marveled at how smooth and soft they were. </p><p>Next vacation I want to hunt up one of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">onsens</span> in Japan that boasts of having "Dr. Fish" in their hot springs. </p><p></p><p></p><p><br /></p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor%20fish"></a>coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-60448412696847618252008-03-05T15:28:00.003+09:002008-03-05T15:32:17.689+09:00This is not a postThis is not a post. It is a note about why I am not posting. I am not posting because life is very difficult at the moment and my mind is consumed in a fire of thoughts that have to do with things "not of the blogging world". The good news is that my family and I are all okay. So, it is not a death or serious injury or anything. No one got fired. No one got hit by a freak <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">meteorite</span>. No strange and poisonous snake made it through the toilet pipes to bite <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">any one's</span> ass. I'm just preoccupied with a personal matter. <br /><br />And I am reading everyone <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">else's</span> blogs. . . but can't find the stamina to read and actually comment. Forgive my silence here and there!coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-68120308809362431962008-02-07T23:38:00.000+09:002008-02-07T23:54:37.638+09:00S is for "Sucks"Well this totally sucks. I was going to use my "s" post to talk about sex. . . and then our home computer goes and DIES on me. Well. It was my fault. I took the battery out of it and apparently, laptops need the batteries in them, even when running on the outlet. . . something about overloading the networks inside and basically frying the poor little things inside out. Oops. But here I am, using a computer with a Japanese operating system and all the manuals in Japanese and me illiterate in Japanese. . . I panicked over the news earlier this year (last year?--stalwart little computer, I apparently applied nasty torture devices to it for quite a while before it gave up the ghost) about laptop batteries spontaneously bursting into flames.<br /><br />So I whisked our laptop's battery right out.<br /><br />Now, it's broken little shell has been whisked out of the house off to the electronics store. Where they sternly lectured us on our stupidity for quite a while. It was really embarrassing and completely sucked.<br /><br />But that wasn't nearly as funny as the cable t.v. man this afternoon who responded to our desperate "something-is-wrong-with-the-cable-t.v.-come-as-soon-as-possible" call to discover that we had. . . unplugged the cable booster. So he plugged it back in and charged us about 13 U.S. dollars.<br /><br />Our technological abilities suck.<br /><br />Hopefully we will get another laptop or they will do some sort of transplant on the old one.<br /><br />Right now I am using a laptop from Masa's work place. It will have to go off to work with him tomorrow. What keeps a mother of young children up past midnight on a weeknight? Internet addiction. I feel like a 16 year old with a cooler full of beer and parents gone for the weekend! Too bad it will all be over tomorrow at about 8 a.m. Which just sucks.coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-15078808658283078292008-01-24T21:17:00.000+09:002008-01-24T23:06:02.020+09:00Answer to the Language QuestionA couple of people in their comments were asking about what language we use in our family/household.<br /><br />We use English. Masa and I met in the U.S. and so our first language was English. Well, first spoken language was English. We communicated <em>heavily</em> in body language that first year. . . (insert happy happy sigh of remembered bliss). But I felt then, that as he was studying in the U.S. to improve his English, I should use only English with him.<br /><br />How I got trapped into using only English? Well, by the time I made my way to Japan after graduating from university his English level had surpassed my Japanese language ability to such an extent that I stupidly let our relationship continue in all English. Why do I say stupidly? Because well, look at me. I live in Japan but I'm not fluent in Japanese! I have a Japanese spouse but have had no conversation partner in Japanese!<br /><br />Masa just flat out says that it is too "weird" to use Japanese with me and he also gets really easily frustrated with my level of Japanese. I guess it would be something like walking into a session of the Senate and telling all the Senators, "Okay, just for fun, let's all speak like first graders today, Okay?"<br /><br />Now, when we had our first child we were in the U.S. for the first two months of her life. Then we were in Queensland, Australia for the next two years. Ironically, Reno heard a lot of Japanese during those two years, but not from Masa. My best friend in Australia was a Japanese woman whose husband worked at the same company as my husband. Her husband was also Japanese. While my friend and I spoke a mix of English/Japanese with each other she made a point of speaking only in Japanese to Reno--for which I was very grateful. Especially when we were living in an English speaking country I wanted Reno to hear and learn Japanese as well as English. My friend lived in the apartment across the hall from ours and so Reno actually spent more time per week exposed to her than she did exposed to her own Daddy.