What you don't know....

Yesterday I went to the pool.  I have a love-hate relationship with the pool.  Well, actually it is more of a hate-hate relationship.  But still I go.  Someday I'm going to have to get your advice on how to make exercise more enjoyable...

The only thing I like about going to the pool is that afterwards I can relax, arms and legs spreadeagled, in the very large bath.  There is a steaming "waterfall" that constantly pipes in very hot water, the bath itself is made of natural stone bricks, it is deep enough to soak up to your neck and, as I say, wide enough for 10 or 15 ladies to spread out easily.  Many Japanese consider bathing as a place to warm up the body core and relax...  The bathing, soapy part is carried on OUTSIDE of the tub so the steaming hot water stays pure and clean.  Despite the fact that everyone is naked, all the bathers sit deep in the water chatting or just close their eyes and retreat into their own relaxing world.

The other day I was doing the soapy part of the bathing and sitting on my little stool washing up at the showers along the wall.  I overheard a commotion coming from the tub part of the room.  A young mother was ranting at her son (he was young enough to be joining his mother in the bath...) and splashing around making a lot of noise.

"I can't believe you'd do such a thing!  Don't you realize how gross that is?  We are all sharing this bathtub together!  Why didn't you go to that bathroom BEFORE you got in the tub!"

Ah...  I think I get the drift of this conversation...  The little boy didn't seem to take the scolding too seriously and so the mother got louder and louder.  In the meantime she was also splashing the water around her OUT of the tub.  Well, THAT is a worthless effort.  The bath is as large as a small pool and she'd have to spend a few hours with a bucket to empty it of water...  And what all was she trying to do anyway?  If her child has peed in the tub, well, I don't think stirring up the water is going to help...  If her child has peed in the tub, well, then maybe she'd better keep quiet about it...  What I don't know is not going to hurt me...  As the situation developed I felt like... ummm... well, do I refrain from having a soaking today?  Do I go and alert the authorities?  What are they going to do?  Is a child peeing in the bath water that unusual?

A few months ago when I was in the POOL and swimming away contentedly, people started to hurriedly get out and the lifeguards started bringing out their pool cleaning equipment.  Someone waved me to the pool steps explaining that a "poop" had been found floating in the pool and everyone was ordered out while the pool was cleaned...  Not drained mind you, brushed down...  vacuumed, well, whatever the lifeguards could do.  I spoke with one of the lifeguards as the cleaning began and he said that it happens occasionally.  There are children of course (though infants in diapers are not allowed in the pool) and there are quite a lot of mentally or physically disabled people who use the pool.  Who can say where the accident came from?  The pool cleaning was basically a token maneuver to let pool patrons know that the facility was doing its best to keep things clean.  At any rate, there are chemical levels that are checked two or three times a day (in the baths too).

"The "poop" cleanups we can do something...  But there are probably pee situations in all swimming pools that people never even know about."

I guess...

I remember when I was a child a neighbor's pool had a sign saying,

"No running"
"No eating"
"No peeing"

Back to the bath.  So I listened to the hysterical mother and she shooed her son out of the bathing area never to return.  Oh well...  I wish she'd just kept quiet about the extra "water" in the bath.  And along those lines I decided that NO ONE would want to know what I now knew so I kept the knowledge of the little boy's mishap all to myself.

And I did go into the tub.  But I must admit I stayed at the far end of it...

Miscellaneous autumn photos

I'm sort of on the run today...  What is in my miscellaneous files box?

More scenery.  Someone mentioned that they were surprised I chose blue leaves (but that they liked the effect) for that fabric post card that I made last week.  I got to thinking about it and was pretty sure I'd found blueish and purplish leaves in this season.  I went out with Tetsu's telephoto lens and shot leaf photos in the afternoon light.  Yep.  I found some purple leaves at least.

 Don't know what bush or tree these are on though...

