June!

June 1st.  (At least in Japan already).  The official day for the changing over of clothes and uniforms in Japan.  The changing over of clothes by the season is something I don't ever remember doing when I was a child.  I guess Southern California had summery enough weather year round that we didn't get into seasonal chores very much...

For this morning's crosswalk duty, I put my wool slacks, white dress shirt, gray necktie, wool vest and wool jacket away (actually I need to take those to the cleaners) and today donned a polyester skirt and blue long-sleeve open collared uniform shirt (I have a couple that are short sleeves too).  I moved my official velcro shoulder badge from my jacket to my shirt, I pinned my reflector armband to the sleeve and hooked the braided whistle holder to the shirt's shoulder.  I am ready for the summer season!

I noticed the jr. high school students on their bicycles were in their cooler uniforms also.

Last night I brought up the heated carpet in the living room and gave the whole floor a good mopping and this morning I went around changing the calendars to June.

Sometime last week I weeded through my closet and organized (Tetsu does his own closet because he doesn't like me throwing his things away) and packed away sweaters and fleece wear. 

And on Sunday after a lot of rigamarole, Tetsu and I even put up new blue curtains in our living room.  (We managed to buy the wrong length and had to exchange one set.)  So now my living
room at least LOOKS cool and fresh.  (New cushion covers too though I'm sorry to say they aren't patchwork.)

Other things that got done before the beginning of June was a fabric post card for my mother (it is still May in California today so officially I'm not late sending this yet.)  Marcy occasionally gives me updates on her and Grandma seems happy though sleeping more and more so maybe the fabric post card is appropriate.

 Day 2 of Whole30.  Dinner last night was:
1)  pork, bean spouts, chives and egg stirfry
2)  raw cabbage with salt sauce (not sure if the sauce is Whole30 compliant but I didn't want to check either!)
3) shredded chicken and cucumber salad with homemade sesame dressing (too vinegary!)
4)  grilled pumpkin slices with green peppers
5)  store bought kimchee
6)  pickles

And this morning I sent Tetsu to work with left-overs of all that stuff plus a banana, plus some Korean seaweed, plus some mixed nuts.  I hope that lasts him through lunch and a snack...

 So June has started, but with that comes the rainy season in Japan!
 

Pickles

I received a very welcome present from one of my pool acquaintances.  An older lady brought me a heavy Tupperware box and explained how I could make my own pickles.  Now the box resides in my refrigerator with a couple of cucumbers soaking up pickle brine.

This type of pickle is call nuka pickles and it is made in a "bed" of fermented rice bran.  Traditionally a Japanese housewife would have a nuka bed in some dark corner of her pantry or barn and every day ritually stir the nuka to keep the fermenting bacteria alive and breathing.  If it is not stirred... well then you've got a pot of dead, smelly, fly ridden nuka.  Ask me how I know that.

My friend has been growing her nuka for a few weeks and as it had started to ferment she divided it up to her friends, and I benefited!   The nuka is made of rice bran that is sold in stores (another use is for drawing the astringency out of bamboo shoots while cooking) or some farmers will use the nuka from their own milled rice.  To this is added salt, chili peppers and dried seaweed plus a little water and then the nuka is set to ferment.

So now I have a nice nuka pickle bed and all I have to do is slide in a cucumber after taking out the last one.  It takes about 24 hours to get a good crisp, not too salty pickle.  Cucumbers, turnips, carrots, eggplant, daikon, all can be made into pickles within a day.

After a few days of this the liquid from the vegetables starts to collect and so I was instructed to either draw off this liquid or add more store bought rice bran.  An occasional tablespoon of salt or another piece of seaweed should keep the nuka bed flavorful and if I'm very good, I may have a supply of pickles throughout the summer!  Yum!

This is especially good for us because Tetsu and I are thinking of doing another Whole30 next month.  Whole30 is the one month detox process I did two years ago to get my cholesterol down and it has stayed that way.  I had read the book It Starts With Food and took up the 30 day challenge.  But Tetsu wasn't interested at the time and pooh-poohed the idea.  He does admit to the results that occurred in my health though and last week he was warned by his doctor that he needs to make some drastic changes in his own eating habits soooo....  With much skepticism he is going to try it.