<br /><br />When we moved to Osaka I realized rather quickly, "uh-oh." cause Daddy was still speaking all English with his baby girl who was a toddler by then. But we popped Reno into Japanese day care and hoped for the best scenario that so many people told us would come effortlessly--that she would be bilingual before we knew it.<br /><br />It is much too long of a story to get into here but no, Reno did not fall into the "she's already talking in complicated sentences--chattering away in Japanese and English alternatively!" category of bi cultural children in Japan. Her first language, her native language is English. She is now fluent in Japanese as well.<br /><br />Her little sister, Saki, appears to have stronger linguistic gifts/abilities and has been aware of the two languages (Japanese & English) since she was first speaking. Reno didn't quite catch on to the "two languages=one object=two different words=same object" concept until she was in elementary school! Saki has been able to smile sweetly at the Japanese <em>obaasan</em> (old lady)in the park and gurgle "<em>wan wan</em>!" (Japanese noise for a dog barking, a baby word for dog) and then beam back at me and chirp "doggie!"<br /><br />Of course she has all the advantages that a younger sibling gets. We made mistakes; we have tried to rectify them. For instance, my second child will start elementary school here having already learned all her <em>hiragana</em> and <em>katakana</em> and if I have my way all her <em>ichinensei kanji</em> (first year <em>kanji</em>) as well! Like most of the other Japanese children. With Reno, I didn't know that the <em>ichinensei</em> year (first grade year) is supposed to basically just be a "review and boost their confidence year". So she went in <em>hiragana</em>-less, <em>katakana</em>-clueless and <em>kanji</em>--what the f*@k and her <em>ichinensei</em> year turned into a "stamp all the self-confidence out of this kid" kind of year. We are still recouping from that experience.<br /><br />And since Saki's birth and Reno's first very difficult years in elementary school Masa now makes an effort to speak to the girls in Japanese. He still tends to use English with them when we are all together as a family, but if I am out of the conversation--say I am in the kitchen or at the computer--he speaks to them in his native language. They will automatically use Japanese with him if I am not present.<br /><br />Why do I have this "speak in English" effect on my offspring and mate? Well, I have offered to play clueless Jane and have them all speak in Japanese around me (in fact I have begged for them to do this.) but now, not only does Masa feel "weird" speaking to me in Japanese but my kids think it feels "weird" too. I'm the English mama.<br /><br />When I am particularly irritated with my children I will scold them harshly in Japanese. . . maybe that has something to do with their aversion to my speaking in Japanese but the little smart Alec's know that they can back talk in English and no one around us knows what we're/they're saying. So when I bark out, "<em>Mou, shinai de to yutta deshou? Nani o kangaetteru no?</em>" (Hey, I said cut it out. What are you thinking?) they not only get to hear my best guttural mean-Japanese-mommy imitation but they know that everyone around us KNOWS that they are being scolded. Shame can work wonders in a crowded public space.<br /><br />For Masa's part he has confessed that it is simply too difficult to flip flop languages. He can't talk to me in English and switch to Japanese for the kids and flop back into English for me all at the same dinner table at the same time.<br /><br />Plus he just honestly HATES helping me with the language. Honestly. If I ask him, "how do you say book case in Japanese?" (for example, you know a common noun? a common household object?) He will often look thoughtful for a second and then look at me and with a completely sincere and focused face say, "we haven't got a word for that in Japanese." Of course I used to call him on it. Now I just sigh and mutter nasty words under my breath and colorful little curses and linguistic hexes--you know, like "May you end up living in an Arabic country, unable to communicate and illiterate."<br /><br />Although to be fair--he is now working hard with Reno on her fourth grade <em>kanji</em> and <em>kokugo</em> (reading/writing). They write a diary back and forth to each other. He also recently has been supportive of my efforts to learn Japanese by bringing home an English to Japanese, Japanese to English, Japanese to Japanese and English to English electronic dictionary for me. And when I went out and purchased a bunch of <em>kanji</em> software for the DSlite he just commented that it was good that I was getting into studying <em>kanji</em> again.<br /><br />As of recent, he has even been known to answer specific pointed questions regarding Japanese usage and grammar.