And another photo experiment was trying to catch sun rays.  On some photo website there was the tip that if you bump the camera's ISO settings up the rays can be caught (and a lot of "noise", graininess) so I tried it.  This was shot at ISO 1600 (for my own information in case I want to try it again.)  I guess...

Taken for no other reason than the berries were pretty.

A typical Saturday

On weekends, as you might have realized by now, often Tetsu and I will go off in the mornings and won't return until evening.  Thus no blogging on those Saturday mornings.  And sometimes not much on Sunday mornings either.  Right now Tetsu is out cleaning the street gutter (our turn this month) and I am supposed to be doing laundry, cleaning up the house, and getting ready for church.  If there is time to spare Tetsu would love it if I joined him in gutter cleaning...  As you can see, I have chosen to blog instead.

No matter what the day we can't shirk our dog walking duties though we sometimes make Choco wait an extra thirty minutes while we sleep in a bit.  Still, we are always out and about before 7:00.  Though getting up with the sun is not always easy, we are usually rewarded by some beautiful morning sky and Tetsu has found a new love taking photos of the morning scenery.

All my blog friends have seen this scenery over and over a million times already but it is just less than a minute away from us and every new day brings new colors and new light.  Well...  THAT photo is like seeing double as it isn't much different from my blog header...

I have pulled out my fluffy winter cap and am dressed in layers.  Choco just gives off steam in the freezing air.  Why is it that dogs can walk through weather like this "naked" but us weakling humans have to get all bundled up to take a step outside?

Tetsu's attempt at shooting against the light.  I don't think he's got that down yet...  Unless he was only aiming for a silhouette.

One of the few times I've seen Choco look me in the eye.  We had brought out treats with us on this walk and she was trying to get a few extra mouthfuls.

After our walk we left Choco at home and Tetsu and I went out for breakfast as a local buffet place.  This is a pretty typical Japanese breakfast.  The rice, fermented beans, seaweed strips, pickled plum and miso soup come as a set.  From there we can go down the line and pick what else we want eat.  I chose from four fish dishes... this is miso simmered mackerel (there was also grilled salmon, grilled pike and grilled mackerel).  Tetsu and I both chose sweetened omelettes (there at the top).  

Let's see... Tetsu added fried vegetables, sukiyaki tofu and macaroni salad...  Served with hot tea, it was a BIG breakfast!  (But we still stopped for coffee at a convenience store.)

The rest of the day was spent out at a shopping mall and then at the pool.  Nothing interesting to show there.  And THAT'S why I didn't blog yesterday. Now... I'd better go see if I can lend some gutter cleaning support!

Christmas decorations

Yesterday it rained all day.  An icy rain that made me put on layers and layers of clothing.  And it isn't even really winter yet!  On days like yesterday I wonder who in their right mind would go to the swimming pool and get in that barely heated water...  I was one of those whose minds might not be quite right...  I had hoped that after the initial shock of the pool water (and to be fair, it IS heated) I might generate enough heat by swimming laps.  However no amount of swimming warmed me up though luxuriating in the hot bath afterwards in the very large spa bath was very nice.

This morning Choco and Tetsu and I went for our morning walk and was greeted by white mountaintops.  All that rain around here resulted in snow at the top of the mountains.  Christmas snow will be along soon for the valley dwellers too...

At the kindergarten on Wednesday, the principal pulled me over to the new nursery entrance where some of our quilts have gone up.  She had asked me a couple of months ago if I'd be willing to LEND her a Christmas quilt or two and I let her know that we were making a Christmas quilt for the kindergarten this year.  She still wanted to borrow some other Christmas quilts and she even asked Mrs. Furui who suggested that we loan the principal our McKenna Christmas quilts from last year.  That would make two... and another patchwork friend, Mrs. Y made a third so we contacted her and asked if she would be willing to loan it out.  That is slightly going against our promise of last year when Mrs. Furui and I offered to help with the construction if Mrs. Y would loan it out to the hospital.