"That is absolutely crazy!  No one can follow that diet!"

"It is not a diet and I was able to follow the guidelines for the complete month."

"No this, no that.  What am I supposed to eat!"

The greater question for me is 'what am I supposed to feed him?'

Tetsu will not, has not, cannot read the book so he is going into it with ME pushing him at every turn.  This may not be great for our marriage!  And I'm not going to be able to babysit him at lunchtime...  unless I get extremely determined in the next eighteen hours and commit to making him a lunch every morning...

We will TRY!  This may turn into a Whole10 or worse yet, a Whole3 (meaning days).

Last night we ate:
1)  Stir fried pork and vegetables (no soy sauce flavoring... salt).
2)  Sliced onions, katsuobushi (dried fish flakes) and avocado salad (which Tetsu didn't like.  He doesn't much like avocados).  I flavored that with Nampuru which is similar to soy sauce but made of fish...
3)  Store bought yaki-tori, skewered bits of chicken and green onion... grilled with salt, not soy sauce.

4)  And pickles.

Sunday morning in spring

Another long Sunday morning walk... 

The season is so nice and we enjoy the weekends so much.  It is lovely to take a long walk with Choco pushing on ahead and cameras dangling from our necks.  We still only wander a mile or so from home but this weekend we ended up between rice fields that we'd never traveled before.

 "Does this road go anywhere?  I guess we'll follow it to find out."

A couple dirt roads took us to mountain trails that we weren't so adventurous to attempt, another took us through farms and fields.

Small houses reflected in the flooded fields.

Huge farmhouses overlooking their domain.

Closer towards civilization there are small neighborhoods made up of 10 or 12 houses.  Houses are close together, and like these, our house and the neighbor's house is only about a car width apart.  But this is considered a wide yard compared to city living.  I look at these houses and can imagine the noise they have to deal with at night during this season.  FROGS!  The frogs overtake the rice fields and really make a racket!  (A pleasant racket.)

Every so often we walk by a stream and Choco takes a plunge to either get a drink or to cool off.

"Wait!  I'm not going in there with you!"

 Cool, green and reflective streams wander through the town.

 Trying to take the above photo.

Trying to get up again as my knees creak.

And we came home to breakfast out in the yard...
 

Yuma-kun update

Yuma-kun is a third year junior high school student.

In Japan, this is the turning point of a child's life.  In order to be accepted to high school, there will be entrance exams given next March and students, parents and teachers consider which high school's entrance might be most attainable?  Should the student try for a more difficult school but one that is more affordable and convenient?  Should the student try for a college bound curriculum or maybe one that focuses on language or music or agriculture? Which school should be the "slide" school in case the student ISN'T accepted into the first school of choice?

When my children were at this age it was extremely confusing with a delicate balance of grades and educator recommendations and test preparation.  Takumi didn't get into his high school of choice but was accepted into the "slide" school.  Leiya bypassed the process entirely by going to high school in the States.  Still she prepared for the Japanese high school tests if our America plans didn't work out, and for about 6 months she was going to cram schools until late at night.

Yuma-kun has maybe two more months until he has to buckle down, make some decisions, and whip himself into shape for the entrance exams.  And honestly speaking, it is going to be a rough ride.  He just is not very academically inclined.  I love him to bits but it takes a lot to get him to grasp something or keep it in his brain while the next bit of information gets introduced.  And he is a smart boy!  Just not too book-minded.  And unfortunately the entrance exams are entirely geared to memorization with tricky questions thrown in to see how well the student can... do something!!!  I don't know!  A lot of time I don't understand the questions being posed too!  And it takes ME awhile to understand the question let alone get to an answer.

Yuma-kun still comes to me weekly for English...  But that is not going to do him any good in his exams.  And he goes to cram school, and he has a private tutor in math and social studies, and his aunt is trying to help him more with English and his school teacher works with him extra.  He has a lot of people routing for him but I think we all sigh and wonder if he's going to get into high school next year.  I mean people at the swimming pool come up and ask me if I think Yuma-kun is going to get into high school next year!  Great kid!  Just not school-wise.