<br /><br />To recap briefly, our home language, our dominant family language is English. When I am with the girls I use only English with them. We watch predominantly English language channels on Cable and I prefer to watch most of our rental DVDs in English. However, Reno and Saki both have a few Japanese anime shows that they watch that are, of course, in Japanese. On weekends they enjoy the dreaded Japanese variety shows (hell for the typical foreigner) with their Daddy. Daddy does try to speak Japanese with them but when we are all together we tend to all use English. While the road to being bilingual has been difficult for my first born, it so far seems to be paved and smooth from my second born. Whether or not this is just inherent in their make ups or a quirk of birth order I can't say for sure. Although I would tend to think it a bit of both.<br /><br />One thing I have never experienced, that I know other foreign English speaking mothers and fathers here have at times, is neither of my children have ever asked me to NOT speak in English to them in public. In fact, the only language they ever beg me NOT to speak to them in in public is Japanese! Neither of my daughters has ever gone on a language strike, refusing to speak one language or the other.<br /><br />You know what I am really curious about these days? I wander what kind of guy my Masa is in Japanese. Because I <em>know</em> that my personality changes a bit when I am speaking Japanese versus English. Hard to explain but it's like I turn from one pane of glass to another and look out on the same landscape with the same world view but everything slightly tinged in a different hue. The longer I know him now the curiouser and curiouser I am becoming about what kind of guy he would seem to me were we to communicate only in Japanese with one another.<br /><br />How about those of you out there who are also involved in an international relationship? What language do you and your significant other communicate in?coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-5638647046317291822008-01-22T20:16:00.000+09:002008-01-22T22:32:45.384+09:00He Who Laughs LastYou know, for the first decade or so of my relationship with Masa I have to fess up to, well, playing word jokes on him. I used to knowingly use English words that I knew were beyond his vocabulary. Mostly my jokes were little sarcastic or ironic commentaries on things that amused me no end and seemed harmless enough. If he had ever paused and said, "hey, does that mean ----?" I would have given him truthful answers.<br /><br /><br />Well, it looks like I have entered "pay back" territory and honestly, although I'm a little peeved I have to say I'm proud of him! He got me good.<br /><br /><br />The other day after dinner, Masa looked up from the dinner table and called across to me in the kitchen (which is about two feet away from our dinning room, which is to say, our dinner table, this being Japan and us living in an honest to God typical Japanese house) "Can you get me a toothpick?" Since I looked blankly back at him (being in a bad mood because I had just finished cooking dinner and was now preparing to clean up from dinner) he switched tactics and asked Reno instead. But when he asked her, he used Japanese, "<em>Tsumayouji kashite kudasai</em>."<br /><br /><br />My ears pricked right up. I even took off my i-pod ear phones. "<em>TSUMA</em> what?"<br /><br /><br />And this is where my guy shines. He did such a good job on me. He didn't smile, he didn't sneer, he just said, in a distracted tone, "yeah?" and then asked Reno again, "<em>tsumayouji kashite kudasai</em>!" a bit louder as she was simply staring blankly back at him (being a tween and entirely moody and uncooperative even over the simplest things, like getting someone a toothpick).<br /><br /><br />Now, I studied Japanese three years in college, went on a semester exchange to Japan in 1988 and lived and worked in Yokohama for two and a half years after graduation. In 2000 we moved to Osaka, Japan and we have been here in Japan ever since. My second daughter (Saki) was born here in Japan.<br /><br /><br />Am I fluent? Hardly. Apparently English language schools, or at least the one for which I taught in Yokohama, want their foreign teachers to speak only English so badly that they threaten to fire you if they find out that you are speaking any Japanese on their premises. The university I worked at in Osaka didn't threaten to fire me for speaking Japanese but since I was teaching English language immersion courses, well, I spoke very little Japanese. I want my daughters to grow up bilingual, so our home/family language is English.<br /><br />I speak Japanese regularly to sales people. It consists of the following:<br /><em>Kore wa ikura desu ka?</em> (How much is this?)<br /><em>Kore onegaishimasu.</em> (This please.)<br /><em>Arigatougozaimasu.</em> (Thank you.)<br /><br /><br />Maybe a couple of other words. If I am feeling linguistically extravagant.<br /><br /><br />They don't do small talk here.<br /><br /><br />So my Japanese, while I have enrolled in the odd Kumon course here and there and have amassed an extensive library of Japanese language texts and currently study using my daughters DSLite with some excellent kanji software, has not really improved much. In fact, when I was an exchange student, I think my language skills were more advanced in Japanese than they are now. I've not only failed to learn more kanji, I've forgotten kanji that I used to know!