"You see, the deal is, YOU make the quilt with our help (Mrs. Y felt it was too advanced for her) and let the hospital use it this Christmas.  From NEXT Christmas it is all yours to decorate your own walls."

But this year we asked Mrs. Y to loan it to the kindergarten so none of our homes will have McKenna quilts again this season...  Because all three are hanging in the nursery entrance.  Makes a nice presentation.

Mine is on the left, Mrs. Furui's is in the middle and Mrs. Y's is on the right.

And the donated Christmas quilt is up on the wall over the kindergarten stage (though I didn't take the photo well enough to show the stage set-up.)  I guess they will use it as is this year and think about children's decorations another year.

November fabric card

I spent Monday (which was a holiday for us) working on November's fabric card for my mother.  The obvious idea was autumn leaves as Tetsu is battling the forest's leaves every morning.  It is wonderful to live beside a forest but in November the wind blows a great amount of the leaves into our yard for Tetsu to sweep up.

"Just leave them.  You know there will be more tomorrow."

Our neighbor has a blower but Tetsu does it the old-fashioned way with a rake.  The neighbor's blower does a neat, quick job but nature blows all the leaves back to us later in the day.  Come to think of it, Tetsu's piles of raked leaves mostly get blown back too as he never has enough time in the mornings to bag them.

I don't mind much.  I love the many colored autumn leaves.

So this is my November fabric card.  I got away from cats for once!  This is in honor of Choco or any other dog that might like playing in the leaves.  I hope my mother will be able to imagine any of the family's dogs enjoying the autumn season.  She is definitely a dog-lover.

I back-stitched the dog first and then added the tiny leaves without bothering to adhere them with Heat 'N Bond which I usually use for raw edge applique.  I just sewed each leaf down the center with three or four tiny stitches.  It was a long process but it seems to work and maybe gives the card a bit of depth.

Southern California doesn't have much autumn color (not that my mother gets out to see it anyway) but maybe she will recall her long ago autumns growing up in Indiana.

Chickadees

There are a lot of birds in the forest.  I know because I can HEAR them and so can Choco and she barks up a storm every morning after we put her outside.  Birds drive her nuts.

Rarely though, do we have birds in our yard though I have tried to entice them in the past with bird feeders and over-ripened fruit.  I think they feel insecure with a pride of cats staring and hissing at them from the window.  Wonder why.

Yesterday I noticed Mi frozen on the sofa looking up through the window, oh so quietly.  A small group of birds, maybe Chickadees, were making a stop in our tree on their way to the forest.  I pulled out my camera and put Tetsu's zoom lens on it.

This is the best I can do with the kit zoom lens.  I have been contemplating buying a stronger lens for my camera.  What do you think?

Anyone out there know anything about camera lenses?  I'd like to photograph things farther away but does that mean I'm going to have start grappling with a tripod?   Instead of just replacing the lens I broke with something identical, it seems like a good opportunity to upgrade...   But does a housewife who takes pictures of cats and quilts really need to upgrade?  Are all these tools of the trade just going to weigh me down?

I sat on the sofa and hand held my camera a steady as possible but I still get some blur.  A stronger lens might take crisper photos.  And what am I planning to photograph besides cats and an occasional bird? 

With my cat population, I doubt the Chickadees are going to return for another photo session anyways...

Homecoming

Our good friends, the Yamadas, have returned from a 6 year stint in Hong Kong!!!  In a way it has been a long time for me to be without Marlene.  Up until those 6 years she has been my only local American friend.  In other ways it seems like it's only been a year or two that we haven't had our rousing family gatherings.  For years and years our families and another family, the Sugas, got together for holidays, the three families' children all with similar interests and close in age.

Of course now the children are spread out all around the world.  The Yamada's children are in Singapore, New York and Tokyo; the Suga's in Germany, Tokyo and Canada; and of course ours in Ohio and Los Angeles.  What a truly international group we've become!

The Yamada's arrived in the city and are staying the next few days at the Sugas until they get their old house back in some sort of livable order.  No electricity, no gas or water, no furniture, no phones or Internet connection, no appliances, nothing.