Yuma-kun does NOT want to study English recently.  He wants to sew or cook or make something.  My rote answer is that he is a third year student.  This is the time he has to study, not make things on my sewing machine (and that's not what his mother is paying me for).  But as he does show up early still, usually while I'm cooking dinner, he helps me in the kitchen before we settle down to the hated English.

Please take a look at this past post...  I wrote this in 2009 when Yuma-kun was in 1st or 2nd grade.  He loved cooking back then too.  At the time of writing that post I still hadn't gotten permission to post his photo so I was blurring out his face but you'll get the idea.  I was still referring to him as Y-kun which at some point he told me to call him by his name in my posts.

And this is Yuma-kun this week.  Still cooking!  And look how tall he is now!  The kitchen has changed (we did the remodeling) and actually the height of the counter is a bit higher than it formally had been so he is even taller than it appears in the photo.  But has he got the knack of flipping those vegetables now!  He feels very comfortable with a wok and stir-fried vegetables.

My "cute" Yuma-kun has grown into a dependable young man.  Here's to hoping he gets a stab at high school.

Snipping

One of my friends went traveling to a southern prefecture and she came back with a wonderful present for me.

"You are going to like this!  Open it!"

A small gold box.  And inside...

Thread scissors!  Japanese style!

Most anyone who does any sewing or needlework in Japan has a pair of these Japanese scissors.  They are made of steel and are handcrafted by blacksmiths who forge knives and sickles and other iron products in the Tosa area of Japan.  My friend said she thought I'd be more interested in having an authentic Tosa pair of scissors rather than a cooking knife (she knows me well!)

These are beautifully handcrafted in the method of traditional samurai swords, and the scissors are made of one piece of steel with no hinge or screws.  The blades slide precisely and though I have seen mass produced ones sold in fabric stores, I feel honored to have the real thing with embossed shop's name.

The thread scissors are made so that they can be held close to the blades to ensure close thread clipping and I have heard that traditional Japanese embroiderers will hold the scissors inside the fist to protect the silk fabrics and threads from being touched by hand oils. 


I will take my new scissors with me to Mrs. Furui's house today for some serious thread snipping!

Beading

Recently I have started a new handcraft.  Beading.

I wasn't really planning to do beading but a friend gave me a beautiful beaded broach and as she was teaching two of my other friends how to make broaches, she suggested I come over and try my hand.  And so I did and as we didn't finish up our projects in one period of time we all agreed to meet two weeks later and learn the next step.  And when I'd learned the next step everyone just assumed that we would all start on a new design and whipped out our calendars to choose a date two weeks hence... when I was in town again.  I guess I am going to do beading for awhile.  BUT ONLY AT MY FRIEND'S HOUSE!  I am not going to get started sewing beads at home...  My patchwork is piling up!

So here were the beads.  Actually my friend had three more boxes of different beads.

And here was the design.  Supposedly this was a simple design.  Trace a flower shape on two pieces of felt.  GLUE the braiding onto one of the flower shapes and then sew the open areas with beads.  As you like.  And then cover a button with fabric.  I did that part at home.

This week I glued some silk flower stamens into my beaded flower, sewed a broach pin on the back and added the fabric covered button.  Voila!  a beaded flower broach! 

The blue broach is the one my friend gave me.  She definitely has more beading sense than I do.  Maybe my second time around I'll do better...
 

Flowers and cats

Let's see...  Some miscellaneous photos in my files from last week.  More scenery I'm afraid.  I really do need to go and sew something, don't I?

We often meet these dogs when we take Choco for a walk.  The neighbor's two dogs are very good-natured and don't bark nor lunge (unlike Choco).  They came across another neighbor's cat and had a slight standoff and finally the cat sauntered away.

 Another cat that I noticed but Choco didn't.

While the rest of the scenery is green, there is one field of wheat that is golden.  I always seem to want to take one photo of the wheat field each year.

The dandelions' fluff is ready to soar.

As mentioned, Chip has a pom-pom ball fetish and my pom-pom bird is slowly losing feathers...

"I absolutely love pom-poms."

 These pretty pink droplets caught my eye by the side of a field.

The poppies have turned to watch the sun come up.