<br /><br />So, when Masa said "<em>tsumayouji</em>" I immediately thought of the two words I do know that sound like that. <em>Tsuma</em> which means "wife" and <em>youji</em> which means "task or thing to do." Now, thinking of "toothpick=wife task" I asked him hotly if indeed the kanji used for <em>tsumayouji</em> was the kanji for "wifely task".<br /><br /><br />He is so good.<br /><br /><br />He even acted like he was impressed with my language ability--that I could guess the kanji like that.<br /><br /><br />So all week long I have been fuming and seething about "stupid dumb worthless sexist language--grrrrrr----dumb Japanese!" However, this evening as I was sulking in the kitchen, I mean, cooking in the kitchen, it occurred to me, "no. . . . . he didn't. ? ? ? ? " So directly after doing the washing up I headed in to the tatami to the computer to look into the Japanese word for "toothpick".<br /><br /><br />It turns out that the kanji for "<em>tsuma</em>" in "<em>tsumayouji</em>" is the kanji for "claw, nail or talon" and the kanji for "<em>you</em>" is the kanji for "Willow". The remaining kanji, "<em>ji</em>" is for "bough, branch, twig or limb."<br /><br /><br />I can't wait to give my man a great big hug tonight when he gets home. I am so proud of him. And he kept it up for two days--even working in a lecture to the girls last night on how in the old days, women used to ceremoniously pick their husband's teeth for them as a sign of respect.<br /><br />And here I was thinking that my man was a purely slap stick toilet humor guy! He got me with a word trick! Oh, will I never stop falling for this guy?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#ffff00;"></span>coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9137044632467935627.post-56453699623017083982008-01-15T20:22:00.000+09:002008-01-16T21:06:47.389+09:008 Things Meme<strong>I got tagged for a meme by <a href="http://cherryblossomadventures.typepad.com/">Cherry Blossom Adventures</a>! I like these things--reminds me of getting <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">writing</span> prompts in writing workshops at uni. I'm such a geek. I also adored essay tests through out high school and college. </strong><br /><strong>So here goes:</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>8 Things I am Passionate About</strong><br /><br />1. Humor--especially wit. But anything or anyone who makes me laugh makes me happy to be alive. It is actually one of the few things that amazes me to this day, the fact that my husband <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Masa</span> is a typical slapstick, toilet humor kind of guy (this humor does not amuse me) and I am more a Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead/Monty Python/The <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Daily</span> Show/David Letterman kind of gal and yet we do find things that make each other laugh and things at which to laugh over together. For the record, no one, and I mean NO ONE on Earth will ever or has ever made me laugh as long, as hard and as whole <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">heartedly</span> (until my soul was about to burst with joy) as my life long best friend from <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">high school</span> and university, the creator of "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">le</span> poison".<br /><br />2. My Friends--need to have good senses of humor and sharp intellects (which enable them to be extremely witty) as well as wide hearts and accepting minds. This in turn earns them fierce loyalty and devotion, even boarding on outdoing the devotion of a faithful lab or golden retriever.<br /><br />3. Music--is emotion that you can hear and dance to.<br /><br />4. Finger Printing--oh you unwitting fools. Now I know how grass root campaigns get started and how small groups of people can become determined enough to actually bring about changes in the larger arenas of their lives. I don't appreciate Japan treating me as a potential criminal/terrorist/human germ sponge. In fact, I passionately dislike this new policy of finger printing and photographing every foreigner coming into Japan, be they the first time tourist or the seventy-year-old permanent resident.<br /><br />5. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">AFWJ</span>--the Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese. Yes, the organization's name is a bit long and sounds sort of. . . remarkably like a Japanese group name, simplistic, direct in its naming but doesn't exactly leave one marveling at the beauty of the English language does it? In the early years of living in Japan as a wife and mother I once lamented to a fellow foreign wife, "I have no <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">nakama</span>. No group." and she laughed out loud, slapped me on the back and said, "but you do, you do. You are in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">AFWJ</span>. We are your <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">nakama</span>." At the time it was a kind of break through for me. There I was still at some level wishing and yearning to be brought into Japanese society and treated as a member of it. Ha. Ha ha. Up until that minute I hadn't wanted to admit that maybe my life would not be remembered by a large number of the Japanese people in my community. Perhaps it would only be remembered by the Japanese students whom I taught, the neighbors with whom I had daily contact, the rare Japanese <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">acquaintance</span> turned friend. . . picturing your funeral attended by mostly obligatory visitors is not a fun day dream. But here I was a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">member</span> of this fantastic group, able to forge and maintain friendships with some <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">truly</span> stellar and fantastic women and I wasn't "counting" them as "real" because they weren't Japanese. Ha. Ha ha. (It's all in the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">rhythm</span> there, if you do it in the right <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">rhythm</span> you get that ironic laugh, if not, I probably seem like an idiot to you.)<br /><br /><br />Now, well into my life here in Japan, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">AFWJ</span> has been an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">integral</span> part of my life here. Contacts, advice, help in the form of verbal advice, a willing ear, laughter and practical things like a box of maternity clothes in MY SIZE during pregnancy. The benefits of belonging to this group never cease but only seem to increase as my <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">involvement</span> with this organization grows and deepens.<br /><br />6. The written word--a perfectly formed sentence can make me swoon. A cleverly phrased insight leaves me <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">exhilarated</span>. I am, first and foremost, a word nerd. God, I even enjoy simply reading the dictionary!<br /><br />7. Nature--Oh I was dying when we lived in the concrete jungle of Osaka. Never did I upon waking gaze up into the smog filled skies and bless the lord for letting me live another day. The day that I got <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">excited</span> and mistook some incredibly disgusting and honestly physical revolting insects in the local rice field for <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">poly wogs</span>. . . oh my. I bent down and eagerly scooped up a half dozen of them in the palm of my hand. That is when I realized that they looked like tiny pill bugs but flatter, sharper and with many, many more ever moving, never at rest disgusting little legs. I wanted to vomit. It was something like reaching out to pet a kitten and instead discovering that you're <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">caressing</span> the dying, hairless body of a skinned baby rabbit. It was really gross, but I don't know what the hell those repulsive little insects were so I can't give a picture of them.<br /><br />In contrast--Oh the rapture of life in Northern Japan, smack in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">inaka</span> (country side). I <em>do</em> wake up every morning and feel flushed with gratitude to live amongst the marvel and beauty of clear skies, green grass, towering pine trees. The lakes and rivers are so clear I can stare at the fish meters and meters below. In the course of a typical spring walk I can see a snake, a few hawks, some Japanese cranes, fish, cray fish, poly wogs, frogs, turtles, and an abundance of wild birds whose calls I now recognize but whose names I still do not know. Damn! It is evening snowing tonight for the sixth day in a row and I LOVE shoveling the snow! I get to live in a snow globe! How lucky is that!<br /><br />I grew up just below Yosemite National Park in California and my parents idea of summer vacations were to take us to every National Park in America that they could drive us to. I might have sat in some of those nature talks, wearing dark sunglasses, being a snide teenager, but I ended up IN LOVE with the natural world. Sky scrapers? Who needs them. They block my view of the sky.<br /><br />8. Animals--Okay. I wanted desperately to be a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">veterinarian</span>, until I found out that I would need math and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">chemistry</span> to get into <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">veterinary</span> school. I worked at a local vets during high school and loved it. I even got to assist and watch surgeries and autopsies and never once felt anything but fascination with the proceedings. I even watched when my own beloved lab/golden retriever mix had an operation and was delighted to discover that my loyal companion was golden outside and pink inside! Even her organs were cute. My dog was so cool. She was remarkable--inside and out! My current animal obsession is our small <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">feisty</span>--you-can-live-or die-for-all-I- care-just-feed-me Russian Blue cat. I love the fact that she is willing to use me as a live hot water bottle to warm herself during winter nights. But I also have an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">inordinate</span> amount of affection for my big fat gold fish. Out of 21 festival gold fish, only this one survived. And it just keeps getting bigger and bigger every day. And I was infatuated with a praying mantis that was living in the bush by our mailbox this spring.