"It's like we're newly wed and starting out with nothing... but this time there are no wedding presents to help us."

All of us about 60 year old people had a good laugh about that.  We settled down to one of those holiday dinners... minus the kids and the holiday.

Mr. Y and Mr. S labored over getting wine out of the wine bottle...  The cork broke inside and and no amount of hacking away could dislodge it.  In the end they managed to slip a straw inside and MILK the wine out a drop at a time.  That's really wanting to get at that wine!

 I thought this a hilarious scene.  I often find groups of young people all staring at their separate iPhones while being in the proximity of each other.

"What is this world coming to that everyone spends more time staring at their screens rather than communicating with each other?"

It turns out that it isn't just the young people who are ethralled with their screens.  Here we are all looking at our iPads, iPhones and whatever.  And actually it is not that everyone is so addicted to the screens as that we are all trying to figure out how the contraptions work.

"Wait!  How do you use this app..."

"How many mail addresses do you have?  I never know which one to use to get in touch with you."

"What do you mean do you have Wi-fi or cable?  What's the difference?"  (That was Tetsu...  He and I tend to be the least knowledgeable about computerish things...  He had already given up looking at his iPad when I took this picture.)  

I guess the consensus of the group is that we are falling behind the times...  Still we are happy as slightly over-the-hill friends finally together again can be and looking forward to the many years of friendly evenings ahead of us.

Welcome home!
 

Christmas quilts

Yesterday we had a profitable patchwork day.  Mrs. Furui and I promised to have one of the Christmas quilts done by today, and the other will be delivered next Thursday... in time for Advent.

I had spent last week quilting the second quilt and binding it.  The final job was to add buttons and ribbon to both quilts and that was what was on the docket yesterday.

If there was ever a quilt that came together through an abundance of hand me downs, these two quilts claim the prize.  Mrs. Furui and I were contemplating a Christmas quilt for the hospital and had even picked out some pretty green fabrics in the Keepsake catalog.  That was when I stumbled upon (almost literally) a dusty, cobwebby box of velvet pushed into a corner of the kindergarten office.  The green sitting on top was so CHRISTMAS!  Mrs. Furui and I claimed the box (offering to make something for the kindergarten if the fabrics were usable) and discovered Christmas red and Christmas gold fabric inside.  Also some faded blue and yellow.

We washed the fabrics (to remove the cobwebs and whatever else might be living in amongst the folds) and turned the wash water pink and green and blue accordingly.  So we knew from the start that these are not going to be washable quilts...  Too much bleeding.  But for once a year up on the wall, probably a Christmas quilt could survive without regular baths.

We used a pattern from one of Mrs. Furui's old books called simply, Advent Calendar and in tandem we made up two quilts.  In the meantime Mrs. Furui's volunteer group has been making patchwork ornaments and those will be added daily to the hospital quilt in Advent style.

With the quilting very simply done (I didn't want to press my luck), we started thinking about how decorations could be hung.  Buttons seemed obvious AND...

"Wait a minute.  Someone gave me a box full of gold buttons a few years ago.  When I opened the box I thought I'd never find a use for such gaudy buttons but they might be just the thing!" 

I found the box and spilled out the contents for Mrs. Furui to admire.  I felt like we were witnessing a miracle.  Is there any more perfect place to use these buttons but on two Christmas quilts?! 

It was such fun to paw through the box and pick buttons for the quilts.  Quite a few gold animal buttons, lots of hearts, some with jewels, some slightly filigreed.  We pulled 70 buttons that we liked and yesterday sewed on 69 buttons (the kindergarten needed 35 buttons rather than the uniform 34 as on the other quilt). 

69 buttons take most of the day to sew on.

Ta-da!!!  Almost identical.  The colors of the presents at the bottom are reversed and the hand tied ribbons are different and there is that one extra button along the bottom boughs of the one tree...