So did the blue flowers... though I don't know what they are called.

And this is my style of taking the above photo...  Trying to get below the blossoms at the raised garden...
 

Kathy Nakajima

Yesterday Tetsu suggested we go to a local department store for a quilt exhibit by Kathy Nakajima who is a well known quilt designer in Japan.  I have a couple of Kathy's books and have made a few of the quilt patterns that she offers.  I think she was the quilter who introduced Hawaiian quilts to Japan and she has her own style of doing floral applique and recently stained glass quilts. 

Kathy is originally from Hawaii but came to Japan as a young girl and worked as a model, later marrying an upcoming actor.  She and her husband have been married for some 39 years and she is a little older than I am.  Her eldest daughter passed away a few years ago, but she has two other extremely good looking children.

I have seen Kathy from afar at the Tokyo Quilt Festival where she was featured a couple of years ago and she was autographing books in one of the booths that her publisher/quilting goods producer was sponsoring.  She is always smiling, always seem thrilled with the people around her, the spotlight and her life.  I remember at the quilt show Julie going up to Kathy and telling her how much she admired her.  I would never have the courage to go up to such a famous person no matter how much I admired them.  But I thought at the time how Julie stood out amidst all of Kathy's other fans.

ANYWAY, Tetsu and I went to the exhibition and enjoyed the many quilts.  Unfortunately no photographing allowed.  After making the rounds and pointing out our favorite quilts we were ready to go and did some shopping in the department store.

"Don't you want to go back?  Kathy is supposed to be there and be giving a short talk show?"

"No, no.  Too many people.  I've heard her on TV.  We can go."

But Tetsu kept pestering me that as we were already THERE we might as go back to the exhibit.  Sure enough loads and loads of people with standing room only.  It was a little hard to even see the small stage but we found spaces and then the talk show began and Kathy came out.

As expected, a bubbling personality, lots of fun, humorously talking about being a quilt designer in Japan.   She pointed out some of the nearby quilts and explained the reasons for making some of them, one being a Banyan tree quilt because her husband proposed to her under a banyan tree.

"And today my husband is with me and I thought you'd like to meet him.  Katsuno!"

Kathy's husband walked out to a roar from the crowd.  He is quite a famous actor now and is nearly monthly on TV. 

A completely lovely couple joking together about their long marriage, their lives, their weight.  They mentioned each of their three children and what was going on in the lives of the two they still have.  They talked about what they are doing for the earthquake victims of Kumamoto (the husband's hometown), they talked about how patchwork has played an important part of their lives keeping Kathy anchored to peacefulness and people.

Though the talk show was only about 40 minutes long, Kathy's cheerfulness spread through the crowd and I think lessons were learned and maybe not just about patchwork.  At the end she said,

"It's not often that Katsuno-san and I are featured together.  I know the policy of the department store is no photos but in this little corner I'd be honored if anyone wanted to take our photo."

And with that, everyone whipped out their cell phones and cameras and Kathy and husband posed for us.  I thought that the loveliest gesture to her many fans.  Which I have definitely become!
 

Framing it

I got an idea yesterday that I wanted to try and this morning before our walk I rummaged around in the closet for an unused picture frame.  Tetsu thought I was nuts.

The scenery around us is so beautiful but I seem to take much of the same photos.  Just to get a different perspective, I "framed" some of my shots today.  I know I can do this with numerous photo editing programs that will put pretty photos into decorative framing, but I thought this might be an interesting way to focus on some pretty scenes.

It was harder to do than I thought.  For one, I probably needed a frame that wasn't quite as wide around.

And I still am not sure why in some of the photos the frame was in focus and sometimes it wasn't.  Something to do with using the zoom on the lens.

And I learned that unless I had the whole frame in the photo I missed the point of carrying a picture frame around with me.

 See...  This is what happens when the whole frame isn't in the photo...

I also see now that I look at my pictures that the frame has to be held perfectly straight, not tilted up nor down...

 And try to keep the fingers out of the inner square.

With me peering through my frame, it took awhile to get through our morning walk.  And I may have missed a lot of the larger scenery around me.

Tetsu's captured photo!  Beautiful!