<br /><br />Bottom line, I am so passionate about animals (extending to many insects with the exception of SPIDERS) I nearly crash on my bicycle whenever I spot a hawk circling or gliding overhead because--well they just flat out mesmerize me. Nature is such a show off--sunsets and hamsters that snuggle in little piles. Hard to beat.<br /><br /><br /><p><strong>8 Things I want to do before I die:</strong></p><br /><p>1. Travel all over Europe</p><p>2. Look back at my daughters' teenage years and think "they survived and so did I" (yes, I like to worry in advance, my eldest is only 9 now.)</p><p>3. Become fluent enough in Japanese to be able to follow the nightly news</p><p>4. Become functionally literate in Japanese</p><p>5. Get a Japanese Drivers License</p><p>6. Swim with dolphins</p><p>7. Publish a creative non-fiction essay and get paid money for it.</p><p>8. Go skiing here in Japan</p><br /><br /><p><strong>8 Things I often Say</strong></p><p>1. For the love of God (I like to be dramatic when I plead with the kids to listen to me)</p><p>2. Number one (this when listing reasons to the girls, usually reasons why they can't do or have something)</p><p>3. Just calm down (to the kids, to myself, you know, to whoever needs to hear it.)<br /></p><p>4. Don't you dare (to Happy our cat when she is poised to sharpen her claws on the wall)</p><p>5. I swear to God (I like to be dramatic when I threaten the kids)</p><p>6. Just a second (usually said every three minutes or so when I am at the computer and the girls are asking for something or trying to get me to let them get on the computer.)</p><p>7. Uh-huh. (what I say every other three minutes or so when I am at the computer and the girls are asking for something or trying to get me to let them get on the computer. I am such a one task person. Multi-tasking hurts my head.)</p><p>8. Stop shrieking. (my youngest has a fondness for shrieking over speaking)<br /></p><br /><p><strong>8 Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over</strong></p>1. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">TubThumping</span> I Get Knocked Down<br /><br />2. Fast Car- Tracy Chapman<br /><br />3. Hand-Jewel<br /><br />4. Vaseline-Stone Temple Pilots<br /><br />5. Everything-Michael <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Buble</span><br /><br />6. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Accidentally</span> in Love--Counting Crows<br /><br />7. Dani California--Red Hot Chili Peppers<br /><br />8. Why Don't You and I--featuring Chad <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Kroeger</span> (on the CD Santana Shaman)<br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>8 Books I Have Recently Read</strong> (or am reading. . . I seem to be forever trying to read and never getting to. . . )<br /><br /><br /><br />1. "We Need to Talk About Kevin" by Lionel <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Shriver</span><br /><br />2. "Spontaneous Healing" by Andrew <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Weil</span>, M.D.<br /><br />3. "Because I Said So" 33 mothers write about children, sex, men, aging,faith, race & themselves. Edited by Camille Peri & Kate Moses<br /><br />4. "Mothers Who Think" Tales of Real-life Parenthood, Edited by Camille Peri and Kate Moses<br /><br />5."Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" by Barbara <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Kingsolver</span> (Author), Camille <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Kingsolver</span> (Author), Steven L. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Hopp</span> (Author).<br /><br />6. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J. K. Rowling<br /><br />7. "Kids are Worth It!" Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline, by Barbara <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Coloroso</span><br /><br />8. "When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull up a Chair" by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Geneen</span> Roth<br /><br />And unfortunately, I haven't really got anyone I can tag for this. . . those I know of who enjoy doing memes have already done this one or been tagged to do this one. . . so I will leave it open as an invitation to any of the lurkers reading here--here's your chance to step in with the perfect introduction, do the 8 Things Meme! Just be sure to leave a comment directing me to your responses. Or if anyone else out there that I know and have pegged as a none meme type blogger is indeed NOT a non meme type of blogger--<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">douzo</span> (by all means)!coarse gold girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004484019542589905noreply@blogger.com5