We are so pleased with our efforts!  As I say, the hospital will add decorations here and there over the next month.  The kindergarten quilt will probably be decorated with the children's artwork (and there is a possibility of 35 children in a class... that's why the 35 buttons) though the principal said she wanted to use the quilt as is this year.

I rather doubt that I am going to get out to the hospital at Christmas time but I will ask Mrs. Furui to take a picture of a fully decorated tree.

Apples!

It is apple season around here!

Tetsu and I eat a ton of apples every year.  There is the apple I chop up daily for our morning granola.  (Nowadays it is Tetsu's granola.  I am pure apple.)  On weekends a couple of apples will go into our fresh juice.  And of course there is the occasional apple for snacks and more for apple crisps or crumbles during this season.

To our family's good fortune, we live just a couple of miles from apple country, though I suppose in our part of Japan practically anywhere could be considered apple country.  As I drive down the country roads throughout the year I look at the apple trees along the roadsides...  In some seasons the trees will be full of leaves, in later seasons little knobs of fruit will be on the branches.  As the months pass there will be ladders set among the orchard as the farmers go about their pruning.  During the summer the farmers will have laboriously wrapped each growing apple in paper bags to keep them from coloring too quickly.  And in autumn, the bags are removed and the orchards are blanketed in thin aluminum sheets to reflect the light so that the apples will be bathed in sunlight from all directions.

I watch the growing apples and especially the orchard that I buy my apples from, with a sense of pride and ownership.  Not that I've ever done anything to help with the raising of apples...

"What beautiful apples we are going to have this autumn!"

And when the farmers put out their banners signaling that apples are for sale I am one of the first customers to visit the stone farming shed where the apple farmer's wife cheerfully recommends specific apples for her customers' needs.

"The Kouyou apple is very good for cooking."

"The Fuji apple is delicious and has a heart of sweetness in the center."

There is a rickety table under the eaves of the shed with an assortment of apples set out for customers to sample.

"Let's see... What does the Jonagold taste like?  That's nice.  How about the Akane?  Now which should I buy?"

Although I almost always sample the apples I know perfectly well (and so does the farmer's wife) that I am going to ask for a bag of the orchard's B-rated apples.  Apples whose color might not make the grade, that have had a pecking from a bird, maybe a fallen apple (but the ground in the orchard is so mossy and cushioned the apples rarely bruise).  I get a great variety of apples at a very nice price!

"Oh, and while your at it, please make up a bag for my mother-in-law too."

Tetsu's mother is delighted with the gift of apples.  I've already been to the orchard twice this month...  I'm a very good customer.

A last drive to Lake Chuzenji

The weekend was rainy but suddenly on Sunday afternoon the sun broke out and Tetsu wanted to go for a drive so back up the mountain we went to Lake Chuzenji.  Other people in Japan put Lake Chuzenji on their someday travel list but we live within 30 minutes of it and can pop up whenever we like.  I must admit that with it and the other World Heritage Sites being such a common sightseeing places, I often take them for granted. 

"We already went up once this season."

"Who says we can't go up twice."

The rope-way was closed because of wind though near the lake we didn't feel it.  The paddle boats were all moored either because of the lateness of the afternoon or because of the wind. 

We went to the highest driving look out point and yep, there was wind!  Icy wind!  The kind that freezes your ears and makes the inside of your head throb!

"Quick!  Jump out of the car, take a picture and jump back in again!"

It was hard to stand upright and hard to keep the camera from shaking in the icy blasts.

"Too bad we can't photograph the wind."

Well, I can photograph Tetsu's hair being blown every which way...

The autumn leaves had mostly fallen and the scenery was a soft gray.

The sunlight was just hitting this lone tree in a final burst of yellow.  The road to this lookout point will close from the first of December until next May so this will be our last trip up this year.

On the way back home we stopped at a lakeside tea house and had hot sweet bean paste soup with pounded rice and hot tea.  The sweet-salty burdock root tidbits are to make the sweet bean paste seem sweeter.